Quilted Hearts: Busy Week of Quilting

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Busy Week of Quilting

Crazy Anne 2

This week I have been busy in my quilting room. I finished binding one quilt, worked on my Gypsy Wife and started binding the memory quilt, while also working on the second memory quilt.

I finished binding Under Cover in Houston early this week and started in on the binding of the memory quilt, which will be revealed next week. Under Cover in Houston is a quilt I started in the 1990s or early 2000s when Debbie Caffery was still living in Alaska. She designed the pattern and taught the class. I love her patterns and she is a wonderful instructor.

I took it as mystery class. For those that are unfamiliar with quilt mysteries, you know what fabrics and how much, but not the pattern design, just the name. In this case, we needed a light, a dark and a couple of medium prints if I recall correctly with set amounts of each. Prior to the class, you are given cutting directions and sometimes some pre piecing directions as well. You show up to class with your fabric cut and any pre-piecing completed and are given the first step or if there was pre-piecing the second step and you go to work stitching away. As you finish each step you are given the next step and this continues until near the end of class or until someone is near the point of finishing. Then there is the big reveal. The instructor then brings out their finished quilt to show you. Every quilt is different since no one knows what the quilt will look like. My quilt is different even than the designer’s as I decided to set mine on point, rather than in rows.

I picked my fabrics to go with my background fabric as I wanted it to be fun.

One of the things I always like about mysteries is that no one could copy the instructors color way. Too often in quilt classes, there are multiple people who copy the instructor's colorway and all the quilts look the same or very similar. There was only one time I came close to that and it was because the colors were the colors of the person I was making the quilt for.

I attached the binding to the front of the memory quilt and have been working on hand stitching it down off and on this week. I have about one and a half sides done. The label is on and I hope to have it finished before I head down to Los Angeles for my cruise on the 22nd.

I have been working on the second memory quilt, which is for her sister. I am doing it in a variation of a log cabin. I started with a center block and have been adding logs around the outside. I have several more to add before I will be done, though it will be a smaller, lap size quilt. I have to interface almost all the pajama fabric as it is knit and then piece the logs to the centers, so it takes more time than just cutting and piecing. I am not sure if I will finish it before I head out in a week. Please forgive the toes, but with all the interfacing because these are knit fabrics it keeps curling up on the edges.

Today I wanted to relax so I pulled out my Gypsy Wife blocks that I had previously cut out and also cut out a few others to go along with them. Over this last week, I pieced the From the Heart block, two Crazy Anne blocks, the star block, and a couple of other blocks I am adding to the quilt as I am enlarging it to fit my bed. I believe I have most all the blocks pieced for the quilt, except for the filler blocks, though I may add a few more blocks to enlarge the quilt once I start playing with the layout and piecing the sections together.