quiltmaking – Sandy Gilreath

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!

Putting on a Show

I’ve written before about how special my quilt guild (the Heart of Georgia guild) is to me. I recently celebrated my 20^th anniversary as a member and the sisterhood just gets stronger. I spent this past weekend with those sisters at our biennial quilt show. If you are local, I hope you had a chance to attend.

This year’s show displayed nearly 200 members’ quilts. And the 58 quilts hanging on the rails above the floor level were made by our guild for residents of the Methodist Children’s Home. Each resident receives a quilt when he/she moves in and keeps it for life. Our guild makes many quilts for this endeavor.

Quilt Show weekend is a special time for us. We work together to present some of our latest work to friends and family – and to visitors who may be quilters, but not members of a guild as well as those who want to become quilters. We want our sisterhood to grow!

I’ve written about several shows in the past and included photos of fabulous quilts. I’m doing that here for this latest display, but this time I remembered to take photos of some of the work that goes into getting it all together. This year, our quilt show leader was Helen. She did a fabulous job of organizing everything, but it’s not a one-person job. Everyone helped!

Here is Dewey demonstrating use of his longarm machine at the show. Yes, he loads all that in his trailer, brings it over, sets it up to demonstrate, and allows visitors to try it out!

Before the show can even be laid out, someone has to collect all the information on the quilts and plan the layout. This year, and for the past several shows, that person has been Dewey. Dewey is our quilting brother. A gifted artist at the longarm machine, Dewey is also quite the handyman and quilt show designer.

Dewey arrived and started setting up the poles (he had help from a quilter’s husband) and identifying which quilt would hang where. This is after two weeks’ work developing a layout on computer and then on the butcher paper.

Here Kaye is checking her quilts in. Each quilt is labeled and in a pillowcase. Data has already been sorted to assign a number to each quilt so it can be hung in the correct space.

As all those quilts come in, members resort by number to put them in place.

Here you see some quilts ready to be hung and stepladders ready.

And, the quilts are up! I took no photos in progress, I was busy on a ladder.

Sherry was busy (with some helpers) in the weeks ahead of the show making ribbons for the awards. These are the three ribbons to be awarded to recipients of votes by all viewers who attend the show. There were 18 more ribbons made to give to winners of votes by members on Thursday night.

While Thursday night’s votes were being counted, members and friends enjoyed food and conversation.

Julie’s farm-themed quilt was a big hit!

Carol’s Montana quilt was beautiful! By the way, there were many many beautiful quilts here…I shouldn’t share them all….just a representative sample.

Kathy’s scrappy quilt was fabulous…I had to share a closeup of her feather quilting on her longarm machine.

Deann won a ribbon for best hand quilting….for a different quilt…but my photo of this quilt shows the stitches more clearly.

Sheila’s masterpiece, Mimi’s Garden, won best appliqué and was quilted by Dewey on his longarm.

This is my Celebration quilt. It took home a ribbon for best quilting on a home sewing machine.

After everything was set up and ready, we welcomed visitors from 9:00 – 5:00 for two days. Then on Saturday afternoon, all this process was reversed. Quilts were dropped (gravity helped that process go faster than putting up), folded, reinserted into those pillowcases, resorted by quilter’s name, checked out, and carried home.

We’ve had a few days to put everything away at home and reflect on the fun we had. We are already thinking about the next quilt (it’s probably in progress) and planning how to make the next show better. I hope wherever a quilt show fits in your life; as a participant or a visitor, you make time to experience it.

Mimi’s Boys Working

I’ve written about this quilt before, but didn’t have good photos of the quilt or the risque fabric involved. Recently, one of the grandsons loaned the quilt to me to use in a couple of talks I was giving to quilt guilds.

The story always brings smiles to other quilters, and I have renewed determination to make a quilt for myself where I include some of this fabric.

I love toile fabrics, and selected this to make quilts for two little boys some twenty years ago. And, yes, I still have some of the fabric left. I don’t think of myself as a hoarder, but a collector of stories. And fabric holds stories. Especially fabric like this that has had a few years of life.

The fabric line from Moda, called Tom and Huck, features scenes of boys painting a fence, fishing, swimming, opening a treasure chest; things you expect boys to do. I made a few blocks, pieced them together, and had two cuddle quilts for grandsons.

I selected different scenes to feature in the largest blocks and named the quilts based on that scene. This quilt is Mimi’s Boys Working, the other is Mimi’s Boys Fishing.

Years later, one of the grandsons made me realize that a new line of fabric had put swimming trunks on the diving boy. Until then, I didn’t think about my boys being embarrassed that I had made them quilts with nekkid swimmers on them.

A little web research turned up an image of the later line of fabric complete with trunks. I guess I have to approve, because the trunks are blue. This later line of fabric was released by Marcus Bros, not Moda. I don’t know the ins and outs of fabric production, competition, and copyright, but I bet there’s a story there.

While this quilt was on loan to me, I took it outside for a photo shoot at a local library.

More details of this quilt are in an earlier post here.

And speaking of stories, I’m reminded of one about my Daddy diving into the water at a Sunday School party and his trunks coming off. It seems the adventure was unplanned and he borrowed swimming trunks from a chunkier friend. Thankfully, he was a skillful swimmer and could stay under water long enough to retrieve them.

Old Indigos

On a sunny day during a bleak week in January, we went for a ride about and took along a quilt. Old Indigos posed beautifully at Auchumpkee Creek Covered Bridge.

You know I love indigo…and I love vintage fabrics…and I love playing in the dyepot. This project combined all that.

I cut up some old indigo fabrics and appliqued a few flowers. I used some fabrics I had dipped in the walnut dye bath as backgrounds, and just stitched simple flowers.

Since all these rectangles were different sizes, assembling them could have been complicated. To piece them together, I would place them on the design wall, measure carefully, and cut precisely sized bits of khaki linen (my “sashing” fabric of choice for this project), then sew together. I’ve done that before and it’s not too hard using some gridded paper. But this time, I used a much simpler process. I arranged the floral blocks in a pleasing manner, pinned them to the khaki linen, and appliqued those rectangles down, too.

The final measurements for this project are 27” x 31”, perfect for spilling out of a basket or draping across a piece of furniture.

I finished this quilt almost a year ago…but just haven’t been posting on this site. Technical issues have convinced me that it’s time to find another way to share.

I’ll be moving my stories to other formats. Exactly what form that will take is uncertain: some Facebook, some Instagram, maybe a book.

The site and the 250 or so posts I’ve already done will be here on my website until early February, at least. If there are old stories you want to reread, or to save, now’s the time.

I’m on Facebook as Sandra Hasty Gilreath, on Instagram as Sandy A Beekeepers Daughter.

Celebration

WooHoo! This one’s done!

People often ask, “how long does it take to make a quilt?” There’s usually no way to answer that…but this one was 20 years in the making. I pieced the blocks long ago, pulled them out in February and presented the quilt as a gift early in May.

I learned a lot about quilting at the turn of the century watching the then HGTV series, Simply Quilts. On that show, a line of fabric designed by Susan Branch was featured with this pieced combination of Lemoyne Stars and half-Lemoyne stars. I was entranced. Entranced by Susan Branch’s art work, by the fabric, by the star pattern.

I bought the line of fabric in fat quarters, downloaded the show’s pattern, and began piecing stars by hand. They were lovely. I enjoyed many hours of piecing the stars while visiting with family and friends.

Then they sat in a box for years. Many years. I had memories of laying out the blocks on the design wall, labeling their position in a spreadsheet array, and putting them aside. I thought it was a failed project because the white background fabric was so thin that it wouldn’t work to assemble them.

I opened the box earlier this year to learn that I was wrong. I had put them away because the solid white blocks were the wrong size to connect with the stars. Whether I read the directions incorrectly, pieced incorrectly, or whether there was an error in the instructions, I don’t know. Fortunately the solid blocks were too big, not too small. All the stars were consistently the same size, so I just trimmed the solid blocks to fit and stitched them together. They went together perfectly. Well, there are a few less than perfect points…but let’s chalk that up to an inexperienced piecer stitching them by hand.

Twenty years of experience gave me the knowledge I needed to make the blocks work.

Here are the blocks on the design wall in February. The box on the apron of the sewing machine is where they lived for years.

As I thought about a quilting design, the obvious was to quilt feathered wreaths in the open spaces. That seemed too pretentious to me for these fun fabrics. I wanted a curvy design to contrast with the pointy stars. So I stitched an overall vine in green thread, then echoed it in a fine white thread. I like the result.

Here you see I marked a suggested path for the vines with a wax pencil (removable with a hot iron). You also see that I do not feel compelled to follow those lines very carefully.

I called this one Celebration. It was given to a family member who had reason to celebrate…but I was celebrating the completion of a big UFO! I considered calling it WooHoo, but went with the more discreet name.

This full view was taken with a drone…a great way to photograph a quilt without a sleeve.

The quilt measures 80” square. I’m pleased with the green vines on back and front, echoed with a finer thread in white. The green is a 30wt cotton thread. The white is a 100 wt silk.

I loved that this outdoor image captured the shadow of real leaves on my quilted leaves.

The on-location photos were taken at a rescued country store, Mildred’s, in Houston County.

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.

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.

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.

Hearts on Location

You know when we head out the door with a picnic lunch and cameras I grab some quilts, just in case a photo op appears.

Recently, we had several of those days – bright sunshine, moderate temperatures, no other obligations. Since it’s February, I brought quilts with hearts on them…and then I thought, I could bring some of my stuffed hearts, too.

Here are some images for your Valentine’s Day.

Hearts rested on the stacked stones at the base of a building.

Hearts in Bloom posed nicely on a porch railing.

A closeup of the heart bearing Princess Priscilla Wears Paisley.

This fountain at Tatnall Square Park in Macon has quotes at its base.

So these three hearts found a place to rest near *love*.

Sometimes displays in stores go along with my theme…an antique store in Woodbury, Ga.

I’ve embedded some links to details of quilts in the photo captions above, but if you want more, you can type “hearts” in the search box, or click on the “hearts” category in the sidebar.

Dancing Hearts was a fun Valentine’s Day project.

And…an update on the hearts on linen quilt….

I’m on schedule with the hearts on linen..Feb 13 had 13 hearts stitched in place.

I thought it was time to plan the rest of the layout…so here are more pinned in place for stitching.

This linen tablecloth has a story. I could cover it with a heart, but I love seeing the history in fabric. I’m thinking of featuring this inside a heart somehow.

The Playhouse Quilt

Here’s the story of my Challenge quilt for Heart of Georgia 2021, Playhouse in the Chicken Yard.

Participants were to channel the little girl inside, search our memory banks, and make a quilt reflecting some aspect of childhood.

Even though I wrote up the challenge description, I had no idea what my Little Girl quilt would be. I had ideas….so many ideas. That’s not unusual for me. My first thought (and most pervasive for many months of the year) was a little girl in a swing.

I started that…sketched a little girl, even made an image on fabric, painted the skin color, selected fabric to appliqué her dress…and then….

As I remembered the trees where Daddy hung my swings (there were several over the years), I recalled my parents making me a playhouse. On the eve of my 9^th birthday (it was on a Saturday that year), they sent me to spend the night with a friend. I now realize they had to scurry to get things done. They enlarged a storage room in an unused building on our property to create a playhouse for me. They added a cabinet, a stove, a bed, some dishes, and curtains to give me space of my own.

What a delightful surprise for my birthday gift! And now that I recall it, the time they took to arrange the surprise makes it even more special.

At some point in time, I came to realize that my playhouse wasn’t the romantic little image of a miniature house that some girls had in their yards, but I never thought about that. It was mine.

You can see from the shape of the building that my playhouse was in a chicken house. Earlier, there had been chickens running around, but that venture had been abandoned. Daddy stored lumber in one end and I occupied the other. My quilt has chickens running around as a nod to its original purpose…and to the fact that my mother still referred to that portion of the yard as “the chicken yard”. Thus, the title of my quilt was born.

When a guild member asked if the chickens got in the way of my playtime, I explained that these were “ghost chickens” on the quilt.

My original sketch didn’t have a little girl in it. I think my idea was that she was inside playing. My husband and daughter insisted that there be a visible little girl. So after the house was stitched down on the pieced background, I had to remove the back layer of fabric and insert a tiny door with a little girl entering. The space was so small that I chose not to appliqué this feature, but to paint it.

In my stash, I found the farm fabrics you see above. I knew those funky chickens had to roam around on my quilt.

There was a cow in a pasture to the left of the chicken house…but no room for this fabric on the front…so I put it on the back of the quilt.

I pieced the grass and sky (fabric overdyed with indigo) by machine, hand appliquéd the building, used raw edge appliqué for the tree trunks, leaves, and chickens.

I worked really s l o w l y on this project because I was having so much fun. I spent an entire day stitching samples of hair to decide how I would create the stringy blonde pigtails you see here.

Another day found me reviewing Sue Spargo’s drizzle stitch to add details to the tail feathers of the chickens.

This playhouse is still part of my life. When we sold the property, we knew the buyers planned to demolish that building, so Jim rescued the door to my playhouse. Our friend and expert craftsman, Tommy, built a stepback cabinet using that door as the back of the cabinet.

He built it so the elements of its construction are visible. He even placed the hook used to secure the door where I can see it as I arrange my collection of small things.

The cabinet is in our breakfast room where we see it every day. I hang small seasonal quilts above it – so made this quilt the width to fit on that hanging rod. Here you see the quilt is at home above the door.

Sometimes quilters like to “play chicken” with a spool of thread…you can see here that I won, but just barely.

As I planned this quilt and began working on a drawing of it, many childhood memories surfaced. I found myself planning another quilt (larger than the 29” restriction on this year’s challenge) with more Little Girl memories. I’ve already begun translating some of those memories to fabric. And, I might eventually finish the little girl on the swing…

Little Girls Challenge

Our quilt guild’s annual challenge quilts were revealed last week. You may remember the challenge this year was Little Girls. Members were asked to turn back their inner clocks to days of their childhood and make a quilt representing some memory from those carefree days.

While I was working on my entry, I hoped everyone was having as much fun with their creation as I was. Every idea that came across my mind prompted memories I had long forgotten and the actual construction of my entry made me giggle like a little girl.

As the quilts were revealed, it seemed that others experienced some of the same thrills I did.

As the Challenge leader this year, I made the ribbons. I had loads of fun painting these little girls on fabric, appliquéing their dresses, and attaching streamers from my stash of fabric and rickrack.

Our procedure is to bring our entries in plain brown paper bags with nothing that will reveal the maker’s identity. This year, contestants were asked to write a sentence or two telling the story behind the quilt. Volunteers hang the quilts and assign numbers to them. Members vote on their favorite and play “Guess the Maker” – using knowledge of individual styles of quiltmaking to assist in identifying the creator of each quilt hanging.

Votes are tabulated as the business meeting is conducted, then ribbons are awarded. Every maker then shares the story behind the quilt she entered while participants check their guesses of makers’ identities.

Quilts in this Little Girl Challenge were especially precious.

Carol shared that her two daughters had input into her creation…one said you have to include sequins..another insisted she include a very decorated birthday cake. Looks like I’m not the only one whose daughter has input.

Susan was able to attach meaning to the fabrics in a piece she made using English Paper Piecing techniques from a designer she recently discovered…aren’t those unending connections priceless?

Helen’s piece, *With Love 2 Grandmothers*, included photos of her grandmothers and won the 3^rd place ribbon. Helen even had a historical backing on hers – a collage of doilies and laces she collected at a flea market.

Gladys, our gal from Texas, couldn’t resist including a state map though she knew it would give her identity away – and on her tag she wrote of sandwiches from fresh tomatoes on the farm.

Marie may have embraced the little girl inside more enthusiastically than most…she made three entries. One, *Windows to the World*, used photographs printed on fabric and pieced in a landscape variation of a log cabin block. Assembled, they reminded her of window panes in her childhood home. This quilt was the second place winner.

In another entry, Marie’s *Starlit Cabin* was a tribute to the memory of a quilt pieced by her grandmother and quilted by her mother. Marie carried the quilt and the love it held when she left home for college.

And Marie’s third entry was *Lily Learns to Sew*. Last summer, Marie spent time teaching a young girl in the neighborhood who wanted to learn to sew. Marie painted sewing notions on fabric using watercolor; then used rail fence blocks (the same block she and Lily included in Lily’s first quilt) to surround it. And what little girl doesn’t love red polka dots?

Another quilter named Carol depicted memories of hopscotch with her friends. She used a coloring book as a basis for her appliquéd little girl.

Shirley’s entry depicts the love she and her mother share of growing flowers in the yard and of beautiful embroidery.

Sally’s Grandmother’s Flower Garden block is a tribute to her maternalgrandmother. Sally even connected the background quilting to her lattices in her grandmother’s rose garden.

My piece, *Playhouse in the Chicken Yard*, was the lucky winner of the blue ribbon. I’ll share details of its story and its construction in the next blog post.

Even members who didn’t get their quilt finished for one reason or another had stories to share. Becky told of hanging blackout curtains over their windows during WWII and of coloring on the papers that their dry cleaning came in.

Marsha had memories of milk bottles being delivered to her house and hopes to make a quilt depicting that yet. Life got in the way of her putting those milk bottles on a textile piece in time for the challenge.

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