Quick DIY Apple Pencil Holder + Progress on 1984 Sampler Custom Quilting

 Oh my gosh, you guys!  I completed a whole sewing project from start to finish last night in under an hour!  This is what it must feel like to own a sewing machine but NOT be a quilter!!  

A Sewing Project Completed Start to Finish in Under an Hour!

This is something I’ve been “fixing to do” for a couple of years now, just “waiting to get a round tuit” that never arrived…  No pattern; just eyeballed an old, stretched out elastic contraption that needed replacing and replicated it with some purple elastic from my garment supply stash and a little piece of jacquard ribbon to make it pretty.  This elastic strap slips on and off over my iPad case quickly and easily and has a channel stitched to securely hold my Apple Pencil.

I even used one of the high tech gizmos on the new B 990 sewing machine.  When top stitching my ribbon in place with Edgestitch Foot #10D, I turned on the laser that shows exactly where my needle is positioned to stitch on my project; see that red dot below on the black ribbon?

B 990 Laser Helps Position Edge Stitching

On previous machines, I would have tried out different out of center needle positions one click at a time, lowering the needle to see how far I was about to stitch from the edge, but it was faster (and more fun) to just turn on the red laser dot.  One, two clicks to the left, looks perfect, GO!  I only turned the laser on to select my needle position; did not leave it on for sewing.  I used two different utility stitches, the three step zigzag stitch to overcast the raw cut edges of my elastic to prevent fraying with use, and the triple straight stitch around my ribbon flower and along the edges of the long, skinny pocket for holding the Apple Pencil.  I used Mettler Metrosene all-purpose polyester thread and a Schmetz Stretch needle in size 90.  I wish I had a closer thread color match to the color of my elastic, but I wanted a strong poly thread for durability and I don’t have anywhere near the stash of colors in all purpose poly that I have for quilting, appliqué, embroidery etc.  This was an impulse project chosen primarily so I could procrastinate packing for my trip.  

Maybe I should do more projects that don’t take 6 years to finish?  

Speaking of projects that take years to finish…  I did get a bit more quilting done on Marybeth’s 1984 WIP sampler quilt this week.  I added some hand guided ruler work quilting to the three blocks that I quilted with computerized designs the last time I posted about this project:

Continuous Curves Ruler Quilting Added Around Digital Block Design

My hand guided quilting is nowhere near as nice as the computerized design but the block looked unfinished to me before.  I’m doing the best I can but it’s a learning process and if I keeping stopping to rip out quilting and redo it, I’ll never get the quilt back to Marybeth!  

Deco Quilt Top FINISHED!

Well, THAT took a bit longer than I thought it would.  😐.   Behold the idiocy of my own words, mocking me from my November 1, 2021 blog post when I started this quilt: 

"...So, yes -- my Weekly Goal is to cut and sew 54 Block One log cabin blocks for my Deco Bed Quilt, and my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for this quilt is to complete the entire quilt top!"

HAHAHAAHAHAHA!  Spoiler alert, to those just joining me -- it took me a lot longer than a week to cut and piece 54 log cabin blocks.  If my life depended on accurately predicting how long it would take me to make a quilt, I'd just be dead already with no quilts to show for myself at all.

102 x 102 Deco Quilt Top is Finished

Finishing this quilt top (FINALLY!) nearly three and a half years after starting it was my OMG (One Monthly Goal) Part I for March, as in THIS March, 2025, so I'm glad it's together and off my design wall.  I finished it late last night after Bernie had already gone to bed and I couldn't get it back up on my design wall without his help, so I just spread it out on this bed in a guest room instead.  Photos taken with morning light.  This is probably the room where this quilt will "live" once it's quilted and bound.

Deco Quilt Top Awaiting Quilting

I did the perimeter stay stitching 1/8" from the edge on all four sides of the quilt top, so it is ready for quilting.  I have backing fabric already; I bought it and prewashed it three years ago when I finalized the color palette for the quilt top.  

Deep Dive Tangent: Exploring the 1934 Cleopatra's Fan Block

Happy Tuesday, my Lovelies!  Today's post is a break from the Lo & Behold Deco quilt I've been working on (just four more rows to stitch together before that's a finished quilt top!), but we're not veering into totally unrelated territory.  Brittany of Lo & Behold Stitchery, who designed my Deco quilt pattern, says she was inspired by the Art Deco style of the 1920s-1940s in 2019, when she realized that we we were coming up on the centennial anniversary of this iconic design movement (and all of the dizzying cultural, social, and technological transformations that happened during its heyday).  

Despite the great number of surviving quilts dating to the 1920s-'40s, not many of these quilts reflect the Art Deco style that was dominant when these quilts were being made.  Perhaps that reflects who was (and who wasn't) making quilts during those years and what sewing and quilting symbolized at that time -- a traditional female domestic activity and not something the giddy modern flapper girls were excited about.  Were the "Modern Girls" of the 1920s and '30s too busy exploring new social and economic opportunities outside the home, working in shops or factories during the day and dancing their nights away in jazz clubs, challenging traditional Victorian gender ideals (and giving their mothers plenty to worry about as they stitched more traditionally styled quilt blocks by the fire)?  ;-). That's my theory, anyway.  Sometimes I just make things up as I go along.

In any case, we don't have a great many examples of the Art Deco style influencing quilters in the surviving vintage quilts from the period, but we do have some and the Cleopatra's Fan design is one of my favorites.  I'm taking you on a Deep Dive into the Cleopatra's Fan block today, because I own (but have not yet used) the AccuQuilt GO! 12" Cleopatra's Fan BOB (Block On Board) die (this post contains affiliate links) and I'm trying to decide whether to actually make a quilt with it -- or just rehome my die to someone else who will use it!

52 x 69 Cleopatra's Fan in Kaffe Fassett Collective Prints, 12 inch Blocks

Above is a Cleopatra's Fan quilt rendering that I created in my EQ8 Quilt Design software using Kaffe Fassett Collective print fabrics with coordinating solids.  I've said it before and I'll say it again -- my Electric Quilt software is the best value for the money of any quilting tool I own, including my Bernina sewing machine and my long arm!  With most of my quilts taking multiple years from the time I cut into fabric until I finish the binding, the ability to experiment with design ideas and see what a quilt would look like in the actual fabrics I'm considering ahead of time saves me from sinking time and money into quilts that disappoint me when they don't turn out looking as great as I imagined when I pulled those fabrics at the quilt shop.  So, in that rendering above, these are 12" finished Cleopatra's Fan blocks just like my 12" AccuQuilt die will cut out for me, and those Kaffe Fassett fabric prints are to scale as well, so the design rendering is actually giving me a pretty good idea of how those large scale botanical prints will look when they are cut into the actual size patches of these blocks.  Do I like this enough to make it?  I haven't decided yet; we'll circle back to that at the end of the blog post!  Next I want to explore the original Cleopatra's Fan pattern as it was published in 1934 in the Cincinnati Inquirer by Laura Wheeler Designs (note that "Laura Wheeler" was one of several fictitious byline used by a New York City pattern syndication company that also went by many different names; you can read more about the company on Barbara Brackman's blog here):

Cleopatra's Fan Pattern Attributed to Laura Wheeler Designs, First Published in 1934

Up until fairly recently, the vast majority of quilts were designed and made as bed coverings rather than as wall hangings or throws.  Just to give you some context, here's an example of "modern" Art Deco bedroom furniture from a 1934 advertisement.  (I was unable to find a source attribution for this image but will update in the future if possible):

1934 Ad for Art Deco Bedroom Furniture

Isn't that fun?  And now, can't you just imagine this vintage Cleopatra's Fan quilt (below) on the bed in the magazine ad, with the sleek radiating curves of the quilt block's piecing lines echoing the radial seams in the headboard's veneer?  You may need to zoom in to see that on the photo if you're reading this on your mobile phone.

Vintage Cleopatra's Fan Quilt circa 1940s, Augusta Auctions

This is actually the first Cleopatra's Fan quilt I ever saw, an image from Augusta Auctions that I stumbled across on Pinterest years ago.  I was intrigued because I'd never seen the block before and the auction house didn't identify the quilt pattern in their auction description.  They just dated it to circa 1940s based on the fabrics.  

Deco Blocks Finished, Custom Quilting Progress + Stonefields Pattern Has Arrived!

Drumroll, please...  Only 170 weeks or so behind schedule for the 2021 Deco Quilt Along hosted by pattern designer Lo & Behold Stitchery, I have finally caught up to Week 7 by finishing all of my blocks and moving on to assembling my quilt top!

Finally Finished Making All of My Deco Quilt Blocks!

Once again, if I had any idea how long this project was going to take, I probably would never have started it in the first place.  😬. Ignorance is bliss!  

Rebecca Does Not Follow Directions, As Usual

Including some "action shots" here of quilt top assembly in progress.  My poor B 990 machine must be so bummed; all her fancy high tech features but the only thing she gets to do so far in my studio is Piecing Straight Stitch #1313!  So, if any of you have made this quilt before you might be noticing that I've veered from the pattern instructions in a couple of key ways:

• I disregarded the instruction to press all of the seams open in this quilt and created my own pressing plan instead.  It is nearly impossible to get crisp and accurate seam intersections if you press all of your seams open -- and conversely, it is practically goof-proof to get perfect seam matches when the seam allowances have been pressed in opposite directions and you can just snug them together for a little seam hug, secure with a couple o pins and then sew
• The pattern instructs you to create additional full log cabin blocks and then slice them in half from corner to corner to create the side blocks.  I didn't want to do that for two reasons.  First, it would cause weird and unnecessary seams to land right on the outside of my quilt where they would interfere with binding in the last stages of the project.  (Note that, if you're making one of the smaller size versions of Deco rather than the bed size quilt I'm making, you have to slice different blocks in half diagonally, losing your points all along the outside of your quilt!).  Second reason for disobeying instructions was that I wanted to have control over the grain line along the outer edges of the quilt as much as possible, so I cut those blue triangles for my partial side blocks with the grainline on the hypotenuse (long side of the triangle).
• I used my AccuQuilt GO! Setting Triangles 8" Finished die (this post contains a few affiliate links) to cut my side and corner setting triangles to the exact size for my 8" finished blocks.  AccuQuilt makes their setting triangle dies in various sizes and it's definitely worth getting the coordinating size setting triangle die if you already own one of the AccuQuilt Qube sets and/or you frequently make blocks of a certain size.  Not only does this die "do the math" for you to cut the appropriately sized setting triangles -- with the points pretrimmed for easy alignment before stitching -- but the layout of the triangle shapes on the die itself ensures that all of these setting triangles will have straight, non-stretchy fabric grain on the edges that will form the very outer edges of your quilt top.  So, because I cut these setting triangles with my AccuQuilt die, I did not have to think about making sure I had straight fabric grain on the hypotenuse side of my side setting triangles but straight fabric grain on the short sides (NOT the hypotenuse) for the four smaller corner setting triangles.  The setting triangle die makes it a lot easier for novices to tackle diagonal set quilts successfully.  By the way, if you don't think you'll make enough diagonal set quilts in a particular block size to justify the cost of AccuQuilt or you're not already invested in that cutting system, there are specialty rulers available that will help you cut the correct size setting triangles for any block size.  I have the one Kaye England designed for Good Measure, but I've seen other brand versions in quilt shops and I'm sure they work just as well.  Kaye has a video showing how to use hers here.

March Madness (NOT Basketball!): New Tilda Fabric + Stonefields Quilts for Nanette (and for Rebecca)

Today I'm sharing Nanette's Stonefields quilt that I quilted for her in January of 2023.  This was one of fourteen quilt tops (out of a stack of many more!) that she had originally planned to quilt herself and had been feeling guilty about leaving unfinished -- you know, like quilters do!  With health challenges multiplying and the stack of quilts not getting any smaller, she decided to scale back some of that self-imposed pressure by having some of the quilts professionally long arm quilted by me.  

Nanette passed away suddenly a week ago, and that got me looking back through photos of her quilts again and thinking about how glad I am to have helped her achieve the satisfaction of seeing and enjoying her gorgeous quilts as finishes.

Nanette's 65 x 65 (Modified) Stonefields Quilt with Filigree E2E Quilting

First things first, let's credit the pattern designer.  Stonefields is an original pattern by Australian quilter Susan Smith, which she was commissioned to make by Paramount Studios for a film that was shot in Ireland.  I have no idea which film; what I've shared with you is all the info I was able to squeeze out of the World Wide Web!  Stonefields is a sampler quilt combining appliqué with EPP (English Paper Piecing) and machine piecing, and Nanette shared that this was the most expensive pattern she ever purchased and that made her feel even more pressure to have a finished quilt to show for what she'd invested in it.  

So, I know what some of you are thinking -- edge-to-edge quilting over hand stitched appliqué?!  I know, I know.  Nanette's original plan was to hand quilt this one, but she realized that she had more quilt tops that "deserved" hand quilting than she would ever be able to complete in her lifetime.  Custom machine quilting was outside of her own skill set and beyond her budget, especially considering the number of tops she wanted to finish all at once.  And so she sent Stonefields to me, and I recommended the simple loops of the Filigree allover quilting design.

That Bunny Rabbit Is My Favorite!

With this quilt, it was really important that the appliqué and patchwork should be the star of the show and the quilting should just be a supporting element.