Dear Janet Quilt

 

In 1865 Jane Stickle finished a quilt that consisted of 225 blocks. There are 169 of them that are 4.5" square and the rest are in the border. Jane made every single one of them different and pieced them by hand. For a long time it's been sort of a badge of honor for a quilter to make one.

Go here for more information on Jane's quilt.

But this blog post is about Janet's quilt :-)

 

My mother's name is Janet and she presented me with this heirloom last week.

Hung in my living room with pride, It has 49 inner 4.5 square blocks and 32 of the triangle border blocks.

Not only hand pieced and appliqued but hand quilted!

My mom is an amazing quilter.

Thank you mom - I love you!

:-)

 

 

 

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Fall photos

No quilting stuff today, just wanted to share some late fall photos I took today on my drive back from seeing my parents in upstate NY in the Adirondacks. I stopped at Shepards park on Lake George on this foggy morning.

 

This tree is a beauty

 

Nice of them to provide a bench for the leaves to sit on

 

Leaves everywhere!

 

And so I must go

From the glories of summer and the beauty of fall

To the ___________ of winter.

How do you fill in the blank?

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hookers and alpalcas

If that title doesn't get your attention nothing will. I wouldn't search for the title on google - no telling what photos may come up - lol!

Yesterday afternoon I went to a big rug hooking show and it just happened to be next to an alpalca festival so I wanted to share some pnotos.

Of course I had to go to the alpalcas first

 Such beautiful animals, there expressions are priceless, so calm and sweet.

this is Beckham - he has to be my next animal quilt - no question

 and then the rug hooking - I was floored at this exibit. Beautiful works or art made of strips of wool.  there were over 200 of these art pieces but of course I ended up taking photos mostly of the dog ones.


look! they even had Abbey and Summer!

 this one had an old window frame in the front - cool!

this woman had added real rocks and driftwood

love this idea

 the background is rug hooking

 magic carpet ride - she had this hanging by fishing line and supported by that plastic stand thing - a felted girl sits on the carpet



                                Sumac, which is brightly                                    colored everywhere right now

and I did love this method as well called proddy rugs, taking strips of wool or any cloth and just prodding or poking it thru a base close together with big holes and letting the ends fray free. they had a rug there and it felt so nice. To the right is a bowl made that way.


my first instinct is to run out and get all the stuff to do rug hooking now but do know my limits time wise although winter is coming and I will have more time for doing this type of thing. It looks like so much fun ;-)

have you ever hooked?

Free pumpkin art quilt pattern

Jill over at "the quilt rat" blog has generously offered a beautiful fall pumpkin pattern free that can be thread painted (or not) to celebrate her blogiversery - go here to check it out. Now that the leaves are down and cold is setting in we quilters start to hibernate and sew with abandon. Time to cuddle your fabrics folks!

 

It's all fusible so fairly easy but some little pieces if you choose to make it as big as the downloadable pattern, which I am. I suggest using an appliqué pressing sheet or parchment paper (which is what I use)

 

I started last night and got this far - all fused down.

Today I'm doing the thread painting - not as good as Jill but not to bad.

Hopefully next week I can show the finished piece

And speaking of updates, the stitch and slash I was working on last week?

I'm not liking it so much not because of the technique or even the pattern

I used knit challis type fabric to begin with (wrong) and then choose fabrics that were all purple solids except one, just different shades (wrong, this technique seems to work best with prints). I have tried everything even painting it but because it's knit the paint just gets absorbed and it all ends up looking muddy. It's on my design wall for a couple weeks in case some rescue revelation hits me but this will probablly end up in the "learning experience" trash pile.

And that's OK ;-)

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Stitch and slash

I purchased Carol Ann Waugh's craftsy class called stitch and slash and am really enjoying it. It's a different technique and I am all about different and trying new things. The class goes on sale for $20 often so wait for the sale if you want to try it. I'm finding it very fun. Here's what I've done so far.

 

This is a small block I did last week to test the waters

 

Added some borders and still have to bat, back and quilt but I have no idea what I'm going to do with it so in the UFO pile it goes for now. I started another one last night and took pictures along the way so you can get an idea of what is happening.

 

You take 4 different fabrics and stack them. The class will give you the how's and why's. Then on the top draw out a design of your choice. It's leaf peeping time here so thus a leaf.

 

You then sew along those lines.

 

Then using a seam ripper, you slash away around those lines. Here's the first layer gone.

 

Taking away the next layer

 

 

Now I'm down to last layer and will next add some couched yarns to cover the stitching. Doesn't look very good now but still more to go yet - stay tuned

I'll do another post with the progress. Now the fabrics I am using here are some challis and rayon mixes that I wouldn't normally use for quilting but I wanted to see how they do with this. I have them in my stash to make a blouse or jacket but let's face - that isn't going to happen so I might as well use it.

 

The only issue I'm having is the thinner fabric is really easy to slash all the way thru which isn't that big of a deal on the top layers but I did this 3 times on the bottom layer so had to hand stitch it together. It all gets FMQ ed down anyway and it's near the edge so it probably won't show.

 

Another reason I used the challis stuff I wanted to get rid of use up is you end up with a lot of waste ........ I hate to waste fabric - what can I use this for! In the class she shows you how to make more fabric out of the leftovers.

Any suggestions?

I wonder if the edged will melt?

 

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Stages

I have finished nothing this week but have many things in various stages of disarray completion.

Fabric auditioning stage

 

Quilting started but not finished stage

 

Quilting done but sewing down the facing stage

 

Just the Binding left stage

 

Bird fused and cut but still In the basket stage

 

Tacking onto painted stretched canvas stage

 

Stitch and slash sample stage 1

Will I finish any of these any time soon?

 

A friend told me about this bike bath in South Hero that is a causeway halfway across the lake.

I don't bike but I have two legs and a dog.

It is going to be in the low 70's and sunny today, the foliage is near peak.

I have the day off .

No quilting finishes today my friends ;-)

 

 

 

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