I just love my Beth’s Sampler quilt and am really keen to make the classes a success so am making the quilt up in several different colourways, so as to inspire potential class participants. Don’t want anyone to feel limited to producing exactly one style!
The original was made using mostly Moda fabrics from contemporary collections released over the last four years. It looks quite traditional, very rich - and is in keeping with the original colours of the antique quilt that inspired me. My Aunty Cate is keen to make this one.
For the more light hearted and energetic, I’m currently working on mark II - the Idgie Sampler! (Yep, named after Idgie from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe - a favourite to have playing in the background whilst I’m sewing). Makes me think of a lovely big bowl full of jellies at one of Little A’s birthday parties. This one’s for you, Louise and Mum!
The colours are SO different - I’m using a red print from the Wee Play collection for the contrast, a white with blue spot for the sashing and a variety of colourful, light and zippy fat quarters for the blocks. I was a bit worried that I would find it boring to make the same thing again, but it’s actually a delight because the blocks take on a completely different personality in the different fabrics. They are so zippy and cheeky!
I shall also make it in 1930s fabric - I think Carolann will make this one - she’s been collecting her 1930s fat quarters for years and this is the perfect quilt for using your stash quarters.
As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing the easy-peasy blocks thus far - I’m too tired to stare down 70 pieces of itty bitty fabric!
Oh and I forgot to show you a picture of the Girly Twirly Skirt - here’s two I’ve made for Little A …
… well sort of! Our bedrooms are set up, the new house is a mess but getting there (we just need to move the piano from in front of the television in the living room and it would probably make mum happy if she didn’t have the heavy pine chest blocking her wardrobe - actually, her room looks like a set from Steptoe and Son!). However the tumbledown house is diabolically messy and there is still a large amount of furniture which will go into storage this weekend! Oh dear, so much still to do :-(
I’m a complete convert to black - wow it sure works to make the other colours sing!
But on a cheerful note, I finished the amish-inspired sampler, which I have renamed Beth’s Sampler - after Beth from Little Women, the film of which kept me company until 2 am this morning whilst I sewed and sewed and sewed.
A view of the blocks - hey! I now know the yellow starry block is called “Stepping Stones” - it really works well huh! And I like the little log cabin beside it.
At 2am, however, I sewed two rows of sashing to one side - upon which I cursed a wee bit loud, and my husband’s sleepy voice called from the bedroom, that it was probably time to call it a night and come to bed. Naturally, all I dreamt about was sashing and borders and class plans.
Now just letting you know, the N hasn’t turned into a Z - the quilt just looked better hanging that way over the garden bench.
Thus, I woke up five hours later, my head abuzzing with determination to make the most of the next 2 hours, and my dear mum sat down at the table with me and we finished the borders, wrote the 6 lesson class notes, showered and dressed, and managed to make it to the quilt store by 10am for the meeting with the owner.
I reckon this bow tie block may almost be my favourite - I could easily make a quilt of these - in different colours of course!
And it was GOOD! I took along the finished sampler, the fat quarters I intended making Sampler Mark II with - “the Idgie Version” - the baby penny rugs (Lucia had her babies yesterday but still no names yet), the penny rug tic-tac-tote, the girly twirly skirts, and the dresden plate in the hoop. And Karen is happy to promote all four classes!
The Sampler class will run for 2 1/2 hours for six weeks, the Dresden Plate Hoop for 2 hours for two weeks, the Girly Twirly skirt for 3 hours with an optional stay for another 2 hours to finish it off, and the penny rugs will be held as a 2 hours workshop for which I need to make a few more items made with pennies as samples and participants can choose which item they would like to learn all about pennies with. Karen is also keen to start up a Civil War Quilt Diary group to meet monthly which she would like me to run - ha!ha!ha! This will inspire me to get back into these little, tricksy blocks! Awesome!
I love the ribbon border - I love how it’s embedded in the blue.
So all you dear readers in Brisbane - I’ll let you now when it’s time to sign up (the store’s moving premises over the next three weeks) and then you simply must come along! All very exciting huh!
And I must confess, I just love my sampler quilt - I will be basting it later this week and mum wants to try her hand at quilting it for me - she LIKES machine quilting (strange but true) and will quilt it with 2 inch diagonal lines. Nice and simple.
I have to go along to my meeting on Monday with a kind of show and tell - a “here’s what I have and think would make a good class kind of thing”. So after consultation with Carolann - who will cheerfully enrol in whatever I do! - we placed the amish sampler at top of the list, followed by the dresden plate hoop and the baby penny rug.
I was also keen on the Christmas quilt - the blue and white one with the flying geese - but having FOUR things in a finished enough state for Monday was not too ambitious - it was plain RIDICULOUS!
I think the Amish Sampler is a good idea for several reasons - there’s nothing else on offer at the quilt shop like it, it offers the opportunity to teach drafting, different piecing techniques, a wee bit of history and block lore, and it uses 11 fat quarters and a 2 metre piece of black. Of course, you could use any colour combination you like - and I’m thinking I will make it again in 1930s fabric - but I think the 11 fat quarter bit with a contrasting piece is an appealing and easy assortment of fabric to buy.
So yesterday Carolann and I surveyed the blocks completed so far, and those that were left and decided to shrink the quilt - 24 blocks as opposed to 48, and ditch the ones that required we divide 8 by 6 or 5 - ugh!
Instead, Carolann whipped out her favourite bedside reading and we had great fun choosing some new blocks that would look right at home with the original ones - Carolann played adjudicator on what blocks an Amish stitcher would have used and what ones she wouldn’t - being an expert and all ;-) - and discovering the names for the ones completed thus far! Cool - I adore knowing the names!
Then she cut whilst I sewed - what a perfect friendship hey!
So today, not only did I pack and pack and pack and pack - to the point where we have no cooking utensils or pots or plates or glasses etc - that made cooking dinner interesting … oh I’ll just have to digress here - we had nothing to prepare that didn’t require some kind of implement. I did suggest breakfast cereal but that was pooh-poohed by those more particular (actually, they probably just realised we had no bowls from which to eat it!) - and then Julian remembered these funny little frozen salmon portions I bought at IKEA! Yep - there they were in the back of the freezer - too weird. So we popped them in the oven - no baking trays so had to use a cast iron frypan - and had them with sourdough and tomatoes, on Lotte no less! And it wasn’t too bad! Fast food from Ikea - whatever next!
Anyway - back to quilts - not only did I pack and pack, yeah you get the picture - but I also managed to sew four more blocks. AND I finally - after 4 years - found my block of imperial graph paper. I paid an extraordinary amount of money for it, so refused to buy more when I couldn’t find it, and have therefore been using a METRIC graph book. Completely ridiculous on so many levels.
So I was able to draft all these tricksy blocks with on point squares in the middle and MEASURE them - can you believe it! I felt unbelievably technical and clever (but I won’t tell Julian or he’ll declare that I don’t need EQ 6 after all!)
The final block for the evening was the Road to Oklahoma. I chain pieced away …
… and then, whilst arranging the units on the table, realised if I turned the flying geese unit around the other way I had a different and very pretty block.
This way …
… or that way. Uh-huh, I decided to take the more scenic route to Oklahoma. And here are the finished blocks …
and one by one, in dreadful light, the Pride of Ohio (such a pretty, pretty block),
the Interlocking Red Cross (Julian’s favourite), and
the Scenic Road to Oklahoma (I’ve come a long way readers - this block has over 70 pieces which would have once sent me running for a nine patch - but it was almost enjoyable!)
I didn’t take an individual photo of the Kansas Dugout - how could I turn this block down when I could feel the vibrations of the oxens’ hooves on the sod roof, and hear the roar of Plum creek! - as the brown just looked plain yuck in the yellow lamplight of 11pm.
There’s also this block …
but I don’t remember what it’s supposed to be … hmmmm …
Little A deserved a celebratory afternoon tea this week - she was awarded her Silver Medal in her school’s Steps for Success program. So we headed off to Riverbend Cafe and Bookshop with Nan for a treat.
There were chocolate velvet tarts, and zesty lemon tarts, and strawberry milkshakes and rich coffees all served with Riverbend’s beautiful afternoon sun. Truly, it is the nicest place to sit and enjoy in Brisbane.
But that was not all! Oh no! We had Nan with us and she spied a boutique across the way. So over we went and Little A and I sat in front of the change rooms - doesn’t matter how old I get, some things never change ;-) - by the shoe display …
We waited, and oohed and aahed, and waited, and oohed and aahed some more.
When all of a sudden, a tingle ran down our spines - we were being watched! By a bejewelled, young crocodile no less …
… definitely time to hot foot it home, where our recently arrived and delightfully snuggly young guinea pigs were waiting.
Good thing we didn’t take Snufkin here out with us! She’d have been eaten for sure!
orange - spot - yellow - blue .. and so I must sing as I piece the spinning star four patch border because I’ve already unpicked two blocks and if one is going to sew instead of pack, one is NOT allowed to waste time unpicking!
So these days I’m committed to cutting my half square triangles at the next full inch rather than the 7/8 and then trimming them. This seems a terribly good idea when cutting and when piecing the finished half square - it is a truly ridiculous idea when you’re trimming silly, fiddly wisps off 36 squares. Besides, it only serves to show you how inaccurate your original sewing was. Humph!
But they did go together nicely after their haircuts.
This is an odd quilt to make - I like being able to put big chunks together quickly and because I’m waiting on the panel and stripe, I’m only winding up with a little strip here and a little strip there … here a strip, there a strip … everywhere just strips, STRIPS! Not very satisfying for a couple of hours work.
Perhaps I’m just petulant because I know I should be packing - or ironing, or cooking, or vacuuming, or chatting with little A.
(oh! you know what’s wrong with these slightly out of focus photos! - I’m a bit of a Tinkerbelle - can’t hold too many thoughts in my head at once and Julian has been trying to introduce me to iso levels and exposure compensation and in doing so, completely wiped the original instruction of “set the dial to P for perfect - not A for atrocious”. I took all of today’s photos on A - huh!)
That’s it - I’m closing the laptop - which, by the way, hates me. It now tells me that it has no startup memory left. I’m going to cook dinner and pack books.
p.s. I have a meeting with the owner of another of my favourite quilt shops next Monday - they are interested in me teaching some classes in term 3 and 4 - some penny rugs, dresden plates, a sampler, and Christmas decorations - and they want finished projects for the meeting. Good golly miss molly - shame all this couldn’t happen AFTER I move house.
