Category: Quilts

Very Beginnings of a Quilt

Marie Haigh9 Comments

I finished cutting out all the squares for the star section of the quilt. Most of the squares still have to be cut on the diagonal in order to make triangles, but the worst is over.

I even started assembling my first star block.

Showing off my work to Dan, he mentioned (a) he really missed the flannel shirts I cut all the squares from and (b) the quilt is going to be bigger than I had anticipated. First, it’s a little bit late to tell me that he wants to keep the shirts! They are cut into little 4 inch squares now. No way I’m sewing them back together. Besides, they didn’t fit him in the first place.

Second, rats. I’d curse at the pattern, except it’s my own. I really meant this to fit my nephew’s twin bed. Dan’s right though. I know not to question his math skills. I looked over my notes. The quilt is going to fit a queen bed. If I make it thinner by removing two rows it will no longer look like a real flag, which I admit is not the end of the world. Yet, the whole beauty of the design is that it does resemble a real flag. Maybe I could convince my sister that she HAS to buy her 5-year-old son a queen sized bed. I’m sure she would just run right out the very next day.

I could always recut all the squares into smaller squares.

Or I could gift it to somebody else. Why does this happen with most of the presents I make? Very rarely does a gift go to the recipient I originally intended it for. Surely, it says something about my character.

 

Christmas Present Begun

Marie Haigh4 Comments

In order for me to complete my nephew’s Christmas present on time, I started on it last night.

It will be an Americana quilt. More exactly, the front will look like an American flag, while the back will feature Americana fabric. I’m still looking for the “right” fabric.

This mess on my sewing table only makes up 1/4 of the quilt top. The majority of the fabric going into the quilt top was kindly donated by Dan. All of the plaid fabrics came from his old flannel shirts. The starry navy blue fabric was purchased on Etsy.

My goal is to hand quilt the star area and machine quilt the stripes. Hence, the reason that I am starting now and not in October.

The design is my own and one that will probably be tweaked again before I stitch everything together. I truly tried to support the indie quilt pattern writer, but I couldn’t find anything that would work with plaid fabrics. I ran at least 15 searches on Google trying to find a quilt pattern that was suitable. Heck, just finding quilt patterns for sale was a huge challenge. I found a million free patterns, but like I mentioned, I wanted to support the indie quilter. I ran into a wall and finally gave up. It’s a shame that the quilters don’t have a Ravelry.

So, I sat down with a pencil and some graph paper. Below is version 2 of my draft. I’m still not happy with the star section and will probably change it. I’ve already altered the star block.

Katie’s Doll Quilt and (of course) More Cards

Marie Haigh9 Comments

I finished Katie’s doll quilt last night!

Well, there are a few white lies in that announcement. The quilt isn’t completely finished; I still have to tack down the corners. It’s not a “real” quilt either; it’s a “cheater” quilt.

The top of the quilt is just one piece of fabric. The batting is just a piece of flannel fabric. I’m still calling it a quilt, because I did quilt the layers together. They are loosely quilted, but quilted all the same. I just followed any straight lines I could find in the fabric top that went from side to side without meandering. (I don’t trust my machine to meander. Often when I turn a corner on it, the needle gets jammed). Then, I stitched around the hearts that all the My Little Ponies were framed in.

The whole quilt was machine quilted, including the binding. I topstitched it down rather than hand tack it to the back. I imagine with the white fabric on the back side, this quilt is going to require a lot of machine washing.

I tried taking pictures last night, but without any sunlight to speak of, they came out a bit dark. I’ll try again this weekend.

And for cards – I have 3 new ones to show you!

First, a personalized card inspired by my new Carol Duvall book.

Carol had included instructions on how to stamp directly over paper colored in chalk. I don’t have chalk. Nor was I about to color a whole piece of paper in chalk anyway. I want instanst gratification!

But, if you look closely, you’ll notice that the color underneath the bike is yellow. I colored a small section of the red cardstock with a yellow colored pencil to make the stamp pop out a bit more.

In case you’re wondering who I personalized the card for, it’s me. I ride a red bike to run errands and my last name starts with h.

Next up is an Easter card.

I just piled some cardstock up and slapped a bunny button on top. (The back of the button was cut off with an Xacto knife).

Lastly, I give you a Greenland card. Now, I’ve never been to Greenland. And for the record, I have no desire to go. I hear it’s really cold there. I can barely suffer through the Pennsylvania winters without whining once a week.

This picture is from a 1956 encyclopedia that came with the purchase of this house. The son, for whom the collection was purchased for many years ago, thought he could live without the knowledge.

Chili Pepper Quilt Finished!

Marie Haigh4 Comments

This quilt has been finished for over a week. Apologies for waiting till now to post a pic of it. More apologies for not taking a pic of the back before I packaged it up. I don’t think I chose the best time to take a pic of the quilt; it was shortly after I cut my finger. I was still a bit shaken.

Today I feel much better. Thank you to everyone who offered sympathy, empathy, and advice. Your advice was much better than Dan’s who simply advised me to not hold scissors anywhere near Baby Flick (they’ve named her Evangeline) when we stop by to visit. Rude!

Baby Flick’s Quilt is Finished

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I had promised that I would finish Baby Flick’s quilt before she was born. It was getting down to the wire! She is due to arrive on Tuesday.

I finished the quilt on Thursday night. (I’m so grateful she didn’t arrive early. Of course, her mom wishes she would come a month ago.)

Here are the many pictures of it.

The ‘F’ is for the baby’s last name. (The child’s sex was unknown when I was picking colors and patterns). After finding the dragon panels, I designed the quilt around them.
The F and the Dragon panels were hand quilted. The rest of the quilt was machine quilted using the stitch-in-the-ditch method. The binding was made from the green fabric used to frame the ‘F’. I stitched it to the front and hand-tacked it to the back.
I had a great time making it! I can’t wait to start my next one – an Americana quilt for my nephew.

Quilt Frame in Basement

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The quilt frame is back in the basement again. No more crawling underneath it to get to the other side of the quilt. No more knocking the closet door into it and having the whole frame collapse on me (the jury rigging is very fragile). Jake is also thrilled to see it go downstairs. He hated getting bonked in the head every time he came in to get pets or to remind me of the time (i.e. playtime).

Why is it downstairs? It surely isn’t because of any of the inconveniences listed above. The inconveniences were silly and trivial compared to its practicality and usefulness of holding the quilt in place. I only had to twist a knob and thread my needle before I could sit down to hand quilt. No, the reason the frame is in the basement is because I have finished hand quilting Baby Flick’s quilt!

I found hand quilting to be fun and relaxing. I even have a nice callous on my pointer finger to prove it. As this was my first time hand quilting, I kept things simple. My stitches simply followed the outline of the dragon, the clouds, and the framework within the four dragon panels. If you are new to hand quilting, I highly recommend this “technique”, if it can be called a technique. It saved me from having to search for an easy quilting design and from learning how to transfer such a design to my quilt front.

Baby Flick’s quilt has to go back on the machine to complete the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, but that should only take me an hour or two. I’m so close to being done. Woo!

A Thank You from My Niece

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I received the sweetest voice mail from my niece Katie yesterday.

What she said:
“Because the quilt you made me is so special, I made you a Tigger card. On the front of the card, it says ‘Tigger, Tigger, Tigger’. On the back, it says ‘I love you very much, Aunt Re’.”

(I should mention why she chose to give me a Tigger card. When we were down in Disney World, I informed Katie on more than one occasion that Tigger was the best. She wasn’t swayed from loving Ariel any less, but it did make for interesting discussions).

I was so touched. I called down to my sister as soon as I got the message. My sister informed me that I was also getting a Tigger from Katie’s stuffed animal collection (mainly because she’s under orders to trim it down). We’re pretty sure it’s the same Tigger I bought Katie when she was first born, but I’m excited to receive it anyway.

I’m not sure that I ever posted a picture of Katie’s quilt, so here are two. It was gifted to her on Christmas 2006.
A close-up
Full view

You may notice that there is a book propped up against the bed. This book was gifted with the quilt. It explained why each of the fabrics were chosen, since the majority of them were leftovers from clothes or bedding that I made Katie when she was younger.

1 Block Done and 1 Binding Ripped Out

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In quilting, I’m sure that equates to 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

As I prefer to keep my glass half full, here are pictures of the completed dragon block.


This was my first attempt to hand quilt. I was worried that the stitches would look awful and that the I wouldn’t get the same puffiness as I do with the machine. The stitches do look awful and because they are not as small as the machine ones, I wasn’t able to achieve the same level of puffiness. Yet, I LOVE to hand quilt. It is relaxing and instantly gratifying. I am thrilled with my first attempt at it. I have started to establish a rhythm and already my stitches are becoming smaller and more uniform. So, hopefully, the second block will look better.

For my 2 steps back, I ripped out the binding and the hanging sleeve from the chili pepper quilt.

I just couldn’t make the store-bought binding work the way I had stitched it on. Next time, I’ll know the correct way to attach it. Currently, I am building up the patience it will require to reattach the binding. I just can’t bring myself to do it yet.

Sneak Peak and Hand Quilting

Marie Haigh4 Comments
Tomorrow I leave for vacation. We are going to Walt Disney World with my sister’s family, which consists of a husband, a 7-year-old daughter, and a 4-year-old son. You might think that I’m excited. You would be wrong. I have been dreading this vacation for months now. My sister has a different idea of a vacation than I do: she plans to drag the children to the park at 9 am (or before), jam as many rides and walking into the day as possible, and carry the kids back around 10 pm. I imagine by the end of each day, both the children and I will be over-tired and cranky. I also envision the husbands abandoning us for a bench and good beer. I plan to bring a bucket with me. Why? Because Mrs. H says it helps to dunk your head into ice water after a long, hard day.

I haven’t started packing yet, unless you count the growing pile of stuff I can’t forget sitting on top of my dresser. I have a dilemma. What should I bring as a knitting project for the plane rides? Should I pack my mystery project or my shawl project?

Mystery project OR

Shawl project

I can’t decide. I might end up packing both.

This morning, since I knew my entire day would be spent packing, I squeezed in a little time for me and did some more hand quilting on Baby Flick’s quilt.

Have a wonderful week without me!

A Gift from the House

Marie Haigh4 Comments
You put so much work into a house: buying it, paying the mortgage, fixing all the little or big problems, and redecorating. It only seems right that the house should pay you back every once in a while. Mine did this weekend.

Look what I found in an old closet.

A brand new, never-been-used quilt frame! I was so excited. My husband even put it together for me. You see my baby quilt stretched out on it. My neighbor across the street told me that the lady who lived here before me never quilted. So, why is there a quilt frame in my basement closet? I have no idea. True, the frame is not the best (my husband had to jury rig the toothed wheel to the rod with nails and mirror wire), but it is free. And free is good.

Can I share a little secret with you? Hand quilting is not that hard. If you have ever done embroidery work or cross-stitching, you’ll be fine. This baby quilt is only my 3rd quilt. I’ve been avoiding hand quilting – certain that hand quilting was best left to the experts, but when I found this frame downstairs in the basement, I knew I had to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that quilting is not that difficult once you get a rhythm going and it’s fun. Now mind you, this quilt could never be shown at any country fair or jury show since my stitches are anything but even, but it’s good enough for a baby.

PS. I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!