Showing posts with label Piecemakers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piecemakers. Show all posts

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Quilt #36 :: Avocado Ties


Earlier this year, when I realized how many of my quilts were never shared here on my blog, I made a soft goal of having them posted by the end of 2018. As November comes to an end, I can see that my soft goal was too ambitious. So my new goal is to finish my quilts from 2014! After this post, I only have two left, so I hope that's a reasonable goal!

On to my 36th quilt, which I called Avocado Ties. The inspiration for this quilt began when the leader of our local quilt group mentioned that we needed more quilts for guys. I looked through the fabric bins at church and found this retro tie print. Hello 70s!


Blue would have been my first choice for coordinating prints, but I found more browns and avocado green prints in the stash, like this cool geometric print. 


I was destined to embrace colors of days gone by! For a pattern, I made a variation of a rail fence, with the center stripe being wider than the outside two.



It's a nice quick pattern which I may need to revisit again when I want to make some quick quilts or feature certain prints. 



Because it was a quick and easy quilt, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did notice that when I was laying out this quilt, I didn't yet use my laundry room design wall. Instead, I was using the Cheryl Ann portable design wall that I bought at Quilt Festival in Houston. It's pricey, but great for travel and bigger spaces than the narrow space I have. 





I actually donated it to Janice of Quilts of Compassion this year because I know she can put it to good use as she works with different quilt groups. 

The other quilty toy I used when making this quilt was this pair of Dritz quilt hangers.


They are really handy, but I started taking quilt photos outside so now I'm not even sure where they are!

The last noteworthy bit from this quilt is that I learned to blanket stitch. I didn't take a photo of the label, but I think I put it on top of this heart.


As with so many comfort quilts I've made, I don't know exactly where this quilt ended up. I believe it was distributed to an assisted living facility here in Ohio, but I'm not certain. Wherever it is, I hope that it is being used and loved. 


With that, I only have two 2014 quilts left to share! You can see a list of all the quilts I've made here (with links where available), and see photos of all my quilts here. To see what I'm currently working on, follow me at dejongdreamhouse on Instagram.

Linked to:


Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 12:08 PM 8 comments
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Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Quilt #34: Train Tracks


My 2014 quilty trip down memory lane continues with a quick quilt I made for our local quilting ministry. If you regularly follow this blog, you may recognize this pattern, This is the second quilt I made with  Made By Rae's Storytime Squares Quilt. The first was Abrahm's Packers quilt. It's a really cute, quick pattern. I'm thinking I need to use it again soon.


The inspiration for this quilt was the train fabric I bought just before my son's passion shifted from trains to space. I noticed it went well with the alphabet print in my stash. From there, it was easy to pull other red and black prints. 


I used the same quilting motif on this one as Abrahm's quilt, sans the football.


While it's been a pretty big task to go back and write about my earlier quilts, it's been super sweet to look back and find pictures of my little guy with each one. When I was out taking pictures of this quilt, some of the neighbor kids came over to inspect my work. I couldn't help but smile when I saw this gem.


I don't take a lot of photos of me with my quilts, but when I brought this quilt to my local group, my mom was visiting and came with me to meet my quilting friends. She snapped this picture of me.


I had in mind that this quilt would be part of our annual kindergartner collection, but the leaders asked if they could sell it at a craft show for a fundraiser. To be honest, I'm not sure where it ended up! Wherever it is, I hope it is being used and loved.

With that, I only have three 2014 quilts left to share! You can see a list of all the quilts I've made here (with links where available), and see photos of all my quilts here. To see what I'm currently working on, follow me at dejongdreamhouse on Instagram.

Linked to:
Monday
Design Wall Monday @ Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Main Crush Monday @ Cooking Up Quilts
Monday Making @ Love Laugh Quilt
Moving It Forward @ Em's Scrap Bag
What I Made Monday @ Pretty Piney

Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 9:13 AM 4 comments
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Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Quilt #117 :: Scrappy Buffalo Plaid


I'm taking a break from posting about my older quilts to share a new finish! My overall goal for 2018 is supposed to be finishing up all of my social quilts from last year. I've done a decent job completing ten of them:  Project Linus mystery, Wayward Transparency, Grandma's Kitchen (all 6 of them!), On Ringo Lake, and Prince Edward Island MQG Mystery quilts. More than halfway there, so that's good!

Mentally though, I'm thinking ahead to my 2019 goal, which is to make a LOT of scrappy quilts. My scrap bins are overflowing so I need to use them up! I've been curating scrappy quilts on Pinterest for next year, but I couldn't help making a few already this year with Good Night Irene, Good Morning Eileen, VV Improv, Murphy's Oops and Orphans, Lots of Love wedding quilt, and my Carolina Jewel quilt.


The quilt I'm sharing today is my take on Plaid to Meet You by Tonya Alexander of Stash Lab Quilts.  It was featured in the February 2018 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I'm calling my version Scrappy Buffalo Plaid because the ubiquitous plaid of my high school glory days is coming back! (The stirrup pants can stay in the past!)

Source
In the pre-smart phone days of my youth, I missed the opportunity to get a picture of myself in one of my many stirrup pants and baggy plaid sweater combos, but I will let you admire one of my senior pictures. (RIP, Mandy! RIP, my little waist!)


Back to the quilt. My scraps are separated by color. I know a lot of people cut their scraps into common sizes, but for the most part, I keep my scraps intact so I have more sizes to choose from when I applique or paper piece. But as more of my bins are overflowing, I am taking time between project to cut the smaller pieces into 2.5", 2" and 1.5" squares.


For this quilt, I focused on blues and reds. Can you believe this didn't even make a dent in my blue bin?


I didn't have as wide of an assortment of reds, but still a lot! This was the point where I realized that I cut way more blues than I needed for this quilt. I could make about three with all the blue squares I cut!


When piecing little squares like this, I like to use a method I learned from Elizabeth Hartman using fusible interfacing. 


I have several templates made up that I use under the interfacing depending on the size block I'm using.


I started this quilt over the summer while we were puppy sitting Murphy. He was not a fan of long periods of time watching me sew, but over time he came to accept his little corner of the room, away from the fabric.


As I was quilting the quilt in my go-to spiral, I was able to look more closely at the 1" squares. I realized that this quilt will be like a mini-I Spy quilt for whoever receives it. Some of the prints include a robot, Santa, a Dutch windmill (a little bit of us!), an Ohio State "O" (a bit of local flair), a heart, vintage prints, Mario, Betty Boop, Thomas the Train, a pup from Paw Patrol, and because it's my stash, lots of bits of space stuff.


To see more pictures of this quilt, check the hashtag #ScrappyBuffaloPlaidQuilt on Instagram. To see what I'm currently working on, please follow me at deJongDreamHouse.

Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 9:56 PM 12 comments
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Sunday, October 14, 2018

Quilt #26 :: Green Illusion


In 2014, my first full year of quilting, I made 24 quilts. Apparently, I was quite obsessed, because I did not write posts about the vast majority of them! So now, four years later, I'm going back, looking at my notes and photos, and catching up.

At the same time I was making my Purple Mess quilt, I made a second quilt for the cute kindergarten class our church quilting group adopted. But for as many problems as I had with that quilt, I was pleasantly surprised with how well this one came together.  

The inspiration for the quilt was a free pattern that came in an ad for McCall's Quick Quilts. It's called The Modern Baby by Beverly Sullivant, and was originally featured in the February/March 2010 issue. I didn't start quilting until 2013 so it was a nice way to give the pattern new life. 

Credit: Beverly Sullivant, The Modern Baby quilt
The pattern doesn't seem to be available for free anymore, but I did find a post about it on Beverly's blog, which has been neglected since last year, as well as her active Instagram account. 

I'm not sure if I didn't follow directions or was feeling creative, but I laid out my blocks slightly differently, which resulted in a fun illusion pattern. I'm quite drawn to illusion  (like my more recent Labryinth Walk) in large part because I have vertigo from my brain injury quite often. I get a kick out of the fact that I can quilt illusions even if real life illusions make me dizzy


I was happy with how the back turned out, especially because it was the first time I pieced the backing. I didn't get a great picture of my quilting, but my lines are a lot straighter!


I was also happy with my binding, especially because I really didn't know what I was doing yet!


The best part of the project is seeing this sweet face again. At the time I made these two quilts for the kindergartners, my little boy was in kindergarten, too!


Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 10:36 PM 15 comments
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Friday, October 12, 2018

Quilt #25 :: Purple Mess (If Brain Injury was a Quilt)


As they say in my native Minnesota, uff da! At the time of this post, I have made 116 quilts. I'm going back and writing posts about all the quilts I've made. For some reason, in 2014 and 2015, I didn't write much about my quilts. I really can't remember why. Most likely my brain injury was acting up and I didn't have the words. So now I'm going through my notes and photos to make a more thorough record. 

Below is the inspiration for my 25th quilt, which I'm retroactively calling Purple Mess because it doesn't have my name on it and I'm pretty sure that whoever received it won't come looking for me!


See how pretty and cheerful it is? It was made by Megan of Jaffa Quilts. And easy peasy, just a few half square triangles and four patches. And yet, I made the Purple Mess.

I almost skipped writing about this quilt altogether because I'm not at all happy with how it turned out. I don't love all the quilts I've made, but this one is definitely my least favorite.

It's more like a case study of all the ways a quilt can go wrong.

I wanted a nice pretty purple quilt because I knew it would be going to a kindergartner at a local school and purple is my favorite color. But my fabric selection was off, despite it looking all right when I planned it out online.
I had the idea of making an extra fluffy quilt by using two layers of batting. The batting donated to our quilt group is the polyester type, which I no longer use because it's so unwieldy. But definitely a very high loft.


I attempted to echo quilt, but apparently, I didn't use a ruler, tape, or anything to keep my lines straight. Yikes. I think maybe I was going through a rough brain patch but was determined to have a quilt to donate with my group.


Now, see that big heart? That's actually my favorite part of the quilt because it was the first time I tried applique.


But if you look on the right you'll see what prompted my willingness to try applique:  I was trying to cover up a wrinkle in the back!

In hindsight, I'm kind of wishing I would have scrapped the whole thing. It's far from perfect, and it's far from my best work. I'm really conflicted about it.

But then, as I was looking at the notes I kept from the quilt, I found this newspaper article.


It's a little hard to read, but I was interviewed by the local paper about our group's visit with the kindergartners who received our quilts. I talk about my brain injury and how it causes me to be someone who needs a lot of help.

One of the biggest misconceptions about living with a disability is that every day should be a bad day. I do have bad days. A lot of them. Not as many as I did when I was first recovering, or before we found the medical protocol that works best for me. But I still have 5-7 days a month when I spend the majority of the day in bed. I have good days, too. Days when I can cook, and organize, run errands and make plans. Days I can be around others and socialize for a bit. And days where I can quilt.

Quilting lets me be a giver again. Finding that outlet has been life-giving to my soul.

Looking back at this newspaper clipping, two things come to mind. First, I remember that my mom was there. After watching me struggle for the first decade of living with my brain injury, I was so proud that she was able to see me be strong.

Secondly, look at the face of the little girl on the right.


Goodness! My heart is a puddle. Clearly, she picked a quilt other than mine, but that is about the best response a quilter can hope for when making a quilt. It reminds me of the two quilts I loved best as a child and still love today.

One was a crazy quilt a neighbor made for my mom's family. It has wild patterns and prints that I would have turned my nose up at if Mom gave me clothes made with any of them. And it had holes with batting poking through where it wasn't tied down with bright red yarn. But I loved it because it smelled my Gramma's house and made a great fort roof. I used to snuggle with it in my secret hideaway under the stairs. When I was feeling sad or angry or lonely, this was the quilt I wanted. Many angsty teenage tears are soaked into this quilt. It also has a really great lost and found story I need to write up before I forget it. This picture was taken after my mom and husband searched all the shops in town to track down the quilt after Mom accidentally sold it in a garage sale. 


The other quilt is the big Budweiser quilt that was given to my stepdad when he was a teen. Just two huge pieces of Budweiser print tied together with fluffy polyester batting. When my parents divorced, I took it with me. For years I used it as a sleeping bag because it has the magical quality of being warm when you are cold, and cool when it's hot out. It was a big joke with my friends because I rarely drink and have never had a beer. But I love this quilt. It's family memories, it's loss of that family unit, it's fun with friends in my early 20s, and it's cozy movie nights with my family. I don't care what it looks like. I love the feelings it evokes.


I don't know who received my Purple Mess quilt. I pray and hope that whoever has it can see it the way I see the crazy quilt and Budweiser quilt I cherish. I hope that she can look past the mistakes and feel the love that was sewn into every crooked stitch. 

Linked to:
BOMs Away @ What a Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Small Quilts & Doll Quilts
Finished or Not Friday @ Busy Hands Quilts
Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts
Link Party Tuesday @ Clever Chameleon
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion on the River
Main Crush Monday @ Cooking Up Quilts
Midweek Makers @ Quilt Fabrication
Monday Making @ Love Laugh Quilt
Moving It Forward @ Em's Scrap Bag
Needle & Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation
Off the Wall Friday @ Nina Marie
Oh Scrap @ Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Scrap Happy Saturday @ So Scrappy
Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She
To Do Tuesday @ Stitch All The Things
Wednesday Wait Loss @ The Inquiring Quilter
What I Made Monday @ Pretty Piney
Whoop Whoop Friday @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict
WIP Linky Party @ Silly Mama Quilts
WIPs on Wednesday @ Esther's Blog

Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 12:40 PM 15 comments
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Thursday, September 20, 2018

Quilt #19 :: Patriotic Plus


Time for another throwback quilt that I haven't shared before. I made this quilt in August of 2014. My local quilt group, Piecemakers, was collecting quilts for veterans so I came up with this design. 

The most memorable part of making this quilt is that it was the first time (yes, that's right, first) time I sliced off part of my finger with my rotary cutter. I got to walk around with a Mickey Mouse finger for a few days.


It's pretty fun to see how my craft room has changed in the last four years. From this picture, I can tell that my thread holder has changed to a bigger one in a new location, the top of my craft table is now a (bigger) piece of bowling alley, I have a larger cutting mat,  I have a shelf and printer in that corner, and I have a new sewing table and machine.


We live in a growing neighborhood. You can see our immediate neighbor's house was still being built, and now there is a whole street of houses behind the blue house in the background!


I hadn't yet developed my system of hanging quilts on a rod on the back porch, so I just had one silly helper. "Show me the back side."



Posted by Jen @ de Jong Dream House at 10:45 PM 8 comments
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