Stunning Surprise

 If you read my last post we were just heading across the road to visit son and family for a 5.00pm platter of goodies and what a surprise I had! Sunny day sitting out on the balcony, cool wind began to blow so I was asked would I like a jacket or quilt/blanket to keep myself warm, accepted.

Couldn't believe my eyes when out Matt came with this quilt  below draped over his arm

I may have shrieked - can't remember but what a thrill to see and handle this old quilt. All hand stitched apart from someone must have machined around the cream ?binding and stitched over the hand quilting.

It's quite large and I'll go back and measure. A friend of son and his then wife were given this quilt from a friend as their wedding present, I knew they had been gifted a quilt but I didn't realise that it was an old one. Its definitely hand stitched and quilted.

Doesn't seem to have any batting, if it originally did then it's become so thin  that it can't be felt. Just a cream backing. Cotton fabrics with the tiny tartan squares having a taffeta sort of feel, one is torn so I'll have a peek. You will notice that one block is stitched in upside down - I didn't until I came to begin this post. I have a few photos below of blocks.

sorry this one is upside down

The photo below shows a corner with the faded yellow border which is not even width at all, narrower in places then becoming wider further along.

 As mentioned above the hand stitching and the overstitching with machine can be seen clearly.  No makers name or any sort of label on the back. This was bought in Alabama, Matt's friend was working in America at the time, he will try and make contact  to establish where in Alabama she found it.

I love quilts, especially bright and bold as you well know, I look at older quilts in books and have never been very excited by them before but as I handled this quilt, thinking about the maker and the length of time she would have been stitching, using whatever pieces of fabric she could find, I was enormously moved and felt so privileged to gently handle it. I shall be 'visiting' said quilt again soon!!

If any of you have thoughts on the age of the quilt, or any other ideas, please do share them with me.

Back to my sewing haven right now, back soon.

Happy Quilting everyone.

Maureen

Slow and Steady

Well, I'm certainly slow and steady at the moment!  Three projects in the works right now but not getting along as quickly as I should like - better time management is called for I think.

Just two more rows of my Slashed Squares quilt need to be sewn together but instead of pressing on I decided to do a little more fabric arranging, not a good move in some respects but in others it's resulted in  finding a project from two years ago. 

Found hidden in the bottom of a box tucked away at the back of the cupboard was a container of 2 and1/2" squares, a number of squares stitched into fours and one 16 patch square.

Below we have a shockingly untidy collection of squares

a number of the four patch strips

and the 16 patch

 

I just couldn't remember cutting or stitching these but felt they must be reasonably recent. After sitting a while I did recall this was after seeing a post from quiltdivajulie and her quilt Bemused in January 2020,  the link will take you straight to the post. I fell in love with her quilt and decided there and then to make one - you can see I didn't actually get very far at the time.

 Taking the bull by the horns I headed straight to the machine and made a start but after a while realised not all the squares were equal, some were a smidgen out so the seams weren't always matching up. Thinking not good enough, begin again with new squares and perhaps Leila could use my efforts so far for her own quilt!!!

This isn't the traditional light square, dark square but just whatever came out of the box was stitched together. However, I love it anyway and I'm quite sad that I wasn't careful enough with my cutting.

In between sorting and sewing I made a start on ditch quilting long strips on Northern Lights. Next step will be hand quilting in the ombre patches.

A few more fabrics have been added to my stash

Bold Blooms from Kaffe Fassett

and Hibiscus below from Philip Jacobs

That's all from me for now, we've just had a message from our eldest son to pop across the road to his place, grand-daughter has put together a platter of tasty eats for 5.00pm, who could refuse that! See you soon and Happy Quilting.

Maureen

Slashed Squares - 25 blocks complete

Yes, at last all 25 blocks finished and up on the wall, the blocks were easy to cut and sew but the time spent on arranging and re-arranging has been phenomenal! No sooner would I think I had a good arrangement than I would return the next day and find that no, not quite happy and so another re-arrange.

Below was the 'finish' in the morning, blocks just pinned, not too tidily though

 I wasn't happy with the block on the fourth row third along from the left, so in the afternoon

after changing  the block I didn't care for and replacing,I  also just moved two others. Yes, it's busy, but I like a good mish-mash now and again! I could continue on with various permutations but I'm calling it finished but I am open to suggestions. It really wasn't too nice a day for photographing, the quilt is brighter than shown but we have a wet week on the cards so I knew the problem would be just the same the next day. There's a list of projects by my design wall and I just want to make a start on at least one of them.

New fabric arrived two days ago from the Kaffe Collection and four from Snow Leopard - Philip Jacobs 

this one is obviously Parrots, Snow Leopard range, bright and bold and that's what I like, but I find the fabric slightly heavy if that makes sense, just not as nice to handle as the KF printed ones. Washed and hung on the line in the rain to see if would soften, it didn't so I think this may go with my backing fabric collection, it may be a contender for using on the back of the Slashed Squares.

The other three from the range have a softer feel to them, the difference is noticeable when handling the new Brandon Mably fabrics.

Snow Leopard range

Brandon Mably

these ones from Brandon are a little out of my comfort zone but I loved the design and colours.
A few from Kaffe's new collection came along for the ride and needless to say I love them and can't wait to begin using them. I'm having to go with simpler patterns now and checking my Accuquilt dies it looks like there's no end to the projects on my list which will be do-able with the ones I have. They're so expensive here in New Zealand, even the mats which are needed.

The Spring weather, both sun and rain, have boosted the flowering and new leaves on trees, climbers and even a few of the roses, the Japanese Maple in the back garden has leaves just breaking out

and the purple Wisteria is beginning to put on a good show

A little re-arranging in my small studio has taken place slowly over the past few weeks, I think the present arrangement will be workable but I have more fabric to tidy and put in their respective containers.

One problem I can't seem to solve is whether to continue keeping fabric ranges separate as I do now, Kaffe, Anna Maria Horner, Tula Pink for example and there's an untold number of others but I find I'm hunting in quite a few baskets to find all the necessary blues or pinks or reds etc.  it would be easier if everything was just stored in colour regardless of designer, or solids, or patterned, something to think about but I'd be interested to know how you store your fabrics.

Time for me to decide on lunch, we're eating early today so I'll head to the kitchen. Before I go  I do hope you are all safe and well after the horrific weather happenings in the USA and Canada. Been thinking of you all.

Take care and Happy Quilting until next time

Maureen