Heritage Quilt

Finally, after four years, my Heritage Quilt top is nearly done!  While I followed the Moda project sheet I did make the quilt blocks 6" (instead of 8") as I used a 5" charm pack for the Pinwheels.  One charm pack, lots of background fabric and wide sashing produced a quilt that is 64" sq.  Plan to add about 8" borders of that beautiful bird/floral fabric to make it about 80" sq.  Feel that I need to make that wide a border to show off the beautiful fabric!!  This is the first "Collection for a Cause" line based on antique quilts in Mark Dunn's (owner of Moda) quilt collection.  Well, the hst blocks got buried on the cutting table for a couple years and when I found them, I needed a Leaders and Enders project and that is how it finally got done!

Still working on my Broken Dishes blocks for the last Jo Morton Club!  What good fortune I had when I opened a box of scraps and found that I had used only Half of them in the little quilt below (that was a another club project a few years back!)!  I still had to cut apart, press and trim but the Sewing Work was done!        The second Broken Dishes quilt will be larger due to the fact that an unpieced square will alternate with the pieced blocks!  Might make the quilt even larger (fullsize) as I have had a hankering to make a bed quilt since seeing a pattern in the Nov 2007 Quilters Newsletter......

 These Broken Dishes blocks are 2-1/2" so it will take a Very Long time to finish a large quilt But, that's okay, I am a process person and enjoy the work as I go along!!  Or, on second thought, maybe I'll make bigger blocks so there will be room for handquilting.  I'll think about that later!! 

 During my organizing lately, I have come across forgotten treasures, as I know many of you have.........for some reason, this time of year just begs for organizing and making everything neat and tidy!!  This is an early Judie Rothermel line "Civil War Legacies" from the late 1990's I believe.  Since it was an intact fq bundle, I never "Scrapped" it but it is now!  6-1/2" strip, squares and also 1-1/2" strips for the large log cabin blocks and Postage Stamp quilt.   I found more goodies that I will write about later!!  

 Everyone has their favorite methods of "Scrap Management" and this is mine....actually, I am creating scraps from yardage so they will be handy when I want to use them (and not have to handle a 1/2 or 1 yard length of fabric!)  This line of fabric happens to be Judie Rothermel's Olde Sturbridge Village Harvest.  First, I cut a 6-1/2" strip across the width of the fabric.  Then cut a roughly 6-1/2" square off the selvage end for the scrap boxes.  What remains goes into another box for another day.  With this line, I have a Plan so I further cut little 2-1/2" squares for 4-Patches.  The 4" narrow strips at the bottom of the photo are for my 3-3/4" log cabin blocks and 3" railfence blocks.  The little tiny scraps at the top will work for the first or second round on the dark side of the log cabin blocks.  Here is the Plan for the Harvest fabric......it is from Petra Prins' "Treasures from Holland"..........hers is a wallhanging size so I plan to enlarge it.   Highly recommend Petra's book!!!

Another group of 25 railfence blocks are done!  Accomplished by using them as Leaders and Enders while assembling the Heritage quilt top!  Makes me feel so Efficient to accomplish more than one task at a time!!  Have a total of 78....only 498 left to go!  Soon I may start assembling just to see how they look!  I've been also working on another batch of my 3.75"log cabin blocks....I like to work on strip-piecing about 30 at a time....I need to face the fact that I really like to piece blocks!  Listening to "The Poisonwood Bible" audiobook.....that is part of what draws me upstairs in the evening!  

 Newest fabric from Jo Morton "Spice Market".....gorgeous madder colors of rust, brown, red along with golds.  She must love spice colors as this is her third "Spice" line!  Wonderful for 1860-70's reproductions!

Time to call it a Day..........can't make up my mind whether to sew or read my two new books!

Hope Quilt and CW Quilt Plan

This Quilt-in-Progress is a copy of a circa 1830 quilt in the collection of Mark Dunn (owner of Moda) who produced the fabrics in his "Collection for a Cause" series in 2011.  So it's been close to two years that I have been working on this on-and-off.  Am hand-piecing the Stars and assembling the six offset strips of 6-1/2 stars by machine.  The photo is a horizontal shot......the seam is right in the middle of the photo but the fabric is so busy, it is hard to discern!  Have 9 stars left to piece.....hope it is down to 8 by the time this evening is over!!

These are two blocks trimmed and ready to make into the fifth strip.

This is the block I hope to finish tonight.  At some point during the making of these blocks, I was looking for ways to make them go faster (I am a slow sewer!).  I had been marking the seam lines with pencil on all the shapes, but experimented with just marking the seam lines on the diamonds and rotary-cutting the squares and triangles with no seam lines penciled on them.  I figured that by simply using the marked lines on the diamonds and lining the raw edges up just as in machine-piecing, I would spend no time checking to see that both lines were aligned and it worked!  I can make the blocks faster now.........bet others have already figured that little trick out!!  After I sew across the center seam, I can start anywhere setting in the squares and triangles and won't even have to break the thread as I go from one to another.  I do secure the stitching at the beginning and end of each shape but can just sew until I run out of thread!  (usually work with an 18" length).

Since I have so many quilts in my head that I want to make, it is so Hard to Resist just making a block or two!  I have had this book, "Reproduction Quilts from the Civil War Period 1850-1865" by Judie Rothermel for years and would like to make most of the 16 quilts, but know that I will need to choose only a few.  The cover quilt is a bar quilt with a variety of blocks and I believe based on an 1843 New Jersey Friendship quilt in the Smithsonian collection.  Have a photo of the original.

Sooooo, this is my first block.....the top and bottom rows use this Chimney Sweep pattern..........and it is quick to make!  Might progress on this one a little faster.  Sewing machine-piecing is daytime/early evening work and later in the evening, it is hand-piecing (yes, I am a NightOwl!) cuddled on the sofa in the living room.

Below is the book with a little roll of 14 fabrics I put together called "Snippets" for folks who don't already have a bunch of little scraps and want to make Scrappy Quilts.  I spread one roll open so you could see them better........these happen to all be Civil War reproduction fabrics.

Here are two more of the quilts in the book.........the 25-patch has 1" squares with sashing.........I have a few blocks made but of course, I have to be Different!  Mine are scrappy as I did not want to have each block contain only one fabric with the muslin-type fabric!!  And, Of Course, that fact makes them harder to piece because they cannot be strip-pieced as they could if using a single fabric for each block!!!  But, I have sewn a few hundred of little 1-1/2" squares with muslin as my Leaders and Enders so I have a good start on them!!!

Love this Quilt too!  Would look great as a Charm Quilt.......each fabric used only once!!  I have copies of the book for sale if one cannot be found locally.