Tag Archive | UH Gift Quilt

Have a Safe Holiday and Snapshots Review

May22

We are going to see how well we remember our swimming skills this weekend.  My kids tell anyone and everyone that “they can swim”, … but they would sink like a rock I’m afraid.  Going to practice, practice and practice this weekend until we are sick of chlorine.

I have been doing some sewing and quilting, here and there.  I find it harder to set aside time to upload pictures and write out these blog posts.  I really want to share as I go along, but a lot of pictures never make it here because I end up finishing my blocks while I procrastinate!

Here you go!  Blocks 4 and 5 of the Snapshots Quiltalong are done!

Puppy Love!  We are going to look for some blue translucent buttons for his eyes…

Snapshots 4 Puppy

Kindred Kitchen!  I added a little back stitch embroidery to the front of the apron to make it stand out from the background.

Snapshots 5 Apron

Here they are all together … waiting for their ice cream treat next month!

Snapshots1-5

I also sent off my U of H schoolhouse gift quilt (Arkansas Crossroads) to be quilted by Linh at LiMa Sews.  She has turned it around for me so fast, it is already on its way back to me this weekend!

Since I was shipping her a box anyway…  I threw in some small quilt tops.  This is truly a feeling of accomplishment when a quilt flimsy makes it from the corner of my cutting table to Linh.  It is a real milestone and feels GREAT!

From top of the stack to the bottom … Fig Tree Pears window valance for my kitchen, Fig Tree mini sampler made into a baby play blanket (butterflies, flowers, sun), Yellow/Gray Sunshine baby quilt (also a gift that is long overdue) and the Arkansas Crossroads schoolhouse gift quilt.

Ready to Quilt

 

Again – have a wonderful weekend and a safe one too!  I’ll see you again soon with some finished projects!

Jennifer

Quick Post on Progress

May4

Just a quick … “Hi!  I’m still alive and well and trying to quilt when I can” message …

I’m pushing the deadline on getting my gift quilt done before the end of the school year.  I have one 10″ border left to piece for the top of this Arkansas Crossroads quilt.  The cats promptly stomped across the quilt just after the picture.

Crossroads 05-03-15

 

The border sashing idea came from Mrs Mainstreet.  She has wonderful, inspiring blog posts if you haven’t found her yet in blogland…

Almost done… Almost done… Late last week there was a sale advertised on Homestead Hearth for half off Crazy for Red fabric.  I snapped up my complementary backing yardage for half price!  Score!  It should ship out today and hopefully I can get this out to a quilter (Linh are you there?) soon.

I also splurged on some background fabric (Swiss Dots Tone on Tone White Dots) from Fat Quarter Shop in anticipation of Farm Girl Fridays and any other Sew Along that will involve my bright fabric stash.  I have never bought enough to be mailed a bolt of fabric before.  Kind of cool and kind of … where are I going to store this?

Farm Girl Prep

And don’t you love the bright colors from the Retreat Aunt Grace collection by Judie Rothermel?  I think it will go well with my Lori Holt and other brights.

 

auntgracemini-bundle-450_3

 

Finally, a word of encouragement and hope for all of us Blue Bell ice cream fans.  We will be here when you get back.  Please be quick about it.

Blue Bell Freezer

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Arkansas Crossroads – no longer at a Crossroad

Apr2

Well, I had contemplated this design choice for the center of my quilt:

UHCS Center

 

 

And wasn’t sure about the size of the flying geese.  I even made up about 20 smaller geese (about half the size) and that looked so horrible that I didn’t even bother to take a picture of it.

I decided to play around with placement of existing block components that I already had – four patch units, two patch units and the other unit that have the two opposing corners on them (I don’t know what they are called)…

Here’s my first candidate… Not bad, not bad at all:

Center Option 1

Next candidate is a little different looking – kind of echoing the X design of the blocks…

Center Option 2

Third candidate is very similar to the first – can you spot the difference?

Center Option 3

Fourth candidate is getting closer – but I didn’t quite like the uneven octagon shape it created in the center:

Center Option 5

And the final candidate – and the WINNER – is:

Center Option 4

It works on all levels for me.  The symmetry and still enough white space to set off the House block.

I had to orient the House block so that the visual center of it was in the middle instead of being bottom heavy (and basically touching the surrounding design on the corners).  I have pieced the block together here:

Center House Pieced

See how I shifted it up vertically about 2 inches?

Here is how it will look in the center of the quilt, less the shrinkage:

Center Pieced Inset

After staring at the wrong side of the fabric for so long, I really enjoy laying out the blocks and seeing the rich colors and the mix of them together.

I’ll be piecing the center rows together this weekend now that I have about 50 of my signature blocks back from the kids.

I hope you have wonderful holiday plans for the weekend, quilting or otherwise.

Happy Easter!

Jennifer

House Building

Mar25

Moving right along here… I sat down this weekend and worked out my School House block for the gift quilt using some graph paper and traditional block designs.

House Building

I was pleasantly pleased that it all came together as planned!  Completed at a 8″ finished block size.

As a reminder – here is what the general idea of the Arkansas Crossroads pattern will look like in my fabric choices:

Arkansas Crossroads Start

Now… I am taking out the center section to insert this School House block, and then playing with ideas on how to surround it…

UHCS Center

Here’s one idea – to block it off with flying geese.

I’m not sold on it yet.  I need to make a few more geese and see it develop…

Then I have to figure out how to inset a On-Point block into a straight set quilt.  I have some math and trial-and-error coming up.

UHCS Center Closeup

What do you think, if you don’t mind sharing a comment with me?  Smaller geese?  Different design that looks more like the Arkansas Crossroad block?  It’s hard to picture it still because the entire quilt is twice as tall and twice as wide as my design wall.

So – that’s my progress.  I’ll be taking the blocks to school next Monday for the kids to sign.  I just couldn’t pull it all together yet.

Have a great end to the week – see you soon!

Jennifer

Change up in Design

Mar13

After playing with my growing stack of blocks and browsing Pinterest and other blogsites, I have settled on the Arkansas Crossroads pattern instead for my school gift quilt.

I have a perfect layout in mind that will give me just the right number of signature blocks for every child and faculty/staff member.  Total number is 156, if I remember correctly.

Arkansas Crossroads Start

The kids are on Spring Break next week, so I’ll work to have all the blocks ready to take up to the school when they get back.  I’ll also work on putting together the 16-patch blocks during the break.

I am adding in some cuts from my layer cake of Prairie Gathering by Pam Buda, which really enhances the red variety with some deep saturated colors.  It mixes great with the Crazy for Red collection by Minick & Simpson.

Prairie Gathering

I didn’t even realize I had recently seen this same pattern done up in “Halloween” colors.  You can check out the latest blog entry from Ms Carrie Nelson to see a really great example.  I remember reading her post and loving that quilt too!  I so want to make one like it.

Lori Holt did a post on doing up a Scrappy Crossroads block also.  Very detailed tutorial when did she a sew along back in July 2014.  Check it out here.

But the one that got me started down this path was a post by Cathy (aka Mrs Main Street).  She does a border treatment that I plan to copy shamelessly.  Take a look at her wonderful blog too!  Click here to see her post about the Go Four It quilt along.

I know I have seen them on other blogs, but some of them don’t have search boxes for me to look them up again.

Anyway – I’m off to get home and do a little more sewing time.  My layer cake of Bella Snow came in yesterday – so I should be all set now.

Be well and have a great weekend!

Jennifer

Go Four It! Progress

Mar6

I had a unique opportunity this morning when both of my kids got up at 5:00 am to do a little quilting.  I don’t know why they woke up so early, but it got us all off to a good start regardless.

I feel much better now that I have enough units to throw up on my design wall.  As it progresses, the blue patches will be more dispersed.  I only want to have a hint of them in the final quilt result.  I may even decide to remove them completely.  Not quite sure about them…  Or move them to a border treatment…  hmmmm….

My picture is so muted because it was taken early this morning with only bulb light to be had…

Go Four It Quilt

My intent is to piece a School House in the center of the quilt, to celebrate Dr. Black’s 18 years with the school.  Got to find me a good block pattern, which I know there should be plenty on Pinterest.

The other splurge (in advance of my birthday next week) is to enroll in Fig Tree Quilts newest BOM program!  This is my birthday gift from my husband.  I sent this picture and told him to print it off and put it in a card for me.

FTBOM Yuletide

Last I saw, there were a few spots open through their Shop/Website.

Have you signed up?

Thankfully, there is no homework to mess around with this weekend.  It should be all smooth sailing with the kids and perhaps a birthday pedicure with my Mom tomorrow!

Have a great weekend and see you on the other side!

Jennfier

Another Quilt I Wasn’t Going to Do…

Mar1

Just like the Snapshots Quilt A Long, I had decided that I was going to enjoy the “Go Four It” bandwagon by living vicariously through all the great blogger posts.  Have you seen my earlier posts with the Cake and Sewing Machine blocks from Snapshots?  ha ha

But, an unexpected life event happened and I had a great reason to make a special quilt for someone at my kids school.  The school has had the same principal since they opened their doors 18 years ago.  It was just announced a few weeks ago, however, that she was having to take a medical leave for surgery and would return to the Office of Education on campus (University of Houston), but they would be seeking an immediate replacement for her in the position she has held all these years.  Dr. Black is a wonderful woman and cares deeply for all of her students (ranging in grades from K to 5).  She is loved by all and will be greatly missed.

We are lucky to be in a small school, with one class per grade.  I thought a signature quilt would be perfect, if I could pull it off before the end of the school year.  I heard that they planned to give Dr. Black a celebration type event in May.  My idea is to get every student, faculty and maintenance staff to sign a block.  The question was then – what block and what pattern??

I didn’t find a lot that suited me on Pinterest, but then I kept looking back at the APQ “Go Four It” quilt along.  One of the three choices of layouts offered in the April edition of American Patchwork & Quilting was a pattern by April Rosenthal called “Buried Treasure”.  You can see a great example of it also by Ms Thelma Cupcake in her post here.

This offered a great size block to do signatures (4 inch finished with corners)!

Go Four It Design

I also picked up a great tip from Nicole at Sisters Choice blog that gave me the idea to iron down the blocks to freezer paper before handing them out for signatures.  This would give a good foundation to write upon where the fabric wouldn’t shift under the pens.  Most of the signers are young kids between 5 and 12.

Signature blocks

The colors of the school follow the University of Houston – which are red, white and dark navy blue.

Go Cougars!!

Go Cougars!!

Perfect for my stash of Crazy for Red and Midwinter Red precuts, along with a scattering of some Lexington blues.  All the collections by Minick & Simpson.

Fabric with Blue

My concern was what solid neutral color should I use to coordinate with Minick & Simpson?  I had a charm pack of unknown color (it was old enough not to include the SKU # on the back of it).  Just to be safe, I ordered several charm packs of different Bella Solid neutrals.  I ended up with SNOW as my choice.  (Does anyone need to buy Porcelain, Natural, Neutral, or Fig Tree Cream?)

Bella Solid Samples

So, I hesitate to talk about making this quilt, because of such a close deadline.  I hope to pull it off.  I won’t even take the signature blocks to the school for signatures until I have all of the four patches done as well.  That way I know I have a great shot at getting it pieced together in time.

I have 65 of the signature blocks half done this weekend.  I have a lot of the four patch units half done.  I’ll have to see how much progress I can make in the next week because Spring Break is in two weeks and I could really use that time to try and do the assembly.

Hope you have a good week lined up ahead of you.  Enjoy and see you again soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer