Archive

I finished threading the ribbon through the trim on the latest quilt! This seems like quite a victory, and it was certainly a lesson in patience. I found that if I rushed it at all the ribbon would start to fray and the trim would start to tear. I did what I usually do, I made […]

The trim pieces are all prepared and I removed all of the old ones from the quilt. I did a test with one of the new and improved catalog pieces and found that they are now strong enough to hold up to having the ribbon woven through them. I had to give some thought as […]

I got a lot of great suggestions from friends on how to tackle the issue I faced last week with the fragile catalog pages crumbling. I forget sometimes that I’m not the only person who does what I do. I also forget sometimes that it’s ok to ask for help or ideas if I get […]

My Father’s favorite chocolates were chocolate-covered cherries. Every year for Christmas my mother would get him a box. Personally I can’t stand them (though that didn’t stop me from eating them when I was a child – chocolate after all)– they are just too sweet for me, I’m more of a dark chocolate type. The […]

Got another row of circles done and faced the daunting task of lining them up and sewing them together. This part is always slow going and tricky but is usually made a bit easier by the fact that I can mix and match the squares till I find one that fits. I can’t do that […]

So I figured out how to handle the trim around the edges of the quilt for my great grandmother Cassie. I was inspired by the christening gown she made (above) to bring ribbon work into the quilt in some way. I also needed to decide on a book for the quilt. My strongest connection to […]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to sew the squares together. With the quilts I’ve done to date I’ve sewn the pieces together on a pellon (interfacing) backing and then lined the squares up, overlapped the pellon backing and sewn the squares together. I’ve used heavy black thread with a zigzag overstitching technique and […]

And there is more than one way to do trapunto quilting.   In the hand-quilting method you hand-sew a piece of cloth (generally muslin) onto the back of the quilt face, following the pattern of the trapunto quilting you wish to achieve, leaving a small opening. You then stuff cotton or wool quilt batting (the kind […]

This week has been more printing and reading about and practicing trapunto techniques. All in all a very enjoyable couple of days. I decided on the double wedding ring pattern for the quilt for my great grandmother Cassie. Here is an example of the pattern from the Brooklyn Museum by an unknown maker circa 1930: […]

I’ve been thinking of the pattern to use for the next quilt in the series, the one for my great grandmother Cassie Hodgman. I have been thinking of some variation of the interlocking circles pattern. So I’ve had circles in my head. Today I made a stencil (drawing on what I learned from my workshop […]