The Patchery Menagerie
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Friday, November 15, 2024
Georgia O'Keeffe
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Blue Willow, I think
The blue and white quilt based on the little blue and white china tray is complete. This quilt will not have a border. I have already ordered the backing and have decided to use a WOW for binding. Pretty sure I will name this quilt Blue Willow.This is a flimsy I made from the leftover strips from the Zebra quilts. It has been hanging in my closet for some time. I bought the backing fabric on sale and have decided it is time to get this finished. I always lay the backing on the floor and then set the quilt top on top so I can be absolutely sure it is the right size before I bring it to be quilted. This will be a donation quilt.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Schoolhouse Quilters of Shrewsbury MA
I spoke at the Schoolhouse Quilters of Shrewsbury on Sunday. They had asked me to speak about my word quilts so I brought 17 of them, including both versions of the Rules quilts. Here I am pointing out the lady standing in for the letter I on the black version.
About four quilts in one lady at the back raised her hand and asked if my quilts were paper-pieced. I said they weren't, and that they weren't made with any patterns or templates either. She wanted to know how I did it. I wasn't quite sure how to answer, because to me like breathing (meaning I don't think about it).
"I just take one piece of fabric, sew it to another one, press it, and then trim the edge if it isn't straight, then add the next piece and keep going..." I really didn't know what else to say. It wasn't a question I expected.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
New Blue Table Quilt
This is my interpretation of the Happy Stripes quilt. I made some strip sets then decided where the snowball triangles should go.After that I decided to custom make each block, so here is how I decided how to make the blocks.
Friday, November 8, 2024
A New Table Quilt
I love blue and white serving dishes and have been collecting them over the years. I got this small tray recently and realized I should make a blue and white quilt for my table.
I have a lot of blue and white dishes and serving dishes that I've been collecting over the years and I thought I should make a blue and white table quilt.
I cut a lot of medium, dark and light blue strips and sewed them together into squares, then I added a snowball corner of a WOW.
I have to make 63 blocks, because I calculated I would need nine rows of seven blocks for the table quilt. It's looking nice.
On Sunday I'll be speaking to the Schoolhouse Quilt Guild in Shrewsbury MA about my letter quilts. I've got my speech ready and I've packed my quilts. I'll let you know how it goes.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Greensleeves Beauty Shots
I voted, then I did my errands and on my way home I drove by this gate and KNEW it would be a perfect location for beauty shots of the Greensleeves Zebra quilt.
I think this is such a pretty quilt. Showing you this also gives me an opportunity to remind you of the updates I made to the Zebra Quilt Tutorial, available here, in my Etsy shop. I have added ten pages to the tutorial. I showed what to do if you cut a triangle wrong, a more efficient way to cut the pieces, and I have added instructions to make the Fourth of July quilt.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Peonies Goes Home
I knew I'd make her a quilt, but we were both so busy it took a while for us to actually get together and talk about it.
We started talking about her colors and I grabbed a piece of paper. "Let me write this down so I don't forget," I told her.
Imagine my surprise as she listed the colors she liked. They were the colors of the triangles that were already on my design wall.
"That was providential," I thought to myself. When I told L about it when she picked up her quilt, she was not surprised at all. "Yes," she said."that is God. That is Love."
Which is no surprise to any of us that make quilts for others.
This is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt. If you want to make one you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.
You can see all eleven of the Scrap Slab Triangle quilts I have made here.
Sunday, November 3, 2024
The Original Black Quilt
Friday, November 1, 2024
The Updated Zebra
I love taking an idea and pushing it around, seeing where I can go with it.
When I made my son a chessboard out of fabric way back in 2000 (can it really be 24 years ago?) I never expected to make a quilt out of the leftovers, or that I'd be selling a tutorial about making them 20 years later.
At any rate, I have made nine of the so-called "Zebra" quilts, and since I published the tutorial in 2020 I have made three more quilts, which have taught me things I didn't know when I wrote the tutorial.
I have been working on updating the Zebra tute with those things, and have added ten pages of information. I've figured out how to fix a triangle if you have cut the wrong one (there are four different triangles and they aren't easily interchangeable); a more efficient way of cutting them out, and I've included instructions on how to make the Fourth of July quilt.
The new Zebra tutorial is live!
You can get all my tutorials here, at my Etsy shop.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
The Clock
This is the clock in my kitchen. For years it graced my studio. I made it (rather I embellished it) myself. Over 20 years ago I was home sick and had the TV on out of sheer boredom. I was lying on the couch watching some women's show and there was a craft segment on making a clock like this. As soon as I got better I went shopping. I think I spent more on the doodads than I did on the clock itself.
Last week I looked at it and thought I'd had it so long and I was grateful it was still working.
I suppose I should have recognized that was an omen. A few days later it stopped working, and nothing I could do could get it to work again. So I put on my thinking cap and got creative. I ordered a replacement clock mechanism with the battery. I didn't have any idea if it would work, or if I got the right size, but what the heck.
So I carefully took it apart, then replaced the mechanism. Both hands of the new clock were too long, so I snipped those shorter. It all stuck out farther than the original, so I couldn't replace the glass, but the clock was working so I put it up.Tuesday, October 29, 2024
The Replacement
Not one but TWO trucks arrived at my house on Monday morning. They arrived about 10 AM and spent the next forty minutes disconnecting and removing the old furnace. (It's the beige box in the photo above.)It was a noisy and messy process. I had already moved my quilts and artwork out of the way. They installed the new furnace, tested it and turned it on. Then they cleaned the mess and left.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
How I'm Doing
I have been fortunate enough to have access to a couple of space heaters, which have certainly helped over the last few days. The weather has helped too. It has been sunny and in the 60's over the last few days.
Still though, I decided to make use of the things I already had in my house. Like my oven. After the technician left on Friday, I reviewed my menu for the week and made some changes.
I decided to make the most use of my oven whenever I could. I would prepare each meal in the oven instead of on the stovetop. One morning I made myself a soufflé. Another I made muffins. One lunch I made a flatbread pizza. One dinner was a sheet pan dinner of sausage, Brussels sprouts and gnocchi. On the coldest day, Sunday, I put a pork stew in the oven to cook. These things helped bump up the temperature inside my house and meant I didn't need the space heaters.It's very strange how this no-heat thing has affected my daily life. I can't wait for it to get back to "normal."
The new furnace will be installed sometime on Monday. I don't know precisely when.
Of course I have been sewing. The studio has its own separate heating system, so I've been very cozy there. This is a panel for the third Nightingale quilt. I cut a lot of black strips, so now I am using them up.Friday, October 25, 2024
EEEK!! (corrected)
I had not had the yearly maintenance done on my heating unit since the pandemic. Generally I remember to schedule this because there is a note in the monthly bill. But I must have missed it. Anyway I scheduled an appointment last month and a technician came Thursday morning and found a leak. Since it was leaking CO (carbon monoxide), he disconnected the unit.
EEEK! No heat! EEK.. Carbon Monoxide!
But he said he thought the leak was so small my Carbon Monoxide monitor would probably not have picked it up.
And the heating unit is covered with a warranty so replacing it will be no charge to me. The problem is it won't get done until Monday. That's four days and four nights with no heat. Sigh.
My studio has electric heat, so I'm good there, and I've been lent some space heaters, so I should be OK, but wrapping my head around all of it was nerve-wracking, to say the least.
The temperatures for the next three days will be 52-61F during the day, it's supposed to be sunny all weekend and it won't drop below freezing until Sunday night. It won't be so cold that I have to worry about pipes freezing. All good things. My Mom said I could sleep at her house, but that will be a last resort. I'd rather sleep in my own bed anyway. Clearly I have enough quilts to keep me warm.
So dinner will be anything I can cook in the oven (a way to generate heat) and I may do a bit of baking (again, oven). The electric heat in the studio warms the room almost immediately and doesn't need much to keep the room warm. I've got a recliner and a TV in there, so I will not have any trouble staying comfy. And did I mention it was the studio?
It could, of course, be worse.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Nightingale Number 2
Every single person who has seen the Nightingale quilt had the same reaction.
"WOW!"
I was quite surprised. I knew this was a beautiful quilt, but I love the unusual. I am also rather fearless. I mean, who ELSE would make a black quilt? And who would be crazy to encourage others to make them? I mean, who wants to make a BLACK quilt?
The thing is though, this quilt is remarkably simple in its construction. A beginner can make it.
The only requirement is that all fabrics should have a black background.
Anyway, after I made the first one, I made the second one. The first six panels are shown above.
In the photograph above, both quilts are shown. Are they the same? Of course not. While they share some of the same fabrics, they are not identical.