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A Utility Quilt (unfinished)

7/12/2021

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Way back in early 2017, about the time I started this blog, I decided to start a simple quilt made of 3" squares, each representing a completed sewing project.  I started by collecting the squares as I sewed other things.  Some of the squares were a single fabric, but others were themselves pieced from the several fabrics used in a single project.  I collected for a while, but never made the quilt because I didn't know how to bring the pieces together attractively. 

A few months back, as I became motivated to quilt, I pulled those squares out and re-evaluated them.  I discarded all the synthetic fabrics, keeping the cotton, silk, rayon, and linen.  I also discarded too-heavy or too-sheer squares, paring my selection down to only things that would work well for piecing.  Then I threw them together in a few days, into a very strange quilt-top.  It was more an exercise in piecing and setting blocks on point than a real design.  I'm fond of it, but not excited enough to finish it, so it sits now in the WIP pile. 

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Refurbishing a Shackman Doll (2)

6/21/2021

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When last I worked on this porcelain doll (yet unnamed... I'm not sure if she wants to stay with me, if she won't tell me her name!), I had done all but the hem and back-closure, and I wanted to make her a camisole. 

So now I have done those things, and she is all dressed!  I won't describe the making of the camisole, because it was a pattern-less kluge-job, but I will demonstrate how I used rick-rack to hem the skirt. 
Picture

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Refurbishing a Shackman Doll (1)

6/15/2021

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Picture
The life cycle of a porcelain doll looks like this: a little girl wants one, because porcelain dolls seem more special than regular dolls, with their ravishing clothes and their hair dressed in banana curls.  Maybe she read about a little girl having a porcelain doll in A Little Princess.  Finally her mom buys one, admonishing her to keep it in the box because it's breakable.  So the doll sits in the box, looking pretty, or is mounted on a dollstand on a high shelf, until the little girl is a big girl, too big for dolls.  Even if the girl keeps one doll for sentiment, it won't be the porcelain doll, because she never played with that one, anyway.  The porcelain doll is given to a charity shop, and there finds her many sisters, each on her own dollstand or in her own box, perfectly coiffed and un-played-with. 
My local Goodwill has a whole corner shelf filled with these breakable little treasures, set high above the questing hands of juvenile browsers, looking out at the world that only ever looks back. 

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My Dandelion Quilt - Bear Paw

6/11/2021

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The names "bear paw" and "bear's paw" seem to be in free variation, both when I search online or look in Rosanne's quilting books, and in my own writing!  For the sake of this blog, I'll try to stick to "bear paw", but the other option is equally correct.  It's a nice representational block: it looks like a stylized pawprint.  Compare some actual pawprints with the block:
Picture
The paws and prints of an American black bear and brown bear, from The Grizzly Bear; the narrative of a hunter naturalist, historical, scientific and adventurous (1909) by William Henry Wright
Picture
Mini Bear Paw Quilt Block with Sashing, photo by sk (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/)
The quilt block bear is missing a toe, but otherwise it does look like a pawprint, and it is commonly used in rustic quilts for that backwoods feel.  I like the block for my Dandelion Quilt because, if done in greens, it looks like the leaves of a plant whorling out from a central stem. 

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Delectable Mountains Block - So Much MATH!

6/8/2021

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Picture
Signature Quilt, 'Delectable Mountains', New Jersey, 1842-1843, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Today, I set about to find the measurements I need to cut and piece Block 8 of my Dandelion Quilt: the Delectable Mountains Block. 

This red and white signature quilt is an example from the 1840's: the repeating block is the Delectable Mountains block, and the signatures are written in the white spaces.  In this example, the block is put together with a combination of large and small Half-Square Triangles (HSTs), as we can tell because some are turned the wrong way.  However, there's another method that takes large HSTs and cuts them into slivers, which are rearranged and sewn back together. 
I will be doing the former method when I make the Bear Paw blocks in a bit, so I decide to try the latter method for the Delectable Mountains.  It seems pretty easy, I think...

Narrator Voice: "She didn't know how wrong she was!"

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"Organized Chaos" Quilt - FINISHED

6/3/2021

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My Organized Chaos quilt is back from the long-armer!  It looks so cool! 

Here are the finishing details of this quilt:
  • Backing - I chose a plummy purple color for the back, printed with a leafy design.  It came in extra-wide quilting cotton, so I didn't have to piece it to make it fit the quilt top.  I bought the backing at the Mill End Store. 
  • Batting - Wanting extra loft for this project, I was guided to a wool/cotton mix by the ladies at Cedar Ridge Quilts. 
  • Quilting - I wanted something girly but not childish, and the long arm quilter Rebecca Tellez delivered with a butterfly pantograph using variegated thread! 
Picture

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Pick-Up Sticks/Acid Trip coming along

6/1/2021

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NEW FABRIC TO PLAY WITH!

My quilting mentor Rosanne is working through the book Cut the Scraps!, by Joan Ford.  The book's premise is simple and smart: take your small scraps of quilting cotton, anything under a fat quarter, and cut them into a set of prescribed sizes: 2" squares, 3.5" squares, and 5" squares.  Sort these squares by value rather than by color, so you end up with a pile of lights, a pile of darks, and a pile of everything in the middle.  If you make a four-patch with four 2" squares, it makes a 3.5" square; if you make a nine-patch with nine 2" squares, it makes a 5" square.  Then the book has instructions for twenty different quilts which can be made from squares of those sizes.  I love the idea!  Anyway, as Rosanne is cutting and sorting her scraps, she is making even smaller scraps, little strips that I can then use for string piecing.  So my string piecing project for my brother is coming along, fed by an influx of fabric from Rosanne's stash. 

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My Dandelion Quilt - Pieced Dandelions

5/25/2021

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Picture
Finally, I get to piece my dandelions!  The block I've made for this is a modified Blueberry Pie quilt block.  The modifications are that I add stitch-and-flip corners to the inside square (to give the appearance of more "petals", and remove the half-square triangles from the corners (to make the motif rounder instead of square).  I also choose to do the outer petals all with half-square triangles, instead of flying geese or more stitch-and-flip, because I think the extra seams will contribute to the multi-petaled look of a dandelion. 

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My Dandelion Quilt - Sky and Wishies

5/23/2021

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Once my dandelion quilt design is done, I start sewing it from the top, since those are the simplest blocks.  The sky, which is mostly blue, or blue nine-patches with wishies (dandelion seeds aloft), offers little to blog about, so I'll also use this post to describe fabric prep, the way that I document my cutting and double-check my measurements, and a few early mistakes. 

PREP WORK

Tossing a color-catcher in the wash with it, I wash, dry, starch, and iron the fabric.  I re-calculate the cuts I think I'll need to make, and made a spreadsheet to keep track of them, intending to take notes and fix mistakes along the way so I'll end with an accurate cutting guide. 
Picture
Wishies!

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My Dandelion Quilt - Design

5/18/2021

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Picture
Anonymous illustrator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dandelion-Seed_Tailpiece.png
In April, shortly after finishing the Organized Chaos quilt-top, I cast about for another pattern, but soon realized that I wouldn't be satisfied creatively unless I designed my own.  I decided on a dandelion motif. 

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    Karen Roy

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