Orphan Adoption #1--Fall 2020

One of my biggest projects over the past couple of months has been attempting to clean up and reorganize my sewing room. It has gotten to the point where I am overwhelmed by how much quilting stuff I have--books, magazines, fabric, scraps, UFOs, etc. Lucky for me, this week it's time for the Fall 2020 Quilty Orphan Adoption Event  hosted by Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

The Orphan Adoption event is held twice a year to help quilters clear out some of the old projects that we will never finish. It's the perfect opportunity to pass along your orphan blocks/projects to someone else who will love and finish them! It's also a great time to acquire a new project or two for yourself.

I have multiple offerings up for adoption this fall, and I am going to list them each in a separate post. That makes it easier for me to keep track of who is interested in each item. My other posts can be viewed HERE and HERE.

One reason my sewing room is such a mess is because I'm not good about dealing with the leftovers after I finish a quilt. I generally end up with a box of extra or partial blocks, leftover strip sets and chunks of fabrics. The bigger fabric pieces might make it back into my stash, but I have a hard time deciding what to do with the rest. My first "orphan" came from one of those boxes.

This is the first bed-sized quilt I ever made. It was started in a class in 1995 and finished in 1997. The blocks start with a 9-patch in the center, then build log cabin strips around that. Here is the original pattern, which makes a quilt that finishes at 63" square. I used a different layout of the blocks for my quilt. The pattern will be included with the fabrics below.

1995 was my first year as a quilter, so I didn't have much of a fabric stash. I remember going to JoAnn Fabrics and buying a ton of 1/8 - 1/4 yard pieces of mostly floral prints. There are 3 completed 9-patch blocks, plus the makings for at least 30 - 40 more blocks, probably even more than that.

These are the strips for the log cabin part of the blocks. The three piles on the left are already cut to the needed lengths, all ready to start sewing. The other stacks are full or partial 1.5" strips.

That's my first "orphan" available for adoption--the pattern plus all the pieces and parts to make many blocks. I will ship to the winner anywhere in the U.S. only. One warning--there may be a delay in getting these in the mail. Don't count on receiving your "orphan" immediately. 

Leave a comment to let me know if you would like to adopt this orphan project. Shipping in the U.S. only. Please be sure to include your email address so I can contact the winner. I will choose a random winner next Tuesday, September 22. Get your comment in by noon that day. Be sure to check out the rest of the quilty orphans over at Quilting is more fun than Housework. 

Julie in GA

Design Wall Monday 5/30/16

Happy Memorial Day to all in the U.S. I hope you have enjoyed a relaxing weekend.  Many thanks to all the men and women who have lost their lives in service to our country.

Most of my quilting time last week was spent finishing the binding and hanging sleeve on my red, white & blue sampler quilt, which I got done just in time to hang it for Memorial Day. You can see a photo of the finished quilt in yesterday's post. I also put up a couple of other red, white & blue wallhangings for the holiday.

The flag quilt was started as a guild exchange of triangle squares in 2002, and I finished the quilt in 2013. The Churn Dash quilt was also made in 2002. It was the sample for an advanced beginner's quilting class that I used to teach. 

The only other quilting I have gotten done lately is hand stitching on my Glorious Hexagons blocks. Here are the blocks I have completed in May. I believe I now have a total of 36 blocks finished. It's going to be a very colorful quilt!

I am sharing with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times, and  Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt.

Julie in GA

Throwback Thursday--Around the Twist

This week's Throwback Thursday quilt is a scaled-down version of the Around the Twist pattern, using 3" finished blocks. I liked the pattern but wasn't sure about making a large quilt from it, so I decided to try it out in a smaller size. It was probably the first time I ever set quilt blocks on the diagonal too. According to my records, I made this quilt top in the fall of 1995, around the time I took my first quilting class.

Around the Twist
23" x 31.5"

I was happy with the way the quilt top turned out, but the problems began when I attempted to quilt it. I had taken my first free-motion machine quilting class in 1996, and decided to use what I learned on this little quilt. My first mistake was using a thickish polyester batting. It made the quilt hard to handle, and the machine quilting really pulled the quilt in toward the center. I also don't like the look of the shiny nylon thread used for the quilting. It has been hanging around unfinished ever since then. Every once in a while I run across it and think about taking out all the quilting and trying again, but haven't talked myself into that yet.

Check out other Throwback Thursday quilt posts at Krista Quilts. Even better, add your own post to the link-up. We'd love to see your quilts from the past! 


Julie in GA

Quilting Throwback Thursday

This post was first published in late July of 2015, but I am linking it up now (8/4/2016) to Throwback Thursday at A Quarter Inch from the Edge.

 

It's time for the quilting version of Throwback Thursday over at Krista Quilts. Last Thursday Krista showed photos of one of her early quilt projects, and I suggested she host a linky party each week for Throwback Thursday. I'm so glad she decided to go ahead with the idea. I am looking forward to sharing photos and stories of early quilt projects.

It seemed like the place to start should be my first quilt. In 1994 I made a patchwork Christmas tree skirt for my mother. I had no prior quilting experience and made up my own pattern for the tree skirt. It's far from perfect, but I enjoyed the experience. 

After that, my sister Karen (who had been quilting for several years) suggested that we make a quilt together for our brother's wedding. One weekend in April, 1995, I met her at her house where she had picked out a few possible patterns. We decided to go with the Double Irish Chain, using Eleanor Burns' Quilt in a Day book as our guide. That same day we shopped for fabric, washed and dried it, then started cutting and piecing. Here is our first block.

How about those 90's fabrics? Actually, I still love the light background print. We kept working the rest of that Saturday and all day Sunday. By the end of Sunday we had the entire center of the quilt together. To tell the truth, I can't remember if we got the borders pieced and stitched on that weekend or not. It's possible that we got together another weekend to finish up.

We pieced the border of squares on point seminole style. It didn't turn out quite the right size, so we just trimmed it off at the length needed.

This was my first quilt experience, and I was immediately hooked! It has been a wonderful 20-year journey, and I am looking forward to sharing early, pre-blog projects on upcoming Thursdays.

Check out other Throwback Thursday quilt posts at Krista Quilts. Even better, add your own Throwback Thursday quilting post to the link-up.

Julie in GA