If you enjoy visiting online quilt shops, playing online games and not only being considered for a prize but also receiving a FREE quilt pattern for all the fun you’ve had – then please join us for the July Mystery Quilt Dash #23! It’s super-simple to create a free member’s account by clicking on the image below and then join to this Mystery Quilt Dash and start searching for the “found” images at each participating website.
Monthly Archives: July 2013
Vintage Quilt Love
When we travel north and need a place to stay, my cousin always kindly puts us up. I say kindly because there have been either five or six of us at her house at one time and for someone who is not used to kids around them all the time, it can be a challenge! When she gave us a place to lay our heads on a pillow in May, she asked me to look at a quilt top she had and tell her how much it would be to finish it. Since we were there for a funeral, finishing a quilt was the last thing on my list to do so I had my daughter put it in a bag and we brought it home with us.
I either didn’t feel well enough to deal with quilting or didn’t take the time to look at that quilt, but I pulled it out this past weekend and WOW, was I ever in for a treat! I almost hoped my cousin had found it at a tag sale or flea market so I could buy it from her! Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for her – she believes it is a quilt that was made by her grandma.
The fabrics are definitely of a 30’s (new fabrics that look like this are called retro) era – and as I looked at the fabrics, all I could think about was that they looked like many of the aprons my own grandmas wore. Stunning quilt fun for this lover of quilts!
This quilt is machine stitched in a basic log cabin quilt square with about 15″ blocks and the center of the blocks being about 5″ finished and all of the strips around the center are 1/2″ finished. It is foundation-pieced with unbleached domestic (natural muslin) on the back of the blocks. All I need to get done is the quilting and the binding and my cousin will have a blessed family heirloom to last for many more years to come.
I felt lucky to have it, hold it and caress it, even if for a very short period of time. Again, an absolutely beautiful quilt made with a quilter’s heart!
More photos to come after I get the quilt back from my quilter!
Happy 4th of July!
Old quilt patterns never die – they just sit in your sewing room until you uncover them and find yourself with a compulsion to complete them. This one I unearthed from my 2007 block of the month named “TT Calendar Quilt“. I had pieced the squares and blocks and even put it all together – except the quilting. Unfortunately, we were living in the camper at the time and sewing space was extremely limited so I didn’t get to complete a lot of the blocks and found a treasure trove of them in my files!
Get your quilting groove on and piece this delicious set of July blocks – took me less than 30 minutes to quilt it and I have no clue how much time it took me to put the blocks and squares completed.
Quilt On!
Quilters, Start Your Engines! It’s Time for our Annual Christmas in July Quilt Party at BOMquilts.com!
I love our Christmas in July projects more and more each year. Not only do I get to design the quilts and write the patterns – I also get to make some early Christmas gifts for those I love! Quilt therapy for me, an everlasting and ever-loving gift for the recipients!
I will post a new Christmas in July pattern every Wednesday throughout the month of July. This year, I’ve gotten a bit on the “modern” bandwagon that is so prevalent right now and designed nearly all of the Christmas in July at BOMquilts.com quilts to be both beginner friendly and have a touch of modern love. I just couldn’t help myself!
The first pattern has been posted and it is so very simple but makes a very lovely statement when completed:
“Christmas Lights at Night” – an original design by TK Harrison, owner of BOMquilts.com
As always, Linda at AbbiMays.com will work with you to help you choose the fabrics you want to use to create this quilt!
Let me know who finishes this quilt first so I can send them a quilted checkered flag!
Quilt Therapy?
I reserved this domain name a number of years ago – when fabric was about $6/yd. For those of you who have been quilting and buying quality quilt fabric, you’ll realize this has been my domain name for quite a while. In that time, I’ve had non-quilters ask me what Quilt Therapy really was…while seasoned quilters smirk and enjoy their own forms of Quilt Therapy.
And back in those earlier days of my quilting, it was said that Quilt Therapy was less expensive than true therapy. Right now, with the cost of fabrics, quilting, shipping – I would definitely have to say that if you are a proficient quilter, it is NOT cheaper – though, for me, it is way more satisfying!
Let’s see if I can throw out my own definition of Quilt Therapy for you.
A lovely little baby girl was born to a great set of parents, the baby’s mother I personally knew since my youngest daughter was less than one. This little baby’s mother was my mother’s helper when I had very young children…and as she grew up and got more responsible, she was our go-to babysitter for our kids. She took the kids to her house in the summer because I worked from home and needed some quiet time to get my work done. She and her parents took our kids when my husband had to have an emergency appendectomy…and they took our kids in when a precious life ended far too soon and we had to fly from Utah to Texas to attend her services. If we were going somewhere and needed an extra set of hands (like to the public swimming pool), she went with us. She was and still is an awesome person – and we could not have been more pleased when she finally had a baby of her own. She spent a few years of her marriage with just her husband, because her mom told me that her babysitting my four kids was the best birth control there ever was! I think they’d been married for about five (or more) years before they had this precious new life in their hearts and in their home.
This new baby calls to me and I begin MY Quilt Therapy. It can be a long and winding road, especially if I have to rip out a seam or two (or six), but the Quilt Therapy gives me such a blast of fresh quilted air that I enjoy every single process of making a quilt.
I am not as expedient nor able to quilt quite as much as I used to – with this multiple sclerosis, I can usually get in 15 – 30 minutes, on my feet (choosing or buying fabric, cutting, ironing, etc.) most days before my body parts start screaming for relief. So now, when I make a quilt, I spend however many hours or days it takes to cut out the quilt pieces. Then I rest. Another few days and I will press all of the cut out pieces. Then I rest. Sitting down to piece a quilt top is pretty simple, and even more simple when it’s a baby quilt because it’s smaller than larger bed quilts. But, there is ironing involved in that piecing process and once again, I do my piecing in daily/weekly increments so as not to be in too much pain.
So, now I have the quilt top done…however my Quilt Therapy isn’t finished yet!
This is a photograph of the completed baby quilt top.
Once the top is done, I have to decide if I can quilt it on my domestic machine or if I want a professional quilter to use her long-arm and quilt it for me. In this case, I decided to go with a pro (Kathryn Rister) – mostly because a baby quilt is usually used a lot and washed a lot and it needs to stand up to the test of time.
This is a close-up of part of the quilt top quilted.
Although it’s not easy to see, this is the professionally quilted quilt top.
Next in the Quilt Therapy process is the binding. Then the label on the back…and sending the completed quilt to the little baby it was intended for. Not yet! I’m not quite done with my Quilt Therapy for this quilt.
THIS is the closure I get when I enjoy my Quilt Therapy: