Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Those of you who know me well know that I'm just not a beige kind of woman. I am not afraid to use red in my quilts.  I don't make many without a little red to liven things up. At antique auctions, I have noticed that the red quilts always sell first and are the most expensive. Apparently, I'm in good company. Yesterday, I finished machine quilting this string quilt with red fabric.  I made the quilt top a couple of years ago by piecing large string blocks, cutting them into half square triangles, and adding the red fabric to complete it. Can you see the windmills?  Which did you see first, the red ones or the scrappy ones? Just curious.  I always see the scrappy ones first.   I wash my red or any bold color fabric before I use it to see if it will fade;  a lesson I learned by experience from my early quilting days.  

It seems like every time the quilting class meets, we talk about the weather forecast and what may happen before the end of the week. The last time we had icy weather, an important meeting for Parsley and Rosemary was cancelled.  They were unable to come to quilting class because that meeting was rescheduled for last night,  Sage and Thyme made a lot of blocks; I made a few. We talked about ways to make string quilts other than sewing them on paper like we are doing now.  One way is similar to a crazy quilt.  You start by finding a cute fabric, then cut the figures with five sides.  I do this without a pattern; I want the sizes to vary. Think about the houses we drew in second grade and you pretty well have the pattern.  Sew a piece of fabric on one of the five sides; press, and trim. Keep going around the center piece until all the sides have been covered. Start around the center again. Continue sewing around the center unt...

Our class did not meet last week.  We are all smart ladies, and when there is freezing rain, snow, and sleet falling and the wind is bitter, we go home after work and stay there, usually with some warm jammies on.  Being stuck inside last week turned out to be very productive for me.  I finished a crib quilt and a full size quilt top that I had been working on for a while. Last night, everyone came, and we sewed and pressed and trimmed happily for two hours.  We also talked about the next winter storm on the radar.  We are winter weary and will be thankful when spring gets here.  Spring always comes, but it is easy to forget that after last week's roller-coaster weather. Remember this scrap windmill quilt top I showed you a few weeks ago?  I finished another one this week using the same blocks and the same pattern.  I changed the fabric to a solid red.  Can you see a big difference?  In the meantime, our stacks of blocks...

We had a good night of making quilt blocks this week. Parsley wasn't able to come because of a meeting, but Sage, Rosemary,  Thyme, and I had a very productive and fun night. Every week we talk about different ways to use scrap blocks in quilts.  This quilt was planned around some fabulous batik fabric I found.  There is a batik scrap sewn across the middle of the block, with black and white scraps on both sides.  Then it is sashed with the same fabric, and it makes a good -looking quilt. It is backed with black and white polka-dot fabric. Cutting fabric into strings is a good way to use up some really ugly fabric.  I had some 3 Stooges fabric in black and white (what was I thinking?) that had been laying on the shelf a long time.  I cut it up to use in this quilt, and I think it looks just fine.  If you look closely, you might be able to see their heads. I don't throw any fabric away, not even the very ugly. This class is made poss...

 It was a cold, cold night, but we all came ready to sew some blocks!  It is such a pleasant sound to me, four sewing machines humming at the same time. The quilt above was made using 9 1/2 inch blocks, shown below.  One day last winter, I retreated to my sewing cave and made 84 of these blocks.  I used 42 of them in the quilt above. Has anyone noticed how much chicken fabric is in my blocks? I paired 24 of the remaining blocks with this blue and red fabric and made windmill blocks.  When you look at the quilt top, which windmill do you see first?  Is it the blue/red fabric, or the pieced block? It really doesn't matter, because both are pretty.  The blue/red windmills sorta jump out at me. We have completed three weeks and have lots of blocks made, but it seems to me this scrap pile hasn't changed any.  Actually, it seems a little bigger but we know that can't be possible.  Ah, so many potential quilts just layin...

  There was a lot of sewing done in the class last night, and all the students are doing a great job.  They seem to be having fun, too. We talked about different ways that 6 1/2" string blocks can be used in quilts. This one was made by fussy-cutting 6 1/2" blocks from Campbell kids fabric and putting them together with the string blocks.  It is a cute and colorful quilt. It is in the stack I'm saving for my as-of-yet-unborn-great-grandchildren. Last week, Thyme put her sewing machine on the back seat of her car as she was leaving the class. She had to slam on her brakes in traffic, and the machine tumbled off the seat, and pushed her thread holder down into the sewing machine.  She was not able to fix it, so she borrowed a sewing machine from a friend for tonight's class.  I have never heard of this happening, and I'm hoping she will be able to get it fixed. In the meantime, she produced several beautiful blocks on her friend's machine. T...

I am privileged to teach another quilt class this winter.  During this one, we will make a string quilt using 6 1/2" paper squares.  I have four students, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, and they are already hard at work on the first night.  We don't worry about being neat when we are paper piecing. We are going to sew the squares together to make a quilt like this or maybe like this. Trust me, these strings sewn together are going to turn into something beautiful, useful, and lasting.  I know it is going to be fun.  We are all so excited to get started! There probably won't be any dining on the dining table for the next twelve weeks, but we are totally okay with that. This class is made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  Thanks!

I make more string quilts than anything else, and everyone asks how to do it.  Here goes: If you are a quilter or seamstress, you already have a tub of scraps.  If not, buy several quarter-yards of different fabrics and cut them in strips.  We called them strings; they were usually fabric scraps that were not big enough to use any other way. Cut squares of desired size from newspapers.  These are 6.5" squares, and I use 9.5" sometimes. Take a piece of fabric that is long enough to cover the center of the square diagonally.  Add another string, place right sides together, and sew.   Flip it around, and sew another piece of fabric on the other side of the center piece. Press.  Don't worry about trimming right now. Add two more pieces, one on each side.  Press.  As you can see, the paper square is covered on one side already. Add another piece, making sure it covers all the paper.  Press.  It...