Arrived home today. We visited the cottage where Margaret Howard did her weaving. I was able to get a photograph of Shell Lake Story quilt in its native habitat, on a camp bed.
That’s all I have time for today.
See you soon!
Back from Vacation
Tag: vintage style
SAHRR Challenge 5: Earth
We are nearing the end of weekly challenges for Stay At Home Round Robin quilt 2022. This week Quilting Gail of gave us options: We could add some appliques to our borders or make our border of rail fence blocks.
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/102293878/posts/3830168731
I am also running out of options on my Four Elements quilt utilizing vintage weaving samples. This week I had planned to work on the element Earth. My choice of green background fabrics included these two:
I went for the wide one with concentric circles and intersecting arcs. It will represent a forest very well, once I make some appliqued tree trunks. And a bottom border of rail fence border in warm colors will ground the forest into the earth.
Here are the supporting fabrics for this block and the tool I will use to make long, skinny tree trunks.
This part went quickly. I ran some strips through the bias tape maker and ironed them flat. I think three will be enough to suggest a forest.
Quickly sewing together some strip pieces and cutting out five rail fence blocks………
…………I sewed them into a strip and laid it in place.
This is beginning to take shape. I love the print with the brown leaves. It is scaled well for my design. They look almost like real leaves scattered across the forest floor.
After attaching all of the parts completed so far, I realized that I had not considered the right border at all.
Clearly something was needed here. So, I went back to making more rail fence blocks. Adding another 3-inch border will change the proportions of my block, making it a wide rectangle instead of a square. But I felt it was still my best design choice, given the limited number of options I had before me.
I’m delighted with the progress so far. There is still space to add some surface treatments to this block in the form of sashiko stitching, or even a few more appliques should I desire.
To see more quilts made in the Stay at Home Round Robin method, check out the link party here:
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/4daeef6d0bee4f99a4550c4b274ba90b
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SAHRR Round 2: Fire
No, I’m not burning my quilt. Instead, I have applied this round’s prompt of Diamonds to my Fire block. My logic for this choice is that tongues of flames, such as you see in the image above, can be stylized as acute triangles, with the narrowest point at the top. If one has a more romantic leaning, one might say that diamonds are created by the forces of pressure and HEAT in the bowels of the earth.
The piece of fabric I chose to represent Fire is a beautiful brocade woven on white with a clear orangey-pink thread. The shape can be described as a series of diamonds inside overlapping circles.
I chose these fabrics for the diamond-inspired border:
Fortunately, I learned how to make triangle shapes out of strip sets from a Craftsy class presented by Joanna Figueroa.
https://www.craftsy.com/class/smarter-strip-quilting/
After sewing a light and a dark strip together, I cut the sets on a 45 degree angle to get diamonds. Then I sewed them into strips and attached the strips to the right and left sides of my brocade fabric.
For the bottom border, I used a strip of the soft coral ombre fabric.
Here is my block so far.
It’s not perfectly square, and I have yet to decide on what fabric to use at the top of the block. I’ll have to let the options stew about in my brain for a while. Once completed, I intend the block to measure about 17″ square.
If you’re interested in seeing more Round Robin projects made by some awesome quilters, check out Emily’s blog and the Linky party invitation embedded in her post.
http://thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/
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Another Round Robin Quilt Challenge
Quilting Gail is at it again! She has organized five of her quilting friends in a stay-at-home round robin quilt for 2022. I’ll not go into details about how it all works. Instead, I’ll recommend that you check out Gail’s blog.
Last year was a blast for me. I was greatly challenged to expand my quilting skills. In the end I loved what I made. Its success was due in a big way to the weekly challenges, requiring me to stretch my imagination while improvising my design.
I have an unconventional approach for this year. It will involve quilting together hand-woven vintage fabric samples that have been entrusted to me by my daughter. Here is my center block using three samples. It will have finished size of 12 inches square.
In addition to the wonderful textures of the weavings, this block cements together a split complimentary color palette utilizing red-orange as the primary color with blue and green as the supporting colors. Below are pictured more pieces, which will illustrate the palette clearly.
If this type of project interests you and you want to see more center blocks, check out the co-hosts’ posts, here.
- 1st Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
- 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
- 3rd Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
- 4th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
- 5th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail
- 6th Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
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Inspired by Vintage
While visiting Daughter’s Family last Thanksgiving, I was invited to rummage through a stack of weaving samples. These pieces were made over a number of years by my son-in-law’s grandmother, Margaret. They were then stored away with Margaret’s son, and eventually passed into the next generation.
Here are some of the pieces that came home with me.
I was invited to keep these lovely samplers with the understanding that they could be worked into a fiber object. I feel honored to receive them.
So today, I have a tiny glimpse of an idea on what to make with them. What if they formed the feature blocks in a quilt? It would be a wabi-sabi quilt, assembled with additional fabrics recycled from articles of clothing and household linens. In my stash I came across the following items that fit the description.
I began my work by washing and pressing the linens, then examined each piece for needed repairs. It seemed to me that, while the samples were firmly woven, the weaves are much more open than standard quilting cotton. How could I stabilize them so they wouldn’t shift during quilting? This called for a consultation with quilting expert Jackie, aka, my mom.
She had some great pieces of advice. Ultimately, I decided that I could sew the linens to a light-weight muslin backing, string piece style, then work in some rows of decorative stitching. This particular idea was top of mind, because I am currently reading this book on the Japanese practice of boro and sashiko.
I call this sort of happening a Convergence.
Let’s start the work with these three pieces as a center block.
They are of sizes that will fit together into a 12-inch block without cuts. The three contain all of the colors in my chosen palette, which could make an ideal focal point for the rest of the quilt.
The next steps will be to design and sketch a layout, then acquire supporting fabrics. Maybe I can source more second-hand clothing items from local thrift stores.
Daily Fiber 