quilting – Page 13 – Daily Fiber

WIP Wednesday: Shell Lake Quilt

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Laura Kate

For the past two weeks I have been laboring slowly but surely over this quilt. The first week was spent sewing blocks together and sandwiching the quilt. Because I plan to do the quilting in sections, I assembled the quilt in three pieces.

I dithered about for what seemed like forever to come up with a quilting plan. Many hours were spent viewing various classes on Craftsy. Christa Watson’ class “The Quilters Path” is one that gave me some guidance.

https://www.craftsy.com/product/the-quilters-path-plan-it-stitch-it-quilt-it-dvd-streaming/

By Monday, I had come up with a plan.

I started with the Around the world block. First I worked stitch-in-the-ditch every three inches to stabilize the section. Next came the free motion pattern. All of those straight lines needed to be softened and quilted down.

I worked gentle curves across the straight lines.

What remained to be quilted in this block were two large sections of background fabric, including the part with the whirligig. Christa’s all-over motif of loops with random flowers and leaves came to the rescue.

Here is a photograph of the completed sections of an adjoining block.

This is very pleasing to my eye. Having now completely quilted one of the three pieces, I feel that I will likely finish the other two by week end. Then I can move on to final assembly, binding and the Big Reveal!

hand embroidery, quilting

Re-entry

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Laura Kate

Last Wednesday, the husband and I returned from a very long journey. Over 13 days we drove over 3,000 miles, traveling through nine states. The climax of the trip was three days spent in Ohio, assisting my five siblings in sorting the parents’ household good in preparation for distribution and sale. It’s hard to describe the physical and emotional energy exhausted during that effort, so I won’t try. I wish I could show you a lot of great photographs from the trip, but I didn’t manage to get any worth sharing.

Back here in Oklahoma, it took me a few days to settle back into my normal life. The last few were spent working on hand embroidery of the Shell Lake quilt blocks. It was a good choice for my re-entry, because I could do it slowly while listening to podcasts and drinking lots of coffee. I think that I am done, but not sure. To give me some perspective on my work, I have photographed and posted each block. Let me know if you think the woven sections have enough stitches.

CENTER BLOCK

FOREST BLOCK

FIRE BLOCK

LAKE BLOCK

SKY BLOCK

On another topic, I have brought home a few UFO projects from my mother’s stash that I promised various people that I would finish. My plan is to post about each one as I work through them. If you’re not a fan of sewing and quilting, don’t jump ship yet. I will be continuing to explore watercolor painting, drawing and knitting in the coming months.

hand embroidery, quilting

WIP Wednesday: Hand Embroidery

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Laura Kate

It’s been a while since I shared progress on the Howard Wabi-Sabi quilt. For this Work In Progress post, I’m showing how I hand-quilted a few of the vintage weaves that were used in this object.

After much consideration, I decided that it was OK to sew on (aka deface) someone else’s work. This change of heart came after I was in Madison recently, where I asked my daughter to show me more samples of Margaret Howard’s work.

Oh my. There was so much of it. Huge plastic bins filled to overflowing. Several samples were woven with the same motifs found in the pieces I was using in my quilt. Perhaps each piece was not that precious to the maker. They were woven, perhaps for practice, perhaps for auditioning alternative color choices.

When I picked up my quilt blocks again, it was clear to me that my stitching could accomplish its task of quilting down the batting and backing while also reinforcing the existing weave patterns. To my mind, this is enough to honor the maker.

Today I am showing two blocks with embroidery finished.

Center Block before:

Center Block after

Fire Block before:

Fire Block after:

I’m aware that the differences appear subtle in the photographs. But in person, the embroidery stitches bring some color variation and texture that was lacking.

Thanks to Amanda for adding her embroidery to the work, which jump-started my own efforts.

quilting

Stay at Home Round Robin – Final Round

Posted on February 24, 2022 by Laura Kate

It’s time to put the final touches on the 2022 Stay at Home Round Robin quilts. Our quilting friend Chris has chosen Shoo-fly blocks this week.

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/32776/posts/3844524934

After observing how she built it and how it is used, I am totally on-board. Here is where I am with my quilt after the end of the fifth round.

To summarize, I made five blocks built around vintage weaves and organized them in a Nine-Patch configuration. That leaves space for four in-between blocks. A few weeks back, I decided that I could create transitions between the corner blocks with Around The World strip-pieced blocks. The thought of connecting all of the elements in this manner inspired and delighted me.

And of course, it leaves room for the Shoo-fly blocks.

The more I look at the shoo-fly, the more I think of it as a symbol. To work this into my design, a shoo-fly will be placed at each cardinal point of the compass:

North, east, south, west.

Let’s get these made!

First come the half-square triangle. I made four in each of my primary fabrics.

I liked Chris’s design, where the middle row was half the width of the other two rows, so I made my blocks the same. The center block will give us the “sign,” telling where we are headed.

In this photo you see four blocks, including the center block, the fire block and the two transition blocks that are finished.

I have cut my background fabric an extra two inches bigger in the transition blocks. Eventually I will add enough background fabric to the edges of the corner blocks to level up the quilt. This will bring the finished piece up to 62 inches square.

If all goes well, I will have the whole thing pieced together quite soon.

To see the other round robin quilts, go to the linky party:

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/e9a2be034cae4219b07c3c7300b4c6eb

quilting

SAHRR Quilt Round 3: Oh, My Stars!

Posted on February 21, 2022June 24, 2022 by Laura Kate

Chaos reigned in my studio yesterday as I attempted to make star blocks. Stars were chosen by Roseanne and Sue @ Home Sewn by Us for Round 3 of the round robin quilt-at-home challenge. This picture is me trying to play catch up.

I got behind during round 3. It was that week my mother, aged 91, had a stroke and was taken to hospital. Our father, who is 94, needs a little help at home. In response, my husband and I traveled home to stay with Dad and help out my siblings with Mom’s needs. We took turns visiting Mom daily while she recovered well enough to move to assisted living quarters. It was a busy and emotional time for all of us.

I’m back home now. The temporary crisis has passed, but my mother is no longer the energetic and capable person who raised me. She will need help daily.

Life can be cruel.

So I’m working through the chaos today. But first, here is how I started this block. I married together two weaving samples for the background of the Sky section of my quilt. This area will represent the element Air.

I like the horizontal bands of color. They look like clouds at sunset. To represent the setting sun, I used the foundation paper piecing method and created this:

This piece will be attached to the top of the fringed weaving.

Eventually my stars were finished up.

I sewed them together into a border and attached it to the right of the sunset.

A narrow piece of gray swirled fabric represents the wind.

To finish this block, I attached border strips to the left and bottom.

The fringe flies freely so that it can wave in the breeze. And my studio has been tidied and carpet vacuumed.

Now that the Elements are all present, I am ready for the final round of Stay At Home Round Robin. With a bit of diligence, I’ll have something to show by Sunday, when the linky party ends.