Throwback Thursday

Long ago in another century far, far away, the social media platforms were things called "newsgroups". They could be as broadly- or as narrowly-defined as you'd wish. The one I enjoyed the most (and got the best friends from as a result of my participation) drilled down the categories

Recreation>

    Crafts>

        Textiles>

            Quilting

and was known as RCTQ.

One day a lass on RCTQ sent out a distress signal. "Help!", she cried, "I've created volcanoes where quilt blocks should be! I hate, Hate, HATE this project now and wish someone would take it off my hands and out of my life."

So I did.

Past Project

Mary's obsessed with bookshelf quilts, and while I've never made one, they remind me of a "bug (or canning) jar" wallhanging I made for my mother's Christmas gift in 2008. I just happen to have some pictures on my laptop I can share.

Original pattern from which I got some ideas.

Oh yeah!

I'm home again, briefly (as in: 'fly in Thursday fly out Sunday' brief), just long enough to do income taxes with my husband and pack for a longer stay in Oregon (i.e. packing a suitcase instead of a backpack). The end of May should give all of us (my siblings and me) a good idea of how to proceed going forward.

I walked into the studio today and saw this on the design wall:

Aw-w-w-w-w! They're so cute! I had forgotten this was where I had left things, playing with the dinky *HTSs and the short crumbs left from string quilts. If memory serves, I had run out (or was quickly running out) of the muslin, so it's just as well I was torn away when I was.

These are the makings of my version of this quilt:

"Converging Corners" from the blog "Film in the Fridge"

 

It's the building out of the opposite corners that will add the dynamic element to these blocks, once they're all sewn together. In the meantime, they'll quietly wait there on the design wall until I'm back for good, probably in two months.

*Seriously? I've said it before and I stand by my opinion: the squares are split in half by triangles. Shouldn't it be Half Triangle Square (HTS) blocks, instead of Half Square Triangle (HST) blocks?

Not final, not by a long shot

In light of the events of the past two weeks, the title of my previous post might be construed to mean it was my final entry.

Obviously (since you're reading this), that was not the case. What is the case is that I'm back in Portland, caring for my dying father, and visiting my mother (now living in Memory Care) every other day. I've no plans for posts ('Look! I put in a few more stitches in my hand-sewing project!'), but then again, I've no plans, period. Every day is fluid around here!

See you on the flip side,

Carolyn

Lessons Learned and Final Thoughts

Yep, a little breeze, but it was a bit wavy on its own too. 35" x 53"

I finished this on Tuesday? Wednesday? Blursday? Regardless, I handed it over Wednesday afternoon so it could get to Houston and be entered in the Silent Auction being held during the Competition Weekend for Region 10 of Sweet Adelines. I had no desire to be there in person, but I was there in fabric.

Frankenbatt

That's what you get when joining batting scraps into one large piece: a Frankenbatt. That's also what was taking up valuable real estate on my cutting table--elements of my next Frankenbatt--and it was high time I either sewed those scraps together or put them away!

First, though: figure out if I have enough pieces to cover a 40"x58" area.

Well, it's a start. The excess hanging off the left piece can be cut off and sewn on elsewhere, and there were still more scraps.

4-patch quilting

There's been very little "fresh eyes" quilting this past week because I've been waking up with itchy, tired, burning, 'goddammit-how-did-a-cold-catch-me?' eyes. Today they were slightly better and I could get a start on quilting the spaces around the 4-patches on the Gift Quilt. Hours of thread burying along the vine were spent considering quilting options, some of which were to free-hand hearts in the negative space, or fill them with straight line echo quilting, or alternate the two ideas (heart-lines-heart-lines, etc).

I ultimately decided not to introduce another design element (the free-hand hearts). I cut down strips of painters' tape to 5/8" and after some trial and error hit on the most efficient way to get the quilting lines established (create right angle units with 2 strips of tape, then center that [with a ruler] in each triangle). I got one border quilted (and partially thread-buried) this morning and am very pleased. It seems to be the perfect amount of stitching.