UFO # 2

Last weekend I finished binding the Heartstrings Quilt. I really enjoyed this quilt - it was easy, used up lots of scraps, and it has great visual impact. I got the idea of putting the red half inch strips on either side of the brown strip in each block from Melva whose quilt blocks were photographed on Mary's Heartstrings blog.

The hardest part of this quilt has been photographing it, as it keeps raining. Or it is dark when I get home from work. Here are some not such great shots outside:

Susan Caldwell picked a good thread color because it looks light on the dark fabrics and dark on the light fabrics:

Given that this is such a geometrical quilt, I wanted sort of a geometrical quilting pattern. I picked a baptist fan variation panto that provided a curved counterpoint to the straight line strip piecing:

Unfortunately, I don't remember what the pantograph is called. But the above photo is a shot of the back.

I had originally planned to give this quilt away; I envisioned it as a man's quilt. But now that I have it done, I can't give it up. It is full of my former projects - there are scraps of dresses I made for me and my mother, scraps from skirts, and shirts, and quilts, usually given to others. Maybe it is because it is my first real scrap quilt, but I just can't let it go. So I'm keeping it, and I have named it "A Man's Heartstrings". It is a substantial weight quilt, due to the muslin foundation of the squares, and it has been keeping me warm every night since I got this done. After reading the Selfish Seamstress blog, I'm trying not to feel guilty about keeping it. : )

Parting Shot: Look what I knitted at my first lesson!

After the very first stitch, it all came back to me, and I just knitted away as if it hadn't been 38 years since I had picked up a knitting needle. How could this be, I wondered? "Muscle memory," said Laura, our fab instructor and knitter extraordinaire. Next week we get to learn to purl!

A Finish!

I finished piecing the Heartstrings quilt this weekend and I couldn't be more thrilled. Here is the whole thing: I've had this quilt knocking around in my head since the beginning of this year, and it was like I was on a mission to bring it into reality. I envisioned it as a man's quilt, so I used the brown strips, set off by the red half inch strips on either side. I also used fabrics I thought as "manly", like those depicting nature (leaves, trees, animals), along with fabrics from shirts, or those that look like they were from old shirts. Some of the fabrics I had left over from making shirts for friends, like Glen. Some of the fabrics were from four or five old shirts destined for Goodwill or the garbage. Here is one of the shirts I used after I cut the back out of it for strips:

Looks pretty funny with no back! But I found the back of a size large man's shirt provided a good size piece of fabric perfect for cutting strips with the rotary cutter. After making this quilt top, I have discovered that I am looking at men's shirts in a whole new way: Friday at work I was eyeing a co-worker's shirt he had on, thinking, "that shirt would look good in a quilt"! You can't just ask a man for his shirt, especially if you tell him you want to cut it up. I'll have to keep my eye open for shirts at Goodwill in the future.

I originally envisioned putting brown borders on this quilt, but having sewn the blocks together, I like it just the way it is above, with no borders. I'll use the same red fabric to bind it, and I think it will be perfect. (One thing I did notice about this quilt is that I seemed to end up with MORE fabric strips in my stash after I finished the quilt than when I started. Anyone else have this problem?!!!!)

The quilt will finish 54 inches x 72 inches, and it is a small enough size that I actually considered quilting it myself on my Bernina. But then I remembered I wasn't crazy. Susan Caldwell is currently quilting two customized lap quilts for me, so when I pick them up, I'll drop this one off. I also originally planned to give this quilt away, but I like it so much, I might just have to keep it. I think I'll call it "A Man's Heartstrings".

Parting Shots: I went to the Celtic Festival today and I got what I usually get: muddy boots.

I don't know why, but every year I go, we seem to have Scottish weather, cool and windy, with rain the day before. The bluster makes the festival feel authentic. I also got what you always get at fairs: junk food. It's not a festival without Kettle Corn!

I Got A Present!

My friend Loy made me this necklace and sent it to me week before last. I found the rock at St. Bee's Beach in northwest England, where we visited in May of 2007. The photo doesn't do the necklace or the rock justice - the smooth rock, right from the Irish Sea, is a deep, smooth green color, and Loy drilled a hole in it and suspended it from the copper thingy. She did a fabulous job, and you can read about her work here. (Note: Loy's real name is Laura, but Miss Eileen named her Loy when they were roommates in college, so there's nothing she can do about that.) Currently, Loy is teaching a beading workshop, and is having a big sale in November. (If you are interested in her incredible stuff, I can hook you up - drop me an email or leave a comment.)

Photos I took while at St. Bee's Beach. First the young lovers: Doggies are everywhere!

Really beautiful scenery, and the approximate area where my stone was lying when I found it:

There were people actually swimming in the incredibly cold ocean when we were there. It was sunny, but NOT warm:

The Double Wedding Ring Update: I have all the blocks sewed together in rows. Now I need to join the rows. This isn't as simple as it looks. Apparently in order to always sew with the white part of the block on top, one has to sew on the seam for a while, and then flip the whole business over and sew on the other side for a while. At least this is what is explained in the directions. I need some uninterrupted sewing time to figure it out.

To take a break from all that, I am making a Heartstrings quilt, as mentioned in a previous post. I have half of the blocks DONE. It is such an easy block to make, particularly in comparison to the DWRQ. One thing that has come in handy is the rotating cutting mat I got to make the DWRQ. It makes life so much easier and I am using it on the Heartstrings quilt as well.

You start off with a block that looks like this:

You trim a side and then rotate the mat for each side like so:

And your finished block looks like this:

Why didn't I get one of these years ago???

Parting Shot: Half of the Heartstrings are blocks done. I'm loving this!

Sewing ADD

My 30 minutes a day is paying off! For the past week, sewing 30 minutes a day on the DWRQ has allowed me to finish the nine remaining "footballs" and get one row sewed together! Wooo-hoo! Obviously, such industry must be rewarded, and what better reward than to irrationally begin a new quilt???? My motivation for getting the DWRQ pieced is so I can start one of Mary's Heartstrings quilt. So against better judgment, I did. These are the first 8 blocks I made this past weekend. They aren't sewn together, but I laid them out so I could see how they will look. My intent is to make a man's quilt, so I made the center strips all brown. In order to set the brown strips off, however, I added the red strips down each side of the brown. You can see a close up here:

I cut the brown strip 2 inches wide and the red strips 1 inch wide. So the red strips finish at 1/2 inch wide. (I saw this variation on Mary's blog by one of her readers, but now I can't locate the post where Mary showed it off.) The rest of the fabrics are what I would consider "manly" fabrics. I am using outdoorsy prints, civil war reproductions, and at least five castoff shirts given to me by my (boy)friend who was getting rid of them anyway. One of the fabrics comes from his old welding coveralls. He had used duct tape to cover the rips in the knees, and the only usable part of the coveralls was the back, but I got a few good strips out of them! I'm having a lot of fun with this quilt and the easy block is fun and quick compared to the DWRQ.

In other fun news, I found my mother's wedding dress! Well, not really. My grandmother made my mother's wedding dress when my parents got married in 1962. I remember the dress when I was child; my mother kept it in a gray box wrapped with a couple of pastel ribbons. I used to open it as a girl and look at it. I thought it was the most beautiful dress ever. It was in two pieces: a satin underdress that was strapless, and a lace overdress, with a bateau neckline, long sleeves, and basque waist. Unfortunately, in our last move before my father retired from the Army, the dress was lost. I was so disappointed. I loved that dress. About a dozen years later, my grandmother died, and all of her sewing supplies, including her patterns were sold or given away.

I didn't start sewing until 2003, and since that time I have been on the lookout for the pattern that was used to make Mother's wedding dress. I had always hoped that if I got married, I could be married in the same dress. With the internet and the explosion of interest in vintage patterns, this search has allowed me to waste, I mean, enjoy, hours of my time looking at vintage wedding dress patterns.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was on Erin's Dress-A-Day blog where she linked to a Wiki site of bridal patterns. (It's her September 8th post.) Something told me that my grandmother would have likely used a Simplicity pattern. I don't know why I felt that, but I did, so I started with the Simplicity patterns, and after about a half dozen clicks, there it was:

Here's a better photo that I shamelessly stole:

I knew this was it; right down to the basque waist. I was further convinced when I found out that the pattern was published in 1962. Here's a close up of version 1 which was used to make my mother's dress:

My grandmother also used the pattern to make all three bridesmaids dresses, in yellow, as I remember. I emailed the photo to my mother, who said, "Yep, that's it." Here's a photo of the dress worn by my mother on her wedding day:

Unfortunately, you can't see the waist very well in the photo. But dig the pointy sleeves at the wrists! I love it. This photo is of my parents at the Baha'i wedding at my grandparent's house, so Daddy is wearing a suit and Mother isn't wearing her veil. Later that day, they had the Christian church wedding, where Daddy wore his dress blues, while Mother did wear her veil. (Also made by her mother.)

Now armed with the pattern number, I just googled it, found two of the patterns for sale, one of which was in my size. I ordered it pronto and I am now the proud owner of the pattern for this great dress. Rest assured, I'm in no danger of getting married, but if I do, I have the pattern for it!!!!

I'm thinking that my grandmother would be vastly amused that the pattern she paid 65 cents for in 1962 is worth $ 40.00 in 2009.