May-hem Muchness

This is Renata's quilt with my fan stencil machine quilting.  Love it! Goes so great on this quilt.  She did a great job!

At the Quilt show in NJ I ran into Jean and she had her finished churn dash quilt with her.  What fun!

Yay!

I finished my first block of the Chrome Yellow 4-block quilt project.  It matches my green/yellow arborvitae. 

 It also looks nice with my daffodils and grape hyacinth.  YES spring has arrived in CT finally!!

I love the crisp look of a freshly finished and pressed applique' block.  I steam press it from the back on a fluffy bath towel.  I use a spray bottle of plain water to create the steam as I NEVER add water to my iron anymore.

I received several comments about my rag balls.  First I will confess, they aren't balls from strips of fabric.  They are balls of batting strips that I cover with strips that I trim from my quilt backings.  

 Rag balls were made of strips of old clothing and rolled into ball to later be used to make rag rugs and weaving.  

 I have heard of modern day quilters using selvages to tie up garden plants.

 I like them as a remembrance of the quilts I've made.  The sweet pink one below is from my Mother's Garden quilt.

 There fun to look at and if I was better at juggling, they would be good for that :)

As reported on Instagram - my Jubilee quilt is home after traveling to Houston and Chicago.

 OMG - I am missing  line of quilting by my initial and just noticed it after 5 major shows, lol.  Will take care of that soon.

They sent me show books and nice patches for my quilt.  It was a great experience and I highly recommend you enter any one of there special exhibits.    click here to see what they are calling for this year.

 What a nice touch - they packed it beautifully with lots of acid free tissue and this note which included the packers name.

And finally, we golfed for the first time last weekend with our golf buddies.  Anyone else out there golf?  I love to spend the time outside with Mr. Fun and friends.

of course I mostly love to go out to eat before or after and have a cocktail :)
Can you believe the carts had GPS so we knew exactly how far the cup was?

  Oooops, too much talking and looking in the weeds for my pink golf balls.  

Happy May!  It's Derby Day on Saturday - woo hoo!! 
xo

Fan-tastic Fan Quilting

Hello.  I injured my wrist last week, so I don't have a lot of new things to share. I thought I'd share some Fabulous Fan Quilting images that I've collected.
What a great small antique quilt.

 These are set like Clamshells.  How neat.

 Here the quilter played around with which blades to quilt.  I love this quilt!

 Katy did this one and I love how she switched directions.  That Irish Chain got cray cray on the left side.

Lori had this on her blog - wow good one!

 Another example by Katy.  They frame the edge and collide in the middle.

 Oooh La La so elegant on this applique quilt.   I like the alternate block - very unique.

Which is your favorite?

These quilts and other antique quilts I've studied helped me develop my Fan Stencils.

I'll let you in on a secret.  If you get the small blade fan stencil, you can skip every other line and achieve the look of the original fan.

You can find them in my Etsy Shop by clicking here.   I will give you a 20% discount if you enter the code: SPARROW when ordering.

Whether you use my stencil or another, click here for my tutorial on marking them in the traditional way or use the photos in this post to try a new way.

I hope all you Swappers doing well with your Churn Dash Blocks.  I can't wait to see them all!

xo

New Secret Weapon

It's Dawn Dishwashing Liquid!    I'll get back to that but first~
I finished my Stars in a Time Warp Quilt.

Good and Plenty Stars - 38" x 38"

I named it that because of the black and pink like the candy.    Do you like it?  I hate it - but I loved the Choo Choo Charlie ads.

Here is the back.  I have had this fabric for about 10 years I think. This was about all I had but it was perfect for this.

It is a neat print about the "Arts".

I used my new stencil for the quilting and I'm pleased with how it turned out.  It is much easier to use it on a smaller piece for sure.  I buried my threads using a self-threading needle.

Why you need Dawn:
In a blog post recently, Chantal of At the Corner of Scraps and Quilts, shared her experience.

For reasons unknown, the blue ink did not come out with detergent and Clorox2.  Here it is soaking in Dawn.

What is weird is that it came out perfectly on this light fabric.....?

But not this one....

Luckily, over night it all came out - whew!

Thanks to all who took my recent poll.  Here are the results:

On Quilt Shows - results combine 2 polls
92%  Attend Quilt Shows
45% Enter Quilts
35% Haven't Entered Yet
13% Don't Enter

How we share (I allowed multiple answers)
41% Blogging
41% Quilt Shows
60% Guild Quilt Shows
15% Don't Share

So Hooray for us to attending and sharing our work!  Keep it up!

On a final note I had a mishap in the kitchen with a spaghetti squash yesterday that resulted in getting 4 stitches in my thumb.

I was impressed with this little stitching kit.  Special thanks to my daughter, Hanna, who insisted we get it checked out.   It is funny when the tables turn with our kids.

Last shot of Good and Plenty Stars.  I set it down and turned around to get the camera and it got this much snow!

We may get as much as 20 inches today which delayed my trip to NJ for a lecture/workshop but I'll make it for Saturday.

xo
p.s. it is so crazy, but I did almost this exact post a year ago, click here to see it.

Remembering Jill Reid

It has been 2 years since I lost my kindred spirit, Jill Reid.  In some ways it feels a short time, but most often it feels like a long long time.  I miss her in so many big and little ways.

Last Friday I started playing with some UFO blocks from Jill and I made this table runner.

I added a bluebird for Jill and a redbird for me.

Here is is on my DR table this morning.

I marked 1 arc of my fan stencil and then just echoed it.

I used this decorator weight trademark fabric on the back.  Jill would have adored this fabric.

The strangest thing happened while I was picking a good blue to make Jill's bird.  I found this fabric in the blue fabric stack it was just a small piece.

Reilly was Jill's beloved Labradoodle and this is definitely Jill's handwriting.  How strange and wonderful to find it.  It is on the underside of her bird.

Here is a post I did on the sunflower quilt that I made for our friend, Susan in 2014.  

Guess who's back in town?

 they came on Monday, the first day I put the feeders out.

This is my favorite photo of me and Jill.  If you want to see some of Jill's beautiful quilts, click to see a Tribute that I posted after she passed away.

I miss you friend.
xo


p.s. I will definitely post my westering women and cake on Friday.

Giveaway Winner

Happy Friday!

Congratulations Carol, from Texas, who won a box of scraps.  Please send me your home address and I'll ship them out this week.

Chris offered to pass some along if she won, so I'm sending her a package of scraps too!

Thanks for your input on the binding issue, I'm gratified to know it's not just me. I had many anonymous commenters and some several non-reply bloggers.  This is how they make me feel~

I send a quick note to everyone who comments, so if you didn't get an email it is because YOU are a non-reply blogger.  You can fix that by going here to Lori's great post on identifying and fixing that.

Yay!  Friday I caught up on my Stars in a Time Warp.  I'm so glad that I did this sew along.  I've learned so much about fabric styles and it's been fun to be part of a big sew along.

Provincial Print - I couldn't help including the French Rooster conversation print.

 Sprigged Muslin two ways

 Coral Print with a little nautical anchor shirting.

 Early Roller Print with another sprigged muslin.

I found this wonderful photo of large fan quilting recently.   This is a quilt I'd love to make!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers!

It's pretty much all things Christmas around here and I'll be doing some Chritmassy posts soon!