Forgot the Grand Finale

What can I say...my whole weekend was my tooth.

I couldn't capture the perfect picture to present. You'll just have to come by in person to examine and enjoy the quilty crinkliness and texture.

But, without further ado (didn't realize the above was ado), I present my hand-quilted Anka's Scrap Bag quilt...

This puppy even has a label. Since the other two seamstresses couldn't remember our start date either (or what decade we actually finished the rows, LOL), I just put an end date on the label. It seemed the prudent thing to do. So the label reads, "Anka's Scrap Bag pieced by Laura Downs, Robin Puma, and Joan Parker. Hand-quilted by Joan Parker. April 2010."


The End.

So Close...Nearly Finished Row Quilt

It's been a few days since I posted. In the meantime, I finished hand quilting the center on this and decided to go ahead and hand quilt the borders. Since the border fabric is a busy leaf print, I am just quilting straight lines 2- and 4-inches from the inner cream borders. I am nearly finished. Part of one long side to go. I will finish tomorrow, then wash, dry, and photograph the crinkliness!!

Good night.

~Joan

Good AM From Gatlinburg

This is the last row on my "row quilt". I finished the quilting on it last night, after playing Boggle (which I won, only because Emily was under the influence of Benadryl) and rummy (which I lost, only because Benjamin takes big chances and had lots of luck!).

Remember that the bright yellow stitches are my basting and will be removed.

Here is all that remains to be quilted in the quilt center...the cream sashing rows and inner border. I'll probably be working on that in the van on the way home this AM. Wish me luck...on the way here our 3-hour trip ended up being over ten hours because of closed interstates and SNOW in the mountains.



I have the top-most row finished and most of one long side. Still a-plenty to do, but a fun kind of design. I am toying with the idea of hand-quilting the wide outer green border, but still entertaining the idea of machine quilting it since it won't show that much. I marked the stencil with a Mark-B-Gone marker. Moving along rathery quickly.

This was all that remained of the binding that needed to be hand-sewn to the back. I would have finished it while I lounged in the hotel room alone yesterday afternoon, but I left my box of quilting supplies in the van. I still got some much-needed rest, but no more sewing for me. At least then!!

Notice the seam running somewhat diagonally vertically? That was because of a mistake I made on the backing (and the batting, but you can't see that). Evidently when I was basting the quilt, it was not on square as much as it should have been. Since I am so miserly with materials, I didn't have enough batting or backing to reach the edges of the quilt in all directions. So that created additional work of adding a small strip of batting and backing along two edges of the quilt before it could be finished. Note to self: having an extra couple of inches of batting and backing just might save me an extra hour or two of work.

Bye!

~Joan

Good News

No picture, but really good news on the quilt front. I hand quilted the entire last HST row from my row quilt tonight. Still have the majority of the last large block row to do, but didn't have a long ruler at hand.

One of the college girls that came over declined watching a movie. She mentioned that she had to study for a midterm that is tomorrow. I asked "what class?". She said it was sign language. I happen to be a sign language interpreter, so I spent the next hour or so helping her study. It was very fortunate for her. She had missed a class because of training for work, so she didn't even know the signs she was supposed to be studying for that unit. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

May I go on record to say that it pains me to watch college students eat. They can really shovel it in...and stay stick thin.

~Joan

Sewing Some

Not a great picture (but it's the best my 12-year-old daughter standing on a chair in a crowded room could do) of my row quilt. I just have one more block row then the HST row that matches the one at the top. I am going to quilt on the cream between each row by hand, then in the green print border by machine in the border. The end is in sight.

~Joan

Hand Quilting

Here is my row quilt...I am hand quilting it. This is how much I have finished so far. I am starting on the next row. Below I am showing one block.

Here is a block from the next row. I have hand quilted it. To show you the difference the quilting makes, the second shot is a side-by-side of the quilted block and an unquilted one. The large yellow stitching is the basting stitches.

I am leaving the Grandmother's Flower Garden for a car project. I am eager to have it done, but am taking advantage of the time to hand quilt for the next couple days.

~Joan

First Flower Block of Row #5...

Here is the first block of my row #5. Each flower, flower center, and leaves are the same, framed with the same cream fabric. The outside triangles are different in each block. You can see that the second block is framed with gold triangles.

I wish I could hand quilt several hours a day. I LOVE it!! It is relaxing and rewarding to see the quilt come to life as the lines of stitches are laid.

~Joan

Hand Quilt No More on Row #4...

A little industry goes a long way. I am counting the top row of half square triangles as a row, so I am finished with the fourth row. There are four more, so I am halfway finished. The next row is a particularly cute one. I will show a picture after I get a block finished.

I am using a stencil to quilt large and small pumpkin seeds touching along the cream separator rows, so even after the pieced rows are finished, there is a long way to go. But even with that said, I am encouraged at the progress.

~Joan

Hand Quilting Spree

Above is my row quilt. I have had this set aside for ages, but I'm hand quilting on it again. Susanna inspired me. I took it to church last night because I was over an hour early for a ladies meeting. Got much accomplished. The fun of hand quilting is seeing the texture that pops out once an area is quilted. You can see other parts of this same quilt here.

This quilt was pieced with two friends, one of whom I've never met in person. We also pieced this quilt together. Such fun memories!

Stay tuned for more quilty adventures...

~Joan

Row 3 is Finished!

Who would have thunk it?? I am finished hand quilting the first 3 rows of my row quilt! There are 8 rows in the quilt, then the sashing strips to do.

I also made the runner in the next post from start to finish in the last 2 days. While trying to figure out why I got so much sewing and schoolwork with the children done these past couple days, it dawned on me...

...I have not been inside a vehicle for the past 48 hours!! No errands, no shopping, no driving kids around...

Better not get used to it!

~Joan

Starting Row Three

Today, in between grading math lessons and tests and listening to read-alouds, I was able to finish the hand quilting on row 2 of my row quilt and start the 3rd row. Here is the first block in the 3rd row. Notice the simple easy-to-mark quilt lines. I'm going to finish this row by quilting a straight line down the center of each sashing strip and cornerstone.


Here's a view of 4 blocks...2 from row 2 and 2 from 3 (that looks confusing!)...



And last, but not least, a picture of rows 1 and 2 with the quilting finished. The large yellow stitches are my basting, not quilting.

My DH has been gone all day (he usually works from home), and he will be home soon. I need to finish up a few quick things so I can devote the rest of my evening to meeting his every need.

~Joan

Row Quilt: Row 2, Block 1

I am counting the HST row as row 1, so this is row 2.

This block is very near completion. I just need to do a little more in the top left triangle (the gold one). Don't worry...I won't be giving you my progress in block by block blog posts! All the Monkey Wrench blocks in this row (there are 5 of them) are made of the same red, blue, and cream. The triangles around each block are scrappy.

One of the things I like so much about hand quilting my extremely scrappy quilts is that you get up close and personal with each fabric. So many of my quilts have the last of a favorite fabric in them.

Since I pieced this with 2 other ladies, I get to see a sample of their Thimbleberries collections. Some must have been designed right after Lynette Jensen got off the ark. I'm talkin' old.

Soon I'll post about my quilty bathroom. Curious??

~Joan

Maiden Stitches Made in New Quilt

Our family's schedule has gone to pot. Everyone is staying up way late and then subsequently sleeping in nearly daily. Except for my oldest son and one child per day who has to get up for work. I have somehow miraculously been getting up early most of those days. I have used the quiet, alone time to finish basting and then hand quilting my mystery quilt. Anyone think they know the pattern?

I am quilting across the HST and in the ditch going the other way, to form an "X" in each of those blocks. I am always interested in what designs others use for their hand quilting, so I'll be giving lots of details with each picture. I like to quilt as far as possible w/o starting in a new place. I also like to mark as little as possible. Just yesterday I ordered another Hera marker. The one I have has a sharp point on the non-marking end that (to me) makes it uncomfortable.

In the above picture, the dark green at the bottom is actually the top outer border. There is a 2" finished cream strip between each of the rows. At the top and bottom of the quilt are a row of HST flipped every other one so that the black (which pulls those rows together) is as shown. I have a perfect stencil for the cream. I used Mark-B-Gone to mark it and have quilted across halfway. I am going to remove those markings today. Then I decided to leave the cream rows for last so the Mark-B-Gone won't be on the quilt as long. My intention was to quilt it from top to bottom. Now that's been changed a smidge. I will skip the cream divider strips until the end.

This was a commercial pattern. I'm not sure if it's still available. I know I sold mine with a kit on eBay. One of the two ladies I made it with emailed me. She doesn't remember the date (other than a really long time ago). She hasn't yet completed the first quilt the 3 of us made together (the original Thimbleberries BOM kit, which I call the calendar quilt). Unfortunately, although I love the quilt, I did not make a label for it or even date it on my Web Shots page. If you want to see it, click on the Web Shots album link to the left. It's in the first album, which consists of my personal quilts.

I also quilted most of the first block of the row quilt last night. Pictures coming later. Hopefully taken with my camera which has spent the last 6-7 weeks vacationing in GA. I hope it comes in the mail today. This new camera is not only taking mostly-fuzzy pictures, but there are white spots on most of the shots. They look like semi-transparent perfectly round circles floating around that don't add to the pictures at all.

~Joan

Basting...It's a Quilt, Not a Turkey

To give you an idea of how long it's been since I basted a quilt for hand quilting, when I hear basting I think of a turkey, not a quilt. I was thinking ahead to a trip my family is making to PA in January. Not being one to waste time, I was wondering what I could work on in the van on the 10-12 hours on the way up there. I haven't been able to successfully hand quilt in the van or car because they don't ride smooth enough (and space is at a premium with 10 of us in there).

I am over halfway finished ripping out the machine quilting and replacing it with hand quilting on this quilt. I am so happy that I dove in and started that process. It has gone very quickly. I know I'll be pleased with it when it's finished. The further ripping out will continue on our road trip. That meant I needed another hand quilting project for NOW.

In the meantime, I have rediscovered the love of hand quilting (at the beginning of this year I hand quilted this piece of history). So I decided to pull out my oldest quilt top and hand quilt it. I never machine quilted it because I thought the machine quilting would distract from the piecing, which is so interesting. I will only show a small piece at a time of the quilt, just to keep your interest. Some of you might recognize the pattern. I'll tell you this much--it's a row quilt. Two of my friends and I each made one. We all made triplicate of 2 rows and swapped them so we all had all 6 of them. I can't remember what year we made it. It was at least 3 years ago, maybe much longer. I'm going to email the other ladies to see if either of them remember. We picked one cream to use for background and the rows inbetween the pieced rows. We also used only Thimbleberries fabric so they would all coordinate. What a fun way to make a quilt with a zillion different pieces in it! This is the second one we made together.

So the picture of the day is my milliner's needle (which is about 8" long), my really bright yellow thread I baste all my quilts with, and a small portion of the quilt. I have picked out a stencil for the cream "stripes" between the rows, so I am all set to start.

My headache finally went away yesterday. Thank you to those who prayed on my behalf. I was so relieved that I slept for 3 hours!!

We had a great time fellowshipping with some friends tonight and got to meet their oldest son (who is here visiting for Christmas--he's 30). Their youngest son turned 18 today, so we had them over for a little birthday get-together. They taught us a new word game, and we loved it.

~Joan