Here is a shot of Mexican Nights, made from the scraps left over from the Dia de los Muertos quilt I did for my friend E. The quilt is 4.5′ square and uses the leftover Virgin Mary motif from the bigger quilt, as well as some of the specialty fabric I’d used on the back and for the 9-block squares I’d done for that quilt.

This is also the biggest quilt I’ve quilted on my home machine in years and I can tell. Man, my shoulders are aching from managing that much fabric as I pushed it under the needle. But I like the way it turned out and I really like the wave motif I used on the lattices.

The hearts were all hand-drawn directly onto the fabric before quilting so they’re not perfect, but I like the way they look. They work as quilting motifs, especially on this 9-block square.

So there I was, looking at the wall hanging that needed some freehand quilting to be completed, and I really wanted to take a crack at a wave pattern for the latticework.

But. The way I was taught to do freehand quilting was, 1) lower the feed dogs), 2) set your stitch length to 0, and 3) go as fast as you can. Which, to be honest, has resulted in some pretty wonky quilting as I shoot past a guideline but that’s what I was supposed to do, right?

Plus the Brit was on a business call in his office which is next to mine, and I didn’t want to fire up the machine to full blast as I quilted this border. So I figured it would be much quieter if I throttled the speed and did it very, very slowly.

Since my machine has a speed control I reduced it to very slow, stuck the wall hanging under the needle, and started quilting. And by God I had perfect control over the needle and where it was going next! Granted, I had to control the hanging so that I didn’t create really big stitches as I moved it but I was astounded at how simple this was to create precise freehand quilting.

The hanging should be finished by tomorrow so I’ll take pics when it’s done. In the meantime I feel like I’ve leveled up as a quilter.

Even unquilted they’re surprisingly heavy. I suspect when I get the backing and batting on they’re going to be very cozy for the cold weather months.

Library of Dreams

Library of Dreams is a twin quilt made with batik strips I’d picked up at the Dallas Quilt Show a couple of years ago matched with latticework made from white-on-white cotton fabric and a pretty cool-colored batik (which also serves as the border). This one is for my niece Jessica (and if any family members read this I’m happy to make a quilt for you—just tell me size and color preferences and don’t expect it before December).

Garden Path

Garden Path is a full quilt made with two types of green floral fabric, two types of cream floral fabric, and one type of mauve floral (because I’d bought enough of that type). This is the quilt that uses a pattern from an old quilt I bought when I first got to Dallas. The quilt fell apart within the year, but I was able to draft the pattern with the intention of recreating it in lavender, green, and cream.

So. Many. Curves.

In retrospect it’s not surprising that this one’s been languishing in my office closet since 2010 or so. But I’m proud of myself for mastering the techniques needed for sewing curves.

Sunflower Memories

Sunflower Memories is a queen quilt made with antique sunflower motifs appliqued to white-on-white cotton squares and set in lattices made from dark green and sunflower fabric. The border is made from a floral fabric featuring sunflowers, bees, and a golden honeycomb pattern on a black background with a gold stripe and pale orange corner squares.

Back in 2002 or so I’d found a quilt top made from thirty hand-sewn sunflowers attached to a white cotton surround. The white cotton was fraying badly but apart from some bleaching here and there the sunflower motifs were still in pretty good condition.

I bought them with the idea of appliqueing each motif onto a square of white cotton, then connecting them with sunflower fabric lattices. I even got as far as cutting out all the lattice pieces, then stuck the motifs in the closet because detaching them from their fraying white surrounds was such a hassle.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

I now have two office garbage cans full of stripped-off white cotton and my seam ripper got one hell of a workout last week. But I wound up with thirty circular motifs which I appliqued onto squares, then put together into a lattice. I’d gone out and purchased the fabric for the border, but after adding a 4″ border I looked at it and thought, “…that looks really narrow.”

A quick trip to Joann later, and I had a golden stripe around the existing border, then added the remaining black honeycomb fabric strips with light orange corner squares that echoed the orange in the motifs (frankly, I’m utterly shocked that I was able to find a color that matched so closely). And what had originally been a full quilt became a queen quilt.

Now I just have to schedule some time at my local quilt store on their long-arm machine, and these puppies will be finished!

Yes, I’m feeling better today, thank you, so much so that I made kielbasa skillet for dinner. Granted, the amount I make requires the soup pot instead of a skillet but it means we have leftovers for the next day. Considering that the Brit absolutely adores this dish, leftovers are a good thing.

I also got down to brass tacks with the Sunflowers quilt and headed out to Joann Fabric and Crafts to take advantage of a doorbuster sale and pick up some fabric for the border since it was likely I’d be finishing it on Monday. I was going to get a yard and a half because that would be enough for 4.5″ strips if I pieced them together. I didn’t want any extra fabric because I’m trying to use up all of my fabric, not add more to the stash.

I wound up buying 2.33 yards of Honeycomb Floral because I changed my mind at the cutting table and decided to get two yards, at which point the lady said, “Oh, there’s only about a third left—I can sell it to you as a remnant.” I cut out the border strips and, yup, I now I have a buttload of this fabric left over. I’ll have to figure out something interesting to do with it.

As you know, Bob, 2023 is the Year of Finishing All the Projects. One of those projects was a quilt I wanted to make from thirty antique sunflower motifs I’d reclaimed from an old quilt I’d found in a j/u/n/k/ antique store. The circular motifs were originally sewn to curved sections of white cotton cloth that formed a square, but the white cotton had frayed so badly that the squares were falling apart.

I’d decided to carefully unpick the sunflower motifs from the cotton fabric, applique each motif directly onto a new white cotton square, then set the squares in a lattice of sunflower fabric and dark green squares. That was at least ten years ago and the pile of sunflower motifs still attached to their old surrounds and the cut-out lattice pieces have languished in a tote bag in my office closet for all that time.

But no more. This week I got down to the business of unpicking all the motifs and appliqueing them to white-on-white patterned squares (I like it better than plain white fabric). So far I have two rows completed with another six to go and a four inch border to add (still don’t know what the border fabric will look like but there’s some nice sunflower patterned fabric at JoAnn’s right now) and these old sunflowers will get a new shot at life in a full-sized quilt. Also, since they’re appliqued to new fabric they won’t be under the stress their old surrounds endured and should last fairly well once the top is done and quilted to the backing and batting.

I also found out that one of my local quilt shops offers time on a long-arm machine at an hourly rate, no previous experience needed. Guess who’s going to start quilting all of her finished big tops next month? *grin*

As part of Finish All the Projects 2023 I started work on a new jacket made from a gorgeous rust red twill that I’d bought back in 2009. I was using a pattern that looked nice but turned out to be a bit too tight in the arms (thank you, bingo wings).

So I found this awesome video from Seamstress Sarah that showed how to create a hinge joint in a pattern and add fullness in the middle of a piece. I’d never even heard of a hinge joint before, but it made a huge amount of sense once I watched her create one. This does involve a fair amount of work—you have to copy the pattern onto another piece of paper (ideally on something like printer paper because you’ll need to manipulate the hinge joint to get the correct fit), remove the seam allowance and create the hinge joint, then transfer the adjusted pattern to yet another piece of paper and add the seam allowance back in.

But I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. I basted one sleeve together just to see how well it fit and it was a HUGE improvement—I could even fit my t-shirt sleeve in there as well. I have some more modifications to make to this pattern—the hip allowance on the sides needs to come in a half inch at the bottom, and I’d like to widen the chest by an inch or so (it’s cut for a D cup but I have double Ds and I really need a little more ease). But so far it’s coming together very nicely.