They Love It!

The Field of Dreams quilt has arrived in the City of Angels and as you can see, it was very well received.

My DIL exclaimed, "It's so light!!!" 

They said the sheets were in the washing machine so they could make up the bed with fresh sheets and the new quilt.

Then my granddaughter asked if I could make one for her. To which there was only one reply possible...

YES DEAR!

This is simply a Nightingale quilt made in Green. You can make one any color you want, of course. You can get the tutorial to make one here, at my Etsy shop.

 

Field of Dreams is Finished!

 

I tied all the knots on the Field of Dreams quilt, then trimmed down the excess backing, folded it over and pinned it down.

Then I machine stitched the binding in place.

(Look at my empty studio!)

The quilt is 78" x 98" or so, and it's already on its way to the City of Angles. It should arrive on Monday.

Woo hoo!

This is a Nightingale quilt, just in greens. If you want to make one, you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

Left over Right, Right over Left...

 

I am tying the Field of Dreams quilt with crochet cotton. I use a needle with a big eye and a sharp point. I am tying the quilt at the corners and center of each block. First I do the corners, going. up and down the rows.

I have a little pair of scissors that are designed to remove stitches (in people), so the bottom edge can slide under the thread and not risk cutting the quilt underneath. I cut all the threads.

Next I tie the knots. Square knots. Left over right, right over left. I pull the threads to one side. 

When I'm done tying all the knots, I go back and grab the threads and trim them. Then I go back and do the centers of the blocks. This way I have threads long enough to grasp comfortably to tie the knows.

This is the color of the crochet cotton I'm using, and if you can't see the knots in the photos above, then that's a good thing. It means I picked the right color. I've got about three quarters of one half the quilt done. This is rough work for my hands, so I do it in smallish doses.  

When I was much younger I used to do this with the quilt spread out on the floor.

Not anymore!

This is a Nightingale quilt, in all greens. It is one of the easiest quilts you will ever make, and it is fat quarter friendly. You can get the tutorial here.

Needs Must

 

I finished sewing together the Field of Dreams flimsy. The thing is enormous. I didn't know how I was going to lay out the backing and place the top on it without moving any furniture in my house.

But I had an idea. I knew a place that was big enough, and empty enough, and had a nice clean floor. I made a call. The answer was yes.

Later, after my Tai Chi Quan class ended, I unfolded the back of the quilt, and taped it to the very slippery floor of Studio C at the YMCA in my town. With the help of the instructor and another student, we placed the quilt atop the backing and centered it.

Both the instructor and the other student couldn't get over it and kept complimenting me on how beautiful it was. They laughed as they pointed out fabrics they liked. "Look at those pretty flowers!" "Oh how cute, there are dinosaurs..." My instructor asked me how long it had taken me to make it, and were shocked when I told them less than three weeks.

They left and I got down on my hands and knees and used safety pins to secure the top to the backing at regular intervals. After about half an hour I folded it up and brought it home. I'll work on tying the two layers together over the next couple of days, then I'll fold over the excess backing and sew it down. I expect to have this in the mail early next week.

The folks at the Y were more than happy to allow me to do this between classes in that studio. Sometimes the answer to a thorny question is easy and nearby, you just have to ask.

Field Of Dreams Grows

 

This is the top half of the Field of Dreams quilt I am making for my son and DIL.

The parts on the floor in the top photo are represented by the dark area in the diagram above. It's getting closer and I am getting excited.

Because this quilt is so wide and I decided not to use a wide quilt backing fabric, I needed to add a strip of leftover blocks down the middle of the back.

I like it. You can see I included some Dino fabrics from my DGD's quilt.

I got some green crochet cotton for tying the quilt. My goal is to have this finished and on the way to the City of Angels before work on the studio floor starts.

The Field of Dreams quilt is a Nightingale quilt, it's just green. You can make one too. It's super easy. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away. It's fat quarter friendly, too!

Field of Dreams Progress

 

This is the diagram I am using to keep track of how many blocks there are in the green Field of Dreams quilt. I told my son and DIL that I would mark this diagram and send them a photo so they would know my progress on their quilt.

These are the blocks on my design wall. It isn't big enough to lay out the real blocks the same way as my diagram, but these are the blocks I have made so far, and you can see where this quilt is going.

Sorry the lighting is terrible, I've packed away the lights I use to illuminate the design wall. It's getting there, and it won't take long.

What Else....

 I've told you all that I'm working on a quilt for my son and DIL, but as I will be having the floor in the studio replaced in the next few weeks, I'm also going through everything in the studio to determine whether I want to keep it or not, and clean everything that's left.

This is the top of one of the small bookcases, Notice the dust!

I cleaned everything, the mugs, the items in them, and put it all back. Notice I put all the buttons I found as I cleaned into one of the jars I had kept.

I cleaned these two taborets and sorted through everything in them. I got rid of a big bag of sewing notions: zippers, findings, ribbons, trims, buttons and other stuff, then resorted the stuff I had stored in them, and labelled everything. (Ergo buttons in a new jar.)

I figured cleaning out this bookcase would be easy, but it wasn't. I have quilting books from when I first started making quilts, over 50 years ago. Th ere were a lot of memories in those books.

Sorting through them was tough, and I didn't keep all of them. I more or less sorted them into "historical" and "how-to" and put the ones I look at most often together. I also moved printed copies of my tutorials to this bookshelf, as they seemed to belong there.

Anyway, I've got all the stuff clean. Now I have to sort through the fabric in the bins and decide if I want to keep it. 

I've been alternating between working ON the studio and IN the studio. 

I have all the strip pairs sewn together for the Field of Dreams quilt. So that's moving along as well.

Field of Dreams

 

My son and DIL have decided the name of the Green quilt should be "Field of Dreams." 

I finished sewing all the strip pairs.

I'm starting to subcut the strips into chunks. That should take me a couple of days.

Here's a sample block, so you can all see where this is going.

I think it's going to be beautiful.

Work Begins

 

Work on my son's "No Batting Quilt" begins. I will call it NBQ until I find another more suitable name.

I started cutting strips, and then did some math. The quilt will be quite large by my standards, but hey, it's for my son so naturally that isn't an issue. I just need to make a lot more blocks, so I needed a lot of fabric. This is the first batch of strips that I cut.

This is almost all the strips that I cut. After I took this photo I added about five or six lighter greens to the mix and cut them into strips.

I matched the strips into pairs and then sewed a few together.

These are some of the pairs I sewed together before I called it a night.

This quilt is a Nightingale quilt in all but color. It is made in exactly the same way. It is very easy. You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

We Interrupt...

 We all have special people in our lives who, when they ask, "Hey Ma (or Memere, Grammy, Auntie, Sis, or whatever), can you make me a quilt..." the answer is always YES!

My son texted me yesterday afternoon, "Are you making no-batting quilts now? Like my old one that you made for me when I went to college? [My wife] and I love those. Can you make us a sage green one?"

"Yes," I texted back, "I made one for my bed.  Of course I will make one for you two."

"Can you put some dark greens in too?" he asked, "Foresty. We have a Queen bed. We love my old one. DW wants light green and I want dark green."

"OF COURSE, I will make you whatever colors you want.

I sent this picture to them, telling them this was my entire green stash.

DIL texts back that she likes that green with the pink, and can I incorporate that fabric? Well my dear, your wish is my command, so I pulled more greens with pink.

Here are some more sage-y greens.

I kept pulling fabrics. Here are greens with pinks and other colors.

And here are some more. I'll need at least 35-40 fabrics and I think I have that number here.

Here are all of them together. Obviously if I need more darks or lights I'll add them, but this is enough to get me going.

I know I said my next quilt would be the second Student bird quilt, but hey, family takes precedence. My DIL is getting to the age where she has hot flashes at night and a quilt like this will help keep her more comfortable at night, especially as summer approaches.

Julie would say SQUIRREL!!!

I can't wait to get started.