Feathers On The Side

The Kaleidoscope quilt was taken off the longarm yesterday afternoon. I finished quilting top to bottom and need to turn the quilt for feathers on the side borders.

Since the quilt was off, I loaded the two Nine Patch pillow shams that I stitched a few days ago. This afternoon, I’ll get the pillow sham tops finished, then I’ll re-load the Kaleidoscope quilt for some more feathering.

I love feather quilting…..I mean I LOVE feather quilting.

This quilt top was one of my UFOs and I’m glad it will be one more that I’ve finished from the UFO-collection. When it’s finished, this Kaleidoscope will be given to my 2 year old granddaughter to use and play under.

Which reminds me — a quick note about some pants that I made her.

I bought a yard of Sponge Bob Square Pants fabric to make her a pair of pants.

I call them Sponge Bob Girl Pants.

She was delighted to get her own Sponge Bob Girl Pants, but when I drafted the pattern, I didn’t know her waist or leg measurements so I guessed on the proportions.

When the pants were stitched up and ready for a fitting, she very willingly put them on.

But she would NOT take them off.

Could this child be a pint-sized fabric lover? (I’m thinking I should start her out while she’s very young, very impressionable…..)

Patchwork Pillow Shams

I’ve been piecing two pillow shams for our bed. Remember The Villager quilt I finished a few months ago? That quilt is currently on our bed and I have wanted to make pillow shams for this quilt. Of course, a couple of pillow shams will probably lead to a few deco-pillows after that….

I needed 12 Nine Patch blocks to continue the overall design of the quilt and while I gathered the leftovers of my two white background fabrics, I realized I didn’t have enough of the tone-on-tone for the full borders.

The main section of each pillow sham has 6 Nine Patch blocks set on point.

If only I had measured the remaining tone-on-tone fabric before I decided to place two 5-inch squares into each of these shams, I’d have enough for a full border around each sham. But no, I didn’t do that, so I will need to improvise with piecing. How novel.

Today I’m adding the tone-on-tone borders and the corner sections. The large collection of scrappy 2-inch squares I cut from my scrap boxes have been very productive. I will probably make another for my brother, Michael, using these scraps, too.

The Save All Quilt

Mary Louisa Snoddy Black (1860-1927), a quiltmaker from South Carolina, was the family quilt collector. The daughter of a successful farmer, she was well-known in the region of Spartanburg for her volunteer efforts and dedication to her community’s health and well-being. During her lifetime, she made several quilts and was able to collect other quilts made by members of her family.

During the 1880s, before she married, Mary Louisa Snoddy stitched a scrap quilt. She referred to this finished quilt as The Save All Quilt. This quilt, measuring 95″ x 85″, was constructed of cotton scraps and leftover pieces of fabrics, including fabric from two of her Mother’s dresses for the borders.

When Mary Black determined that the 16 family quilts she had acquired were needing to be passed on to other family members, she had the insight to record bits of history with those heirlooms. She directed her daughter, Mary Kate Black, to document each quilt and so her daughter attached handwritten labels onto each of the quilts.

The Save All Quilt label reads:

Made by Mary Louisa Snoddy. Called ‘The Save All’, for no waste in material. The two borders were of her dresses Mother had but tore up to make quilt.

The story of Mary Black’s family quilts is found in a quilt history book by Laurel Horton entitled, Mary Black’s Family Quilts: Memory and Meaning in Everyday Life. This book is published by University of South Carolina Press.

Quilted Featherings

An old Kaleidoscope quilt top, made in the early 1980s, loaded onto my Gammill.

The borders are begging for feathers….

I will probably quilt each of the lavender circular areas with a winding feather vine.

Quilted featherings are beautiful.

Especially those that have been quilted by hand.

Greek Cross Scrap Blocks

Years ago, I cut a bunch of patchwork pieces for a pieced block known as Greek Cross. According to Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, the block was first noted as Ladies Art Company block 173. The block was also referred to by Nancy Cabot as Maltese Cross.

When I first saw the block, I liked it — a simple block that would work well with scraps. I managed to draft it for the pattern templates. But since the block has some odd angles, I needed to check the pattern I’d drafted. Liking the outcome, I helped myself to some of my scraps and I cut patchwork pieces for a quilt. I cut enough patchwork to make a backburner hand piecing project for travel or movie-sewing (the best multi-tasking activity I know).

To remind myself of how long ago this backburner project was created, I only needed to recall where I cut these fabrics. The scene was easy to remember: More than 20 years ago, living in Maryland, my dining room table was my sewing-room-extraordinaire. Atop our table, I rotary cut around each of my little plastic templates thinking how clever I was to use a rotary cutter on isolated patches instead of scissor-cutting marked fabrics. That rotary cutter was so much faster than scissor-cutting, don’t you know…

Last week as I was regaining both momentum and motivation, I re-discovered this UFO and have been stitching a few blocks since then. There are some really awesome old prints in this project. Fabrics from my earlier sewing days (the days before Jinny Beyer and Jeff Gutcheson and other quilt fabric designers). Some of the cotton prints were scraps from my high school dresses. Very cool. Well, the nostalgia with the old fabric is cool, but not the part about dresses….

Earlier today, I found a sashing fabric I like and put some of the blocks on my design wall. (Gosh my momentum is just amazing me….) With an ample supply of 2-inch squares from a few Nine Patch projects I finished, the sashing in between the blocks will be 2-inches also.

(Is this blurry or am I still sick?)

The block will measure 6-inches when finished and the blocks will eventually become a lap-size quilt, maybe 5 blocks by 6 blocks. But I’m only guessing at the eventual finish. After all, being a backburner project, it may remain a UFO for some time to come. Then again, with all of this momentum I’ve reclaimed, I may finish it this year.