Half Square Triangle Quilt

Here is another of Ruth's half square triangle quilts.

Do these make you think of lovely sunny summer days and blue skies?

Very, very light custom quilting....

And a very narrow border blessed with swirling ribbons.

This is another quilt for our church's Victory Prayer Quilt ministry.

Happy quiltmaking,....

Missy's Drunkard's Path - the Whole Quilt

When I finished quilting Missy's 3-Person Drunkard's Path, I neglected to take a photo of the entire quilt.  Missy sent me some photos she took, so here they are:

This is a wonderful setting for Drunkard's Path, and it's one that is seldom seen.

She also took some more detail photos:

This is definitely one of the happiest quilts I've quilted so far this summer!

Missy, you and Pat did a wonderful job of piecing this top!

Happy quiltmaking,...

Breaking Open a Roll of Zoey Strips

It was that time, at last, to open something I've been savoring....

The Zoey fabric is by Eleanor Burns for Benartex.  I just love it when Eleanor designs florals using these soft, soft shades!

A bit of subcutting: 40 two-and-a-half inch squares from the light lavender dots and 40 lavender white prints squares of the same size....

Mated with 40 rectangles 2-1/2 inches by 6-1/2 inches, then paired together.  (Made two stacks of twenty violet rectangles so I would remember to piece the triangles so they would reflect each other.)

First step of the blocks is complete. I designed this quilt in EQ7 using a block that I've wanted to do since I first saw it in the early 1980s.  These fabrics are perfect for this block, which is sixteen inches, so only five of them are needed for a good sized quilt.  I'm calling the quilt Summer Romance I (because I have in mind a second one of different design but similar colors).  My next step will be to piece some four-patches.

 Now savoring some of the yardage purchased to go with these:  a stripe for the binding, a light lavender scattered floral, and a large floral on a scattered polka dot background for some of the other larger pieces we'll need down the line.

I'm pretty fortunate.  These summer monsoon thunderstorms will continue (we've received a bit over an inch and a half so far), but I'm able to treadle away with no fear of lightening disabling my machine. I'm using my teal Japanese 15 clone with its newly installed handcrank and my Necchi Super Nova in a treadle. These machines are so quiet--because they are well oiled and have no motors.

I purchased this Zoey fabric roll several months ago, and am so happy to put them to use bringing one of my summer dreams to fruition.  I'm calling the quilt Summer Romance I because I hope to piece another quilt seasoned with some violets before the summer waves goodbye.  I'm a wee bit excited about having a new quilt on my bed, but I have a lot of quilting of other quilts to finish first.

These fabrics are also available in Zoey-Christine lines with lovely aquas, yellows, and pale fuchsias in addition to the violets.
I'm sharing at Connie's Freemotion by the River, Esther's WIPs on Wednesdays, and Lee's Wip Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  The links are to the right.

Happy quiltmaking,....

Sail On - A Prayer Quilt

Another three person quilt....

 Ruth found the little sailboats in our Victory Quilt Cupboard at church.  We don't know who made them.  The center block is one Ruth made with a pattern from a past summer quilt shop hop.

She said the little blocks had a lot of problems with the misalignment of some of the little blocks, but she handled them well, and I'm thinking the recipient will find so many other things to look at and enjoy in this quilt that they won't notice anything that's less than perfect.

 The center block was especially fun to quilt since it provided some even newer challenges that I hope I solved well. 

Ruth chose wonderful, refreshing fabrics to accompany the blocks.

 I don't particularly like the waves I quilted, but it's always a learning experience, isn't it?

 The narrow borders weren't encouraging for feathers, so they have a lot of swirlies.

One of the lovely things about this quilt is the backing of bubbles!

I really like this quilt, undoubtedly being influenced by the lack of water here.  New Mexico's most famous lake is Elephant Butte, but we have other good sized lakes as well.  Of course, I also know of a New Mexico lake that is smaller than the pond our neighbor Lester Pfister used for irrigating his hybrid seed corn in dry weather between El Paso and Gridley, Illinois.  We are a state of diversity--and that means a few extremes as well!

I hope you get to enjoy some water this July.

Happy quiltmaking,...

Sweet Summer Dreams Quilt

This is another Victory Prayer Quilt pieced by Pat.

We pieced prayer quilts using this pattern at our May workshop, I believe. I love the bird fabric Pat used.  These colors are so not me, meaning, I would have chosen other colors, so that made this a lot of fun to quilt.

 The border is such a busy print that the quilting is not very distinct, but that's fine.

 The bird blocks were adorned with echoing raindrops.

And this is the reason it doesn't matter that the quilting can barely be seen on the quilt's border:

It's as if this quilt were wrapped in a surprise; the border quilting looks great on the back!

Those dancing stitches, on the entire quilt, not just the borders, and the prayers that went into this quilt yielded a very happy time.  We hope that will be true for the recipient as well.

Happy quiltmaking,

America, the Beautiful, a Quilt

I hope you're having a happy Independence Day in the USA.  Rain is predicted for our dry valley, but rain is something to celebrate too.  And it may just schedule itself around the celebrations, parades, etc.

It took me a while, but I finished quilting Judy's quilt; it's one of our Victory Prayer Quilts. I had to compete with the wind to get these pictures.

 I thought I would use a silver thread, but ultimately did not.

I did know I would lavish it with feathers!

It has some swirly night skies.

I am sorry I decided to lavish swirlies instead of more feathers on the big green border.

Happy quilting and Happy Independence Day,....

A New Drunkard's Path Variation

These black and white drunkard's path pieces showed up anonymously in our Victory Prayer Quilts cabinet.

 Ruth pieced together a bunch, but she didn't really enjoy it.  Her story is, "I had enough of that!  So I slapped those green circles on and machine appliqued them."....Or something to that effect.

When I quilted this, I treated it pretty much as a sample of quilting design possibilities.

 Her quilt reminds me of the promise of rain on a cloudy day. Indeed, we have been assured it will rain today.  We'll see.

 My little town did get quite a few promises of rain during June and a few deliveries.
Our June total was .64 inches officially--which is a lot more than we get in June in many years.

Of course, if we walk across our yard, we usually return with a few (or more) stickers in our shoes.

 However, this surprisingly (to me, at least) refreshing quilt was quilted indoors to sounds of silence, the soft whirrrrrrr of fans, or strains of classical music--or fans and music at the same time
.


Gracing its back side is some John Deere fabric that also mysteriously appeared in our cabinet at church.  I pieced and quilted so many John Deere quilts five or six years ago that I'm not enthusiastic about making more.  You can see my nephew's John Deere quilt here. However, this fabric was perfect for the back of this quilt.  Does this quilt remind you of irrigation circles?

Sooooo, it's very unlike Missy's Quilt, but still a drunkard's path.  (There were still many black and white DP fabrics ready to be pieced, so I did bring a few home to piece another quilt.) Come to think of it, this is another three-person quilt.  I think I've been blessed with a few of those lately.

Happy quiltmaking, and I hope you are getting a bit of knitting time as well,......