Small Quilts and Doll Quilts: September 2019

Monday, September 30, 2019

Design Wall Monday - September 30, 2019

My design wall actually has a completed quilt top on it today!!! Yeah! I got this quilt out recently as someone had asked what my oldest UFO was. This is it, and it is now finished. It will be named "Red Delicious".

The apple cores are 3 inches long from top to bottom (finished), and the quilt top measures about 66 inches square, and has 32 apple cores in each row and column. To qualify for a "charm quilt", it should have at least 1000 pieces, and this one has 1024. It was started by my friend Joan Edwards, in New Hampshire, and finished by me, while living in Virginia and Michigan.

As you can see, I started a doll quilt to match the large one:

Since the large pieces were three inches in length, I made the smaller ones half their size, to finish at 1.5 inches in length.

It is so much fun for me to make doll quilts. I don't know how big this one will be, but probably about 10 rows by 10 columns, for 100 squares. I am 1/4 the way finished after just one day and evening of hand sewing while watching football.

What is on your design wall today? I so appreciate looking at your quilts. The pictures are my "pleasure break" on Mondays from laundry and cleaning the house. Please provide a link somewhere within your blog post that links back to this particular blog post. Thank you!

Monday, September 23, 2019

Design Wall Monday - September 23, 2019

Good Monday Quilters! I wanted to show you another hand pieced, hand quilted beauty from the special exhibit that was at the AQS QuiltWeek in Grand Rapids recently. This one made me stop and think about why I fuss about the colors I choose. Look at this beautiful quilt:

It is so brightly colored and I was amazed that I liked all of it - together! Bright red cornerstones, purple sashing, pink blocks, orange blocks, maroon blocks, anything goes:

Here are close-ups of two blocks: Eight 4-patches and eight hsts make up the block:

Here is the card with info about this quilt:

What is on your design wall this week? I so enjoy looking at your work. Keep posting and linking, please. All I ask is that you provide a link somewhere within your blog post that links back to this particular blog post.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Design Wall Monday - September 16. 2019

This week I got out one of my oldest UFOs. I don't know why I stop on a project, but I do know that it is always fun to get a UFO out and see what's what. This project was started by my friend Joan Edwards, and after she worked on it a while, she announced that she was done, and wanted to get rid of it. I volunteered to take it and finish it......well, I volunteered to take it anyway. The apple cores are 3 inches finished height, top to bottom. How old is it? Well, there is one fabric with "2000" printed on it, so it's at least 19 years old.

In looking at it this week, part of it is hand pieced, and part of it is machine pieced. Joan's pieces are all hand pieces, and mine are both hand and machine pieced. I remember taking a class on machine piecing curved pieces, and practiced on this quilt after the class. It is supposed to have all different fabrics in it, but I don't know if that is so at this point in time, and now all I want is to finish it.

I looked online at different apple core piecing methods, and found information about English paper piecing apple core blocks.....I hadn't tried that yet. Here's my first attempts, and I like it. I like this method because there is no fiddling with the concave and convex curves while I am sewing the two pieces together. I read about it (Here)

Here is a picture of some "English papers" I have drawn to cut up and try the English paper piecing method. I drafted my own papers by drawing a box 3 inches square, making a circle that touched the middle of all four sides, cutting it out, and folding it into fourths. Then I drew another box on graph paper, and used the folded circle to draw each 1/4 of the apple core. If you look at my graph paper, you can see that "x" marks I used as guides (showing the center of each apple core), and see how I traced the arches from the folded circle to connect them.

When I first got this UFO out, I did a quick count of how many pieces were in it, and came up with a rough estimate of around 600. This type of quilt is called a "charm" quilt, with the definition being at least 1000 pieces, all the same shape, and all different fabrics. So only about half way to 1000 pieces! Well, Sunday night when I put it up on the design wall, with the start of adding 2 rows to the right side.....I counted again, and it will be 32 pieces X 32 pieces....1024 pieces! So all of the "learning" I did on how to English paper piece this type of block will make this UFO get finished rather quickly.....or so I think right now. Stay tuned...LOL I am thinking of naming it "Red Delicious".

I also think the new method would be the way to go for a doll quilt sized Red Delicious. I am adding a small one to the never ending bucket list of quilts I want to make.

What are you working on? Please link up and show us your design wall for Design Wall Mondays. I do ask that you provide a link somewhere within your blog post that links back to this particular blog post.

Monday, September 9, 2019

Design Wall Monday, September 9, 2019

Yikes, I forgot to post my Monday AM post last night. I usually write it before I go to bed. But please forgive me, I'm old. (I used to do things like this when I was young too, but now I feel I have an excuse). lol

So, since I'm not at my design wall, let me show you a quilt I liked from the recent Grand Rapids AQS exhibit. There was a group of quilts off to one side that were entirely hand pieced and hand quilted......my favorites!

This was an Ocean Waves quilt with great colors:

I loved the pinwheel centers, the hourglass setting squares, and the touch of cheddar that added so much to the quilt. Here's the full quilt:

I had to study it for a bit to decide if the cheddar was random, or placed in a certain spot....and saw that there was a "pattern" to the cheddar placement.

It is always the middle triangle of the hst strip that is towards the light part of the hourglass block. It is such a beautiful quilt. Two more pictures:

What are working on this week? I am back in Grand Rapids, and am organizing the small/doll quilts again. I have a goal of having a label and hanging triangles on each one, and there is a pile of them waiting for me to get that done.

Thanks for participating, it always pleases me to see what you are doing. Please, as always, I ask that you link back to this particular blog post from somewhere within your blog post.

Monday, September 2, 2019

Design Wall Monday - September 2, 2019

September is here, and in the United States, it is Labor Day, a national holiday. I have taken a holiday from quilting this week, and have no progress to show you on my quilts. So here is a doll quilt that will be in keeping with my subject today. Butterflies!

This butterfly doll quilt is 10.5 in. by 11.5 in, and was a gift to me in 2003, by my friend Dee.

The butterflies are machine blanket stitched down.

I'll post about the beautiful "Monarch nursery" we have here. The milkweed plants are just off the front porch, where the caterpillars eat until they are fat.

Then then crawl up on the porch and form a chrysalysis which hangs from the ceiling. We have 8 monarch chrysalises still hanging there, and 5 empty ones where the Monarch butterflies have emerged and flown away. Here is one who has just emerged after his wonderous transformation:

What is on your design wall this week? I'm looking forward to reading your posts and seeing your pictures. Please put a link within your post that links back to this particular blog post.

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