Moving on to the Square Deal

"Your future depends on many things but mostly on you."

~Frank Tyger

The Square Deal is finally moving ahead again. My machine is threaded and raring to go. This one might be finished in a week or two. I divided the quilt into three sections: the center Square Deal blocks, the white sashing and inner border, and the outer lattice border. Each will have different quilting.

Free motion quilting in progress on The Square Deal

Angela Walters' recent FMQ Challenge inspired the quilting design here. It's looking better as more blocks are finished. Isn't that frequently the case? A little bit looks terrible but adding more hides flaws or at least blends them. Those straight lines are only straight-ish and their spacing was eyeballed but mostly they show as a unit that contrasts well with the curves in the red HSTs.

The first row of the design took a day with sketching, planning how to move across the blocks, and practice drawing to build some muscle memory. The next day I finished that quarter of the center but all four sections were completed by my fourth day of quilting. No, I don't quilt all day... at least I didn't this time. It was good to see my speed pick up as the quilting design became ingrained.

The border was next up because it's a larger area than the sashing and seemed trickier to fill. Better to choose this quilting before finding a filler for the sashing, which could easily have many simple designs. Part of my difficulty is that, unlike the center blocks, the lattice is free-hand cut.

As you can see in the photo below, the Xs don't line up. It looks lovely but finding a design became harder. Here are some sketches:

Border quilting ideas

I definitely want the quilting to move from block to block so I don't have to bury a lot of threads. Learned my lesson on those baby quilts. ;-) The continuous curves on the left mimic those in the center. Hey, good repeat. But... they will never line up well from one to the next because each lattice is unique. The spiral looks more like an Eye of God and doesn't seem to go with anything. However, the feathers on the side look interesting.

And here's what I finally went with:

Final border quilting idea

I almost didn't use this Greek key because its sides are straight and the lattice isn't but finally decided the contrast of straight and curves works, it repeats the straight lines in the center, and I can't think of anything else.

The quilting hardly shows on the front. It's much more visible on the back.

Quilting the lattice border

I'm just starting the first side of the border. Slow going because someone chose to quilt backwards. Instead of pushing the quilt away from me as I move from block to block, I'm pulling it towards me. When I get to the corner, I'll see if I can change directions. Too soon old and too late smart.

Reading

The plan last year was to read the books already on my shelf or dispose of them and the project started strong until it was sidetracked by many new and interesting tomes. Isn't that always the case? So much to read and not enough time.

However, several Charlotte MacLeod mystery series from the 1970s and 80s have been calling to be re-read. {Do they count if I've already read them once? I say, yes.} Charlotte writes with a breadth of knowledge about art, architecture, history, etc. {basically culture} in an equally broad vocabulary. There are words I rarely see, used with pleasure and playfulness rather than affectation. This writing style is not as common today {even though there are loads of cozy mysteries} and find I've missed it. She incorporates patter dialog - quick, fast-paced, funny exchanges that remind me of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The Sarah Kelling mysteries of Charlotte MacLeod

She had four series: Sarah Kelling {a young widow on Beacon Hill who meets an art investigator}, Peter Shandy {a New England professor of agriculture}, Madoc Rhys {a RCMP detective}, and the Grub-and-Stakers {a Canadian garden club.} Currently I'm finishing the Kelling series pictured above. The secondary characters are idiosyncratic and the situations are zany. These old friends delight my cold winter days and nights.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Back to the Square Deal

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. 

I acted and behold, service was joy."

~ Rabindranath Tagore

When I saw Tula Pink's Free Fall extra wide on a trip it called to be made into a dress but without the pattern I couldn't calculate yardage. The store closed and that opportunity was lost. Finding the fabric online seemed like a sign but... It's printed at a much, much larger scale. Instead of kumquat-sized circles, these are grapefruit. Who needs a quilt back 108" wide but only 72" long? The mistake compounds - absolutely not a dress and not enough for a larger quilt either. It could be the back to several baby quilts.

Tethys Waves needs a back but this is much too short so I pulled out other quilt tops. According to my calculations it was just enough for the back of Square Deal but once pinned it came up an inch short. Grr. Fortunately there's loads of width left so I matched the design as best as I could, pinned and then glued it in place, then took the whole mess to the machine to sew the seam. Crazy but it worked {if you don't look at the birds closely because they are different angles.}

Large scale Tula Pink Free Fall fabric back

SID the sashing and borders was my first task {Hey, I remembered!} then I stitched the edge of the quilt to keep it from pleating during the FMQ.

SID sashing, borders and sides of quilt

The dreaded thread color decision was next. I could use red to match the large HSTs, light blue to blend with the Coins, or nylon monofilament to cover it all. The blue looked terrible on the HSTs while the red wasn't quite as bad on the Coins {probably because of their variety} so that was the choice. You might have to enlarge the photo to see the threads crossing it. Let that be a lesson to us all; sometimes we create a bigger deal out of things than is called for. {I do this almost every time I choose thread. Sigh.}

Red or light blue quilting thread?

Because the back is light blue I tested that color in the bobbin. No threads are peaking through from the other side this time. Yea.

The quilting designs came from Angela Walters YouTube videos. While the wishbones are easier, I can't make the quilting travel easily so I'm going with the echoed lines although it involves more quilting and more time.

Three variations of a
quilting design from Angela Walters

OTOH ribbon candy might look nice on the sashing and straight lines here will add good contrast. That's my story for now. We'll see what emerges.

Merry Christmas to all!

Enjoy the day, Ann

Reprise and Somebody Had Her Face Washed

This is the other baby-size top from that old nine-patch exchange. The tan is the same fabric as the center of the previous quilt but the blue and red are different. And all of these blues and red were used up making these two quilts. Yea!

It seemed like a good idea to practice my new FMQ skills again. I used the same design on the nine patches as the first quilt. The outer tans have a new-to-me dot-to-dot from Angela's video. The middle one had the same problem as the previous quilt - it needed a "centered" design. This one didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped but it was still good practice. The red and blue squares got figure eights this time but I rotated the design for the two colors. {Just for fun.} Thread on each of those squares had to be started and stopped but all the others traveled or ended in at the edge.

Four-Patch Nine-Patch baby quilt 2 with quilting ideas from Angela Walters

I forgot to SID at the beginning so had to add it as a final step. Note to self: if you're going to SID, do it first.

Back of Four-Patch Nine-Patch baby quilt 2
with quilting ideas from Angela Walters

Despite a box full of solids, none of them worked for binding except a tan twill. Because it was a bit thicker than quilting cotton I wondered if it would work at all. I sewed the binding to the back first then pressed it - an important step to make the binding smooth. After folding the binding to the front and pinning every few inches, it was easy to sew close to the edge.

Quilt Specifics
Size: 40" x 40"
Design: Four-patch nine-patch
Batting: Mountain Mist Cream Rose 100% cotton
Thread: grey, red and blue Gutermann 50 wt cotton
Quilting: FMQ based on Angela Walters videos and walking foot SID

Approximate Yardage: 4 yd 

Revisions
Clara has been bothering me quite a while because she looks like a tart. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I removed her heavy red triangles of blush and added two small peach hexagons instead. She still has false eyelashes and they will stay. The hussy!

Clara collage quilt with a facewash

Travel
I hope your Thanksgiving was as delightful as mine. Lots of family gathered together. My daughter suggested I purchase a Spiralizer apple peeler for the pies and crumbles. They are a lovely company out of Wyoming with great personal service. How did I manage all these years without it? We all took turns coring, slicing, and/or peeling the apples and potatoes. This little machine lets you pick and choose among these features plus it has an additional appliance that juliennes. I have a food processor but this little hand-turned machine works much more easily.

Spiralizer apple and potato peeler

You know you're a Texan if you think Blue Bell makes the best ice cream. I hadn't been to Brenham since the children were in grade school. Things have changed.

Blue Bell Creamery

The girl with her cow is printed on every carton so, of course, they commissioned it for their front lawn. The last time we visited, tour guides led us around to watch workers filling buckets with ice cream. Now we washed our hands before entering and were not allowed to bring food or drinks. The factory floor is much more automated and every worker is carefully garbed for safety. It still looks like a great place to work and the ice cream is delicious.

Family left in stages and almost everyone missed the weather delays. Now it's so quiet. Good thing I have some projects to keep me busy or I'd be crying.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Free Motion Quilting Practice

"The American people must understand that as soon as America doesn't stand for something in the world, there is going to be a tremendous erosion of freedom. It is true. And yet, it is awful hard to convince people of it at home."
~George H.W. Bush

From time to time I remember to check my YouTube subscriptions. Recently Angela Walters started a new series called, Help! How Do I Quilt It? which I've found helpful. She is extremely organized yet friendly and funny. She created a panel printed with all the blocks she discusses quilting over the series and sells thread and other tools. And then she taped these videos that are freely available. I really, really, really don't need another project so I didn't purchase the panel {That would have been too easy.} so I was just watching them randomly.

Angela's first video discussed nine patches and oh, how I wished for a small quilt to practice. Then I recalled these blocks from a trade many years ago. I sewed them into two baby-sized tops last year but all the solids gave me the willies so I put it away.

Four-Patch Nine-Patch baby quilt
with quilting ideas from Angela Walters videos

Angela showed several ways to quilt the block but she returned to the start each time since that worked best for her panel. Mine was already sewn and I wanted to travel from one block to the next to avoid starts and stops. Also, my nine-patches are "backwards" so I wanted the x's in the corners.

It took half the day marking the vinyl {the best idea to practice quilting designs I've ever found} but I finally figured out how to do it. Here's a diagram of my variation of Angela's design. There are nine pictures on this graph going across and then down {with space between each picture.}

Traveling nine-patch quilting design
 based on Angela Walters videos

Since Angela was so gracious to film videos, I don't want to reiterate all her details. This is just a reminder to myself of the order I quilted the nine patches. Go watch her series. It's fabulous. But my version moves me across each block so I can quilt them diagonally.

And here's a photo of the front and back of my quilt after completing all the nine patches. You'll notice only two of the corners have x's. The others could be done by sewing a diagonal line the other way across the quilt. It's the only way I could figure to allow me to end up on the opposite side of the quilt without backstitching.

Nine-patch quilting based on Angela Walters design

All that and the large solid squares are still not done.

After watching her video again I decided to add quilt the red and blue squares with dot-to-dot on one side and continuous curve on the other. Angela had one more line of dot-to-dot but again, I wanted to travel across the block rather than finish at the starting point.

Then I framed the tan squares and used curves I call figure eights but Angela calls wishbone. Her wishbones have much smaller curves; something to work on. The last four squares on the middle of each side seemed to need a centered design so I created my own variation as Angela. It did end up back at the start but it's on the edge. No threads to bury.

This photo shows all the quilting but you'll notice none of the squares are SID.

Quilting designs on Four-patch Nine-patch quilt

Angela and I both have a compulsion to keep those seams from coming loose. So my final step was to take care of those long seams. I used the walking foot. Usually SID is my first step. Doing it last meant this was not as neat as one could hope. Lesson learned.

It's a lot of quilting and took more time than I usually spend on a baby quilt but the point was to practice her methods. Learning new skills always takes more time.

Quilting designs on Four-patch Nine-patch quilt
with stitch-in-ditch added between blocks

Changing colors on the different squares meant there were several threads to bury. I have two drawers of thread and none of them are tan. But as part of my clean-it-out kick I chose to use what's on hand. The grey was too stark against the red and blue squares so I changed threads.

There was just enough red remaining to bind the quilt. The back looks a bit Christmasy but it matches the red on front.

I learned new ways to think about quilting, tried several new designs and feel more confident. This one can go on the baby quilt stack... you know, the one I've spent half a year trying to build up.

Binding detail

Quilt Specifics
Size: 40" x 40"
Design: Four-patch nine-patch
Batting: Mountain Mist Cream Rose 100% cotton
Thread: grey, red and blue Gutermann 50 wt cotton
Quilting: FMQ based on Angela Walters videos and walking foot SID

Approximate Yardage: 4 yd 

Monthly FUR (Fabric Use Rate) 
For my records, October saw three finished quilts = 17.75 yds, one shirt = 3.5 yds, and 2 yards donated for a total of 23.25 yards.


Travel
After my niece's baby shower we visited the George H.W. Bush library in College Station which none of us had seen before.

George H.W. Bush Library

With much more land than his son's at SMU so there is room to add Air Force One when it's retired as well as the engine that carried his body here. George, Barbara, and their daughter, Robin, are buried nearby.

The museum is chronologically arranged with sequential rooms for various stages of his life. Interestingly, a section of the Berlin wall was gifted to the library by the citizens of Berlin. This side faced West Germany while the other side is completely blank. They are spread worldwide. I've seen other sections at Rice University in Houston, Montreal, and Mountain View, California. Have you seen any?

A section of the Berlin Wall

A room dedicated to the Gulf war held the Gate of Kuwait. The hundred-year-old door is framed with plates bearing the names of American service members killed in that conflict and contains this inscription:

Gate of Kuwait

"When a man gives you the key to his home it means you are the best and most valuable friend to him; when a man gives you the door to his home it means that you are one of his family."

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone connects with family or friends - whether in person, writing, voice or video.

Enjoy the day, Ann