From the Vault - Illusory On-Point Quilt

I made this quilt six years ago, in February of 2010.  It's approximately 48" across and 57" tall.

I had finished my shopping at JoAnn Fabrics, and was browsing magazines on the way to the checkout lane.  I found this quilt, in these colors, in a Fons and Porter magazine.  I immediately wheeled my cart around and went back and bought my own version of the black/white, pink, and green fabrics.  

It looks like an on-point setting, but it isn't - it's made of rows of 9.5" square blocks.  

I drew in these white lines to delineate four blocks from the upper left corner of the quilt.

In the upper right and lower left, you see that the blocks were made with a large square of black/white polka dot fabric, with triangles in two corners.  The remaining two blocks were made similarly, but with four triangles.

I remember this quilt requiring a lot of focus so I wouldn't mess up the placement.  And I remember that there was a lot of waste from the triangles, which were made from squares that got sewn on the diagonal, then flipped back and trimmed.

I like the peace symbols on the green fabric, and the busyness of the light black/white fabric.  It almost looks like more piecing is going on there.

For quilting, I did diagonal lines of green thread in one direction, and pink in the other.

I remember that the pattern called for giant black rick rack, but I didn't do that.

The back is too horrendous to show.  I used up fat quarters of really old black, green, and pink fabrics that I didn't like at all.  And let me emphazise AT ALL.  Nowadays I use something that ugly just to practice quilting on.

Monday is Fun Day - Duck with Egg on Head

I have a set of wire cubbies on the edge of my sewing table, and I swap things in and out according to whim.  

Right now, one of the cubbies has this duck which I bought earlier this month from my favorite "Parisian Flea Market", during their Easter-themed weekend sale.  The duck would have been cute unadorned, but I like it even better after the owner got done decorating it.  She has such creative ideas.

At the duck's feet, you can see a tiny ceramic figurine of two mice that I bought the same day.

What I'm Smelling

I took a little trip to my favorite nursery yesterday.  A few weeks ago I was hankering for some color and they had little.  Yesterday they had lots and I opted for white.

What won me over was the scent of this Madagascar Jasmine.  They don't have this plant very often, so on this trip I decided to go for it.

The odor is sweet and medium strong - it's enough to fill up a room without being overpowering.

It's a vine, and it looks a lot like Mandevilla to me.

The flowers have long tubes, like Nicotiana.

So this is what I'll be smelling in my sewing room for the next few months.

Starting the Quilt That Goes with My Elephant Pillow

This morning I cleaned off my sewing table which has been cluttered with a stalled project for the past few weeks.  As is typical after a sewing room redecoration project, I ignore the room for a few weeks and wander off to do other things instead of reveling in the awesomeness (!) of what I just created.  

Anyhow, that project on the table was plugging up my brain, because I really didn't want to work on it.  So instead of working around it, I packed up all those many pieces that I had carefully laid out, and freed up some energy.

I found myself raring to go on the quilt that goes with my elephant pillow, and have most of the blocks cut out.  This is the front.  

I have some good ideas for the back, totally different from the front.  I guess it's going to be a genuine two-sided quilt.  More on that next week.

Quilt Finish - Wonder Bird

I finished my wool bird applique last week, but couldn't make a label because I couldn't think of a name.  

I asked my husband what he thought I should name it and he said Wonder Bird.  Knowing my struggle, he gave me the perfect name, because I'd been wondering what kind of bird it was.

I don't usually like a cotton border on a wool project, but this Kim Schaefer fabric was just perfect.

The pattern is "Birds and Berries" by Angela Lawrence.  The pattern is for a wool pillow, but I wanted a little quilt instead.

I've already talked about all the steps along the way, so I don't have much to say about it now.

This photograph shows the variety of embroidery I did, along with the straight-stitch hand quilting.

The legs are a little puny and spiky, but wool legs would have been too fat.

The back.

The label, with a fussy-cut bird wondering about something.

Monday is Fun Day - Elephant Pillow

A new pillow for the chair in my sewing room.  This week I'll start a quilt to go with it.

Monday is Fun Day - Bon Printemps

It's not quite spring yet, but one can still anticipate the upcoming bon printemps, or lovely spring.

I picked up this nest over the weekend from a local "Parisian flea market".  It was the first time they were open this year.

I had to look up bon printemps when I got home.  For all I knew, it meant "check out this cool nest!".

The small pedestal is something I picked up in the clearance aisle of HomeGoods the other week.  It only cost $2 and I love pink, so I figured I could find some use for it.  And it didn't take very long.

My New Favorite Way of Joining Binding Strips

On my wool bird applique quilt, I tried a new way of joining my binding strips.  I don't know where I saw it, but it's probably nothing new to you.  I guess I'm just late to the party.

Overlap the edges at a 90-degree angle, right sides together.  Then draw a diagonal line that goes from the upper-left corner of the bottom strip to the lower-right corner of the top strip.  

You have to peek to see where the corner is on the bottom strip, but that's easy to do.  All you need is a straight-edge, no messing around with a 45-degree angle on a ruler.

Stitch on the line; trim excess fabric to 1/4".

Open it up, press it, and admire the nice straight line made by the two strips of binding.

SO easy. 

Now I'll show you how I've done it for my entire previous quilting life.  I found this in some (dumb) book when I was just learning to quilt.

Cut the edges on a 45-degree angle.  Be sure you cut the other edge of the strip the exact same direction, so the lines are parallel.

Join the 45-degree angles.  But don't do it like this.  You know that when you sew a 1/4" seam, those two strips aren't going to be aligned properly when opened up.

Follow the picture in the (dumb) book and leave little tails on each side.  Looks good to me.  Sew a 1/4" seam.

It doesn't look so good now, does it?  Criminy.  Rip it out and try different size tails.

After much trial and error on my quilts, over many years, I finally figured out the perfect overlap.  I guarantee this makes a straight strip.

But isn't my new favorite way much easier?  

Quilting with Embroidery Thread

I'm nearing the finish line on my wool bird applique quilt.  I added a cotton border and machine quilted it.  But I wanted to hand quilt the central wool panel.

I had some beige hand quilting thread, perfectly matched to my background.  See the line of stitching below the branch?  Hard to see, right?  I didn't like it and wasn't sure what to do.

Then I thought why not try embroidery floss.  See the line of stitching above the branch?  More visible, with a nice sheen.  I like it.  Luckily I didn't do very much with the quilting thread, so there's not that much to rip out.

Small Prints

 I think small prints are great for hand applique and paper piecing, both of which I plan on doing lots of this year. 

Small prints were pretty scarce in my stash, so a few weeks ago, I walked through a quilting store and bought 1/3 yard of every small print that I liked.   I found 36 of them.

If you bend your head downward at a 90-degree angle toward your left shoulder, you'll see elephants in the white and yellow fabric. 

Do the same thing toward your right shoulder and you'll see foxes.

I had these in a bag on the floor for three weeks, along with a bunch of other fabric I didn't know what to do with.  But now all of these new small prints live on the 4th shelf of my dollhouse bookcase.  And the entire floor piggy pile is gone, after the sewing room redo last week.

This was my previous collection of small prints, mostly 1930s reproductions.  I could put them in with the new ones, but I like them on this cake stand instead.