Everything Old is New Again: EQ8 Design Inspiration From a Vintage Quilt

 Good morning!  Happy Passover to my Jewish friends, Happy Holy Week to my Christian friends, and Happy Spring to one and all!  In my house, my younger son has a half day of remote learning today and then he is off for a week of Spring break.  My older son is coming home from college tomorrow afternoon, and we are all going to attend a real, live, in-person worship service together for Easter Sunday, followed by Easter dinner with my mom.  I'm so excited; it's like seeing the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel!  We had to sign up in advance to attend church services due to reduced capacity for social distancing, and we'll get our temperatures checked at the door and wear masks the whole time, but STILL.  😊

My main focus project, Anders' high school graduation kaleidoscope quilt, is still on track, but I'm sure everyone's tired of looking at it right now and it isn't looking much different than the last time I showed it anyway.  I'm just working my way through row by row, sewing corner triangles onto blocks that you've already seen.  So I thought I'd show you something else today -- a client's vintage Economy quilt that is in my queue, awaiting repair.

62 x 80 Vintage Economy Quilt, Awaiting Repair

Don't you love how fresh and MODERN this antique/vintage quilt appears?  Other than its exceptional condition overall for a quilt that's probably 80-90 years old, what strikes me about this particular quilt is how it's a two color, pink and white quilt, but there's a subtle ombre effect from the use of at least three different shades of pink fabric, and the way the quilt maker distributed those three shades of pink in the block layout.  Secondly, what a cool quilting design!  It's similar to Baptist Fan, except that the design reverses direction in the center of the quilt to create a very modern-looking wave effect across the quilt top.  Also. the curved lines of quilting meet up with the rows above and below rather than touching the "fan" to the left as in a traditional Baptist Fan quilting design.  

Oh-Ma-Goodness; My March OMG Goal Was Attained... EARLY!

 Guess what?  If a quilter spends less time writing about quilting on her blog, she can get more actual quilting progress completed in her studio!  😲.  This has been a major epiphany for me!  Stop smirking!

Giverny Teleidoscope Layout, All 63 Block Centers Complete

Okay, so my One (and only) Monthly Goal for March was to complete the remaining 53 octagonal kaleidoscope block centers for my younger son's high school graduation quilt.  I only had nine of them finished at the beginning of the month and I got the remaining 54 pieced with a week to spare.  Whew!  Note that none of the corner triangles are sewn to the blocks yet.  I spent a few hours this afternoon cutting those HSTs (half square triangles) out and arranging the blocks on my design wall until nothing was jumping out at me in an unpleasant way.  I think I like what I've got right now, but I'm planning to look at it again with fresh eyes in the morning before I start actually sewing corners onto octagons.

Giverny Taleidoscope Quilt Progress

Hello, my lovelies!  Did you miss me all week?  Since my last post, I finished quilting my bear paw quilt (and I LOVE how the graffiti quilting came out), but it's still waiting to be labeled and bound because I had to play catch-up with my son's graduation quilt.

 4 Kaleidoscope Rows Completed, 3 Rows Remaining

I was thinking that I was right on schedule to have all of the kaleidoscope centers pieced by the end of March, and then I looked at my calendar again and realized that March does not have six weeks in it, after all.  36 block centers finished, but still 27 remaining to be made on the 23rd of March...

The Supreme Yumminess of the Hand Marbled Fabrics and the Graffiti Quilting

Earlier this week, since I was all caught up with customer quilts and right on-track with the kaleidoscope blocks I'm making for Anders' high school graduation quilt, I finally -- FINALLY -- got my UFO Bear Paw quilt out of the Purgatory closet and loaded it on my frame for quilting.  I am so excited to finally be finishing this quilt for myself!  I stewed over how to quilt this one for three years, but when I discovered this digital edge-to-edge quilting design, Graffiti E2E #7, by Karlee Porter,  I knew it would be perfect for this top.  

I'm Loving Graffiti E2E #7 on my Bear Paw Quilt!

I started making my 10 1/2" bear paw blocks in May of 2014 as an experiment, chopping up Anna Maria Horner's large scale LouLou Thi print and enjoying the "blobs of paint" effect that created in my blocks, with sections of butterflies or flowers recognizable in the larger patches but not in the small triangles.  Soon afterwards, I got my hands on my first hand marbled fabric assortment from Marjorie Lee Bevis (I think she was selling them through Luana Rubin's equilter.com online shop at that time, but today she sells her fabric directly through her Etsy shop here) and started making 4" sawtooth stars out of them.  

Weekly Progress: Kaleidoscope On Track With More Fabric en Route

Anders' graduation quilt is starting to take shape on my design wall!  My goal for the past week was to get 23 of the necessary 63 block centers cut and pieced, and I pushed myself to get 8 block centers finished yesterday to stay on track with that goal.

11 inch Kaleidoscope Block Centers on my Design Wall

It's exciting to see the illusion of curved lines begin to emerge now that I have more blocks on the design wall.  However, it was SAD to take down my sampler blocks (again!) and put that project in Time Out.

One Last Look at the Retro Building Blocks Sampler Before Exile

I'm really hoping to come back to the Retro 'Eighties Building Blocks sampler as soon as the kaleidoscope project is finished.  I decided to store the blocks laid flat on my older son's bed, since he's away at college.  Two reasons: First, storing the blocks flat on Lars's bed means no creases from folding the larger blocks to fit in a storage bin or drawer.  Second, this will force me to return my attention to the sampler blocks immediately after finishing the kaleidoscope quilt top, since Lars will be coming home from school by then to SLEEP in this bed.  Buh-bye, sampler blocks!

Party At My House, Y'All! C'Mon and Link Up your TGIFF Finishes!

Hello and HAPPY FRIDAY, everyone!  If you've come looking for the Thank Goodness It's FINISHED Friday Linky Party, welcome -- you're in the right place.  I'm delighted to be hosting this week's finish party.  

I'm so excited to share my finish this week.  I know I say this a lot, but I found another new favorite edge-to-edge quilting design that I am crushing on this week: 

37 x 37 HST Baby Quilt with Echo Bubble Meander E2E

This 37" x 37" quilt top was pieced by a fellow member of the Charlotte Quilters' Guild for our Outreach Committee, and it will be donated to one of the NICUs at our local hospitals.  When I was first given this top for quilting, I considered custom quilting it with individual motifs in each of the white triangle units.  However, once I had the quilt top in my studio and was thinking about where this quilt was headed and it's job of comforting and encouraging a tiny, fragile baby and his worried parents, custom quilting just seemed too formal and too stiff -- literally too stiff, potentially, if it was heavily custom quilting, but too rigid psychologically as well.  I wanted this quilt to be soft and cuddly, playful and fun.   And then I found this Echo Bubble Meander E2E (Edge-to-Edge) quilting design by Joyce Lundrigan of Methodist Hill Quilt Studio, and knew it would be perfect to bring positive energy and love to the family who receives it.