Saturday Summary

 One of the participants in a Facebook group posted a picture of a little quilt very similar to this one, which prompted me to dig around a bit in the linen closet and get it out. I think it needs to go into the trunk that holds a lot of other "family" needlework pieces.

My mother-in-law embroidered this when she was expecting my husband, and passed it along to me when I was expecting my first baby. I'm pretty sure, from information on the FB list and other sources, that this was a kit, with the muslin pre-stamped and the applique pieces either pre-cut or printed ready to sew on. Where a couple of stitches have come undone, you can see the blue printing.

Most of the embroidery is done in running stitch, although there's some lazy daisy stitches in there too. It amuses me, because looking at it closely, I can tell that she made her stitches match the printed lines exactly.

It's bound in  a light blue calico commercial binding, which is the same print as the blue appliques.

I had thought over the years of doing something with it, maybe layering it and turning it into a "real" quilt but now I'm kind of glad I didn't, since it's (as far as I know) the only piece of handwork of hers that we have. I never saw her working on anything, but I do have a trunk full of things her mother, aunts, grandmothers and other relatives made. I'll share them in other posts.

These two knitted squares--which I photographed while they were blocking--are for a fund-raiser afghan to benefit The Ships Project.  This is sponsored by NETA, the New England Textile Arts group, to help provide postage and other associated costs incurred by The Ships Project in sending hand-made hats, scarves, socks, helmet liners, etc, to our troops.

Even though I'm not in New England any more, I have still managed to make a square or two every year and thus feel as if I'm a part of the project.

The one on the right is The Anchor, from Barbara Walker's First Treasury, and I think it's a pretty appropriate pattern for a Navy (ret.) mom to make for the Ships.

If you're in or around New England, or will be traveling in the area, do check out the blog. There's a wealth of resources there ranging from fiber festivals to shops and farms and vendors and meetups and...

Back to the pinwheels! I was cutting the completed ones (only about half of them) apart when I found this. Yeah, sometimes it's not a good idea to keep sewing when  you're tired or when the cat is being particularly pushy.

Right sides together. Repeat the mantra, right sides together.

Otherwise, Jack the ripper has to come out and separate the pieces.

I found a few more pieces of 30s prints so I cut a few dozen more squares..

Not without help, though. Note that furry butt and rather large paw holding down the rule.. Ain't no cutting happening here.

And he's ignoring me.

I was doing laundry at the same time, so when he would get in the way I'd get up and go wrangle a load or two.  Usually when I got back, he'd have left.

Look at how cute the selvedge is!

 He doesn't like laundry, once it's clean. He loves to sleep  in my dirty-clothes basket, though.  I do not question the ways of cats. Tache used to sleep exclusively in baskets of all-white laundry (diapers were her favorite) probably because, being all white herself, she thought she could hide.

Yeah. Not so much. Her name, which is French for Spot, refers to a little black spot that she had between her ears, on  the top of her head. We think Noelle got carried away washing her head and washed it off completely.

I did manage to get some squares cut, in spite of the help from my supervisor.

Then it was back to the assembly line. I've already cut a few more strips and made more squares, because I had run out of both yellow and green ones.

There are still a lot more squares to sew. At this point, I have no idea how many blocks I'm going to end up with.

I just keep sewing and sewing and sewing. Every couple of bobbins, I clean and oil the machine, and I even changed the needle today for good measure.

I think the message I got loud and clear was, time to stop for the day!

It's okay. I frogged another project and cast on for another HitchHiker scarf, because I really needed another semi-mindless travel/group project. Got a couple of doctor visits this week so must be prepared!

I'm also working on binding quilts. Still working my way around the Tumblers, but I've only got one more corner to go (and two long sides, but I'm focusing on corners...) and it will be done. Then on to the next one, and the next, and...

And Now For Something Completely Different!

Knitting!! And a Finished Object!

The pattern is HitchHiker by Martina Behm,  It's part of her e-book, HitchHiker, A Trilogy in Four Patterns.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams' trilogy--in four volumes, later five--well, I suggest a read.

The movies were not very good, and didn't capture the wry humor very well.

It's easy for jokes that depend on wordplay to fall flat when turned visual.

I first heard of it when a local PBS station broadcast the BBC TV version. That was a lot of fun, and I loved later on reading about how much they improvised when they were filming.

Anyway, this scarf/shawl/wrap/whatever thingy is a long long piece of knitting--this one took all but a yard or two of the 560-yard skein of Miss Babs' Yowza, in Nasturtiums.

It's a wonderful yarn to knit with, and this was a fun project. I mean, really fun in that kind of semi-mindless-knitting kind of way, where you can knit knit knit and the pattern just flows.

 This one starts with three stitches and grows from there, with "teeth" every 10th row. Ideally, if you were using a finer yarn (this one is a light worsted, but the original was done in Wollmeise which is sock weight) you'd get 42 teeth.

I only got 36.

So I guess I came up short on the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

 I couldn't resist posing it under the orange tree next door. I mean, could you?

The funny thing is that orange is normally not my color, but I fell in love with this skein at Stitches West last year, carried it around for a while and then it came home with me.

See, I do use my yarn for knitting with.

Really.

Quick shot of my jacaranda tree, which is blooming its little purple head off right now. It's been windy and hot, so a lot of the blossoms have fallen, and not only does my lawn look like a purple carpet, so does the driveway.

Long couple of days, so now it's wine o'clock here.

Or, as my friend Holly reminded me, it's Wine Wednesday.

Just a nice crisp tart and tangy Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. You may notice that I'm following my resolution to Use The Good Wineglasses.

Cheers, and good night. Tomorrow it may be back to the pinwheels...

Pinwheel Hell, Part Something-or-Other, with Bonus Double Wedding Ring

Here, let me distract you with some pretty pictures. Here's the evening sky, just a few minutes before sunset. 


I went for a walk, just because I'd been cooped up in the house for too long, and dusk is my favorite time of day.

Just as I got home, the sun went down, and it was a nice sunset. Not the most spectacular, but a nice one nonetheless.

Oh, you want to know about the pinwheels, and why I feel as if I've been dropped into the fifth circle of Dante's Inferno?

Would you also like to hear about my giant math fail?

Here we go. See that picture over there, the one that shows a white and a colored half-square triangle set on top of a print square?

I made a whole lot of those white/print sets. And I was very clever, and while I was sewing them I carefully set aside one colored square for each set.

Do you see the problem?

As I started sewing, I realized that I was rapidly running out of colored squares. Duh. Of course... each of those white/print sets was cut into TWO squares, so I had half as many as I needed.

 In my defense, last week I was fighting off some kind of nasty little bug. Just lots of fever, chills, aches and an overpowering need to sleep.

 One of the things I found when I was stash diving--because, when disaster threatens, I always shop my stash first!--was a pack of 50 precut 5" squares in 30's prints. Well, my 1/2 square triangle squares were mostly 5 1/4" or a little less, but I determined (yes I used a ruler and measured!) that using them would work and still leave me with 4 1/2" squares.

Would you believe I used all 50 and was still working on the blue squares? Yeah, I'm making a metric ton of pinwheels.

Yesterday I took what I'd done so far to my some-Mondays quilt group and spent something like 3 hours cutting what I've done so far apart. I had my little iron and my cutting stuff with me, but never got to the point of actually being able to press any, much less square them up.

 Of course, the Quilt Supervisor has been expressing his feelings about the whole project.

He doesn't see why I would rather play with bits of fabric than pet my beautiful cat.

I had a little trouble taking this picture. That's my arm and hand he's resting his head on.

Ever try chain-piecing when your "steady" hand is pinned down?

Not the easiest thing to do!

Then he moved over a bit, but kept his paw on the pieces so I couldn't move them.

I love those little chubby white paws of his, though.

Look at that defiant stare!

I've been busy with other stuff, though, so no sewing today or maybe not even tomorrow.

In case I forget I'm a knitter, I have a few UFOs to remind me.

This particular one has been hibernating for a while, and I finally decided that I wasn't going to like it when it was done. It's a pretty design, and the yarn is to die for--cashmere, silk, merino wool, in a heavenly lavender--but I wasn't feeling it.

So I decided the wisest thing was to frog it. Directly onto the ball winder!

 Then there was another round of purging the yarn stash. The first picture is stuff I've set aside to sell, either in person or via my eBay assistant (aka Courtney of the eternal patience and talent).

This is all really good stuff. Not that I've really had any crap yarn around the place for a while, but I have finally realized that I can't possibly knit it all.

So time to rehome it. I've already sold one skein out of the stack, so go me!

The next picture is stuff I decided to just give away.

There was more added to this after I took the picture, In fact, there wound up being two large tubs' worth.

The Great Wall of Rubbermaid

Some of it went to people who are going to knit for charity, and some for people to knit for themselves.

I'm very happy to have it gone.

Those empty tubs next to the full tub are boxes and bins that were emptied out. So now there's less in the Great Wall of Rubbermaid.

Speaking of which:

 And now for something completely different.

With all the interest that was shown over the Double Wedding Ring bits that were left on my doorstep, I thought I'd follow up a bit.

I passed it along to Tim Latimer, who does the most amazing things with vintage quilt tops and unfinished pieces. He blogged about it here. 

I'd mentioned the DWR quilt Id made for my son and his wife when they were married in '87, and texted JP to ask him to send me some pictures of their quilt.

So here are his pictures!

I love the hanger he made for it. JP has a real talent with woodworking, among other skills.

It's all hand quilted and uses the finest of quilting fabrics that were available in '87. I guess that kind of makes it a time capsule.

Maybe some day a quilt historian will look at this quilt and have some comments about the choices. Some of the fabrics have faded a bit, but I personally am glad to know that they've had it and loved it for all these years, and that it's been a background to much of their family life. Much better for a quilt than to be hidden away carefully "preserved" and yet meaningless!

One thing my hypothetical historian might notice is that the quilting stitches are mostly not perfect, and there's a wild variation in skill levels. That's because I had help quilting it from friends who wanted a part of it, from my daughters who wanted to learn a bit, and even--wait for it--from some celebrities.

This quilt had a "cameo" part in the John-Boy's Wedding episode of The Waltons. So the Quilting Consultants (a co-worker, Janeen Lewis, and I) got to spend a day on set, coaching the actors on how to appear to be quilting (for the ones who didn't actually know how). A few of the ladies did know how to quilt, though. Michael Learned  (Mom Walton) is an accomplished quilter.

So, there's my update about what's been happening. I have a piece of deadline knitting that needs to be finished ASAP, which I can hopefully show off the next time I blog, and maybe I can start dividing my time a little more evenly between the quilting and the knitting.

Well, it could happen. I could finish a pinwheel quilt or two in this millenium. too. Weirder things have happened!

Pinwheel Progress

Finallly getting a chance to upload the rest of the pictures from my last post, as well as a couple of new ones.

Here are the white/color squares going through for their second pass.

Two stacks which theoretically will turn out to have the same  number of pieces in them.

On the left, the white/color sandwiches; on the right, the color pieces that will be added to them once they're cut apart and pressed.

I had a Monday quilting day with my friends, so I used that time to cut my squares in two. On Thursday, when I did laundry, I set up the little ironing station and got them all pressed open.


Of course I had plenty of help from the quilt supervisor!

I got the squares all separated by colors and stacked up more or less neatly. 

Which, of course, is an open invitation to someone to decorate my stacks with a lot f fluffy fur.

Even though my "boy" is getting to be an old cat now, he's still got an awful lot of floof.

Look at that tail...

Took me a couple of sessions to get through the stack of pink/white squares.

But they're now all sewn and stacked up, and I'm ready to move on to the blue ones.

I'm sewing them starting with the largest numbers first. Not sure if that's the right order or not, but I figure this is going to have a pretty scrappy look when it's done, and it should work out pretty well no matter what I do.

Right?

Well, I'm going to find out.

Here's the stack of squares ready for their second pass through the machine.

Once these are all sewn, it will be back to the cut apart and press routine. Then comes the real fun: squaring them up.

I might have to cut and sew the sashes and cornerstones on the Mill Girls quilt as a change of pace. I'm pretty motivated to keep moving on that one, too. I've found a place I want to hang the finished quilt...

Lazy Sunday morning.

For some reason, this is one of his favorite napping spots. It's not big enough for him. He overlaps it all around, but he loves it, so here it stays.

... and then I hit the road, but that's a post for another day. If you're at all curious, you can check out my Flickr set until I get the post written.

Hint: Today is the G-man's 7th birthday. (It's so considerate of him and his brother, to have birthdays on holidays!)

Catch Up!

Okay--this is it for pictures today! Blogger appears to have taken an aversion to my photos tonight, been trying for the last three hours to upload four more and it keeps saying "no no no"--well, to be precise, I get a little bar that says it's uploading 2 of 3... and then sits there. I mean, I've eaten two artichokes, cleaned up the kitchen, gotten semi-caught up on blog reading (and on some fascinating groups on Facebook, too!) as well as watching Anna's fabulous 105-picture slideshow!

And managed to get one picture uploaded.

I'll try later, or tomorrow. Meantime, here's a picture of my half-square triangles in progress, which have now been completed, cut in half, and are awaiting the next step--pressing! I'll probably do that tomorrow while I'm wrangling laundry, or maybe I'll cut the sashings for my Mill Girls quilt. I got the blocks all neatly pressed, so they are ready for their next step.

I've been kind of busy lately with the ongoing process of trying to go through my belongings as preparation for downsizing my living situation. I've sent yarn off to a couple of places, went through some of my fabrics and found four boxes worth to take to class last night--the only things that came home with me were a piece of lime green flannel and a small piece of one of the Millenium fabrics, showing stylized Eiffel Towers. How could I not?? One of the pictures that's refusing to load is of the spread of fabrics as we went through them. 

There are so many other things that I'm ready to move along... But for tonight, I'm going to go sew some more binding and watch some stuff I DVR'd over the past few weeks. I will say, a good episode of Hoarders can really motivate me to keep sorting and purging.

Maybe I can upload the pictures tomorrow. The problem may be that none of them have cats in them...

Hoorah for Finishing Something!

 Celebrating the first of the six (current) bindings that need to be finished--one down! Five to go, but who's counting?

Finished sewing the binding late last night, but waited till today to take its picture. Here it is reposing on a chair and basking in the joy of being finished.


(If you look over in the upper right side, you can see a chair that's full of finished quilts waiting for various destinations.)

 

Here it is after its bath, all soft and crinkly.

 A close-up. Indulge me, please, while I enjoy the look of a truly finished quilt.

With a corner flipped up, you can see the binding and also the quilting on the back.

Oh, and of course it's already been put to use.

My daughter and her girls came over to help me plant some bulbs that had been sprouting in peat pots on the back deck. Well, of course my daughter is the one who did all the work. The girls found a lot of interesting things to do in the yard, though, including finding worms, squishing holly berries, and pulling all the dead camellias off the bushes.

After dinner while Mom and I talked a bit, they got to curl up with the new quilt and watch a little Netflix.

So, with one WIP done, it was back to work on the pinwheel quilt.

The supervisor did not approve of my work plan. He was quite vocal about it, too.

Okay, I need to be the Krazy Kat Lady here for a minute. I love love love his big white paws! 

No, you will not do this, at least not this way.

This is quite nice in the warm-and-fuzzy department but not really conducive to good quilting seams.

Finally found an acceptable solution--I moved the stack of white fabric out of the way, and that made room for Mr. Widebody.

The pinwheel quiilt is coming along now. I don't have all the white-and-color half-square triangles done yet, but I've started on the last set of colors.

I had to stop and change bobbins twice. Bernina bobbins hold an insane amount of thread, so that will give you an idea of how many of these triangles I'm sewing. I'm actually on the last of the pre-wound (by me, in anticipation of this project) bobbins, so when this one runs out I'll be winding another dozen or so. I do stop and oil the machine and clean the lint out every second bobbin--I'm using cotton thread for this and it is lintier than the poly, but not by much.

There does seem to be an accumulation of cat hair, though. Wonder why that is?

A Bit of History

Hand pieced assembly

 In yesterday's post, I referred to a mysterious box of quilt pieces that had been left on my porch.  (The picture is here,) A quick note on Facebook, and posting the picture there, and the "mystery," such as it was, was resolved.

Today I "met" the person who gave it to my friend Holly, who had given it to her son to put on my doorstep. (Can I just say how much I love social media for things like this?) Her name is Linda, and after I took these pictures, I sent her a  link to the ones with writing on them to see if she recognized any of it.

Piecing from the front

She did. While I was taking and uploading pictures, she'd been going through things from her mother's pattern easier family that had handwriting on them. But it turns out, the name on these is actually her father's mother!

She never knew that her grandmother had started this; it was in some of the things her mother had, and so she'd assumed it was from her mother's side of the family.

I think the variety of fabrics is fascinating, and so is the construction.

Juncture of the rings and corners

As I've mentioned (ad nauseam, I'm sure!) I've made a few DWR quilts--a couple of kings, a couple of queens, a 4-ring one for my parents' 50th anniversary, and a couple of shop samples. (I've also taught it as a class.) I still love the pattern, and I've watched a lot of different methods developed to make the pattern easier, or at least less wonky. This one is a pretty standard version.

The pattern pieces are cut out of brown paper, probably traced from a newspaper pattern. I wonder if it was something like the old Kansas City Star patterns?

That little bit of fancy woven fabric--shiny as ribbon!

Judging by the number of pinholes in the pattern pieces, my guess is that she pinned the pattern to a few layers of fabric and cut them out.

Most of the piecing is done by hand, but there's at least one melon that was sewn on the machine. I took quite a few shots of the hand and machine piecing--as always, if you click on the picture, it will pop up bigger.

(You can also go to the Flickr set and look at larger versions of the pictures there.)

This is really stirring up my curiosity about the fabrics, though. The muslin in pretty stiff and is very loosely woven--I can't tell if it is heavily starched, or if it came with that much sizing in it. One of the fascinating things is that there's a chunk of the muslin in the box that has a red binding sewn to it. It looks as if it had been cut from a garment or a bag of some sort.

Somewhere in my "vast" library of quilting books I think I have one that talks about dating fabrics. I think it's time to stop talking about organizing and just do it.

Two rings joined at the corners

I'm going to stop talking now and just make a couple of comments as captions. If you have any input on the possible age of the fabrics, or thoughts about dating them, please do comment!

One last thing: I will probably not try to finish piecing this, at least the way it is now. I'd want to do a wash test on the muslin, for one thing, because I'm afraid that once the sizing is out of it, it will ravel like crazy. I also remember being told (or maybe I read it, much time has passed!) that old unfinished quilts should be left as is, since they are historical "time capsules" and adding modern thread, batting, fabrics, etc., compromises their integrity. Not that I think this one is all that historic--but the thought persists. 

Brown paper pattern

The pattern pieces

This was in the box--looks like instructions for a signature quilt.

A setting corner for the signature block

Another setting piece

Name on the back of the instruction piece, and what looks like calculations for the proposed quilt.

Pieced block that was in the box. Wonder if it was going to be cut up for this quilt?

This fabric is very thin and fine, feels like a Liberty lawn. Pretty sure it isn't Liberty, though!

I'm working with a reproduction that looks a lot like this one!

This plaid fabric has a whole different feel than the other fabrics.

The shape of this shirting piece suggests that it was left over from a sewing project.

The muslin--very coarse and stiff

Muslin scrap with binding on it. Practicing binding, or cut from a garment or bag perhaps?

Some of the piecing stitches are very large and loose.

This looks a lot more like basting than stitching that was meant to last.

And... this melon was sewn on the machine.