Sanctuary Quilts

Our congregation received a grant from the Lilly Foundation, and part of the grant was set aside to make a banner for the sanctuary.
We have a Spanish mission style church, and we chose to replicate the carved cross in the chancel. The congregation contributed fabric that had personal meaning, and we received fabrics such as  a traffic vest, a baby bib, a high school letter jacket, military symbols, a wedding dress, and lots of tee-shirts. For our congregation, this quilt has become a symbol of who we are. We are the Body of Christ, as represented by the seemingly incongruent fabrics, tied together by the love of God.

I just happen to have a picture of the sanctuary taken at a wedding 42 years ago. You can see the motif the designer selected to replicate.

The quilt was designed by Eleanor Frye and pieced by a group of us, but I had the privilege of quilting it.
This past year I was asked to coordinate a quilting project to make a pall or casket cover for use in funerals. As many services this day do not have a casket, the pall was designed to either be placed on a casket or to hang from a loft at the side of the chancel. Again, the congregation submitted fabrics and we received as much variety as for the sanctuary quilt. Our Wednesday morning quilting group pieced it and we counted over 3,000 pieces of fabric in the pall. It measures 72”x78”. I quilted it with Superior variegated gold metallic thread and YLI silk 100wt thread.

The pall has several liturgical symbols throughout that were appliquéd to satin fabric left from making bridesmaid dresses.

Both pieces have been entered in the biannual Sacred Thread quilt show which will be in the Washington DC area this summer. It’s a jurried show, so I won’t know if either piece has been accepted until late April.

Owl Quilt

Call me thrifty. After reading Todera’s blog post about upcycling men’s shirts, I decided to try a project. It was customer appreciation day at the Hospice thrift store, and I scored 4 shirts for 80 cents apiece. Yes, you read it right. Shirts are normally $1, but on Wednesday everything is 20% off. The dark blue and striped shirts were linen and the peach one was a white poplin which I dyed. The light blue one was an oxford cloth (which I would not use again…too flimsy). You may not have a bargain basement thrift store near you, but the Goodwill stores in my area arrange men’s dress shirts by color, just like a fabric store!
I used a stack and whack wonky log cabin block pattern to make the blocks. When the blocks were finished, they measured 13.5 inches and the center space of each block seemed so empty. I used some fused scraps and put owls in the blocks, and pieced the border.


How’s that for a $3.20 quilt top? Plus I have lots of leftovers for another project or two.

Finished Scrap Quilts

Here are two finished scrap quilts for our community’s new hospice unit. Our church quilting group committed to make ten quilts. I think we may have enough scraps to make 20!


Rather than groaning that I had to piece the back, I had fun using left over scraps to create a new design element

I went a bit overboard on the quilting for the yellow string quilt which will go to our hospital's neo-natal unit. I used some of my odds and ends of variegated thread to finish it.

I had to piece the back on this one as well. I think I hear the modern quilt movement calling my name.

Valentine Superlatives 2013

Here’s the 2013 edition of Clayton valentines.
Best artwork: Tom for hand drawn heart font

Best Pop culture valentines: Laurel
(Raylan and Boyd from Justified, my favorite show)


Best UK themed valentine: Patricia

(You must be a hard-core, long time fan to connect the dots for this one)
Best use of personal photographs: Susan

Best use of newspaper puzzles: Tom


Best use of advertising: Laurel


For additional Clayton valentines, check out Patti Wagon. You’ll find my stitched owl valentine there.
We always have so much fun with these silly cards.

Taming the scrap basket part 3

Our quilting group at my church, “Wrapped in Love” makes a lot of baby quilts. As a result we had a pile of soft color scraps. I found a butterfly appliqué pattern and sized it on the copier so that it fit on a 10” block and fused it using Pellon Wonder-Under. In a former life I might have done a blanket stitch or a satin stitch to firmly attach the fused pieces to block, but I did multiple lines of free motion stitching with 30wt. thread.


Set with 10” scrappy blocks, the blocks are ready for a member of my quilting group to finish.
 

Taming the Scrap Bag, Part 2 My Take on String Quilts

String quilt block tutorial
I do love string quilts. They are such an efficient way to use scraps. I use foundation fabric for piecing my strings and pair them with a solid fabric to make a diagonal block. Some quilters recommend using paper, but after spending over 20 hours picking out the paper from a paper pieced quilt I made, I said never again. I now use the cheapest thinnest cotton muslin I can find and pre-wash it to avoid shrinkage.
I begin with a color scheme in mind. In this case I had some yellow batik I wanted to use as my background fabric, so I chose strip scraps of yellow and orange for the strings
I cut the muslin to 7.5” squares. The first strip is laid face up diagonally across the center of the muslin. Since this strip will be cut in half later in the process, I choose a strip 2.5” to 3” wide.  I then pin strips on either side of the wide strips right sides down.  For efficiency, I pin both sides, so that as soon as I have stitched one side, I turn it the block around and stitch the other. Working with a pile of 15 blocks makes it easy to chain piece.

After stitching both sides, move to the iron and press sewn strips face up.

Add two more strips face down on both sides of the block. I try to alternate width of strips as well as color to create contrast. I very my strips between 1 and 2 inches, and like that they are not cut straight.
When all the muslin has been covered, the block will look like this.

I then turn the block over and trim it to 7.25” square. The sewing process does tend to draw up the muslin. Your blocks may differ slightly, but all the blocks need to be the same size.

You could stop here and make a quilt with your trimmed blocks.

But I’m going to double the amount of blocks and increase my seting options by sewing them to solid yellow squares.
Cut your solid fabric into 7.25” squares. (or the size of your trimmed blocks) Your trimmed string blocks need to be exactly the same size as your solid blocks)
Lay your trimmed block face down on the solid block, making sure the corners and edges are lined up.
Draw a line with a pencil diagonally across your string pieced block.

    

draw  the line in direction as the stitching



Taking your blocks back to the sewing machine, use your 1/4” foot and sew on both sides of the drawn line.

Now for the reveal!
Now cut your block in half diagonally, on the drawn line.

And open your block

Decide on how you want to set the blocks and complete your quilt. The finished blocks will be about 6 3/4” squares.
Here are some setting options
 



 
And that’s another edition of taming the scrap bag. Even for a scrap hoarder like me there are limits as to the size of the scraps I use.

You might also like taming the scrap bag

Taming the scrap bag

I’ve been quilting since the turn of the century, so over the years, I’ve collected lots of scraps. I rarely throw out any fabrics. My fabric bins were overflowing, I received a call for a need for quilts for a new hospice unit in our community and I got busy making a scrap quilt.
I found a pattern online and began cutting 2 1/2” strips

click here for the tutorial for this quilt and some examples of quilts others have made. The process is addictive and I pinned most of the blocks during the super bowl.
Here's my example

Were I to make this quilt again, I would try making all the strong diagonals in the same color, or value. I think it would give more definition to the diamond pattern.
This pattern had more definition than the others and I found this pattern online .

I like scrappy quilts, but my preference is that the quilt has definition, or places for the eye to rest.
Our quilting group at church just received a huge bag of scraps, so be watching for more scrap quilts as we make quilts for the hospice unit.

Sewing Machine Cake

One of the bloggers I follow had a recent post on sewing machine cakes. Sewing machine cakes? Obviously I have been spending too much time sewing, and not enough time exploring the world of cake decoration. So I set out to make up for lost time.

Michelle is one of the younger sewing birthday girls. Do a Google search of sewing machine cakes, and you’ll see what I mean.

Intrigued, I had to see what else is out there. Do people make cakes of other appliances?

Looks like Joshua is going to be doing his own laundry for his birthday.

Vacuum cleaner cake? No thanks. Just make a yellow cake for me and put my Great Aunt Jane’s chocolate frosting on it. I’ll be happy.

Here’s her recipe

Perfection Chocolate Icing

Melt 6 squares baker’s chocolate in a double boiler, Add 3 1/2/ cups sifted powdered sugar and 5T boiling water and one stick of melted butter. Stir until smooth and add 1 1/2 t. vanilla and 1/4 t. salt. Quickly spread between cake layers and on the top and sides of cake. Lick spoon and bowl.

Making Fabric Behave

On a recent visit, Pattiwagon brought a dress she had purchased from a deep clearance rack. It had an uneven hem on the chiffon overlay (which is why it was probably on clearance) and she challenged me to fix it with my serger.

Now I’m no expert in serging, but I knew this chiffon overlay was going to cause problems. Nancy Zieman recommends PerectSew spray, but my sewing store didn’t have it in stock, so I improvised.
I used this recipe for solvy soup and dipped the hem of the dress in it then hung it to dry overnight.

The next day it was dry. It was pliable, but stiff enough not to cause bunching problems.
I marked and cut off the excess hem.

And serged a 3 thread rolled edge with Polyarn in the upper and lower loopers. It worked like a dream.   $5 dress transformed from peculiar looking to very wearable.

I have lots of the solvy soup left over and I’m thinking about making some of the scarves  I’ve been seeing in stores this year that have two layers, a lightweight knit and a chiffon.

Mug Rugs

I have had so much fun making these little gems. I wanted to make a gift for each of the women I’ll be meeting in Jamaica in January. I had some leftover strips from a Kate Spain jelly roll, and they turned out to be just enough for these mini quilts.  The mug rugs measure about 5” square. I serged the edges and added a layer of stabilizer as well as batting to give them extra body.