Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[strollingbones]

ladybugs are neat.....

is the ladybug one for sale?

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks for the kind compliment, strollingbones. I prefer to not sell work I've already dedicated to God through charitable work. You couldn't have said a sweeter or a kinder request.

 

[pbel]

Qults have a way of hugging their recipients with the maker's love, whether they are done by little hand stitches or stitched on a home sewing machine. I'm starting this thread so you can enjoy sharing your quilts and see some of mine, some I found on ebay, etc. If you have a traditional pieced quilt and want to know the name of the pattern, post a picture here, and I'll use all my resources to tell you the name of the block or blocks that were used to make your quilt. Just say the word. Here's a Postage Stamp Quilt I made for a beloved friend's grandson:

LUV the Colors!!!

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, pbel.

 

[freedombecki]

Finished the last of 20 black and white windmills for the (5x8=40) Ladybug Charity quilt. The completion task now must begin by sewing eight rows of 5 alternating squares to get the resultant hurricane look.

The next time this quilt is done, I'm going to zero in on the "Hurricane Isolation" either by sashing or by setting the hurricane area into corner triangles in order to get the feeling of a lot of objects in the eye of the storm that could get carried away--or not.

I was thinking of how to show the severity of a hurricane. That would be isolating the square and adding pointed pieces that would show the twirling wind aspect of the air around the storm. We'll see how that goes. I have many more ideas than I could ever sew into a quilt. I have notebooks filled with ideas of all kinds of quilts. I should have stuck with acrylics for fast drying projects that end quickly. I've extended at least one quilt out to the 3-year bracket.

Pictures of the work in progress and the isolation of an area of my model quilt circled with black:

1. scanned black and white pinwheel (8.5" approx)

2. scanned model quilt with area circled using Paint

3. Scan of isolated hurricane-like block by tracing and cutting out diamond on page of white paper to cover everything else to show future block

 

[freedombecki]

All done!

Here are a couple of shots of the border of the Ladybug Quilt.

It's so good to get things done on Friday and not have to do it when you get up.

 

[freedombecki]

I'm giving this quilt to charity when it's finished in favor of a special friend of mine who posts here who is a total inspiration. Her name is Foxfyre.

I completed 12 squares, which when turned 90 degrees will become the top and bottom of lanterns, the fabric of which will be a bright color such as a soft yellow.

They're done in a sort of Courthouse Steps arrangement of the ever-popular log cabin quilt pattern. This got started when I cleared the table downstairs off and found a ton of warm and cool colored strips of every description messing up my table. They were folded, pressed, and quickly sewn into the little squares I'm calling "glad rags" because I'm so glad I got that chore done and I'm also glad I'm on Foxfyre's prayer list for God's help for my chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia syndromes which debilitate me from having a normal life. Thank God sewing is a therapy and for sending us therapeutic friends in life in times when we are home-bound! I hope if anyone has one of those awful sister diseases--arthritis, diabetes, MS, cancer, and other autoimmune diseases too numerous to mention, drops by, I've asked God to help them cope and build a life around what they can do, which is a lot when you start making a list of what you still can do when a symptom just totally annoys you for some reason. We all have bad days, but we have great help at the tip of folded hands and a believing heart.

Love, becki.

Now, Glad Rags!!!

Scan 1 Square 1

Scan 2 Ditto 2

Scan 3 Samo-samo 3

 

[freedombecki]

Yep, you saw right if you noticed some of those squares were pieced together from itsy-bitsy leftovers. The purpose of the quilt is only to divide warm and cool colors on opposite sides of the courthouse steps! And to cheer up and make them colorful and happy. Nothing else! When you're cleaning up a mess, and you can use the stuff you cleared, hhooo-aaahhh! As our military guys say. It's all good!

Scan 4

Scan 5

Scan 6 Squares all

 

[freedombecki]

More Glad Rags to Lanterns squares:

Scan 7

Scan 8

Scan 9

 

[freedombecki]

And

Scan 10

Scan 11

Scan 12

On Scan 11, (the middle one) I broke my colorful rule when I found there was one strip of the coffee cup fabric from Moda Designer Deb Strain from a few years back when I was ordering fabrics for my quilt shop.

 

[daveman]

Becki, I took my mom and my daughters to the National Quilt Museum this afternoon.

Absolutely stunning. It truly is an art form.

 

[freedombecki]

Today, instead of going to the yellow pile, I decided I needed to get serious about working the turquoise group I'd intended, so I dug through the turquoise bin and found some sweet little old butterflies on some turquoise fabric. I thought "blue light lanterns?" Oh, well! But first, I needed to set them off and thought maybe colonial lanterns could have been glass bordered with wood (doh, wood is flammable, of course that probably wasn't done...) Anyway, I did add brown 1/2" borders dutifully and blissfully placing tiny dark dotted brown calico at top and bottom of each "lantern," then just as dutifully made sure all the top wings were on top of the one-way fabric. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the effect the brown had on the somewhat hot colors in my pile (ok, I dug some more brights to add to the panoply on top of my kitchen table until yesterday) The brown did nothing to brighten the light turquoise background butterflies. Absolutely nothing, but I wasn't pulling off 24 strips, nosiree. So I thought, "Well, maybe the side borders should be a little wider, after all the strips are each 53" long (stretched to 55") So wider brown strips were cut and just as dutifully sewn to the sides. The brown really killed the joie de vivre I had seen in the 12 litle blocks earlier. Har de har har har. Well, it's ok. Some people like the subdued look I fibbed to myself.... but I set to kill the idea of putting brown log cabin strips between the lantern strips, which do not look like lanterns and do not look like the blue light special at K-Mart. At this point, I'm just going to show the scans I made before starting this tale o' woe:

But I'm seriously not sewing any more on this quilt until tomorrow. I'm tired after the day's doings. Never mind the sorry details.

Glad Rags showing turquoise lanterns and brown strips

 

[freedombecki]

Becki, I took my mom and my daughters to the National Quilt Museum this afternoon.

Absolutely stunning. It truly is an art form.

Yes it can be, and your link shows a room I've been to before. Some years ago, we sold Pfaff sewing machines, and one year we had a dealer's convention in Nashville, TN, and I wanted to see the museum on quilts at Paducah, so my husband rented a car, and off we went. I loved every minute of it.

The memories of those quilts will shine in your daughters' minds, so hope everyone had a wonderful time as we did when we visited. Women do an art form now. I used to, but now, I just make charity quilt tops and someone else quilts them for those who are in need in this community.

 

[freedombecki]

Put in a full day on the quilt, decided there was a problem. the lantern areas are huge and the wrong color, do not resemble in the slightest a lantern, but they're a good 5x10" framed area, so decided to use them as a backdrop for a butterfly. The butterfly designed last week does not work there, so made a simpler one that can be cut into one piece and machine stitched in place.

Here are the new design, the sashing that sets the blocks together, etc in picture:

 

[freedombecki]

The butterfly designed early this morning, then put onto a square scrap of gold fabric flecked with lime, teal, red, orange, and salmon pink, that was pinned to the front, right side out, then turned over and sewn on the traced lines I put onto the wrong side of the lantern glow area and straight stitched the fabric and background together. I turned it to the right side and trimmed away th eexcess gold fabric, then using a 2mm zigzag at .5mm, covered the raw edge of the butterfly. The butterfly is the symbol of Christ's resurrection, and many quilters love doing butterfly quilts. Glad rags didn't start outwith any particular purpose, it's just that I'd been reading about these lovely flat-type butterflies, and thought the shape would be good to stylize and place in the 5 by 10 inchtoo-big spaces in the lantern glow area. Th fun thing about quilting are the serendipity things that happen when you're in the process of the work. An oversight can be remedied with applique, and this was a good time to combine 2 loves of mine--mindless, fun quilting and butterflies.

so here's my butterfly in fabric and a couple of butterflies to illustrate why I used that particular shape:

 

[freedombecki]

Preplanning is everything. I found an example of lanterns in a quilt I made some time ago, just to put a warm cover on the bed (it was pretty fast). I made rows of large lanterns on a quilt some years back, and ran across it in some wood shelves the other day. The lantern light portion was proportional to the courthouse steps logs, and it looks like a lantern.

When I was adding length to the rows of this quilt, it really needed to be considerably longer, over 12 inches. I just decided 5 inches was good, because I have a growing pile of 5" squares from extra fabrics to match the 2.5" rolls and 5" charm packs you now get at the quilt store that has a piece of each of the collection fabrics if you just want to make a small quilt that has all the collection represented to work with. The good deal is, you do not have to buy a quarter of a yard of each of 42 pieces in the group, which would run over $100 at today's $10 a yard for better quilt fabrics. For under $10., you can buy a charm pak and save a mint. The 5" squares can be sliced in half to get 2 2.5" strips or cut in half perpendicularly to get 4 2.5" squares. Either way, the second step makes a 4" square when combined with other charm squares.

Anyway, I just decided to cut 5" lanterns, without thinking and did. Then, when all was sewn together, it looked like fabric setting was placed between the lanterns, and not that the 5" was the lantern light. So I came up with the flat butterfly idea and hurried to make such a butterfly applique that would fit well within the rectangular lanterns. It's starting to look a lot better than when the lantern lights wee easy.

I improved the gold butterfly and used a white backing fabric to fix the fabric so it could be embellished by machine better. Here are some of the butterfly squares now (there will be 9):

First, the added background with butterfly penciled onto the white percale groound

And other squares which took all morning

3rd.,

 

[freedombecki]

And the other two butterflies:

As of now there are 5 more to do. I developed a different process to do appliques from the reverse side of the quilt without using noxious or polyethelyne stickem. I also learned that you get a very professional satin stitch without a lot of backing other than additional layers of percale or muslim (broadcloth) all cotton. I did not have to use any kind of backing, and found it pleasing. Anyway, here's the two other "experiments" and I may try different things as I work. Each of the first 4 squares has a different technique. This one may get washed before donating, just to see what happens to the different techniques in the washing machine. If I don't like it, I won't have to use that particular technique again. I loved the sheen of the threads as they were laying down while using a plain zig-zag stitch.
​

 

[freedombecki]

I worked from memory and the need to fill a 5 x 10" quilt square with butterflies I have noticed from time to time in looking up members of Lepidoptera. Of course, for children, I always go a bit naive, because basic shapes is what children understand the best, the simpler and more colorful, the better they seem to like it. And in America, women have a fondness for making their children special, one-of-a-kind quilts. Hopefully, this design is, and I can always refine it to its more natural look when I have time. But it would be a good opportunity to teach basic applique curves on, and a little simple embellishment ways in stitching details if one wants to go to the trouble.

The first time I noticed one of these enlongated eliptical wings was in a butterfly garden in Victoria, on Vancouver island in Canada a few years back on our way to see the Buchart Gardens when we were in Seattle, WA on a business trip in the quilt fabric industry. It gives the feeling I wanted of these butterflies, but I looked them up just to see how close the overall shape is to the real deal by browsing my computer.

The order of Lepidoptera this butterfly falls in is Heliconiinae, commonly known as simply "longwings" At Wikipedia, I found there are many types and colorations:

And below are some of the pieces of paper I saved that are part of my design process. The first pictures I do are usually so ungainly I don't save them. The best I can do is with scissors, so I do several rough drafts (from memory), then pick shapes I like or prefer due to their fitting the space that needs filling, which was sure the case here! So the naming process goes on, but now that I've located the specie type of Lepidoptera I wanted, they're in a family of longwing butterflies, and they were in my mind (though obviously not clearly) in the design of this quilt. Memory is tricky. It's not what you see at all. It's what you remember about what you saw. Even when you see again the same picture, you're aware you took "artistic license" when you drew it from what bits of memory you could muster.

Process is not always the same on each design. In quilting it is determined by a lot of subjective factors: How much time out of my life do I want to put into this quilt? What kind of visual textured fabrics will go well with this shape, or would solid colors be better? How will this design go with what I'm working on? Who am I making this quilt for? (Adult, Teen, Child, Infant). Sometimes you think: if the quilt is given to someone other than the intended recipient, how many age gaps may be bridged by this shape, and last but far from least, "Are the negative shapes surrounding the (positive) object pleasing to the eye?"
​

 

[freedombecki]

I realize the above looks like a silly name, but as I've worked through this quilt of no pattern, and trying to bring out its best, the addition of light aquablue lantern light in a tiny butterfly print caused a visual issue on account of the size I picked. It just didn't look like a lantern quilt after putting the vertical rows. The lantern "light" areas were 2 inches longer than I'd ever used before, exaggerated by their slighter width. Also, the brown frames disappointed the glad feeling of bright colors used in the courthouse steps block. So I tried to make the best use of what was left to at least use the large light blue areas, already framed in brown, to show off longwing butterflies--and I didn't even know how to locate them online, and it took 2 days of reviewing butterfly pictures to find what I had remembered seeing and had already made a plastic template from after drawing it out. The first one I showed wasn't the one I remembered, but was the only one I could find that first day that showed shorter wings, and they're at least in a related family of longwings, but not the kind that were the shaep I recollected. I found them later, with scientific names by looking through bing images with such names as "skinny wings, butterflies" "Lepidoptera, narrow wings," etc. Somehow I finally saw one that was the right shape, so it's hit and miss, find what you can.

I've shown some processes, but some are easier than others. I finally settled on one process, that will change the next time I attempt this type of quilt, and that is, it's a lot easier to do an applique block one at a time, not after they're framed!!! So here is (after the design phase was completed) how to do it the easy and fast way. Do the squares first, and cut them larger than you need to. When you embroider satin stitch details, there is takeup evidenced by the way things may gather up to make parts of the outside border not straight, imperfect, or gathered. A good iron helps get rid of some of the problem as would a good spray starch placed on sewing materials before tracing the template around. A good recipe for starch is to use a tablespoon of cornstarch for 1 pint of warm water, stirred and placed into an empty new spray bottle container. Mark the spray bottle "starch" to keep it separate from spray bottles filled with water or other substances, which also should be labeled and color-coded so you do not make bad mistakes.

I didn't use starch, because I have an advanced Bernina that is so efficient the satin stitch I picked was correctable with a good pressing with a hot iron and two layers of fabric underneath the fabric reverse appliqued to the right side of the little blue butterfly backgrounds.

Here's the underlay: using oversized white muslin or percale, trace the butterfly at center of the fabric with washable marker or pencil.

(2) - scan 1 with the white traced pattern showing, place the fabric with its right side to the opposite of the percale pattern. Stitch along the lines with a 2mm stitch (small)

(3) - scan 2 Turn over to right side. (if you enlarge the picture, you can barely see the turquoise basting thread on the bright red happy dots fabric)

(4) - scan 3 Trim away red fabric, leaving a quarter of an inch, more or less, according to your liking. (you will satin stitch through 3 layers when placed on back of the background, secured with tiny brass safety pins).

 

[freedombecki]

(4) Scan 4 Press the fabric flat (showing 2 other longwings that are pressed)

(5) Pin oversized white backgrounds with right side of butterflies facing the wrong side of the quilt background piece that would be 5.5" x 10.5"

(6) Stitch through the small stitch around the wings

(7) trim away the right side background, letting the wings show

(7.a) Scan 5 Turquoise

(7.b) Scan 6 WWII Red, white blue, print found in factory lot of collar miscuts and factory scraps from the 40s grab bag at antique store in 1998 and cut out this morning)

​

On Scan 6, the fabric came from this huge bag of 30s and 40s prints I acquired at an antique store. Every once in a while I like to imagine that the woman who miscut the fabrics on an accident may have worked like a man as best she could in the 40s when sons and husbands were uniformed soldiers in the Pacific or European theaters. I thought maybe the miscuts may have happened the week she got a telegram from the department of defense that she lost her beloved husband or son or boyfriend. Or maybe it was someone who bought or picked up freebie factory scraps left at the back door for employees to take home and sew into quilts or something. Maybe the quilt never got made due to losing the loved one she was thinking of when she took the scraps home with her, and couldn't give them up during her lifetime. 50 years later, she died, and someone found this odd bag of scraps from her past. They didn't sew, so they took it down to a second hand store and just left the bag on the doorstep or got a couple of dollars for a huge sack full of the factory cuts and some quilt parts sewn together. The second hand store dealer didn't know what to do with them either, and didn't have closet space after so many years of not doing anything with them either. Somehow, I landed there on the right day, and they came into my possession as I made wounded soldier quilts in another war for servicemen severely wounded. I tried to put a piece of that mother's quilt scraps into every red-white-and-blue quilt I could. This morning, I found one of the 5x6" with a slash pieces in the stack of 30 had gotten folded. It was just the right size for one of my longwing butterflies.

With it, I pay homage to a mother from another time who experienced a loss so heartbreaking she couldn't even look at the scraps she took home from that factory, now maybe 70 years ago or thereabout. She lost a beloved one in her life. She wanted something good to be done with her scraps, and somehow, a piece I'd never noticed before because it was crunched up between two awfully cut pieces in a stack of 22 that may have been 30 to 50 at one time (I've used from the stack several quilts before), and I had a real time of dipping it in water and reironing it. It still had sizing from back then to make the fabric stiff, but rinsing it softened it a little, but because it never had seen the light of day in 70 years, its colors were as pretty as the day it was printed and dried in a USA factory back east somewhere, made with old southern cottons, a grade up from homespun, but a grade down from broadcloth. (When you hold it to the light, you can see the uneven threads compared to today's cloths that are all maddeningly even), so characteristic of products our mothers produced, not ever having had experience working outside of the home in the world they grew up in the 20s and 30s). I have a little misty in my eyes.

God bless our dear mothers and grandmothers, even great-grandmothers, who lost loved ones in WWII. Their lives were made so much poorer by fighting, but our lives were made richer by having the threat of murdering groups of people whose Jewish faith in God made them the objects of Nazi/Muslim hatred, all 6 million of them. mass killed in 'the showers' in that terrible war in Germany alone. So many died. How many more were saved?

Our lost men prevented further Holocaust in the world. That's what they lived and died for. How can we honor those who lost them? Crying? Or living so that we support those who stand up to bullies with a "No, you're not going to kill people because YOU hate people who Hitler and his axis friends hated."

I love that sack of scraps more than all my beautiful, new, modern gorgeous yardages, dammit.