Category: Quilting

April 17, 2013

triangle quilt fever

If you’ve looked at my Pinterest lately, you may have noticed a bit of a trend. Quilts. Specifically, triangle quilts. I haven’t even been trying, but for some reason, they’re all I pin (well, that and my elaborate carpentry dreams). Triangles are just sticking their pointy little noses into my life.

The semester (the last semester!) is drawing to a close, and, naturally, I’m as busy as ever. In this busy-ness, I have no time for actual making – only bits of time for looking and soaking up what others have made, pretending that will fulfill my “maker” needs. I have such hungry eyes, and they’re pulling me toward big projects… quilt-big.

This one, from Blue is Bleu, is sheer perfection. I love the solids. I never would have guessed that I’d love a solid quilt so much, but I can’t get over it. Gray. Yellow. Aqua. And so much white… how can white fabric carry so much beauty?

Here’s another set of solids, blogged here at crazy mom quilts. Another spectacular color combination, but I definitely prefer the on-point triangles to this half-square triangle pattern.

Film in the Fridge has the opposite approach to a “solid” quilt – these grays are just incredible. I’ve realized that all my favorite clothes are gray, so I’m sure I would love a gray quilt. I do feel that it would be tricky to find a suitable blend of gray fabrics; I would fuss over their tones.

I think this one started it all: a clever potholder with triangles that remind me of snow-capped mountains. Although with these colors, it’s rather the opposite: joy-capped mountains. It’s also a potholder, which would be a far more feasible project for me right now. (this one’s crazy mom quilts again.)

And the most patterned of the mix is Elise’s baby quilt. Love the gray and peach.

Looking at these quilts, I’m amazed at how much I love the quilts made entirely of solid-colored fabric. I never would have predicted that. But they’re incredible. And, coincidentally, a batch of solids is what my “school fabric stash” is most prepared to handle… let’s just get through that to-do list. One month and two days until graduation! Surely the triangles can wait until then. Surely.

January 28, 2012

aunt jeanie’s quilt

pile of quilt squares

Over Christmas break, my mom and I did a major fabric purge in our basement. We found all sorts of treasures: half-pinned t-shirts, pajama pants missing a final hem, and disastrous fabrics that had been hiding in the bottoms of bins since the late ’80s.

We cleared out pounds upon pounds of fabric (is that embarrassing? maybe.) but we also found a number of should-have-beens that are now back on the project list. The old-but-new project I decided to tackle first was this quilt.

I found all the squares in a wrinkled Ziploc. Some had been sewn together, most were alone. It seemed to be a scrap quilt: some of the fabrics contributed twenty patches, and a few only contributed one or two. I assumed I had picked up the bag at one of the rummage sales I love so much… even though I couldn’t remember doing it, it didn’t seem unlikely because I know how excited I get in those “fill a bag for a dollar” moments!

pile of quilt squares

I started by stitching the squares into sets of three so they’d be easy to arrange. I lined them up as best I could and ran them all through the sewing machine, then under the iron.

Finally, I laid them all out on the living room floor, meticulously rearranging for the most appealing layout. Mama walked by and said, “oh, I recognize that fabric! we used to have that!” And as she got closer, she recognized more and more.

Aunt Jeanie used to make purses from that one!

Oh, I think I had a skirt from that one… it was “lovely”.

pile of quilt strips

Finally, the mystery was solved as more and more of the patterns became familiar to my mama’s eyes. These pieces were all part of Aunt Jeanie’s quilt, a scrap quilt lovingly cut from spare squares.

laying out quilt blocks on the floor

Now, at least 20 years later, I’m stitching them all into their rightful places. The quilt top is finished, so now I’m on the lookout for a perfect backing. Then I’ll snuggle up underneath the scraps from my family’s creations, and have sweet seamstressly dreams.

quilt strips stitched together

December 28, 2009

quilting time

end-of-year wind down:
look back and be thankful, look
forward and prepare.

quilt patches - the pinks and peaches

Still working away on this quilt that I started back in 2007… it’s almost 2010 now, and I’m still piecing together patches for the top. I ran out of half of the fabrics, so I’m having to substitute with similar fabrics, fabrics that I say have a similar “blur value”. It’s a good project for right now, since I’ve got all the materials here and plenty of free time to work on it.

I’m also almost done with haikus! Just a few more to go and I’ll have 365… can’t say it’s been as easy or as quick as I expected, because there were lots of days where I had no idea what to blog about. I am relieved to be close to the finish, but I probably will miss it soon.