Quilting takes

      The other night, I sat down to square up my calendar, receipts, etc and wondered where the time has gone since May. I have been sewing and quilting, but everything else has been all over the place. In May, after my first cataract surgery, I lost vision in one eye for a week. I did a planned trip to Ohio and then made a bunch of trips to my daughter's in PA to babysit. On July 1st, my grandson had an accident that sent him to the local hospital and then by ambulance to Children's hospital in Pittsburgh. All the serious scary neck/head trauma did not continue and he had surgery for a broken femur. Thank you to all my friends that I contacted for prayer. I believed it turned around from a scary first diagnosis. I am grateful I could help out with babysitting.
     I am going to do a series of posts on what I have been working on instead of one big long post. I had a quilt request recently for a woman who suddenly had stage 4 lung cancer, and when I went through the quilts, I found that some never got photographed when I completed them, so I made sure I got some.
    With the assistance of A Left Handed Quilter, I made a bunch of Upstairs, Downstairs quilts. One is quilted, the rest are waiting. It has no home yet.

The back shows the circular type quilting I did. I liked it even though it was a lot of work.

A new Upstairs, Downstairs

    There is nothing like sewing fabric together to help keep me together. Somehow as fabric builds into a quilt, it energizes me. I worked slowly with sickness on another Upstairs, Downstairs quilt made from a fabric line called Watermark. I really liked the fabric enough to buy 2 jelly rolls. The problem was a few of the fabrics had annoying areas- like black circles on white- that stood out like a sore thumb. I went through over 5 arrangements and got expert advice from A Left Handed Quilter, and settled on the last layout. It is all clipped together for webbing which I will do at the retreat in November. I wish I was happier with it, but it is too late to change out those strips now. Love the blues.

An unusual quilt and start of another

     My husband's mother and grandmother quilted and sewed clothes. I learned a lot about quilting from them. My husband's mom, Rosemary, was a wonderful woman and mother who left us too soon at 66, younger than I am at 68. Very sobering. She used to make improv quilts before anyone claimed them. She used polyester double knits left over from sewing clothes (six kids) to create lap quilts and hand sewed the pieces using the herringbone stitch and perle cotton. These quilt wear like iron, never fade, are warm and have a certain charm that many dismiss.
    Victoria Findlay Wolfe had a grandmother, Edna, who made them and shared some of them on her site a while back. I have only two. One Rosemary made during our infamous Blizzard of 77 that uses black and orange featuring a palm tree. Sometime, I will find that one and dig it out to photo and share. The other quilt we have used in our family room for over 40 years. It shows no wear or fading. It has been used by my kids and now my grandkids for play and covering. What has given up the ghost is the perle cotton- totally disintegrating. I could not bear to not use it anymore, so I am slowly restitching the pieces back on with perle cotton even though I hate hand stitching. Using the machine would diminish its charm to me.

    On the Upstairs, Downstairs front, I have completed set 1 of 8 for the quilt. Watermark is the fabric line. Love it.

Bits and Bobs

    I always wanted to use that phrase. I continue on my Leader and Ender project, which is Scrap Jar Stars. I have all the components done leader ender style, and now putting them into a block is a full job on its own. I try and sew 2 at a time. I have 11 more to assemble. These will get a white lattice strip with another color square in the intersection. I realize I put the blocks up not all oriented correctly- the 16 patches need to start with the color square in the top left corner. When I web it, I will make sure of the orientation. I love the cheerfulness.

    Also, I am sewing the strip sets for another Upstairs, Downstairs with the Watermark jelly roll. I have all the sets marked and am working on the first one.

Twins- sort of, kind of

     Back a couple of months ago I think, A Left Handed Quilter asked me if I wanted to do an Upstairs, Downstairs with her with the same jelly rolls, but using a different color for the diagonals of the block. She has EQ, so she sent me previews of the color possibilites. I chose the blue as the main diagonal. We bought the jelly rolls at jelly roll fabric (4 rolls of 20 strips each). They all had green, blue, purple, pink and yellow but different fabrics for them so we made groups of them for strip sets.
    I did post the early stages of this quilt. I added the border so I don't have all those seams popping and all in the binding lumpy. Hate lumpy binding, love it smooth. I have to look for some backing. It is 63.5" x 84" now. Check A Left Handed Quilters blog for hers. What do you think? I thought it was a fun and productive challenge. Anytime I can get a comfort quilt top out of some fun, what is not to love?

    Unfortunately, I did not see the wrong turned blocks on the wall and sewed them together. The next day it was obvious. Had to rip out and do inset seams. But here is the corrected version.

Upstairs, Downstairs in Pastels

      As part of the Upstairs, Downstairs challenge with A Left Handed Quilter, I continued on making blocks and was able to lay them out on the wall. I clipped them in columns waiting for an opportunity to web them. I waited until all the blocks were sewn (all 8 sets) before I ironed them with my steam Euro Pro. I never use steam until the blocks are sewn so I don't distort the pieces. I followed the directions and laid them out simply and I think it is a pleasant refreshing quilt.

      What I found amusing was when I was working on the blocks at my daughter's in PA, her cat plopped on the process. Later, at home, Mr. Tugger did the same to the blocks. Different states, different cats, same response.

PA cat

NY cat

Top as laid out

Scrappy Trips layout emerges

      A couple of years ago, I cut the strips for Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips. Somehow, I thought it would be a quick quilt. I kept the strips in the block bundles and from time to time, I sewed a couple of blocks. There are only 30 blocks (made 32), but it seemed an eternity to sew them. In fact, The Left-handed quilter showed how to make the Upstairs, Downstairs pattern (I have had trouble typing in her search bar) and I made two of those in the meantime. I like the controlled palette of jelly rolls, but they are hard to find just the right ones that will work.
     I was surprised at first when I put these on the wall as it seem jumbled, but after a day or so, it grew on me. I clipped them together for webbing and will take them to our guild March quilt retreat. 

Smatterings of fabric and stuff

      Fabric, just love it. No matter how it comes in the door, no matter what size. Recently, a box came from Gwen, who has over the years boosted my ability to back comfort quilts.

     With the brown batiks jelly roll I received from Gwen, I bought a jelly roll of neutrals to go with it and now have to remember the pattern I was going to use for the two.

     I was trying to find another set of affordable two jelly rolls that I could make either another Upstairs, Downstairs quilt or another bargello, like the blue one. It is so hard online to tell if they will work. These are called Hidden Canyon, and they were under $20 ea. When I opened and laid them out, I don't think the gradations are sufficient- too many darks, dark mediums and then real lights. Hmm, now what do I do with set of 2?

Tried to layout for a bargello, B&W shows how there is no gradation despite the colors.

Tried to layout sets for Upstairs, Downstairs but not great gradation.

Huge Backup

      I have no idea how much time has passed since I posted. I feel like I am in a giant logjam. It is not like I was doing nothing, because I have tons of photos and things done, but oh my, the crush of the days.
     The first weekend in November was our guild retreat. I take projects with me that can be webbed and done due to no interruptions.
     I have had a lot of grandkid duty- taking and picking up from school, feeding etc. here and my daughter in PA had her baby on Nov. 14th. I have photos of all that and I am trying to sort it all out to present.
     One of the quilts I webbed and completed at retreat was Supernova by Sarah Craig. It was made from a batik layer cake I bought on Etsy along with the same fabric jelly rolls. The jelly rolls became an Upstairs, Downstairs, also webbed and sewn together at retreat, as inspired by A Left Handed quilter. Isn't it amazing that the same fabric looks totally different in the two quilts?

The layout, wall too small

Upstairs, Downstairs All Sewn

Upstairs, downstairs batik- webbing time

      First of all, I want to say THANK YOU. To all the readers of my blog and the ones I follow and read every day, THANK YOU. It is a crazy, sad world. I know bloggers who are generous with compliments, resources, fabrics,  and more. You are so precious to me, even though most of you I have not met. I am so grateful for you. We all have struggles and heartaches. Quilts bridge the gap and I am so grateful I am a quilter and my comfort quilts find recipients who just eat them up. Thank you for friendship and caring.

      After finishing all eight sets of 6 blocks each for the Upstairs, Downstairs quilt (which A Left Handed Quilter addicted me to), I stared at them and then thought about which set should be the center and contemplated placement. All the blocks were pinned up on the diagonal in the order I was thinking. What? It looked perfect to me. I shot a couple photos of it and still I thought it was working.
     The next day, I lit the wall with my photo lights, and still I did not believe anything could be moved to improve it. I felt guilty, like I was cheating, but I numbered the columns and took down the blocks ready to web when I have a chunk of time.

Up and down again

     First, wishing everyone a Happy Easter! I am in the middle of making an early dinner, so I wrote this yesterday!

      No, I am not referring to my condition after the second shot, which has been hard and fatiguing for over 4 weeks, but to another Upstairs/Downstairs quilt. This one is from two batik jelly rolls. First set of 6 blocks is sewn, 7 more down to go.

Two identical rolls

Sorted 8 sets

Strip sets sewn, 2 sets of same strips

The 8 sets of strip sets, 2 each of each strip set, ready to be cut into 2 1/2" strips

8 sets of block strips, 2 1/2" wide

The first 6 blocks of set 1 out of 8 sets, 7 more sets to go.

Upstairs, Downstairs Part 3

      I found the process of putting together Upstairs, Downstairs rather inspiring. I bought another bundle of 2 identical jelly rolls on Etsy and started to examine how to put them together. There were only a few oranges in these batiks, so instead of organizing the darkest strips as the diagonals, I used the oranges to be the long diagonals.
     After consultation with The Left Handed Quilter of course. I would have never have figured this out on my own. Sometime, maybe I will find jelly rolls that are easier to sort.

Did not work with darks at top, mixed in oranges

Block strip layout I am going with. There are two identical strips in each folded color so I will get 6 total blocks from each of the 8 columns.

Values in the black and white version

Upstairs, Downstairs Part 2

      With all the strips sewn into blocks, I laid the blocks on the wall and tweaked the diagonal rows a number of times. Due to the excellent explanation by  A Left Handed Quilter,  I was able to get something that I like well enough. I took it down by columns that I will web sew at retreat later in the week.

I laid out the strips for each block on cardstock and stacked them for chain piecing.
Completed blocks on left. Tube sewn strips on tray.

Block layout stack ready for piecing

Completed blocks all clipped by columns for webbing.

Upstairs, Downstairs part 1

      I was inspired by the quilts that The Left-Handed Quilter has made from 2 identical jelly rolls. She explains the process well, but I could not grasp it so I thought I would try to make one. Somethings you just have do hands on to get it.
     I found 2 great priced Boundless jelly rolls on Etsy and started separating them into groups of 5 with a dark in each group, two indentical strips in each group. There are eight groups of 5. Then I sewed the strips into strip sets in the order I planned trying to go from dark to light. There are normally two identical strip sets, so you can get 6 blocks out of them.

     Instead of sewing the strips in tube, she cut the 2 1/2" wide strips first from the strip set (Stripology ruler), and then sewed each smaller strip in a tube. I think it all cuts and sews easier her way than the big strip set tube. I did it her way.

I put all the strips for each block on a cardboard and stack them
so I can pin and chain piece. I pin with fork pins at the meeting seams.