Now Where Did September Go?

Here it is already a couple days into October and I'm still in September mode.  Weather unfortunately is more late Novemberish here in northwest Oregon with well over 5 inches of rain in less than a week.

Anyway, reporting in to Cat Patches for the September NewFO Challenge, what did I accomplish in September?   I hate to say it, but my one and only true NewFO was a set of receiving blankets for my new little grandson Zachary who was born on September 21!  These blankets were begun on September 30 and finished yesterday. 

A few months ago I was the lucky winner of a Berenstain Bears layer cake and had begun making pinwheel blocks with some of them.  We have a friend whose daughter had a baby in September so those blocks were quickly stitched together and a quick FMQ in the Jester's Hat motif produced this little quilt.

 For the first time I brought the backing fabric to the front and folded it over for the binding, since I didn't have anything in my stash that went with any of the bear fabrics.   It was quick and easy but I'm not especially pleased with the end result, and don't think I'd use that method except in a pinch. 

Close-up of reverse side.
I'm continuing the hand quilting on little Zachary's first quilt and hope to have it completed when I head to the east coast to visit in a month or so.  And that's about it in the quilting department for September.  Spent a lot of time in the kitchen canning tomatoes and salsas - both red and green.  The heavy rains have pretty much put an end to the tomato harvest as we're seeing lots of them splitting as they begin to ripen. 
Plans for October include starting a round-robin quilt for our local guild challenge.  My center block involves a huge vintage crocheted butterfly and some really ugly fabric.  Stay tuned ...
Linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches where you can see what lots of other quilters started during the month of September!

August NewFO Challenge

While on our trip to Salem to the Oregon State Fair the other day I lamented to Barbara that I had no NewFO for August nor much chance of starting one before the end of the month.   The precious little sewing time I've had has been devoted to completing the piecing and beginning hand quilting the new grandbaby quilt, and time is getting short.  The little bundle of joy is due in about 15 days!

Then yesterday it occurred to me, those leaders and enders stitched as I was sewing together the blocks for grandbaby's quilt count as a new project - tell me they do!  When I finished the Toddler Quilt last year there were not only a huge pile of 2 1/2 inch squares left over but nearly half the panel blocks from the original project.  So I decided to start working on making a second bear family patchwork quilt.  And here is the pile of sewn-together squares along with the scrap bear panels waiting to be cut apart and reassembled.

I think this new one will be a bit smaller than the first quilt, and with any luck I'll have some sort of design inspiration so it won't end up looking just like the first one here:

So, progress on the new grandbaby quilt is coming along, albeit slowly.  I think the hand quilting of the blocks is about 1/4 completed, and the plan is to do a simple double cable in the outer border.  Here it is as of this morning, the traditional top:

and the more modern back:

Though it's a bit difficult to see in the photo, I'm really liking the texture the quilting is adding, especially on the green backing fabric.  The batting is an 80/20 cotton from JoAnn's.  I seem to have tossed the wrapper and can't remember the exact brand name.  Quilting thread is Coats & Clark 100% cotton glace.

I'll be linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches August NewFO Linky Party where you can also add your new August projects and see what others are creating during these lazy (we wish) days of summer!

Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday weekend!

Oregon State Fair

Yesterday Barbara from Cat Patches and I went to the Oregon State Fair and spent most of our time in the Americraft Center where all the quilts and other textile and crafting projects were displayed.  The absolute highlight of our visit was seeing Barbara's You are My Sunshine quilt with its bright red ribbon and Barbara beaming as brightly as all her stitched and appliqued sunshine blocks!  This was Barbara's first-ever entry of one of her quilts into a show or state fair.  Congratulations to Barbara!

I always gravitate toward the hand quilted entries, and although relatively few of the nearly 200 quilts displayed were hand quilted, those that were entered were beautifully crafted and truly gorgeous.   The names of the quilters were on tiny entry cards and in many cases were totally obscured since most of the large entries were hung on the top of two tiers of quilts along the walls.  However, here are some of my favorites among the hand quilted entries.

Though it took a blue ribbon in its class, had I been a judge, this quilt would have easily captured Best of Show for the exquisite and intricate hand workmanship throughout. 

 I believe the album quilt shown above is hand quilted, though not absolutely certain since it was on the top tier and we could not view it up close.  The stitches are very tiny and close together and it did appear to be hand quilted.  The black/gray/white quilt to the right and also pictured below is hand quilted.

This was another favorite.  The appliques are needle turn and the larger ones are hand buttonhole stitched.  Beautiful quilting stitches!

 Another gorgeous Baltimore album style quilt, detail photos follow:

 The following quilt captured my heart, especially after reading its story.  Truly a treasure for this family and a wonderful treat to see it and learn its special significance.

 Amazing hand embroidery!

All in all a fun day at the fair.  And today it's back to the mundane painting chores and getting my supplies organized for some marathon canning sessions coming up in the next two-three weeks.  I hope you're enjoying these last days of summer, and looking forward to a quieter season of quilting in the next few months.  I know I am!

Where did the month go? NewFO for July

Indeed, where has this month gone?!  It's prime garden season here in western Oregon and that also means a lot of time spent watering if one doesn't have everything automated.  We drag hoses around and connect sprinklers and soaker hoses, plus do a lot of hand watering.  All this to say, not much time for quilt-making.  I did manage to do some antique quilt shopping by way of a few small local estate sales.  Major fun, estate sale browsing!  My most recent find is shown here, and I'll be posting about the others as time permits. 

July's one and only NewFO is this grandbaby quilt started for a little one expected in mid-September.  I'd been admiring this little antique quilt for some time now, and it seemed perfect to draw inspiration from to create an updated version for the new addition to our family. 

The pictured quilt is found in this book by Eleanor Levie, published in 1990.

I've upsized the blocks somewhat to create a larger crib quilt, as the original, which was created ca. 1930, measured only 27x35 inches.  Here is my version, with 6 of the 12 blocks completed and stitched together.  At this writing I've finished four additional blocks.

And a close-up of one block:

The pattern is called Single Wedding Ring.  At the moment, the plan is to float these blocks on a border of the white tiny print fabric, then surround that with a narrow border of the green and another wider white print border.   The back will be a bit more modern looking with large blocks of the brighter green large print alternating with the white.  Binding will probably be the striped fabric. 

I'm planning to hand quilt this one, and quilt in the baby's name and birth date when I have that.  Mom and Dad decided not to find out baby's gender until the birth, nor are they announcing any possible names, so this one will be a great surprise.  The nursery is a nice apple green, so this quilt should harmonize well, I hope!

Slow progress is being made with the hand quilting of checkered past, though I don't have any updated photos today. 

So, that's my July.  I hope you're all enjoying these warm summer days and all the lovely garden produce that comes our way this season.  Linking up with the July NewFO Challenge at Cat Patches, where you can see the projects that everyone else has begun this month. 

Treasures under the Table

We've been having internet connectivity problems again this summer.  I think another tree will need to be sacrificed, and soon, so we can keep our line of sight to the tower across the valley.  So posting to the blog has been intermittent, at best.  And there's so much I want to show you!

For the past couple of years it seems that there has been a real lack of interesting estate/yard sales, you know the ones with no plastic toys or piles of kids clothes and boots heaped on the grass in front of the house.  But, ask and you shall receive - in the past three weeks there have been four terrific sales within 16 miles of our rural home, each one with wonderful treasures to be found, and even better all pretty reasonably priced, meaning really, really inexpensive!

I've learned from my friend Gail who's a yard-sale-aholic, that it sometimes pays to look under the tables of goodies for the seemingly forgotten stuff that the owner figures nobody will want anyway.  So, here's what I found  under a table today, stuffed into one of those plastic zippered blanket bags like you'd bring home from the department store, with this tag attached:

Now, all I could see was a bundle of muslin and batting, and one print blue square showing.  With my hands already full with a pile of vintage table linens, I figured I could wait until I got home to see exactly what I was walking away with.   Some acquaintances who happened to be at the sale just shook their heads that I would even bother hauling 'that old thing' away, figuring it would just find its way to the dump via our trash can.  OK, when I opened the bag and unfolded the muslin this is what was inside:

Wow!  Looking at these fabrics, I think they are vintage 1950s thru about the late 1980s but there may be a few that are earlier.  The quilt is entirely hand pieced, and the white pieces setting off the bowties are from what I think was a vintage tablecloth - the weave is much looser than the other fabrics and has begun to unravel a bit along the edges.  The batting is rather heavy, and the part already hand quilted is stitched at about 4-5 stitches per inch.  It is about 1/3 quilted at this point.  I think this one may be a keeper rather than resold, it doesn't seem like it will take terribly long to finish quilting and binding it and I love it!  It measures about 51 x 71 inches.  The muslin backing is all one piece, selvedge-to-selvedge measuring 80 inches or so.   A few close-ups of some of the fabrics:

So, this was a very good day!  Among my other finds were a pile of the small promotional vintage 1930s cookbooks priced at less than 10 cents apiece including Fleishmann's, Sunkist Lemons, Rennet "Junket" Custard, Knox Gelatin, etc.  And a sweet little 1941 spiral-bound book entitled "Parties for All Occasions for Grown-ups and Children."    All in all, a very good morning indeed! 

Finish!! (and a long time a'coming)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of throwing my newly finished 16-year-old albatross queen size quilt into the washer and dryer in hopes of removing the various markings and abundance of kitty fur clinging to the top.  Happily, all of the marks and (most of) the kitty fur are gone.  I've got to warn you, after 16 years in the making, this post is going to be photo-heavy!    So, here we go, first photo was taken right after I finished stitching down the binding, before throwing it in the washer. 

And now, the "after"

A very exciting shot of the back - and a rippled back it is, though not as noticeable now that it has had time in the washer and dryer.

My first attempt at needle-turn hand applique

And some of the individual blocks.  This quilt is titled "Biblical Blocks" and is from a book of the same name by Rosemary Makhan, published in 1993.  

I won't bore you with all my tribulations in putting this quilt together, let's just say I love my rotary cutter after having cut all these little pieces individually from templates!  The needle-turn appliqued border took over a year of evenings, and the hand quilting, probably another 2+ years!  And there were other "must-do" quilts that had to take precedence along the way.   But now it's finished and hanging on the quilt rack in our room awaiting a night cool enough to toss it on the bed.  Of course actually putting it on the bed means more kitty fur ... lots more kitty fur ... and so it goes!