Where Poppies Grow Progressing towards a Finish.

The last couple of months have been dominated by working to put together my quilt top for the Poppies project.

The top is now what I am calling done and ready to go to the longarm quilter. I say "calling done" because a couple of weeks back I thought I was done but then decided to make a few changes.

When you are working on a block of the month project things evolve during the process. Sometimes what you did at the beginning,and seemed right at the time, no longer look quite as right once all the blocks are done.

The February block, Love Entangled, as made I was quite happy with. This is how it looked:

However, once all the blocks were made and together as a set that pale color in the outer edge really jumped out. It is said that if one particular fabric or color jumps out at you the solution is to add more of it. But in this instance, with all the blocks made, I could not come up with a way to add more of it. So the only solution  was to remake it:

I think the block looks less interesting now but it does fit more happily into the set.

The September block, Red Cross, was one where I needed to ignore one of my own rules about the colors I was using. Because of the name of the block I really did need to use the color red and this was how it looked:

Again, when I had made the block I was quite happy with it. But put together as a set and those four red squares in the corners really needed to go. I auditioned several fabrics in there but eventually decided that plain corners looked the best and so the block had a renovation and now looks like this:

Golly, it looks vastly different doesn't it? Really all I did was to change out the corners. But this is the result of using two different cameras as well as photographing outside versus inside. Ditto the first block.

The original blocks as made by the designer were in a red , white and blue colorway. By choosing to make mine primarily in the taupe/khaki colors of the army uniform it did change how the fabrics contrast with each other.  In remaking the February block I happened to look back at the original pattern and see that the way I have arranged the fabrics in that outer edge is different from the original, thus making it my own version.

My Grandpop was in the devastating World War I battle that took place in Gallipoli, Turkey in April 1915 with huge loss of life among the Allies. New Zealand and Australia have long marked this battle by the observation of Anzac Day on April 25. This year, being the centenary of that battle, the services on Anzac Day will be ever more poignant and many added special observances will be taking place there. My way of marking the centennial will be showing you my finished quilt so don't forget to check back here on that date and see the finished quilt.

My Sister's Quilt Legacy

March 3 is the day that should have been my beloved big sister Kerry's 64th birthday. Sadly, cancer took her early aged 62.

Today I have been thinking about something we shared as sisters for many decades and that was quilt making.  Kerry came to visit me in 1981 shortly after I had finished taking a session of beginners quilting lessons and she was eager to give this new craft a try also.  Thus began an interest that was to keep us together for the rest of her life although in all that time we were always living in different countries (she stayed in New Zealand but I have bopped around from place to place).

 In the mid 1990's Kerry and I started a round robin group; this proved to be an enduring love and our group (some of the members changed from time to time) had a wonderful experience making quilt tops together for each other until 2013. We allowed ourselves two years per robin and met together at the New Zealand Quilt Symposium to reveal the most recent robin and hatch plans for the next one. We always had a lot of fun - the photo above is from the Wellington Symposium in April 2009 - and that's Kerry on the right and the fabulous Judy on the left. Kerry, Judy and I were in the founding group of six and participated in every round robin project through the years.

 Kerry made several quilted gifts for me and I treasure them. This one above was after she had taken a class with Mary Transom. Kerry and I both enjoyed taking classes with Mary at Symposiums.

 This little gem hangs where I see it every morning as I come downstairs. Around the time Kerry made this for me she used to see a family of Pukeko (a native New Zealand bird) every morning on her drive to the office.

 For our robin that was unveiled at the Queenstown Symposium in 2011 we had each chosen a word. Blocks were then made by each robin that illustrated the word and the last robin in the rotation had to put all the blocks together to make a finished top.  Here is the delighted owner Rhonda, on the left with the clever finisher Kerry on the right. Yes, Rhonda's word was "handbags".

 I guess our round robins had their introduction in this quilt (above) that Kerry and I made to present to our parents on their Golden Wedding Anniversary, May 3, 1997.  We first chose a multi colored print (that's it in the second to outer border) to use as the basis for our color scheme. Then we divided up the rounds and with Kerry living in NZ while I was in New Jersey, USA we began cutting and stitching. Fortuitously shortly after this I moved to Melbourne, Australia so it was easier to collaborate as we could see each other more often.

Here's a shot of a portion of the reverse side of the quilt. I turned over a corner so you could see the outer border more easily as I was not able to fit the entire quilt into the photo above.  But I'm including the reverse side for a major reason and that is labels. Kerry was a wonderful quiltmaker as you can tell from the few things I have shown you but...she was terrible at making labels to put on the back with details to document her work. For "GW Quilt" we had each daughter, their spouses and children all make an individual label to attach to the back along with some leftover blocks. This quilt is well labelled but I cannot say the same for many others that came from Kerry.

 This is the last quilt top Kerry made. If you have been reading my blog for a while you will recall the Grandmother's Choice project that was a Barbara Brackman block of the week a few years back. Kerry had kept up very well with making the blocks despite her illness - it gave her a good distraction and she was keen to finish the project. I helped her out by putting on the final outer border of her theme fabric and then organizing for it to be quilted and bound.

 Here's a detail of the quilt after it came back from a stunningly prompt quilting job by Dawn Copp of Cambridge Quilting. Like several of us doing the project Kerry had fun with fussy cutting.

 After Kerry's funeral I packed up two of her round robin tops to bring them home with me to be quilted and finished. Also in her cupboard I found these blocks so they went in my bag as well.

What was the intended finish I wonder? Was this stunning circular center to go with the NY Beauty blocks above? Another legacy - unfinished projects not stored with a pattern.

And I'm going to close out with this photo. I won't embarrass all by naming them. Suffice to say those vibrant green tee shirts and the green wigs were all Kerry's doing and there she is kneeling right in the front.

Looking at all these photos it shouldn't be too difficult for you to figure out what Kerry's favorite fabric color was to work with. 

Yes, we had a lot of fun. It's been good to remember Kerry today.

Let her legacy be a reminder to all to label your quilts so your sister is not the only one who knows (or does not) all the details about the quilt treasure.

Threads of Memory - the big finish

In a sprint to the finish line I can now show you my finished quilt from the Threads of Memory block of the month project from 2014.

 I do have to tell you that attaching the binding tested my powers of patience and perseverance so I had planned a post titled "Conversations with my Walking Foot" but time has allowed me to cool down and you'll see I went with another title.

But I'm going to show you some photos of the final process anyway and I do hope that you will comment on how you might approach this final task.

Now I don't know about you but I always attach my binding with the walking foot attached to my Bernina.  For this binding I had chosen to make a flanged binding - I think of it as the poor man's piped binding. In a piped binding you first make the piping and attach it; this is followed by machine stitching on a regular binding and then flipping it to the back and hand stitching it down all round the quilt.  The flanged binding is made from a pieced binding (the flange color and the binding color pieced together on the long (v e r y long) side and then machine stitched down on the back side of the quilt, turned to the front and one final machine stitching in the ditch and you're done. Well, there is the sleeve and the label but you get the picture.

 So here I am showing you that I have stitched the binding on from the back side and I'm going to fold it over to the front. What I am not showing you is the problems I had maintaining a straight line to get that binding stitched down. The secret to the success of this binding style is maintaining a very accurate seam allowance. And that is where I had such problems.

I would start off quite fine but then the 3/8" seam allowance would start veering off and becoming 1/4" and it was all downhill from there until I noticed, stopped stitching, cut thread and started again. What was the way to fix this?  I tried moving the needle position to the right. Yikes, it got worse. How about to the left? Yes, that helped but I was on the fourth side before I discovered this solution.

This shot shows the step of stitching the binding down from the front side.  This required a lot of holding my breath to stitch exactly in the ditch!

 Now I'm showing you the first side done alongside the finished side done.

The final step is to hand stitch down the hanging sleeve...doesn't the texture look great in this photo?

Now comes the disclaimer. I do not quilt my quilts!  This one was done for me by Su Gardner on her gammil quilting machine. Didn't she do a lovely job?

I decided to name my quilt "TOM Flies Free". This was based on the topic of the entire project - the Underground Railroad movement during the Civil War. A fabric motif that I deliberately sought to include in each block showed a bird (or birds) because I wanted to allude to slaves fleeing to freedom.

This has been a great project and I want to thank Barbara Brackman for the wonderful history stories and the way she tied them in with the monthly block patterns. Additionally I want to mention Becky Brown who was the block maker for Barbara; Becky was the person who started us all down the "fussy cutting" road and who, week after week, stitched up many perfect blocks for Barbara to show us. But without Dustin Cecil, our flickr leader, we would not have had the delightful sharing experience of being able to watch each week as our friends around the globe posted photos of that weeks block. Thank you to all three.

Coming soon, the final finish of my Remembering Almo aka Where Poppies Grow quilt which was the second block of the month project I worked on in 2014 and you followed along with me right here. It will be some weeks yet but it will be a finished project soon.

Finally, although I am proud of my quilt I am not proud of the photo of the final finish. Detail is lacking in the fabrics but you can see that detail by going back through the individual monthly posts. The photo was taken in a hurry while I had the quilt at a photo session for quilts going into our guild show in late May. Maybe later, when the weather cheers up (we are having repeat runs of snow, sleet, freezing temperatures) I will be able to take a more clear photo to show you.

Don't forget now, I'd love to hear your comments about how you attach the binding to your quilts.

Long Distance Reconnaisance

For two great weeks in January I have been away from home to travel to the land of my birth, New Zealand, to attend the biennial Quilt Symposium, held this year in Palmerston North in the Manawatu region of New Zealand. Of course I also took some time to visit with family there too.

Humor me and also be willing to take a look at some non quilt photos!  When I first got there ( a very long trip of 29 hours door to door and with an 18 hour time difference) I was keen to get outside and walk around in the sun to help my body acclimate to the new time zone. I was coming from the mid winter of the US middle east coast to full on summer in New Zealand. The locals were complaining of an unusually hot and humid spell of weather. When I took this photo above I was taking it for the contrast between the three buildings but you can also see that ominous sky. About four hours later I got caught out as the heavens opened up with an absolute deluge of heavy rain and I was stuck waiting outside the supermarket, within easy walking distance of my hotel, for forty minutes waiting for the downpour to stop.

Welcome to the Manawatu!

Some say that Palmerston North is the windiest city in New Zealand. They take advantage of that with this huge wind farm which apparently generates 80% of the electricity the area uses. I loved the way the setting sun highlighted the biggest of the wind turbines.

Once I got to the quilt exhibit I was delighted by this small quilt by Liz Gates of Fielding. The Manawatu Symposium was organised by a consortium of four area quilt groups and each had been asked to submit small works to show their area. The Symposium also featured many poppy images in recognition of the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of World War I which cost the lives of many soldiers from New Zealand.

The Symposium usually consists of several parts including: an exhibit, classes, merchant mall, lectures and more.

I was lucky to get into two classes with New Zealand tutors.  The first one was "Kapiti Seascape" given by Chris Kenna. I had seen Chris's quilt that this class was based on when I was at the 2011 Symposium in Queenstown...

At the time I loved the simplicity and elegance of this quilt so was excited to have the chance to take a class with Chris.  I'm sure you've all taken classes where you hope to get through the entire project but, if you are like me, and a bit of a slow poke, you come home with a project half done (yes, a PhD!)

Here's mine:

The way Chris has you do this is you first make your island, then assemble the sea and sky, add the island and then quilt it. Yep, that's as far as I got. And then my piece was rolled tightly and squashed in my luggage for more than a week so it is looking a little weary. But next I need to applique on the foreground. Chris has the classic New Zealand flax bush seed heads as the foreground. I might do that but I also have an idea to have the equally classic New Zealand cabbage tree in the foreground so later on I was busy trying to take photographs to give me an idea for that - see below.

Now I'm not sure if I have ever seen Kapiti Island but the local ladies in the class tell me I wouldn't see cabbage trees in real life when looking out at Kapiti. But I figure I can use artistic license if I want so, as they say, watch this space because I do think this is a class project I might just finish.

For my second class I was with the delightful Anna Williams for her "Celtic Rows" class. Again, I was pretty much of a slow poke. The method was somewhat similar to Kapiti Seascape in that we assembled a foreground (so to speak) then created and quilted a background. The celtic row foreground was then machine appliqued onto the background which, in essence appliqued and quilted at the same time.
Here are my pieces (again a little bedraggled from being stuffed in the suitcase):

You can see I regarded this more as a process than a project class. As a project it would be assembled in a quilt as you go style with narrow strips of binding between each of the rows. I can envisage using this technique for borders on a quilt and so hurried over to the Merchant Mall to see if I could find some patterns that might be adaptable for a current project I'm working on. Bingo! New Zealand Quilter magazine was having a half price sale on back issues and I picked up several. Alas, as I walked back to my hotel after class I realised how heavy those seven magazines were. Post script, I bought an additional suitcase before leaving New Zealand as my original one piece of baggage was now overweight!

But it is always an uplifting experience to go to a Quilt Symposium. The time spent away from home and all the domestic duties is a guilty pleasure and meeting up with friends you only see once every two years is an added bonus. Doing a little reconnaissance in other lands should be on every quilters "to do" list.

Now I'm home I must apply my time and my needle to finishing my "Where Poppies Grow" quilt top in the hope it can be finished ready to go to the Kansas City National World War I Museum for an exhibit in June. Before then I hope to get the binding and final finishing touches on my Thread of Memory Quilt which is currently with the longarm quilter.

Lots to do for me!

TOM 12 - Rochester Star for Amy Post and Harriet Jacobs

Here we are at the last block of this block of the month  from Barbara Brackman's Civil War blog project "Threads of Memory"; block 12 Rochester Star for Amy Post and Harriet Jacobs.

As you may remember I had some personal rules that I was working with: all the backgrounds used a solid grey fabric (Manatee from Free Spirit fabrics), had a bird print in there likely in the center, used a particular lime green (from the Just Color range by Studio E Fabrics - now discontinued) pop of color and tried to use only once all the other grey fabrics.  But every now and then I gave myself permission to break my own rules.

Block 5 did not have a good center for one bird print so I used lots of birds flying around a center of the lime green.

Block 10 again did not have a center patch so I decided not to have any birds either; instead there were stripes to represent the "jail" the slaves on the Underground Railroad were hoping to escape.

Block 12 did not use the same lime green fabric that all the others did. As an alternative I was finally able to use this lovely grey and white fabric with lime green leaves.

 For fun I thought I might show you what some of my fabrics look like now. See how great it was to be able to cut around those dominant red roses for this last block?

I also tried to balance out the birds. With hindsight I would really rather I had used only that one bird print at the top. But by the time I realized that I was not keen on remaking that many blocks. And besides, the stories had great variety so why not the "birds" too as they represented those who were trying to fly away to freedom. In addition to being sure I only used that top bird print six times I also had to be careful that I had three birds facing left and three facing right.

Once I looked at the blocks as a collection put on point, which is how I had decided right at the beginning I was going to set them, the April block was not a success as I had originally made it. Consequently yesterday I spent some "quality time" with the seam ripper and replaced eight outer light triangles with the standard solid grey. It makes a lot of difference and I am happier with that block now.

Now comes the time to set all the blocks together and make a quilt top.  I'm going to show you a sneak preview...

The blocks are all up on my design wall and I am able to see how many lovely ones there are.  It's hard to say which is my favorite because I have to choose between, oh let me see...3, 7, 11 and 12. But what about 8, 9, 6 or 1? And if I go look at what the flickr people had to say about them I notice that blocks, 1, 2, 3, 9 and 11 were marked as a favorite.

Which all goes to show three things: I'm very analytical aren't I?!, I'm also detail focused but most of all, there were some fabulous stars in this project.

Keep checking back in to see my finished top. And maybe you'll even make a comment.

Where Poppies Grow in December

And so we come to the last block for this project, Heavenly Puzzle.

For this last block in the project it was time to dig through the fabrics I had set aside and see what had not yet been used. Sometimes the result of such a search ends up with a mishmash of fabrics that really should not appear together. Such was the case to begin with when I started pulling and cutting fabrics for this block. At the end I had quite a pile of pieces already cut but then discarded (note to self, you had thought to photograph that...oh well. It didn't happen.)

Technical note, the light outside was failing rapidly and I was hurrying to take the photo. Only now am I wondering why my perfectly square block looks skewif.

But with this last block done I now have to get serious about the setting and finishing because I really would like to be able to send my finished quilt to the National World War I Monument in Kansas City to be included in a display there in June, 2015.

 Denniele Bohannon created a lovely project that I have been very touched by and proud to have been able to sew along and make a quilt in memory of my Grandpop, James Patrick Coughlan. Now Grandpop served in the New Zealand Army which was not quite the same as Denniele's Great Grandfather, Almo O'Kell, the subject of the project, who was a medic with Field Hospital  No. 3 of the First Division commanded by General Pershing. But Grandpop and Almo were both fighting for the same cause despite coming from opposite sides of the globe.

 As you know I like to set up a photo showing my block with some appropriate props. Denniele has been very thorough with her project and has already had a book published featuring this project but adding other items with the same inspiration. On my Christmas wish list I included the book and was delighted to be able to unwrap it on Christmas Day and of course it was a natural to include in this post.  I also added a copy of Grandpop's service record along with some poppies and a newspaper cutting...

In a small collection of items hand carried here to me in April when my sister came to visit was this notice, clipped from the local newspaper many years ago, announcing Grandpop's funeral. I thought it might be an appropriate prop to go with the block for this month, "Heavenly Puzzle".

Now I must get busy and create the setting blocks/border to turn this set of blocks into a finished quilt top and ultimately into a finished quilt worthy of being on display on Kansas City.

As they say...watch this space!

Dixie Diary Debut

Last year a block of the month project from Barbara Brackman that you'll recall I worked on was The Dixie Diary.  Although I had my quilt finished months ago I have been somewhat tardy in showing you that finish. So I'd like to remedy that here and now. Just remember that I'm a quilter first and a photographer second!

I accumulated a goodly amount of grey fabrics while making my BB Civil War quilt "The Blues and the Greys" in 2011 so, in trying to be a thrifty housewife, this Dixie Diary was also designed around using that grey fabric. This time I teamed it with pink because the Dixie Diary is, after all, the diary of a young lady.

The block patterns were given to make a 12" block but I decided to scale the patterns down and make 6" blocks. The setting, spacing the blocks apart and framing each one, would give the individual blocks a chance to shine. Above, the whole block shown is block 2, Checkered Allegiances.

Here I've highlighted block 11, Just Hominy, for you. I will hasten to let you know I quilt by check i.e. the quilting is done by a longarm quilter, Su Gardner of VA Quilting. We decided that as the blocks were somewhat simple we would also quilt them in that way. I had designed the setting to allow lots of open space for the quilting to feature and Su did achieve that I think.

The grey and pink fabrics I selected for my settings are from the Moda Basic Grey collection. Above is my version of  block 12, Turning Yankee.

Here I'm showing you the border and finishing treatment I used. The border was a wide swathe of the pink on white toile fabric I had used as my background in all the twelve blocks. The binding was done in a flanged style using the grey (as the flange) and pink from the setting.

The block patterns as provided were all intended to have a motif appliqued over the center of the block - either a 5 pointed star or a heart. At the six inch size, and having taken considerable effort to both fussy cut my fabrics and sew accurately, I was not feeling so inclined to do this applique. I compromised in an effort to stay true to the designer's intention - two corner blocks have a double heart applique and two have a pieced five pointed star.

You can revisit my experiences in making the Dixie Diary blocks by going back into the 2013 postings on this blog.

I have been waiting for weeks for the weather to co-operate so I could take my photos outside. Today at last was a sunny day but all at once the sun went down and I was in a mad scramble to take the photos. The block above, I can assure you, is perfectly square. The photographer, alas, did not have her camera accurately positioned.

This year I have been working on two "block of the month" projects about which I have been posting here: "Threads of Memory" a Civil War project by Barbara Brackman and "Where Poppies Grow" aka "Remembering Almo" by Denniele Bohannon and Janice Britz to acknowledge the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. With only one block remaining in each project I will soon be hard at work setting those blocks in readiness for quilting.

Hopefully, you'll check back here often to see how they turn out. Surely I will be able to share the finished quilts with you in a little more timely fashion than has happened for The Dixie Diary.  But in the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed seeing my finished quilt, the newly renamed "Sarah's Troubles".