I haven’t updated the 1930’s progress since June! Yikes! We did one more 6″ block during that month and then spent the next several weeks finishing the tops of “America the Beautiful”, our other group project . #26 is called Pieced Basket #1 and is just a diagonal basket with flowers in it and very appropriate for June. It features a blue and red basket with light blue flowers and we followed the pattern color scheme. [Read more…] about Ode to the 1930’s Blocks #26-27
Quilting
America the Beautiful quilt top finished
We added the borders and finished the quilt tops. They are going to be revisited next spring when we piece the backs and get them quilted and they will be all ready to show in the Alpine Days Quilt Show in August! Look at us being so prepared!
We are very happy with our work and continually amazed at how different the three tops ended up. So here they are: [Read more…] about America the Beautiful quilt top finished
Finishes: BYU and Beach Umbrellas
I have several quilts in various stages of production but September brought two finishes which makes me very happy. For Scott’s birthday in February I gave him the kit for the BYU quilt, purchased from the Fabric Mill in Orem. I had seen that kit several times when visiting that store and thought it would be a good lap quilt for Scott. When they had all their kits on sale in February, I gave in to temptation. So I worked on the cutting and piecing during the summer and let Scott pick the layout of the blocks. Once they were sewed together he chose the backing which I interrupted with a vertical and horizontal row of leftover blocks. Then he went with me to Just Sew in Highland and chose the blue thread and machine quilting pattern of loops and swirls. I attached the binding just before we left for Arizona at the beginning of September and sewed in the car so that we could do a photo shoot in Phoenix and at Montezuma’s Well. [Read more…] about Finishes: BYU and Beach Umbrellas
Summer with America the Beautiful
Because we all did some travelling this summer, and not at the same time, we cancelled several weeks of quilt group and got a little behind with our progress. Over the course of three sewing weeks, we managed to get our four houses done. They vary wildly in fabric and color choices, as well as background choices because we are very individual when it comes to this quilt! We cut and sewed the first house on the same day but then decided to cut out all three in a marathon cutting session, start sewing and finishing sewing the next week. Because our houses were all made of completely different fabric, we all cut our own houses rather than each person cutting all the pieces out of one fabric for all of us as we do on the 1930’s quilt. If you’ve ever done any fabric cutting of lots of varied size pieces, it takes focus. We find that repeating the dimensions out loud to ourselves as we check the pattern and then as we cut is very helpful in avoiding mistakes. So a cutting day sounds like this: “two rectangles of cream 1 1/4″ by 3 1/2” “I need to cut three windows out of the same fabric” “Oh darn it!” “the light blue is a triangle with three rectangles while the dark blue is five rectangles” “Wait! Is that three or four green 2 1/2″ squares?” “three strips 1 1/2″ by 12”, all murmured quietly and somewhat continuously, interspersed with louder exclamations of “For the love, I did it again!” uttered by me. A visitor during cutting time would fall on the floor laughing hysterically. [Read more…] about Summer with America the Beautiful
Spring progress on America the Beautiful
During the spring we got some blocks done on our America the Beautiful quilt. We sewed the mountains blocks which are designed to be purple triangles. We thought they looked like purple pyramids and saw in some reader examples that one quilter had put snow on hers. We really liked that look since we live next to mountains which have snow on them all winter long, so we free-hand cut some white fabric for snow. Then we left them with Terry who kindly did the satin stitching on our snow and used her embroidery machine to give us each a flying eagle. So fun to have that personal touch. [Read more…] about Spring progress on America the Beautiful