Alice's Roses-

Back of quilt

Our Thread Tales book group read, "The Desert Queen" by Janet Wallach. It is the story of how Gertrude Bell influenced the Arab world. While reading a historical biography is dry and painful, Wallach is masterful at telling Bell's story. I appreciated being able to review how culture and history has shaped that portion of the world.

I'm not into camels; but before my car accident in 2009, I enjoyed gardening. Bell loved roses and developed a rose garden with stock from England. Growing roses was the inspiration for this piece. My friend, Alice, who was moving from the city to the coast, had a group of us over for breakfast one morning. She invited us to take anything that was laid about the house so she didn't have to pack it! 

Label detail

Alice was an avid gardener. Her roses were always beautiful. I always admired that she cultivated beautiful blooms in a climate that produced black spot, mildew and paltry blossoms on my roses. At her breakfast was a box of linens. Among the linens was a pink tea towel with a cross stitched Victorian style lady walking behind a picket fence as a decoration. I picked up the linens.

A week of so after our breakfast, I took a class from Cindy Needham. Cindy is the queen of turning old linens into special works of art. Using Cindy's stencils during class, I drew a design on the tea towel. Of course, I used a rose as the center of the design. I incorporated as many of Cindy's tips as I could in this small project. If you have the opportunity to take a class from Cindy do it. She is a fabulous instructor.

Project front

I used Hoffman's Radiance as the backing. Sadly, Hoffman no longer produces this beautiful fabric. To get the trapunto puff effect, I used two battings--Dream Request which is a thin batting and Hobbs wool batting which produced the loft.

I used metallic threads to quilt the outline of the rose. I quilted the background with silk thread in the needle and cotton thread in the bobbin. 

My oldest granddaughter loved this piece. Partly because she likes the color pink and partly becomes she liked the texture of the quilting. She would tell me that roses are too "prickly!" It is her finger that you see in the photos.

February and March blocks

I quilted this project on my 1630 Bermina in 2011. This is
the fourth book club project that I have documented this month. Documenting four book club projects was goal number two on my April list. If you want to read about the other three quilts, the link is connected to the following project titles: Grandmother's Flower Garden; Ouch and Crossroads.

I've written this before; but, it bears repeating. Belonging to this book club has pushed me outside my "box" when it comes to quilting techniques. I've read books that I wouldn't have considered and enjoyed them. Most of all, I have loved the discussions, activities and reveals that I have had with the group.

On another note, I did meet my goal to finish the blocks for February in the temperature quilt for 2022. I  exceeded my goal. I also finished the March blocks and I've kept up with the blocks for April! For this post, I'm including the photo of my February and March blocks. Next month, I'll write a post about my progress. Please check out the following link to see others who have met their April goals! Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - April Finish Link-up

Pinwheel Crumbs--A 2013 Completion

Close up of crumb block and feathers

Our book club read "The Last Runaway," by Tracy Chevalier. In the story, the main character comes from England to the United States on a ship. She is seasick for so long that the hexagons she brought with her . . .well, she threw them over the side because she thought they smelled of vomit. Later, she wished she still had the hexagons. She liked piecing, the family she became a part of liked applique. 

I was inspired to use the color green to represent how she felt on her trip across the ocean. I challenged myself to use small scraps or crumbs, to free motion quilt leaves and feathers. 

I pieced the small bits together and then I added strings until I had a large enough piece of fabric that I squared and then sliced on the diagonal. I don't remember the size of my squares. I do remember how surprised I was at how many little bits I used!

I played around with the crumb triangles until I found an arrangement that seemed pleasing to my eye. As you look at the blocks you can see how two of the legs relate. Each pinwheel used two crumb squares.

Full block

Once I added the green fabric and stitched the pinwheels, I had to decide how to set them. As I laid out the blocks, I thought about corner stones in the sashing. Plain cornerstones weren't interesting enough.

I had a little pile of leftover pinwheels which I had stored in my "parts" box. These finished to about two inches. From time to time, I make blocks from bits while I'm pondering solutions to a challenge. Sometimes, mindless sewing opens my mind to interesting solutions! It is also fun to incorporate parts sewn during those mindless sewing sessions into a project. I also use those ready made parts to audition design elements. Some parts are petted and auditioned many times!

These pinwheels started as trimmed triangles. Rather than throw the bits away, I stitched them into HSTs. I stitched four HSTs into a pinwheel. I decided repeating the pinwheel shape was the best option for cornerstones.  

Choosing the sashing took me a long time. In the end, I decided a dark purple would make the green triangles pop the best and also play nicely with all the fabrics in the

Pinwheel cornerstone

crumb part of the larger pinwheels. To preserve the pinwheel points from getting covered with the binding, I added a narrow border of the purple fabric.

For the backing, I used a single pink print fabric. Often, I piece the back; but, not this time. I layered the pieces and pin basted. I completed the ditch quilting and was ready to practice feather quilting. I drew a lot of feathers on paper to practice the shape. To keep my feathers somewhat consistent, I used a chalk pencil and drew the center spine. Then I quilted the feathers. With practice, my feather shapes improved which was one of my goals! I used a green Highlights polyester thread made by Superior Threads for the quilting.

Soon enough it was time to practice quilting leaves. My goal was to be able to quilt a leaf shape in any direction and in a variety of sizes. I wanted the leaves to be background texture so I chose a polyester Floriani thread that was a similar color to the purple sashing fabric.

It took a long time to quilt all those small leaves. However, I am now comfortable quilting leaves of various sizes and

View of the binding and leaf quilting

shapes as a background filler! The time I spent quilting the background while long was worth the effort!

Once I had blocked the quilt, I had planned to bind the quilt in the dark purple fabric that I had used as sashing. I auditioned the binding. While it was a suitable choice, it didn't speak to me. I inserted a strip of the lime green fabric between the border and the binding and liked what I saw. 

I added the green strip to be part of the binding and then I machine stitched it to the quilt. I added the label to the back of the quilt. I pulled the binding to the quilt front and topstitched the binding to complete the binding process. I like the bit of pop that the tiny strip of green adds to the feeling of the quilt.

I finished this project in April of 2013. I noted on the label that it took me eight hours to piece and 21 hours to quilt! I note that I didn't include the inspiration behind the quilt so this blog post will provide the prominence regarding why I made it.  I've enjoyed seeing it hang in my living room this month. At some point, it will be a baby quilt. For now, it is in my personal collection!

The label

Regarding the Covid pandemic:

Worldwide:

12.5M confirmed cases; 6.89M recovered; 560K deaths

U.S.:

3.92M confirmed cases; 970M recovered; 137K deaths

Oregon:

11,454 confirmed cases; 275,316 negative tests; 232 deaths

We are hearing information that the virus can be spread airborne indoors because the droplets stay suspended. Recommendations include opening windows, employing air purifying systems and wearing a mask to be safer. 

The Oregon numbers represent a 51% increase in covid cases since last week. The media reports the cause of the increase as work related and community exposures.

At the hospital where I've been testing the physical CPR skills, I've learned that many of the workers have socially isolated themselves to include their work pods since mid-March. They have limited their contact with friends and family so that limit an outside exposure to contracting covid. Their goal is to continue providing healthcare to our community.

My supervisor said that she had read a story from the University of Washington regarding mask wearing. The statistic in the story was that if 95% of the U.S. population wore masks in public, the death rate would fall to less than 150,000. Seems like wearing a mask would be a no brainer. Unfortunately, people are not wearing a mask nor are they social distancing.

Finished quilt

I am wearing my mask in public. I continue to social distance. I continue to miss my grandkids and members of my quilting community. Phone calls, e-mails, FaceBook, FaceTime and Zoom are good; but, I miss actual interactions.

Protestors have protested for 44 consecutive nights. The Federal Government has been employed to protect the federal buildings, federal property and federal employees on order from President Trump. An employee tried to stop a protestor from causing damage to the Federal building with a sledge hammer. The protestor assaulted the employee with the sledge hammer. Other employees suffered injuries from protestors hurling objects at the employees. 

There were reports that protestors have thrown "milkshakes" at officers. The "milkshakes" contained a quick drying cement type product. Police have been pepper sprayed, punched and one officer suffered head injuries when hit in the head with a projectile.

This week the head of the police union issued a vote of no confidence saying the Portland mayor and city council does not support the police department. The mayor responded saying it was the police department's job to restore order and that he had supported their efforts. The city council responded similarly. 

Mini Churn Dash Blocks

As I posted last week, I made churn dash blocks from the 7"squares. 



By the end of the retreat though, I had 32 blocks finished. I'll share one block here. Not sure what the next step is going to be. I didn't use a lot of the 7" block so I have quite a bit left over. I plan to incorporate the leftovers as sashing or perhaps, I'll just piece the churn dashes into long strips and use the leftovers to fill the space. . .hmmm. . .just not sure; but, it is fun to think about another project when the current project one is working on is b o r i n g!!!







I finished quilting in the green star points. What is boring on this project is that it is so repetitious. I decided that the quilting should be in the background so that the star piecing and the colors would be the stars of the quilt.

Then started quilting feathers in the green diamond blocks. 



I was close to finishing these feathers when I discovered I had caught the backing while quilting a green star point. Ripping is involved and I decided, I would tackle that step another day!

I'm closing in on the end of the quilting on this project. The next step will be to quilt feathers in the purple diamonds. Then it will be on to the blocking step which is going to be interesting because the quilting I've done so far has made the quilt wonky!!

I am looking forward to finishing "several" small projects and then starting a new project. 

Green and Purple Triangles

This past week I quilted some more of the purple triangles. The week before, I quilted green triangles. 

I had wanted to practice quilting with a ruler; but, because the slide table accessory for my machine has a curve, I was unable to hold the ruler in place to quilt around the edge. I had some wonky lines and those were the good ones!!

In the end, I chalked a line and then using feed dogs and a quarter inch foot, I quilted triangles. . . .48 purple ones and 48 green ones. What a boring task!!

Now, I'm back to free motion quilting. I like doing that so much better! I'm working on the star points. I hope to finish this quilt by the end of the month. . .course, my original goal was to finish it in May. . .but, in May, I couldn't figure out how to quilt it!!!!

This is how I'm quilting the star points:

This is how I'm quilting the space between star points:

Now that I know what I am doing in all of the spaces, I should made progress every day that I'm in my studio! 

This was the mystery quilt offered through my guild in 2014. I finished piecing it in June of 2014; but, the mystery just intensified while I was determining how to quilt it!!!