Category: quiltmaking

Sewing To Go

I try to keep a travel sewing project ready at all times.  I like to have something on hand to do whether I have a few minutes to spend on the porch, or we are heading out for a day trip, or we are off on an adventure for days or weeks.

My latest hand piecing project has been these blue and brown spools.  When I don’t have another project for hand stitching, or for stitching on the go, I’ve been making spools.  I put them on the design wall yesterday to evaluate my progress. I arrange them to check color placement and balance before sewing more together, and to choose colors for the next batch to be prepared.  I had sewn twelve blocks together at first and liked them so well that I prepared more. And, now again, I need more.

These blocks are posing on linen tablecloth – another found treasure in an antique store heap. I do use the tablecloths for their intended purposes sometimes…I don’t cut them all up for sewing.

These are all linen.  Linen lends itself to hand piecing very well.  It’s easy to slip the needle through the fabric between the threads.  And hand fatigue is lessened if you can do that rather than pierce a tightly woven fabric.  These finish at 3″ square.

All this linen is vintage.  A lot is from worn clothing of mine and Jim’s, some vintage table linens, and some remnants I’ve found in antique stores.  Often there are boxes of linens almost being given away.  A stain here, a tear there; not a problem for me.  I’m going to cut it up or dip it in the dye pot anyway.

This project rides in this darling little vintage train case.  I loved that someone else had taken the time to clean it up and decorate it for me.  The exterior appealed, but when I opened it up and saw that blue bow on the fabric lining, well, I guess I looked at the price tag…but maybe not.  It had to be mine! I wrote about it earlier here: https://sandygilreath.com/on-the-road-again/.

The case holds some spool pieces (trapezoids and squares) that I’ve already cut out and pinned together as a block, some more pieces stamped on more linen, a pair of scissors with serrated edges, and my sewing roll. 

These pieces are prepared using a set of stamps for this purpose.  Talk about portable projects – the stamps and fabric ink can be carried along for the ride, too!

I used an old cutter quilt that had been dipped in the indigo dye pot as the basis of my sewing roll.  It has a pocket for a spool of thread or two, a place for my needle threader, thimble, some pins and needles.  

Maybe this need for portability came from the times I got last minute calls to head somewhere to help out with an ill or elderly relative.  Those hours in waiting rooms can be very long with empty hands.  So I still try to have some ready-to-go sewing at hand.  

Maybe we should take a trip!

The Rebellious Weathergirl

My latest finished quilt is a journal quilt of sorts.  The background squares are color coded to the lowest temperature of a given day, the melon appliquéd on top indicates the high temperature.  My quilt has more than 365 blocks, and they aren’t arranged chronologically, but the quilt still tells my story of 2023.

While I was sewing on the binding, I dropped the quilt to the floor to go get more thread, and I loved how it puddled…where the front and back are visible and melons of two sizes show in the same shot.

I knew from the start that my arrangement of blocks would not be chronological.  I had seen quite a few photos of temperature quilts using various blocks to show the high and low temperatures of the day and with my love of journal quilts, I thought it would be fun to do.  Some people even include stitches to depict rain, snow, wind, but temperatures seemed enough for me.

i decided on appliquéd melons as my quilt block and chose to use a range of Cherrywood hand-dyed solid fabrics already selected by another quilting blogger. I cut 3” squares of fabrics, made a melon template that fit within that 3”, and was ready to sew.

Each day in 2023, I checked the previous day’s temperature data, recorded the figures on my spreadsheet, pulled the fabrics from my dedicated stash, and appliquéd a melon.  On days when we were away from home, I recorded the temperatures for Macon and for our physical location, stitching the blocks when I returned home. 

Early in 2024, I assembled the blocks on the design wall in monthly arrays, and made photos.  I also assembled two chronological arrays using 365 blocks; one for the temperatures at home, one for the temperatures in whatever location we had been.  With trips to Scotland, Colorado, and Louisiana, there were visible differences in those two arrangements.

Here I’m removing days from the Macon arrangement and replacing them with our travel days.
This is the final layout I assembled…reminding me of the Dots and Vines quilt I made similarly with circles.
I used a variegated thread to stitch it all together with a meandering quilting line.

I uploaded those two photos to Spoonflower (an online digital printing service) and had each one printed on ½ yard of cotton fabric.  I was then free to arrange the 400 blocks in a more pleasing arrangement than the calendar provided.  So I spent a few days moving blocks and looking, moving again, and finally settling on an arrangement that pleased me.  

The image on the top left shows chronological temperatures in Macon, GA 2023, the image on the right shows temperatures wherever we were.

The back of the quilt holds records of the two chronological layouts, and a strip that shows the temperature range assigned to each color.  The label is a vintage doily overdyed with indigo dye and the title, The Rebellious Weathergirl, acknowledges the fact that I knowingly broke the rules of temperature quilting.  The quilt measures 50” square and is finished with a ⅜” plaid binding.

Jewel Boxes

A recently completed quilt has been on a photo shoot. We took this big baby (it measures 80″ square) with us to Zebulon last week when we went to see Slow Exposures (the photo exhibit described in my last post). The quilt posed on a bench, in a gazebo, and in front of a brick wall.

I called this one Jewel Boxes.  The traditional tumbling block pattern, one of my favorites, has been surrounded by a vine of colorful foliage.

Inspired by a magazine cover with a similar quilt many years ago, I cut many rhombuses with a 60º angle and hand stitched them together to make the tumbling block.  Then I assembled the blocks into rows and added a black border.  

Here, I’m having a Vivian Maier moment including my reflection in the photo. I’ll share my love of Vivian Maier in an upcoming post.

I planned the applique on the border in a free-form manner.  After positioning the border vines, I cut leaves and flowers from assorted fabrics, laid them in place until I liked the color placement, and began stitching.  

Dewey Godwin did the longarm quilting.  He did a great job!

Dewey used a dark gray thread for the quilting on the border, prompting me to select a little gray dot on black for the binding.

Prayers and Squares

I made lots of new friends at our recent guild quilt show.  Two of them, Flo and Jan, invited me to visit their Prayers and Squares group at one of their meetings.  I went this past Sunday and was touched by the love they are stitching together.

Angela and Linda are tying a nautical-themed quilt.

I had heard of Prayers and Squares before; I have a friend who is a cancer survivor.  Faye had received a loving gift of a quilt from a group during her time of healing.  I didn’t realize there was an international organization involved.

Jan is the machine stitcher today.

Prayers & Squares is an interfaith outreach organization that combines the gift of prayer with the gift of a hand-tied quilt.  That statement is from their website, here.  Begun in 1992 in California, their website now lists thousands of chapters worldwide.  I visited with the one at Hopewell United Methodist Church near Milledgeville, chapter #1241.

Grace says she doesn’t always color coordinate her wardrobe to the quilt she’s working on…but I couldn’t help but notice that she did that today.

This group of eleven women meets monthly.  On the day I visited, they were celebrating their fifth anniversary as a Prayers and Squares chapter, and they were putting finishing touches on their quilt #170.

The emphasis on these lap-sized quilts is simplicity. Members take donated fabrics and coordinate them with a theme or motif appropriate for the recipient.

The emphasis is on the prayers, not the squares.   Each of the quilts is tied, not stitched, to secure the layers of love.  “Each knot represents a prayer.”  

Jeanene works to get all the layers smooth before final stitching is done around the edge.

Not all of the members are quilters outside of this group.  Flo, who learned of the organization and started this chapter, says that some people said, “I’d like to help, but I don’t know how to sew.”  Her reply was, “can you pin, can you cut, can you tie a knot?”  All skills are welcomed.

Becki and Ginny are pinning quilts, backs, and batting together in preparation for machine closure. Becki’s recent sewing project at home was a granddaughter’s prom dress.

Especially welcomed in this group was the talent for organization possessed by Patty.  A retired helicopter pilot, Patty used her military-like precision to ensure efficient work habits.  Every quilt has a design sheet specifying each step of the project. Projects are carefully labeled with what’s to be done next.  Zippered bags hold projects at every stage of development – so when the group meets to work, each person just picks up a packet and proceeds to the next step.  Patty has since moved away, but her presence is felt with every quilt this group makes.

The bin holding projects at every stage of work to be completed…members had already pulled bags and gotten to work by the time I took this photo.
This is a quilt made by Patty in recognition of this chapter of Prayers and Squares. Charter members’ names are embroidered on the bindings of the books. The fabrics used for the books are left over from quilts the group had made and presented to people who requested prayers. The fabrics are in the order of the quilts made using them.
Embroidery on the back of Patty’s quilt pictured above.

I wrote earlier about a quilt I made for a friend, Every Stitch a Prayer.  That experience ties me to these women who meet to sew and pray for someone in need every month.

Flo with the latest prayerful quilt ready for the recipient.
A closeup of the tag that goes on every quilt. On the back are instructions for laundering the quilt.

If you want to know more about this organization, perhaps joining a chapter near you, or even starting another group, check out the website at prayerquilt.org.

Fired Works

I love pottery.  To think that people dig clay out of the ground, manipulate it and decorate it, and make something functional and beautiful just boggles the mind.

We went to a local exhibit of pottery this week.  An annual exhibit and sale, Fired Works features the work of 150 artists and is always a treat.

We don’t need any pottery; our collection is certainly adequate…but we love to go to this event every year, so off we went.  And, yes, we did buy some.

Most of our collection is of the Southern folk art genre, but the whimsical pieces delight me, too.  

As we examined the beautiful pots on display in this beautiful facility, I was constantly seeing images that related to quilt making.  The captions on each photo explain some of my thinking.

The design element of repetition is prominent in quilting. On each artist’s table you could see the power of repetition in color, shape, and texture.
Another display showing the power of repetition…and the neutral of black, white, gray with a pop of red and green.
This simple folk art rabbit looks like he could be a trapunto design with matchstick quilting!
These wavy lines with crackle texture and neutral color combination really impressed me!
You know how I love focus blocks of appliqué in my quilts….I think you can see a tulip block in my future.
This brown pitcher reminds me of batik fabrics. And a mix of dots and stripes is always good.
These earthy browns make my soul sing!
And this punch of green with browns – oh, my!
Oh, I visited this table again and again. The whimsical houses remind me of Pam Holland’s quilts.
The color combination of seafood green along with turquoise is not one that would have come to my mind until I saw this….and the pop of orange? Genius!
Improvisationally pieced squares in black and white?
And, who doesn’t love a blue chicken? That base of a black white diagonal stripe reminds me of how impactful a similar binding is on a quilt.

Flowers in a Jar

I don’t visit quilt shops much anymore.  I have plenty of fabric on hand and I really love using the vintage fabric more than commercially produced quilt fabric.  But the new lines of fabric are sometimes irresistible and I have a new quilt to prove that.

On a visit to a local quilt shop in search of border fabric for a project, a glorious panel of fabric caught my eye.  Flowers in a jar….my favorite kind of arrangement.  Simple.  Pure.  Country Life.  I bought it along with a couple of yards of coordinating fabric for the back.  My thoughts were, “I’ll just baste this with batting, sit down and quilt it and have a quick lovely quilt.”  Right.

I came home and looked up the fabric online (Adel in Autumn by Sandy Gervais) just to see what others had done with it.  I stumbled on a blogpost by piccolo studio.com and saw her quilt.  Oh, my!  I had to do my version of that.

I love raw edges in my art pieces, but not so much in traditional quilts.  And, I am not a fan of fusible appliqué.  But that seemed the only way to go with this.

After days of laborious cutting, I was ready to attach it to my background (pieced with an inner border of the coordinating fabric), and quilt.

I did free motion machine appliqué on the flowers and vase first, to secure all layers.  I planned to echo the design all the way to the edges, but filling all that negative space was going to result in nearly straight lines near the edge.  So I added more stems and leaves and berries in the center to echo around, giving more bumps and curves for detail in the quilting.

I used some 30 wt threads both on the appliqué and in the added stems.  Echo quilting is done with 100 wt silk thread. In this photo, you see that even with the added stems for echo quilting, I resorted to my irregular freemotion grid to complete the quilting to the edges.

When it came time to add a label, it was obvious. I had this sweet multicolored dotted fabric that looked like the contents of a canning jar. I used watercolor crayons to paint the lid and add some shading on the sides of the jar (more about painting on fabric here).

This quilt went with us on a recent outing to nearby state parks.  It was quite showy in the fresh air…just like the flowers depicted on it.

The quilt is a large wall hanging, or lap quilt. It measures 48″ x 53″.

Red Hearts on a Quilt

If it’s February, then I need to stitch hearts.  

Somehow, every year, the second page of the calendar sends me to needles and thread with hearts in mind.

This is not the time of year for me to be taking great nature photos to use in my Good Morning Girls text messages.  Yes, I’m still doing that…today is day 665, by my count.  During December, I sent photos of Christmas ornaments, our Santa collection, and amaryllis blooms.  This January had warm days with some still blooming plants in our yard, but things are a bit bleak outdoors now.  A few daffodils are up, but I needed a photo scheme for February.

I’ve wanted to learn more about photographing indoor vignettes…some “sewing still lifes”, I guess you could call them.  So yesterday, I pulled some hearts out to shoot.  I found some jewelry, some buttons, and some fabric hearts I had made.

As I played with the red hearts and the companion fabrics I pulled to use as background, I began a plan for a heart quilt.  

I made a blue one a few years ago, Loving Blues , by stitching hearts on blocks, then assembling them.  

This toile heart is posing on the linen tablecloth I plan to use as my background fabric. See the red border already in place?

This time, my plan is to start with a linen tablecloth from Europe. It has a red border woven in, so that’s convenient…and I won’t have to assemble blocks when I’m done with the hearts. 

I’m planning some appliqué, some embroidery, and some who-knows-what for the hearts. I’ll use many of my vintage fabrics, but I have some nice commercial prints that I’ll likely include. I’m thinking one heart per day in February…but these plans may change.  They often do.  I won’t bore you every day, but I will keep you posted.

And I’ve begun with a heart made from my sister’s red and pink toile drapes that she moved with her from house to house over some 40 years.

I suspended this favorite February pendant of mine over the back of a quilt with red in it. I’m liking this kind of play with the camera.

108

In the last couple of years, I’ve been obsessed with circles. 

One of my explorations dealt with blue and white circles appliquéd to a brown linen tablecloth.  For all these projects, I didn’t count the circles…just made them until I thought I had enough.  I laid the blue circles on the brown linen until I liked their distribution, pinned them in place, and started appliqueing them.  

I wanted to hand quilt this larger piece using the seed stitch.  I love the texture that stitch gives.  I’ve used it on smaller pieces a lot, but wanted to see it on a big piece.  I used Aurifil #12 thread, stitched a double seed stitch overall though only the top and batting.  Then I added a backing layer (a piece of an indigo overdyed linen sheet) and stitched through all three layers with the same thread around the circles. 

I never had a title in mind for this as I worked – I presumed one would come to me.  My working title was “blue circles on brown”.  That could have worked for a final title.  But as I neared the end of the stitching, I decided to count the circles.  107.  That could work..it’s a prime number and I like those.  But, I needed a label on the back.  If that label was a circle, I’d have a total of 108.  108 has meaning in my life and I love for the quilt title to have meaning.  

I grew up in Turner County.  During the years I was learning to drive, our county’s number was 108.  So, the title of this quilt was born.  

Between 1957 and 1970, county codes were used as part of an auto’s car tag.  The first numbers on the tag were based on the respective population of the county.  Out of 159 counties in Georgia, my home was 108th in population those years.

Notice that on the label, I used some of the trims I’ve recently dyed with black walnuts.  It’s tempting to “save” those precious bits we made or altered, but I’m in the business of using them.  Here the tatting that took the dye so well borders the 108th circle.  Oh, and the fabric circle is cut from the center of the napkin with the embellished corner.

I made Dots and Vines, which you’ve already seen, stitched some circles on a bit of linen for a scarf, and made these blue circles and appliquéd them to a remnant of a brown linen tablecloth. I have lots of prepared circles waiting to become part of another quilt, too. The post on Dots and Vines is here.

I guess this little brown linen pillow with buttons attached fits the circle category, too.

I’ve referenced my love of the blue and brown connection before. One post describing a rolled up quilt exploration is here. And a sweet little case I found that’s blue and brown and toile and bows is here.

This finished quilt measures 40″ x 60″, a lap quilt for reading or watching tv. And, yes, for napping.

Paducah Journal Quilt

Keeping a journal gives meaning to life. Reading old journals makes one pause to examine the life. Making a journal in cloth creates a quilt with a story.

2017 was a busy year for travel…we first spent three weeks driving to Arizona and back, made this pilgrimage to Paducah, then traveled to Florida to photograph nesting birds in their season.  West, north, south…a lot of miles for two people who love to stay at home. I didn’t document all those trips in cloth, but on the trip to Paducah I had such a plan in mind.

Jim and I have been to the spring quilt show hosted by the American Quilters’ Society several times. We enjoy the spectacle of the quilts, the people, the food, the music shops, the antique stores, the riverfront, the Land Between the Lakes and other picturesque environs.

The background of this quilt is mostly linen.  Included in the quilt is a bit of every piece of fabric I bought on that trip. (For quilters reading this who haven’t been to a big show like this one, it’s a shopper’s paradise.  Every major quilt vendor is there: designers, pattern makers, fabric companies, sewing machine makers, thread companies, merchants of accessory tools, and many quilt shops are represented.)

On the far right, the melons beneath the star are Indiana Homestead hand-dyed cottons, the hexagons to the left of them are Japanese woven fabrics.  In the left border, the colorful triangles are my beloved Cherrywood hand-dyed cottons.  Other purchases show up in the schoolhouse, the stars, and in the square-within-a-square blocks throughout the quilt.  Shot cotton fabrics are used in the dark areas of the border.

There were crows everywhere we went on this trip, so they got a block.

I love the blue barns in Kentucky, the chapel at Patti’s 1880’s Settlement, the vintage indigo clothing in Bell Buckle.  I found a way to include all of them in the quilt.

On our way north, we spent a night in Mentone, Alabama and took a side trip to Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Our route home included a night in Berea, Kentucky.  We fell in love with this place in 1990 on a trip to Ohio and wanted to revisit it.  We then traveled through gorgeous countryside toward Waynesville, NC for our next night’s stay.  We had lunch in one of the most beautiful small towns in America, Bardstown, Ky, and had to agree with that evaluation.  Buttons on the map designate overnight stays.

Most of the quilt was free-motion quilted on my Juki.  But quilting linen is a different experience from quilting cotton fabrics.  The overdyed linen I used for the skies in the barn and chapel blocks was lightweight and would have wanted to pucker, I feared.  So I quilted those blocks by hand.  I added color to the ocean areas of the maps with watercolor and painted the date and initials with a fabric ink.  So I pieced, appliquéd, painted, embroidered, assembled and quilted by hand and by machine…like 52 Tuesdays, I tried everything!

The label is a vintage doily attached with many vintage buttons.

The finished quilt measures 49″ x 54″. I used wool batting and 50 wt cotton thread for quilting.

Patricia Hampl, writer and memoirist, says “to write about one’s life is to live it twice.”  True.  But to make a quilt about a memory if to live it again and again…every time I see an image in a journal quilt, I remember the experience behind it.  

Earlier related posts include these….just click on blue underlined word to go to that blogpost.

The trip out West that preceded this junket north.

The stop in Bell Buckle, TN and fascination with vintage indigo textiles.

The 2017 quilt show in Paducah with photos of winning quilts and vendors.

Work on the Paducah Journal Quit in progress.

The Queen is Retiring

I’ve written about my quilting sister, Tess, many times.  She is our guild’s Challenge Queen, Ribbon Queen, and Creative Genius of Quilting.  She has motivated all of us to be better at what we are doing, to try new things, and to enjoy the act of quiltmaking.

After coming up with twenty-five glorious ideas for our guild’s challenges, she has decided to retire from that role.  Her shoes are unfillable – not that her feet are big – but her store of ideas and her sense of humor that has led to such interesting titles for our challenges will be a hard act to follow.

Not only have her titles and descriptions been interesting, the ribbons she makes for the winners are always perfect.  Take for example, the ones above for our most recent Something Feathered challenge.  And here are a couple of others:

For the “Let’s Strip” Challenge, we had to use strips of fabric in some way in the quilt. Tess made the ribbons from strips, too.
In The “Charmed, I’m Sure” Challenge, Tess required that each fabric in the quilt be unique (a traditional quilt pattern with that requirement was called a “charm” quilt. So her ribbons were comprised of fabrics each used only once.

At the conclusion of most recent meeting, our president presented Queen Tess with a quilt made by guild members to show her our appreciation for all her hard work.  The quilt has 25 blocks, one representing each of the challenges led by Tess.  As she viewed the quilt, Tess could immediately recognize some of the challenges and she was heard to exclaim, “oh, that’s the Brown Bag challenge”, and “I remember baskets, and log cabins, and oh, there’s the fans!”  

The label on the back memorializes her status as Queen Tess.  I didn’t get a photo, but the label is in the shape of a crown.

I’m not sure what that next act will be…our guild is yet to decide.  Will we continue the annual challenge?  Will we have one leader?  Will we rotate the leadership about the guild?  Will a committee determine the challenge each year?  Will the winner of one year decide on the challenge for the next?  

In the aftermath of the meeting, Tess was already wrapped in the love of her quilting sisters.

In the absence of a volunteer in the immediate future (at a time when the guild wasn’t meeting because of Covid), I agreed to plan the challenge for 2021.  That doesn’t mean I’m locked into it forever…all the aforementioned possibilities need to be considered.  But doing it once shows me how challenging it is to think of everything to plan a challenge…to get the details right, to communicate it to all, and to inspire people to participate. Really, it’s more fun to participate in making a quilt following Tess’s guidelines.  But, I do understand that she’s ready to sit back and watch…and make the quilt that takes home the blue ribbon – without having had to make the ribbons.