Papas Overalls

 

We all have the special person in our life that makes the difference.  The one you can always depend on, who is always there and leads you in the right direction. For my husband and my boys, it was their Grandaddy Robert Lee Humbert, AKA “little papa”.  He passed away a few years.  My husbands cousin asked me to make a quilt from his clothes. So we went and collected a bunch.

     Fast forward a few years and I made her quilt and just sat on the rest.  Last year,  as I was cleaning out my craft room, I decided to make a jean quilt with his overalls and jeans. I am oddly one of those that goes with my heart and mind. I rarely use a pattern and invent my own.

     I cut a bunch of his jeans up into strips.  The largest square that could be cut to was 12.5 inches. So I cut out enough pieces of all sizes.  I then decided to add random pieces of fabric and shirts until each made a 12.5 inch square. All of the fabric used was fabric that also looked like shirting material.

     I decided to lay the quilt out corner to corner from the smallest original square to the largest. To kinda appear like it grew or a sunrise.

     For the backing I used a handkerchief replicating fabric.  Granddaddy always had one in his pocket.  When I saw it, I knew it was perfect!

I put it together last year and pinned it.  I just couldn’t decide how to quilt it. So I let it sit for about 6 months.  Frankie started talking about his Grandaddy everyday around the anniversary of his death.  I picked it up and knew just what to do.  I used a 12.5 inch quilting ruler to start randomly quilting each block with straight lines a little different.

     The binding is a jean material.

The photos are taken at lake Moultrie.  You can barely see the power plant in the background.  He worked at another up the road a bit.  His grandsons followed and 2 work at that plant and now his great grandson is also working in the power industry.

   

Birds of The Box

    Just over a week ago, I was given a box of material. As I was pulling out the big pieces of material, pieces of a flock of embroidered birds started to come out.  What ended up in total 38 state bird embroidered blocks.

The blocks were honestly amazing.  Each carefully embroidered with the states bird, the states name and initials and the painted with some type of fabric paint. They were all stained and crumbled up.  Sadly, I knew these blocks took a lot of someone else’s time. A few days later the challenge was announced of”Birds in The Air”.  I was thinking of all kinds of flying geese designs, but my mind kept going to these blocks.  I decided they might forever live in a box if I don’t do something with them now. 

I went home and soaked a block overnight in Oxiclean.  There was no running of colors and the block came out pretty clean! So I decided to do them all. So on Tuesday morning, I took them out and start the process of drying and ironing.  Sadly, due to the birds of different sizes and the holes and disfigured fabric, I had to cut the squares down smaller then I wanted to 7.5inches. 

I decided to set the quilt on point, since most of the birds were already on an angle. If I did 6 across and 6 down, it left 2 extra blocks. But I couldn’t leave any out.  Instead, I added 4 additional white on white blocks.  Laid these across the center.  Now I wish I would’ve have put them in the corners, but of course that’s an after thought. 

Because the blocks were stretched when embroidered, they were not the easiest to sew up straight.  But otherwise, they pieced together awesome!  I haven’t done a quilt on point in a long time, much less come up with the measurements for the side/corner pieces.  I found several blogs with graphs that made each, cut and calculation easy. Which made the layout and piecing Cake work. 

I started and just about finished the quilt layout at home, then took it to a retreat to finish. The red fabric I put in it was from my stash. I wanted the birds to pop.  The red tone on tone  matched the red birds.  Just simple. The backing was another fabric from the box, a yellow floral. 

I did not have my newer nice industrial Juki to quilt it.  Instead I had to borrow back my old Juki at the retreat. My quilting plan was not completely ideal when I started to quilt it, but I am one of those, once I start it, it’s gonna finish that way people. I used a type of embellished continuous curves in the red, then some basic meandering in the bird blocks. I recommend the blocks to be smaller for the continuous curves with Free motion quilting. The binding is a plain old red. 

I finished this quilt at the lake at my sewing groups first quilt retreat. These ladies saw the blocks before I cleaned them and squared them.  I soon learned that there is a bird lover in the crowd! Someone who may receive these blocks as a quilt! 

Pictures are all taken at Somerset Point at the Lake.  The cabins are where we stayed for our mini retreat! 

It’s Full of Hearts!!!

   The time during Project Quilting Season is my most productive time of year.  I feel like under a deadline I finish so much more! Might be a lot of the reason I like participating every year!! This weeks challenge is to put a heart in it.

     Of course with it being my work weekend when the challenge starts, I have plenty of time to think of what I might do.  Immediately after the naming of the challenge, I thought of a layer cake I had at home.  I thought there might be hearts in it.  I really wanted to use it. Some person I bout it from in a group took the wrap off  to ship it, so it just didn’t fit in my cabinet well.  

     From there I googled heart pattern quilts.  I just didn’t want any plain one.  I finally came across one from Missouri star that just had subtle hearts in it!  Using the layer cake and would work out just right!! The name is Happy Hearts.  It uses 25 of the 42 squares in the pack.  Trying to mostly use all of the darker to medium fabric.

      The blocks went together quickly,  spread out in 5 days along with working over 50 hours.  Laying them out was a little more difficult,  but I think turned out awesome! There are definitely 4 hearts hidden into the design.

     I made the white border a little wider then what the pattern called for.  I then used the leftover squares to piece together an outer border by cutting them in half.  This quilt finishes at 75x75. Yep, huge.  My goal is usually very functional!!

     The backing ended up not being the one I wanted, but the best option in a hurry.  I ironed it and sandwiched the quilt at midnight.  To get up early to FMQ.

     I put the last set of hearts in the white of the FMQ, with all the white sections having a grouping of echo hearts!

     The binding I used an old pink/red fabric out of my stash to go with the heart theme!  This quilt will likely go to a friend who is battling cancer that I am yet to give one too!

     Yep, I took my photos laying on the dirt on my dirt road.  A place I love.  The place that helped build me!! All in the name of the month of love!