Quilting At The Beach

We have been staying at a beach house, actually called a fish camp locally, on the Galveston intercostal waterway.



When we rent a house like this we like to invite family to join us. The first part of our stay was with my brother and sister in law.



The guys fished and the gals brought our sewing machines and had a little quilt retreat.



There have been lots of herons and other interesting birds on this bay side of the island. This is not a great picture but we have nightly pelicans that swim just on the edge of the pier lights checking out the fish that come to the lights.




I have been working on getting some appliquéd blocks sashed and put together. I am two thirds done with Sally Post, I just love the bright colors in this one.



The second quilt I am working on is the red and green appliqué blocks.




I have all the blocks put together and now am starting a few hundred half square triangles.



I decided to put a dogtooth border around the center appliqué blocks, but I am going to piece them not do appliqué. Then I plan to put a 7 inch white border, which I will quilt with a feather border and finally one more border of half square triangles.

Today I am going to pack up the sewing machine. Our son's family is coming and this second weekend at the beach will be spent playing with my four year old grandson and keeping a close eye on him with all this water around.




I also brought my reproduction sampler from Scarlet Letter and have gotten a good start on it. Stitching on linen is a new challenge for me, but I am happy to say I have put in more stitches correctly then ones I have had to "frog" - a new term for me in the cross stitch world (rip it, rip it).

Happy stitching from a girl who is very glad she has missed snowstorm Q,
Cheri

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

18 grapes

I was working on my last border of Ladies of the Sea (pattern by Sue Garman) this weekend . I was down to the last 18 grapes and noticed that crinkly look to my thread that you see at the end of the spool.

Oh no, this close and I did not want have to order more thread to finish these last few grapes.  But, I made it!  The top is finished!

 I have  been working on her a lonnnnng time, about 3 1/2 years, but then I have to give myself credit for all the time she had to sit while I was doing the long arm quilting business.

A little review about her.  The patterns were originally put out by Sue Garman as a block of the month in 2007 and 2008. Each ship is surrounded by a wreath with flowers from the area of each ship's origin.

I bought the patterns as a set in 2009 when they were made available to buy the whole set at once.  The background fabric is a Kona Cotton and all of the applique is with left over Hoffman Bali Batiks in my stash.  I machine appliqued  this quilt using King Tut variegated threads in a small blanket stitch.

There is a lot of hand embroidered detail but I did each ship's rigging with a 12 weight black thread and the straight stitch (straight being the key word where the riggings were concerned) on my sewing machine.  I brought all the starting and ending threads to the back of the quilt and tied them off, threaded the tails in a needle and ran them under a few stitches before clipping, whew, that is probably the part that took 3 years.  

I am so pleased with how she has turned out so far.  I thought briefly about hand quilting her, but I have another hand project I want to start and it makes me a little crazy to have to many projects going on at once.  Today I have raised up my cutting tables on PVC pipe and got the quilt layered and the pinning has started, I will machine quilt her.

I am off to the real sea, for a couple weeks away from the winter weather.  I have still not figured out how to blog from my Ipad so I will be back next month. I am taking my sewing machine and a couple smaller projects with me to the beach house where we will be staying.  I intend to set up in front of a main window and watch my DH fishing, watch the ocean, take lots of walks along the shore, and sew.

Happy Stitching All,
Cheri

Vintage Quilt Kit

My friend Renee, from my applique group, purchased this unfinished quilt top on eBay.  It was just the preprinted top, no applique fabrics, directions, or even a picture of the finished quilt.  She did all of the hand applique and  now has a good portion of the hand quilting finished.  The edges will be cut into a scalloped shape.  Isn't it beautiful.

We have had  fun trying to learn a little more about this quilt.  The edge of the quilt was printed Progress #1376.  Some of the little tidbits we have learned is that the quilt was named Garden Poppies.  The Progress company produced quilt kits between 1923 - 1994. About 135 different patterns have been documented.   They sold to department stores like Macy's and catalog companies like Lee Wards.   Unopened vintage quilt kits from this period sell for upwards of $395.  I looked up Garden Poppies at the Quilt Index and they have two similar quilts made from kits  from the Bucilla company, they were both made in the early 1980s. 

This quilt top was preprinted with a stamped blue ink for the appliques and dotted quilting lines. All of the applique lines have been covered by the applique, but she is a little concerned about the light blue dots for the quilting guide lines.  I think they are hardly noticeable, you have to look hard to see them (like a quilt judge would do if she were to ever put the quilt in a show) and they add to the charm and history of this quilt.  She is willing to wet the top, but just does not want to put the whole thing through the washer at this point.

I have been working on the two latest blocks from the Sally Post Floral Sampler.  I think I only have the greens to finish on these two blocks, then another block becomes available on Saturday over at Sentimental Stitches.  I just noticed on my blog list that Gay over at Sentimental Stitches and Brenda from Dear Jane have come up with another bimonthly Just Takes 2 quilt for 2013.  Schoolhouse blocks with different patchwork blocks on the sides of each school house.  Too, too, cute! 

Happy Stitching All,
Cheri

Can't Quite Move On

I have the new hand applique quilt pattern I mentioned in the last post that I want to start, but I can't quite quit on the red and green applique blocks.

I finished three more blocks and now have 25 completed.

I have been playing around with an arrangement for the blocks and kind of like this one:

I think I am going to stop with these 25 blocks.  The blocks will finish at 9 inches and I would like the quilt to be around 70 to 80 inches square when complete so I have to come up with some sashing and borders.  I love taking pictures of the blocks and then seeing them on the blog.  It gives me a different perspective.  Maybe I will do a little more rearranging of the center vertical and horizontal rows (the "square" applique blocks)  Maybe those 4 outside row heavier blocks should be around the center block?

Or not...I think the rearranging may go on a bit : )
Happy Stitching!
Cheri

Applique!

A whole lot of applique has been going on around here.

I am all caught up on the Sally Post Floral Quilt. Gay over at Sentimental Stitches has been posting a block each Saturday from this quilt from 1854.  There are 36 blocks in all and we are up to block 19, but the first 19 are all still available for download if you want to join in.  She has each block on point (diagonal)  like the original quilt or a straight set option each week.   These are great little primitive blocks, they are 8 inches, and pretty fast to work up.  I am doing these blocks on my machine with blanket stitch applique and I like the diagonal setting.  I usually sew the setting triangles and sashing to each block as I complete it, but I have a quilt retreat coming up the end of February and that will be a good project to work on there.

I also have been doing some hand work on the peahen block from the Elly Sienkiewicz class I took at the International Quilt Festival back in November.  I have been working on the peahen off block on a light interfacing.  All of her embroidery embellishment is completed.  I need to do a little more work on her Ultrasuede spots and then I will cut out the interfacing 1/8 inch away from the peahen and turn it under as I applique her onto the block. 

The third border on Ladies of the Sea (Sue Garman pattern)  is getting close to finished, here is one end of it with the corner  Mariner's Compass block added.  This is another machine blanket stitch applique project.  The Mariner's Compass was paper pieced and then, because I am an appliquer, I just appliqued the finished circle onto a corner block instead of fussing with piecing that circle and the funky shapes to try to make it a flat square.

And finally, I have another block finished for the red and green mystery album - mystery because I still do not know how I am going to put all these blocks together.  This pattern was from Elly Sienkiewicz Beloved Baltimore Album Quilts book.  The roses are folded.  They start out as circles that are folded in half,

then in thirds,

and the last third going not quite to the the left edge, making a visible fold on the rosebud and also slightly squaring off the top.

 The folded rosebud is then tucked under the calyx and just the calyx is appliqued.  I did not stitch down the rosebud, but I did add a little yellow french knot in that little squared off rosebud tip, that tacks down the rosebud just a bit. 

Bummer, now that I see this picture on the computer I see that I need to redo and  recenter that second rosebud.
Anyway, I have been having fun here, doing what I like best...applique.
Happy Stitching All,
Cheri

A Little Cleaning Out

Happy New Year!

I have been working steadily on Ladies of the Sea, and the red and green applique, but no new pictures to show.  I decided to start the new year with a little sewing room cleaning out.  I tried putting a couple books and some fabric for sale on ebay over the weekend.  I was surprised how well I did, my Thimbleberries fabrics are gone, I have not used anything from that collection for years. 

  So I decided to have another go and went thru some of my Aunt Grace fabric stash and put a couple more books for sale.

 There are a lot of books I buy, just to read about a technique but that I do not have any intention of making anything out of, so I am not real sentimental about some of the quilting books I buy.  I enjoy the read or looking thru them and then can let them go.   I tend to buy a whole fat quarter collection of fabric and have lots of fat quarters I don't use.  It is time to thin this stash one way or another.  If this goes well this week I am going to get into the batiks next.

Christmas

Wishing You All
      

    Faith, Hope, and Love

                   And A Very Merry Christmas

Isaiah 9:6

New International Version (NIV)

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.