Quilted Pillow Cover and Quilted Tote Bag

Before my trip, I got one quilt back from my long-arm quilter.  I have put the binding on it, but I have not taken a photo yet.  I also have made two donation quilts, since my return, but I need to take photos of those.  I made a cute throw pillow for my aunt, with an orphan block that she admired when she was here.

On July 16, my quilt group had a one-day quilting retreat near Kuna.  Each attendee brought a quart bag of scraps, which were placed in a pile and mixed up and handed back out.  We were each given a 15" square of interfacing.  We were to sew some of our scrap pieces on it to make a free form block.  Everyone did a nice job and they looked marvelous hanging up, side-by-side on the wall.  After lunch, we were given a pattern to make a tote bag using our block and more of our scraps and two yards of fabric that we could pick up from some laid out on a table there.  I did choose two fabrics that really went with my scrap combination.  I finished my tote bag today.  

My block is on the top row, second from the left.  I could not understand the instructions that they gave us, so I made my bag the same way I always do.  I wanted a bag big enough to hold a couple of quilts, for when I have some for show and tell, therefore, I made my bag bigger.

See inside?  My two donation quilts fit nicely in there, and there is room for more!   Love the pocket!  I made the button hole without a button holer on my machine.  I am so proud of me.

Then some guy came in my quilt room and tried to make off with my amazing new quilted bag, made purely from the scraps of others.

Back At Home, In Idaho

We arrived back in Idaho on June 15 around 6:30 PM.  It is good to be home.  We did visit quilt shops, while traveling across the country; six quilt shops to be exact.  I was very careful to not run amok at quilt shops.  I think our favorite none-quilting shop was Valley Pecans, on Highway 287, at Chillicothe, Texas.  There is a lot more in this unassuming building than pecans.  They have local and not local kitchenware, pottery, candy, wind chimes, chairs, lamps, confections made from pecans, and a sandwich and pie shop in the back corner.  They had gluten-free bread, so I was able to get an amazing sandwich wrapped to go, for lunch a little later on down the road.  

The quilt shops we visited where the Calico Cow, in Roswell, NM; Homemade Quilts N More, in Grand Cane, LA; Around the Block Quilting and Stitcher's Quest, both in Ft. Walton Beach, FL; Peace By Piece Quilt Shop, in Biloxi, MS; and finally, Curtains, Quilts, & Cabins, in Colby, KS.  I got amazing fabrics at each, and they each had a fabulous selection of fabrics, so it was easy to get overwhelmed.  The amazing thing about the Biloxi quilt shop, Peace By Piece, was that they had so many actual quilts for sale, as well as fabrics, notions, and long-arm quilting services. I took photos of Marsha at each quilt shop.  Please have a look on her Gluten Free Doll Quilts blog. 

So, what is on the design wall in June?  I am sure you are wanting to know.  I made these nine churn-dash blocks a couple months ago, and finally started to make a medallion quilt with them as the center.

I used blue and green stripped fabric to make half-square triangle blocks for the corner stones in the first and third borders. The broken dishes blocks, in the fifth border, I used the same colors that are in the original center nine blocks.  Well, the weather here is certainly divine, compared to the hot we experienced on most of our trip, so I am spending a little more time outside at present.  I will update you in July, because I have been busy quilting before and since my trip.  I have some bindings to put on, then some quilts to show off.

Traveling with Aunt K and Marsha

I have been out-of-state since May 13.  My husband and I drove our RV down to Phoenix.  He caught a plane back to Idaho, and my aunt and Marsha have been accompanying me on a road trip to visit my daughter and my other aunt.  They both reside in Florida; one in Ft Walton Beach, and the other in Gainesville.  For all the info, please visit "The Girls'" blog, which Marsha is keeping up as best she can during the trip.  Use the link, in the left margin:  Gluten Free Doll Quilts.

Tonight, we are staying over in Wichita Falls, Texas.  I will update my blog when I return to Idaho in about a week.

Here we are in Grand Cane, LA, a most impressive and friendly quilt shop.

Similar to Amelia Bennett's Gees Bend Quilt

Now that I have finished this quilt, it has occurred to me that I have been piecing scrappy pillow tops since I was 14, back in the 70's.  If I had made my pillow tops bigger, they would have been quilt tops.  I have made some scrappy flannel quilts, with just fabrics I had on hand, before I ever heard of Gees Bend.  But I love this quilt I made based on Amelia Bennett's quilt.  You can learn more about her in the 2002 book The Quilts of Gees Bend, by John Beardsley, William Arnet, et. al. I found it on Amazon books, and you could actually view the book, on-line.  Since I did not want to infringe on copyright, I did not copy the page with the photo of the quilt.  I made a sketch for me to follow in my quilt making endeavor. 

I had no intention of making a replica, just something similar, so I used only fabrics I had on hand. I am no hand quilter, believe you me, so I quilted it on my home sewing machine.

I used just one print, as she did, and the rest are solids.  I ran out of the dark blue, so I did not make the bottom and right-side edges (borders) as wide as hers.  I had no green, so I used the sandy color from the top left corner, down where the green section on hers would be.  Mine has more gradual curves, and is pretty straight, not wavy.  I was not sure how the pale binding would look, but now that it is done, I love it.  I used my grandmother's taylor's chalk to mark the lines for my quilting, so I washed the quilt right after I completed it, to get the remaining chalk off.  It turned out so soft and inviting.  Here is my creation:

I was working on it at a quilting retreat last fall, and a couple of the quilters said Gees Bend quilts are just utilitarian and why would anyone want to make one like them?  I thought them a little close-minded.  Now I have shared my quilt with a few people, here in my neck of the woods, and have received some compliments from them.  One of my friends, told me she really liked it, as she likes to make quilts with row quilting on them, with her home machine.  I like how it looks and how it feels.  I am a contented quilter.

Glamping Quilt

A and I both got our bindings on our glamping quilts.  They both look adorbs!  Both quilts have glamping fabrics from Riley Blake Designs, from about four years ago and from 2021.  The 2021 fabrics are called Joy in the Journey.  They all go so well together, and we are both pleased with how they came out. 

This is my "Glamping Quilt".  It has cute little mid-century travel trailers on it, with bicycles, tents, and cats and dogs wearing their best glamping sweaters.  So much fun!  The pattern we used for this quilt is one we adapted from a doll quilt pattern in a book, my quilting niece sent me for Christmas; Civil War Legacies III, by Carol Hopkins, Ellie's Tea Garden, pgs 27-29. 

This is the doll quilt in Carol Hopkins' book.  We love how the design translated into a big people quilt.

My Spiral Art Quilt

My friend, D, gave me an art quilt class from Susan Carlson.  I finished it yesterday!  I was not sure, at first, if I wanted to make a quilt that used glue to attach the fabric pieces, but I decided to just go with the flow.  I am so glad I did!  It was so much fun, even though I had some gluey fingers to take care of now and then.  I really enjoyed the process and the outcome.  I think I may do another one.  Please view the slide show, just below.  Give it a few seconds to start and click on the icon on the lower right to make it full screen:

It was an on-line course, that I could access as often as I wished, so I could run wild, then decide to see what was next or go back and see if I missed something.  It is actually a quilt.  It has the top, batting in the middle, and a back.  I stippled it myself and added a traditional binding.  

This is a close-up, so you can see my stitching and how the colors blend together.

Besides needing something to glue your fabric scraps to (I used an old piece of sheet because I did not have any muslin on hand), batting, and a backing fabric, it requires only a few other supplies.

I used a 2' X 2' piece of foam insulation board that you can obtain at Home Depot.  It is nice to keep your project flat and easy to stick straight pins in.  You need a basket of light and dark scrap pieces of fabric that are whatever colors/tones you wish to work in. I used tweezers to move my small pieces and hold the edges up, of the bits I already glued down.  Yes, they are unicorn tweezers, and they are the best.  I used a Frixion pen to trace the edge of the curved area onto my other pieces; easier than guessing what the curve is. I used varigated polyester thread to do the quilting, as it works better in my machine for stippling than cotton thread does.  I used my sharp Singer scissors, as I do not have a pair of duck bill scissors.  I think Susan Carlson's classes are very popular, so the duck bill scissors are available locally.  My scissors worked fine, but it may have taken me more time to make my small intricate cuts.  I recommend her Spiral art quilt course, as it is worth being able to see her process and learn from her and go back and revisit all the info she has packed into the course.  I admit, I was not keen about using tule over my quilt top, but it saved me from a ton of gluing little edges down and it makes my quilt look amazing.  I used the pale blue shiny tule.  I also bought a yard of the pale pink matte finish tule, which I decided against.  I like the shiny! 

It is 24" X 24" and is hanging on the wall in my quilt room.   Thank you, Daria, for the wonderful gift.

Joy In The Journey

My dear friend, A, and I have been working on our "Glamping" quilts.  She purchased the fabrics about two years ago and we are finally getting them done.  We did our entire quilt tops in January, then of course, came the part of making the backings.  Procrastination.  They are both, currently, at the long-arm quilter's place for amazing quilting.  

I had purchased a couple fabrics at the local quilt shop to go with what A had provided, which included a contrasting fabric from Riley Blake's 'Joy in the Journey' fabric line.  

It is charcoal with flowers, and I had saved enough for both of our bindings.  Meanwhile, Marsha whipped up a nine-patch quilt and needed an outer border, and the charcoal with flowers fabric was perfect.  I did not want to short-change A and I of our binding material, so I went to the quilt shop and naturally they were out.  Luckily, I was able to order more from Fabric.com, so Marsha was able to finish her quilt.  [Click on "nine-patch", above, to view Marsha's Nine-Patch Madness quilt.]

Let's discuss looking for fabric at Fabric.com.  All our glamping fabrics are from Riley Blake, so while searching for the charcoal with flowers fabric, I stumbled onto some amazing got-to-have-it Kewpie fabric (from Riley Blake).  Three Kewpie fabrics to be exact, so my additional three fabrics arrived with the Joy in the Journey charcoal with flowers fabric.  I needed to make something with the Kewpie fabric right away.  I made a wall-hanging for my dear friend, A.  I used some of the charcoal with flowers on the inner border of the wall-hanging.  That stuff is amazing!  It just goes with everything!  Yes, I still have enough for our bindings.  Really, I do.

click on the photo to see the details and Kewpie Dolls closer up