Gypsy Wife

 Last summer we drove up to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon. One of the quilts exhibited intrigued me but I forgot about it on the drive home; we stopped at so many quilt shops that I gathered enough Row by Row patterns to make the quilt.

This is the quilt from the show.

Playing around online one day I found there was a pattern booklet. I didn't waste any time ordering it, even though it was rather pricey, and it came yesterday. So I made the first block for it. I'm going to use bright colors befitting a Gypsy Wife.

Westering Women

Independence Square

Today I made the first block for Barbara Brackman's Block-a-month Westering Women. It went together fairly easily, only needing the seam ripper once  :-). I like reading the historical bits on her Civil War site and going to the links she provided. I have always enjoyed her books, especially Clues in the Calico and both volumes of America's Printed Fabrics.  Both of her blogs are very informative. Now we have to wait a whole month for the next block, but I think I can find a thing or two to keep me busy until then.
The colors on the photo don't look like the real thing; the blue is a dark navy blue and the white is actually yellow.

Scrapology

Some years ago I cut up some fabric and put it in a shoebox with a picture of a quilt and then got busy and  forgot about it. Last week, being in-between projects, I found the box during a sewing room tidy-up and sewed the pieces up into 20 jewel box blocks. The scraps were tossed in the wastebasket. I went to empty the wastebasket this morning and saw all the scraps -- perfect little triangles of batiks and black, and just couldn't throw them away.





So I sewed them together into little pinwheels.
Most of my quilts for the past two years have  been scrappy quilts. Scrappy was very difficult for me at first as I was a very matchy-matchy quilter and everything has to be symmetrical. I jumped into scrapping with both feet and haven't looked back. I have boxes of scraps --2", 2 ½ ", 3" 4" squares. and strips:  1", 1 ½". 2", and 2 ½". My 365 Challenge and Circa 2016 are being made with scraps. I kind of consider them to be "free" quilts.






Jewel Box block



So now I have 33 cute little 2 ½ inch pinwheels that will go into a quilt someday. For now they will go into the orphan drawer and wait for their time to come.








Somewhere I once read that if you are making a
project and have 5 fabrics, only two will work together and if you have 10 fabrics maybe 4 or 5 will work, but if you have 25 fabrics they all will work together. In scrapping it's really the more the merrier.

January 26

Sunshine today after the fog burned off. The fog is almost welcome -- we haven't had enough rain the past several years to produce fog so I'm taking it as a good sign that maybe the drought is lessening.
I slept late, as I do almost everyday because I'm retired and I'm a night owl. In what was left of the morning I made the 365 block of the day and the 4 pinwheels for the Circa 2016 from Temecula. In the afternoon I quilted the little Jacob's Ladder doll quilt and will do the binding tomorrow.

Circa 2016 blocks










Why am I writing in a blog? Well, I signed up for a workshop next November that involves drawing and journaling on fabric. What on earth possessed me?? I can't draw and I haven't been able to write a journal since I was 15 and my mother read my diary. So this is my attempt to get ready for the workshop. I haven't had the nerve to try and draw yet….

A New Beginning

I'm new to blogging and finding this very confusing. Not very user friendly to an old lady like me. Maybe with a little practice I'll get it. If not I sure hope there is a way to delete it.

I'm a quilter; I love piecing little bits of fabric; I love the alchemy of change. Applique and hand quilting are no longer possible due to RA, but machine piecing is keeping me happy for now. My first love is 1800s reproduction fabrics and patterns and my quilts have become smaller over time due to not having room for many more big quilts. I am enjoying making little quilts and have discovered Jo Morton's Little Womens Club.