Quarantine Village Quilt Top

I just finished sewing a border on the Quarantine Village quilt top. It's nice to take photos outside because the light is better and there is more room. The wind can be a problem, though. I had to anchor the bottom edges of the quilt top to the backdrop stand. I don't know how to quilt this one. The pattern showed cross-hatching over the entire quilt, that might be tedious to do. Hopefully, something will come to mind soon.

Throwback Thursday; Stolen Raffle Quilt

In 1995, our guild's raffle quilt was stolen from the display window of our local newspaper office. According to the lottery corporation, we had to either make a new quilt or come up with a rather large sum of money for the prize. We scrambled to make a new quilt from blocks that we won at a quilting conference. It was like a relay race- one person would do some work on the quilt, then pass it to the next person to complete the next step. We kept doing this until the quilt was completed. The original raffle quilt had taken us four years to make, it was hand quilted and many of the blocks were hand pieced. The colours were pretty, including blue, purple, teal and white fabrics. I made a scrapbook detailing the whole story, but that's gone now too. I think it might be stored at a guild member's house, then forgotten about. It'll turn up one of these days.

New Zipper

Nothing irks me more than the flimsy zippers they put in garments. I took this jacket out of the closet and found the zipper was broken. How could something break by sitting in the closet all winter? I wore it last summer and it was fine. After digging around in my zipper drawer, I found a heavy-duty metal one. This is not the kind of job I like to do. Kudos to the people who do repairs and alterations as a means to make a living. It was not easy to pick out the old zipper, at least it wasn't also glued in like a winter jacket zipper that I replaced. Anyway, the repair isn't perfect by any means, but at least I'll get some more wear out of the jacket.

Linda H Made Some Masks

Linda made a few different styles of masks. Luckily, she had some ancient elastic that was still good. Sometimes elastic loses its stretch as it ages. She also had some old bias tape that came from her mother-in-law's sewing stash many years ago. It pays to keep sewing notions on hand in case of a pandemic.

The Batik Beast Is Finally Finished

I started working on the Batik Beast over seven years ago. At the time, I became overwhelmed with the 100 feathered wreaths that I was planning on quilting. It was tossed aside until this spring. I abandoned the idea of the feathered wreaths and did some "improv" quilting instead. Countless hours later, the quilting was completed, then the binding took ages to hand stitch. The pattern came from McCall's Quilting magazine, March/April 2012. It was called "Second Floor Walk-up, designed by Susan Guzman. It was supposed to measure 64 1/2" square, but I added many more blocks to it, plus a piano key border. My quilt measures more than 100" square. I used two different 1930s reproduction prints for the back. Nobody in their right mind would mix batiks with 1930s prints, but I'm not normal, haha! The Batik Beast will be given to my daughter, Lindsay.

Repair A Tear

I was quilting this eighteen-year-old UFO when I noticed a small tear in one of the squares. Of course, I didn't have that particular yellow in my stash anymore. I found a piece of similar fabric and hand appliqued a square over top of the damaged one, then quilted over top of it. Hopefully, it isn't too noticeable.

Throwback Thursday; Bowtie Quilt

I made this Bowtie quilt for my daughter, Lindsay in 1991 or 1992, there's no label to tell the date. It's hand quilted and took ages to complete. The quilt was used for many years, the colours are only faded a little, it's not worn out at all. I don't think I could hand quilt these days. My thumbs are stiff, it's not easy gripping a tiny needle for hours on end and I don't have the patience.

Working On A UFO

I dug this 18 year old quilt top out of the closet a few days ago. Originally, I was planning on adding a border, but decided against it. Now it is layered with the backing and batting, ready to be pin basted. I made this as a challenge for myself to create a quilt with only red and yellow. It's not anything that would match somebody's bedroom, I'll keep it for myself. I am not an interior decorator, it's nice to make quilts and not be confined to certain colour combinations.

Today's Project

It's cold and rainy today, a good day to get some quilting done. This quilt top was made a few years ago, I pieced a backing for it last week. I'm using "Pearl" Glide thread, it seemed to be the best choice for this quilt. Sometimes I don't know what colour to use, then end up grabbing one, thinking, "I guess this one will do". I really like Glide thread, it's smooth, without lint and doesn't break easily. I'm trying to do some simple quilting on this project, many times I get carried away and do too much, which makes a lot of extra work.