This Ha Been a Crazy Year!

 This has been a crazy year!  I love quilting, but I found last year (2020), I needed to move away from quilting.  I cannot quite explain why, but I just felt if I continued to quilt, a part of me would get lost.  I began to work on my End of Life documents.  I simply don't want to be left indefinitely on a life support system.  It is that simple.  I truly enjoyed a Bible Study on this subject.  I found it greatly uplifting in a difficult season of lock down.  It was freeing to me.  That document came together very well.  In January of this year, we purchased our burial place.  All of this gave me such a sense of freedom.  I know this all sounds crazy, but it was a great way to spend 2020.  No, I'm not ready to die yet, but death will come one day and I just feel at peace about it.  This was an awesome project.

Early this year, 2021, I returned to quilting.  I needed something to keep my hands busy.  I own an Electric Quilt 8 program.  I began to design a scrappy quilt and decided to piece it by hand.  I still spend a lot of time in the house and it simply felt like I would be more productive and not just sitting.  The inspiration for this quilt was some lessons on Civil War Fabrics by Barbara Brackman.  As she taught on fabric, we were suppose to be working on Sawtooth Star blocks with the goal of learning about fabrics while finishing a quilt.  I never started, but it seemed like the perfect project.  So I began in March sometime.  This is my design from EQ8...

 This is the finished center without borders...

This looks crooked here, but I think it is the photography...What can I say!  It will be measured before I cut the border.

     I'm so excited to be this far along.  It may be a while before I get back to the borders, I have some clothes I need to work on.  But I do need to get back to this soon.  The first border will be hand pieced, the others will be done by machine.  I know that seems like a cop out, but the fact is, this quilt will be machine quilted.  I love machine quilting!! And my hands are not as strong as they used to be.  

     My plan for the next year is to finish up this quilt first, maybe second or third.  Then I have a stock pile of quilt tops to be quilted, at least ten.  That's my plan for 2022.  If I get part of this list accomplished, I think I will actually have really accomplished something!

 

 

These are 4 1/2" when finished blocks for a Dear Jane quilt. 

 (The other blocks are orphan blocks that I hope to do something with one day.  Maybe simply an orphan block quilt, who knows.)

 

       Dear Jane is not a quick or simply quilt.  I can do maybe one block a day.  Those pieces are tiny.  If I can use foundation piecing, that is what I do.  I think there are 225 blocks in this quilt, There are the triangular "blocks" for the border.  I know I will never complete all the quilts that I'd like to complete, but I sure have fun dreaming!!

Enjoying all of God's Blessing,

Dianne

Back to Quilting...2020..."Paris Texas"

I did very little quilting this past year.  I think I finished three quilts.  I made one for Elsie and one for my Pastor and his wife...mostly for Rene.   Hmmm...that makes only two.  When we first went into COVID-19 mode lockdown,  I simply thought I needed something different from Quilting.  I spent a lot of time at my desk in Bible Study projects.  I got a lot accomplished and felt that I had actually accomplished a lot by doing so.  

 I was piecing this last quilt as C-19 began to spread.  I put it aside and thought in December I needed to finish it for Christmas.  I love the way it came out.  I feel like I finished off a beautiful quilt.  This is a kit from Craftsy.com.  I purchased it on sale and put it away for a while.  It is called "Paris Texas".  For me, I simply loved the large star and the colors of this quilt.

This is quilted with ruler work.  The cross hatch is barely visible.  In the upper right hand corner you can see the lines in the corner block with cross hatching in it.  The outer boarder is done in "piano keys", straight lines.  

This is a better view of the lines and cross hatching.  I also quilted in the ditch around all the triangles of the star.  

I love the sunlight coming through quilts on the line.  It was very cold out the day I took these pictures.  I wish I had take more so that I had good choices.  The back is a floral print, Jacobean style.  All the fabrics were feminine in nature, but the quilting was all straight lines for a masculine touch.

This quilt has a cotton/polyester 80/20 blend batting, but I thought it was too thin for our New England cold winters, so I added a layer of flannel to the inside.  I have one on my bed that has and extra layer of cotton in it.  I love the weight and the warmth.

Still counting my blessings!

d