Pinwheels Everywhere!

Time for a pinwheel party!! All of the pastel pinwheel blocks have all been stitched into a quilt top. Without a border, this top measures 50″ x 85″, a good size for a twin bed. 

The scrappy fabrics used to make this top were from leftover projects or from my fabric stash. This top was one of my UFOs — I had made the blocks during the 1990s then jumped into something else. When I did that, I put the blocks and leftover fabrics into a plastic tub in my studio. I am pleased that this UFO is now a quilt top and the plastic tub has moved on and out of my studio.

Originally there were 32 patchwork blocks but this quilt top was made with 28 blocks. The remaining 4 blocks will be used in the backing. For this quilt, the backing will be pieced together, using more of the remainder stash that was used in these patchwork blocks. What a fun project this has been, especially because I adopted the Just As Free As The Pieces Come random stitching for the block sashings.

Admittedly, this is a good project for scraps, frugality, and for the stashbuster mindset. Adding the strip borders around each block not only used more stash but the pieced ‘look’ added more of a scrap-quality to this top, I think. Sewing such a variety of pastel cottons made this such an enjoyable quilt top to finish up. Now I’m looking forward to adding the pieced border so that this top will be finished.   

Vintage Linen: Dish Towels

Linen is the oldest textile in the world and linen fragments have been found dating back 10,000 years. Linen is an organic fabric that is woven from flax, a fiber extracted from the plant Linum usitatisimum. Linen is a very strong fabric, stronger than cotton fabric, and the superior qualities of linen have withstood the tests of time. While new linen feels somewhat ‘crisp’, linen is lustrous and lint-free, and linen becomes softer and more supple with wear and washings. Linen dish towels are far superior to cotton dish towels, providing good absorption without any lint on dishes, glassware, or eating utensils. But be warned: once you use linen dish towels, they will become a must have item for your kitchen and those cotton terrycloth dish towels will be tossed in the rag bag!

With centuries of use, the word linen became synonomous with household cloth. Linen is  used to describe kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom textiles. Functional utility cloths and household items such as dish towels, hand towels, pillowcases, and sheets are commonly referred to as linen, too. In times past, a family’s linens were very important in managing a household. Linens were often listed in wills and estate inventories as they were worthy of mention and very necessary for day to day life.

Linen from the vintage era can still be purchased. At an auction, I bought 6 yards of unused linen for $1.00! Vintage linen made for dish towels is woven as a narrow cloth and measures between 15″ to 17″ across, selvage to selvage. Dish towel linen was woven with one purpose — to use for toweling. Most often, dish towel linen was either plain cloth or cloth with stripes running the length of the fabric. During the middle of the 20th century, dish towel linen included more elaborate design work, and often the linen fabric was painted or stamped with scenic or cooking images, or other design motifs. 

The linen I purchased was 17″ across. With 6 yards of this striped linen, my dish towels were cut into 28″ pieces leaving me with enough linen to make several smaller ones for polishing glassware. Seven linen dish towels were made with a simple straight stitch along the raw edges of each cut towel (the raw edges were folded over twice).

These plain linen dish towels will be put to use in my kitchen. With laundering and use, these dish towels will become wonderfully soft and functional for many years. Typically, linen dish towels last for 20 years or more. Some of my linen dish towels belonged to my grandmother Woodard and have been used for decades. 

Quilting An Optical Illusion

Does this unfinished quilt top vibrate for you? Does it make you dizzy? What you are trying to interpret is an optical illusion. By using lines, patterns, and colors to create vibrational movement, this quilt top seems to be moving. Yes, it can make you dizzy!

Optical illusions are created by our human perceptions. How we interpret something that we see is an interrelated process between our eyes and our brain. Optical illusions are created with color and with lines and patterns. Color and linear illusions can be found both in nature and in artwork.

I pulled this tied quilt top out of my UFO pile yesterday and thought I would remove the ties and machine quilt it instead. This project would make a perfect play quilt for a very special someone….

It was placed on the floor when my baby granddaughter came to visit yesterday. She quickly crawled over to it.

Hands go up in the air!!! Did she see the optical illusion, too? Did the quilt top move for her also?

Smiling with her new teeth, she not only finds happiness sitting with this quilt top, but she plays peek-a-boo, too!

Then she asks me to please finish quilting it so she can have it to play with every time she comes to stay with Grandma.

(I’m such a push-over for the wee-little-one…..)

“Yes, baby doll. Grandma will finish this for you very very soon…”

Queens, Alphabets, Hearts And Lace

Last week before our trip to upstate New York, I finished my large cross-stitch sampler. Working the backstitch around each letter with dark brown floss proved to be an excellent accent. Adding the floss gave each letter in the alphabet better definition.

As a final touch, the two queens in this sampler received their royal treatment with some Kreinik gold threads stitched into their crowns. Now to sign my work and make a trip to the frame shop for a quality framing with double matts!

 My new cross stitch project is from a design by Pat Rogers called Hearts And Lace Sampler. I began this project 2 weeks ago while we were in New York and I’m enjoying the colors that are used in this piece.

This sampler is being stitched on 28-count linen, 2 strands  of floss over 2 threads of linen. The finished design area will  measure 12″ x 13″, with 169 stitches wide and 182 stitches long. I’m using DMC floss colors: 221, 223, 224, 225, 520, 522, 712, 924, and 926.

Here’s what I’ve stitched so far. The cream-color floss (DMC 712) used for the lace designs is difficult to work with because it’s hard to distinguish the thread from my linen when counting threads. The design suggested a sage color Jobelan fabric, but I had this color of linen in my stash, so I will suffer through this project with a bright light overhead and my cheater spectacles perched on my nose while stitching!

Pinwheel Spins

The pieced strip-sashings for each of the Twin Sisters patchwork blocks are still being stitched. This type of a sashing is very fun to piece — it’s pieced like a Log Cabin block. I am working with  leftover scraps and my fabric stash, so the pile of stash is getting smaller!

Some of the sashing strips have been pieced together for the correct length of strips that are needed for each of the patchwork blocks. Three different lengths are necessary for this sashing, just like a Log Cabin block.

By the day’s end, I should be ready to assemble block sections together. When I sew a patchwork quilt top, I stitch blocks into large block units, rather than rows of blocks. I have found that when I assemble a quilt top in this manner, the blocks align more easily and there is less of a chance to tug at a full row blocks when pinning the blocks together.

After I had rotary-cut a bunch of 1 1/2-inch sashing strips, I cut 3 different lengths for each of the block’s sashing strips. Now I have some leftover strip pieces. I’m determined to use some of these strips up, so I’ve decided to use these pieces to create my border. I’ll keep working with random strips – just as free as the pieces come, Lucy-style.

The pastel scrappy patchwork blocks are taking on such a light-hearted spirit and they’re not even stitched into a quilt top yet. The pastel colors remind me of a festival and happy childhood  moments – eating cotton candy, spinning ’round a colorful May pole, licking rainbow lollipops, and chewing salt water taffy.

Who besides me delights in the magic of a pinwheel spinning around? Amazing that a simple thing like cotton candy or a spinning pinwheel can conjure up our memories of a childhood celebration. And sometimes our fabrics and our quilts do the same thing for us, bringing forth our past even if only for a moment. These are the quilts that speak to us, that sometimes lift our spirits and feed our souls. These are the quilts that give us the reason that we continue on, stitching one more block, one more quilt.

Not all of our creations have a spirit or this much energy, but for those that do, we cherish them even more. I think this quilt will be one of those that becomes ’special’ in my life.