Second Shirt Quilt Finish

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our hearts.

~A. A. Milne

Quilting

The second shirt quit is also finished and gifted.  Quilting is fairly minimal - stitch in the ditch with a few parallel lines extending from the solid patches. I hope the quilt will be a soft, puffy comforter for its new family.  

Somehow I had a remnant juvenile winter fabric with rows forest animals in hats. Just enough for the back, the blues blend with the front and hopefully please the children receiving this quilt. Hooray. 

The binding is more shirt fabrics. Easy and done. 

Quilt Specifics

Size: 48” x 60”

Quilt Design: Unnamed

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 

Thread: Blue cotton Superior Masterpiece 

Quilting: Straight line walking foot

Approximate yardage: 7 yds

I’ve been visiting family in Colorado where we’ve seen deer, elk, and sheep as well as birds including Stellar jays, hawks, swans, and ducks. Sparrows, finches, and magpies appear outside my window daily feasting on the remaining flower head seeds. It’s a joy to watch the final stage of autumn, one of my favorite seasons. A few bright gold trees shine in acres of spruce and bare-limbed deciduous trees.

Reading:

Nana, a stray adopted by Saturo, lives with him until the young man suddenly decides he can no longer take care of him. They take a road trip to visit three old friends as Saturo hopes to find him the perfect new home. Told mainly from the cat’s perspective, the true reason behind the trip is slowly revealed with flashbacks from the friends. Themes of love and home make this book bittersweet. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

A Shirt Quilt Finish

 Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

~E.B. White

Quilting

This one-block shirt quilt is finished and in the mail. First it was SID length- and width-wise, then additional lines subdivided the lengths into 1-inch columns. That should keep seams from fraying while also allowing the batting to fluff up. It's going to New England and they wanted a warmer throw.

Oddly, there aren't many grey-blues in my stash so other than these old shirts, I didn't have anything for a back. Eventually I pulled this blue with canoes. It's not enough so I chose to frame it with a green value she likes. {That green is in one of the canoe colors, too.} Not perfect but it will work. 

Same problem for the binding until I realized I could use more shirt fabric. That's what I did. It should last as long as the top itself. 

Quilt Specifics

Size: 52"x72"

Quilt design: One block

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 

Thread: Blue Superior Masterpiece

Quilting: Straight lines with walking foot

Approximate yardage: 7.5 yds

Ann

Yet Another Shirt Quilt Top

Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it. 

~Aubrey de Graf

Quilting

I subcut the next set of 4.5" strips into 8.5" rectangles. There are also lots of 2.5" squares leftover from the first top. I didn't want to make triangles again so decided to make small four-patches. 

The shirt rectangles are sewn around it with a partial seam for the first side. Very easy to do. I've used that method on several quilts including Flying Squares and the outer border of a Melon Patch. It's a used technique to remember. 

Originally I cut all my darkest purple shot cotton for centers thinking the mediums and lights needed some dark values. Wrong-o. It's too much. 

So I replaced half of them. Now there are still more leftovers for another top... and a bunch of white shirts, too. 

By the way, here's my first idea for these pieces. It looks a bit like a rail fence but it didn't make me happy so I moved things around. {See the quote at the top of this post.} Perhaps it's finally internalizing.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Using More Blue and White Shirts

Kind words cost little but they accomplish much.

~Blaise Pascal

Quilting

If you know me, you know there are still lots of strips cut. Way too many. After deboning the shirts and cutting some into smaller pieces than were easy to use, I sliced the rest into 4.5" strips. When the previous top worked out, I went looking for another idea with easy {larger} pieces. There's a pattern from 1942 called A Red and White Crisscross that looks like an X that I simplified. First, this X is made of two squares and a rectangle. Second, it's not a single block anymore. All the whites are squares, too. This meant I had to lay everything out to line up the fabric correctly but that's much easier than sewing eight triangles around each X. 

The blue shirt strips were subcut into 12.5" and and 4.5" units while the white strips were cut into 4.5" squares and 7.25" squares. The larger ones were subcut into QSTs for the border.  

With the Xs as a guide, I added white squares as needed to sew the diagonal rows. 

I simply eyeballed the final rows by lining up the sewn line with the squares below. Of course, you could measure everything if you preferred. Haha. 

There were enough of these pieces to make a second, slightly smaller top, too. At least one of these will become a donation when the weather cools enough to think about quilting. 

They were fast and easy. Fewer seams means less fraying of these vintage fabrics. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Blue and White Shirts

A pessimist, they say, sees a glass as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.

~G. Donald Gale

Quilting

I started my blue and white shirt quilt saga years ago before DH himself retired. Whenever he retired a shirt, I checked it over and kept it if it was in good shape. I soon realized they are almost all blue or white. All solids or very calm prints. Recently more came from my sons and a few from a resale store nearby. Despite admiring Kaja's work incorporating shirts and other found textiles into her work, I never actually made anything with them.  

Eventually I planned a simple checkerboard. Unfortunately I chose the lightest blue shirt to pair with white. It's just too pale for my taste. And too difficult to sew the fabric.  

Instead of making a large throw it will be a baby quilt and that's only because I hate to discard all that work. Plus someone will like these pale colors for a newborn. 

Did I mention how hard it was for me to work with these no-iron shirts? Since I had already deboned a huge pile of shirts I decided to cut them into 4.5" strips. That seemed narrow enough for the fabric. And there they've sat for the past year until Nann showed her Gator Party. 

This was a way to use them. I cut my own rectangles from the strips. 

They are still too quiet so I dug through my stash for a few large scale blue and white prints that might be a man's shirt. Polka dot, autos, and a darling Japanese rabbit print. 

Next I pulled a bunch of leftover solids from my bins to add teeth, and whipped this out. It's adorable. The solids add some punch. My daughter requested the throw. Hooray. But I won't start quilting until the weather changes. It's still in the upper 90s F (mid-30s C) here. 

Now to plan backs for both, baste them, and wait for cooler weather. 

There are more strips, of course, but now I have another idea. 

 Reading

Another enjoyable Japanese coffee shop book. This shop is run by cats and only appears sporadically. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

String Hatchet Top Finished... Perhaps

I wanted a perfect ending. 

Now I've learned, the hard way, 

that some poems don't rhyme, 

and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking a moment 

and making the most of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

~Gilda Radner

Quilting

This top has taken a long time... partly {or mostly} because I've been gone so frequently this summer. However, it's finally done... perhaps. I think I'd like a border of random green scraps and a second border of lights but there's no more of this light. There was just enough background fabric to eke out the narrow border. 

String Hatchet quilt top

While I was inspired by my boring, dull leftover strings and my previous Hatchet quilts to make this, last week I found a photo of Sue Fox's quilt. My goodness, they look similar. Like Kaja at Sew Slowly, Sue makes many quilts with found and recycled fabrics - something I want to try. That's how I found her. 

It's always fun to see other people doing similar work. I don't feel so odd.

Speaking of recycled fabrics, I’ve been saving family shirts for years. Husband, sons, and occasionally purchased at the resale store. Almost all are blue and white. Recently Nann made a quilt using similar shirts and I decided it’s time to put mine to work, too. Several quilt blocks are running through my mind but one will look like hers. So cute and… I have loads of solid scraps, too. Perhaps this will use both up. 

Deconstruction occurs nightly during the news. It’s taking much longer than expected. 

Reading

Sara flies from Sweden to visit her pen pal Amy but arrives in Iowa the day of her funeral. The residents of Broken Wheel insist she stay at Amy’s house for the remainder of her vacation. Then she opens a bookstore to connect people with some of their favorite books. 

I wasn’t sure I’d like this but found it charming.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Work on Hatchet Blocks Continues... Slowly

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people  - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

~E.B. White

Quilting

No more green scraps in my bag so I switched to tans. At first they looked good but as more have been added, the excitement of the quilt is dimming. 

My dear friend, Gayle, gave me some of hers and I found several new greens on a shopping trip. But there's still too many tans. 

Out of the blue, Patty sent a box of her scraps which I immediately trawled for greens. I'm switching out some of the tans {so the sets are part tan and part green} but after a while I've just removed the duller blocks and replaced them completely with green.  Eventually I decided the beige carpet might be the problem so I cut background triangles. The background is an abstract print of pink, grey, and white. Its value is similar to the carpet but the difference in color livens the quilt. 

Here are some of the discarded blocks. Funny how these brighter darks work well with the tans. Perhaps the contrast of bright and dull. I'm making plans for a second quilt to expand this idea. 

Meanwhile, I've been creating seed starters from toilet paper rolls for our VBS. The children will fill them with potting soil and seeds, then water and watch for the week. I make these for seeds in my own garden as the edges help distinguish planted seeds from weeks. They aren't difficult but about 250 will be needed. My hands are hurting. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Melon Patch Baby Quilt Finished

You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. 

He is set to test you. And many are failing.

~Pope Leo XIV

Quilting

That was quick. It's done - quilted, washed, dried, and ready to gift. All while we took a couple of {short} vacations. Of course I quilted a spiral. By now it's easy and it matches the rounded feel of the Melon Patch blocks. 

In keeping with the "use it up" mentality I used the last of the plaid on the back. As usual it was needed to widen the WOF fabric used for the back. There might have been enough plaid to make both stripes but it might have needed some of the outer border trimmed from the front. So, an extension was wanted. I like it. 

Quilt Specifics

Size: 45" x 45"

Quilt design: Snowball or Melon Patch

Batting: Mountain Mist Cream Rose cotton

Thread: blue Superior Masterpiece cotton

Quilting: Spiral with a walking foot

Approximate yardage: 5 yards

One of our vacations was a trip to San Francisco to visit friends, watch the Giants, eat great seafood, and walk the city. The California Academy of Arts has a sphere enclosing a rainforest that you view by walking up a spiral ramp. Fish, parrots, and butterflies. Small terrariums had even more animals. 

Walking to dinner we finally saw the parrots of San Francisco. These bright green conores have red heads and loud squawks. There must have been thirty having a raucous meeting. We watched them for half an hour and they never let up. 

When we returned to Houston we went to an exhibit on the craftsmen heading the restoration of Notre-Dame at the Julia Idelson building. Although a small exhibit, it was quite interesting. Among other things, they highlighted finding examples of the original carpentry tools and the blacksmiths who recreated them. There were many artifacts but also lots of video interviews which are also on YouTube in French with English subtitles.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Orphan Melon Patches

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

~James Baldwin

Quilting

I just pulled those string blocks from my orphan stash when I found nine Melon Patches under some fabric on the table. They are not going to a box; they will make a quick baby quilt. There was loads of cream background which I managed to cut incorrectly. Eventually there was just enough to make this...with a bunch of triangles going to another box. Sheesh.

There wasn't more light fabric that worked which meant I pulled out the blue fabric box. I looked for a navy. They either were wrong or didn't have enough yardage. But this mottled batik seems good. 

The inner border was an after thought. It was only going to have one border but...

the plaid was on a stack for the guild giveaway table when it fell on the top. Who'd have thought it would work? Not me. 

Without much consideration I sewed a quick border... and introduced a new problem. The quilt is just a bit too wide for the outer border to be one width of fabric. There's only a half yard. If you look carefully you'll see my usual solution. 

I sewed the outer border with a partial seam. That meant each side length could be lessened by one outer border width. Just enough to fit. Hooray. 

If I'd really been thinking, I'd have done the same with the inner border so they would pair better visually. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

A New String Quilt Idea

The first casualty of war is the truth.

~Aeschylus

Quilting

Since I've made so many Four-letter-word quilts, I'm down to pretty dull and dark colors in my scrap bag: black, brown, greens, with a few purples and reds. I've been wondering what to make with these when I was reminded of the Hatchet blocks. What if the blocks were made of strings and split between light and dark sides?

These first pieces were made last summer but I found them in the orphan box. 

They look well on the pink and grey print background. Time to make some more. Now it’s hard to find dull strings in my scrap bag. 

Eventually I pushed into dark/bright purples. Those two in the top left are too bright. For one I added some duller strips but simply deleted the other. 

When I completely ran out of greens, I added light browns and tan. They look okay but the green is better. A small shopping trip is in order so this is turning into a longer term project.

At some point the background pieces must be cut so I'll know how large I can make this quilt... Hopefully, lap size. 

While my family’s visiting, we saw the new Pixar movie, Elio. What a treat! Hopefully you can find time to see it, too.

Reading

Max documents several groups efforts to stop the Holocaust including Orthodox Jews in Switzerland. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Blue Melon Patch Quilt Gifted

What makes a movement Fascist is not ideology but the willingness to do whatever is necessary - including the use of force and trampling on the rights of others - to achieve victory and command obedience.

~Madeleine Albright

Quilting

Quilted, washed, dried, and gifted. Melon Patch looks very traditional. The corner octagons give the overall quilt a bit of curve. I considered a pieced border but know this quilt will be tucked in on the sides so chose an easier plan. 

Diagonal lines with a walking foot make the quilting in the center. I started with SID along the Melon Patches then infilled with parallel lines.

And eventually finished by quilting midway through the octagons. That was enough. 

A wave is FMQ in the dark border and a half feather in the outer white border but I forgot to get photos of those. 

The back is a blue plaid from Michael Miller. I bound the quilt with more of the same blue as the inner border. 

Quilt Specifics:

Size: 64” x 81”

Quilt design: Snowball or Melon Patch

Batting: Hobbs 80/20

Thread: blue and cream Superior Masterpiece cotton

Quilting: Walking foot and free motion

Approximate yardage: 13 yds

Reading

When I couldn't find a readable copy of this book I listened to an audiobook. Denise writes about the development of the our Thanksgiving holiday, the search for community, and the joys of family and friends.  The book may seem out of sync with the time of  year but the topics are always pertinent. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Blue Melon Patch Top Complete

A pessimist, they say, sees a glass as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.

~G. Donald Gale

Quilting

Because I knew this quilt would be counter-paned and have a light outside border, I cut all those pieces first. They are the largest; the others can be cut from the remains. I rarely use one fabric for all the background. Although I calculated what was needed several times, I still got it wrong. That entailed a second trip in the rain to my LQS {which is now 30 miles away} to get more before it sold out. Again I calculated how much was needed. Fortunately I added another yard "for good measure". Only 24" left. I guess I needed that good measure. ;)

The Melon Patch block looked good 

 

but the first layout was less than inspiring.

That seems odd since the carpet and the counter pane blocks are very similar shades. Once those were added, the quilt looked much better. Now it’s ready to quilt.

Grandson1's choice of a very simple, quiet quilt means this quilt looks old-fashioned (or is that classical?) to me. I'm still pondering how to handle the borders. Fortunately I won't get to that for a couple of weeks... or more. 

Reading

The Goodbye Cat is a collection of seven short stories by Japanese author Hiro Arikawa. I especially enjoyed the second tale about a manga artist whose adoption of a kitten teaches him to parent his own newborn.  Phillip Gabriel is a masterful translator. Imminently readable. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

A Blue Twin

We all get to be young but only the lucky get to be old.

Quilting

My eldest grandson requested a new twin quilt in blue and cream with more lights than darks. Ok; counterpane blocks. But the blocks can’t be too large because the quilting will be something simple like curves or parallel lines. 

I’ve been mindlessly making four-patches of scraps… so while a four- or nine-patch sounds good, it needs to be changed up. What about a nine-patch of snowballs? They could be fairly small. Six-inch blocks sound good but two-inch snowballs do not. Two-and-a-half inch snowballs make a 7.5” block which will work.

Years ago I made a nine-patch snowball and used snowballs in the border. In the first example, the snowball square is divided into thirds to locate the triangles. The snowball border used scraps for the corners so none are exactly the same. In fact, there was no planned corner size. This time I want the snowball to have a smaller, but uniform, corner. What if the corners each take one fourth of a side length? The corners would finish at five-eighths inch. Small but possible. 

The snowballs are cut 3" and the corner squares are 1.25". Because they are so small I didn't mark the diagonals but just sewed across. There are five dark centers and four light centers in each octagon nine-patch. 

Each seam is pressed to the dark then the extra bits are cut off. This let me butt seams easily which in turn kept the bulk down. I'm so glad this block will be counterpaned.

Next I laid out the nine-patch and grid sewed it. Melon Patch is a similar block found in Jinny Beyer’s Patchwork Patterns from 1979 that alternates dark and light centers. Her block is an eight-pointed star, the same grid as Kaleidoscope, but I just used a four patch for drafting individual octagons. Of course, this is not a new block either. It was first published in the Kansas City Star in 1930 as simply Octagon. I like the name Melon Patch better.

Here’s one block. The corners are a bit larger than than expected. I've seen snowballs with very tiny corners and love the effect. Some time I'll try again. Forty-seven more to go. Fortunately all the pieces are cut out.

Reading

Charles King wrote an intriguing book about the history of Handel's famous oratorio. Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah introduces many of the people involved in the first performance of this work and their search for consolation and redemption. From the hypochondriac librettist Charles Jennens through contralto Susannah Cibber who was trafficked for sex by her husband each person highlighted was searching for restitution, reconciliation, or peace. 

There were so many characters it took attention to keep them all straight, especially since I'm not British. My knowledge of royal succession and the life of Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels and dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin where the Messiah was first performed are stronger now. 

King sees the oratorio as an admonition to "live bravely in the face of disaster and defeat." A good reason to hear it these days. 

Enjoy the day, Ann