dovegreyreader scribbles

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

So to the final exhibit on the final day of The Twelve Days of Christmas Quilt Festival.
I hope you've enjoyed seeing them as much as I've enjoyed looking at them again, thank you so much for stopping by and perhaps you feel a little inspired to thread a needle and give it a go.
I know I've shamed inspired myself to keep busy on some sewing projects alongside all the reading and knitting.
Who knows perhaps I'll do a mini DGR beginners class on the blog soon.
So to the final confession and here it is,
The Millenium Quilt, the Great Unfinished.

The design was simple and conventional,each block chosen purely for its name and the significance that name had for our lives here in The Valley.Tucked away in there Fox and Geese, Sunnylanes, Buffalo Ridge (nearest we could get to cows), Autumn Star, Flight of Swallows et al.

The central block is Milky Way and that took centre stage as does our perfect view here of it in the pure, unpolluted darkness of our night sky.It's a blessing that we never take for granted.

I've entered quite a few smaller unfinished things in quilt exhibitions this year as I know that will ensure they are finished.Somehow I haven't quite had the courage to enter this and to rush it now would almost be a crime, I think it's a life's work and will be completed in the fullness of time whenever that may be.

Techy stuff for those that like to know.
Rotary cut and machine pieced using designs from the book Around the Block by Judy Hopkins.
Quilt  - 82" x 82"
Blocks - 12",
Lattices - 6",
Central block - 29" x 29" (inc borders)
Finally, for this one I used a calico backing and wool batting, it's like quilting butter.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas

Let's go for something simple to clear the palate before tomorrow's final exhibit and that whopping  great big unfinished confession.
Here's a 12" block that I used to teach on an Intermediate Course.Clever hand piecing makes for an intriguing design and as long as you put it together in the right order you too could have an Interlocking Squares to be proud of.
Simple but so effective and an example of my favourite quilting message to myself, don't think king size quilt all the time, think tiny and stand a chance of finishing it.
If you have time, follow the link, turn on the sound and take a trip to Cowslip Workshops and see where I can go, just up the road, to stock up on inspiration.The Spring Programme is out, it's oh so tempting.
Meanwhile, stiffen the sinews for tomorrow.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas

Once upon a quilting time it is an inevitable fact that you will make a Dresden Plate quilt and I did mine in my early pastel green and pink phase.This would coincide with that moment when Laura Ashley floral Edwardian Country Diary style was very de rigeur.
This called Tin Plate and made for our tenth wedding anniversary, finished by our eleventh and if, as tradition has it, you stitch what is going on in your life at the time into a quilt, then this one is full of nappies and sticky jammy fingers and worse.The children called it The Jedful (Dreadful) Plate.
I used to keep a little basket to hand in the kitchen and stitch the odd petal together while the spuds were boiling.There seemed no other way I would ever make anything.
When it came to quilting it was an evening pastime only, hence the delay and I see from looking at it again that I had clearly lost momentum when it came to quilting those plates.
As always only God's work must be perfect so of course there is at least one very deliberate (of course) mistake in the piecing which I'll leave you to squint your eyes and find.
I can see it straightaway.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

An Irish Chain quilt seems an impossibility until you lay hands on Blanche Young's book of the same name.Then you realise that with some slick rotary cutting, strip piecing, ironing the seams EXACTLY as Blanche instructs and re-cutting you can actually make one of these in a day.
Not quite the labour of love they might have been in the past but piecing to match the pace of 21st century life has its place.
I made it in a long day and then it sat and sat because there is no quick fix to quilting here, it's hand quilting or nothing really.Everything else pales.Eventually desperate to use it I settled for knotting with a view to quilting one day...one day.
I've generously revealed all and done a close up just so that you can perhaps see how it's made into just two different blocks and then joined.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas

I have a very artistic friend called Juju, she's actually called Julie but as always your children call them something odd and it sticks.
We met 27 years ago when she and her husband bought the terraced cottage adjoining ours and we all set about the shared business of renovation on a shoestring budget but with a vast amount of enthusiasm, fun and laughter.
The day we discovered our original stone built fireplace nestling behind the 1950's tiled one and called them in to see it, they grabbed the hammers and discovered theirs 30 minutes later.
Mr JuJu however renovated with gusto and panache, so the day she went out leaving him to just remove some old units from the  kitchen, located in the old wash house extension, and returned home to find he'd got bored and knocked down the entire extension too was an interesting one.
Juju, a graphic designer by training, used to and probably still could make her own stencils and this was one she did onto fabric for me to quilt.
Sometimes the simplest things are often the most effective and this one probably says all that needs to be said about friendship and never fails to remind me of those days.
Another piece that keeps its "specialness".
PS Bookhound has just reminded me, before Juju had even arrived home, that demolished extension had been barrowed straight in through our window as hard core to fill in the rotten floor we'd just dug up. What was decent wood left over from our floorboards we then made into very rustic kitchen units, oh yes those were indeed the days.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas

This my demo piece for any Intermediate Classes that I teach. Back in my colour comfort zone again and this one hand pieced and quilted.Made at least 20 years ago using block designs from a very old but perfect book called Patchwork Possibilities by Marjorie Puckett, long out of print I suspect.
Tradition has it that you should never put Turkey Feet (middle left below) in any quilt that you make for a child or they will leave home, there was always a mad rush to get that one cut out and made up.
One 12" block (which I never made) had 135 seperate pieces.I had an eminent ENT surgeon doing one of my classes years ago who was one of the finest at microscopic surgery, he made it with ease.
We refused to thread his needle for him though.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

This is another very special little quilt called Nannie's Nine.
My mum also caught the quilting bug and easily transferred her wizard embroidery skills across.These blocks were made at her beginners class and the plan was for it to be a quilt to celebrate her and The Tinker's Ruby Wedding anniversary. Sadly halfway through the project a stroke behind her eye affected her vision and hand-eye co-ordination irreparably and she was never able to sew or knit again.The blocks sat in a cupboard for years and she would often say how much she would have loved to have finished that quilt.
Finally, as her 70th birthday approached I "lifted" them from the cupboard and secretly took them off to try and do something with them.I decided on a lap quilt and this was the result;started hand quilting just after Christmas 1995 and finished at about 1am on the very day of her birthday,May 30th 1996 ...I'm good with deadlines.
I added various family related inscriptions to the blocks, memorable dates in our lives, places we had lived and such like and of course my mum was thrilled with it.
I've always been so relieved that I finished this one because sadly she died before her 71st birthday and in the year of the Golden Wedding Anniversary.
That was all sad enough but how much sadder would that bag of half-made blocks seem now.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas

Attic Cat, and I've made more of these than I can remember, to present as leaving gifts to nursery or school when the children have moved on or just as gifts for cat-loving friends.I foist these things on all and sundry.
This one my favourite cat, so I kept him, sometimes they just work and that marbled Jinny Beyer fabric just miaowed shouted cat.
Attic Windows, one of those deceptively simple designs that gives a lovely 3D effect if you use the light, medium and dark fabrics in the right places.This machine pieced and hand quilted and about 30" square.
Mention of Jinny Beyer and I must credit her with so much of my inspiration in those early quilting days.More of her soon.

 

One the Fourth Day of Christmas

Cana Lily, and I was suprised at how pleasurable this white on white piece was to do because it looks so boring.No blocks to move around, no lovely colours to feast your eyes on.
A chance to really concentrate on getting that quilting stitch down to 6 per inch and the smaller the needle you use the more likely that is to happen.
I used tiny platinum Quilting Betweens Size 12 for this, in those glorious days before glasses.I'd have a job to pick one up now let alone thread it.I've sunk down into the 9's and 10's.
The cheating bit, because there has to be one, is that the whole piece came with the transfer printed on.That only emphasises what a labour of love it must have been to mark up a quilt top in the days when you might just have used chalk or even a pin drawn line.
For me it was a case of immersing it in a bath of cold water at the end for the blue line to miraculously dissolve before my eyes as I watched a truly lovely piece of plain quilting emerge.

On the Third Day of Christmas

It was the design that caught my eye and as is often the case I gravitate towards my colour comfort zone.This one measures about 16" square, machine pieced and hand quilted.

On the Second Day of Christmas

Let's stay with stars for now.
This a quilt in daily use here and called McKenzie Star.Made from fabrics given to me by a US quilting friend.
An Ohio Star, machine-pieced and hand quilted and somehow I never tire of this one.It was a simple block to make so I tried to turn it into an unconventional and intensely different hand quilting exercise.
It has been machine -washed countless times and put through a 1300 spin each time.None of this delicate handwashing stuff for us.To my mind any quilt I make is made to be used and needs to be robust and fit for purpose.