And the Winner is........

I wanted to post this sooner but Blogger has been working slowly for me today!  The winner of my scrapbox is Marge.  Please contact me with your address.  My method of choosing winners is to make a list of comments in the order in which they are received and then ask my husband to pick a number.   I will have another Giveaway soon for a box of 6" squares, not really Charms as there are some duplicates!    I really do have more fabric than I can use and am happy to share!

April is shophop month here in Maine so there has been little sewing done!  Looking forward to May when I can go back to my 4 days a week schedule!!

Scrap Box Giveaway!!!

I have filled another USPS Med Flat Rate Box with scraps and since alreadyI have more scraps than I can ever use, I am most happy to give it away!  There are even a couple pieces of woolfelt and a Civil War Panel of Grant & Lee!   Just leave a comment before midnight Monday, April 22, and you will be entered in my drawing!  I will continue to add more scraps this week as I cut for my quilts or reach the end of bolts!!

 All neatly folded in the box............can get more scraps in the box if they are folded nice and neat!!

 This is a little quilt from a LONG time ago (1988).....the pattern was for a doll quilt but I have always used it as a runner.  The fabrics from that period of time were prone to fading even without direct sunlight (we are most lucky to have the wonderful fabrics we have available today!) but I still love this piece.  Now take a look at what is on the back!

We called this fabric "forest floor" and it was a Favorite at the time!  In addition to this brown background (very little shows!), it came in blue, black and red backgrounds.....maybe more!

Anyone else have some quilts from the distant past to share?

Projects in Progress

These sweet little "shoofly" blocks are one of my current projects (wonder how many projects I am working on.......don't dare to count!) for Jo Morton's Little Women Club.  My sample is made and the components for the other 17 blocks are all neatly packed in the little box waiting for me to find TIME!!  I'll show you the little quilt when I finish it!

 

These next two blocks are the last of the 36 needed for my "Hope" quilt.  Stars are handpieced but the remainder of the quilt will be machine-pieced.  Hope to work on it this coming Sunday!  

Another bunch of Railfence blocks done!  Using these as my "Leaders and Enders" but after 4 rails were attached, I just finished them!  Sometimes I like to just sit and piece blocks!!

Another little quilt from the past.....pattern is by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.....Courthouse Steps in browns and shirtings.  I made kits for this quilt .....kit will make THREE of these little quilts (21" x 28") or a 36 block quilt (42" x 42").  I hand-quilted this little quilt in concentric squares along the center of the logs.......made it in 2006 and remember quilting it as I recovered from a terrible cold.........haven't had a cold since!! 

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Bits & Pieces and New Book

Have been going through some boxes in the attic recently and found a treasure trove of small fabric samples to cut into 1-1/2" squares for my postage stamp quilt............would love to have it be a Charm Quilt also.....each fabric used only once!  The packets above represent only a small sample.....the four at the top of the photo are the Smithsonian samples from around 1994-95!  When I first opened my shop in 1990, we had few salesreps (and no Andover, Moda, or Windham yet!) and this was the method of ordering fabric..........never one to throw anything away, I saved them.  I know where there is another box full but not all the fabrics will be useable to me as they are not all reproduction.  

This is a lovely new book from Betsy Chutchian and these are the two quilts I would like to make!  Love this Courthouse Steps done in mostly madders and shirtings, with a few greens, yellows and indigoes thrown in for good measure!

And then another Favorite!  Pinwheels, again in the madder fabrics I love.....brown, rust, gold, red, pink and again I see some poison greens and indigoes for interest!

Just finished quilting the border on "Stars to Freedom" from Carol Hopkins' "Civil War Legacies" pattern.  Love this wavy border that I have been using for a few years.....have 3 different sizes.  The red pen is "Sewline" from United Notions....I use only the White tho it comes in other colors too; it gives the nicest, and thinnest line, to follow while quilting and by the time the quilting is done, there is not much left that is easy to remove just by brushing or using the eraser on the pen.  Great also for marking applique pieces.....

Another darling little Four Patch quilt from my friend, Wendy!  She used Brackman's "Metropolitan Fair" line...............love how she placed the stripe for the borders!  Machine-quilted around the blocks but hand-quilted border with her lovely stitching!  Should have used a coin for a point of reference.....the blocks are 1" finished.

This little quilt hangs in my shop ......made it about 16 years ago when someone gave me a shoebox full of 1950's scraps (and some a bit earlier)......all neatly cut and stacked in the box....perhaps for a railfence block?  The string star pattern just happened to be in an issue of Miniature Quilts (sure wish we still had that magazine available!) received about the same time!

New fabrics in the shop!  Jo Morton's "Blue Variety" with shirtings!

This is "Virginia" from Windham......these Jacobean prints always make my heart go pitter patter!!

The final 4 bolts from "Women of Courage" by Windham.

  That's it for now, but stay tuned, another scrap box is nearly full for a Giveaway!!  Newest additions seen below!  The "scraps" are mostly all full widths (44-45") strips 5" or less.  

Quilting, Blizzard,Show&Tell older quilts

There's been a bit of discussion lately on some of the Yahoo groups I belong to concerning handquilting.......with hoop or without hoop.  For myself, I get better stitches when using  a hoop and I have several to choose from, depending on the quilt I am working on.  This is a Half Hoop I bought in 1989 and have never seen one like it since.  I believe the wood is cherry and it is the nicest hoop to use!  It will hold a small quilt such as this one called "Abbygayle's Scraps" from Jo Morton Club 12.  I can create whatever tension I need for handquilting.  Now about my basting method..........probably overkill, but I like my quilts Flat (use Quilter's Dream Request cotton or wool batting).  First I pinbaste. Having taped the backing tautly (but not stretched) to my table, I then layer the batting (smooth....smooth....smooth) and the top.  Start at the edge nearest me with a line of pins about 3-4" apart.  Smmoooooth and then pin another row.  Repeat till I reach the other edge.  Now comes the "overkill".....I go to the sewing machine and either machine-quilt in the ditch or baste with long stitches.  This little quilt was basted and then handquilted. 

A belated photo of last week's blizzard in this area.....we got it nowhere as badly as some folks did.  I have never seen roads closed around here....rural area with plows out during storm keeps everything open.  My car is not yet dug out but the van across the street (didn't even notice that car in the photo when I snapped the photo) that had been parked beside it was dug out.  I put a couple shovels next to the car just for fun.........the plastic one I've had for 19 years (can't believe it has lasted so long!) and the one on the right is made of wood.....found it in my in-law's barn and kept it as a conversation piece.....bet it was hard shoveling back in the day!  They were hardy folks!!

Walked around the shop the other day, snapping photos of quilts I have made over the years.  This little braid was paper-pieced.

This little Indigo and Shirtings quilt was made to show off the Dargate Indigoes (c. 1830).  The dark indigo backgrounds have very colorful prints.  

This little star quilt was also made from the Dargate Indigoes.

This little quilt was inspired by a Yahoo group quilt of the month......I did only this one because I wanted to demonstrate that large florals could be used in small blocks.  I think these are 4.5".  This quilt was pinbasted and then machine-quilted in the ditch.  Handquilted the squares.  Like to use this combination of machine and hand quilting!!  Gets done sooner!!

This is the back of the above quilt.........Love this fabric!  Might be able to see the machine vs handquilting.

I made this little Schoolhouse quilt a long time ago..... dated 1987 on the back......it is hand-pieced and hand-quilted.

Looks like I must like Square in a Square blocks as I seem to make them rather often!  This one uses Judy Roche's "Sayler Creek" Civil War collection.  I have one that have been handquilting on for several years.....used the Smithsonian Sarah Johnson fabric for that one..........will take a photo soon.

This little quilt was made in the mid 90's, when Jo Morton first started creating patterns.  I carried them in my shop and when I had made a sample and sent a photo to Jo, she would reward with free patterns!!  Love that old brown dot fabric!  The fabric line was a Judie Rothermel pink and brown.....can't recall the name of it right now............can you?  Maybe "Peppermint & Sassafras"?  There was a blue version later....."Blueberries & ..........."?

Another Square in a Square in a Square!!  This one uses Judie Rothermel's first Civil War line from around 2000.  

And lastly, a current project using little 2-1/2" squares of Moda "Candy".  This line is by Sandy Gervais called "Everlasting".  The rows are all chain-pieced together so it won't get mixed up.  When I get the top sewn together, I'll be back with it..........have 3 lovely choices for the border and can't decide which!!!

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.