Becky's quilt obsession

The string blocks are finished to flimsy (top) stage. The inner border of yellow print is an eBay find, followed by the same aqua solid that forms part of the blocks. I cut it 5" wide, but I don't know if I will leave it that wide. That much solid leaves a lot of room for quilting, and that isn't my strong suit. I pulled a practice top, an apple core top of 30's fabrics (originals) that I'm going to load on Black Bart. I think I will practice doing various freehand fills, and see if DH can help me adjust the machine so the wheels move easier. Someone on the Nolting group described a problem like I have, so we will see if the same fix will work.   Happy Quilting, Becky

I’ve made a total of 96 string blocks. There are no scraps left. I’m now into the stage of joining them into 4 patches, then 16 patches. I have these 4 of 6 total finished. It will have a small yellow 30’s fabric border then more of the aqua to finish it off. The previous post has more information about this UFO of my grandmother’s. Hopefully I will finish piecing this week. Happy Quilting, Becky

Don’t you just hate it when you miscount blocks?? The night before last, I finished what I thought was 80+ string blocks. I put them in stacks like in this picture. I went to the computer, opened EQ7, and tried out different designs using up to 80 blocks. I had some small pieces of fabric left, but not much. Yesterday evening when I started sewing again, I decided to recount those stacks, making sure I only needed a few more blocks for my design. I only counted 71 . How could I have miscounted that much? I checked the other stacks, looked around on the table, on the cutting table, and then decided to just start making more. I had enough foundations cut to make another 9 blocks, to bring it up to the 80 I needed, so I started in. I finished up the cut foundations, doing a lot of joining of small crumbs to make up the blocks. I added a few pieces of fabric from another 20-30’s UFO, but the last block I made had 27 pieces.These are the last 4 I made. You can see how much piecing was n...

The last few days I have been working on taking the scraps from the pile and making them into the string block parts on the right.This fabric is from a quilt top I disassembled that was in my grandmother’s things when my mother passed them on to me in 1998. This picture is of some of the original blocks and the center fabric. These strings were originally sewn on newspaper, by hand, and Grandma had tried to put them together on her treadle machine by sewing around the square center without stopping. Before I received the top, someone had washed it and it all fell apart. I’m using the same fabrics plus some from an eBay buy of the same vintage. I know from the bits of paper still attached when I took it apart that it was started in the 1920’s, and was still being worked on during WWII. I don’t know how big it will be, or how it will be set. I’m just making blocks until the stack of fabrics is gone. Happy Quilting, Becky

The landscaping is finished; my shoulder is now missing a big hook-shaped bone spur, and I’m back to the quilting machine thanks to the Physical Therapists! I’m starting with some HeartStrings quilts that are needed for Robin’s project. This first one was made from blocks sent by Kathy (I think). I finished it in my favorite way, adding sashing just wide enough to cover the seams, similar to a quilt as you go, but just on one side to make the top. This way I don’t have to try to press all the seams open! I had just a yard of this stars on blue print, just enough for sashing and binding! I love it when it uses the fabric all up! Kathy sent backing, so that was great. This second one is a top sent by Melva, one of Bonnie Hunter’s mysteries. I had it over the couch to finish drying and my daughter walked it, saw it, and said did you make it? No. Well, can you make one like it? These are the colors in my living room and it matched perfectly. I love Ohio stars set on point! There is a t...

Judy L http://www.patchworktimes.com/ is hosting looks on people's design walls, and if I can figure out the link process, I think I'll play along. I don't know how blogger is going to display these pictures, so I guess I'll just wing the descriptions. The picture that I think will be the top left one is a picture of my right design wall. It holds a vertical row of lone star blocks, that I thought I was going to use in the corners of a secret project. When I brought out the fabric that goes with it, I decided that 12" blocks weren't large enough, so yesterday I started on 17" rolling star blocks - the top right picture, I think. Talk about set-in seams! I think only the last 4 triangles were sewn on edge to edge, the rest of the seams, after making the diamond star points, were all single seams with back stitching at both ends. It is a good thing I really like making 45 degree diamond blocks. I only need 4 total of rolling stars for my secret project. The...

The box is taped, labeled, and sitting by the front door for tomorrow's pick-up by our mail carrier. Four of these are out of the HeartStrings red-white-blue Chinese Coins project. The right top one uses some of the HeartStrings R-W-B swap blocks, and some other donated blocks. I nearly had heart failure when I was quickly hanging these for DH to photograph - one of the blue stars had run. Off it went to the washer and Synthropol - and it worked!! They are all washed, ready for cuddling. I still have the basket-weave top and another funky caterpillars top to put borders on, quilt, and bind. I decided to put these five, with pillowcases, in the mail to meet Alycia's deadline, and will finished the others soon. I forgot about labels, sorry Alycia. I meant to at least write on the quilts, but I forgot that, too. I'm excited about attending the Nebraska HeartStrings sew-in next weekend. We are going to the quilt study museum (it has a fancier name) in Lincoln on Fr...

I cut and fiddled on the design wall trying out everyone's suggestions. I ended up with the blue paisley. I was really trying to make the center glow, but the yellow I had just died - no luminosity in that one. So this is the layout. I have one more row of strings, alternate blocks, and setting triangles, but that would involve standing on a ladder to reach, so you just have to imagine those. Thank you to all that responded with your advice and suggestions!! Now if I can just piece it together without turning blocks the wrong way! Happy Quilting, Becky Email me

I'm working with another set of Chinese coins made by a HeartStringer last year. I'm really enjoying this grouping as it is a nice change from the others. These did not play well with the others, but are beautiful on their own . I tried to load a larger picture so you could click it. If you do, you will see pink, toile in red and cream, toile in blue and buttery yellow, and a variety of reds, blues, and gold-browns. There are flowers and geometrics, with some damask roses thrown in. These do not say "hurly, burly man", but instead "girly girl". I just love them. As I was trying them on for different projects, I remembered that Mary posted a picture of a basket weave HeartStrings quilt. I thought these would look good in that. When I measured out the strips, almost all of them were about 11-12" long, just right to make into 5 1/2" squares. I tried setting them as a basket weave, but there wasn't enough of them to make that work in the QOV size. ...

Someone asked about posting a link to the previous photo I had on this blog for this quilt made from HeartStrings purple project group blocks. I did quilt it, finally, with spirals of course. It is bound, labeled, and off to be auctioned at a Friends United fund raiser. This group takes educational materials, including computers and the like, to Honduras. I'm quilting another top that was donated for them as well. I want to make sure and give credit to Evelyn Sloppy for the pattern for the Hearts in this quilt. I've owned her book ( Log Cabins , I think) for a long time. When I posted pictures of these blocks for help with settings, many HeartStringers asked for the pattern. Evelyn Sloppy's book was out of print, but she graciously gave us permission to post the pattern on the Heartstrings website. A few weeks later I noticed it was on the Martingale Publishing site as a free pattern. What a neat lady! Happy quilting, Becky Email me

Last weekend we finished moving things in my closet so I could hang my quilts. I have some that my grandmother made, and I didn't want to leave them folded. I have 2 butterfly quilts that she made. The green one was probably made in the 50's, and the turquoise one was made in the early 60's (it came to our house in 1964). After my brother left for college, they were always on the twin beds in his room with fancy embroidered and crocheted pillowcases on the pillows as the quilts weren't long enough to cover the pillows. If you examine the green quilt, you can see it has the sashing fabric all around the outside. The turquoise one doesn't have any on the top or bottom. I really like how the green one looks - complete! The turquoise one looks like Grandma ran out of sashing fabric, but I know that wasn't the case. Grandma used that same sashing fabric in quite a few quilts, both before and after this quilt was made. She must have bought it by the bolt! I think tha...