The Next Chapter

I'm back already because there has been a new development in the saga of the "big girl" quilt for DGD #2. But first let me show you how the preemie top came together:

"Teddy Bears in the Park." You should be able to click on the picture to get a better look. I really like the way the border print echoes both the burgundies and the pinks in the crumb blocks. It still needs to be backed and quilted but that will have to wait for another day.

Now, back to the saga of the quilt for DGD. (I really need to figure out how to refer to each of my grandchildren individually since there will be four of them in a few months.) The butterfly print was just too overwhelming as a background fabric as you can see in the lower left block below.

I went to two shops yesterday, looking for suitable background options, and struck out on both counts. Which is not to imply that I bought no fabric at all (perish the thought!). I brought home two pieces that I thought I might be able to make work... and some other stuff that was just too fun to leave in the store. ;- ) (Sorry, no pictures.)

Hours later I was able to have a nice long conversation with my daughter, mother to all of the children in this story. She reminded me that the animal panels she provided...

...had been purchased when DGD #2 was a baby. Which may be why she thought it would be appropriate to include them in her big girl quilt. But it was the infantile quality of the artwork that made it so hard for me to include it in a big girl quilt for this child. She's not a baby anymore!

DD had told me more than once that I didn't have to use the animal panels in DGD's quilt but I felt compelled to do so. Until we came to the conclusion yesterday afternoon that I could use the animals in a pair of baby quilts for the twins that are now on their way. Perfect! DD gets to have the cute animals in quilts and I get to make a quilt that I feel is more appropriate for a toddler growing rapidly into a preschooler and beyond. The question now is, what in the world am I going to make for her?!

Oh, and in a happy aside, I took a container of frozen blueberries with me when I went shopping so I could consume them immediately after running into toxic vapors. I've learned that, for whatever reason, frozen blueberries have the power to mitigate the severity of my reactions. It worked pretty well yesterday. I still had symptoms of exposure afterward but it could have been so much worse.

Up & Down

I made a few more crumb blocks yesterday. Then I remembered some patches I'd cut from a cute teddy bear print decades ago... Sure enough, the patches and the rest of the fabric were right where I thought they'd be. And voila, a new preemie quilt-to-be!

These blocks will finish at 5". That makes this layout 25" square when I fill in those corner spots. My plan is to find something to use as a border at the top and bottom and also use that to fill in the corners. That may change. I don't have enough of the teddy bears to cut four more 5.5" patches so the corners will have to be something different.

At first I had all the bears with their feet pointing south as it were. But I've come to realize that for some quilts it's better to have the pattern of the quilt top look good from any direction, not just one way. I decided this was one of those cases and I think it worked out pretty well!

What I am less happy with is the way the blocks are turning out for DGD's quilt. You may (or may not) recall that I had to hunt for appropriate background fabric for this project. I had some pieces in my stash that I really liked as background but there wasn't enough for a twin size quilt. So I shopped around a bit and brought home the butterfly print you see in the block below, on the left.

I thought that very colorful, busy retro print would be strong enough to stand up to the butterflies. Now I don't think so. I much prefer the look of the block on the right (above).

Granted, those are 9" blocks. The butterflies aren't quite so overwhelming in these 12" blocks with good strong colors for the star points. It's still busier than I want however. So I am planning to go out today, to a couple of different stores in the area, to see what I can find. If I don't come home with a new potential background print maybe I'll at least come home with a possible solution for this dilemma. Let's just hope I don't also come home with a crippling reaction to toxic fumes!

Flannel Finish

The preemie quilt is done. The white print stands out rather a lot but I really wanted to include those horses running across the landscape. If I hadn't been so focused on getting the thing put together I might have taken the time to try tea dying those two strips. Ah well, it is what it is.


Of course I still have blocks and scraps and strips left over. At this point I think I'm just going to put them all away somehow so I can move on to other things. I could probably make flannel quilts in a variety of small sizes for the next six months before I used up my stash. Well, maybe not. Some of the flannel I have is not up to my current standards for utility quilts. Back in the day I would buy flannel shirts at the thrift shop to cut up and use in my quilts. In the years since then I have learned from sad experience that you have to be fairly discerning when recycling fabric. Some of those yummy plaids are too thin to last through very many washings.

This is the view from our back porch these days:

Those are some of the members of our local murder of crows in the tree. A moment or two sooner and I would have had the whole group in the shot. Notice the color of the sky. And this is after I brightened it up with my photo editing program! (For some reason our camera seems to take dark pictures.) This is the color we will be living with for the next four months or so. That's the price we gotta pay for the beauty we enjoy the rest of the year I guess.

This morning we had a sunbreak. See that hole of blue in the cloud cover? Once again, if I'd been a bit quicker I might have been able to capture the sunshine.

As it turned out I was lucky to get what I did. This is what that spot looked like just a few minutes later:

So much for sunshine for today! Guess I'll have to go create my own somehow. ;- )

More Flannel, A Little Longing

I worked with the flannel blocks and scraps a bit yesterday. This is what I have so far:


This will finish at about 25 inches wide by 30 inches long. Right now only strips and sections are sewn together. You can see that I have a couple of gaping holes to fill. ;- )

I also spent time with my DMC color chart and the Lincoln Logs quilt, trying to find other colors to use as ties. I selected three, and DH was actually able to find them at our local JoAnn Fabrics store (woohoo! that doesn't happen as often as I would like). So now I'm ready to cut out the most offensive ties and replace them with something less obvious.

I have to say that if I were a healthy person I would have sweet-talked my husband into going down south to one of the big malls yesterday to spend the whole day there. We might not have purchased a lot, but I would have been in heaven browsing in the stores, eating in the food court or in a chain restaurant, people watching, even lugging our purchases around on my arms all day. We could have complained about the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music and displays. It would have been noisy and crowded. We might have gone to see a movie. (I don't even know what's in the theaters right now that we would both enjoy.) We might have found a few things for Christmas presents or I might have come home with a new pair of shoes or pants or a shirt (all of which I need). For that matter, he might have come home with a new suit! It would have been so much fun. I really wish we could have done that.

Instead I shopped a bit online, by myself. Now I have to wait for my purchases to be delivered. None of it was clothing for me or my husband. (I take that back. There was a sweatshirt on clearance I couldn't pass up for myself.) In spite of the fact that I have to I don't like buying things without seeing or handling them first, and I really dislike buying clothes online, trying them on, and then having to return them. So everything I wear is pretty out of date, stained, or maybe doesn't fit as well as it could. On the upside, I do have a head start on my Christmas gifts. I used to try to make something for everyone every year. That was way too stressful. I'm learning now to take the easier way out. And I don't take it so personally any more if they don't seem to like the gift!

Flitting About

It's been an eventful week so far. At least it seems so to me, whose life is not what one would call eventful most of the time.

Monday I went out to look again for background fabric for DGD's quilt, not realizing that it was Columbus Day. I couldn't figure out why in the world there was so much traffic! And the store I went to was busy and smelled strongly of perfume. Not a good thing. But I did find this print I think will work. I bought enough so that I can use it exclusively if I so choose.


Yesterday I went out again, this time to deliver the preemie quilts I've been making. Oh, and I made one more on Monday:


It's a good thing I made as many as I did because apparently some of the ladies didn't follow instructions and donated quilts that can't be used. Too bad.

Today I have to go out again (!) to replenish my vitamins and supplements. Might as well pick up some actual food while I'm at it.

My SIL sent me a surprise package that arrived over the weekend:

Fun halloween prints! There was a skull and cross-bones charm too, I just didn't get it into the picture. It's all I can do to keep myself from making a Halloween preemie quilt. (Do you think that would be inappropriate? ;- ))

Tomorrow is the last day to get your name in the hat for the Pink Artists Prize Wheel. Every $10 you donate will give you two chances to win one of the original works of art and goes to support the Susan G. Komen search for the cure for breast cancer.

Be Bold - go donate!

Weekend Plans

Here's a quick pic of the completed Shoo Fly preemie quilt. I've folded the back over the top of the front so you can see that I had to add a narrow strip of flannel to make that alphabet panel wide enough. (It's right up the middle.) I'd picked up a light yellow flannel robe at a thrift shop somewhere along the way and it turned out to be the perfect thing for this quilt back!

You can also see that I chose to go with the wider, darker print for the outer borders and the cream strips down the center of the front. What can I say? It just felt better that way to me :- )

I've had another go at the houses for my Birds of a Feather challenge quilt. These houses and rooftops are not sewn together yet but I think I'm on the right track now.

The thermometers around here are on their way up again so I doubt I'll make much progress on houses for the next few days. Instead I hope to get this little Priority Quilt beaded:

It began with a leftover wonky heart from this quilt. The photo doesn't do justice to the batiks I used to bring it up to size. They're very rich and luscious. I want to add a bit of sparkle while tacking the layers together but not detract from the power of the colors.

Yet Another Preemie Quilt

I put the flannels away but felt compelled to make just one more quilt for a premature baby. I have more than sixty of those scrappy 6" Shoo Fly blocks I've been making so I pulled them out to see what I could do with them. Turns out I had just enough with a sort of ecru backgound to do a strippy set within the 24" x 30" format.


I also have this charming alphabet print flannel I can use for the back!

If I do three columns of five blocks each I have six inches left over for separation strips and/or borders. I've been auditioning prints... This one struck me as too busy. Hmm... It looks better in the photo than it did in person.

I also tried out this art nouveau style print (on the left) and a white-on-cream.

The art nouveau print seemed too busy again and the cream was not strong enough to be on the outside edges. Not that I would have sewn it up the way you see it here. At this point I was just trying out various colors and prints in general. Those strips would all finish at 1.5".

In this layout I have the art nouveau stips cut to finish at 2" and the cream print to finish at only one inch. On my design wall I like this version the best.

I guess I like the way the wider, darker, strips on the outside edges provide a sense of completion. Would you use the evenly spaced tiny checkerboard print strips or the art nouveau and cream strips?

Blocks and Bandannas

I spent yesterday making about a dozen log cabin style blocks out of my flannel scraps.

At the moment I'm shooting for 8.5" blocks (raw). Beyond that I have no specific plans.

I also added another row of borders to the flannel preemie top.

It just felt unfinished to me. I'm happier with it now. It will be a little bit bigger than the preemie quilts I usually make but that's okay. I will finish this up with a flannel back and a bit of quilting (by machine) and it will be my contribution to the Virtual Quilting Bee for Charity sponsored by Michele over at With Heart and Hands.

Michele is also co-ordinating a meeting of bloggers at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show this Saturday. She's asking those who come and want to be identified to sport a red bandanna on their person somehow. As much as I would love to be there and meet some of my new cyber friends it's just not possible. In the spirit of participation, however, I have tied a red bandanna on the tote bag I would be carrying if I could be there:

And I will have a block in the display of challenge blocks. You can read the details of the challenge here. This is the block I made:

Keeping in mind that Gwen & Freddy would be at the show I wanted to make a block in their honor. Liberated houses seemed just the thing. I was trying for a pair of houses leaning against each other, supporting each other the way friends do.

That palette was a particular challenge for me to work with, let me tell you! There were three pieces in the packet that looked to be exactly the same color. Two of them were, and the third was only slightly different. We were allowed to add one or two solids of our choice. I added a red (the roof on "Freddy's house") and the blue for the sky. I was sorely tempted to embellish the block, or at least embroider a bit to dress it up, but I refrained. I figure whoever ends up with the block can decide whether it needs embellishment or not. I appreciate and enjoy the look of quilts made with only solid colors but I'm a more-is-better kind of gal!

;- )

Ready for Lunch?

Thanks for all of your positive comments on this strippy preemie quilt. It really is one of my favorites too. You may not be able to tell from the photograph, but it is now backed and quilted. (Hopefully you can get bigger images by clicking on the pictures.)


And here are the blocks I've been making for a new Foster Quilt.

I have a lot of novelty prints in my stash. One of the shorter stacks is comprised of food prints. I finally decided to see what I could do with them. I thought about some more wonky stars; they're so much fun to make. In the end I went with this variation of the Hole in the Barn Door pattern. Or maybe it's a variation of Churn Dash. Whatever. I chose it because it allowed me to feature one print in a really big square. The blocks will finish at 12". The center patch is 6".

Right off the bat I found I didn't always have a 6 1/2" square available for the center so I had to come up with some other block to use. That's when I reverted back to what I know as the original Hole in the Barn Door block. (Or Churn Dash. Or Monkey Wrench.)

It will be fun, I think, to have a mixture of block patterns throughout the quilt top. It will also be good to use up (or at least make a dent in) these old prints.

Back on the Orphan Train

When I was feeling so bad recently I needed a project that would distract me from my discomfort but not be demanding mentally. I dumped out my flannel scraps and found a section of rubber duckies and solid yellow I had pieced and never used. So I rummaged through the bigger strips and put this preemie top together:

It's backed and lightly quilted, ready to go. It's not quite as flat and pristine as I would like because the flannel stretched a bit with handling. No amount of pressing/steaming would shrink it back into place. {sigh} Oh well. Hopefully baby won't notice or care.

I also found a couple of 4Patch blocks I'd pieced at some point in time. There was a short stack of pre-cut squares too. That was enough to get me going on more 4Patch blocks, trying to use up some of the bits and pieces of flannels left over from making preemie quilts over the last few years.

This is 35 blocks, set 5 across by 7 down. (One of my Valentine roses leaning into the picture too!)

I realized that if I were to add a 3" border all the way around I could make the quilt big enough to donate to a local Project Linus effort. There was just enough of the blue flannel "Peanuts" print to do the job (with some strategic piecing in of additional 3" patches).

It may be too busy for some folks, but I really like this top. (I have tried to load things so you can click on the pictures and get a bigger image of the quilt.) My hope is that not only will the quilt provide comfort and warmth, but that the child will be intrigued by all the images and that some creative and caring adult will take the time to play I Spy with the child and this quilt. All I have to do now is get it layered and quilted or tied. ;- )

Whew!

I didn't expect such a big response to my give-away! How gratifying :- )

As a result I decided to make a second green bird to give away:

I'll announce the two winners on Sunday. Good luck to everyone who entered! And remember, you have until Saturday at 7 (Pacific time) to put your name in the hat.

I have finished the preemie quilt for January:

Of course I had no more of either of the prints I used in the original Shoo Fly blocks. It was a real challenge to find something else that would work with the existing top. I'm actually pretty happy with the way it turned out. It has an overall red, white, and blue look that I think is very appropriate for this historic month.

See you on Sunday!

Fun, But Not Ugly

It cooled off enough in these parts for me to be able to face turning the iron back on in the studio and do some sewing. (I have to keep the windows closed to maintain the air quality in my home and we do not have air conditioning. On top of that, my studio is on the west side of the house!) Naturally I had to have a go at the Fungly Challenge.

I'd discovered some larger scraps during the recent reorganization efforts so I figured I'd see what could be done with those to start with. It took me forever to even decide on a block pattern to use. I just didn't feel up to a bunch of triangles, even if we're not going for accuracy here. In the end I chose to make more liberated stars. This is what I came up with:

Not exactly fungly in my book. Fun, yes, but there's nothing I consider ugly in any of these prints! (Well, the one that reads as almost a solid black is uglier than the others in person.) Let's face it, the stuff in my stash is there - for the most part - because I like it or can see its' potential in a future quilt. Even if it's dated. I do still want to make a bed quilt of dark reds, indigo blues, and shirting reproductions someday. I may have to force myself to dig out the muted calicoes to mix with some novelty prints in order to make blocks that would really qualify for this challenge!

I also managed to finally bring the panda bear preemie quilt top up to size.

To recap, this top was built intuitively, starting with the fussy-cut panda patches. From that point on I simply added strips of varying widths to create blocks. Then it was jigsaw puzzle time, deciding on the placement of the blocks and adding strips as necessary to join the blocks together. I think the next preemie quilt I make will have to be something a little more straightforward. My brain is tired.

Now I have to find an appropriate flannel for the back. I'd better get on that while it's still cool...

July TIF

The question Sharon posed for July's Take It Further Challenge was, "What is it to be at the half way mark?"

What? That's it? That's almost too easy.

Ha. Not as easy as it seemed. I spent more time pondering, fretting, writing, and stewing over this challenge than any of the others she has given us this year. I have 14 pages of notes and sketches in my TIF sketchbook for this challenge alone. The ideas I had were either too trite or too complicated for the 4" x 6" format I've chosen for this project. Sheesh.

Finally I dug around in my stash for the umpteenth time and pulled out a ruler print I'd recently acquired. It's one of the Wee Play coordinates from Moda:

I fussy cut a strip with the numbers 1 through 6 and another strip with 7 through 12. Fortunately the strips fit beautifully within the 6" dimension of my postcard format! I figured each inch could represent one months' challenge and I would give myself a gold star for each challenge I had completed. Still a pretty simple concept but at least I have something to show for July. Went ahead and gave myself another gold star too!

And there has been a little action on the new preemie quilt:

Still a ways to go but hopefully I'll be able to knock it out pretty soon. One good day of concentrated effort ought to take care of it :- )

Aw, Shucks

I have been presented with an award by two of my fellow bloggers, Jane at Crazy Here & Now and Timaree at Freebird Drawing. I'm so flattered!


The award doesn't come without responsibilities however. The rules of acceptance are:

1. Put the logo on your blog. (check)

2. Add a link to the person who awarded you. (check, check)

3. Nominate 7 other blogs. (oof!)

4. Add links to those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

I have to confess that I'm not feeling up to speed at the moment for the last three requirements. My get up and go seems to have gotten up and left. If it comes back in a day or two I'll revisit this award and pass it on then, okay?

I've been the recipient of one other surprise recently too. My friend C~ brought a belated birthday gift to me:


These are fat quarters from last year's Western Washington Shop Hop. The fabric on top was made by In The Beginning specifically for the Shop Hop and, I think, is an almost perfect rendition of the region. I'm delighted to have more of it to play with now! (I used some for a pillow I made for one of my sons last year.)

The most recent sewing I've done was to begin another preemie top, again trying to use up some of those old prints from the 1980's. There's still some work to do, can you tell? ;- )

Giraffe Preemie Quilt

This one's for Carol :- )


It was this giraffe print that started this whole project, even though some bunnies managed to hop into it too...


The giraffe print has been in my stash since the 1980's. (Actually, now that I think about it, most of these fabrics have been!) It was only a quarter yard cut or so, and I'd fussy cut some of the images for a previous project at some point. The colors are just so pure and happy and it's so cute! That's probably why I've kept it in my stash for so long. But I have to make room for the newer prints coming in... I'm not getting any younger... I may as well let someone else enjoy the cuteness...

What's funny is that I didn't feel the urge to make this into something for one of my own granddaughters. I'm sure there will be more grandchildren in our family (I have two sons to marry off yet) but it just felt like the right time to finally make this up into something someone could actually use and enjoy. It's only 24" x 30" and is backed with a marbled yellow flannel. The layers are held together with stitching along the vertical seamlines. It took me a couple of weeks to get it started and finished, but there's no reason a person couldn't whip one up in a day. That's the beauty of preemie quilts. That, and the fact they provide color and comfort in the neo-natal intensive care units around the country.

Playing Around

It doesn't seem like four days since my last post! At least I have something to show for my absence...

I've had a bunch of junvenile prints in my stash for a long time that are cute as heck but I could never seem work them into anything. Finally I decided to just bite the bullet and cut them up into strips a la Bonnie over at Quiltville. I cut those prints and some others I wanted to get rid of into mostly 1.5," 2.5," and 3.5" strips. Then I picked up a couple of strips, sewed the short ends together, and before long I had this:

It's not quite up to preemie size yet. It needs another 3" in width and obviously needs to be trimmed across the top. I expect to add a narrow strip to each side to get the necessary width. The rows (columns) are not sewn together yet because when I got to this point I received a tiny little box in the mail. Probably the smallest size the Post Office will let you get away with mailing anymore! Inside the box was a set of salt dough medallions made by Sara S. If I were a better photographer I would have taken their picture for you. Because they are white and kind of shiny there's no way I'll be able to get a decent group shot of them. However, I was inspired to use one of them right away. In fact, I was inspired to try several things I'd been wanting to play with for a while now...

The medallion I chose to use features an impression of a set of long skinny leaves. I put that on a Color Catcher sheet that had been dyed this lovely color by going through the wash with one or more things that bled. I've been saving some of my more colorful used sheets for just this purpose. The bulky (boucle?) yarn is couched down with a variety of beads. I tacked silk roving under and around the nest charm. I also finally got to use a few of the vintage rectangular sequins I've had in my stash for a long time. The one problem I ran into was that I'd stitched the Color Catcher sheet to a piece of Peltex before I added all the other embellishments. So now I have a finished top but all the threads are exposed on the back. I will not use fusible products because of my chemical issues. I think what I'm going to do is use double-sided tape to adhere a piece of watercolor paper to the back to finish that side.

The one thing I would like to do is figure out a way to enhance the background somehow. It's too late for this particular effort, I think, but there have been a couple of other pieces where I've felt the background lacked something. My first reaction is to seed stitch the background with floss. Sometimes that's just too much effort! I guess what I'm looking for is a way to make marks on the background that will be subtle and not time consuming. And not harmful to my delicate system ;- )

Friends and Neighbors

My friend C~ came by again the other day. This time she left me with a pile of orphan blocks culled from her neighbor's bulging sewing room:


About half of them were crazy pieced blocks, the other half an assortment of various pieced patterns. It looked like the crazy blocks had been received in an internet swap, judging by signatures on a few of the blocks. There's a seasonal feel to most of the other blocks. You can see the Santa star in the picture above, and maybe you can also make out that those are chicks in the pastel block next to the star. Yup, there's also a Halloween block at the bottom of the pile! Right now I'm tempted to take each of these seasonal/holiday blocks and use it as a jumping off point for a preemie quilt. That would be half a dozen preemie quilts right there. Or maybe I'll combine them with some blocks of my own for a calendar quilt an older child could use and enjoy. We'll see.

In the meantime, I went through the crazy blocks to see what I could do with them. I think there were 9 when I started. I took one block apart completely. Whoever had tried to piece that one just didn't understand the sew-and-flip process. She had several pieces with loose edges and at least one that was sewn on wrong side up. Sometimes that is a viable option but not in this case! Another block had some great big patches in it but I couldn't make the colors/values work in combination with any of the other blocks. So I cut out the bigger pieces to re-use. I made a new block using some of my own fabrics and the patches from the two blocks I took apart. Then, to get the prescribed size for preemie quilts, I also pieced two smaller blocks.

Played around with the arrangement, sewed them together, backed it with flannel, turned it, topstitched it, and then used my machine to do a little feather stitching in strategic places. I love how quickly a preemie quilt goes together!

There are four crazy blocks left over. I'd like to whip out another preemie quilt but I still have the liberated stars and bits and pieces of bright batiks on my design wall, just waiting for someone to brush by and knock them off...