Pink House

Quilts All Around

I am FINALLY back in town, permanently, after the month of July spent living in and out of a suitcase and visiting family and friends here and there. Since it's now August 1, I've decided to tackle the mountain of photos and posts that I've planned from the last three months. So many creative adventures to tell about!

First of all, I'd like to show off some photos of quilts that I've completed recently and tell you a little story about them. This is the story of the 13 Niece Quilts. To begin.....

This is Morgan's quilt, finished in May 2011. I have made a quilt for each niece on both sides of my family, usually gifting them at the time of their high school graduation (if not before). That means I have made 13 niece quilts over the period of about 12 years!!

(back of Morgan's quilt) This year was kind of monumental for me because I had two nieces both graduating from high school and those were the last two quilts that I had to make to complete the series of 13. So I began on the project last fall, by asking each of them what colors they would like and if they had any special preferences (like plaids, florals, dots, stripes, etc.) I don't always ask each niece for their preferences, sometimes I have just used my own thoughts about the personality and fashion style for each individual girl. But for these last few years, I have been asking each girl, but still adding in my own inspiration so that it is still something of a surprise.

Morgan asked for "Black & white prints, mixed with bright colors, especially turquoise". Thus the colors above. Sally asked for "Fall colors: browns, oranges, rust, greens" (photos seen further below). I asked them both one evening at a family dinner, wrote it down, and went out to purchase the fabrics for each palette the very next day. Shortly after that I began cutting fabric the first one.

Since it usually takes me several months of cutting, sewing, and quilting to complete each quilt, I knew I would need to get started early this year. I'm proud and happy to say that I finished both, completely, in time and gave each to its recipient on graduation weekend.

For all of the quilters out there, you know that making a quilt involves many steps, and is a process. First you select the pattern, choose a color palette, shop for the fabrics. And then the work begins. Cutting the fabric and sewing (or piecing) the quilt pieces. You put together quilt blocks, then lay out the blocks into rows, then sew those together to form the quilt top. At the end of that process, you have a completed quilt top (but not a whole quilt yet).

You then have to select fabric for the quilt backing and sew that together. Then you choose and purchase the quilting thread, batting type, and quilting design. For large quilts, I prefer to rent the long-arm quilting machine at my local quilt shop and do the quilting myself. I pay the quilt shop staff to "valet" my quilt, which means they take the quilt top, backing, and batting and mount it onto the large frame to prepare for quilting. Then I show up the next morning to begin work on the quilting, working as quickly as possible because you pay hourly to rent the machine. It usually takes me about 4 to 5 hours to quilt a medium to large size quilt.

After the quilting is completed, you unroll it from the machine frame and take it home for the next steps. You then select a fabric for the binding. I like to wait to do this until the quilt is complete, because the binding is almost like a frame and it needs to be "just right" to bring the whole piece together. I'm picky about my bindings. I actually enjoy this part of the process but it does take several more hours. First you trim up the quilt, cutting off the excess backing and batting and making sure its all straight and squared up. Then you cut, sew, and press to prepare the binding. Then you sew the binding onto the quilt front by machine, and then turn and sew it snugly to the back by hand. That last finishing part takes several more hours.

The happy recipient on graduate day!

(Morgan's quilt is from a pattern: "Toe The Lime" by Janine Burke of Blue Underground Studios. The fabric is from a mix of designers, mostly new in 2010. The quilting thread is a variegated dark and light turquoise. Free-motion quilting design by me.)

And this is Sally's quilt! A very different color palette as you can see. It's also a different pattern, and a more complicated one to piece together. This quilt took much longer for the piecing because of the smaller pieces and intersecting rows. The pattern is called "Spice Market" and is one published in a quilting magazine a few years ago. I had always wanted to make it and when Sally told me "fall colors" I thought of this pattern right away.

The fabrics for this quilt were also a challenge to hunt down because a lot of the "fall colored" fabrics at quilt shops have either a fall-themed motifs (like leaves and acorns) or a very old-fashioned floral pattern. I didn't want either of those because they just didn't fit Sally's personality. So my challenge was to find more contemporary prints (dots, stripes, and geometric designs) in the fall colors I was looking for. It took some hunting, but I finally was able to put together my fabric palette for this quilt.

For the back of Sally's I chose a small checked  rust and cream colored print that would compliment but not overpower the vivid colors on the front. I also added to sage green stripes to add a little visual interest and also help tie it visually to the front.

For the binding on Sally's I found a very dark brown print with a rust-brown irregular stripe running through it. I really like how it brought together the colors in both the front and back of the quilt.

For the quilting design on this one, I chose to do a simple,free-motion design. I made long, wavy lines horizontally across the quilt and added free-form leaves every 12 inches or so. I really like how this quilting turned out and how it subtley complimented the quilt pattern. I used brown quilting thread on the top and a variegated greens thread in the bobbin.

I like how the quilting design looked equally good done in green on the backing as it did done in brown on the quilt top. I think this quilt pattern and colors is traditional enough to stand the test of time - I think it will look as good 10 years from now as it does today. Not as "trendy" as some that I have made. More classic.

That's it! A summary of the last two quilts in the series of 13 Niece Quilts! It was a great feeling to finish them. I loved making each one and thinking about the individual recipient as I worked on each one. Each quilt is as unique as the owner.

My next post will be "Quilt All Around - Part 2" in which I will give a summary of all 13 quilt nieces that I made. I'll try to dig up photos of each one, but I don't think that I was able to take digital photos of all of them. I've only begun photo-documenting my quilts in recent years, but I'll see what I can find and tell a little story about each one.

Summer Quilt

Began this quilt in April for our family room wall, and finished it in August. Thought I'd leave it up for a change of scenery until Christmas season. It's nice to have some color on this side of the kitchen/family room.

The pattern is called "Jelly Roll Diamonds" and is published by Fig Tree Quilts. I like a lot of their patterns, but I'll have to say that there were TWO MAJOR ERRORS in the pattern instructions, which cost me a lot of extra time to figure out how to correct.

When I discovered the first mistake, I went online and searched for "errata" which is sometimes discovered by other quilters (or knitters) and put online to help others. This is common when someone makes a pattern and discovers an error in the pattern. I also went on the Fig Tree Quilts website and search for errata or "revisions to published patterns". I didn't see any for this pattern so I sent an email to them asking for clarifications to if there were revisions to the instructions. I received back an email from the owner saying that there were no mistakes, to read the pattern carefully, and that making quilts on point is "tricky" for new quilters. I was a bit irritated since I had described the exact point of the mistake (in their cutting instructions) and I've been an experienced quilter for 25 years. They just assumed that the error was mine and not theirs. So I figured out how to correct the instructions myself and went on with the quilt-making. (By the way, NOW they have published a correction to the pattern as I suggested on their website!)

I like the color palette that I selected for this quilt. Enough to add some bright color to our mostly brown, black, and white room, but still to blend in and look like it belongs.

When I laid out the strips of pieced sections to sew the quilt together, I was so surprised that there was another ERROR in the pattern instructions for the setting triangles for the top and bottom of the strips. The corners and side triangles fit, but the top and bottom ones were much too wide. I re-read the pattern again and again and used scrap fabric to try re-cutting it again. I searched again for more pattern errata (none!). I then had a quilter friend come over and check what I'd done to see if I had made the mistake. After several hours of working on it, doing all kinds of math and measuring angles, we figured out how to correctly cut the pieces to fit the quilt. I spent another day ripping out all of the seams, cutting new triangle pieces, and sewing them together. I was not a happy camper.

I love the creative process of quilting - deciding on a pattern, selecting the colors and fabrics, piecing (probably my favorite part), putting it all together, machine-quilting, and then binding. Sometimes a "pattern" can actually get in the way of the creative process. I realized that I could have made up this pattern on my own using some of my old vintage quilt books and drawing out the plan with measurements. It's especially frustrating when a publishing company hasn't taken time to test their patterns and publish the corrections when they are found, as was the case in this pattern.

Since this quilt was a manageable size, I decided to quilt it myself on my machine at home rather than rent the long-arm machine at the quilt shop. I did a fairly dense stippling on it with a sage-colored variegated thread. I like the texture that it added to the quilt.

Greenwich Village & Pearl Oyster Bar

Every time we go to New York, one of my favorite things to do is take the subway down to Greenwich Village and just walk around, exploring and checking out the little shops. Love it.

Some of our favorite NY restaurants are in Greenwich too. This time I finally made it down to Rebecca Charles' Pearl Oyster Bar for lunch. I have read about this place in the Wine & DIning Section of the NY Times for several years and had it on my list. We were determined to make it there this time.

We arrived at the early side of lunch, but already there was a line and we had to wait. We finally were assigned two seats at the counter and could eye what other diners were eating. I knew what I was getting - the lobster roll - because I'd heard that it was considered The Best Lobster Roll by several food writers, included those of the New York Times, Gourmet magazine, and Bon Appetit. I love lobster rolls and have sampled several in Boston and the coast of Maine, but THIS one was the best. So decadent..just lobster (big chunks!) and cream on a toasted, buttered roll. Crazy good!

After a delicious lunch, we walked up and down the street of Greenwich Village, checking out the shops. We spotted our dog, Rocco's, restaurant. Didn't know he was moonlighting in NYC.

I visited the new location of PURL too, a long and narrow, but wonderful yarn and quilting store. It used to be two tiny shops side-by-side on another street in Greenwich but they moved this spring to a larger location and have both shops in one now. Very nice - so much color and creative inspiration!

 

Later in the afternoon, we passed our all-time favorite NYC restaurant, Lupa (Mario Batalli's casual Roman trattoria) and since it was such a hot and humid day, we decided to stop in to cool off and have a drink. We sat at the bar and chatted to some of the staff and another chef sitting at the bar. Fun to do.

 

What surprises some first-time visitors to NYC is that there are actual residential neighborhoods in New York with apartments, sidewalk cafes, tiny shops, and lovely parks and gardens. I think its sad that some tourists never venture out of the Times Square area (I loathe Times Square!). THAT is NOT New York. Take time to explore the upper East Side, the upper West Side, the lower East Side, and Greenwich Village and Soho areas. You'll begin to get a flavor of the REAL New York that is appealing and quaint.

The Max Light Rail from Eastside to Downtown Portland

When we were first married and lived in Portland 28 years ago we lived out on the far west side. At the time they were just starting to work on the light rail system going from Hillsboro Town Station to downtown (the blue line on the map). As I drove my one-hour commute to work each day I would drive by the construction area and think how nice it would be to ride a commuter rail instead of fight the traffic in the car. But it would be many years before the westside rail was complete and we were no longer living in Portland then. Wince then they added two north lines. This past year they just finished the connection on the southeast side of Portland (the green line on the map). We decided to ride it one day with my mom to get from Clackamas Town Center to downtown. It sounded like a fun adventure, and it was. Portland's Max Light Rail

We parked at Clackamas Town Center transit center, the end of the green line, and hopped on board. While we were sitting on the train waiting to take off, I noticed that there were all of these outdoor "sculptures" on the railings of traditional quilt designs! I was so surprised and pointed them out to my mom. We had read that the city had installed outdoor art exhibits along the route but we weren't sure what the connection with quilting patterns was. But it was fun to see all of them and identify the patterns that we knew! It was cool to see that a metalworker had made the same traditional designs that a quilter does with her fabric and sewing machine! Here is more about the public art on the Max lines.

When we reached downtown, we walked around, visited a yarn shop (Knit Purl) and had lunch. We then went into the famous Powell's City of Books where my mom and husband helped me hunt through the stacks for a particular set of vintage cookbooks (more on that later). I LOVE Powell's City of Books! Heaven on a rainy day!

We then walked back to the Max stop and hopped back on for our ride back over to the east side. The ride was really quiet and smooth (electric trains, I think?). The interior was clean and the passengers just get to sit and watch out the window or read like many do while onboard. It's such a pleasant way to commute to work or to get downtown for a day of shopping. It was a fun creative adventure and I highly recommend it!

Fall Leaves Under Night Sky Quilt

I've been trying to spend some of my free time this summer and fall working on FINISHING some creative projects (quilting and knitting) that were started several years ago and have quietly waited in my studio closet waiting for their day to shine. I've made some progress...slow but steady.

I started this quilt in 2002 at a quilt retreat that I went to with my mom in Port Townsend, Washington. We had never gone to a retreat together and thought this sounded fun. I had to get time off work and fly out to Portland with all of my supplies and sewing machine. From Portland we drove up toward Seattle, took the western route up the Olympic Pennisula to the tip where Port Townsend, a cute Victorian town sits on the waterfront overlooking the northern part of the Puget Sound. The views are incredible.

From Port Townsend we continued along the shoreline to Fort Worden historic state park. Fort Worden used to be an military base in the early 20th century, and was inactive, turned into a state-owned retreat center. The old officer's houses and army barracks were transformed into bunkhouses for retreaters and classroom space for workshops. It was quaint, old-fashioned, but adequate. The setting too, was gorgeous - with the waterfront property and the grounds that we walked around on. A fun place to be creative and "camp out".

We were lucky enough to be there in the fall too, and there were lots of towering trees full of autumn colors all over the grounds...falling leaves everywhere of gold, orange, and rust-colored hues. The fall leaves inspired me to create this quilt. I thought of the golden leaves crunching under my feet as we walked back to our room at night from the gathering in the dining hall. The starry skies were above us. It was a magical time.

This particular class was taught by Debbie McCaffrey who has out several quilt books. This quilt was based on her "Noodle Soup" book which uses 2 1/2" strips of fabric to create a variety of quilt designs. It was fun to see the wide variety of quilts and fabric colorways that people in our class were using. All very different.

Well, as good intentions go, I returned home with this and several other quilt projects in the works, and over the course of seven years, I have finished a couple of them. About two years ago, I buckled down and pulled the pieces of this one out of the bag, and got busy putting the blocks into rows, and rows into on-point designs.

Large triangles finished the four corners and "floated" the stars in the center of the dark sky. Sadly, the quilt top sat folded on a table in my studio for another two years until I finally took it to quilt on the long-arm machine last spring. Then it returned home and sat through the summer until I finally made the binding and sewed it on just a couple of weeks ago. This quilt has had a long journey.

But it's finished now and I hung it up on the wall in our basement family room. It helps warm up the room. But mostly, it's nice to finally have it finished.

Another one done, but many more to go!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Quilt! I was going to post this a few days ago and forgot! whoops!

I made this wall quilt with miniature quilt blocks about 15 year ago (1995 I think). I try to get it out every October to add to the fall decorations and usually forget. I'm doing well if I can put if up the week of Halloween at least. When it comes to Halloween decorations, I go for the Great Pumpkin-style rather than the really scary ones. I love this one. For more specifics, click on the "Quilts" photo gallery in the right column.

Another Summer Quilt: "Concert in the Park"

Even though I made this quilt about 3 or 4 years ago, I had never photographed it or blogged about it (when I had my original blog 3 or 4 years ago). So, since I received so many nice emails and comments from readers when I posted about my new summer quilt a month or so ago, I decided to go ahead and post some more quilt photos.

 

Does that photo make you dizzy because it's at an angle? Sorry! Here's another one just in case:

As you can see, this is a simple log cabin, made with wide strips (cut 2 1/2") and the center square is 3 1/2" cut. Start with the center square and begin sewing on strips clockwise, until you have three strips on each side to make a square block about 15" big. Simple! Quick and easy.

This simple log cabin pattern (cut wider strips than traditionally) is a GREAT way to use up your fabric scraps as well. I love putting together different fabrics: prints and colors, and this pattern is all about play with color and pattern. As you can see I used a wide variety of fabrics, but stuck with yellows for the center square, and blues and greens for the outer strips. This inspired me to name the quilt "Concert in the Park" because it reminds me of going to an outdoor concert on a summer day: the green of the grass, the blue of the sky, and the warm yellow sun. In fact, I keep this quilt in the trunk of my car in the summer.....and literally use it to spread out on when we go to "concerts in the park". Nifty.

When I made this one many moons ago, I actually went through my two large bags of fabric scraps (accumulated over about 8 years of quilting) and sorted scraps of fabric into three piles: COOLS (blues and green seen here), WARMS (pinks, reds, and oranges which I also made identical to this quilt), and DARKS (browns, navy, maroons, black prints which I still have to sew together). I then went through the piles and cut them into 2 1/2' strips - something that's a good project while you watch a movie. Mindless. Then it's just a matter of sewing strips (I like to do it assembly line style where you're working on several blocks at the same time) and pressing seams open. Soon you've got a stack of 20 large blocks and sewn together in rows, that will be the perfect size for a picnic quilt.

To finish it, I just used a simple large-scale stippling quilting design, using a varigated green thread. The backing was a simple (on sale!) green speckled fabric (don't even notice those grass stains if there are any!), and finished with a striped fabric for the binding. I love using a striped fabric for the binding because I think it creates a nice little "frame" for the quilt, and it's much more interesting than just a plain solid binding. Adding an interesting binding on my quilts is a signature of mine.

 

This quilt has already attended two concerts in the park this summer alone and behaved stunningly. My friend was nice enough to wear matching toenail polish (turqoise!) and so I just had to photograph her feet too. Dandy!

Quilt for Summer - Photo Shoot

I recently finished a quilt that I made mostly for fun, and to play to with colors, but its primary purpose was to be a summer quilt for the back patio. When you sit outside in the summer evenings and it starts to get chilly when you're reading or talking, it's nice to have a quilt to pull around you. And it might as well be a pretty one. Right?

I started this last fall and most of the fabrics were ones that I had in my stash closet, and I added a few new ones to brighten up the palette. My main colors were greens, oranges, and purples.

There was no pattern - I just made a center square or rectangle and then sewed strips of fabric around each block, in two or three borders. Kind of a modified log cabin design I suppose. I just wanted to make it simple and fun. I cut and pieced it while sewing with friends (lots of chatting) and it was really nice to not to have to follow a complicated pattern.....just mindless cut and sew.

When I had about 30 blocks, I laid them out in rows on the floor and played with placement a bit. Then I began sewing the blocks together in vertical blocks. When one block was wider than another, I would trim down the large block to fit the finished block next to it. I then had six long rows. I should have been disciplined enough to make additional blocks, to add another vertical row or blocks. But I was kind of tired of the project at this point and wanted to finish it. So it's longer than it is wide. But I told myself that it's okay for this kind of casual use quilt. No rights or wrongs. Sometimes that kind of sewing is a relief.

The quilt top sat for a bit in the studio until I decided to look for a backing that would serve as a subsitute "top" when quilting it on the long arm machine. I've seen our local quilt shop owner do this before and had always wanted to try it: to choose a fabric backing with some kind of pattern that could be traced in thread to create a quilting design for the top of the quilt. I looked for quite awhile to find a fabric that would be the right color and offer a pleasing quilting design as well. I finally settled on this cream-colored background with a pale orange flower design.

When I rented the long arm machine at the LQS, I then mounted the actual quilt top (the pieced blocks) on the frame as if it was the backing and added the batting as normal. Then the solid piece of fabric for the substitute "top" which I then "traced" along with the quilting machine, following the flower design on the backing to then make this floral quilting design on the real quilt top. I used a cream color thread (very difficult to see to though!) on the top of the machine, and a varigated green thread for the bobbin thread that would blend in with the quilt top and help blend together the various fabric colors. All went as planned.

When I first pulled the finished quilt off of the frame, I wasn't sure that I liked it - either the quilting design or the thread colors or the finished result. But there's something I've learned in 26 years of quilting - and that's to KEEP WORKING ON IT because it DOES GET BETTER. You have the quilt top, the back, the quilting, the thread color choice. But then...you still add the binding. And then you run it through the washer on gentle cycle and the quilt kind of puffs up and settles into itself and start to look like it all belongs together.

When I made the binding, and sewed it on, I started to see that the quilt was looking better. When the binding was on, there was still one more task to do - one more detail to finish: I added two trims for embellishment. A large green rick rack and a smaller green crocheted trim. These helped pull it all together and add a touch of whimsy too.

I finally took it outside in the sun to photograph. Serendipitously, it matched the colors in my flower pots this season. I must have had orange, purple, and green on the brain this year. These colors are cheerful and just make me happy.

At the last minute Rocco decided to join the photography project, settling himself in the middle of the quilt as I was trying to photograph it. He's that way. Thinking that its somehow all about him.

To Do list: Quilt Photo Shoot.

Check.

Sneak Preview!

I finally finished a summer quilt! More details to come!

Do You Sew?

My gosh! Posie Gets Cozy asked a simple question on her blog a couple of days ago and has been drowning in responses! Over 1000 so far and still growing! It seems that the 20-somethings have discovered the joys of sewing again. How wonderful that something so basic has been handed down from grandmothers and mothers.

I've sewn for about 40 years now, and find it to be the best kind of therapy. But just when I think that perhaps the art of sewing is going by the wayside, there comes a new storm of sewing enthusiasm taking up a new generation with it. Some of the new young sewers/entrepreneurs are putting out interesting sewing books and designing fabric too. See:

Heather Bailey

Anna Marie Horner

Angry Chicken (author's blog of Bend The Rules Sewing)

It's raining outside right now and rain always makes me feel like...sewing!