The Vintage CQ: Borders Constructed, 5 Years Later....

This quilt was begun in the summer of 2009.  I have made 45 blog posts about it!  If anyone is really curious and wants to see the individual flower blocks being made, and then the outer blocks, you can poke around
here, where the posts are all in one link.

This is the vintage crazy quilt that started it all.

How I wish I knew who made it or who owns it!  All I know is that when I first saw it, I instantly realized that I had to attempt a quilt based on it. Who knows why?  Love is not reasonable!

It was the border that made me put this quilt into hibernation from 2010 until 2014.

Not being a piecer, you can see why.  My friend Maureen Greeson even drafted the border pattern for me, but still I waited.

I think collaborating on our new book with my co-author, Valerie Bothell, whose work is so precise and logical, (and gorgeous) must have helped me tune up for this challenge.  Thanks, Val!

There are lots of technical issues, as you can imagine.  Working with wiggly, easily fraying fabric in small pieces was the main one; being accurate to the diagram, of course, was the other.  I'll share how I approached my task.

Because I am so used to working with a foundation, I decided to combine some "pre-piecing" of the units with machine applique.  Others would do this very differently, I am sure, but this is the only way that I could get a handle on this.  After tracing Maureen's diagram onto the muslin, and then interfacing it, this is the first "quadrant" being laid out.  I had traced freezer paper templates off the pattern for cutting out my shapes, and this worked very well.
I had sewn the units together...along their vertical lines.  That made the sewing easy.  The rest of the seams were ironed under, with the whole thing pinned to the foundation for sewing with clear thread.

Lots of pins....

For those chevron shapes along the outer edge, I sewed the fabrics together first, then ironed on the template and cut the shape out as one piece.  Then I joined the two halves of the chevron together by machine, matching where the seams came together in the center. This was doable!  The yellow triangles are appliqued on last.

One of the things I loved most about making these borders was that I got to revisit my fancy fabric stash, digging into the bins for just the right color and texture.

No scrap was too small, either!  I was right to save them all!

I used interfacing ALOT as I went along, sometimes before cutting the shapes out, sometimes after.

I will not even attempt to cut silk charmeuse without interfacing it first.

But more stable fabrics, like the silk tie fabric on the left, are ok to sew but they will fray like mad.  So I interfaced that chevron wedge after sewing but before cutting.

The other fabric that demanded strict and non-negotiable handling was that notorious diva, velvet.

Interfacing and then pinning it about every 1/2" did the trick.

Take that, you velvet, you!

By the time I finished the second quadrant, things were going very smoothly.

Here I've started playing around with using vintage velvet ribbon to cover the raw edges between the rows of units.

By the fourth quadrant, I really didn't want this phase of my Vintage CQ to end...

You can see I've got ironing, cutting and sewing all within reach.  What you can't see are the piles of fabric all over the rest of my sewing room!

There were many sweet memories as I used fabrics from so many friends and from family, too. This is a distinct advantage of working slowly.  It gives plenty of time for reflection....

I call this the "Seidman Corner".  My Uncle Bill Seidman was in government under Ford and Bush 1...his FDIC and Treasury Department ties are in there, an American flag eagle, a medal from his time as an economic adviser to the President in the White House.  I am very proud of his public service.
The ribbon is from my Aunt Sally's sewing box, a beautifully woven commemoration of the Bi-Centennial in 1976.

So this is where I am now:

The quadrants and ribbons are all pinned into place on the design wall, just so I can see that everything will eventually fit together alright. (Again, thanks Maureen!!!!)
When it comes time to sew it all together, I will have those rulers handy so I can get everything exactly the same size, not just eyeball it like here.  (Again, thanks Val!)

But first I need to embrodier those quadrants....

I'll be using the same fly stitch that is featured in all the center flower blocks, in DMC's Satin Floss, which is rayon and therefore nice and glimmery.

With that, and all the tremendous amount of finish work ahead of me, this quilt has a long ways to go.  But it will be done this year, for sure!

Vintage CQ....Finished for Now

I began this project in June 2009, piecing the center wheelblocks feverishly as a way to cope with a dire illness in the family. (My SIL is fine now, thank God.)

The inspiration for the quilt was this, as you recall:

I had a great time over last summer and fall creating unique flower motifs to go into each wheel block; I made 30 and discarded 2, for 28 total.

Along the way, I pieced one set border blocks surrounding that central wheel block section and then scrapped it as being too loud and contemporary.
The second set of blocks was much more to my liking, and you saw their finished result in my last post.

Then those butterflies flew in with the sunshine!

Now the quilt is assembled and at a good "resting point". Sometimes these very long haul projects need to hibernate awhile, and I sense strongly that that is the case here, as my vision for the final border is not clear (though Maureen Greeson kindly drafted a pattern for the outer border you see in the original quilt.)

So here is where we are now:

First, a few detail shots that show some butterflies and also that black inner border that finally went on to help define the center section.

I repeated the fly stitch in floss between the blocks in the outer border to tie in with all the flystitching in the center section.

I have to admit, it was fun using such wild color combinations, trying at the same time to keep them from getting away from me...sort of like riding at a gallop but pulling on the reins!

And finally, this:

I'm quite happy with it, although I wish the wheelblock piecing was more accurate. But their wonkyness reflects what we as a family were going through at the time I was sewing them. And I can't look at all that flystitching in those blocks without remembering long plane rides to and from the hospital, crying, hoping, and praying.

So we'll let this quilt sleep for awhile and see what it wants when it wakes up, whenever that is!

Meanwhile, there are more garden prints to stitch.....

Vintage CQ...Outer Blocks Finished

A tour around the blocks!
There are 14 of them, and I'll just post them in order as they go around the center section of the quilt.
I won't show the whole view until it is all sewn together, though. You'll have to wait to see....

Believe it or not, there is a lot of structure built into this quilt, to counter the randomness inherent in it too. Hopefully that will all be apparent in the end....
As always, click on the pictures to get a larger view.

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Block 5

Block 6

Block 7

Block 8

Block 9

Block 10

Block 11

Block 12

Block 13

Block 14

And yes, a few of those butterflies landed in the center of the quilt, too.

I really couldn't stop them.

It feels good to be coming down the home stretch on this quilt, although there is still that outer border to go....

Vintage CQ...Butterfly Invasion

I have been working on this project off and on during this spring-into-summer. Slowly, a seam here or there between other goings-on....

I've let this gradually unfold....

But all of a sudden a giant cloud of butterflies has alighted onto this quilt!

I am "catching them" with this nice old black perle cotton that the lovely Freda sent to me awhile ago.

Here are two more! That third one in the upper left is waiting for the blocks to be all sewn together before it will permanently land on the seam between them.

When they are all sewn on I'll post more pictures. I'm so glad they showed up....!

Back from the Ranch

My sister and I visited our cousin Tracy and her husband John at my cousins' ranch in Wagon Mound, NM this last week. So many wonderful things happened!

We dove deeply into the family scrapbooks from my mom's young life which Mary and I had never seen; we rode in the canyon looking for arrowheads and caves; went on beautiful hikes; had intense discussions about quilting and art (Tracy got me started in quilting in the '70's). We shared a campfire in honor of my uncle, Tracy's dad, who passed away a year ago, and things got good and rowdy....

But most of all this trip demonstrated that when family and friendship merge together, it is just pure unadulterated joy...

Here's a little tour....

The Main House was built in 1800 and has been added onto over the years.

Mary and I had the red guest house all to ourselves which is just a short walk from the Main House...

I had a cozy room, didn't I? While snuggled under the quilts I could hear mountain lions screaming under the stars at night and wild turkeys gobbling in the mornings....

My sister and I were joined by Jag and Swig on our morning walks.

They would follow us back to the barn.

It sure was pretty.....

We all loved Ralph, an orphan calf that Tracy was raising. He followed us around and reminded me of my dairy days...

We spent a lot of time going through old family papers together, but we did talk quilting some.
Tracy bequeathed all her dad's old ties to me, and I got to thinking about how I could use them...

I laid them out on the floor in a very rough fashion with some old fans in two of the corners, just to see how they'd fit in the Vintage CQ...
He wore these ties to all the meetings, dinners, conferences, flights, classes, and broadcasts he made during his career in government, business, education, and television over the decades...I love the idea of my uncle's life being part of this quilt, especially because my aunt is already here with her polka dot scarves and the Bicentennial ribbon. We'll see....

Tracy gave me some of her quilt blocks from when she used them in her work as a professional illustrator back in 1971....you read that right; as a quilter she was way ahead of her time. I'll share those in a future post.

Meanwhile...

Thanks, Tracy...you are the absolute best!

Vintage CQ...Waste Canvas Grids

I blame it all on the great Barbara Meger, a national smocking teacher whom I was honored to teach crazy piecing to last year. I had suggested she incorporate smocking into a crazy quilt block and just look at what she did...

Besides her extraordinary smocking and stitching, what really grabbed me about this block is that grid in the lower right. I just love it!

So on a much humbler level I decided to put some grids in some of the patches of my border blocks. Using waste canvas seemed like the best way to get them accurate.

Just count and stitch. Easy peasy.

This is how it looks with the waste canvas grid removed. (Bev, this is the offending yellow patch, by the way.)
And here is how I like to do that....

I cut away the excess, then cut again to make the strings shorter and therefore easier to pull out. And on this one, I added the second color of thread after removing the grid, figuring I could eyeball that o.k. Again, this lesser amount of stitching makes the grid easier to remove....

...and you get this.

Then I thought, why not just use the grid as a marking tool and dispense stitching through it altogether?

Comme ci...

Comme ca....

....Et voila!

And again, using a larger grid this time....

The chalk pencil is good for the larger grid and dark fabric.

This one uses a third color and I like it, so I will probably go back and add that to the other grids...

...like this one.
(Isn't that Oya needlelace trim great? As well as the pinkish/violet one in the fifth picture from the top? You can buy your own here from Rengin in Istanbul...)

But then I got cocky and tried doing the whole grid stitching process without a marking anything at all.

It was a small patch and I thought I could get away with it. Looks pretty wonky, though, especially with that perfectly woven grid nearby. I'm glad I didn't use highly contrasting colors.

I love these grids and will add more to my blocks, but first I'm taking a small break to work on a present that I can't blog about. I'll be back in a week or so....bye for now!