November Monthly Mini

 

This month’s mini reminds me of how lucky I am to have such wonderful quilting friends. Whenever I get frustrated with what is happening in this crazy world, I try to remember how fortunate I am to have not only my “in person” friends, but those who live in faraway places who I am in touch with through the wonders of modern technology. For this reason, I have decided to call it "Grateful". 

 When Janet O. (Rogue Quilts) announced her “baggie of scraps” challenge (here) I knew I wanted to do it right away! I pawed through my “many” boxes of leftovers from other quilt projects and tried to decide which to choose. I ended up with this container (an empty Betsy Chutchian “Frivol” box) full of half square triangles from a one of my past community quilts. 

 I played with the layout for a while, but decided on this simple square in a square look in the end. I love the Betsy Chutchian purple stripe on the right, but I have wanted to use the serpentine stripe ever since I bought it and just haven’t found the right project for it until now. I thought about mitering the corners, but I had the extra pink blocks, so it was a good excuse to go with my standard corner blocks! 

 My eye is always drawn to dark fabrics and colors, so it is unusual for me to have such a light quilt. I machine quilted straight lines in the body and simply followed the serpentine (yes – with my “machine”) in the border. 

I want to thank you Janet, for the opportunity to try something new! I know quite a few of you have taken Janet’s challenge as well, so click away and see what our fellow mini makers have discovered this month!

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Happy Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving Day is one of the few days of the year that I do not get to stitch. I usually stay at my sister’s the night before and start cooking before dawn. We have fun catching up as we peel and stuff!

 I have neglected my “Bird’s Nest Soup” and all other creative projects to try and finish the repair on this treasure. It belongs to a friend of a friend who called me while visiting Maine last summer. It was made by his aunt 5 generations back. 

 An old family label was attached that stated it was thought to be made c1812. It is always so touchy when you know something about the history of quilts, and you have to gently tell the owner that you are quite sure it was made much later than that. He was very gracious and had done fabulous family research which helped us to determine that the date was closer to 1850. It is beautifully appliqued and quilted.

My job was to replace the fabric that had deteriorated. It was clearly a different fabric than the rest of the green that remained unharmed.

This happens quite often in 19^th century quilts. You can still see some of the green under the seam allowance. 

I had to remove all the old in order for the new green to lie flat. It didn't take much effort as the fabric was really rotted.

He shipped the quilt to me in early September and it took nearly 2 months to find the right green. After searching for and dying and overdying many different greens, I finally found the right one in the first place I should have looked! I just never thought to look for a solid fabric at Cyndi’s (Busy Thimble), but there it was – the (almost) perfect solution. A Bella 100% cotton solid. You can see how the color matches pretty well. The leaf is my new applique onto the original stem. 

My goal is to finish the repair by the end of the month. I hope you all get some stitching time while resting after the holiday.

 Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Two and Four Quilt-a-long - a finish!

 

Toward the end of the summer, Katy (KatyQuilts) announced a sew-a-long called “Two and Four”. It looked like a great way to dwindle down the scrap pile and have some fun in the process so I jumped in.

 I finished the top on time (read about the finale – here) and then handed it off to my quilting angel, Sharon Patterson to quilt. I had intended to pick it up weeks ago, but things got crazy and … So, Sharon not only quilted it, but bound it and brought it to our local meeting to show before taking it to the local infusion center to wrap around some deserving soul. She truly is an angel! 

 Her quilting makes the quilt!

Thanks Sharon! And thanks Katy for hosting this fun sew-a-long!