AMB Fabrics - Whole Cloth Hand Quilting - and the May NewFO

May has come and gone in a blur.  The Bloggers Quilt Festival is always such fun, seeing lots of new-to-me bloggers' creations, and the fun of friendly competition and the chance of winning some fab giveaways.  I know many folks are also following the AMB Farm to Fabric Blog Tour, featuring the new all-American made solid fabrics recently introduced by Clothworks.  I was immediately intrigued, both with the blog tour, and once again being able to buy cotton quilting fabric totally produced in the USA.  I've been wanting to try my hand at whole cloth hand quilting, and what better time than now.

The AMB solids will soon be available at my LQS, but in the meantime I ordered a couple yards from Pacific Fabrics & Crafts.  I've always loved yellow and have wanted to create a light yellow whole cloth quilt since seeing so many gorgeous whole cloth quilts on the Celebrate Hand Quilting Facebook group.  Also, being new to commercial stencils, I decided to start small with a pillow or sham sized piece. 

So, without further ado, here is my progress to date on said sample pillow/sham in AMB's light yellow - my NewFO for May:

The actual color of the fabric is much prettier than my amateurish efforts with the camera would show.  I tried photographing this piece in various rooms under different lighting conditions, and even outside on the deck, all with dismal results.  You'll just have to use your imagination and envision a gorgeous soft yellow here.

I've been hearing the praises of Aurifil 28 wt. cotton thread for hand quilting, and thought this would be a good project to give that a go.  I had one small spool of a light blue-green in that weight, and with the addition of some Thread Heaven, it is quilting beautifully.  

Batting for this project is a polyester remnant I had in the stash, and it is giving this some nice loft.  I think I would plan to use a Hobbs Polydown batting for a large bed-size whole cloth quilt. 

 

All in all, I am very pleased with the performance of the AMB Brand solids.  They have a nice hand, with a bit more texture and perhaps a little less sheen than some of the other solids currently available.  They needle beautifully for hand quilting, which is a big plus!  And, they come in 50 gorgeous colors.   One caveat for anyone planning to use these fabrics - there is a shrinkage factor to take into consideration!  My yellow fabric piece measured 44 1/2" wide by 37" long before washing.  I used cold water and the hand wash cycle in my front loading machine, and then dried the fabric on low heat.  The after-wash measurements were 44" wide by 35" long.  A fairly significant lengthwise shrinkage, which would affect the symmetry of a whole cloth design if the fabric were not prewashed.  But, the good news is, the fabric launders beautifully and any wrinkles iron right out without a problem. 

So, there you have it, my May NewFO.  Linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches for the May NewFO Linky Party where you can see lots of other newly started projects, and link up with one of your own new creations!

P.S.  I have absolutely no affiliation with AMB Brand or Clothworks - just a love of hand quilting and a desire to support Made in the USA products!

April NewFO

Inside now after a couple hours in the 86 degree sunshine(!) working in the garden.  Have to say, it's a mighty fine way to end the month of April!   We now have spinach ready to harvest, along with broccoli and lettuce starts, the peas were planted yesterday, and the potatoes will no doubt be planted tomorrow morning.  Early, well before it hits the mid 80s again.

As I began quilting the little purple baby quilt for our church school benefit auction, I was made sadly aware that you (or I, at least) can't go five months with no FMQ practice and expect to get away with it! That little quilt ended up all straight-line quilted, partially FMQ and partly with the dual feed foot.  All in all, it didn't turn out badly, and I'm rather fond of the way the intersecting lines add another dimension to the quilt.

I'm excited to see what "The Little Ballerina" as this was dubbed in the auction bidder guide will bring on Saturday.  I may even buy it myself, to save for a grandbaby visit.  Here's a shot of the back, so you'll see why it is aptly named.

Sew, on to April's NewFO.   I had purchased several vintage (1960s-1990s range) Mennonite quilt tops last year, and one of them was a sampler of sorts of pieced blocks with some wide sashings and a huge border.  A rather nondescript and not well executed top with lopped off points, etc.  This lady, bless her heart, was not cut out for machine piecing, but her hand appliqued and embroidered kit quilts are fabulous.  Anyway, this 73x73 inch pieced top looked like a great opportunity to bone up on some FMQ and have a finished quilt to show for it.  As of this morning I have five of the nine blocks quilted.  Determined to have fun with this one, and not stressing about imperfections, I've been averaging about one block every day or two.  A couple of the completed blocks - the dark areas were wet, as I've been sponging off the blue washout marker as soon as each block is complete.

Our LQS had a big "after-remodeling" sale during April and had moved a lot of fabric bolts to their bargain basement.  I wasn't able to find yardage for the backing in a print of the era of the quilt top, so instead the backing is this gorgeous French General print that just happened to be in the sale room.  I think I'm going to love flipping this quilt over and displaying it as a comforter!

So, that's it for April.  At 5:30 the A/C kicked on - it was 77 in the house and 86 degrees outside.  What a way to end the month in (normally soggy) Oregon!


Linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches for her monthly NewFO linky party.  All you need to do to join in is post about a project you've started this month, and link up!  It's fun!  It's free! And, there's lots of eye-candy for the viewing.

Finishes, NewFO's, and Where Does the Time Go?!

Wow, how can it be that a full three months have gone by since I last posted on this little blog!  So much has happened, and lots of changes coming up this next year that it may become the new pattern, at least for awhile.  DH will be retiring later this year, and we came to the decision that we need to move back to the east coast to be closer to our kiddos and grandbabies.  So, just after Christmas a flurry of little fix-up and remodeling projects began and we now have our house on the market.  If all goes well, we will be back in upstate New York in time to enjoy the glorious fall colors before winter sets in  once again.

I've been able to do at least a little quilting to keep my sanity, so this post will be a short recap of some finishes and a couple of NewFOs since the New Year.

First, my version of Barbara Brackman's Checkered Past 1862 quilt pattern is finally completed.  This one was hand quilted, and the fabrics are so soft, it has quickly become one of my favorites to snuggle under.  Unfortunately our weather has not been cooperating so the photos were taken in less than perfect lighting/background.

Batting is Hobbs 80/20 cotton and Coats cotton hand quilting thread (pink spool) was used for the quilting.  The star blocks were quilted in a diagonal cross hatch through the middle of each square using a light beige, and the border Baptist Fan pattern was stitched with a dark red.  Hobbs 80/20 is nice for hand quilting, shrinks just a little after the quilt is washed, giving it a nice soft and slightly crinkly texture.  I do rinse the batting in the tub, and throw it in the dryer on low heat before quilting to minimize the shrinkage a bit, and that works well for me.  The finished quilt measures about 53x71 inches.

Last year I found a large remnant of a 1930s fan quilt in an online auction.  I loved the cheery yellow background, and not knowing exactly what I'd do with it, I purchased the piece.  It arrived as expected with binding on only two sides and the piece was somewhat out of square.

Don't you just love these cheery 30's prints!

After trimming the raw edges to square it up as best I could, I was lucky enough to find a piece of yellow solid in my stash that almost perfectly matches the backing fabric which had been brought round to the front to finish binding the original quilt.  I made a narrow binding to finish off the two raw edges, and it now hangs above our entertainment unit.  It measures about 35x31 inches.   The seller later had two additional similarly sized pieces obviously cut from the same quilt.  How unfortunate that the quilt had suffered major damage in its center area and had to be sold as a cutter.  I can only imagine how spectacular it must have been when newly made.  But I'm happy to be able to enjoy this little hanging every day.

Now, on to the NewFO's!

In March my friend Sarah and I were in charge of leading our church ladies group's monthly activity day, and we decided to work on a quilting project.  Since some of the women do not sew frequently and most are not quilters, we decided string piecing on paper foundations would be an easy and fun project for a Saturday morning.  We chose the Rock Island Campfires quilt pattern from the July/August 2013 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting.   Sarah and I provided brunch, then working with childrens and baby prints from both my stash and the church's stash of vintage quilting fabrics the ladies stitched up 96 string squares - enough to make two baby quilts.   Sarah and I will now each work on finishing one of the quilts in time for the church school's annual benefit auction held the first Saturday in May.  Here are some photos of the quilt top I've been working on, right after the borders were stitched  and before pressing the top and sandwiching for machine quilting:

 Note the mix of vintage and modern prints in the string pieced blocks.

Here is the original quilt as pictured in the magazine.  I've decided to make this quilt in the "campfire" version with the smoky/fire colors for our home, and so far have cut all the strips and sashings for my 'official' March NewFO.  I haven't photographed the bin with all the pieces - you'll have to take my word for it, but the sashing strips are made up of an assortment of gorgeous smoky gray batik fat quarters I won more than a year ago that have just been waiting for the right project, and this is it.   Hoping to make this quilt completely from my stash, including the backing.

Linking up, for the first time this year, with Cat Patches March NewFO linky party, where all you have to do is start a project and then link up and visit every one else's blog to see what everyone else is working on this month.

Thanks for visiting!

Last Finish of the year, and the 2014 NewFO Challenge

In a recent post I mentioned a 1950s era quilt top I'd found that had "issues" to put it mildly.  Originally 7 inches longer on one side than the other, it was also pieced together with triangle squares of varying sizes with little regard for matching corners, and with a large machine basting stitch.  Definitely not something I wanted to spend much time on yet it also didn't want to be thrown in the pile of things heading out to the local St. Vincent de Paul store either.

The original top.   Photo was taken on a sunny day, the top looks nice and clean, but it was not, and the natural muslin triangles had age spots and small stains.
I ended up taking off the three rows of triangle squares on the right and added a wide dark brown border to make it a useable size.   Trying to stabilize the large machine stitched seams, I decided that an overall FMQ meander quilting was the best way to proceed.   I had an old Mountain Mist 100% cotton batting, probably from the 1960s or perhaps even earlier.  It had the paper wrapper with some vintage patterns printed on the reverse.  So, meandering we did through the first week or so of December, then the edges were trimmed and the plain brown binding was stitched down, and the finished quilt measured about 58 x 84 inches.
I've heard the praises of the "Biz Bucket" for soaking out stains and age spots on vintage linens, so after the binding was stitched, the quilt went into the bathtub filled with hot water and about 1/2 cup of powdered Biz and nearly the same amount of original Dawn liquid dish soap.   The water turned a grungy shade of brown, which I should have photographed, but forgot to do before draining the tub some eight hours later.   After soaking all day, the quilt was rinsed in the tub several times, excess water squeezed out and then into the washer for an additional cold water rinse and spin.  After that it went through another delicate cycle in the washer with a small amount of liquid Biz and several more rinse and spin cycles, then into the dryer on the low heat setting.  The quilt shrunk up nicely and now measures about 53 x 78 inches, a good size for the back of the couch or a small grandchild's bed or an outside picnic when they come for a visit.  Here's the finished quilt in all its clean and crinkly glory.

So, that's my last finish for the year.  The other two quilts currently underway are weeks away from the hand quilting being completed, plus we just embarked on a remodel of the small bathroom in our house, and the next couple of weeks will be spent with spackling, paint cans and wallpaper!  Funny how that works - you update one item in a room, in this case changing out the flooring from carpeting to a more practical vinyl, and the rest of the room suddenly looks way shabbier than it did originally, and you know you can't just continue to ignore the obvious.
Thinking of the new year ahead, Barbara over at Cat Patches is again hosting her annual NewFO Challenge.  And this new year will be one of many challenges on the horizon with DH's anticipated retirement and a few other major life changes on the horizon.  Though I fell short this year and had to r-e-a-l-l-y stretch to have a NewFo every month this year (and there are still none on the horizon for this month), I do want to participate again next year, so I'll throw my name into the hat once again with the following:
1.  The Strippy Basket Quilt I didn't quite manage to start this year, inspired from an older Fons & Porter Fat Quarter Friendly Book pattern.

2.  I'd also like to make at least one baby quilt each month to donate to our local hospital's Layette Project that provides new parents who are in need with a complete layette when they take their newborns home.
3.  Earlier this year I acquired several vintage 1980s era Ohio Mennonite quilt tops through an online seller friend who specializes in antique and vintage quilts and tops.  The tops range in size from 28x28 inch wall hanging through king size.  A couple are pieced and the others are mostly from vintage applique and embroidery kits.  This lady did impeccable needle turn applique and gorgeous embroidery and was a prolific quiltmaker.
I think it's safe to say that I'll begin hand quilting this wall hanging in 2014:

4.  I'm anticipating I'll need to begin (and maybe complete) another wedding quilt this year.  And maybe another grandbaby quilt - just sayin ...
I may be getting ahead of myself here, so I'll quit while I'm ahead and head off to find the links for Barbara's 2014 NewFO Challenge and see what everyone anticipates for the new year!