Archive

One thing about growing up in a small town where your next door neighbors were your grandparents, you had 5 sets of great aunts and uncles within a few blocks and countless numbers of your mother’s cousins spread throughout the town; you really couldn’t get away with much. By the time I made it home […]

I figured out the shapes and numbers for the pieces for the quilt for Elsie. Cutting out the pieces is always tedious and difficult, but tedious and difficult in a good way. I’ve always enjoyed geometry, it’s part of what I love about traditional block quilts. I get to get out my rulers, protractors and […]

There was only one thing that Elsie loved more than the Red Sox and that was her family. Elsie lived just down the street from the house that I grew up in in Veazie, from the house that she grew up in, with her husband Tex and her daughter Holly. Elsie was the type that […]

I decided to use an old baby knit and crochet pattern book for the trim around Lib’s quilt. When thinking about Lib I always remember her working on a quilt and to me she always seemed to be carrying around the absence of her daughter. I was a bit of a sickly child so I […]

So I gave in and bought a new toy: I feel terribly self indulgent but I love it! I’ve switched my Janome back over to “normal” mode (with Paul’s help) with the feed dogs advancing the fabric (paper) and switched it back over to the standard foot. It seems much happier now. I used it […]

I’ve continued to practice free-motion quilting. Only a few sewing needles have paid the ultimate price. I’ve worked up the nerve to try practicing on the spare print for Lib’s quilt. I originally made six of each of the prints for this quilt since that’s how many I got when I cut the larger piece […]

Most of the quilts I have done to date have actually been quilt tops, that is they have just been the equivalent of the top layer(s) of fabric of a quilt without the layer of batting or backing that makes up a traditional quilt. The last quilt I made involved the trapunto technique and therefor […]

More research and much more practice on appliquing quilt pieces later and I have learned the following: A number of different stitches are traditionally used with appliqué I have the best luck with the straight stitch If you have the tension too tight and your length set too short you can actually saw right through […]

I cut out all the pieces for Lib’s Bumble Bee quilt; 25 yellow squares, 20 yellow bodies and 40 brown wings. Then came my favorite part with a new project – problem solving. How was I going to figure out how to place them accurately on the square? Geometry to the rescue. I cut 4 […]

I did a little printmaking and a lot of mulling (without the wine – though that sounds like a great idea!) working through ideas for Elizabeth’s quilt. I didn’t come up with any workable prints, though I did have a lot of fun printing (haven’t done that for a while).   More importantly I figured out […]