Old and New

Yesterday I went with a friend to a small estate sale that had advertised having fabrics and old quilts. There wasn't much fabric I was interested in but I did buy a great antique Irish Wedding Ring quilt. It's lovely, hand-pieced and hand-quilted. We do not have one of these in the quilts made by my grandmother and great aunt. I also came home with several orphan blocks. Two small carpenter's star blocks as well as an appliqued star with hearts, all hand-pieced, and a stack of hand-pieced Dresden plates. Along with the dozen finished Dresden plates there were cut pieces for at least 14 more and even one partially finished block, complete with the mystery quilter's needle still stuck in place.

 I am going to teach my friend to put the unfinished ones together and applique them so she can put them into a quilt. If anybody has any ideas about the age of these fabrics I'd love to hear them, I have no idea how old (or new) they might be.
My hands smell like my grandmother after handling all these blocks and pressing them. Kind of weird. Makes me wonder, does everyone's grandmother smell the same?

The mariner's compass quilt is still in progress. One corner is finished, but I still need to paper-piece the other 3 corner blocks.

You see where this is going? Have a great week.

A Long Day at the Sewing Machine

I work on sewing projects almost nonstop today. To show for it, the mariner's compass has gained one and a half borders. (I used needle turn applique to attach the medallion to the background last night.) With the geese border on it measures about 54" x 42" I used the speed piecing (method "B") found on this site to make the geese and it worked like a charm. I will need to get over to the quilt store for more of the blue fabric before I can finish that border, hopefully on Sunday. In the meanwhile I can work on making a pattern and paper piecing the final border's cornerstones, which are going to be quarter circle compasses with lots of little points.






I also made this little snowflake wall hanging for Christmas. I made one of these last year for a swap but don't have any pictures of that one. The one last year took a lot longer, but in the meanwhile I've finally mastered a Y-seam so this one was quick. I used my grandmother's carpenter's star quilt for a pattern, literally laying a ruler over her pieces and adding on seam allowance. I like this style of carpenter's star better than the one I usually see where not all of the squares around the inner star are the same size. I think that one is more common because it can be made with no Y-seams? Anyway, here's a close up of the snow-y quilting on the center star. This thing's going in the wash first thing tomorrow to get that nice dryer crinkle.

Wordless Wednesday

Don't look too closely at my points!

A Mariner's Compass Quilt

I went shopping today at a new-to-me quilt store to find fabrics for a mariner's compass quilt. Tonight I pieced the first 3 segments of the centerpiece, here they are pinned on the inspiration fabric. I picked the background fabric up at a quilt shop in Anacortes, WA during my trip to the Puget Sound, the figures are traditional native designs. Since my entire time up there was spent living on a boat and sailing I knew I wanted to use it in a mariner's compass. I modified the design shown on this website and drew out a paper piecing pattern on butcher paper.

I have also been quilting slow and steady on my neglected double irish chain. Maybe I'll get it done quilting before I finish this top. Who knows? It could happen. :)

Photos of Summer

I went to summer camp with this cutie. He is happy, talkative, and VERY active!

With the return to classes and the search for a real job my desire to quilt has returned as well. I spent tonight drawing out a paper piecing pattern (the old fashioned way, with a pencil and ruler) for a mariner's compass quilt and I'm going shopping tomorrow. Before I dive back into quilting related posts, I want to dedicate this post to some photos from my summer. It's been one to remember.


For the end of July and beginning of August I spent 3 weeks crewing on the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain in the Puget Sound. The Chieftain is on the right in this photo, the Lady Washington on the left. I really enjoyed wearing jackets and longsleeves during what are the hottest 3 weeks of the year for Texas.





Back tomorrow with quilting news!

Not Dead, Just Lazy

I've been enjoying my lazy summer - maybe a little too much! It turns out that I mostly quilt for stress relief, and when I'm not stressed I lose all motivation to quilt.

I recently made a couple of little purses based on this tutorial with the fabrics I won this spring.

I also finished the sampler quilt last night and today. I leave for camp tomorrow, so it had to be done.

I quilted large, random, overlapping squares in the red areas and outlined the designs in the samplers. At first I wasn't sure about the fish fabric for the back, but now that it's together I really like it.

Realistically, this will probably be the last post for another long while. I am leaving tomorrow for a week of camp and immediately after that we leave for two weeks of roadtrip vacation visiting family. I just wanted to check in and let you know I wasn't gone for good. Hope you're having a great summer! Kat.

Thor

This is Thor, the fourth cat I'm profiling. He was my first bottle baby kitten, and he's still my baby to this day. There's really no other way to get a kitten to imprint on you that strongly. Thor was found by a friend of ours at about one and a half weeks old in a puddle after a rainstorm around October of 03. We weren't sure he would live, but just kept feeding him steadily and he pulled through.


He was always a ferocious little thing, so we settled on Thor for a name. He is completely orange, even his nose is orange! He can be defensive around strange people, cats, or dogs - he can definitely hold his own - but with us he's just a big baby. (Are you seeing a theme here with our cats?) He worries if we walk too far from the house and follows about 10 feet behind making pitiful warning cries. He absolutely HATES it when you whistle. If I ever go sit down on the porch he's up in my lap immediately; and whenever I carry him he wraps his arms around my neck and nuzzles me like he used to when he was a kitten. He is also the mighty slayer of hummingbirds. He knows which flowers they prefer and will hide in the foliage until one flies up and jump and pull it down.


I won 3rd place in the photo contest at the local Fall festival with this shot of him checking out a pumpkin. (I did bait the pumpkin with cat food, but we don't have to tell anyone.)

Only one more cat to go! By the way, there may be a severe lack of quilting material on this blog for a little while. I'm just not in the mood lately.