Square in a Square Workshop

Prairie Claw block, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

Here's one of the blocks we made in the workshop today. Fortunately, the materials list from hell did not predict the quality or content of the teaching! This block is about 12" square. Here's what we learned:
How to make a million half square triangles with perfect points in a flash.
How a stiletto is better than pins.
How to use a little scrap at the beginning and end of chain piecing to eliminate snipping threads
How to construct just about any block starting with a square and adding strips to the sides.
It was cool enough for me to buy the book and ruler. Those half square triangles alone are worth it!

Oldies But Goodies Part 2

I found photos of three other quilts in our photograph albums.  I know of at least two more that I made for friends, but I assume we never took photos of them.  I gave away all the quilts that you see in this post.

Here's the first quilt I ever made; the back of the photo says 1992.  It went to a friend who had just had her first child, a baby girl who's now a senior in high school.  I love the red and turquoise today as much as I did then.  Despite my strict instructions that the quilt should be used, it went on the wall above the baby's crib.  Sigh.

Did you catch the dog's nose in the lower right of the photo?  You can see her better in the photo below.  The red fabric that is used for the background of the flying geese, along with the brick red and dark red of the small sashing between the blocks, was massive sale yardage I bought in 1982, when I was living in Memphis with my then-boyfriend.  I had just bought an old quilting frame at a garage sale, and I decided I would make a quilt.  I actually pieced a huge, simple star - imagine a bed-sized nine-patch - and made the quilt sandwich with muslin on the back and an old wool blanket as a batt.  I rolled it onto the quilting frame and it sat neatly against the length of my living room the whole time I lived in Memphis.  Somehow - lost in the mists of time, but it must have been as oversized baggage - I brought it to Montreal, all rolled up on that quilt frame and wrapped in garbage bags. I put the frame back together and it stayed against my living room wall all through graduate school.  Let's skip over the ten years that it stayed on that quilt frame, untouched!  I finally removed it and found that the 18 inches that had been exposed on the frame had faded terribly.  So I unpicked it and salvaged the fabric in the quilt you see here.  I still have some of those reds in my scrap bag!  Below you can also see a much younger me, along with my two dogs of blessed memory, one-eyed Jemima and the gorgeous Georgia.

The second quilt I made was a wedding gift for friends.  The pattern is called Indian Trails.  I chose colours and a pattern that I didn't really like, because I did not want to succumb to the temptation to keep it when it was finished.  That was a mistake.  I learned that one must always love the projects one makes for love.  This was the only quilt I have ever made that I didn't look forward to working on.  You might notice that half of the points in the blocks are the same brick red from 1982 that I used in the baby quilt.

This is also the only quilt I have ever made that has a label of any description (I have a plan to rectify this).  My friends loved their wedding present.  This quilt also went on the wall, instead of the bed where it should have gone.  There is a folk saying about sleeping under a new quilt bringing luck.  I'm not drawing any conclusions about causality, but the couple are no longer together.

The last quilt I have to show is a variation on the log cabin, made in 1994.  It went to a friend who was moving to Israel.  This was the last quilt in which I ever used polyester batting.  At the time, it seems like everyone was using it. It does allow wider unquilted spaces, and there is something elegant about the way you can outline the block and have the high loft of the polyester give a nice dimensionality.  But in every other way, it's just plain nasty.

I wish I had closer photos to show the piecing.  As I recall, the quilting on this was pretty awful.  I quilted in the ditch on the light sides and did horrible free-motion quilting on the dark sides of the blocks.  I was waging a losing battle with my horrible old bargain-basement Singer.  Clearly, I was asking it to do a job far beyond its ability and inclination.  When I remember how hard it was to machine quilt those projects, I can't believe I am smiling in the photos.  Maybe it's just from relief!

That's the end of the journey through the past.  It's onwards and upwards from here, folks!
P.S.  Wishing lots of luck to my pal, Lindsay, who is taking her first ever quilting class tonight!

Oldies But Goodies Part 1

When I was working on my PhD, I took an evening course in quilting offered by the local school board, for something to do as a relaxing change of pace from all the academic work.  I remember the teacher was a wonderfully skilled, older lady with many examples of quilts and quilted crafts.  On the first night, she gave us each a little block that she had prepared, with a preprinted mini-panel front, all nicely basted with Mountain Mist polyester batting inside and muslin on the back, and she asked us to use our best stitches to hand quilt along the preprinted lines.  She wanted to see what skills we brought to the class.  I remember being quite anxious as she inspected mine, and she told me I should strive for smaller stitches that wouldn't catch, although she did say that they were nice and even.  I still have that little square somewhere.  I used it for a needle holder for years and years.  I actually went looking for it to take a photo for the blog, but I couldn't find it.  I did, however, find some of the other things I was looking for.

This is a little lap quilt I made for my grandmother.  It's a bargello pattern that is much easier than it looks.  I did a one-day workshop at my LQS in Toronto at the time - and have very clear memories of hours and hours of rotary cutting and strip piecing like a demon, trying to get it all pieced by the end of the day, because the top was pinned to the design wall and couldn't easily be reconstructed at home.

On a student budget, I got all my backing fabric from the sale bin.  I was lucky to find one that fit so well.  Although it has faded a bit from use, the colours are brighter than they seem in the photos.

And here is a little vest that I made for my daughter when she was about two and a half.  I'm pretty sure this is the last thing I made before  my loooong hiatus from quilting.  I got a random vest pattern from the fabric store, Simplicity or some such.  I cut out the pattern pieces and eyeballed how big a pieced section I would need for the back and two front pieces in order to fit the pattern on.

I love the purples, greens and blues, and isn't it funny that those are the colours my daughter chose for her pinwheel quilt that I'm making now?

I came across the vest this summer when my husband and I devoted a week to cleaning out the basement.  Among other things, I tackled all the boxes of baby clothes, toys, baby bedding, etc.  For a while over the years, we thought we might use all that again, but the need never arose.  It was hard to say goodbye to the tiny shoes and sweaters!  I allowed myself to keep what would fill one large Rubbermaid tub.  I joked with my daughter that she could use this vest for her children, as long as she named them Maeve or Steve, since I could easily applique the extra letters on.  Here's the inside of this reversible vest.