A little bit of sewing

Yesterday, I had a few minutes in the studio and was able to finish the backing for the “Rosebrock Garden Cuttings” quilt. (see this post).

As I originally said, I was trying to use as many of the leftovers from the previous quilt and wanted to continue that idea on the back. I was able to use a bunch of the pieces, but finally decided that it was looking too cluttered so I took a few pieces off and just finished it!!!

Here is the back….layered, basted and ready for quilting!!!

Oh…by the way, the train is back on the design wall so hopefully there will be more posts about this in the next few weeks!!!!

Rosebrock Garden Cuttings

Cast your mind back to September of last year and a post that I wrote about a bag of leftovers from a quilt that my Mom and I had made together……

I had started working on the alternating blocks while we were visiting in Oxford, England for 2 months. But, when I returned and started to put the blocks together I realized that I didn’t like how they looked. SO, I put the original blocks aside and started over again with a different design. Then, when I got to the border, I designed and pieced one side of the quilt, but the I didn’t like it when I started to apply it to the quilt. Once again, it was pitched aside and I started over again.

SO, as I was doing some cleaning out, I came across a bag containing the following bits and pieces…… all leftovers from the original quilt…..

After going thru all of this and determining how many different blocks and patches I had in each type I moved to Electric Quilt and started to design a block that would use as many of these pieces as possible. This is what I came up with….

I then took photos of the two blocks and played with them in Photoshop until I came up with this…..

After piecing the center, I auditioned a ton of fabrics to pick the borders. After deciding on a small pink border, I started looking at all of the small strips that I had left over and turned it into a piano key border.

The final border was a toughie……I kept putting fabrics on the design wall and taking photos of them, but couldn’t find anything that I was happy with. Then I came across one of the Caryl Bryer Fallert gradation fabrics and was really excited to see how it looked. I spent a LONG time trying to figure out how to turn the corners so that the colors blended, but finally decided to just start attaching it and to adjust as I went.

ANYWAY, here is the finished top……

I am now working on the backing, and hope to use the last few bits of the leftovers.

Oh, and about the quilt name…… when we spent our two months in Oxford, we lived in a house just across from Merton College that was built in the 1500’s and remodeled in the 1700’s. There was a gorgeous courtyard, complete with a pond, 2 pooping Mallards and beds and pots of wonderful plants. The garden was named “Rosebrock Garden” and the quilt is made of the leftovers (cuttings) from “Mother Daughter Flower Garden”……thus “Rosebrock Garden Cuttings”

……more to come…….

UFO Finished….well, almost

Today I worked on a project that has been in my UFO bin for about FIFTEEN years!!!

It started out as a full size Christmas quilt for my bed. It was in the days where I hadn’t done a lot of machine quilting and had never tried quilting anything as large as this one, so I decided to hand quilt it…..GULP!! I used a “quilt-as-you-go” technique where you put sets of blocks together, baste and quilt them and then put all of the sets together to form the final quilt.

I had made the first two strips, each consisting of three blocks. Life then got in the way, and I lost interest in the project. It was relegated to the top shelf of my bedroom closet….in my mind, it didn’t even qualify for placement in my studio. I had even thought several times about throwing it away.

Last year, I made a list of my UFO’s and suddenly remembered this one so I added it to the list. This was how it looked at that time……

As I looked at it, I decided to turn it into a lap quilt of three rows of 2 blocks each. I have thought about this project over the last few days and kept trying to come up with a grand plan for doing this, but finally decided to just START the project and let it take me where it would.

It has taken several “finagles” to make the design work, but I am pleased with the overall results. There is still some quilting to be done on it (by machine) and a bit of hand quilting to be taken out, but that can happen later when I am looking for a quick project to fill a few hours.

Technically, it is not a wonderful quilt, but I am REALLY looking forward to pulling it out next December and wrapping up in it!!!

One Thing Leads to Another

Today, I went into my studio to do a bit of cleaning up before I started working on the backing fabric for the string pieced wallhanging. I got everything cleaned up and then started looking for the backing fabric. I opened a box of UFO’s to see if there was anything that I could use and out popped this forgotten bag of bits……

These were the leftovers from the Mother-Daughter Flower Garden quilt that I made last year. …..

I had tried several different setting blocks and border blocks before I decided on the final version and this is a bag of all of the bits that weren’t used.

There are 14 finished blocks (along with the bits for 1-1/2 more)……

These blocks will finish at 9 inches.

In addition, there are the following…..

38 Half square triangles that will finish at 2 inches

62 Half square triangles that will finish at 1 inch.

6 Corner units

and 14 of these un-named units,

and a mass of other shapes and sizes of fabrics.

NOW, the question is “what will I do with all of this???” I already have a name for the quilt….. “Cuttings from the Garden”. I may ask my Mom to make one more flower block for it, but that is yet to be decided.

Needless to say, I ended up working on this and forgetting about the backing fabric that I was looking for…..oh well, there is always another day.

Bits and Pieces

I finished the last two BQL challenges yesterday, including binding. Here they are…..

I especially enjoyed doing the embellishing on the purses.

I had commissioned my friend Anita’s husband (Bill) to make a rust piece for me that looked like sunflowers. Last night she presented me with this wonderful piece…..

I cant decide which side I want to use…..what do you think?

I think that I am going to print out a bunch of copies of this photo and practice designing the quilting.

I am leaving for Texas in the morning to spend a few days with my Mom. The main project that I want to do is to document all of her quilts……she has done some wonderful ones.

I will try to post if I can. I am actually excited about trying to do an email post, but am not sure that I know how. If you see some strange entries, you will know that I am trying to figure out the process.

Until later…….