Friday, October 28, 2016

Folded Star Quilt Finished

Making a public goal got this quilt done. It's in the mail. Hooray! There was no more of any of these fabrics. A remnant of another green made the binding. In fact, there wasn't quite enough so I added a slightly different shade visible at the bottom left if you look carefully enough.

Quilt of solid colored fabric of greens, peach, red, purple, navy and grey
Folded Star quilt

Last week I showed a photo of the spirals without the echo rows. Here it is again with echo quilting which makes the spiral stand out better. {The Ad Hoc Improv Quilting link is still open on that post. Kaja and I would love for you to join our study/discovery of utility and improvisational quilts.}

Detail, Folded Star quilt

Just another detail of the quilting. I wish I'd used grey fabric where the navy triangles are.

The center was quilted with a walking foot by eyeballing the width. The navy and grey areas are FMQ. Playing with curls, hearts, bubbles and stipple. I did mark the spine of the feathers in the outer border.

Detail, Folded Star quilt

Quilt Details
Size: 40" x 40"
Pattern: Folded Star by Cristy Fincher
Batting: Mountain Mist Cream Rose 100% cotton
Thread: Various embroidery and sewing-weight cotton
Quilting: Walking foot and free motion on a domestic machine

DH took me with him to a meeting in Pennsylvania so I spent a perfect day at Valley Forge. It was so warm; several locals were on the grounds reading and sunning. They must know winter is coming.

This is the Potts' home that George Washington rented at Valley Forge. The front door is almost a dog-trot; when open, air blows straight through it and out the back door. (Texas pioneers built homes with a wide open hallway down the middle to cool their houses.)

Valley Forge headquarters of George Washington

Here are some details of the rooms.

I watched Hamilton's America on PBS this weekend and was surprised to see so many places I've visited. Several were from Valley Forge. They seemed to be standing exactly where I took my photos! The program mixed parts of the Broadway musical Hamilton with background visits to various museums and historic sites. I thought I'd be disappointed that it wasn't the entire musical but the program was excellent. Hope you saw it or have a chance to see it... and the musical!

I'm dusting off my copy of The Federalist Papers to reread. These essays written by Hamilton, Madison and John Jay urged Americans to ratify our proposed Constitution and are still used to interpret the original intent of that document.
Rooms inside Washington's Valley Forge home

Ten to twelve enlisted men lived in cabins like this that have been reconstructed throughout the Park. Love the split rail fence.

Log Cabin for enlisted men at Valley Forge

The National Memorial Arch was built in 1910 and finished during WWI. Chiseled in it is Washington's tribute to his troops: Naked and starving as they are we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery.

National Memorial Arch, Valley Forge PA
Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

AHIQ Linkup October 2016 and Quilting Spirals

Between this small quilt and the t-shirt quilt I haven't started any improv this month. But the quilting design has free-hand aspects. After some ditch quilting with a walking foot, I decided to quilt spirals on the inner border.

Why? Because the thread is a bit heavier and tends to knot up if you change directions in a point. Spirals have no sharp points for knots to form.

Free motion spirals without echo quilting

I used a glass to mark circles. This keep the spirals reasonable spaced. But it still takes practice to maintain spacing during the inward and outward spin.

A glass makes a good
template for spiral placement

Adding a line of echo stitching on each side of the spiral will fill out this border.

Enjoy the day, Ann

InLinkz removed because it was hacked.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

T-shirt Quilt Top Finished

There wasn't a single fabric that could frame all the t-shirts so I used a variety. Although each post is a pocket label - twenty of them - there were still more. They are scattered across the top along with other sections from the shirts.

Center of t-shirt quilt sewed

Then I sewed the border. I cut the fabric to include the entire circle but am considering cutting it partway off. I just need to maintain the proportion of the overall quilt.

University of Arkansas and Alpha Omega Pi t-shirts framed in light prints, sashed with red.
Partial view of t-shirt quilt with borders

My tenure as program chair is finished but still looking forward to Lisa Boni's lecture and workshop next week. I plan to make several Christmas presents using her design to decorate Altoid tin boxes.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Starting Another T-Shirt Quilt

The desire for t-shirt quilts never dies. A friend wants one from her college shirts and I finally have time to start. Because her college and sorority colors are cardinal red and black or white I first pulled the two fabrics on the left. Although I like the multi-colored floral, it dies against black so the heart-printed paisley will be the sashing.

Sashing fabric possibilities on the left.
Border, sash, frame choices on the right.

M. has so many pocket t-shirt prints I decided to use them as posts. They all finished 4-inches. That meant the sashing had to be wider than normal {for me.} And that caused the shirts to start fading into all that sashing. So I added a frame around the shirts. Problem solved.

The blue circles create a fun border.

Preliminary layout for this t-shirt quilt

Coming along!

We travelled through Phoenix recently and had time to visit a small National Park Service museum at their airport. Now I want to see more of Arizona's stunning parks and monuments.


Among the artifacts was this cast of Smilosuchus gregorii, the top aquatic predator of his day (220-230 mya.) Just as impressive to me was the woven textile by Walnut Canyon cliff dwellers in the 1100s. So intriguing to see some of their pottery designs woven into this piece.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Thursday, October 6, 2016

OMG for October

I basted this quilt in May and need to get it finished. At least, it should get off the basting table.

Pin basted baby quilt

The center is made of four rotated blocks from a Cristy Fincher class last year. {Moving really fast.}

Part of the reason it's not quilted is the difficulty I have choosing how to quilt solids. Have you seen Mel's blog? She has some wonderful work.

Linking with OMG (One Monthly Goal.)

Enjoy the day, Ann

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Spiderweb Quilt Finished and Kaleidoscope of Butterflies Oct 2016 Linkup

It's time for another Kaleidoscope of Butterflies linkup. What have you done or seen?


I finished Suhavi's Stars, a Welcome to the World gift for a precious baby. {It would have been a baby shower present if I hadn't been out of town all summer.} While it's not a kaleidoscope, I used that ruler to draft the triangles for the strips.

Suhavi's Stars - a spiderweb quilt

With only one yard of orange solid {which is not as bright as these photos} I needed some scraps to widen the back. These make me very happy. The blue especially sets off the orange.

Back of Suhavi's Stars

Because there wasn't enough of either, there are two different fabrics for the binding. They looked different as pieces but are much less noticeable on the binding.

Suhavi's Stars spiderweb quilt,
details of binding and quilting

The quilt has been gifted. The parents like it, too. Hooray!

Quilt Details
Size: 40" x 40"
Pattern: Spiderweb
Batting: Mountain Mist Cream Rose 100% cotton
Thread: Gutermann peach cotton
Quilting: Walking foot

There haven't been many butterflies lately but the hummingbirds have been crowding the feeder. I guess they are preparing for their trip south. This one was enjoying the flowers. And aren't they similar to the quilt's colors?

Hummingbird feeding on nectar

Other kaleidoscope quilts on the web:
  1. Melissa's 
  2. Linda Miller's
Enjoy the day, Ann

InLinkz removed because it was hacked.