An Embarrassment of Stitches

 September has been a busy month, so I haven't had a lot of time to devote to the Free Motion Challenge.  I did a little practicing last week and today I spent a few hours working on the challenge from this month's teacher, Paula Reid.   And it was indeed a challenge!  Following a pattern is not easy, and this circular feather required a lot of backtracking too.  I didn't even contemplate filling the center or the outside areas--I was too focused on the feather and the corners.
 

I really missed having arrows on the pattern to indicate the order of quilting, so I looked at some YouTube videos and searched for other similar motifs to see how to move from one area to the next.  Quite frankly, I didn't find much help.  The hardest part was moving from one corner to the next.

Finally I gave up on the corner motifs and concentrated on the feather circle.  Better.  Not perfect, but better.

  

 

But after nine months of challenges, I am much more comfortable free motion quilting;  my stitches are getting more consistent, lines are getting smoother.  And I have learned that frequent practice is important. 

Tomorrow is Straighten Up the Sewing Room Day.  And after that, more FMQ!

Thank you Paula Reid.  And thank you, SewCalGal!

Hello and Goodbye and a Little Sewing

During the last weeks of summer, Dave and I met my sister and brother-in-law on Block Island to spend a few days on their catamaran, Escape Velocity.  We were at a mooring in the Great Salt Pond where each morning and evening we heard "Andiamo on your boat, " the signal that the Aldo's Bakery folks were selling their wares from a little outboard motorboat.  We became steady customers and bought bread, cookies and morning buns most days.  Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the motor which had printed on it, "I gotta no change!"

Jack and Dave enjoyed sitting on the "back porch," solving the world's problems, no doubt.

Marce treated us to cucumbers with lime and sea salt, something she had in a local bar in Honduras while she was there with a film crew.

We biked to the Monhegan Bluffs and went down to the beach (140 steps, they say, plus some climbing on rocks.)

When you get down to the beach you are greeted with hundreds of cairns.

Marce collected rocks to build a cairn of her own.

Back on the boat, Dave got in some swimming time and used snorkle gear to go down and scrape barnacles off the propellers.

All too soon, it was time to leave.  Cap'n Jack and First Mate Marce took Dave and me back to New London where we had left our car.

Dave enjoyed being aboard!

After dropping us off, the sailors set out in the dinghy to return home.

We had more time together in early September when Marce and Jack anchored in Nyack, NY for 2 weeks.  We shopped, did errands, met almost daily at the Runcible Spoon, one of our favorite cafes.
One day, Izzy can to play in our yard!

And when my nephew, Drew came for a quick visit, we managed to get almost all of our family together for a group picture.  Missing? Our niece, Ericka

 

 Marce and Jack headed south on Monday.  We really miss them!

Despite all this busyness, I did manage to get some sewing in.  I made this quilt for a little girl who is expected to make her appearance in November.   It's a Chinese Coins quilt made with repro prints.

I machine quilted it with loops and hearts in the borders and sashings.

And backed it with polka dots.  I'll add a label when the baby is born and I know her name.

Tomorrow is the baby shower, so I finished it in time!

Binding and a Bag

Sometimes I look at all the projects I have going and don't want to work on any of them.  So I do some prep work that will save me time when I tackle UFOs or when I start a new project.  I call these days "non-quilting days" even though whatever work I do often is for quilting projects.

One of my favorite things to do on a non-quilting day is make binding for future quilts.  Most of the time I want to complete the top before I even contemplate what kind of binding will complement the quilt.  But lately, I have been making lots of baby quilts for friends who are becoming grandparents for the first time, and I have found that I often use striped fabric, polka dot fabric or star fabric for bindings on quilts for babies and kids.  So having a binding stash helps speed up the production of a new quilt.

 Sometimes I make continuous bias binding, especially when the quilt top is complete and I know the exact length I will need.  But when I'm making binding ahead, I starch and press the fabric and then just cut 2" bias strips from the yardage and sew the strips together on the diagonal to minimize bulk.
Here's some binding that I made recently using bias strips.

I've already used the star binding on this quilt for a neighbor's grandson.  (The pattern is Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Star.)  The white fabric has multicolored stars on it as do some of the other scraps, so the star binding was perfect.  (This pattern is a great stash buster!)

 

I used a circle-polka dot fabric for the backing.  I love the cheerful colors.

 Another non-quilting project I made recently was a tote bag for my niece's birthday.    I love these fabrics, too.  The bag has external pockets and is lined with another navy fabric.

So I am making small dents in my stash, doing prep work that streamlines the quilt making process, and getting the pleasure of giving handmade gifts to people I love.  All good.

Surely you jest(er)!

The  Free Motion Challenge teacher for August is Wendy Sheppard, who blogs at Ivory Spring. In her lesson, she showed us a quilting motif modeled after a jester's hat, like this:

This was a real challenge for me, trying to wrap my head and muscle memory around the motif, especially moving from one "hat" to the next.  There were a lot of scribbles doodles like this.

I felt like I wasn't improving at all after pages and pages of doodling!

Finally, I printed out Wendy's drawings of the motif and darkened them with a Sharpie, then traced over them until I better understood the design.

The drawings started getting better, and I got brave enough to approach the sewing machine!

And actually, the quilting didn't turn out too badly.  I had a few places where I boxed myself into a corner, and a few places where the quilting wasn't uniformly dense, but all in all, I and pretty happy with the results. 

 I felt like I really learned a lot this month.  As I was doing the quilting, I was able to keep my machine speed and hands consistent, and I also think I am beginning to "get" all of the parts of the process, especially being aware of where I am stitching and where I want to go next.  Perfect? Certainly not, but I am making progress!

Whenever I spoke to my mother on the phone, she would tell me she was a "happy camper."  Well, this month, I'm a "happy quilter!"

Quilts in the Mercer Museum (finally!)

A few weeks ago, Dave and I drove down to Doylestown, PA to the Mercer Museum to see an exhibit of Mennonite quilts from the collection of Paul and Rita Flacks.  We had never been to the Museum and were thrilled to find an enormous, wide-ranging collection of items from every day American life in the 18th and 19th century. (See previous post.)

But the real reason we were there was to see the quilts, and they did not disappoint.   Outside the gallery, two spectacular quilts served as previews for what was inside:

 This applique signature quilt is breathtaking!

Here is one corner to show the mix of traditional applique and broderie perse.  Notice that lovely appliqued tulip border.

This broderie perse quilt is also just gorgeous!

A close-up of a motif.....

When we walked into the gallery space itself, we were immediate struck by the vibrant colors of the quilts.
 

This applique quilt was stunning. 

                                                                                         
While the blocks were beautiful, what made it stand out were the bias striped borders.

This school house quilt is different from the usual pattern: there is piping along the roof and wall seams of each school!  It certainly makes the contours of the schoolhouses stand out!

I've been following a Postage Stamp Quilt challenge online (I'm not participating, just watching with interest) so I enjoyed seeing this example of an interesting way to use those tiny little pieces.

This beautiful applique quilt with its background of Lancaster Blue had so many interesting elements.
Notice the borders are just cut off at the ends.  No tricky corner construction for this quiltmaker!

What she did spend time on was lots of beautiful berries, and a reverse applique border to die for!























My favorite quilts in the collection were from Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.  They all had a very similar, controlled color palette and used that palette in different ways to create stunning quilts.
Three of the quilts were pieced (except for the basket handles.

I just love the combination of the maroon, the bright yellow and the Lancaster blue in this basket quilt.

The Irish Chain is one of my favorite patterns, especially in this color palette.

And look at this quilting!

Again, the use of these colors just made this quilt stand out!  Those Lebanon County women know what they were doing.

The last quilt in the show (at least it was closest to the door) was this appliqed beauty, again, in that Lebanon County palette, although with cheddar instead of a subtler yellow.  And notice the chevron quilting.  Just lovely.  This made me want to go right home and make a pomegranate quilt!

These were my favorites from the Mercer Museum show.  I especially enjoyed looking at the hand quilting on each one and returned home with new determination to practice, practice, practice!

To see more of the quilt from the Mercer, take a look at Inspiredbyantiquequilts.blogspot.com
(And look at Kathie's beautiful quilts, too!)


Up next time, trading blocks and drawing jester's hats!

Enjoy your weekend.  Find time to quilt!

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings"—and quilts!

 A few weeks ago, when I read Kathie of Inspired by Antique Quilts' post about her trip to the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA to see a collection of Mennonite quilts, I said to Dave, "Let's go!"  Ever up for a road trip, he agreed and that very day we drove down to Doylestown and discovered the wonderful resource that is the Mercer Museum.  Henry Mercer was a collector of Americana, particularly every-day objects and handmade tools that were used in daily life before the Industrial Revolution.  His collection reached 30,000 objects, so to house them, he build a concrete museum that was completed in 1916.

What a treasure trove!  The museum has six floors that surround a center space (you could call it an atrium, but it's crammed with stuff hanging from the ceiling and the columns, things like buggies and wagons and whaling boats (complete with harpoons!)

 Each of the floors has niches or rooms in which are displayed tools and equipment for every part of 18th and 19th century life in America.


 Although Mercer found objects at flea markets and auctions, one of his big purchases was the entire contents of the Feasterville, PA country store.  In this corner of the store are all the sewing and clothing items.

Sewing items

Match your needle to your machine!

I have a young friend who is starting a business teaching canning and preserving.  This room holds everything she would ever need if she wanted to do it the old fashioned way!  That big kettle in the back is for apple butter.

 The baking equipment hasn't changed much!

Madeleines, anyone?

Bowls, baskets and molds

 But sewing certainly has!  I'm glad I don't have to heat my iron on the stove or wash my clothes with a washboard (although we certainly had a washboard when I was a child and I remember using it for stubborn dirt!)

 This little beauty is only one of several sewing machines in the tailor's room.

 This is only a small selection of the rooms in the museum!



Mercer also collected painted Pennsylvania chests. Here are two beautiful examples.

 And cast iron stove fronts!

 Mercer was a ceramicist and made painted tiles.  This is a wall of tiles telling Bible stories.

 My favorite is Adam and Eve.

If you are at all interested in American History, I'm sure you would enjoy at trip to Doylestown and the Museum.  On the same campus is Mercer's home which is open to the public and the Michener Museum, and art museum named for the author.  We are definitely going to return to see what we missed!

 In my next post, I'll show you the gorgeous Mennonite quilts that led us to the Mercer Museum in the first place.