Shopping for quilt fabric …

I've only taken one quilting class, long ago in Boise, Idaho in the late 80s, at Quilt Crossing, a local quilt shop run by a fellow Boise Basin Quilters member. The quilt was based on strip piecing and was called Garden Trellis. I knew nothing about choosing fabric for a quilt, I just chose 3 lights and 3 darks and a large print. The sewing of this quilt is beginner level but the concepts of color and shading do not lend themselves well to a first quilt. When I saw what the other women in class did with their color choices and placement of the combinations possible, I was really demoralized and never finished mine. In fact, I've only completed one quilt since, although I have now returned to quilting, but I've chosen a quilt with instructions in a book--hopefully with answers to all of the questions I'll likely come across.

Now, as to choosing fabric--I've been lucky enough to find almost all of the actual fabrics Denise used in her Jacobean appliqué quilt. But, like Bradie, I've just about died when I added up the cost of all those fat quarters needed. I've solved that problem by buying charm packs, layer cakes, turnovers, jelly rolls and honey buns of the three collections in the colorations used in the book, many of them on eBay and several from on-line merchants. I've only had to purchase yardage for three of the backgrounds and the backing--all of the rest is useable from the Moda precuts. I tried going to quilt shops, but they either didn't have any of the fabric left or had never had those particular collections in their store. So it's on-line for me--it saves me time and gas money searching here and there and usually coming up empty.

I also try to save money by choosing fabric collections to make items for my home or as gifts that will actually match or coordinate with items or rooms that I already have or need to make for someone else's home as a hostess gift. I'm willing to spend a little more to gather the precuts I need to make a lap quilt and shoulder wrap to wear when I sit in a drafty room at my computer for hours. It will save me money in the long run on energy costs. I need some placemats and small appliance covers and a quilt to use in favorite chair when I read and another to nap with on the bed. So I will acquire a stash, but I intend to use it all--dying with the most unused fabric is not how I want my epitaph to read.

Quilter's Blog-Along

Machine Piecing

I'm not at all happy with the supposed 1/4" seam my quilting foot makes. Even though I was oh so careful, my first three pieced blocks did not turn out to match the dimensions that should have resulted from my careful cutting and stitching. I will be experimenting with other feet in my sewing box in hopes of finding a more accurate foot. QuiltCetera offers some tips to eliminate this problem for Tutorial Tuesday.

The Flagstone block is one of the larger pieced blocks in the Graceful Garden Jacobean Quilt I am reproducing. The Whirligigs are one set of paired piecing. The two Poppy blocks were an appliquéd pair.

Quilter's Daily Blog-Along

Mirror-image Blocks

No matter how many times I looked at the blocks, being oh-so-careful to glue-baste-it the pieces in just the right place, I ended up with two of the same blocks. But the miracle of the Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It! allowed me to pull and tug the offending poppy up and replace it in the correct position. Now I will repress the poppy down with the iron and begin machine quilting. I use an elna Carina and a point-de-Paris appliqué stitch cam with ecru thread in the bobbin and the color of each of the appliqué pieces as the top thread. This is the first set of mirror-image blocks I am assembling from Denise Sheehan's The Graceful Garden Jacobean Quilt.
The fabrics are from Aviary, by 3 Sisters and Collections for the Cause Legacy and Heritage, all Moda fabrics.
Denise stresses in her instructions to make sure the curves are cleanly cut, else the appliqués will have little pointy bits along the edges. You can see that the blue poppy has the pointy edges. My husband could spot the mistake clear across the room! I guess it's like sewing 4 bride's maids dresses all in a row, the fourth is by far the best! Practice makes perfect is a true axiom!

Vines In French Dreams

Years ago in my first house I wallpapered the dining room with this beautiful wallpaper, Nancy Vine. I had spent two days in the wallpaper store looking through every book available when at long last Nancy Vine jumped out at me and screamed, "I'm French, take me home!" I no longer have the little storybook house with the pink door, but I still have a few pieces of the wallpaper, which will now grace a paper-covered box edged with blue ribbon to use from which to sell furbelows at reenactments.

And at long last I have discovered a book on Jacobean quilting, The Graceful Garden, by Denise Sheehan, which can help me recreate the feeling of being in the sunlight in that long gone dining room,a quilt that will reach out and scream, "I'm French, take me home." Fabrics are taken from the Moda fabrics of Aviary [3 Sisters] and Collections for a Cause--Legacy and Heritage.