Throwback Thursday--Indian Summer Log Cabin

While looking through some old photos on my computer recently, I discovered a couple of shots of a small wall-hanging that I made back in 2002. It was made as my entry in the annual quilt challenge at the local Ben Franklin Crafts Store. This is my Indian Summer Log Cabin wall hanging, and it measures 33" square.

I was very surprised to find some info I had saved from this challenge that included swatches of the required fabrics. I remember having a very difficult time figuring out how to combine these widely varied prints. I added one brown print, the dark navy, and the peach print that makes up most of the background.

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

Julie in GA

Throwback Thursday--Santa's Block Party

It is time once again for Throwback Thursday, and this week we are getting into the holiday spirit. I have a very special Christmas quilt to share this week. The story begins with the fact that my husband collects Santas of all sizes and styles. We have Santa teapots, cookie jars, ornaments, figures, plates, mugs, nightlights, salt and pepper shakers, glasses, etc., etc....There is no telling how many Santas live at our house!

Back in 2006, before we were married, I found this fabulous Santa fabric at a quilt shop in Edmonton, Alberta. The line of fabrics was "Good Tidings" by Diane Knott for Clothworks. I knew I had to make him a quilt featuring this fabric. My photo shows six of the nine different Santa figures.

I played with a variety of design ideas for the quilt, and settled on framing out the Santa blocks, then alternating them with log cabin blocks. There are a zillion green fabrics in this quilt, yet my shelf of greens is still packed full! 

Santa's Block Party

The finished quilt measures about 56" x 72", and it was completed in 2009. My friend Jan at Cat's Meow Quilting did the fabulous machine quilting on it, which you can see better in the detail photo. It is always a treat to get this quilt out when we are decorating for the holidays and hang it right next to our Christmas tree.

Check out other Throwback Thursday quilt posts at both Krista Quilts and at A Quarter Inch from the Edge. Even better, add your own post to the link-ups. We'd love to see your quilts from the past! 


Julie in GA

Throwback Thursday--Floral Log Cabin

My quilt submission for this week's Throwback Thursday post is the first bed-sized quilt I made by myself. It was started in a quilting class in October, 1995 and finished in August, 1997.

The pattern for our class was called Floral Blocks and Logs. I think it was meant to be a colorwash-type design. The pattern has 36 blocks, making a quilt that measures 63" square. Here is the cover of the pattern. 

I was a very new quilter when I took this class and really didn't have much of a stash of fabrics (boy, has that fact changed!) I vaguely remember going to Joann Fabrics and filling up a whole cart, maybe two, with bolts of fabric and getting 1/8 or 1/4 yard pieces of each one. I'm sure the people working there hated me that day!

During and soon after the class, I made 24 blocks for this quilt, then stashed the whole collection away in a box, probably because I didn't know how big I wanted to go with it. Nearly two years later, I pulled out the blocks and the fabric strips and made 40 more blocks. I quickly discovered the fun of playing with log cabin blocks in different settings. Of course, this was long before digital cameras came along, so I used a Polaroid camera to try different layouts of my blocks. Here are some of the possible layouts that I considered.

Floral Log Cabin--final layout of center

The center of my quilt is 64 blocks set 8x8 and measuring 84" square. To make the quilt big enough for my bed, I designed my own border for the quilt. I especially like the checkerboard--that's a lot of 1" squares! The next couple of photos give a better idea of the colors in the quilt than the scanned Polaroids in the previous photos.

Floral Log Cabin--center of quilt

Floral Log Cabin--border

This is the only large quilt I have ever quilted myself. I did it on my domestic machine, all stitch-in-the-ditch. The back of the quilt is plain muslin, and it feels like the batting might be polyester. I like to change around the quilts on our beds as the seasons change, and decided this quilt would be a good one to use now that it is starting to feel like fall. It was very difficult to get a photo of the whole quilt on the bed, but this was the best I could manage.

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

Throwback Thursday--Hawaiian Punch

Today's Throwback Thursday quilt is another in my series of wallhangings made for the Ben Franklin Challenge in Oconomowoc, WI. I entered this challenge every year between 1998 and 2003 when I lived in Milwaukee, and I even continued making entries for some years after I had moved away. Today's quilt was made in 2010.

The name of my quilt is Hawaiian Punch. It was my first-ever attempt at pineapple blocks. I printed out line drawings of pineapple designs and experimented with different color placements. The blocks measure 7-1/2" finished size, and the quilt finished at 37" square.

The squares in the following photo show three of the fabrics we were required to use in our challenge entries. I fussy cut those fabrics to make the most of their designs. The other two challenge fabrics were one of the bright pinks in the center of the quilt and the light spotted fabric that is at the center of most of the blocks. 

The next photo features the center of the quilt and gives a good view of many of the fabrics. We were required to use a recognizable amount of all the challenge fabrics and could add as many other fabrics as we wished.

My color plan included blocks pieced to form a built-in border effect with the darker purples. I was especially happy with the way this part worked out and will probably use that idea again if I ever make another pineapple quilt.

Hawaiian Punch took 1st place in the 2010 Ben Franklin challenge. It is currently hanging above my bed where I enjoy seeing it every single day. 

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

Throwback Thursday--A Garden of Stars

Last week I showed the quilt that was my first entry for the Ben Franklin Crafts Quilting Challenge in Oconomowoc, WI from 1998. Here is another of my challenge entries, this time dating back to 2001.

I believe the challenge fabrics that had to be used in the quilt were the ones you see in this close-up photo--the blue, gold and burgundy prints, plus maybe the beige background. The star block measures 6".

The pattern I used was a variation on Judy Martin's pattern "Desert Twilight" from The Block Book. I changed the small stars a little bit and added the gold framing around the octagon. My favorite part of this quilt is the blue fabric that forms the large star points and the outer border. That was a wonderful find!

A Garden of Stars 2001
36" square
based on the pattern "Desert Twilight" by Judy Martin in The Block Book

My little quilt took 2nd place in the Ben Franklin Challenge in 2001 and also won viewer's choice. It is still a favorite of mine and hangs in our den at home.

Check out other Throwback Thursday quilt posts at both Krista Quilts and at A Quarter Inch from the Edge. Even better, add your own post to the link-ups. We'd love to see your quilts from the past! 


Julie in GA

Throwback Thursday--Feathered Star

When I lived in Milwaukee, one of my favorite stores for quilting fabric was the Ben Franklin Crafts store in Oconomowoc, WI. They had (and still have) a large quilting area with a great selection of fabrics. Every year they would sponsor a quilt challenge which required buying their Challenge Pack, usually 3 or 4 fabrics in 1/4-yard pieces. A recognizable amount of each challenge fabric had to be used in the entry, along with other fabrics of my choice. For this quilt, I believe the challenge fabrics were the large floral print, the blue, and the plaid.

Feathered Star Medallion
Ben Franklin Challenge 1998
29" square

1998 was the first time I entered the Ben Franklin Challenge with this Feathered Star quilt. My piecing looks pretty good, especially for someone who had been quilting only a couple of years at this point. The bigger problem, both then and now, is in the quilting. This quilt definitely needed more quilting in the background areas, maybe some stippling around those flowers. Perhaps someday I will go back and add more quilting to this little quilt.

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

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

Throwback Thursday--Ocean Waves

I joined my first quilt guild in the fall of 1997, two years after I started quilting. One of their activities was an annual quilt challenge, and that first year the theme was Amish. I researched Amish quilts, checking out many books from the library. I especially liked An Amish Adventure by Roberta Horton. The pattern I chose to make was an Ocean Waves quilt. 

Ocean Waves Quilt 1998
Honeybees Guild Amish Challenge
43" x 56"

This quilt was my first experience making lots of HSTs. I used the bias strips technique that I learned from a book by Marsha McCloskey. I just discovered a recent blog post from her explaining this process. You can find it HERE. The pieces shown in the photos below were made for another quilt, but use the same technique. I find this method to be extremely accurate for making lots of HSTs, and less tedious than making them oversized and trimming down.

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

Throwback Thursday--9Patch Grid

It's time for another Throwback Thursday link-up over at Krista Quilts. My quilt for this week is another variation on the Split Nine-Patch similar to the beginning class project I showed two weeks ago. I saw a photo of an antique quilt with this kind of shading, which produces the appearance of light and dark blue diamonds overlaid by a gridwork of peach. One name I had seen for this pattern was "Hayes Corner," but when I googled that name, some very different versions popped up.

Right now I'm not sure where this quilt ended up. Last I remember it had been hanging in my sister's house. I believe I probably made this little wallhanging in the fall of 1996 or early 1997, and the colors certainly fit that time frame.

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

Throwback Thursday--Pinwheel Baby Quilt

Two weeks ago I showed my first quilt, a Double Irish Chain that my sister Karen and I made together in 1995 for our brother's wedding. The following year I made my first baby quilt for my brother's son Devin.

Here are the fabrics I used. The white-on-white was the background, and the tone-on-tone pieces were all used for pinwheels. The large piece on the left was the backing.

The pattern I used was a pinwheel variation by Trudie Hughes from her 1993 book Quilts to Fit Beds. Trudie was an early designer of rotary-cut patterns and published many great books and patterns. My quilting was minimal, mostly just stitch in the ditch. Seeing this quilt now makes me want to make the pattern again, maybe with the addition of a border.

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! I am also linking up to Let's Make Baby Quilts at Michelle's Romantic Tangle.



Julie in GA

TBT--My First Quilting Class

It's time for another week of Throwback Thursday over at Krista Quilts. I just discovered another Throwback Thursday link-up over at A Quarter Inch from the Edge. Last week I showed my first ever quilt, made along with my sister in spring of 1995. You can see that post HERE. This week I wanted to share the quilt I made in my first quilting class.

In the fall of 1995, I signed up for a beginning quilting class at Patched Works in Elm Grove, WI (the west side of the Milwaukee area.) The pattern we were making was a scrappy split nine-patch. Even then, I knew that I didn't like the "anything goes including the kitchen sink" type of scrappy quilt. I preferred a more limited color scheme and kept mine in the jewel tones. Many of the fabrics came from the scrap bins at the store, but I had already started collecting some fabrics myself. Here is a close-up showing a selection of prints.

We learned some tricks for making multiple half-square triangles, and the piecing was quick and fun. It took me close to a year to get the quilt layered, quilted and bound. The quilting is very simple, just stitch in the ditch. The borders don't lay very flat, but otherwise I am happy with this early effort. I learned that I love scrappy quilts as long as there is some cohesiveness to the fabrics chosen. I also figured out that for me piecing the quilt top is much more fun than the doing the quilting, something that is still true today.

Split Nine-Patch 1995
38.5" x 52.5"

Check out other Throwback Thursday quilt posts at Krista Quilts and at A Quarter Inch from the Edge. Even better, add your own post to the link-ups.

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