Family Tree Quilt

My mother Leta, holding one of the two family tree wall hangings I made this past spring.  My plan was to make one for the auction for the family reunion we have of my mother’s family every two years - this was the summer for that reunion.  She was one of 6 siblings and the second child.  Her oldest sister has passed away and my mother is 94 and was unable to attend the reunion this year due to health concerns so I decided I would make one wall hanging for the reunion and one for her.  By the way her other siblings are 92, 91, 89, and 80 and were all able to make it to the reunion plus lots of my cousins.  My mother comes from a long lived family as her parents lived to 90 and 95 years.Here is my design reversed as I planned to fuse the tree and we all know that the pattern will be flipped after fusing.  Each branch represented one of my mother’s siblings and the smaller branches represent their children and the leaves represent their grandchildren.  I decided to stop there as I wasn’t sure how many of the next generation there were and would have hated to miss someone.  Funny thing about the tree design is that I drew and refined my design and was about to trace it on the fusible when I looked at it carefully and I only had 5 major branches instead of 6 so had to redraw it with the correct number.This is a strange looking photo of the two trees but I have this great piece of batik that is variegated blue and light brown and I wanted to have the top of the trees covering a blue area and the base on the brown.  I moved them around until I found an area I liked and then cut the background squares from my perfect spots. Here is the pallet of the batik fabrics I pulled to use in these quilts.  You can see the background fabric behind all the colors and the brown fabric in front that will be the trunk.  The rest were all used for leaves.  Here the trunks are cut out and all the leaves.  Since they were so small I positioned the trunk and fused it then used tweezers to place the leaves.  I had to refer to my pattern to make sure I had the correct number of leaves on each small branch before I touched the iron to them.  I did check several times to make sure I was correct before fusing.  All fused and bordered, ready to quilt.  I used small sections of all the leaf colors for the one narrow boarder and I like how it brings all the colors out one more time.  You really can’t tell but the brown border has some reds, golds and blues in it so was a perfect choice for this quilt.I machine quilted a wavy design as the base of the design then I quilted more lines in each of those sections. The close up photos really show the bobbles and inconsistencies but like the old saying goes I don't think you can see it on a galloping horse!My mother’s maiden name was Burbank so quilted that into the area below the base of the treeCurlicues quilted in the sky and outline the leaves.  I did quilt some texture to the trunk of the tree too.  Have any of you noticed the birds?  There is no reason they are there but to fill in and add to the design.  The branches with no leaves mean that person didn’t have any children.

The outside border is quilted with a sort of wood grain look.  Before showing my final photo of the finished quilt I wanted to show you my label.  I put the sibling names on the branches and my grandparents names but didn’t add the rest of the names.  The tree reads from left to right from oldest to youngest so I am the second branch up on the left side of the Leta branch.  I used Bubble Jet Set to make the ink be permanent on the fabric before printing it.  After scanning the tree drawing I typed in the information then printed it on the treated fabric that is ironed to a piece of freezer paper.  I do most of my quilt labels this way and can add photos or drawings and can type out my words and know how everything will look on the finished label.  With hand written labels I have misspelled words as I am carefully drawing out the letters so this solves that problem.

Ta Da….all done.  This is just a photo of one but believe me I got them both done and they look like a pair of twins.  One of my aunts won the bid to take the other one home to Iowa from the reunion but my mother can enjoy seeing hers too.  She was surprised when I gave it to her as she knew I was making one for the reunion auction but not the second one for her.  I got to her before the reunion in western Nebraska at Fort Robinson as her siblings all stopped to see and visit with her before and right after the reunion so she didn’t feel like she missed seeing them and she could show off her quilt too. 

Until Later,
Lynn

Nebraska State Quilt Guild 2015 Challenge Finished Part 2

As promised here is the finished quilt – wall hanging.  It finished at 20” x 17.5”.  I did add some beading and a few buttons too so check that out in the detail photos below.  Some of my quilting lines do a squiggle here and there but I am trying hard not to be such a perfectionist and rip all the imperfections so they stay as first stitched.Can’t wait to see how the other challenge quilts I worked on are finished and the other groups that worked on challenge quilts.  Our annual QuiltNebraska is in about a week  so I don’t have long to wait.

Lynn

Spectrum–A Miniature Lone Star Quilt Part 3

Well here is, Spectrum, all quilted labeled and bound.  It was a challenge to get all parts to fit together but I sure had fun quilting this 14 1/2” square piece.  To give you an idea of the size here is a photo of a thimble sitting on the quilt.  Getting the correct color in a photo is sometimes problematic but the color on the photo of finished quilt above and the thimble detail one  below are closer to the original colors.I inserted piping just inside the binding and I do like the yellow fabric as it gives a spark to the outside of the quilt.  As you can see I love to quilt feathers and sprinkled them throughout and some of them ended up being pretty tiny.  I used a fine thread and small stitches but still had trouble keeping my stitching lines as smooth as I wanted.  I am trying hard not to rip out every offending area as I tend to be too much of a perfectionist and letting things be the way they are is hard for me if they are a little imperfect so please ignore the wobbly stitching lines!Hope you enjoyed this last peek.

Until Later,
Lynn

Machine Quilted Valentines

Happy valentines day everyone!  I have always loved making valentines and this year was no exception.  I stitched 8 different hearts on whole cloth postcards for my valentine project.  I do love to machine quilt so this was a good excuse to do more of what I love.

The first three were stitched in pink thread for the design and white for the background.  The “binding” is a strip of fabric with fusible on the back cut with a wavy rotary cutter and pressed around the outside edges to finish them off.
These are less frilly and are for my two grandsons.  Hopefully they won’t think they are too girly.  Red fabric with white thread says happy valentines day, right?
White on white fabric and red stitching for the heart designs on these three.  As you can see I do love to stitch feathers and what a better place to use them than on hearts.

I made the back of the card from a printed phrase, poem, sentiment printed on card stock and that too was fused to the back of the card.  By the way, the front fabric was fused to Peltex or Timtex which is a thick, stiff stabilizer.  I quilted the cards, fused on the back then fused on the binding.  Ta-Da done!

I finished them up on Wednesday, popped them into addressed envelopes and delivered them to the post office to mail.  I always mail these kinds of fabric postcards in envelopes to keep them clean and prevent them from getting caught in post office machinery.  Hopefully they will arrive in time for Valentines Day and be enjoyed by all.

Until later,
Lynn

You Are My Sunshine Part 3

All quilted and it was a fun piece to quilt.  I marked very little and used several colors of thread to stitch the designs.  Just click on the photos below to see more of the detail of my quilting.  As you will see I used a lot of feather designs or designs similar to feathers because I just love stitching that type of design.  I also changed thread colors a lot.

 

 

 

I added a folded piece of the bright yellow fabric as a small flange just inside the binding.   I like the yellow thread on the red outside border as the design really shows up well with that thread color too.

OK, did you find the mistake in my piecing?  Scroll to the top and look at the finished quilt and notice the four corners of the last red border.  I had planned for the stripe to go diagonally out from the center like the two top corners but how I got the bottom two durned around is beyond me.  What totally amazes me is not that I made the mistake but that I failed to see if for a couple of months.  ( Yes I have had this quilt done for a while but just getting the blog posts written now.  )  I will leave it but now when I look at the quilt I see these corners first.

Until Later,
Lynn

Background Quilting Design

Here is a close up photo of the background quilting on my faux leather quilt “Putting Down Roots.”  I wanted something swirly and this fit the bill although it made me nervous as I knew I could not pick out any boo boos as the faux leather would show the holes.  There are places I might have stitched over again if this was regular woven fabric but now that it is all done I really don’t notice them as much.

I, like millions of other people use Pinterest to keep track of things that interest me and that I might want to refer to later.  When thinking about what quilting designs I want to use I scan my Pinterest board for ideas.  I had pinned this quilting design by Wendy Sheppard that she calls “Jester’s Hat” and thought that it might work in the sky area of this quilt.  The design moves you around the area without back stitching which is what I needed for this project.  You can find a tutorial on stitching this design on SewCalGal’s blog here.  Or on Wendy’s blog “Ivory Spring” here.  As you will see I approach the design a little differently but it has the same sort of look.  No matter what design we choose to machine quilt every quilter will have their own look and way of approaching it but it is a good to see how someone else tackles the design too.I am a left handed person so may stitch this differently than you right handers but this is how I start.  Follow the pictures below to see how I progress.

As you can see from my drawings I come from under the initial bumps most of the time to move onto the next motif but not always.  If I get into a corner or need to change direction I come out on top of the motif hump like the illustration above.You can use your finger to follow the direction I would stitch this motif.  Start at the x and keep going.  Of course this is a rather sloppy version done with marker but you get the idea I am sure.  Just because I stitched the motif this way on this quilt I might change how I stitch it the next time I use it.

Until later,
Lynn

Putting Down Roots–Finished

My grand experiment is finished – bound and labeled and hung on the wall and I love it!I repeated the same quilting design in the final border that I used in the sky area and straight lines on the pieced border.  Nothing too fancy  but didn’t want to detract from the central tree design.  

It is rather hard to photograph as the faux leather reflects the light but in person it is not quite so shiny looking.

I named this quilt “Putting Down Roots” for several reasons.  Back in history, Nebraska was fairly bare of trees so this quilt can symbolize the growth of trees across the state.  Early settlers planted and cared for the trees they planted on their homesteads.  Farmland still dominates the landscape but trees are more plentiful and are still cherished. 

I like the idea of the name to symbolize the fact that my family ancestors came to Nebraska and put down their roots and stayed, worked and raised their families.  Nebraska is where I grew up and my roots grow deep in this land where I live.

My next blog post will show how I stitched the background sky motif so stop back again.

Until later,
Lynn

Borders and Quilting Fun

Here I am auditioning the last border with corner triangle squares and I do like the plaid fabric for binding.  I like to audition different fabrics this way and can hopefully see the best choice this way before stitching and “unstitching.”I knew what I wanted to do with the tree and hills but had to come up with an idea for the sky background quilting so I used scrap pieces of paper that had been in the trash to explore ideas and practice the designs.  I always keep papers that are only printed on one side to draw quilting designs on the backsides or on the white borders of printed sheets too.  Basically I am a doodler when I am on the phone, watching TV or just sitting around.  Do you do that too?  I think it really helps when I actually do the stitching if I have drawn the design over and over on paper first.As you can see I quilted the tree in the beige colored thread – Glide by Fil Tec.  I quilted near the original design lines that I stitched earlier then other texture lines to hopefully make the tree have some shape.The hills and grass were also quilted in the beige colored thread but the sky was quilted with black Glide thread by Fil-Tec.  One thing about quilting on the faux leather is that there is no ripping so first time is the only time it gets stitched.  I used a chalk wheel to mark the lines on the hills and a few more lines on the tree and that helped keep me on track.

This was a very fun section to quilt and I enjoyed it very much.  Maybe there will be more of it in my future.

Until Later,
Lynn