Diamonds are a Man's Best Friend

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my husband is crazy.  I've gotten him into quilting, and he made a very nice, simple, Christmas lap quilt in December 09:

I really should take a better picture with natural light now that it's sunny and it's all finished and bound.

And now he's upped the ante.  Remember those reproduction prints I posed about?  He is turning them into a bed-sized quilt of pieced diamonds.

Which means matching points and offsetting pieces so the allowance comes out right.  It's taking some trial and error, and he's still working on his quarter-inch seam, but I think it should come out pretty well.  How he plans on quilting a full-size quilt on my very basic Janome is still a mystery - I don't think he's thought that far ahead yet.  For now, diamonds:

Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July!  Nothing like a solid deadline to get some projects finished!  We went to the Boston Pops dress rehearsal concert last night - and I realized Friday morning that we had nothing to sit on!  I took a top that I made in high school and had no idea what to do with:

I got the set of fat quarters as a freebie from a Shop Hop back in the day - and they are so wild they don't match anything else in my house or tastes.  So I threw on the borders, and in between other projects I got the whole thing quilted with a denim backing!  I finished the quilting with minutes to spare before our bus, so we took it unbound and sat on it.  No action shots from last night, though, because my husband liked it so much he wouldn't get up!  

A note about the photos - this is the first time I've really done a photo shoot of my quilt projects.  For the top one, I climbed up on a stone wall to put it up there, and may have attracted some strange looks from my neighbors (the downside of living in a city).  And then I decided to take advantage of our blooming hydrangeas and get more creative:

So, maybe it will get bound before we go out to the fireworks tonight.  For now, I'm nerding out with 1776 and homemade burgers, potato salad, and cake!  Yum!

I have a confession - I am a nerd.  I am actually a nerd of many kinds - a science nerd, a history nerd, a quilt nerd, a museum nerd, a Park Service nerd.  And yesterday, my dear bloggies, those last three collided in a fantastic way.

Last Sunday my husband and I took a trip to the New England Quilt Museum, in Lowell, MA. We took a detour on the way into the NPS Visitor Center to pick up some yardage woven at the Boott Cotton Mill (we saw the exhibits there on a whole other trip, and that's a whole other post).  We also picked up some repro prints at NEQM at the end of the day (more on that later) - so, yes, we went to Lowell to buy fabric.  (I repeat, I am a huge nerd.)

From the Bancroft Collection, Marcus Fabrics for NEQM.

The current exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum is One Foot Square, Quilted & Bound - a collection of quilts (including several Civil War hospital quilts) constructed with quilt-as-you-go techniques that result in "potholder" blocks, which are then whipstitched to assemble the quilt.  Many of these were signature blocks, and the curator's speculation (which seems quite plausible) is that this construction method was a way of speeding up construction of bee quilts.

The biggest downside to the museum, in my mind, is that they do not allow photography in the exhibits.  So this post will be picture-poor, but I will try to describe our favorites the best I can.  On the plus side, they did give out a mini-catalog of the exhibit that lists the titles, dates, makers, and sizes of the quilts exhibited.  My not-so-inner museum nerd loves it, and only wishes they'd included catalog numbers for future reference.  While I'm on the subject of the collection, the museum does have a very limited online gallery; however, only the Cook-Borden star quilt is currently displayed.

Two of the standout pieces are actually sister quilts, both made by the Portland Ladies Aid Society in Maine in 1864.  They share fabrics, embroidered and appliqued motifs, and makers - which makes them incredibly rare.  As a quilter, I think they are pretty; as a historian, I think they are amazing.  They feature motifs of cannons and mortars, Masonic compasses, and an observatory that was a landmark of Portland.  One is in much better condition than the other - not surprising given their age and the use of silk.

I was struck by a third Maine Civil War quilt as well.  There was a red and white Crosses and Losses quilt made with the same "potholder" technique.  It is dated 1863, but with the two color solid blocks it could have been made by a "modern" quilter yesterday.  I have added Crosses and Losses to my to-do list - now the question is solids or prints?  Two color or rainbow?

The final highlight for us was a diamond quilt made in New Hampshire in 1876.  It was essentially a nine-patch made out of diamonds.  Eric was fascinated by it, and studied it while I looked at the rest of the exhibit.  Each block was individually bound - they started with a red stripe, and apparently ran out and replaced it with a red check.  It was a signature or presentation quilt, and Eric was finding patterns in the use of the red check and common surnames.  This is the quilt that inspired Eric to go back to the shop and pick out reproduction fabric.  He's been playing with drafting his design, and it may be taking a more modern direction, which will be fun.  I'm still having visions of those period prints in diamonds on my bed, though...  So there might be two diamond quilts in our future!

I'm Back!

After a month and a half of silence, I figure I'm due to check in.  I've been AWOL so long because life got pretty busy leading up to my wedding last weekend!  I'm now an old married woman (of 6 days) and I can move from wedding crafts back to quilting crafts.  My mother was amazed at all the crafts that went into our wedding - handmade invitations, announcements, pieced table runners, flower arrangements, etc.  I will do a wedding recap shortly with pictures to make up for my silence.  Now on my WIP list - picking up my star blocks with my sister, and prepping and piecing the signature blocks we collected at the wedding. 

Catching Up

As my sister helpfully reminded me last night, "you're now 3 weeks behind on your blog!!"  Mea culpa.  I'm here to try to remedy this.

It has (finally) been beautifully sunny out here, so my sewing time has been taken up by walks and a wee bit of spring cleaning recently.  And a couple of my projects are destined for other people, so they're not ready for sharing yet.  But I'm not holding out on everything - I have a couple experiments in quilting to share.

First up: Two completed pillow tops, which match the orange and blue lap quilt that is half-quilted and intended for the living room.  The quilting on the nine-patch seemed obvious - dense, straight-line quilting emphasizing the nine-patch block.  

I love the way the grid looks on the back - I'm almost disappointed that this part will be hidden!  Now that it's quilted, I need to figure out how to finish the cover - and decide whether I'm brave enough to tackle a zipper.  Can we do it?

And my spring zig-zags at last.  I straight-line quilted in the ditch along the diagonals in dark purple, and I love the way it turned out.  I debated adding a second line of quilting echoing the zig-zags in the middle of the rows, but I think I'll leave well enough alone on this one.  One of the reasons I never finish things is that I'm afraid it won't turn out perfect.  And you know what?  This isn't perfect, and it won't be, but it will be done, and cheery, and look wonderful on the spot I have picked out for it on my wall.  Or so I have to keep telling myself...

And now I'm back to my machine, hoping to have some finished table runners to share sometime soon.

Indecision

Well, not much quilting this week.  We've been preoccupied all week with tracking the near-shutdown of the federal government, which would have left me with a lot of free time to quilt.  However, I'm now on my weekend, and making it my goal to catch up with my sister.

In fact, I'm skipping ahead a bit - she finished one called the "Spinning Star," while I'm working on the "Twirling Star" simply because I had a clearer vision of the fabric choices for it.  That is, for two of the fabrics.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I'm stuck on choosing the right medium pink.  The first option is bright, vivid pink - perhaps too bright.  The second might not have enough contrast.  The third has a wide stripe that could mean a subtle variation in the points that would emphasize the twirling of the block.  It's actually a reclaimed pillowcase that I'm also contemplating using as a backing for my zigzag wall hanging quit:

The purple will be the binding - I'm going for a very narrow 1/4" binding.  I'm not sure how I feel about the stripes with the zigzags, but then again, it'll be against the wall and nobody will see it anyway!  

Now if I could just stop dithering and get something finished....

Dresden Plates

My fun project this weekend was playing with dresden plates.  I want to use these to make a small wall hanging to use for our wedding.  It'll have a purple flower and an orange flower - I'm currently playing to figure out how many different prints to use in each and what styles to use.  Right now they're just petals up on my design wall.