A Little Christmas Fun!

I needed a little break in my routine this year.  I'm in the process of downsizing my home and I suppose my life as well.  I downsized my quilting studio this fall;  I simply needed a small, less expensive place for my passion.  I love my new studio.  It is cozy and filled with the things I love.  That move was back in November and actually not really planned although I've had my eye open for a studio change for the last couple of years.  One finally came up in the same artist complex that my other studio was in.  I was able to put everything into the smaller space and still have room for a small couch and two director chairs.  If I wanted to, I could sit and hand quilt comfortably.

 Studio from the doorway.  Studio from my sewing machine. The diagonal wall is my design wall.

                    Half of my seating area.  The couch is opposite .

The end result of the move that had to be accomplished in two weeks was that I injured myself.  I strained and already injured knee and hurt my back.  I needed rest.  Very aggravating!  I needed to be working on my house and I wanted to be at the studio, but I knew I couldn't go and really accomplish anything while the looming Christmas Holiday.  I had so much to do.  But, surely, I wanted to be there and not at home.

Then I remembered a little ornament that I had seem on Pinterest.  Maybe some of you have made them as well.  It was the perfect project to give me the sense of accomplishment I so needed.  This is how they came out.

Needless to say,  they gave me ideas for next year!  I actually made twelve of them and all that received them were pleased.  Sometimes the simple things are just what I need.  :-)

Well, now it is January 1, 2017.  This is the year that my husband and I will leave our home of 38 years.  I raised my family here.  I have always considered this home a gift from God.  With that in mind, I know that the LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away;  Praise be to the LORD.  I'm looking forward to this move knowing that this is a new beginning and I look forward to it.

This is also a year of other new beginnings, hopefully.  I recently purchased a Migration Kit from Electric Quilt Company to migrate my EQ7 from my Dell laptop to my MacBook Air which I love.  I didn't realized how much I was missing the creativity of that program.  

 This quilt design is similar to Fifty-Four-Forty-Or-Fight block.  I did change it some and it now has a Storm At Sea circular movement to it.  I'm not sure how it will come out full size, but I have a great stash to play with.

So, with all that is going on in my life, I'm hopeful to retain a little bit of myself with my quilting.

Enjoying my blessings!


dianne

January 23, 2016 

How do you spell S. A. T. I. S. F. I. E. D?

How fast time goes by!  This has not been an easy year emotionally, but I'm now ready to move on.

I spent all my available time in my studio this past year quilting a beauty for a friend.  I started in January thinking I would be done no later that May or so.  My friend asked if I would quilt her quilt in August 2014.  I definitely hesitated.  I had only just begun to machine quilt and did not consider that I could do this quilt justice.  This quilt was a queen size at least.  I never measured it because I didn't have the space to do so, so size is a guesstimate.  As we talked, she told me I could learn on it, use it for practice.  The agreement was set and I took the quilt in.  I hung it so I could study it for a while.  I had no idea what to do with it.  It hung for five months.  I finished up a projects by the end of the year and basically went home for Christmas 2014.  As I waited for January, the quilt haunted me.  How am I going to quilt this quilt?

 When I returned to my studio (2015), I decided I just needed to bite the bullet and begin this overwhelming project.  Off the wall and onto the quilting tables.  Much larger than my tables and heavy because of the decorator fabric on the sides and back.  But this quilt was truly a beauty.  My friend had used marbleized fabrics, both hand dyed and printed.  Her colors where basically autumn in New England.  I don't know what she was expecting, but she had said, "Be creative".  So I began.  One block of fabric at a time.  I chose Superior Threads Bottom Line in taupe.  My quiting wasn't perfect and I didn't want to showcase anything that didn't work out right.  So I began.

It was a rough winter last year.  We had roughly 6 feet of snow...2 feet at a time...snow storm after snow storm. 

Needless to say, there was no place for the snow to go making it very difficult to remove.  Even the snow blower was hard work.  Me, I love New England, just above Boston near New Hampshire.  We did enjoy the snow, but I strained my hand using the snow blower.  I had to stop quilting for a while...months.  I kept thinking of my friend and her incredible patience as she waited.  She didn't once "tease" me about getting it done.  I did really appreciate that.

It was August before I made it back to my studio to work on the quilt.  I was hoping to have it finished before our leaves turned, but I didn't make it.  I was limited to working 2 to 3 hours at a time twice a week or less. The leaves were now off the trees.

My friend had a heart attack early that fall.  Would she be okay?  Would I get this done for her to see?  What would I do with the quilt if something happened to her?  It all weighed heavy on me as I continued to work on it...slowly.... finally, just before Thanksgiving I finished it after 110 to 120 hours.  I was tired of working on only one project, but I was so totally satisfied with what I had learned,  the creativity that went into it, the workmanship, and a job well done.

I called my friend to drop it off in her loft a short walk from my studio.  Would she like it?  I hoped so.  She was stunned!  She sat there with her long awaited new friend, the quilt.  She stroked it.  She turned it every which way.  She talked, then looked at the quilt again.  She wouldn't even let her beloved dog sleep on it!  I don't blame her.  Not because of my work, but because her work and creativity actually what was made the quilt.  It is so beautiful!!

It was hard to get a photo with my iPhone because the quilt is so large and the quilting does not stand out.  But this gives you an idea.  Truly, by the time I was done, free motion quilting was easy!

Thanks, Max, for trusting me with your beloved quilt!

Enjoying my blessings,
dianne

August 2015

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!  I love you!

 

So  I had some fun this summer while sitting out on my back porch.  Too hot for the studio, but beautifully perfect in the shade of the porch.  So I watched a video on fabric painting, specially using water based gutta or resist to keep the paint from blending.  All I did to get the feel for it is draw with the resist making different, random shapes.  Then I took fabrics paint and colored it in after the resist dried.  The picture above is the result.  Seeing I wasn't able to FMQ this summer I had to do something.  What a great way to pass a hot summer morning!

Well, it got my creativity up and running, even through I had a quilt at the studio that needed my attention.  Iwas looking at the 3 small circle designs and could see a monkey (upper rightjust above center).  Hmmm, my granddaughter loves monkeys. (Hope she doesn't find out they are not all like Curious George.)  I drew up a quick sketch in my notebook that had the look of resist without resist, decided it would be fun to do and went at it.

So, I enlarged my sketch and traced it onto white fabric.  I layered backing, batting and the picture fabric, then stitched around each shape with 30 weight black cotton thread.  (30 wt. thread is heavy thread.) Quilting done, I used  a thick fabric paint that does not run, painting in each shape.  What's  fun about fabric paint?  It is easy to match the colors of store bought fabrics.  I used only red, yellow and blue for all the colors in the fabric painting.

Added the borders and back from a yard of stripes.

The end result was a big fat pillow for my granddaughter's 6th birthday.


Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!  I love you.

Enjoying my blessings,
Grams

What's off the Hoop?

What's off the Hoop?

I decided to pass on a quilt that I finished back in 1985.  It is a queen size blue Giant Dahlia.  Back in '85 I couldn't decide how to quilt the giant dahlia that is the centerpiece to this quilt.  I didn't like the designs that came with the pattern, so I chose only to quilt around each patch.  It is a pretty quilt, but I was always concerned about the large unquilted spaces; I needed to be very careful how I handled it.  Twenty years ago, my oldest son asked me if he could have the quilt.  I simply wasn't ready to give it up.  We are now to the point where we are downsizing and it is time for it to move to my son's home.  But those large unquilted spaces were still a problem.

It was early in January this year that I decided to set up my quilting frame from back in the late '80s.  I pulled the Giant Dahlia out of my glass front quilt cabinet and placed it across the frame.  It wasn't going to fit on my 8 foot frame.  I chose to work using my floor stand hoop.  But still I didn't know how I was going to quilt it.  Over the passed two years, I have learned how to free motion quilt on a domestic sewing machine.  One of the benefits of learning this new skill is how my creativity has been triggered.  I decided I wanted the dahlia to have a sense of life, not just a quilting pattern, but a design that would be organic representing life.  I started that first round in the beginning of January.  At the same time I placed another quilt in need of quilting since the early 90's onto my fame.  I really wanted to sit at the frame again, so I did.  I was making good progress on that quilt when I realized I wanted to buckle down and work on the Dahlia.  So I began late January, early February.

Giant Dalhia finished in1985 

laying across my frame in January 2015

1990s quilt now on frame was a distraction from Giant Dahlia

I had stopped quilting by hand years ago because the tendon in my right hand would ache after a short time of work.  Quilting a good size quilt would take a year to get done.  My machine quilting was now either in the ditch using a walking foot (seven I Spy quilts) or putting my Juki TL98 on a portable Handi Quilter frame.  I designed my own scroll design to quilt up six Yellow Brick Road quilts.  I also tried my hand at free motion quilting.  I quilted quilts that would never win a prize anywhere, but I enjoyed working that way.

In 2013, I decided I wanted to finish hand quilting a quilt I had started 10 years before.  As I sat working on that quilt (the red and green double wedding ring variation picture in my last post), I realized how much I had missed hand quilting.  As I worked on that quilt, I began using my thimble on my index finger or thumb.  That took and incredible amount of strain off the tendon in my hand and I found I could quilt so much faster that way.

Back to Giant Dahlia.  I began by simply quilting free hand. As I finished each round, I decided I wanted to make the next round different.  As the spaces got bigger, I realized I needed to be able to repeat each pattern more accurately.  I began cutting shapes out of light card stock.  It worked perfectly.  I would trace around my shapes, then quilt that round.  Each consecutive round changed.  I finished Giant Dahlia yesterday, March 21, 2015.  Finally after all these years, it is ready to be passed on. 

Giant Dahlia with new 2015 upgrade!!

March 21, 2015

A little better detail shot

You can't see out my windows, but there has got to be 4 feet of snow out there and it is freezing cold still when we should be seeing some signs of spring here in Massachusetts.  I finally got to wash Giant Dahlia yesterday and hang her out on a new clothes in on my back porch installed especially to hang washed quilts!  That is almost as exciting as finishing the quilt!

Just hangin' around!

I sat for hours just gazing at Giant Dahlia.  Yes, I'm ready to pass her on.

So, that is what is off my hoop!

Enjoying my blessings!

dianne

New Old Quilt

I was in an antique shop that my husband and I occasionally frequent. There laying across an old chair she hung.  Every so often one comes leaping out of the woodwork and grabs my attention enough to think it is worth purchasing.  This beauty was it.  I make her sound like it was some fantastically pieced, appliqued and densely hand quilted hidden treasure.  Well it wasn't, but that doesn't change her beauty.  She is right out of the 1930s.  Yes,  she is a 1930s feed sack Dresden Plate quilt that was tied rather than quilted.  In her day, my guess is that she was red, white and blue primarily.  I'm so sure she lovingly graced the bed of the maker or a very loved one.  I call her "she" because she is so feminine and beautiful after all these years.  She is indeed as beautify as an old women.  Her color has faded, but her beauty has not.  Wouldn't it be nice if we were to look at old age as we do old quilts.  The graying washed out hair (which the Psalmist calls "a crown of glory") and the slightly out of date fabrics make our elderly women a treasure as well.  They have served those around them well and have received a crown of glory for their love and attention.  As a quilt, we honor this Dresden Plate quilt for her age and remaining beauty.  We should give our elderly women the same honor.  To our senior citizens I give that honor.

Here she is in all her glory!

Dresden Plate circ. 1930s

Note her beautiful age spots.  For her, they will wash out ;-)

You can see how faded she is now.  She's so pretty looking pastel that I was shocked to see her so faded.  She must have been a real beauty in her youth.

This is my precious sidekick.  She is Little English Maiden.  My grandmother embroidered and appliqued each little girl, then did a blanket stitch round each skirt and bonnet.  I expect during the 30s she worked on it.  I remember it on my bed as a cotton coverlet when I was a very young child. My mother had taken the blocks and used a blue and white stripe cotton as spacer blocks and added the same fabric as a long ruffle that hung down to cover the mattress.

Much to my surprise, my mother saved this little darling.  The blue stripe was damaged with I received those blocks sometime in the late 70s early 80s, probably after I learned to quilt. By the mid 80s I wanted to make it into a little quilt.  I found a small 80s calico print that wasn't to jarring with the 30s fabric and hand quilted it.  I remember enjoying working on this quilt so much.  Shear pleasure; easy to quilt.  

When I brought her to my grandmother to see her work finished, she said, "I always thought I would make a quilt in my lifetime, but I never did."  She was in her late 80s at that time.  A long time to be so close yet never achieve that simply pleasure.  

Together:

1930s Dresden Plate and Little English Maiden

I just kind of dropped these two quilts on my bed a few minutes ago.  They lose so much in pictures  The blues are so close.  They will be beautiful together on my loft bed this summer.  But before I do that I need to do a little repair, replace the binding (greatest damage) and give it a gentle soaking.  I'm so psyched!

Enjoying my blessings!

dianne

It's a New Beginning...

I made my first quilt top in 1969, having no idea what quilting was all about, but I have loved hand sewing since I was 5 years old.  I was given several pieces of cotton fabric as I sat on the floor near my mother as she tried to do her sewing on her Singer treadle.  I immediately fell in love with the feeling of cotton in my hands and the delight of beautiful colors and designs.  That love has never changed .

So my first quilt top was a hexagon quilt made with a handmade template that was drawn unevenly and given to my mother (who also did not quilt and had no idea what she was doing!).  Not being able to sew on seam lines and have the patches fit, we decided to fold under 3 edges and a running stitch to connect the pieces together.  The finished top was eventually hand tied and placed on a bed.  I loved that quilt...I still do!  That top is now 46 years old...I haven't known my husband that long!

So, I'm very new to blogging and I'm on a learning curve, but I love technology as much as I love quilting.  This first post is primarily to figure out how this blog works and can I get a picture of that quilt on that blog...let's see what I can do.

I did it!!

You know, after all these years, I still love these colors.  Red is my favorite and green follows second.  I'm hoping to make repairs to this quilt in the relatively near future.  I would still place it across the end of my bed and curl up under it to nap.  I do realize that this could be considered one of my ugly quilts.   :-)

Moving on...

I still love red and green.

This quilt is more recent.  As you can see, my skill has improved.  This quilt was actually juried into  IMAGES (Lowell Quilt Festival, MA).  It didn't win any prizes, but I'm still very proud of this quilt.  I designed it in a class at IMAGES in 2003 and finished quilting in 2013. My hands gave out and I had to put it away.  By the time I picked it up again in 2013, I had learned to quilt with my thumb and my forefinger.  I can now quilt for long periods of time. Hand quilting is so relaxing to me.  

Well, I've spent a long time on the learning curve today.  Not too bad for "not a kid anymore!"  I have one of my old quilts on the standing hoop that I'm trying to add quilting to it in order to to help preserve it and pass it on to my oldest son and his wife.  I think after this long day it is time to quilt.

Enjoying my blessings!

dianne