Becky's quilt obsession

Most of my quilting time this year has been spent on making Memory Quilts from my dear Brother-in-law's shirts and pants - mainly jeans. He died last year - January 17, 2018. My dear BIL Dave Dave and Sherry The "clan" providing comic relief at the request of the photographer (my daughter, Dave's niece)  After the four (grown) children, (10) grand- and (3 + 1 on the way) great grandchildren had taken all of the things (shirts, ties, etc.) they wanted, I finally (in April) said I would take the shirts and work with those. Later I also took his jeans and some of his slacks. Later Sherry found additional flannel and heavier shirts and jean jackets which I used for the pillows. I spent a lot of time "de-boning" his shirts, and cut a LOT of 6 1/2" and 4 1/2" circles from the jeans and pants. I cut mainly the darker shirts into 6-1/2" x 8-1/2" patches. At first I tried cutting the shirt pockets into the patches, but it was ...

My DH has watched me struggle to "cut" things with my Accuquilt Go - it seems really hard to crank. I try to cut with it when DGDs are here, but they are "onto" my scheme. For Christmas DH bought me an Accuquilt Go Big - the electric model. Using it is wonderful. My Sister-in-law is expecting a new great grandson. We collaborated on a quilt, my version of "Baby's Picture Frame" an old pattern from Trudie Hughes. (A variation of a Courthouse steps log cabin.) It uses a lot of 1-1/2" strips. It took me about 10 minutes to cut the strips (most of that time spent in pressing the fabrics). I was able to use the Go strip cutter again to cut the strip sets. I used Minkee on the back for the cuddle factor. I do, however HATE working with its slickness, especially when applying binding. It is finished, and in the hands of my niece - the soon to be new grandmother. Happy Quilting, Becky in KCMO

Charity quilts: I spent a lot of time in July, August and Sept making charity quilts. We always need more twin size quilts - guild members always donate lots of smaller quilts. I sent 4 tops to Houston after the flooding before I took pictures. Here are pictures of the other quilts I made for a teen-age crisis home: The color scheme of these quilts was picked from this large grape fabric. Greens and purples. I cut 4" strips from fat quarters and half yards and kept adding fabrics, mainly lights to make all the blocks. Made from all the leftover strips and pieces. This one was started by 4-H students using charm squares left over from last quilt show boutique and many homespuns I cut up trying to whittle down my stack of those. Can you tell we have a cold air return that sucks on the corner of all the quilts for show and tell?? I do like the St. Louis 16 patch - just Google it to find the directions. If you want to be able to match seams easily, follow ...

I stopped blogging awhile back - too much other stuff to do. I was Ways and Means Chair for my Guild for 2 years, then helped finish up stuff, taught 4H, sewed with the GrandGirls, etc. The youngest Granddaughter is working on the one on the left - Mrs. Chillingsworth. We together made the one on the right several years ago. She only sewed a bit on it. The new one she is doing all the sewing - Gma just cuts and pins. She hopes to make Mrs. the same size and Mr. She's started on the next border of squares that will follow another black border on this medallion quilt. I've been working on this and that. A very young man shared his cold with me and I'm of an age where that sidelines me for a while. My friend JoAnne did the main piecing on a bargello heart for us to donate to Friends United for their 30th Anniversary dinner and auction. I finished the border, quilted and applied binding. JoAnne shared the leftover bargello strips with me so I made two pillows (so far) to g...

I've been very busy learning IQ on my Nolting - Black Bart. It's coming along, but there is much to learn. I've also been working on the quilt pictured below. It took a lot of time as I "designed" it to make the batik panels from Africa stand out. I did Prairie points with beading on them. I sewed a necklace I received from a Nigerian seminary student on it as well. Handmade bone beads on that one. The panels were a gift to my sister-in-law from a student  from Burkina Faso, a small country near Senegal. Most of the fabrics were from Africa as well, some I bought through AQS and some from the Quilted Fox  in St Louis, MO.  It was donated to Friends United - a group that works with students and teachers in Honduras to improve the education system. They had their dinner and auction last Friday night, and it was sold for $800. The buyer agreed to let me have it back for exibit in our next quilt show. Gifts from Aftica. Happy Quilting, Becky

This is what I'm working on. It's not my usual thing. My DSIL had the heavy batik panels / figures and asked me to make a donation quilt out of them. I'm not an art quilter, so this was hard for me. It is now on Black Bart being quilted. The fabrics used in it are almost all African in origin. It is different to work with such low thread count fabric. Go to  Judy's designwall  to see more fun things. Happy quilting, Becky

Just Beachy is home – to stay, after being in the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival.  (edit - I misspoke Just Beachy is going to Des Moines for the AQS quilt show the end of September!) I couldn’t get a picture without someone in front of it as the attendance was so large. Hurray! I took two classes, Feathers with Jamie Wallen and Dot to Dot with Angela Walter. I also did a 4 hour volunteer shift although I gave up a bit early. I received favorable comments from the judge, but with such noted quilters (winners at AQS shows) such as Miriam Reed, JoAnne Web and Janet Stone in the local guilds, simple quilters like me didn’t have a chance for ribbons. I don’t mind; I’m just glad that Beachy was shown.  Beachy can now hang proudly in my living room. A better picture of Beachy, and one of me. Happy Quilting, Becky

We are just back from California where we attended DH's son's wedding. It was beautiful. It was held in the rose garden in the L.A. Arboretum. We had send other gifts, but this one I delivered in person. This is from the pattern "Labyrinth" - we had the designer as a speaker at guild a year or so ago. I bought the pattern then. I quilted it with my new IntelliQuilter on Black Bart. I purchased a pattern designed especially for this pattern by Nancy Haake from Wasach Quilting  http://www.digitizedquiltingpatterns.com/shop/product/5-lg-modern-labyrinth-pattern-set/   This was the first time I actually SID'd the entire quilt before I started filling in the quilting. The sections were so large I had to move it a lot to get them all in. I had to change one pattern to P2P triangles on the large grey box - I couldn't divide the one in the pattern without a lot of starts and stops. It turned out well - but I sure learned a lot about what I didn't know in IQ. I...

Because I now have Intelliquilter installed and running on Black Bart - my Nolting 24" Pro longarm, I am selling all my Circle Lord items. The following are for sale. If you are in the Kansas City, MO area, I will give a 10% discount if I don't have to package and ship items. All prices are plus shipping. I have the following giant templates that come in 3 interlocking pieces to fit various needs. All of these were sold to me as king-size, and I’ve never had a quilt larger than them even when I had a 14’ table. I’m asking $150 a set,plus shipping. Zig Zag – does what I call wave and Ribbon quilting as well as a true zig-zag that you can use for crosshatching. You use either the waves or the zig-zags, not usually combining the two.  14" wide boards  This quilt was quilted with waves: Cosmos – Funky flowers Sold pending payment. 15" wide Cosmos   The back of a quilt using Cosmos Boards Basic Circle Lord set-up  I’m ask...

I hate blocking quilts, yet I know of no other way to have them hang straight - really straight - without doing it. I've had Just Beachy hanging for a week , but it didn't hang smoothly - how could it with all the fusible in it? At my house this is what is entailed in blocking a large quilt: Moving everything you can out of the dining room, bringing in a table and the appropriate size insulation boards Of course you can't move everything so you have to work around them Find the right batting for this configuration of boards, wet it with spray water and stretch it flat Wash the quilt on handwash cycle and lug it in still wet This color catcher has me worried A gazillion rulers, pins, pulls, measures, a helpful engineer husband and 4 tiring hours of work 24 hours later it is dry, flat, and one block has run - I'm leaving it. I hate the tremendous backache from doing this, but I need to look straight down on the rulers/quilt to get e...