A Little Red, White and Blue

Don't you just love the parade of red, white and blue that is going on in blogland? I usually substitute cream for white and occasionally even throw in some brown for the 'patriotic' quilts that get made around here.

Stack of red/white and blue

Here's my 'Glory Baskets' quilt I made about ten years ago. I made one for my sister and then couldn't bear to give it away so I made myself another, using a few more tans in mine. It hangs on a quilt ladder in my living room year around because I just love looking at those baskets.

Glory Baskets

This one has a collection of star blocks from some very good friends we used to live around in Oregon. The blocks themselves are very plain, but when I paired them up with the madder red and the reproduction sashing and border fabric, the entire quilt started coming alive! Good friends always make for good quilts.*wink

Stars of Friendship

My 'Plain Jane' quilt is extremely hard to get good pictures of. I think she must be very shy so I won't bother her any more today.

Plain Jane

This would be the only red/white and blue wall hanging I have. For some reason I thought there were more, but I think a lot of those items were discarded when experience taught me how shabby my initial work was. I probably kept this one because it's one of my only attempts at embroidery.

You Are Welcome Here

It's that time of year when I think about getting really patriotic and making an eagle quilt. Wouldn't that just be the coolest thing ever to put on a guest bed? lol I can practically feel my sisters rolling their eyes at me from over five hundred miles away....

Third Finish of the Year!

Plain Jane is finished! I can't believe how much texture there is throughout and how much more obvious it is after washing/drying the quilt. I literally did this little gulp/gasp thing just taking it all in.

Plain Jane

Wowsers..., isn't it incredible when our quilts just keep on surprising us? We think we have it all figured out, but it's not over till the last stitch, till it's washed and dried and we can see it with all the lovely bumps and crinkly crumples.

So much lovely texture

There's so much I love about this particular quilt, starting from the basket blocks clear through to the hand stitching. This entire quilt is made from my stash too, using all kinds of fabrics I was starting to think might be waaay too dated to blend properly into the background like I like them too. It will definitely make me think harder about some other fabrics I've been reluctant to use recently!

Not so 'plain' anymore

There was also a lesson in this quilt about never giving up on a quilt top if you're ever unsure if it's truly finished or not. I came back to this quilt top at least a year later (maybe more) and added the applique on. At the time I finished the rest of the quilt top, I literally had no ideas for add ons. And it was a nice enough quilt top the way it was. But... down the road, on one of those days when I pulled my quilt tops out of the drawer and considered, it looked plain and even kind of down in the dumps about not having any embellishment. I ignored the feeling in my gut a time or two but eventually I couldn't help myself and started throwing some of my applique parts and pieces at it until I had an idea for what this quilt needed.

And more texture...

I get comments all the time that this quilt top is not a 'Plain Jane' and that the name doesn't seem to fit. I know it doesn't. Now.

The BACK of my (experimental) improv. quilt

And yes, Plain Jane was the third finish of the year because I slipped another quilt into the queue. I made a small improv. quilt for Sherri Lynn Wood when she put the call out for volunteers to 'test' her quilt directions for the book she's publishing in 2015. It was an extremely frustrating process at first because I am completely unfamiliar with true Improv., but it was also fun and even a bit exhilarating after I got the hang of it. Or maybe I didn't ever really get the hang of it because my quilt wasn't one of the quilts chosen! A bit of a disappointment for a few days and then I snapped my chin back up to face forward again. Really, it was a great experience for me with lots of good stuff to learn.

I'm not supposed to share the front of the quilt with you until the book gets published, but the back will hardly give you clues to any special pattern directions! The hand stitching was all done in Perle Cotton in big fat circles (a first for me) across the quilt. You will definitely be seeing more of that from me as the quilting went lickety-split and I looove the look of it. Even though I really don't like the whole 'I did this wonderful quilt, but I can't show you 'cuz it's special, blah, blah, blah' kind of posts, I decided to show you a pic of the big stitch quilting circles for when I refer back to them. And you know I will. All about how I'm going to do better at them this time around and you're not left scratching your heads wondering when I ever did them the first time around.....

Oooh, How Fun To Start a New Project!

Don't you just love the feeling of starting a new project? All the fresh colors and possibilities... I must confess to having this one cut out for awhile, squirreled away and waiting for the perfect time to jump in and start sewing pieces together. These greens have really been pulling at me lately, probably because of the very long winter we just came out of.

My new Flock of Geese quilt

All of these flying geese units were cut out using the Easy Angle method, something I've been wanting to reacquaint myself with. I used Bonnie Hunter's great directions to get started and after my initial uncertainty, things went really well. I've had the Easy Angle ruler and the Companion Angle ruler for years now, but for some reason I had switched to a different method a zillion years ago and never went back.

Lovely to see these sewn together...

Gotta say that for me, these geese are turning out to be much more accurate with this method. Will know for sure after I get the whole pile sewn up and ironed. (I do kind of have a tendency to start drifting on my stitching after I've been at it for awhile!)

Binding for Plain Jane

I've also been working on the binding for Plain Jane, mostly in the evening while my daughter is working on her senior project. She's trying to put together a family cookbook that is consuming boat loads of her time and definitely trying her patience too. Not being an experienced cook, she needs a lot of help interpreting all the recipes she's been receiving from our very large family. I've tried to work on hand piecing while helping her out, but I keep getting distracted and then find something sewn wrong yet again! Much better to work on something simple like binding which can practically be done on auto-pilot.

A big thank you to everyone who was kind enough to give feedback on my previous post. As a mostly self-taught quilter, I often hesitate before posting anything that will come off sounding like 'advice' or look like I'm trying to set myself up as an expert. How wonderful to see that the on-line quilting community is big enough to accommodate quilters from all walks of life and/or experiences.

Getting Down to the Binding and a New Read

Ah, relief! The book work is finally done and handed off to the accountant. Still have a lot of filing to do, but that shouldn't take forever. I've actually spent quite a bit of time in the evenings hand quilting just to unwind and now my Plain Jane is showing the results.

All the quilting done

Deciding on the binding didn't take long nor did sewing it onto the quilt. A bright, rich red was my instant favorite out of all I auditioned. The reasons escape me, but I often go with a contrasting color for binding fabric.

Ready for the binding to be hand sewn

Still some hand sewing for the binding work, but I'm waiting for proper motivation and time. Right now I feel like a wrung out dish rag and just want to vegg. for a couple days.

How fun is this?

Good timing with my new read. This book came in the mail yesterday--a lovely win from blue elephant stitches! It's packed with short essays from very well-known modern quilters. I do wish there was more history and/or insight from these successful quilters, but so far I'm enjoying the brief glance inside their heads.

The whole modern quilting movement has been very interesting to me from the start and I've avidly followed along with some of the uh, contretemps shall we say! I'm curious to see where it all ends up because anything that brings people into the world of quilting is something to be celebrated in my mind. Fresh viewpoints should equal innovation plus inspiration and then we're all winners in the end. Right?

Here's a link to a post I read the other day that addresses one of the main things about this trend that I've (personally) struggled with all along though: Quilters taking classic traditional patterns, making it with very current {modern} fabrics, and then calling the entire quilt 'modern'? Or not! Apparently 'modern' is more than just the fabric. I did wonder about that! And why are people so quick to be divisive anyway? Can't we all just be quilters? Gotta laugh 'cuz in my 'About Me' tab I slapped a label on myself. Yep, it's a crazy world we live in....

Another Slow Stitching Sunday

Here I am, finally working on the border for Plain Jane. Very exciting to reach this particular step, but I have to continually remind myself that I'm not as close to the finish as it feels like!

Plain Jane border stitching

Ahhh... but a girl can dream. I'm already trying to pick out the next quilt top that I'll be sticking in the hoop. It's good to have time to decide though because I have soooo many to choose from. I really, really need to pin a quilt for machine quilting too, but that's not nearly as fun (or relaxing) for me as hand quilting.

I'm glad to say that I chained myself to the desk last Friday and finally made a little inroads into my paperwork too. Hopefully I can pace myself and stay motivated enough to finish up by the end of the week or at the very least, early the next week. Every little bit helps and as someone pointed out to me recently, it always helps to just get started. And of course, it always feel good to walk away from that stuff and curl up on the couch with my hoop all ready to go. Sanity, thy name is quilting! lol

Once again I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, one of the few linky parties I actually feel a connection to. Usually I feel a bit out of step, but Kathy has a way of making slow stitching feel like a valuable part of our week--something I totally agree with these days! Now I'd better go referee the 'who-ate-the-last-of-the-icecream' wars and make sure nobody gets hurt around here.

Part #2: Learning How to Make Freehand Baptist Fans For Hand Quilting

If you read through the previous Baptist Fans tutorial, it's easy to see that traditional fans are made up of lots and lots of the exact same set of arcs. They are carefully marked onto the fabric, side by side of each other, and then on top of each other in a series of endless repeats. It all looks very tidy and well organized.

Making the arcs freehand style is where you can take the carefully marked out of the equation and go your own way although the essential structure remains a constant. I generally grab a piece of paper to start with and draw the basic set of arcs that I'm considering stitching. As before, I'm working with a three arc fan. You can choose to add as many arcs as you like--draw them very close together or even spread them out. It's always yours to customize.

One set of Freehand Arcs

Once again, I'll use a piece of paper to demonstrate how the arcs might look together. In the picture below I drew one set of arcs at a time moving from the right to the left and then starting again at the next row--all without using a template. As you can see, some arcs are flatter, some are taller etc. This is a natural conclusion of working freehand style. As the arcs build across the quilt, this begins to get quite interesting and yes, even a bit frightening, especially if it's the first time you've worked this way! Mostly, I think, because it all seems a bit out of control and we're programmed to resist undisciplined action!

I'll have to admit that the first time I starting stitching freehand Baptist Fans, I was almost in tears a third of the way through my quilt. I was positive I had ruined my quilt. After a good nights sleep and some gritty determination to make myself finish what I had started, I continued on and ended up with something I still love to this day. To me, working freehand is one of the best ways to get your stitching to look more personal and charming. It also removes any pressure to get things 'perfect', which I for one, appreciate.

2 Rows of Freehand Arcs

Working with my Plain Jane quilt (below) I decided to start stitching at the far right corner of the main body of my quilt rather than the very bottom corner. I'll come back and stitch the border later because I think it needs to be stitched in a different color of thread than the blue I'm using for the rest of the quilt. I generally mark the first three fans or so onto my quilt before I start to stitch freehand Baptist Fans. You don't have to--just wade right in if that's your preference. In the picture below, I used a blue wash-out marker, marking entirely without a template. I then stitched those first arcs and moved up to the second row.

From there on, throughout the rest of my quilt, I won't use a marker again unless I really get in a quandary about what to do. (Sometimes a rows get really out of whack and it helps to draw a set of arcs with a marker so you can 'see' it). I just eyeball the distance from arc to arc and stitch away, letting my eye be the judge. If you decide to draw all your fans in the freehand style before stitching, remember, no need to worry about getting perfectly marked, smooth arcs. As you stitch, you will automatically make small corrections to make things appear smoother.

The first hoop of freehand Baptist Fans

When I get the first hoop filled with stitching, then (just like with formal Baptist Fans), I move the hoop to the left and start up where I left off on the very bottom row. It's always good to work in the same general direction, right to left, bottom to top etc. although again, I want to emphasize that there are no rules!

Some people prefer a mix of formal and freehand looking fans rather than (what they consider to be) out and out chaos. Tim Latimer has an excellent example of this with one of his latest quilts where he marked the longest, outside arc and then went back and filled in the rest of his arcs with freehand style arcs. It's a perfect way to get familiar with letting your 'eye' tell you where to stitch next and/or keep to more structured looking rows of Baptist Fans.

Moving over to start the second hoop of stitching

If you prefer not to mark your quilt at all and enjoy a more casual look of stitching, the freehand Baptist Fans are extremely easy to stitch once you get into the rhythm of the design. Another thing to be aware of with freehand fans, is that you can stop at any time in your quilt and change up the direction you're stitching the fans in or even add an extra arc or two to any of your fans. Whatever you think the quilt needs. Really. I'm being serious here. When the entire quilt is stitched, it's almost impossible to see where there's an extra arc or two and imperfect rows only add to the charm. All that your eye really processes is the basic Baptist Fan stitching pattern--the arcs themselves!

Freehand Baptist Fans in my Festival of Trees quilt

What I love the most about freehand Baptist Fans is the fact that the further you progress through the quilt with your stitching, the more 'disorderly' the fans become (you can see a little of this in the picture above). Freehand is not for everyone and I know I still have a long ways to go before my freehand gets completely unique and crazy. Working with freehand stitching does NOT come naturally to me--it wars with the perfectionist side that I keep trying to liberate with my quilting! lol  Ready to try some freehand Baptist Fans yourself? I'll warn you--it really can be a bit addictive.

Plain Jane's Time is Coming!

Always like to get a quilt back in the hoop as soon as I can. I'm giving myself a week or so pass from hand quilting though so I can catch up on my applique. Lately I just can't seem to fit in any decent time in for applique so that is how I roll! lol  Excuses, excuses. Getting our son off to the airport today (brr) and then school starting back up tomorrow for the youngers will get us back into regular routine in a hurry.

My Plain Jane quilt

I thought I'd use Perle Cotton on this quilt and just go crazy, but the more I got to looking, the more I want to do a Baptist Fan pattern with regular hand quilting thread. Simple I know, but oddly compatible too. Feel free to tell me if you disagree!

A closer look at Plain Jane

I somehow managed to mislead everyone about Dutch Comfort being a 2014 finish, but it's not quite.*sigh  Hopefully this picture shows that more clearly. I have the binding sewn on by machine, but still need to turn it over and hand sew it onto the back. Was waiting for the proper color of thread as red seems to disappear quickly around here. Maybe all those applique flowers and berries I'm always adding on everywhere? Whatever. Now I have the thread (plus a few other colors just in case something else comes up) and will be waiting for the proper mood to strike for the sit-down time with the binding. I'm a little iffy about how and when that particular mood strikes, but hopefully it will be sometime this week as I would love to throw this across my bed and watch it warm up my room.

Dutch Comfort

Then I will be sure and bore you all with a picture of the entire quilt in its wonderful finished glory so you can rest easy knowing that I do actually wash out the blue markings.*wink  Funny how I'm less concerned about that than I used to be although I have been trying to keep it out of direct sunlight.

Plain Jane Has Blossomed

I have been very busy the last couple days trying to catch up on book work.  Garhhhrr!!  It's a disaster in my little den of an office and I have to admit that my toe hurts from where I tried to kick something.  Nuff said about that! except that I'm afraid I have many more days like that before the end is in sight.  Thankfully I have lots of rewarding projects to take my mind off of all that wearisome work waiting for me.*wink

Plain Jane--Sugar bowl quilt
Looking very sweet these days.:)

You can see that I got the border work done on Plain Jane.  Personally, I think she looks very pretty these days and extremely happy with her make-over!  My oldest daughter couldn't quite get the 'Simplify', but in order to understand that, you have to go clear back to the beginning.  Originally, I had intended to put a very fancy border on this quilt with swags and formal looking flowers.  By the time I was putting borders on the quilt, it was obvious that it needed pared down a lot.  In fact, after putting the scrappy blues on the border I figured the quilt was done (finite).

Plain Jane--Sugar bowl quilt
A better look at the borders.....

Then I pulled it out of the drawer the other day and starting re-thinking the plain border.  Hmm...  Maybe I did the quilt a bit of a disservice.  It really looks like it could manage a touch of added sweetness, something simple and free from affectation.....  So what do you think?  I know I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out!

Look what I won!!!

Also, I wanted to show you the package that was in the mail yesterday!  I won this beautiful package of fabric and pattern from Temecula Quilt Co. on Christmas Eve!  So very exciting.  It felt like I was getting another Christmas present!  The strips of reproduction fabric are literally making me drool. lol

Keeping it real.....

And just so you know what my quilt room looks like when I'm busy elsewhere and have to sneak in my little chunks of quilting time.  Ahhhh... January.  The one month I just can't get away with avoiding the office....

Plain Jane Seems to Want Some Attention

Always looking ahead, that's me.  I went digging through my completed quilt tops to see which quilt needed to go in the hoop next and stumbled across my sugar bowl quilt.  This quilt (which I call Plain Jane) has been living happily in the drawers with all the other finished quilt tops until this week, when for some reason she demanded to be prettied up a bit.

Plain Jane (Sugar Bowl Blocks)

Strange how that happens.  I really thought this particular quilt was perfectly content as it was.  Hmmm... I do wonder if I'm putting off working on other projects that I'm right in the middle of?  Oh well.  When inspiration strikes, it's best not to ignore it for too long.*wink  I promise it won't be overkill.

Prep for Plain Jane border work

I'm a list girl so it's pretty easy to see what projects are ready for attention you know.  My 'To Do' list is always in a color that jumps out at me and I place it directly to the left of my sewing table.  Hello?  Don't forget about me!

To Do list