What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

      The other night, I sat down to square up my calendar, receipts, etc and wondered where the time has gone since May. I have been sewing and quilting, but everything else has been all over the place. In May, after my first cataract surgery, I lost vision in one eye for a week. I did a planned trip to Ohio and then made a bunch of trips to my daughter's in PA to babysit. On July 1st, my grandson had an accident that sent him to the local hospital and then by ambulance to Children's hospital in Pittsburgh ...

    There is nothing like sewing fabric together to help keep me together. Somehow as fabric builds into a quilt, it energizes me. I worked slowly with sickness on another Upstairs, Downstairs quilt made from a fabric line called Watermark. I really liked the fabric enough to buy 2 jelly rolls. The problem was a few of the fabrics had annoying areas- like black circles on white- that stood out like a sore thumb. I went through over 5 arrangements and got expert advice from A Left Handed Quilter, and settled on the last layout. It is all clipped together for ...

     My husband's mother and grandmother quilted and sewed clothes. I learned a lot about quilting from them. My husband's mom, Rosemary, was a wonderful woman and mother who left us too soon at 66, younger than I am at 68. Very sobering. She used to make improv quilts before anyone claimed them. She used polyester double knits left over from sewing clothes (six kids) to create lap quilts and hand sewed the pieces using the herringbone stitch and perle cotton. These quilt wear like iron, never fade, are warm and have a certain charm that many dismiss.
    Victoria ...

    I always wanted to use that phrase. I continue on my Leader and Ender project, which is Scrap Jar Stars. I have all the components done leader ender style, and now putting them into a block is a full job on its own. I try and sew 2 at a time. I have 11 more to assemble. These will get a white lattice strip with another color square in the intersection. I realize I put the blocks up not all oriented correctly- the 16 patches need to start with the color square in the top left corner. When I web ...

     Back a couple of months ago I think, A Left Handed Quilter asked me if I wanted to do an Upstairs, Downstairs with her with the same jelly rolls, but using a different color for the diagonals of the block. She has EQ, so she sent me previews of the color possibilites. I chose the blue as the main diagonal. We bought the jelly rolls at jelly roll fabric (4 rolls of 20 strips each). They all had green, blue, purple, pink and yellow but different fabrics for them so we made groups of them for strip sets.
    I did ...

      As part of the Upstairs, Downstairs challenge with A Left Handed Quilter, I continued on making blocks and was able to lay them out on the wall. I clipped them in columns waiting for an opportunity to web them. I waited until all the blocks were sewn (all 8 sets) before I ironed them with my steam Euro Pro. I never use steam until the blocks are sewn so I don't distort the pieces. I followed the directions and laid them out simply and I think it is a pleasant refreshing quilt.

      A couple of years ago, I cut the strips for Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips. Somehow, I thought it would be a quick quilt. I kept the strips in the block bundles and from time to time, I sewed a couple of blocks. There are only 30 blocks (made 32), but it seemed an eternity to sew them. In fact, The Left-handed quilter showed how to make the Upstairs, Downstairs pattern (I have had trouble typing in her search bar) and I made two of those in the meantime. I like the controlled palette of jelly rolls, but they are ...

      Fabric, just love it. No matter how it comes in the door, no matter what size. Recently, a box came from Gwen, who has over the years boosted my ability to back comfort quilts.

      I have no idea how much time has passed since I posted. I feel like I am in a giant logjam. It is not like I was doing nothing, because I have tons of photos and things done, but oh my, the crush of the days.
     The first weekend in November was our guild retreat. I take projects with me that can be webbed and done due to no interruptions.
     I have had a lot of grandkid duty- taking and picking up from school, feeding etc. here and my daughter in PA had her baby on Nov. 14th. I have ...

      First of all, I want to say THANK YOU. To all the readers of my blog and the ones I follow and read every day, THANK YOU. It is a crazy, sad world. I know bloggers who are generous with compliments, resources, fabrics,  and more. You are so precious to me, even though most of you I have not met. I am so grateful for you. We all have struggles and heartaches. Quilts bridge the gap and I am so grateful I am a quilter and my comfort quilts find recipients who just eat them up. Thank you for friendship ...

     First, wishing everyone a Happy Easter! I am in the middle of making an early dinner, so I wrote this yesterday!

      No, I am not referring to my condition after the second shot, which has been hard and fatiguing for over 4 weeks, but to another Upstairs/Downstairs quilt. This one is from two batik jelly rolls. First set of 6 blocks is sewn, 7 more down to go.

Two identical rolls

Sorted 8 sets

Strip sets sewn, 2 sets of same strips

The 8 sets of strip sets, 2 each of each strip set, ready to be cut into ...

      I found the process of putting together Upstairs, Downstairs rather inspiring. I bought another bundle of 2 identical jelly rolls on Etsy and started to examine how to put them together. There were only a few oranges in these batiks, so instead of organizing the darkest strips as the diagonals, I used the oranges to be the long diagonals.
     After consultation with The Left Handed Quilter of course. I would have never have figured this out on my own. Sometime, maybe I will find jelly rolls that are easier to sort.

Did not work with darks at top, mixed in ...

      I was inspired by the quilts that The Left-Handed Quilter has made from 2 identical jelly rolls. She explains the process well, but I could not grasp it so I thought I would try to make one. Somethings you just have do hands on to get it.
     I found 2 great priced Boundless jelly rolls on Etsy and started separating them into groups of 5 with a dark in each group, two indentical strips in each group. There are eight groups of 5. Then I sewed the strips into strip sets in the order I planned trying to go from ...

      With all the strips sewn into blocks, I laid the blocks on the wall and tweaked the diagonal rows a number of times. Due to the excellent explanation by  A Left Handed Quilter,  I was able to get something that I like well enough. I took it down by columns that I will web sew at retreat later in the week.

I laid out the strips for each block on cardstock and stacked them for chain piecing. Completed blocks on left. Tube sewn strips on tray.

Block layout stack ready for piecing

Completed blocks all clipped by columns for webbing.