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".

TOM 11 St Charles Star for Louisa Alexander

We are getting close to the end of the Thread of Memory project with this entry, the St Charles Star. You might recognize it as we have seen at least two earlier blocks that are quite similar.

We have had a few blocks now that have the star appearing to rest on something. For this one several of us making the blocks have taken to saying our star is sitting on a doily.

The challenge for me is again what to do with that big central 4" block. Right back at the beginning I purchased a fat quarter of the grey fabric with big circles of white dots. It seemed too bold to use until this month when I determined that it could provide a new look for the center.

The pattern as given allowed for piecing or appliqueing the "doily"; I decided hand applique would give me the result I wanted even if it was not at the speed I wanted. In addition to the "doily" applique I also needed to applique the center big dot along with my fussy cut of the little bird.

In the end I was quite happy with how my block looks. Of course you need to remember that I am setting the blocks on point.

My helper and I had fun setting up this photo. If you have read the history story behind the block this month you will know that Louisa Alexander escaped her slavery position by hiding under a load of cornshucks in a wagon drawn by oxen. Lacking both the cornshucks and the oxen I decided to make do with a wagon of hay to remind us that Louisa's owner Jim Hollman, was part of a group called "Haystack Secessionists".

This week I have had few reasons to be away from home and thus had expected to be able to take some time with my camera and my quilts. Alas, the weather has been not at all co-operative. But for an escape story the very overcast weather provided a suitable backdrop for my photo set-up.

I better get busy again with the setting blocks - they were started several weeks back but have been untouched since early November and I want this quilt top finished by early January to go to the longarm quilter.

Where Poppies Grow in November

I see I have been remiss in not always remembering to tell you the name of each of these blocks. Sorry about that. For November the block we were given is titled Mothers Dream.

 As you can see from the photos I have had a big problem in photographing my block this month. Additionally, I set myself up for a big challenge with my fabric choices.

Moving right along. In the back story for the block this month, Denniele again talks about the death of Almo (the focal character for this project who was also her great grandfather).

As you might remember, I am making my quilt to honor the service of my grandfather, James Patrick Coughlan. He was a survivor of the Great War and came home again much to the relief of his mother Caroline.

 Here I am showing you that a few short years after the war, this photograph was sent, with a hand written inscription "with love from Richard and Jimmie to Grandma C". (Jimmie and Richard are James Patrick's sons.)

Up close, the taller/older boy is my Dad, James William Coughlan with his younger brother Richard.

This project has now given us 11 blocks with just one more to come before we must set our blocks together and turn this project into a finished quilt. While I am looking forward to the last block I will be sorry for the project to come to an end as I have enjoyed very much the challenge of sewing some lesser known blocks that require a good amount of skill.

Where Poppies Grow in October

This was not a block for the fainthearted! I made it twice. And wondered about making it a third time until I had a stern discussion with myself.

When done well this is a good looking block. But the way to make it involves the use of templates which takes some of us back more than a couple of decades when everything was made that way.

I made my first version while away on a retreat with my quilt guild. In packing my things to go I had carefully printed the downloaded pattern from Pickledish and, to be sure I had everything, I also went to Blockbase and printed out their templates. It took me several hours to make the block and then I packed it away. Alas, once I got home and laid my 9 1/2" ruler on top my block was not up to size and I had to make the decision to start over.

Denniele, the designer, had also perhaps had some experience with this because she had redrafted the templates and, oh happy day, using those required straight line piecing and not the set in seams using the blockbase templates. So for version two I used Denniele's templates. Result? A correctly sized block.

For a fun photo I decided to play a little with the name of the block. The sun was strong and casting good shadows so I laid my block down and accessorized it with a red and a blue "dove".

Looking at Grandpop's service record for the month of October I find that he was appointed to the rank of Temporary Corporal on October 28, 1916. On October 2, 1917 he was attached to the base at Etaples and later in that month he was posted to the 3rd and then the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment.

Sadly, in the writeup for the October block in the Remembering Almo project we discover that Almo O'Kell, in whose memory this project was created, died of peritonitis on January 12, 1919 while still in Europe and thus was never reunited with his family.

With only two more blocks for this project I wonder what else we will find out about Almo's service.