WIP Wednesday: Quilting an Antique

After over a week away on vacation and work I'm finally back at the sewing machine! I decided it's time to finish up this old quilt top I agreed to quilt up for a friend. I'm not sure if this is exactly old enough to be antique, but it is old.

Signature blocks made for the wedding of my friends' parents or grandparents... I can't remember which. I am going to have to get all the details so I can put it on the label. For some reason the top was never made in to a quilt and the family has been passing down the top ever since.

One reason the quilt was never finished may have been the poor construction. Talk about not lying flat! Oi vey.  The best thing to do would have been to tear the whole thing apart, square the blocks, and use new sashing. However, I wasn't quite up for that level of involvement and I didn't want to take that much away from the original quilt. If I tried to make some of these blocks square there wouldn't be much left of them! Instead I am just carefully pleating the winkles in the sashing wherever they appear and quilting them down.  It actually looks good, the busy plaid sashing helps to camouflage the pleats and I think after a gently wash/dry they will be hard to even find.

I love the old fashioned names! Whoever did the embroidery had gorgeous stitching. I am using a FMQ spiral to quilt the top pretty heavily in order to reinforce the old fabrics. It's a big quilt so this is going to take a while!

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Mix Tape {Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2015}

Welcome once again to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, hosted at Amy's Creative Side. Every time I participate in the festival it seems I end up including at least one quilt made by my do. Good Stitches group the NURTURE circle.  This quilt was our January project; I am entering it in the ROYGBIV category.

Each member of the circle made 2 foundation pieced, QAYG string blocks and mailed them in. If you are interested a tutorial for the block can be found here.  The finished quilt and matching pillowcase were mailed to My Very Own Blanket.

Since the blocks were QAYG all I had to do was join them and then stitch on a backing. To reduce the bulky seams I pressed them open and use a triple zig zag to stitch over them.  

The ladies in my circle did such a great job of choosing fun novelty fabrics for their blocks!

I like how the quilt has an overall ROYGBIV gradient but the odd pops of contrasting color jump out at you.

Because the blocks were foundation pieced onto their battings only the zig zag quilting at the block edges shows on the back.

Some fun lions and bikes and a bright yellow binding.  This was actually one of the last quilts we sent to MVOB.  Starting with this month's quilt the group has voted to begin donating our quilts to my pet charity, Covered in Love, which donates quilts to the families of patients who pass away in the hospital where I work.

 Don't forget to check out the rest of the festival and visit my other entry in the scrappy quilts category here.

Stats:

• 45"x60"
• Quilt as You Go piecing by the members of the NURTURE circle of do. Good Stitches
• assembly and final quilting by me on my domestic machine
• donated to My Very Own Blanket
• entered in the ROYGBIV category

String Braid {Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2015}

It's time once again for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, hosted at Amy's Creative Side.  This year I am entering my string braid quilt into the scrappy quilt category.

This quilt was the second in a set of scrappy string quilts that all came about because the very generous Judy @ Quilt Paradigm sent me a LARGE box of scraps she wasn't going to use.  Among the scraps were a lot of string which pushed my string storage beyond capacity, quilts had to be made!

This quilt is made from a series of string pieced 60 degree triangles (tutorial here) set into columns. I stippled the whole thing with a variety of thread colors.

This quilt was actually one of my first quilts to go toward the charity I started back at the beginning of the year, Covered in Love. I am collecting quilts to be donated to the families of patients who pass away in the hospital where I work.

I actually had the immense honor of giving this quilt away personally. One of my coworkers suffered a late term miscarriage and was in the hospital to be induced and have her baby. I got to take her this quilt and she was so grateful and comforted by it.  I wish I could have taken a picture for you of her hands holding her rosary, crossed over her pregnant belly on top of this quilt, but it wasn't the time.

Over a dozen quilts have been distributed and they have all been received with tears and gratitude, bringing comfort into despair. If you might be interested in donating a quilt, top, or blocks for Covered in Love please check out the main page. I promise they will go to people in need, and they will be treasured!

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out my other entry in the ROYGBIV quilt category here and visit the rest of the festival!

Stats:

• 56"x70"
• made from scraps
• pieced and quilted by me on a home machine
• donated to Covered in Love
• entered in the scrappy quilt category

Baby baby!

A few weeks I posted the tutorial for the four-fat-quarter baby quilt, today it's all done! Also, I have a few pretty, soft lovie blankets to show.

This quilt is for a friend of mine who chose red and black for her baby's colors. I quilted it with FMQ square spirals in the main part and circles in the borders.

Usually when I give a baby quilt I sort of give a package, with a bib or two, onesies, and receiving blankets or lovies.

I recently made these 3 lovies from a remnant of minky type material found at JoAnns and flannel.

They're about the size of a fat quarter and I put a ribbon loop on one corner so they can be clipped to a stroller.  These lovies were made from all remnants and cost next to nothing, but they are so lovely.

Welcome baby kit, all ready for the little guy to arrive!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

Four Patch Charm Quilts

Up on my design wall today is a version of the Four Patch Charm quilt from Tamarack shack.  This is the same design we are making this month for the NURTURE circle of do. Good Stitches, but I made my own version as well from batiks and grey solid.

These batiks all came out of my batik scrap box.  I am not sure I am committed to this layout yet, but I am enjoying playing with it on the wall.

Linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

String Quilt No. 4, Hexie Pinwheels

My string quilt craze started back in about October. I know this will not be my last string quilt by a long shot, but I can now finally say that 4 quilts later I have curtailed my overflowing strings bin. String quilt No. 1 was a very traditional blue and brown one, string quilt No. 2 was a more modern, bright, braid design, string quilt No. 3 was a super modern black/white/red quilt. And now we have string quilt No. 4, made from the leftovers of No. 2, arranged in a different design.

My tutorial for these 60 degree string triangles can be found here. Turned another way theses could have been a spider web quilt, but I opted for a pinwheel instead. I really love the mellow yellow solid I found to set off the bright strings.

I had a little fun with the FMQ. Spirals in the yellow triangles, stipple in the hexes, and waves in the borders. The dense quilting makes for lovely krinkle and a soft look.  Binding is scrappy, which was only fitting.

The backing is mostly this pretty, rich peacock fabrics, and yes, this is another quilt for Covered in Love.  Thanks for visting!!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday and Oh Scrap at Quilting is more fun than housework.

Cayenne Pepper Hard Candy Recipe

(And now a departure from your usually scheduled quilts.)

Looking for something sweet and spicy and definitely different from what you've had before? Want to impress your family and friends? Try making these cayenne pepper hard candies, think of them like spicy jolly ranchers.

A few years ago I started growing cayenne peppers every summer. I turn most of them into pepper jelly using this recipe but last summer I started experimenting with a hard candy recipe. The basic recipe comes from this one.

You will need:

1c water

3 3/4 c sugar

1 1/2c light corn syurp

8 or so cayenne or other spicy pepper

splash of apple cider vinegar

green gel food color

Also, you'll need a candy thermometer and something to pour the candy in to. Silicon candy molds are certainly best and sucker sticks are nice, but a buttered cookie pan will do.

Prep your peppers first. Remove the stems, chop into chunks and throw them into a food processor with a splash cider vinegar, just enough to be able to blend them. For small batches like this I actually use a immersion blender.  Add a bit of green food color to the finished paste if you want.

You want to really get it blended small. I happen to like a little bit of chunks suspended in the finished candies, but if you want a crystal clear product strain your pepper paste and just use the juice. Be very careful not to get this stuff in your eyes! You will regret it. Deeply.  I use about 1 1/2 tbsp for my candies, but you could use more or less depending on how spicy you like it.

Pour the sugar, water, and corn syrup into a pot and heat over medium, stirring frequently, until it boils. Stop stirring and insert your candy thermometer. Heat slowly over med/med-low without stirring, maintaining a simmer until the temperature just touches 310F degrees.

This is going to take a while, like possibly 30 or 45 minutes. So prep your candy molds/cookie sheet, clean the kitchen, and watch some Netflix on your phone. Whatever you do, do not leave the kitchen. As sure as the world, as soon as you turn your back on sugar on the stove it will blacken beyond recovery.

I found these silicon candy molds at Hobby Lobby and the sucker sticks yo can buy almost anywhere. Although you can just pour the finished candy onto a sheet pan to cool and then break it into chunks, silicon really is the way to go if you can. It's flexible so the candy is easy to remove and nothing sticks to it.

When the thermometer just reaches 310 degrees F take the pot off the heat and drop in your pepper flavoring. It's going to boil up and steam but that's ok; stir it in quickly.  Carefully pour the molten sugar into your molds, this is hard to do from a heavy and hot pot so I transfer mine into a small bowl with a spout.

It will take half an hour or so for the candy to cool, so while it does save yourself a thousand headaches on clean up. Put a little water back in the sugar pot and put it on to boil. Throw in all your spoons and other utensil that are crusted with hard sugar and stir. The boiling water will melt the sugar right off.

Unmold your candies, make sure they are cooled completely and serve. I found these little cellophane bags at WalMart that work perfectly.  I am saving these for a party at work, but any time you make sugar candy there will be over pour and places where you left trails of sugar between molds. Bag up those crumbs as treats for the cook ;)

I would love to hear your feedback on this recipe if you make it! Please leave a comment or email me.