Once again I ask you "What was she thinking?"

So it appears that there was interest in my quilt making journey and how I got to where I am today.  I am not in the least embarrassed to show you my older quilts. I'm proud of the fact that I was fearless and solved problems on my own. I made quilts that had I know how difficult they were, I would not have even attempted to make them! But ignorance is bliss and when faced with a problem I just used the skills and knowledge I had to figure out a solution. Actually sometimes I forgot to use that knowledge as is the case with today's quilt!

For me English paper piecing (EPP) was (and still is) the go to technique for creating complex designs without the need for precision cutting of fabric or marking of sewing lines on the patches. It is how I made the Wagon Wheels quilt I showed you the other day, I'm working away on requilting it and am enjoying the hand work. Polyester batting needles so nicely!

I also use this technique to make my Pound of Stars quilt.

More recently I used it to make Gardens of a King quilt top which is a pattern I tested for Missie of Traditional Primitives. You see, English paper piecing is not just for hexagons!

Honestly, if you want to do precision piecing of virtually any block, English paper piecing is the way to go. The quilt I am going to show you today was made around the same time as Pound of Stars and Wagon Wheels. What makes this one different is that it involved much more complex curved piecing and what I learned in making it was "use what you know". In this case I didn't use what I knew. I was accustomed to sewing clothes and I new about clipping curves (like when you are setting in the sleeves on a shirt) but it never occurred to me to clip the curves when I made this quilt. What quilt pattern is it? Well it was the pickle dish pattern and here is my version of the pattern.

Cranberry Glass Pickle Dish by Karen H

It isn't a large quilt but it has been used extensively over the years and it shows absolutely no signs of wear. For the most part it was stitched with the cheapest polyester thread I could find and I think that the two beige fabrics used where the rings connect might be polycotton! Here you can see both the polyester stitching and the beige fabrics.

One of the things I ask myself is what was I thinking when I used black - it was a nightmare to hand quilt on black. Because I didn't clip ANY of the curves  there were areas that just would not lay flat. So what did I do? Quilt the heck out of them of course! I wasn't entirely successful (actually I wasn't successful at all) but nonetheless I forged ahead and in the end the quilt did what it was supposed to do and that was get used! The second red triangle in from the right on the top curve is a leftover from the red border sashing in my Wagon Wheels quilt. The second red triangle in from the left on the top curve is a piece of the fabric I used on the backing of this quilt. I remember where and when I bought it. It was an older cotton fabric and only 36" wide. It was 100% cotton and I bought it because it was inexpensive!

I still hadn't figured out how to bind a quilt so I just trimmed the backing and batting (polyester of course) down and then turned under the edge of the quilt top (1/4" please) and the quilt backing and I whip stitched the two together. 

If I were to remake this quilt today would I make it the same way? The answer is yes and no. I would probably use EPP to make parts of the top and I would probably still use polyester thread (the quality today is excellent and it is inexpensive) but I would clip curves and make better choices in fabric colours (no more black thank you very much). 

Still, I like this quilt, warts and all. I learned a lot making it and it is yet another quilt that has been loved and used. Really, isn't that why we make quilts?

I don't plan on entering any of my quilts in a juried show because it just isn't my thing. I critique my own work and give myself a pat on the back when it is deserved. For me the most important elements of quilt making are taking pleasure in the process of making the quilt and knowing that the finished quilt gave someone warmth and comfort. My Cranberry Glass Pickle Dish ticks both boxes! 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last post. There were a few from No-Reply Bloggers so while I was unable to send you a person note (there is no email attached to your profile) I did read every comment.

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Karen H

Show and Tell and Oak Leaves and Plumes in Love Entwined

Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell theme this week is stars. If you've never submitted a quilt I encourage you to do so. You will find the instructions on how to do it here. Now tell me who doesn't have a star quilt? I have oodles of them so the question was which one should I submit? I decided on A Pound of Stars!

A Pound of Stars

It was made very early in my quilting life. I was living in a small town with no access to fabric shops. I bought a pound of scraps by mail order from the US. I combined them with cotton sheeting to make this quilt. The quilt was English paper pieced because it was the only way I could figure out how to cut and piece this quilt!

Work continues on Love Entwined! I've completed one of the oak leaf and plume arrangements and the second one is getting there!

I think the little orange circles inside the oak leaves are the perfect touch and now they don't look so naked. I might just make more orange circles and save them because I'm sure I'll find other spots where I can use them to embellish the quilt!

It's a short post today. Until I post again, happy sewing!

Teepee and canoe, the man in the moon and another hexagon project

I've completed another tiny world make-do pincushion. I found this wonderful pottery dish at the local thrift shop. I liked the earthiness of this dish and thought it needed a pincushion with an outdoor theme.

So here it is.....a teepee and a canoe that are lakeside. This was a fun pincushion to make and it is my own design! I call it Teepee at M'Chigeeng. M'Chigeeng is a town and a lake on Manitoulin Island. It is the largest fresh water island in the world and it is located on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron.

Here is a close-up of the teepee and canoe.

I had promised to show you some close-ups of the hand quilting in A Pound of Stars. My camera and computer are co-operating (for the time being) so I was able to take some pictures. I started at the edge of the squares and simply quilted concentric squares until I got to the middle. I had no idea how to mark a quilt so this was a perfect solution!

Here you can see an even larger area which is made up of four squares. Rather than quilt them individual I quilted them as one large square.

In the ice cream cone border I quilted a crescent moon, Saturn, stars and in each corner the man in the moon.

Close-up of the man in the moon

Finally I've decided on just one more hexagon project. This one should be relatively quick and easy because it is entirely machine pieced with 4 1/2" hexagons and equilateral triangles. The quilt is in this lovely book. I don't normally make quilts from patterns but there are some lovely ideas in this book so I just couldn't resist. I'll put my own touches with colour selection and quilting!

The name of the quilt is Hexagon and Blue Star.

 

 

I have a nice pile of charm squares many of which are more along the line of reproduction fabrics and I think they will look great as large hexagons.

 



 

I've been through my stash and selected the background ad border fabrics.

I have had the lighter blue fabric for some time and I thought it would work well. It is a nice soft blue with a hint of green so it will work as a neutral and really show off some more colourful fabrics. I recently saw this striped fabric and decided it is the perfect inner border. I'll use only the blue stripe because I think the yellow and golds are a little more subtle and they add a nice highlight.

The first step will be to make the hexagon templates to make the cutting go a little faster. The second step will be to cut the border strips from the length of the fabric so I don't have to piece the border and from the leftovers I will cut the equilateral setting triangles.

Until I post again, why not keep me company and start another hexagon project?

The final four stars in A Pound of Stars

Here are the final four stars in A Pound of Stars!

Although this star is scrappy, especially the middle round, the blues are much closer in value so that the block looks less "wild".

The yellow points in the following block reference this same yellow that was used in the centre of a star that I showed you yesterday. I repeated the yellow fabric so that didn't stand out as much as it would have were it only used in the one block. It is such a bright yellow that if it was used only once it would have looked out of place.

The last star is one of my favourites for one reason....the turquoise patch. Aside from that one patch this block also looks a little less scrappy but if you look closely you will notice that several fabrics were used in the middle round. In case you are wondering about the turquoise patch. I call it my "thinking patch". I figured people would look at the quilt and wonder if the patch was a mistake or if it was intentional - it was intentional!

This quilt was entirely hand quilted without any markings because I had no idea how one would go about marking a quilt. I started by echo quilting each individual diamond. Then I had the large white spaces to fill so I started out by echo quilting and then just kept quilting is a square spiral until I got to the centre. My computer and camera are giving me grief today so I don't have pictures to show but will try to sort out my problems and post some for you in a future post.

I do have pictures of how I finished the edge of the quilt. I had no idea how to bind a quilt with a curved edge (I barely knew how to bind a straight edge). The solution? I quilted the quilt and then trimmed the batting so that it was 1/4" or so shorter than the ice cream cone patch. Since the ice cream cones were English paper pieced there was a nice crease on the curved edge. I simply folded the patch over the batting and pinned through to the backing along the curved edge. Finally I trimmed the backing fabric so that it was 1/4 to 3/8" beyond the finished edge of the quilt top. I turned the backing under and re-pinned the edge so I could used a whip stitch to close the edge.

It sounds like it was time consuming but in fact it was fairly quick and certainly much easier that applying a bias binding to the curved edge. And I really liked the finish much better than a curved binding. I have since done a curved binding on the ice cream code edge of my Dear Jane quilt but that was many years after I made A Pound of Stars. You live and learn! Oh, and in case you didn't already guess this I used white polyester thread to piece the whole quilt! I suspect that some of the fabrics in the quilt are poly cotton. This quilt has survived many, many years of rough use. The seams and fabrics are all intact and I think it looks pretty good! I hope this story has inspired you to get creative and not to fear breaking rules or making mistakes.

A Pound of Stars, early 1980s

I bound Lazy Punk and used the same fabric as the backing. I love the stripes and the taupe tones so I made bias binding and applied it to the quilt. I am very happy with this finish! Time permitting it goes in the washing machine and dryer today!

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

The next four stars in A Pound of Stars

The Quilting Gallery Show and Tell scrappy star quilts are amazing and there is a wonderful variety of stars. My quilt is called A Pound of Stars. I've been and voted for my three favourites - it was a tough decision but I managed! You can see all of the entries and vote here!

Today I'll show you another four blocks from A Pound of Stars and the final four will be tomorrow.

A Pound of Stars centre panel, early 1980s

All of the quilts that I remember from my childhood were utility quilts made of scraps. In the few magazines I owned back in the late 1970s there were pictures of quilts with a planned colour scheme and that was new to me. I liked them but I felt that they lacked something (and that's just a matter of personal preference). I preferred quilts that were more "casual", less "formal" and more scraptacular! I understood that you made a quilt with what was on hand and if you ran out of something you just added something else. And if the quilt was somehow less than perfect it wasn't a big deal -  in fact I kind of liked the quirkiness of the imperfections.

When I look at the stars in my old quilt I can see they are less than perfect and the colour placement can sometimes be jarring. In the following block I clearly had enough cadet blues so that they could be arranged in pairs in each larger diamond but the placement of the two in the lower right hand corner aren't right. There should be two cadet blues, two light blues, two cadet blues and so on. I can't remember if I made a mistake or if the anomaly was intentional. Either way I like it!

I think if I had taken a class or had access to other quilters I may not have slipped in the two lighter blue patches in  the middle round of diamonds in the following star. If they had all been made of the same blue I think the star would have been very boring indeed!

I believe I ran out of darker blue patches for the middle round of diamonds so I added a lighter blue print. Notice the lighter patches on the left side and two separate lonely patches of the same light fabric on the right side. I think this placement provides a reference for the lighter patches on both sides. This arrangement of light and dark is what I call informal balance! But it works.

In this fourth star I know that I didn't have enough of any one pink to make the entire round of pink diamonds. I used the three different pink scraps that I had and when they were used up I added the light blue.

Looking at this block (and the others) individually they do appear odd but when the are combined into a quilt I think that they kind of sparkle. There's a lesson here - sometimes you get too close to the tree (or stars in this case) to see the forest! It's good to get some perspective because just a little distance reveals something very different!

Looking at these blocks is dangerous for me! I've always loved this quilt and I'm thinking I should make another! Oh dear, I think I may need professional help!!!! Perhaps if I just drafted a pattern for the diamonds that would get it out of my system! I'll think about it for now!

I'm off on a field trip today. Come back tomorrow for the last four blocks and I'll also tell you how I finished the edge of the ice cream cone border! And don't forget to take a look at the Quilting Gallery Show and Tell!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

A Pound of Stars

Quilting Gallery's theme for this weekend's show and tell is "scrappy stars". You can see all of the quilts here and vote for your three favourite quilts! The star is such a lovely block and there are so many varieties and variations from simple to extraordinarily complex. I would guess that almost every quilter out there has at one time made a star block. I've made many quilts with star blocks so choosing which quilt to show was a difficult decision. But I settled on A Pound of Stars. It measures 68" x 85" and has been very well used over the years!

A Pound of Stars, circa early 1980s

 

This is one of my earliest quilts and it was started in the late 1970s and finished in the early 1980s. The idea for this quilt came from a picture of an antique quilt in Ladies Patchwork magazine. I was living in a very small, remote, northern community when I began this quilt and I had no access to quilters or quilt shops. I could order muslin and a few cotton prints from the Sears catalogue but I needed a good selection of calicos. In the back of the magazine there was an advertisement for scraps by the pound from a company in the US so promptly ordered a pound of scraps. I used them to make my quilt. It's also the source of the name of my quilt...A Pound of Stars! To the pound of scraps I added leftovers from garments I had made and cut up shirts. This star was made from the pound of scraps and a shirt.

 

 

As a beginner I had no idea that some blocks are more challenging than others so when I decided that the eight point star would be a really nice quilt to make I was undaunted. Back in the day magazines didn't provide much in the way of instruction and as a real beginner I had no idea how quilters made eight point stars. I had already had a learning experience when I discovered that the preferred seam allowance width is 1/4" and that it has to be added all around the patch, not just to one or two sides! I was familiar with garment construction and routinely sewed a 5/8" seam allowance which just added to my woes! So piecing this star presented a huge challenge. I knew how to baste fabric to paper because my Grandma used to make hexagons in this way and then appliqué them to large sheets to make comforter covers. I figured it would be a good way to make this quilt block; as long as the patches were larger that the paper my seam allowance problems would be solved. So I basted the fabrics to diamond shaped papers which I drew and cut out one at a time and then I stitched the diamonds together to make larger diamonds and the diamonds were stitched into stars.  I later learned that the name for this technique is English paper piecing. The entire quilt was English paper pieced, including the large squares, triangles and ice cream cone border!

 

Ice cream cone border

Ice cream cone border at the corner

 

The stripes in the centre of the following star were left over from a vest that I made for myself! Most of the other fabric came from the pound of scraps. I knew that if I swapped out some of the fabrics for a second fabric the star would get more interesting. Instead of using the bright turquoise all around I threw in some yellow and a blue print that had a little yellow, green and turquoise. I really liked the effect! It is a lesson that I still use today and that is plan to run out of a fabric so you have to add another. It will add interest, depth, richness and complexity to your quilt!

 

 

I loved the turquoise polka dots in the following block. They too came from the pound of scraps! Believe it or not I still have a little bit of that fabric left. The blue geranium print at the points was from a yard of fabric I bought when a travelling fabric shop finally came to town. I bought it with money that my brother sent me as a birthday gift. It was one of the first pieces of quilting cotton I ever bought and I still have some of it in my stash!



 

When I made my quilt I had no one to tell me that there were quilt making "rules" and that was a very good thing. It forced me to find creative ways of working and to look for solutions to the problems I encountered. Figuring out how I could make the blocks was only the beginning. At the end I had to ask myself "how the heck to I bind this thing?"; I'll tell you about that in another post.

What I want to tell you is rules are helpful but don't feel constrained by them. If you think it might be easier or more fun to do something differently, give it a go! If it doesn't work (as was the case when I didn't add seam allowances all the way around) you can just keep it to yourself or have a good laugh with friends! However, if the experiment works, how satisfying would that be and how great would it be able to share what you've discovered with your quilting friends? At the end of the day there are no quilt police so don't worry about doing things right or according to the rules. Just let go and have fun - you might teach yourself a thing or two! I've told you many times that I learn something with every quilt I make and the lesson this quilt teaches me is this: don't worry about rules, just do what makes you happy and you did it right!

I found happiness in the making of this quilt and to this day that's exactly how I feel every time I look at it. Tomorrow I'll show you some more of the stars. I leave you with a picture of the fall crocuses which started blooming yesterday! Such a pretty little treat in mid-October!

And finally, same tree but different bird! Yesterday was the Cooper's hawk and today it is a crown.

Until I post again, I hope you've been inspired to go out and break a few rules!