A quilt for Hayden

A while back Hayden asked me to make her a very specific quilt. One side was to be yellow and pink squares and the other was to be a pink dog and a yellow cat on a light blue background.

Here's the yellow/pink square side. I used a new to me technique of disappearing 4 patches to piece this side. I posted photos of the technique here




Here's the dog/cat side. I enlarged pages from a coloring book for these images. I don't like the placement on the background fabric but I mis-measured and didn't realize it until too late.




Unfortunately Hayden informed me that I confused the colors of the dog and cat. The dog was supposed to be yellow and the cat pink! She figured I could just change it. I had to break it to her that it wasn't that easy.



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Springtime in Charleston

My guild has a show every 2 years. In the past we've had a raffle quilt but can't really call it that because technically raffles are considered gambling and that's against South Carolina law. To avoid potentially breaking the law the committee for our next show decided to do a theme contest. Members would submit a quilt based on the theme "A Quilters View of Charleston" The image of the winning quilt would be used in all advertising for the show and we would also sell patterns of the quilt as a fundraiser.

The winning quilt is a beauty and depicts the bridge over the Cooper River with the Charleston skyline in the background. It will be a wonderful representation of the quilt theme.

This was my submission for the contest.




It was fun to make, but the workmanship is not very good. I had to rush to meet the deadline and took too many shortcuts.

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Disappearing 4 Patch

While browsing around on Pinterest I saw this take on the disappearing 4 patch and thought it was interesting.

Hayden recently asked me to make her a quilt and she had some very specific wishes on how it should look.  One side "should be yellow and pink squares" and the other should have "a pink dog and a yellow cat on a light blue background."  I decided that I would use the disappearing 4 patch to make her pink and yellow square side.  I know it's not really what she asked for, but hopefully she'll think it's okay.

I started with a basic 4 patch using 6" squares - so it measured 12.5" at this point:

Then I marked 2 inches in from each corner:

 

I put the block on my rotating cutting board and cut a diagonal line from the upper left corner to the lower right. Then I turned the board and continued making cuts from the upper left to lower right until I had made 4 cuts without disturbing the block until all the cuts were made.

The pieces were swapped around to look like this:

Then sewn together in 3 sections.

Finally the block was trimmed up to 9.5"

Here are several on the design wall.  Sure hope Hayden likes them.  Now to work on that cat & dog!

Ohmigosh

 

 

 

Recently I finally got back to my Ohmigosh quilt.  I saw this pattern at our last quilt show done scrappy and thought it was really cool.   I decided to try it myself but in a very different color palette.  The blocks finish at 4.5".   It's slow going and I'm not even half done with the piecing.   

 

 

 

 

 



My mother

My mother passed away on January 9th at age 88. She had been dealing with COPD and congestive heart failure for several years. She got sick in December and eventually ended up with pneumonia as well as sepsis.

Jerry and I flew up to Detroit on Tuesday the 8th and mom passed just after midnight. In her last day family was able to get to the hospital to say goodbye.

Her service on Sunday was as lighthearted as a funeral service can be. There were lots of laughs along with the tears.

I'm back home now and just absorbing the situation. Here are mom's 10 grandchildren.





And a link to her obituary

http://www.thayer-rock.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1899820&fh_id=10492



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Christmas tree

We had a couple of great helpers when we put up the tree.











And Hayden even helped by crawling to the back of the tree.



I spent the other day wrapping the gifts and we're almost ready for the big day!


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For Curt

The day after Thanksgiving Craig's best friend, Curtis, was in a serious motorcycle accident.  Craig & Curt have been friends since high school and Curt has been an important part of our lives since.

 
Curt was life flighted to the Medical University where he has received fabulous treatment.  He has lost the sight in his right eye. Most of the bones in his face were shattered and both wrists required pins and plates.  In spite of the injuries they seem to think he'll be going home this week.  Ronna, Curt's wife is a nurse which may have contributed to him being released so quickly.

In all the helplessness of wanting to DO something right after the accident I started a quilt for Curt.  I estimate that I spent about 30 hours over the course of 3 days cutting and piecing the top.  I found someone with an opening in her Longarm schedule to do the quilting and a week after I started the quilt it was complete - label and all.   Tonight we were able to go up to the hospital to see Curt and deliver the quilt.  I think he liked it, but the meds he's taking are making him too hot so it didn't stay on his bed very long.

I named the quilt "Hugs for Curt" and hope he feels my hugs every time he uses it.

While I was on my blogging break I attended my guild's annual beach retreat. We spend 3 days in July on Seabrook Island -one of Charleston's barrier islands - and sew on our own projects. 3 meals a day are provided by the facility.

This year I worked on a Christmas tree skirt. This photo is of what the skirt should look like when I'm done, but I'm a long way from finishing. It's a very intricate foundation pieced project.



I also worked on finishing up two charity quilts. These are one block wonder quilts. It's always fun to see how the blocks turn out.




Here are some other quilts that were worked on during retreat.










The 2013 retreat has been moved up to January, but I'm not going to be able to attend.

Fans

It's been a long time since I posted here. I've been more active over on Facebook and have been neglecting my poor blog.

I got back yesterday from a week long class in Tryon, NC at Marilyn's Melrose Inn. It's a B&B/retreat center being run by Marilyn Doheny.  melrose-inn.com.

Our class was on using Marilyn's 9 degree wedge ruler to make interesting fan designs. We start by sewing strips of fabric together into strata sets and then cutting them up in various ways with the rulers.














Some of the designs were more popular than others. We all enjoyed making this spiral fan.







Here are some other designs











We even made some bugs (which we all decided we didn't care for)



Marilyn's Inn is quite eccentric. She has funky decorations everywhere. After a while the sheer volume of stuff began to wear on me. Every surface was jam packed with stuff.




The food was excellent and I came home several pounds heavier than I left!

Chalk Board

I keep making lists of my ongoing quilt projects to get a sense of what I should be concentrating on (and maybe to make me realize I don't NEED to start one more project!) but then I usually set the list aside and it gets misplaced.

I was thinking I needed a white board posted on the wall for my lists but just never got around to getting one.    Last week I walked past a display of chalkboard paint and decided that maybe that would work. 

It was easy to do.  First I taped off the area I wanted to paint (yes I taped all 4 sides)

Then, using a foam roller I painted 3 coats of the paint.  I probably didn't need to do 3, but I wanted to make sure it covered really well.

After removing the tape I found I only had a couple of mistakes

I read on-line that the board should be conditioned before use by rubbing chalk all over it and letting it sit for about 30 minutes before removing.  This is supposed to prevent ghosting.  It was interesting to see how the chalk highlighted some paint lines - lines that you don't see with the naked eye.



 I may wish I'd purchased the white board instead of painting the wall because I'm having the hardest time finding chalk!  I just want regular 'ole school chalk and can't find it anywhere.  I may have to search out a teacher supply store.   I stole a piece of Hayden's sidewalk chalk to prime the board.  Hope she doesn't notice.

Scarves redux

Back before Christmas I made a bunch of frilly scarves from a self ruffling yarn.  I posted about it here   I sent all those scarves to my mother thinking she could share them with the other residents in her retirement home.   Turns out she gave them as Christmas gifts to all of the female members of our family. 

When we were up visiting my mother last month she mentioned that one of the workers at the home had expressed an interest in getting one of the scarves so I stopped at the local Joann Fabric store and bought yarn to make several more while I was there.  (we don't have Joann Fabrics here so I always make sure I make a stop there every visit - after I stop at DSW Shoe Warehouse in the same shopping center!!)

When I got home my friend Joanne was visiting from her new home in Florida and she shared a new frilly scarf made out of a chiffon fabric rather than yarn.  I was immediately intrigued and went online that night and ordered several hanks of the chiffon.

It's really cool because there are holes in the top of the fabric that are used for the knitting.  See those black circles near the top?  If I had a drill press I could probably make my own "yarn."  (click photos for larger view)

This stuff knits up a little slower than the real yarn but is still easy to work with.  I like the way it looks as it takes shape.

The included pattern calls for casting on 8 stitches but on Joanne's recommendation I only did 5 and think it's a good size.

This is the name of the stuff.



Back again...

They did it again - changed up Blogger since I was last here to post.  Serves me right for being away so long!

So...what have I been up to? 

There was a quilt at our show in March from a pattern called "Ohmigosh" that I really liked.  It was pieced and quilted by Vicky McCormiack.  She did it scrappy similar to this one pictured. 

Well I decided that I'd like to try it but in a different color palette and this is what I came up with.  My intent is to do a gradation of the blues from light to dark and back to light.   This is not a hard quilt to piece but it's tedious.  Each block finishes 4.5"  Those little nine patches finish up 1/2".  It's mostly done with strip piecing.  I don't usually do this type of piecing so it has been an interesting experience.

In addition to the Ohmigosh quilt a few of us have been working on this Tucson pattern from a past Fons and Porter magazine.   This finishes up as a big quilt as these star blocks are 15".  A big change from my tiny blocks, but I'm actually having more piecing problems with the stars because I keep messing up the points.    These blocks are actually mine and Janice's combined.  We each have a lot more to make.





Last month Jerry and I took a quick trip up to Detroit to visit family.   Our trip started off with a bang when we pulled into the long-term parking lot.  Jerry opened the window to grab the ticket and the window wouldn't go back up.  The power window motor had died!   There were no tools in the car so he couldn't get the door panel off to manually raise the window.  We ended up covering the window with a Mylar heat blanket that luckily was in the car.  We caught our flight and then watched the weather closely hoping that Charleston didn't get rain while we were gone.  It was raining the day we got back, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a dry car. 



We went up mainly to see how my mother is doing as her health has been declining.  She lives in a large independent living retirement complex.  She goes down to the dining room for dinner every night and the distance has become too much for her to manage.  She's on oxygen 24/7 and now has a power chair that she uses when she has to go any distance.  She's kind of dangerous in her chair but she was always a bad driver so it's not a surprise!



My brother Ed takes a lot of the responsibility for checking up on mom

And my other brother Claude also pitches in

We had a family get together at Claude's while there.  He lives on a large lake.  They live on a secluded finger of the lake so they don't have to deal with the loud boat and jet skis (or snowmobiles in the winter) as much as those on the main part of the lake.  It's very pleasant and peaceful.   This is one of Claude's grandsons waiting for the s'mores!

I feel badly about neglecting my blog so much and will try to do better.  I wonder if there is anyone still out there!