Civil War Bride in Red

Happy dance time - started in September 2014 and now completed!

It measures approx 170cm (67 in) by 173cm and is hand appliqued and hand quilted. Most blocks are from the Threadbear pattern but I made some changes and substitutions, a squirrel here, a rabbit there and this fruit bowl block. 

I just  had to have that fruit bowl from the antique quilt so had a go at drafting my own . Here is a pic of the antique quilt that inspired us all (in the  book "Treasury of American Quilts") and the 2009 Threadbear pattern next to it. 

I also drafted my own border but included some elements from within the pattern blocks - like pears, birds and this nest. 

I really enjoyed the process of adding my own elements, but also loved selecting the fabrics from my substantial moderate stash of reds. See ...Stash Building has its own rewards! But I expect I am preaching to the already converted?

A couple of pictures that I never shared of the end process after quilting...

The scary part where the edges got measured, squared and trimmed. Imagine one slip and off cutting through the hand quilting - eek!

Attaching hanging sleeve and binding: 

And where is the quilt now? I have to admit to being a complete coward and not washing this one as yet (visions of all the reds running riot). I think I'll just enjoy it on the wall for a while! I had a reshuffle of quilts around the house and it is now hanging in a hall opposite Lucy Boston...

...and around the corner from my Folk Art Basket quilt...

...and others are now taking a turn resting here...

Talking of Threadbear patterns...I've just received Corliss Searcey's Celebrating Mary Brown pattern and keep looking at it. It is huge and so inspiring! Anyone starting it? Just asking ...

The Southern Highlands Quilters put on a great biennial show last weekend - a feast for the eyes and lots of good shopping. It seems to get better every time and so nice to have a Show that is local for once. 

Shopping tables

more shopping - Reece Scannell

Collages of different favourite quilts for judging in the Show - :

lovely Christmas craft displays

Gorgeous embroidered items

If I had another lifetime I would love to delve into embroidery. But this one is just too full of quilting!

The finishing line...

My Benjamin Biggs journey started in January 2014. Thanks to the monthly free blocks from Sentimental Stitches (25 blocks plus border) it has kept many of us plugging along ever since. Thinking of the border kept me going -  my favourite part of this quilt. Mind you...I think I've had enough of applique buds for a wee while! 

I hung the just-completed top in my Golden Ash tree for an early morning photo. 

The back looked interesting in the  morning light.

Mr and Mrs King Parrot  were twittering at me from higher branches. I was in the way of their breakfast feeder. Excuse me, and a few minutes later ..

Mrs King Parrot

Mr is politely waiting his turn

And a little finish to report: I spied a lovely  kit on Instagram and very soon this arrived in the mail from Cutting Cloth. Intriguing?

A sewing box ! "Yummy" I thought, "How hard can it be?"

Well, it took me two solid days of work - super addictive but challenging!  Luckily the instructions were very clear and thorough. Imagine a bit of fun giant's EPP combined with a great deal of invisible stitching at tricky angles (with the facial expressions to match).

Decided not to make the pattern pincushions (have plenty already) but I just love the sewing box and it plays nicely with my other accessories.

I've only started one new quilt this year ( Sarah Fielke BOM) - and the self restraint has nearly killed me! There has been so much temptation out there as you all know. But you see, I'd done a little count and frightened myself by finding that I am working on 8 different large quilts - quite enough to be getting on with for now. Ben Biggs can now rest in the quilting queue while I give more time to the others. 

Am looking forward to posting a big finish next time. Can you guess which it might be? 

(PS the other quilts in my progress list are Shenandoah Valley /SVBAQ, Indigo Circles/Quilty 365, Civil War Bride, Wheat and Woods, Harrison Rose, Grandmother's Garden and Sarah Fielke's BOM)

Busy working on the learning curve

This month's SVBAQ block is the Tulip A-5

Not too tricky to applique and I love the pattern.

It set me thinking about the many skills involved in making quilts and the very many different ways we make them. Many learning curves that look a bit like this graph. The plateau is where we'd like to be - that comfortable spot at the top. Doesn't mean we are 'the best in the business' - just at our own 'happy' point.

(image borrowed from mind-muffins blogspot)

I'm on a comfortable plateau with hand applique - not perfect, but good enough to make it a happy process. Totally addicted to the process actually ! 

English Paper piecing (EPP) is another technique I love - never really had a 'slow beginning' phase - just charged straight on up that slope as the whole process suited me so well. My first project was the queen sized Cream Tea in 2011 (pictured in my Header). 

And hand quilting? Well I had a very, very 'slow beginning' phase that lasted about 20 years LOL!  and then last year I rediscovered it with new tools, different technique and hit the 'steep acceleration' stage in a big way. I'm now thinking I may have reached my 'plateau' and am totally addicted to that process too. It's not a judgeworthy plateau but it is my happy point.

We all have our own skills and different 'happy points' don't we?

As I mentioned in January , this year I'm hoping to hit that learning slope with American piecing ( as distinct from EPP or Foundation Paper piecing).  There are huge gaps in my knowledge in this area and that is why I signed up to Sarah Fielke's BOM. 

So - how's it going? Definitely on the 'slow beginning' phase but enjoying it. 

Sarah gave us a bonus video on making a block book - great idea and great tutorial. First to make a design to decorate the front of my book. I went with a combination of EPP, applique and quilting - staying in the comfort zone here :) 

And here's my book:

While I was motivated I also made a portable block pad too - to make sure my block pieces stay in the correct places while stitching. It is just a piece of strong cardboard and scraps of batting stuck on the front but very useful now:

Here it is in action with the 12 inch Churn dash block - first month's pattern pieces cut out (with great care) and laid out ready to stitch.

I decided to try hand piecing but how to mark the seams for accuracy? Rummaging in a drawer I found a handy block tool that seemed made for the job - don't know how many years this has been lurking in there LOL! It allows clear dots to be marked at corners with 1/4 inch allowance. Then I penciled in seam lines too - taking no chances here. The prep was slow but I think it paid off as the blocks came together quite well.

First month's work - a 12 inch Churn dash and two 6 inch stars - not bad for the Beginners slope?

I'm using a combination of solids, prints, toiles and some linen for texture. They're mostly from the stash but the beautiful Le Marais toile is a new addition. My colour theme is what you might call 'Antique English' - based on a Pinterest session where I pinned pictures of antique English quilts (with the look I liked) on a board. Here is a sample screenshot of my pinning.

Quilting on my Civil War Bride quilt is going surprisingly quickly - now I'm doing the background. Thanks so much for all your thoughts on what might work for the background fill. I decided a half inch cross hatch would be good. But when I started it (just a few diagonal lines) I loved the look of that and left it there! So the background to all the  blocks is now finished - 1/2 inch diagonal lines. And I am working on a double parallel line in the border. 

border quilting 

There are some larger applique pieces that need a little extra quilting too. I tried some stippling on a table cloth - just single stitches placed at random and carried through the layers:

...and some 1/4 inch parallel lines on a vase : 

...and this vase is about to get some curving lines. See the lines marked with the hera marker?

Phew - sorry for the long waffling blog post. Might be overcompensating for tiny snapshots on Instagram! 

Have a good stitching week.

Around and around we go...

I'm almost done with the hand quilting around every. single.  piece. of. applique. on this Civil War Bride. It really should be a winter project but we've had some opportune cooler days, and there is the pressure of quilts getting very impatient in the quilting queue. 

I'm so glad each block is different as it keeps it interesting.

Assessing the quilt top for the next step in the quilting - there are a lot of irregular, odd shaped background spaces between the applique. They are a bit bumpy and flappy and, in my humble opinion, need some quilting discipline. But the trick with irregular spaces - what pattern to use? 

Have a look at a few blocks - they fill the background very differently. This one fills the background almost fully...

Biggish spaces in this one...

 ...and odd spaces between the blocks too

I'm afraid it might make a 'dog's breakfast' of it with various sized quilting motifs.  Ideas?

• maybe some grid quilting or parallel lines - always looks good and gives uniformity across the background 
• maybe echo quilting - I loved it on my Auntie Green but my feeling is it doesn't suit this one
• maybe some little crosses stippled  - looks great in big stitch quilting but not sure here - might give it a try just to see...

Indigo Circles (my Quilty 365 sewalong project) - after feeling deplorably behind on this project, I am now quite well on target, having prepped up a storm. It's been fun experimenting on ways to be more efficient with the blocks. I tried out a Youtube method using foil to iron fabric around templates. 

I know one or two other Quilty participant have also discovered this method. 

I was originally using back basting prepared needleturn for my circles - no problem with that but I just thought this might speed up the needleturn. 

Circles do need careful needleturn to avoid those pesky unwanted points. I'm not sure this method has made my circles any more accurate but it is quicker!

Here are the latest 21 blocks. That makes a total of 37 so far.  

I've decided to stitch my 2" blocks into four-patch blocks as I go,  and mix them among the 4 " blocks on point - something like this picture. 

Another little efficiency measure has been the use of  my 4 1/2 " square ruler - to square up and size my finished blocks. I was thrilled to find it is just the right size and invaluable in checking the piecing of those four-patches.

 

So there we are - every new project brings a little more learning ... or some useful revision! I am sure there must be others like me - I even forget what I have forgotten...sigh.

Star in the East

Just because I'm trying to be a better quilting-person (at least at the beginning of the year haha!) and avoid the last minute rush for my BOM deadlines ...here is this month's Shenandoah Valley Botanical Album block - Star in the East.

I found the applique less fiddly than the last block but I'm not sure that my making the yellow centre in two strips was a great idea. It has given it a bit of a 'bumpy bottom' in the middle there -  with all the layers over the background join. Ho hum - I wanted to fussy cut that yellow fabric and it fitted best as two strips to make the cross.

Benjamin Biggs : first border completed

The size adjustments I made to the border (last post) seem to have worked - so far so good.

By the way I am now on Instagram (everystitchpics) and you may see more process photos there (see top of Blog side bar). Instagram is so, so quick to update! My IG posts reveals a bad case of 'Quilters ADD' - working on a different project almost every day! Hmm, how many will I finish this year at this rate?

A new feature on my blog - nifty page tabs:

I quite often need to refer back to previous quilts and photos and find it quite cumbersome to find the saved folders or posts. So I have made some pages on the Blog with a summary of quilts completed each year. The tabs to click on are just below my blog header.  It only took half a day to sort that lot - gasp.

My quilting Finish Rate has slowed down since I got back to hand quilting last year! I'm still so glad I did but there could be a traffic jam in the quilting queue in the not too distant future :)

Indigo Circles - running late for the link up

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” 
― Dr. Seuss

..and that applies perfectly to me and my Indigo Circles blocks! That's Audrey's Quilty 365 project. 

They were prepped but not stitched. So yesterday I needle turn appliqued 14 of them in one day - oops, that's not really how I aimed to pace myself, but better late than never. 

Here are all 28 that I've made so far:

I can see this project getting away from me and I really don't want that. The thing that takes some time is my choice to fussy cut the circles. It keeps it interesting for me but takes that extra bit of time. 

It will help to have a lot of squares cut way ahead - piles of 4.5 and 2.5 inch blocks. No excuses now!

I got to visit my gifted Auntie Green quilt this week. My daughter and son-in-law have hung it behind their bed. You can see why she selected low volume fabrics - suits their decor so nicely. The set of four quilt tiles on the wall was a birthday gift I made in 2012 (more details if you click on this earlier blog post) .

Happy New Year! Any quilting plans for 2016?  As for me - I have far too many a fair few projects on the go and might scare myself ( and bore you to tears) if I listed them. 

But one thing I would like to do, and really need to do - is to improve my piecing skills. I can get accuracy with EPP or foundation piecing, but I want to cut and hand piece blocks with confidence and accuracy too. Practice makes perfect they say, but I want to improve the easy way - with lots of instruction!

Sarah Fielke's BOM caught my eye (sketch image from her website).

It has a mixture of techniques, loads of instruction,  and she says there will be (quote from her blog) 

"Exclusive access to a private YouTube channel, where video instruction will be provided for each block or technique each month"

I'm in!  A private tutor -  that sounds just what I need. I've never met Sarah but have seen her excellent YouTube video on Big Stitch quilting and it has been a very useful reference. 

Something to look forward to :)