Forgotten finishes

Spider web quilt, 44 inches square

I realized the other day that I hadn't posted pictures of these two quilts I finished awhile ago. They had been languishing in the binding stage for a bit behind a couple others.

 

William Morris I, 68.5 x 74 inches

The William Morris one is on my bed. It's not that big, but the duvet is almost the same color brown as the border so it looks good on top of that. The other day, we were reading in bed, and my husband said, "Have you heard of William Morris?" Ha! (He was reading "The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure.")

Looking back in my blog, I see it took over a year from start to finish for the Morris quilt, which was quilted by Maggi Honeyman. I enjoyed making this top and figuring out a different method of piecing it.

Somebody's quilting, but it's not me

Got two quilts back from my longarm quilter, Maggi Honeyman.

She did a fabulous job on the Girlfriends Galore pattern. Each diamond in the star center has a leaf design, and each border around the center is quilted differently to complement the shapes in those borders. You can really see the border treatment on the back (although maybe not as well with my photo.) Looks like a whole-cloth quilt.

William Morris got some special treatment too. I love the feathered border and the interior is a similar pattern that fills the little squares jutting into the border.

I was so excited to see the quilting and take pictures that some of the photos are a little blurry from my jumping for joy.

Maggi has quilted my quilts for years now. We used to both live in Florida, then she moved to Texas, and I moved to Illinois. When I have something I really like and want it to be treated to more than my expert straight-line quilting with a walking foot or feeble free-motion attempts, I send it to her. I tell her a little bit of what I'm thinking for the quilting, but ultimately leave it in her hands because I trust what she's done with my quilts in the past and know I won't be disappointed. Isn't it great when you are the same wavelength as someone else?

No more work travel for awhile I hope. Now maybe I can get back to quilting if only to pack up a couple more quilt tops for someone to help me finish.

There's more than one way to piece a block

Confession time: I am a lazy quilter. I don't like to piece more seams than necessary. I also want to rotary cut everything I can. So when I decided Kansas Dugout blocks were the right choice for my William Morris fabric, I needed to figure out a way to piece them that would work with pre-cut strips and a minimum of seams.
The above diagram shows the way I was familiar with piecing the block. All that cutting and piecing to end up with a square? Just cut a square.

Please excuse the drawing. I was experimenting with Google Docs.

Obviously need more practice.

I found the above piecing method too. And this neat quilt made with that construction method. But, ew, templates.

If you look at the quilt as a whole and not at a single block, then you can see how alternating rows of squares and "other pieces" can be put together to form the Dugout block. Of course, this requires planning ahead and arranging the entire quilt before sewing. This is what floors are for.

The "other pieces" can easily be cut without a template too. Yeah, rotary cutter! I figured the sizes for the shapes by drawing out the block on graph paper, assuming a 2-inch finished center square, which is what I could cut from the jelly roll strips.

To cut the "other pieces," trim a 45-degree angle from one end of one strip.

Leaving the 45-degree line on the top edge of the strip, slide the ruler so that the cut edge aligns along the 5 1/8-inch mark and cut.

Flip the ruler, align the 45-degree line along the bottom edge and make sure the ruler is 5 1/8 inches from lower right corner to cut edge. Cut.

I was able to cut four "other pieces" and four squares from each strip. Enough for two dugouts.

Piecing was easy too. Every other row is all squares. Hardest part is keeping them in the right order. The other rows are the "other pieces."

Overlap them slightly so that the quarter-inch seam line intersects the two pieces where they meet.

I pressed the seams open and trimmed the dog ears. Much easier to do now then later. I may be lazy, but I'm also rather anal. Those dog ears will just plague you later when you're quilting the top. It's worth the effort to get rid of them now. Same with thread ends. Laziness has its limits.

Once the rows are all sewn, sew the rows together and you're done except for borders.

I'm I the only one who finds block construction so interesting?

I love you, William Morris!

Don't tell my husband.

I tried to get a decent picture of my William Morris quilt, and this seems to be the best I can do. It's not been very sunny here the last few weeks so the light isn't great. And, there's no good place in the house to put the quilt to take a picture of the whole thing. I spread it out on the floor by the dining room table and then balanced on the staircase so that the railing wasn't in the way. How do you get a good picture of a large quilt?

Hope you get the idea from these two pictures. I bought a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's Morris Workshop fabric at my local quilt shop last fall. It was my first jelly roll. I bought it so I could have a little bit of every fabric in the line. I wanted more than a little, but couldn't justify it.

Got the fabric home and started the hunt for the right project. Something that could be cut from 2 1/2-inch wide strips. Something where I wouldn't have to add any other fabric to the main part of the quilt. I wanted it to be nothing but beautiful William Morris fabric! Pauline Smith's Blooms Quilt from Kaffe Fassett's "Country Garden Quilts" was the answer with a little redrafting of the Kansas Dugout block.

I bought another jelly roll a couple weeks ago. French General's Rouenneries. It's screaming, "Stars!" to me. Rather loudly for such an elegant, refined collection. I think maybe the cover quilt from the same Kaffe Fassett book. I need more than just one jelly roll for that pattern so I'll be forced -- yes, forced -- to buy some yardage too.

Today's weather: 2F, feels like -18F

That's -16C, feels like -28C if you're into Metric. How exactly anyone can tell the difference between 2F and -18F is beyond me. As I walked to the train this morning, my eyes watered constantly -- no doubt to keep them from freezing -- and soaked my face and scarf. Where's this global warming all the kids are talking about?

I finished this top last weekend. When I started it, I thought it might be the backing for another quilt, which I haven't posted about. (Then again I haven't posted.) But this one isn't big enough and I rather like it more than the other one so it's deserving of a top all its own.

The inspiration for this came from a posting on Fibercopia that I sketched on the back of a grocery list and kept with other piles of scribbled ideas until it was time. I have lots of notebooks, but they never seem to be within reach when I get an idea.