Landscape Quilt - I've always wanted to make one

One of these may be my next attempt!

 

My Next Quilt - Pinwheels, Circles and Stars

 I saw a photo, but no pattern, for my next quilt. I'm not finished with my latest quilt, however, I have to get the pattern down, while I have it in my head. 

Sometimes I find patterns I like, other times I will see something, and then come home and create a pattern that will get me where I want to go. This is just such a time. I've drawn out the pattern, on a sheet of white paper.

Update: I've found it. It's a 1930's pattern found in a newspaper (in the '30's) it's the Wheel of Fortune, and one of the hardest I've tried, because it should be paper patterned, or I think made on a base fabric. Each completed block stretches soooo much! It's taking a long time to get it finished!

Now that I have the pattern, I can begin by cutting it out, then glue this to a piece of cardboard. When I have to create the pattern, quilts can take longer, in the over 100 hour range (just like quilts with small pieces) as I will actually draw the pattern on fabric to cut it out.

Need to make the strips 2" and 7 1/2"

Test block - different sized pieces
I learned a lot!

Cutting and cutting and cutting.

Pinning one half.

Pinning the other half

Quilt of Valor - Stars and Thunder

Here begins the next Quilt of Valor for a Vietnam Vet

This is the next block pattern

Why it's hard to get anything done. It's cold outside.

What I have been able to finish, inside, with interruptions.

Not easy with the cats body pressing my back.

Every block must be checked. This is wrong.

This is right, must check and re-check.

Finish one, layout the next

Corners much match the next block

One more strip and then assemble the halves.

Pinning the 2 tops halves to the batting and back

Icy Pond or Frosty Window - Quilt of Valor

Without Binding - The Thaw Begins

Slowly, slowly it is coming together. I haven't decided which name to give it, it will have to await the top being finished for me to know, I think. I bought a piece of fabric, all that they had, that started this idea in my head. The grey and blue fabric that looks like a frosty window or a pond where this ice may be cracking. Lots of cut pieces, lots of measuring and sewing... There's not enough of the first fabric, and I didn't even get as much as I thought I did. I realized I needed more, and found the closest match for the next set of blocks, but thinking I had more of the original, I didn't get enough of the second fabric, so had to get another fabric to get me to enough blocks to finish this. 

Every single block has to be hand-pieced. In many quilts the blocks are the same pieces that are sewed together, this on isn't like that, they are sewed together, but off-center, so each takes more time and effort. I've finally got through to the last fabric, and have them pinned to sew tomorrow. Then there's lots of trimming, before assembly can begin.

 

Pond/window pieces coming together

It starts as 2 triangles, but becomes a lozenge

2 lozenges become one square, 4 squares 1 block

The 2nd color going into the triangles together

Even duplicate fabric is each different in look

Triangles to lozenges for the blue surround color

The 3rd color getting cut out

3rd solid color pinned and ready

Top Stitching - Quilting the Quilt

Binding the Quilt with words

Making Turkeys

Making turkeys is a two-part project, as I envision it. First I build the base, as outlined below. Then I send it on out to the recipients, to finish, using fabric paints, pipe-cleaners or their favorite fabric/art supplies. Then it's ready for a Holiday Table!

Making the 'body shape' using brown base and side colors.

Adding the head and tail, I did 2 styles

Sewing it all together, needs a face and feathers. Perfect 'kid' job!

As you can see, 2 tail types. Backing has been added and topstitched.

 

Holiday Project Begun

Holiday Place Mats is the current project

My next project is beginning! I will continue to update this space as I finish more. I think that I need about 60 to finish this project. They can be 'finished' as is or be decorated with fabric paint, pipe-cleaners, or small decorations found at any dollar store or Hobby Lobby kind of place! All are double sided and top-stitched.

Folk Art placemats coming along, something for everyone

Turkeys!

Holiday and Seasonal Themes

Pumpkins can be made into Jack-o-lanterns

They are all fun, and the reverse are non-seasonal

So much variety!

There's a lot of fun, and the backs make them all-year,

Found The Right 'Responsive Code' For this Blog

 I've found the right code to make this blogger site responsive, and it will take rewriting all my tables into a gallery code. It's going to take a long time going back and re-writing all the code, but it will take the images that seem to stretch when on a phone or tablet, and make them clearer, one image on the screen at a time.

It's currently not horrible, just a bit stretched, but in time you will see it looking better! I'll be doing this while doing all the other things I've got going on. I might not get the house dusted or swept for a while, but I will keep getting the other things done! Thanks for visiting!!

After the Storms - Making a Dinosaur Jacket

My Dino Jacket

I had to put my machine away, due to the storms that came through, both Helene and Milton. We didn't take a direct hit, but when a storm like those approaches, everything has to be packed away or tied down. I packed everything away for the first one, waited to be sure it was safe to bring everything back out again, then turned around and packed it all up again. I hope I wont be packing again this year.

Once unpacked again after the second storm, I finished the Birthday quilt and got it into the mail, and did some tweaking to the pants I made earlier (too long, reset buttons, fix a waistband) then started on this jacket. I was originally going to make it for someone else, but no one appeared interested (don't wear plush, don't like dinosaurs...) so I am making it for me! I used a pattern, for the sleeves and body size, to get them right. I changed the shoulders the bottom, the cuffs, the collar to get the bomber-style I wanted. I couldn't find a pattern to match, so I made it up as I went along.

Cutting it all out

Building a Jacket

Still a lot to do, but it's on it's way

Surprise! It glows in the dark!

What's it Worth To You?

In all the quilting I've done, I've never made a quilt for myself. The first quilt I made, I didn't really make. The top was made long before I acquired it. It may have been made by an ancestor (Great Grandmother) but more probably was picked up at a garage sale in the 70's, maybe before. Long ago I added the interior and a back to it, but it was all experimental.

I've also never sold a quilt. There are lots of reasons for this. One is that I don't have a "quilting machine" to do the fancy top stitching, mine is more a variation of stitching in the ditch. Doesn't make it less valuable, but many have specific expectations, and my 'feathers' were never going to set the world on fire. The funny thing is, if I owned a quilting machine, the cost of a quilt would go up, exponentially! 

It takes two weeks to make a quilt. They take 100-120 hours for a full-sized quilt. When I get started, I'm often working 10 hour days, measuring, cutting, sewing, filling, sewing, thinking, sewing... I get bored and take breaks, but even those are short, as I feel guilty for not getting this done, and on to the next thing (not necessarily sewing or quilting.) And while I feel a sense of accomplishment when they are done, and think most of them are beautiful, I usually feel like I could have done better. Maybe some of the seams weren't exactly correct because I was day dreaming, or the pieces were cut a thread over or shy of exact. I'm not talking big mistakes, those I usually dig out and do over, if they happen. I'm talking small, even tiny, mistakes. But I feel them all. The backs are my biggest issue. After wrestling all those heavy layers around my sewing machine to get the quilting done, there are area's that don't always lay flat enough for my liking. 

I like to design, to choose the colors, to decide how I want it to look and how to get there. I like seeing it come together, though I am frequently 'done' with it before it's finished. I've made over a hundred, 35 of those going to Veteran's, the rest going to family and a few friends. One day I will make one for me, and keep it.

But back to selling them. When you think about the cost of materials, the time in searching out and finding the right pattern (usually just a photo of something that I can then create the pattern for) the actual time making it, the blood, sweat and tears that go into each and every one of them, putting a price on one is very, very hard. When burger flippers are making $15 plus and hour to stand and flip burgers over, without skill, experience, thought or abilities, what is an hour worth for someone using all those? Creating something totally unique, a one-of-a-kind art piece? See the difficulty? At $1000 a piece, it's just over $8 an hour, when you have to figure in 4.5-5 yards each for the three layers of the quilt (15 yards of fabric at $12 a yard is about $180.) And how do you measure the value for the creativity? It just isn't easy. I think that it's worth a lot more than what a burger flipper, fry cook, retail worker or many other folks make. While a hamburger can be a work of art, they usually aren't, and don't even come up to 'a good hamburger' status. So, $2,000 a piece, and I am up to what a burger flipper makes. $3,000? More? And then I would feel guilty for charging so much, even though, it's what the work alone is worth, if not the value of the art.

Someone mentioned that I was 'just giving them away to veterans, people I often didn't even know, for free.' And that's true. I do that, in honor of my cousin, who lived with us for awhile when I was growing up, and felt like a big brother. And because I didn't have to face what those people have, to make the decisions that they have to live with. So, they did 'pay for them' just not with cash. Sort of a 'quid pro quo'.

So, I may never sell one, but the people who have them should know the value of what they have been gifted. And hopefully, it makes them feel like it and they are worth much, much more.

Through It All - I Still Work on Genealogy, Too!

Like everyone, I get bored. I read a lot in the evenings, and I have projects I work on during the day, or errands, or walking in a park. In the mornings, I do a little genealogical research. It's sooooo much different than when I started!! Visiting libraries, courthouses, anyplace that stored documents, writing letters, making calls, meeting folks to find out what I could!  Now it's just time on the computer.

 

Birthday Gift Quilt

My next project, which I actually started earlier in the year. The birthday is still a couple months out, but I need to get it done, so I will get started on that today. I 'started it' because when making the 'postage stamp' type blocks, I needed lots and lots to be sure I wasn't getting the same block and fabrics over and over. I kept making more, adding lots of new fabrics, so that all of them have a great variety of fabrics.

That will get me all caught up, with quilts to all of the Great-Nieces and Nephews. So, it may be the last Birthday Gift Quilt that I make. 

The building blocks

More 'stamps' blocks = diversity

Snowball building

Putting it together

From 2 blocks to strips

I have to match every corner

Just the top, but it's pretty!