Month: March 2019

Portable Magic

In my most recent post, I had a photo of this quilt and promised details about it soon.  The project I called Portable Magic was a sample I made after agreeing to teach the paper foundation piecing technique at a local quilt shop.

I feel like Ginger Rogers when I’m paper foundation piecing.  You know, she did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.

The technique of paper foundation piecing in quilting is like that.  You truly are working with fabric that is upside down and backwards to normal piecing procedures. The technique is a go-to method when you need really sharp points or have awkward angles that would be tricky to piece traditionally. 

I had been asked to teach the technique years ago, but was reluctant to do so.  Most traditional patterns that use this method involve curved piecing, too, which would be a whole different lesson.  A three-hour class was not long enough to get folks comfortable with both techniques.

When I saw the pattern called Book Nerd by Angela Pingel, I offered to finally teach the class. (pattern available here) This book block had enough pieces to teach the technique, but not so many that it wasn’t doable in a few hours.  And, curved piecing could be saved for another day.


This quilt, Portable Magic, was the result.  I didn’t make 24 book blocks, as the pattern depicted.  I made five blocks and pieced them in a rather improvisational manner to make a child-sized lap quilt.  I inked the word “read” in the corner, rather than appliquéing those tiny letters.

My finished quilt measures 42” x 50”.  That’s a nice size for a class sample because you can sometimes use just one width of fabric for the backing.  

Speaking of the backing – this fabric was a fun bit of yardage I bought probably 15 years ago.  I loved it.  But it was one of those pieces I just couldn’t cut up.  So I hung on to it until the right project came along.  This one seemed perfect to me.  I pieced the back just because I like pieced backs.

Dewey Godwin (jdquilts.com) did a great job quilting it for me.

My spin on the paper piecing technique involves a lot of holding the paper and pieces up to the light to get the positioning just right before stitching.  I precut the pieces, oversizing them a bit – that helps get the angles right, making positioning easier, too.

The title came from a quote from Stephen King, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”  I used a vintage doily for the label. 

As I mentioned when describing Miss Nellie’s Country Garden, I used a wider binding than usual on this quilt.  This finished at 1/2″ wide and I used one of my favorite fabrics for binding:  a stripe cut on the bias.

I used the paper foundation piecing method to stitch the flying geese in an oval in Endless Migration.  I now realize I haven’t shared the story of this challenge quilt before, so I will.

Unexpected Pleasures

When you are retired and don’t have a rigid schedule, the most innocent errand can become an adventure.  One day this week we headed out to sign some papers (it’s tax season, you know, ugh).  A couple of quilts and cameras were tossed in the car, and off we went. 

A stop at a park yielded a few shots of quilts. In the photo here, Granny Zee’s Baskets posed in front of an old church steeple.


My latest teaching sample, Portable Magic, posed on an outdoor window.


We have this thing about photographing cabooses, so Remember Me posed on this one.

The Drugstore Deli was our choice for a delicious lunch.  This veggie quiche and salad were beautiful – and they tasted as wonderful as they look.  The blue cheese dressing was homemade with chunks of cheese.  Oh, my!  You’ve gotta try that!

The lunch was even better when we realized old friends were sitting nearby and we had a chance to visit and catch up.

Within sight of the restaurant was a quaint old building I’d never noticed before.  It’s been there, we’ve been there, but just never noticed it.  

It is an old jailhouse now housing the historical society.  The bars were perfect for posing quilts, as was an old theater bench outside. 

I think Kaffe Fassett would love these brick walls!

I’ve written about the Drugstore Deli before, in this post.

The story of Granny Zee’s Baskets is here.

And details about Remember Me are here.

The book quilt, Portable Magic,  is a sample I made for a class I recently taught.  Details of that quilt will be in an upcoming post.


Loving Blues

My latest quilt project is finished and has been on an outing already.  Loving Blues rode with us to 7th Street Salvage today.  Coincidentally, perhaps, everything we liked was either blue or white.

Catherine graciously permitted me to pose my quilt in several spots, and oh, what fun we had!  Blues posed on a mantel,

on a group of bathtubs (love the blue oars, too),

on a dry sink (I’m really in love with that pump!),

and outside on a precious little structure.  Those blue tin tiles are fabulous everywhere, aren’t they?

Once home, Blues posed with the treasures we brought home.  The blue sphere is a duckpin bowling ball.  The pins and balls on display reminded Jim of playing this game at Indian Springs State Park during his childhood.  The coloring on this ball meant that it was coming home with us! (and yes, those are blue metal tiles you see in the corner.)

The sun was out for a few minutes, so we let Blues swing in the breeze. 

Yes, the vest I am wearing had scraps that found their way into this quilt, too.

Quilt details:  It measures 40” x 60” finished.

This has memories stitched together, some fabrics held my memories, some held memories of other hands, other lives. All fabrics were either vintage linens I had purchased, many of them overdyed in indigo, or bits of clothing from my closet and Jim’s.

There are fabrics from several of Jim’s shirts, some from shirts of mine. The V is made from a homespun cotton fabric I bought at Elco Antique Market in the 1980’s, my mother made a jumper for me and I wore it for years. Now some of that precious find lives in this quilt.

I changed the name.  That earlier post was called Loving Hearts, and I thought that would be the finished title.  But, no, the quilt said it was about Loving Blues.  Ok.  The label is a big heart cut from an overdyed linen tablecloth remnant with beads added.

Like memories that vary; some bring smiles, some bring tears; these fabrics differed, too.  Some light weight linen from my breezy summer shirts was soft and stretchy.  Others, like the ticking used to make the letter “E” and the handwoven toweling used for the “L”, were thick, made to be durable for centuries.  That made quilting interesting.  I chose a meandering vine with hearts.

And the pins and silicon tips I mentioned in this earlier post –  they are great!  I feared that they might make maneuvering the quilt under the sewing machine a bit trickier, but, no problem!  And the pinching motion necessary with safety pins, which is hard on arthritic hands, is gone.