Working with Blocks of Different Sizes

I was commissioned to complete a quilt for a woman in town.  This delighful woman quilted before she started golfing.  She had completed a couple of quilts for her daughter many years ago.  She also had hand pieced 23 blocks in the early 80's.  Stored in a Pizza Hut box, she asked me to make a quilt for her son.  It took me a while to figure out how to put them together, mainly because they varied in size so I wasn't going to be able to just sash and go without loosing a portion of a number of the blocks.  I'm sharing my process just in case you find yourself in my situation one day.

The blocks varied in size from about 11 inches to 12 1/2 inches.  In order to use all of the blocks in close to their original size, I decided to make the blocks the center of a square in a square and then trim the new blocks to the same size.  This was my process.

With the largest blocks at 12 1/2 inches, set on point, the with of the new block at a minimum would be 17.67 inches (remember the pathagaream theorem?).  So I needed to cut setting trianges large enough to cut down.  I cut 17 inch squares out of muslin diagonally twice to make these trianges.  I then sewed theses trianges to each side of each block.  I trimed the edges off of each side as shown here.  You can see that I didn't loose any of the block to excessive trimming.

Then the finished blocks look like this:

Because there were only 23 blocks I added to blocks to the bottom left and right with the center square filled with the border fabric.  It matches the original fabric nicely.  Here are the filler blocks.

I then cut down all the blocks to eighteen inches.  All the blocks were preserved in the original size and state.  I then added two inch finished sashings and corner stones, and just a three inch border.  The quilt finished to 106 x 106, which is a little larger than I wanted.  But I am glad that this remained my customer's quilt, my influence was minimal.  Quilted all over with Joann Hoffman's feather meander.  And here is the finished quilt.  All I need to do is finish the binding.  And get it back to my customer.

Chicken Chili Recipe

This is a great recipe that originated with my quilting friend Ocee.  I've modified it only because I lost my copy and have had to make due a couple of times.  It is really easy and really good.  Hope you enjoy!

• About 3 cups cooked cubed chicken breast.
• 2 - 24 oz. jars of salsa. (I usually do one mild and one medium)
• 2 cans of Northern White Beans
• 1 can of Black Beans
• 1 can of Corn
• 2 tablespoons of Chili Powder
• 2 cups of Chicken Broth

Add ingredients to a large crock pot and cook on high about 4 hours or low for about 8 hours.  I usually make cornbread to serve with it.  Oh, and where's BeBe?

Sponsored by Mom

I have to say, the journey I find myself on while raising my son is great fun.  I made Sam take piano lessons when he was little which lasted about three years.  He did a good job but wasn't loving it.  He desperately wanted to take guitar lessons so we bought him a guitar and signed him up.  Thinking now, that was only about 3 1/2 years ago.  In that time, we've learned about, listened to, read about and studied many great guitarist and bands.  His guitar teacher once said, that when he asks some of his students what songs or styles they like, they shrug their shoulders, I don't know.  He said Sam on the other hand, could tell you Randy Rhodes' pedal configuration in 1982. 

Somehow, we live in an area with great guitar synergy.  The local guitar shop has great clinics with some amazing musicians. I've learned a lot about guitars through this process.  Sam is a great teacher when he's trying to talk us into buying him a new guitar, pedal or something else he truly needs.  We had a 15 minute conversation a couple of days ago about picks.  So he has taught me a lot!  But it is really cool when we go to a clinic and I really understand the lingo. 

Last night, I accompanyied him to a Guthrie Govan clinic.  Don't know who that is?  I didn't either but the place was packed.  The guy sitting next to me said that Guthrie was pound for pound the best guitar player out there today.  The clinic was assoicated with Suhr guitars which makes the Guthrie Govan Signature Guitar (pictured to the right).  We couldn't stay the whole time due to homework constraints but it was a great time.  He is a fabulous guitar player.  And I have to tell you, that guitar is pretty amazing, as am I.  Thanks to Sam, I was totally understanding of the Humbucker pickups, 24 frets, the Waa sound, and the challenges of tuning associated with the Floyd Rose bridge (that's associated with the metal thing or Whammy bar that sticks out of the Guitar Hero guitar that wobbles the sound and helps rack up points).  I'm a ROCK STAR, because I sponsor one.

So a quick plug for Todd at Guitar, Etc., there's a link to the left.  Oh, and did I mention, Sam is as passionate about drums, too, but that's another story.

My Style of Quilting

I sometimes wonder if my quilting style is boring. Not on one particular quilt but if you took them all and looked at them, would the quilt police note how they all look the same. I hope not! But I do have a style.

After seven years of longarming quilting, I do know somethings about my quilting.

I'm not formal. I love to look at those beautiful quilts that have formal feathers and perfect crosshatching, perfect wholecloths, etc. But I'm more of an ADD quilter. Maybe one day, I'll spend hours marking a pattern, but not yet.

I'm not a microquilter. Once again, I admire microstippling, but I just can't.... Again ADD quilter.

I do want it well quilted. I do like the sharpness of stitch in the ditch.

I'm an enhancer not a star. If the quilting is the first thing you see on a quilt, I didn't quilt it. I like to match threads and add texture. I like the WOW, when the light shines on it just right and you can see what is really there. This kind of style doesn't bode well with picture taking so I don't take a lot of pictures because frankly, unless the light is perfect, you can't see what I've done.

With that being said, here is how I plan a quilt.

I like to use feathers and feather derivatives in the border. Because I don't like to mark, I tend to break the feathers up and put the portions up as I progress the quilt. That way, the border is done when I get to the bottom and I don't have to turn the quilt or anything.

I try to keep the different quilting patterns to three or four per quilt. For instance, on the snowman quilt, I have straight lines, loops feathers (and Terry twists).

I always fill spaces. I never leave thin borders or sashings empty (because the batting isn't stabilized). On a very few instances, I've left triangles or small squares empty but for specific reasons.

I don't like to stipple unless I really can't think of anything else to do.

I don't like to over quilt but I do like to moderate texture a bit. So I'll have areas of heaver quilting and lighter quilting.

I'm still looking for inspiration for the next great filler. Lately, I've filled background spaces with straight lines, freehand, so the spacing can vary. Here is one of the quilts I completed last week.

I did my feather portions in the border segments and then did lines in the inner and outer thinner red border. I tried to do loops in the area of the snowman collector but there wasn't enough space for it to really work so I ripped it out and put in the thin vertical lines. It looked great so I decided to carry that through the background of each block.

With the background being somewhat dense, I added the lighter quilting in the two block borders. Loops in the thin inner border (yes, quilted) and a two leaf feather swirl in the wider border (Deloa Jones sashings inspired). Finally, I did Terry Twists in the squares. Again, the texture is varied but consistenly throughout the quilt.

Finally, I have a double look in the blue border which mirrors the thin sashing loops (carrying the themes through). I simply outlined the applique pieces and secured inside as necessary. Then because I had trees in all the blocks and the border, I did a simple wavy crosshatch in each of them. Again, carrying the theme throughout the quilt.

Can you see the quilting? I must have quilted it.

Guild Breast Cancer Quilts

My local quilt guild makes quilts every year to present to those who have been touched by breast cancer. The block of the month committee heads this process up. This year, we were given directions and four squares of the theme fabric. We were to add a cordinating and a white fabric. Anyone in the guild can then nominate someone who they want to receive a quilt. If there are more nominees than quilts, they then draw names (so they won't have to decide who is 'more' deserving). Twelve quilts were completed this year. Four were made on point. I got to quilt two of the quilts this weekend.

I loaded up both machines Friday night and spent about eight hours quilting both quilts. I have only used my CQ machine on Edge to Edge quilting because I haven't quite got the machine to glide like I would like. So doing custom on this machine was a bit of a challenge. The wheels are better ajusted now but it still needs help. These pictures show the quilt block and setting square designs used with CQ. Sue Patten designed the block pattern and Darlene Epp's designs were used in the white setting areas. I filled in the other areas and the border.

The second quilt was done all freehand on my 2008 APQS Millennium. Here are the corresponding freehand quilt blocks.

Not a bad start to the new year. I really enjoyed this project. Now back to a couple of customer quilts.

November Happenings

Wow, I can't believe that I haven't posted since October and it is already the 17th. I have so much to talk about so I will spend the next few days doing that. Today, I'll talk about BeBe my little black greyhound (harrassing Chippy in the picture).

Poor thing has a seizure disorder that we have been treating for nearly two years. She was having seizures about every month or two while taking phenobarbital. Generally, she would save up and have a pretty strong seizure unless I forgot to give her medicine. Well, last Wednesday night she started seizing at about 10:40 and had one about every hour or two all night. Needless to say, no one got much sleep that night. I took her to the Vet Thursday morning and they sent us home with rectal Valium. I left town for my quilt retreat soon after that, leaving BeBe home with her favorite evil man, Ed.

The seizures continued and she spent the afternoon at the Vet where she had the most violent seizure they have ever seen. That made some of the questions they asked me make more sense. They asked what she is usually doing when she has a seizure. Always when she is sleeping, and the vet was surprised and said something about seizure vs. dreaming. Let's just say, she started seizing one night while sleeping next to me and by the time I got my act together, she had scratched and bruised my all down my right side. So, their surprise at how strong her seizure was to us was a typical situation. She spent the night at the Emergency vet clinic where they started Potassium Bromide loading. When I returned home Sunday, she was acting pretty weird, but hadn't seized since Thursday night.

I took her for a follow up yesterday and she will go onto the regular dose of the potassium bromide starting tomorrow. This is a salt in solution so you have to shoot it into her mouth and it tastes bad so it is not fun for either of us. Hopefully, this will help out. She is only 4 years old so if things don't get better, it may be more humane to .... She's a great little dog but she has been barking at me all morning so we'll try to do a long walk this afternoon. But there are many quilts to do....

Snow today!

I have two quilts on going so its almost the perfect snow day. Well, except that I still have to pick up from school and if Southwest keeps flying, my snow shoveler will be gone. I should get these two quilts done today and maybe a couple of more loaded. Only six more on the list for this month. There probably won't be school tomorrow so I should get a lot done then too. I just need to figure out if Sam has guitar lessons today. The soup is slow cooking and smells good so overall a good day.

Except there won't be any walks!