Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Vintage Flower Blocks

It's been a while since I shared an update on this project. It's a project that I use as a travel project. If youa re new here, here are the background posts:

- where I talk about getting and cleaning the blocks

- where I talked about preparing them for applique

- where I talked about travel sewing kit tips

This isn't a project with an ultimate finish plan or schedule. It's jut what I work on when I need a travel project. I always take it to guild meetings, doctor's appointments and anywhere else where I will be sitting for a while. I took them to the hospital while Chris was there and to lancaster to work on at night in the hotel room.

I've finished these 6 in the last couple of months. I just love all of these blocks. The black buttonhole stitch really brings them alive.

Here are the 20 that are done so far. 30 more to go in this set! I love working on these blocks.

Design Wall Monday

Before I get into my design wall I just have to brag a bit. As of Saturday I have my first ever sports injury! I've never been into sports or exercise but I decided several years ago to try to start doing some sort of exercise every day. Gradually I even started to enjoy it. Now I ride my recumbent bike for an hour every morning and do push ups and sit up every day. A few weeks ago I added a slackline. My goal is to build core muscle strength by eventually balancing on the thing. I've got no desire to do tricks and I would never be able to anyway as I am no longer in sight of 20. Anyway, I've been working diligently on it since I got it and can even walk a few steps on it and it's only about 10" off the ground so you can only do so much damage. But you can certainly jam your toe pretty good. Since I bruise so badly that you would be excused in thinking that I have leukemia. You can bet that my foot is a pretty sight. I'll wear sandals in public so I can show it off. I'm very proud of my first sports injury. I really thought it would be a sprained ankle so this was a much more pleasant result.

A bruised toe doesn't keep me down though. I have been very busy sewing and quilting.

Friday was the Country School Quilter's quarterly retreat. I started my new Veteran's/QOV project. After I made the green quilts I decided that I liked working on a Veteran's quilt and a QOV at the same time. These next quilts will be Mary's Half Square Strings quilt. I got all of the cutting completed and 7 blocks put together. I think this one will go pretty quickly so should have it done byt the October Sewing Saturday meet up.

Speaking of Veteran's/QOV quilts, I finished quilting the Veteran's version of this green quilt and an half way done with the QOV version. This one will be off the frame tomorrow at the latest. I hope to get both of them bound this week.

Last night during the Colts/Steelers game I finished this applique block.

I only have one left to do and it should not take long with all the football on TV coming up. Now I have to start thinking about what do do with these blocks. 

I also finished my Color Palette Challenge project but I will wait until Friday to share it. This week I want to:

• finish quilting the QOV
• bind the Veteran's quilt and QOV
• dye the fabric for the Warkton Lane project
• create a tutorial for my Color Palette Challenge project
• make a few postcards

We will see how far I get on this list. I'm linking up my Design Wall Monday at Judy's blog. Check out what everyone else is doing!

Design Wall Monday

Aside from completing those placemats last week my Design Wall Monday report is just a repeat of last week. My jaw is much better and my teeth almost fit together again. Every day it gets better and that's all good.

I did get a little bit of sewing done this weekend.

I finished another of these applique blocks that I've been working on over a year. If this project is new to you it's just a set of 12 applique blocks that I started a while back. The shapes are all from the Go! cutter and it was inspired by Deb Levy. It's her Go Garden pattern. I decided to make some blocks and will figure out the layout later. The fabrics are all hand dyed.

Here are 10 blocks done and I have 2 left to do. Obviously I need to trim them up too.

My goals for this week include:

- finishing my color palette challenge project

- finish the binding and label on the Coming Home quilt

- get the Snail's Trail loaded on Willie and start quilting

I hope we all have a productive week this week. Check out what everyone else is doing over at Judy's.

The vintage flower blocks

Do you remember the big tin of flower appliques that I showed with a journal quilt a couple of weeks ago? I couldn't forget them. I was thinking of them while I was at my quilt guild meeting a couple of weeks ago. I need a travel hand project. It's difficult to work on those bright flower blocks away from home because of all of the colors of thread and I need reading glasses to see the extremely tiny stitches that Dot (master appliquer from the guild) taught me. If I'm wearing the reading glasses I can't see anything else. At home I actually wear both of the and I look like a kook.

See where I am heading? I thought it would be a brilliant idea to start another handwork project specifically for travel!

I will applique these to 8" finished blocks using a blanket stitch. The project has a rule: Don't buy anything new to do it.

First I had to prepare the appliques. These blocks are so perfectly prepped! But they are kind of musty.

I tried soaking them in some soapy water but it wasn't enough to get the smell out. I added a few tablespoons of baking soda and that helped a lot. I only put in a little soap and I mostly let them soak. I didn't want to disturb the basting stitches. After they soaked in the soapy water for a while (30 minutes or more) I put them in a rinse bin for another 30 minutes or so.

You know how we always hear warnings about leaving starch in things? These blocks have been heavily starched and they are at least 40 years old and they are fine. I suppose that in some climates that it may attract bugs but these blocks are in great shape. A few are stained but I'm just setting those aside because I have about a million to choose from!

After the rinse I am ironing the dry on a cushioned surface with a pressing cloth on top. No colors are running. Can you see how the maker fussy cut these? There are several blocks with the kaleidoscope effect and you know I love that!

I will have to make centers for the flowers but I have a nice collection of solids for that!

I also have a big bag of floss that I can use for the stitching. But there's the first dilemma.

My plan was to do all of the stitching in black. I have a big cone of thread that is about the thickness of 4 strands of floss. But it was too heavy in my sample. I don't have enough black floss but I have lots of colors. Do I embroider the blocks with colored floss or do I break the rule and buy black? Black would make the travel project easier.

I think I will need about 50 for a twin sized quilt and I believe I will be able to come up with 50 different ones. I think this lady must have traded fabrics like we do charm swaps because there is an incredible variety of fabrics in these blocks. See all the blocks in this photo? That's what's left AFTER I remove the 50 I want!

Under the blocks are all of these petals yet to be put into flowers.

What would you do with them? What would you do about the thread?

 

One more applique block

Like most of you, I can leave home for more than a day without taking along some sort of handwork. For my trip to London I took along a couple of these flower applique blocks. Of course, I barely got 2 petals done! But 2 petals is progress and after a little time Sunday evening I finished this block.

Now I have 6 complete and a 7th underway and I still have absolutely no clue what I am going to do with them! I suppose I will keep making them until I get tired of them or until I come up with a new, and better, applique project. Worst case they can always become placemats!