Quilting teaches me.... Simplicity

Introduction
I've been quilting for a lifetime, literally, and have come to the conclusion that we do what we love in part because it challenges us to learn. Anyone who quilts can attest to the idea of learning about fabric and supplies, blocks and backings, sewing and making. 
I'm exploring the other things that quilting teaches.

Erica's Hot Pink Girl

Simplicity is not something that may quickly come to mind when we think about quilting. After all, there are those fancy quilting motifs and, yikes!, those itty-bitty block pieces. What about this EPP business? Is there anything simple about quilting? I didn't think so.

Jack jumped over the candlestick

Well, I didn't. You know, way back when I started quilting. That first quilt was actually very simple, but I certainly didn't think so at the time. Let's fast-forward a couple of ten years. By that time I'd made many quilts, some for no reason except that I wanted to. I'd get an idea for a quilt and that quilt just had to be made. It didn't matter how difficult--I just convinced myself to study and figure it out. 

Always though, I'd come back to an easy quilt. It's a great way to quilt while my brain rests and thinks up new quilts. Funny how that works. 

The simplicity part. There are times when a simple quilt is the only way to go. Four-patches and nine-patches--straightforward, easy, controlled or scrappy...none it matters except the quilt. 

Sophie's Quilt (with 5 Babuska babies)

Simple quilts have their own kind of beauty. Those matching corners, which are okay even if they don't quite match. The straight lines and open areas. Perfect for a simple girl--one who lives in tee-shirts and flip-flops. Perfect for a new baby who just wants to be snuggled and warm. Perfect for almost anyone, almost anytime.

Don't get me wrong, I love dreaming up new ideas and creating quilts with hidden meanings. Art quilts are my current rave. But I always come back to simple. 

Quilting teaches me...

Perseverance

Charity

Simplicity

Patience

Why

Authenticity

Courage

Contentment

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: N U M B E R S

It's ironic that most quilters are artists who love color, texture and fabric, and fear numbers.  Yet, patchwork quilting requires the use of numbers almost as much as those other elements.  Patchwork quilts are made of squares, or blocks, repeated and multiplied by rows and columns.  So quilters, who  generally fear math, must use it to be successful.  I am definitely a member of the "can't handle math" sisterhood.  It's time to appreciate numbers!  Instead of fearing them, we can appreciate the math that allows us to create beautiful works of comfort.

4  Starting easy: 
four patch

9 A plus quilt made from nine patch blocks.

24 A log cabin block with six strings per side, requiring 24 strings per block. These come together surprisingly fast despite all the pieces.

5 Rail fence blocks made with five rails.  Great way to use 2 1/2 inch strips.  Sew, cut, arrange, done! 

9 Soft Irish Chain quilt, made with nine patches paired with white squares to form the chains.  I love the beautiful quilting.  Here's the math: five pairs per row X eleven rows = 55 pairs for a total of 110 blocks.  I can almost guarantee that I'd math something wrong.

16 This one looks difficult, but it's really not.  The 16 square blocks are made from four patches that are arranged with opposing dark and light squares.  The light squares always touch to form an inner square.  Then the big blocks are alternated with medium contrast single blocks. Easy, but dramatic.

8 A pretty pinwheel takes only eight pieces: four half-square triangles arranged to form the pinwheels.  Gotta love that quilting!

1 Last one: a whole cloth quilt that takes only one huge piece of fabric and some talented quilting.  How cool it would be to have the ability to have this level of quilting.

Thanks for visiting.  Feel free to visit my Pinterest "Heart, quilts" board which includes all of these beautiful quilts and about 400 more!  If you'd like to join the fun and pin to this board, just say the word.  I'll gladly add you to the pinners list.

Happy Quilting, 

Mary

Beautiful Bed Runner complete

 It's done.  All sewn up and off the machine.  I'm pretty excited about the outcome.  

The circle feathers look pretty good and the stippling did exactly what I hoped it would...worked out all the little kinks and bubbles, except for some in the corners, which try as I might, I couldn't get out.  

They're not too bad, though, and I'm pretty happy with the final results.  

 Most of these photos are of the blocks before taking the quilt off the machine.  

I emailed Diane and will square it up in the morning before shipping to back to her.  

 I don't know how excited she is to get the bed runner back, 

but I'm sure she's curious about how it will look on her bed.

 I don't know how she is, but I'm the kind of girl who loves surprises but hates to wait for them.

So, Diane, start watching for the mail carrier.

Beautiful Bed Runner continued

 I know, this is not a very creative title, but it works.  Especially since this post is a continuation of yesterday's....I had a few minutes to work on Diane's bed runner while Marley took a nap.
Thank goodness I loaded the quilt last night because it takes patience to load a quilt and I was using mine on Lil Miss Priss.  This is the first 20 minutes of her taking a nap.

Of course, eventually she did crash.  Because she didn't sleep very well last night, her morning nap lasted a good hour and half, so I did get a nice chunk of quilting done.

I started with the circle feathers that I planned to used.  Because I haven't done these in quite some time, I decided to practice on my small white board.  It's a way to increase muscle memory so that it becomes easier to move around the motif without having to think about which way to move. 

I'm definitely not a artist. In fact, you can see that I can not draw.  The idea is to get my muscles to move in the right directions while I'm thinking of what is next instead of what is happening right under the needle.  I've discovered that even thought my practices lines look pretty lame, the same lines are smoother when I "draw" them on with the machine.  

I am very good about looking ahead of the needle and, in fact, I can look ahead of the needle and a bit to either side, which allows me to anticipate how much space I'm trying to fill.  

Eventually I did get to the machine and started on those circle feathers.  The outcome is better than the white board drawing.  Isn't this going to be pretty?

I decided to leave the center of the four-patch square open so that the pretty points will stand out.  After I got a few squares stitched, I began thinking about the sashing strips.  There are a few problems with the borders being a little tight.  I decided to stitch the sashing with a medium stipple since stipples are pretty good about holding a quilt together and also quilt out some issues or problem areas.  

I got farther than I hoped today.  In fact, I got half-way through the quilting.  There are three rows of four-patch blocks and I've dropped feathers into almost two rows, plus I stippled some of the sashing.  Tomorrow I should be able to finish the feathers and and stippling.  Then I'll have only the borders left.  I hope to have the entire bed runner completed by Wednesday afternoon and ready to ship back to Diane on Thursday or Friday.  Of course, much depends on Marley's naps.

Beautiful Bed Runner

Diane, from Bastrop, Louisiana, sent me this wonderful bed runner to quilt on my Innova.  It's made of four patch blocks connected with beige sashing and bordered with a pretty green.  She sent the backing fabric which is a dark green with small diamonds.  It's all very pretty and I can't wait to get started in the morning.  I've loaded the quilt onto the machine and looked at a variety of quilting motifs, but I've decided to put down some circles and then add feathers on both sides.  If all goes well, the outside feathers will just touch the edge of each square, so each loop will increase or decrease in size as I move around the circle.  

I'm planning to take lots of photos as I quilt the runner and post them here so that she can read the quilt story and keep track of my progress.  That, however, may be slow as I'm babysitting Marley, our 18 month old grand-daughter, for the next few days.  She's a handful and very active, so we'll see how things go.

I hope you will join me in this quilt story.  Please add your comments and by all means, say hello to Diane.  Don't you think she did an outstanding job?  Check out her corners!  And if you can make out some of the fabrics, take a look at how well she married them.  I'm pretty impressed with her work and hope she likes my work enough to send me more.

Happy Quilting everyone!