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.

 

Peonies Goes Home

Have you ever met someone and had an instant connection? That's what happened when I met my friend L, above. L is from Uganda and I can fully understand her about 85% of the time, but we still manage to communicate very well.

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.

The Original Black Quilt

 

This is the quilt that inspired the Nightingale quilts. This is actually the first time I have looked at it like this - on a wall. I made this quilt over 20 years ago. Clearly the fabric selection was very different back then.

I've talked about this quilt before, and the story is worth retelling.

My grandmother made us all quilts for our beds. I wrote a blog post about it ten years ago and you can read it here: How my Memere made quilts. Around 2000 the quilt I had for my bed that my grandmother  (Memere; pronounced "Mimm-may") had made for me in the 80's (when she was 75) was falling apart. I needed a new one. So I decided to make one for myself. 

I had been making some fabric chessboards, and doing some other sewing, and I found I liked fabrics with a black background. I wondered what a quilt made strictly from those fabrics would look like, so I began to collect them. I would buy half yard cuts of whatever struck my fancy. I found fabrics with dots, colorful beetles, chopsticks, vegetables, flowers, all kinds of stuff. I bought the fabrics over the period of about a year. I didn't have any particular theme in mind. I just bought stuff I liked. There were Oriental florals, there was travel stuff, things we now call "Novelties." I just had fun.

When I decided I had enough fabric, I got started. Like my grandmother I didn't want to cut squares, but I wanted to use the strip piecing method, so I figured out how to cut my fabric and sew it together rather efficiently (all this is in the Nightingale tutorial, so I'm not going to detail it here.) The quilt went together pretty quickly. I ordered six yards of an Oriental floral print and used it on the back. Like the quilts my grandmother made, it had no filling or batting, and was tied. I folded the back over to the front and sewed it down.

I put it on my bed, over the top sheet and under the blanket, and it has been there ever since. Really funny, I know, to have a beautiful quilt that nobody ever sees.

In 2009 I was making my quilt, Letters From Home, and I thought I perhaps ought to see if there were any quilt guilds in my area. I had gotten back into quiltmaking from the internet, so I was working alone and thought it would be nice to get to know some local quilters.

I attended a meeting, and since my Letters from Home quilt was away being quilted, I brought the only other quilt I had made - the black quilt that was on my bed, the one in the photo at the very top of this post. I waited to show my quilt at the group's "show and tell." I was the last in line. When one gal got up and said she had a quilt she said was "kinda wild" I scooched over so I could see what it was. It was a quilt of red and yellow on a beige background. That did not meet my definition of "kinda wild."

Now I have to tell you. I have always known I was different. I always knew I was what my mother lovingly called "an odd duck." I knew the quilt I held in my arms was different from anything this group had seen. I mean, it was mostly BLACK, but even I did not anticipate the reaction I got when I finally held my quilt up for the group (It is 72" x 95" so I had help.)

Dead Silence.

I talked about my quilt, told the story of why it was the way it was, but there was no reaction. Nobody said anything. Nobody asked any questions. Nobody had any comments.

The silence grew, and grew.

I sighed, and as I began to fold my quilt and walk back to my seat I heard a whisper...

"That's beautiful."

I brought it home and put it back on my bed. "Yup, Lynne, you're weird," I thought to myself.

But the reaction always bugged me. When I was cleaning and reorganizing my stash a couple of months ago, I decided I was going to make another black quilt, and started cutting strips for it. When I texted pictures to a friend in California, she called me less than five minutes later and exclaimed, "OH MY GOD LYNNE, THAT'S GORGEOUS! I WANT ONE."

That started the whole Nightingale process.

I needed better pictures for the new tutorial, so when I changed the sheets the other day, I took the quilt off the bed and put it up on the design wall, then went across the room to look at it.

And that's when I got it. I had only ever seen the quilt on the bed. I had never seen it on a design wall, or held up, like I had held it up for that quilt guild. Standing across the room, looking at the quilt on the wall I could see that those ladies saw that night - they saw nothing like any other quilt they had ever seen before. It is a quilt that is all about surface pattern - about the interplay of the colors - and not about patchwork. It really wasn't a black quilt at all. Even I am surprised by how much pattern is in it.

It is beautiful. I knew that.

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.

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.

My repair attempts dislodged some of the little doodads and I had to locate the hot glue gun and fix them. Then I put the clock back where it belonged.

Hmmm.

The orginal hands of the clock did not stick out very far from the clock face and did not cast a noticeable shadow. And this clock does not have the second hand, which I use when I am timing something when I cook. So I do not consider this a rousing success. Further research leaves me in doubt about whether any other clock mechanism would fit in the narrow space if the glass were in place, so I have decided to move on and accept the inevitable.

The clock has lived a good life, and is now due for retirement. (Plus it was dusty and dirty as hell and icky to touch.)

A replacement clock is on order.

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.

WOW! It is SO nice not to have to worry about that now.

While the guys were banging away, I was in the studio assembling the last of the panels I needed for the third Nightingale Quilt. This is N3, and I will start sewing it up later today.

What I have learned from making these is you have to have faith, and lean into your fabrics. Even if the patterns are large (especially if the patterns are large), do not fret if they take up the whole piece and you don't see much of their black background. As Earthmotherwithin wrote: "With the fabric doing all the work, of course it only needs to be simple in construction."

I have said it before, while this quilt LOOKS complicated, it will be one of the easiest things you ever sew together. If you want the tutorial, you can get it here, at my Etsy shop.

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.

This is fifteen panels that when rearranged, will form the third Nightingale quilt.

Remember, this is not a quilt about patchwork first. This is about seeing a mass of color and pattern. 

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. 

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.

This is the second one. I had a title for it, but I forgot what it was. I'll figure it out.

Every quilter who makes a Nightingale quilt will make a quilt that is unique. Each quilter will select different black fabrics that will make up the quilt. Each quilter's own sensibilities will be reflected in the quilt itself. A successful Nightingale uses all kinds of fabrics: great big giant prints, medium prints, novelties. batiks, florals and orientals. It's not really a scrap quilt in that the fabrics are repeated over and over throughout.

It works because the fabrics share a common element: the black background. While this quilt is patchwork, the patchwork is secondary to the flow of color that moves around, which is what the eye sees first.

Susan from California is making one of these and when I talked to her she said to remind everybody that for this quilt you simply have to have faith. "Because halfway through you might think it's awful, but the farther along I get the more I love it. So tell everybody to just go for it."

Well yes. But then the usual rules do apply. Don't put too much busy right next to each other, distribute your colors and prints and avoid making BLOBS of too much dark or holes of too much light.

But Susan also said that "you could be blind and put this together and it will still work." How's that for an endorsement?

So yeah. I mean, what the hell. It's only fabric.

If you want to make one, you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Oh yeah! I remember. This is the Black Swan.

Randy Says...

 I was having a small problem with my sewing machine. When I would press the button to cut the thread more often than not the thread would be cut so close to the needle that when I went to sew again the needle would become unthreaded.

My sewing machine is an Elna X680.

Clearly this was a tension issue, so I brought my machine to the sewing machine spa, in my case, Bittersweet Fabric Shop in Boscawen NH.

Randy knew just what to do (duh), and then he went into the innards of my machine to see if anything else was amiss. I asked if I could watch. Glad I did, because I learned a few things.

We all know dust can be an enemy. I use a little tool like this to get the dust out of places (particularly where the bobbin lives), and I had been told never to use compressed air to blow the dust out. Randy corrected me.

He said I could VACUUM dust out of the area above, and then it was fine if I wanted to use a can of compressed air to blow the leftover bits out, because after that there wouldn't be many and they would be tiny.

HOWEVER,

I was ABSOLUTELY NOT to be doing this - using the little tool or a pipe cleaner to jam it into the recesses of the machine to get out dust or debris that might be lurking there. (I was guilty of that.) 

WHY?

Apparently there can be little springs and other very delicate gizmos lurking under there that we cannot see and a pipe cleaner or tool like the one I used to use can dislodge said spring and cause the machine to run, shall we say, less than optimally. Randy found the little spring my overeager cleaning had dislodged and put it back where it belonged. (Consider me chastised.)

One hint he DID have was to use a pin to separate things in the bobbin race (where the bobbin lives) to get the dust that might get between those thin metal strips (I think it's kind of a spring). You can just blow the dust out with a puff of breath. (You know, your own lung power.)

We both agreed that sewing machine manuals do a poor job of explaining what we SHOULD do and what we shouldn't do.

It should also be noted that the thread I was using was partly responsible. A 60w thread, (such as the Precensia 60w thread I use) requires a different tension than a 50w thread. For my machine the AUTO setting was fine for 50w, but I had to reduce it to a 3 for my 60w thread. (On my machine AUTO = 4.)

Here's a big THANK YOU to Randy and Holly from Bittersweet Fabrics for letting me watch him work and allowing me to ask my questions and help us all out. Naturally, my machine now works like a charm and the thread cutter works precisely the way I want. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In other much more fun news, I ordered some postage stamps online the last time I had to ship a package via USPS. They arrived yesterday and I am delighted to share them with you. I think it is quite possibly THE COOLEST STAMP EVER.

I do not know if these beauties are available at your local post office, but you can get them at USPS.com.

Backing for Morning Garden Quilt

 

There are several Charley Harper prints in the Morning Garden Quilt, so I decided this one with frogs and butterflies would be the centerpiece of the pieced backing I will make for the quilt.

I used the leftover blocks on the backing too!

This is the finished backing for the Morning Garden quilt.

I always place the flimsy on top of the backing so I can ensure the backing is at least six inches bigger than the quilt top all the way around.

This one is ready to go!

Backing for Nightingale Quilt

 

This is the Philip Jacobs print I have chosen for the back of the Nightingale Quilt.

And this is the binding I have prepared for the quilt when it comes back from being quilted.

This is another shot of the Nightingale quilt, this time in full sun. I love bright colors, and these brights on black just pop and sing! It creates such a beautiful design. You see the colors first, then you realize this is patchwork. 

It is almost embarrassingly easy to make, and it works with any fabrics with a black background. I have a couple of testers making them now and I am eager to see how they turn out. Each one will be unique, deepening on your own style, which I think makes the best quilts. 

What has been so exciting for me is that everyone I have shown this quilt to just freaks out. "OMIGOD that's GORGEOUS" has been the consistent response, which is very encouraging.

You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

Nightingale Tutorial is Live!

Here's a beauty shot of the Nightingale flimsy. I just received the backing fabric so I will be working on that soon and will deliver the quilt to the long-arm quilter.

The tutorial for this quilt is finished and you can find it here in my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away!
 

The Lesson

I threw myself a birthday partly this past summer, and my long-arm quilter came. I gave her a flimsy to be quilted and all the guests and I were looking at it. Someone asked her a question. She flipped the flimsy over, revealing the back. (I felt like somebody threw open my underwear drawer.)

"Look at this. See how the seams match perfectly? See how the seams are pressed so neatly? See how there are no loose threads? This quilt is square and lies flat. THIS is a dream to work with. I quilt over 300 quilts a year. THIS is rare. You wouldn't believe the crap I get. I LOVE quilting Lynne's quilts."

I was taken aback, to say the least. I know I do good work, and we have all heard about how long arm quilters are fussy about the flimsies they quilt, but I thought it was a story worth sharing. You can look at the back of the Nightingale quilt, a detail of which is in the photo above. You can see the seams are neat, and there are no loose threads Sure, the fabric ravels, and some of those threads show, but that's the nature of the beast.

If there are any of you have don't believe the stories you've heard, here it is writ large: Press your seams, trim your threads. Make sure your work is square and lies flat without any ripples. It makes a big difference.