My Quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival: A Handkerchief Grandmother's Fan Quilt

Yeah--it's Quilt Festival time on internet!  Here's your chance to meet other quilters at your leisure.  Here is my first machine quilted queen size Grandmother's Fan made out of vintage handkerchiefs. 

I have handkerchiefs from both of my grandmothers, great grandmothers, great aunts, aunts, mom-in-law and mom.  When my boys were little, I wanted to make a quilt out of handkerchiefs.  I thought that a Grandmother's Fan would be a nice way to display vintage handkerchiefs. Some of the hankies were really thin so I lined them with a cotton underneath with applique film.

I started out with a white square of cotton fabric.  The fan was laid on the square.  I used invisible thread to attach the fan to the white square.  The white fabric under the fan was then carefully trimmed away to get rid of the extra bulk.

The fan block above is special because it is from my Great Grandma Moore.  Her first name started with an "R".

What a cute hankie for Valentine"s Day!

The yellow fan blades on the ends display my childhood handkerchief.

As you can see I had a lot of fun putting this quilt together and I really can't decide which block I like the best.  Some are more special than others because I know where the hankies came from.

 When it was time to quilt it, I had decided to machine quilt it because most of the fabrics in the fans are vintage and I thought that I would help preserve them better with free motion backgrounds in the fan blades.

This is a queen size quilt and yes I quilted it on a regular home sewing machine.  I used a 1630 Bernina.  My sewing machine was set on a large table and I let the quilt open as I quilted.  I tried rolling it and I found more freedom in just letting the pool around my machine.  I do not remember how many hours it took to quilt it, but I remember only sitting down for not more than 30 minutes to quilt at a time.  My focus was only on one block at a time.

This quilt is very special to me because all the ladies that gave me handkerchiefs had a hand in supporting me as a young mother.  Since that time, some of these beautiful ladies had passed on and this quilt brings back such wonderful memories.  When I was making this quilt, I made way too many blocks!  I have enough blocks to make a second quilt!  So eventually both of my sons will get a Grandmother's Fan quilt.  Thanks for stopping by and please be sure to check out the rest of the beautiful quilts at the Blogger's Festival at

http://amyscreativeside.com/2010/10/29/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2010/

Happy Quilting

Kay Lynne

P.S. Update: Here is what I done with the leftover blocks from this quilt.
  

Free Motion Radiant Designs and Spirals & Progress on Sewing Room

Pictured above are my radiant designs.  Since the designs are hard to see, I took a picture of the back of my quilt.  I filled in the background to give it a little more texture. 

Below are my spirals.  At first I didn't like them, but once you into the rhythm of doing them they are addicting.

If you remember, I painted my new sewing room in July.  I stenciled the walls and we laid 80% of the laminate flooring in August.  I started stripping painted wallpaper in the closet that was three layers deep.  After spending four hours doing a 12" by 12" area, my husband suggested that we panel the closet instead.  I decided that was a great idea!  The closet has been half done since August and we now have it almost finished!  The paneling is dark, but it's only a closet.  Dean left his square downstairs in the garage so I'm letting him borrow my large quilting square.  So ladies--I think that I will have to hide my square because Dean liked using my square way too much!  Little does he know that I use my quilting tools for other things than quilting.

I spent several hours this week putting together a closet organizer.  Once we finish the flooring, I will be able to set up my sewing room closet.  Progress has been slow, but family, friends, work, and farming obligations have taken priority.  My old sewing room is still in working order so I'm happy with the progress.  This summer I couldn't make up my mind on what type of flooring to use so I'm going to use both carpet and laminate flooring.  I would like to thank you ladies for all the advice on what flooring to use.  The carpet you can see in the picture is leftover carpet from my father-in-law.  He was so thoughtful in giving it to me and it was at the right price--free!  I had the edges bound at a carpet shop.  So I will have the better of two types of flooring. 

Here is a beautiful October sunset taken west of our house.  The landscape has really changed since all the crops have been harvested.  Dean finished combining the double crop beans this week.  He has some fall tillage to do, but the high pressure of harvest is over.  I'm so thankful we had a safe harvest.

Please think about joining us next week in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  It's always a pleasure to see other quilter's creations.  The link is posted on the right. 

If you have thought about joining the Free Motion Quilt Along, now is the time to think about joining.  Christina has some family obligations and will be taking two weeks off.  So you have two weeks to get started and to catch-up with us.  If you don't want to do a quilt, I suggest doing potholders.  You get practice and a new potholder all at the same time and who doesn't need a new potholder! 

Happy Quilting!

Kay Lynne

Friday Night Sew-In Results With Trapunto and Spiders on the Loose

This is a table runner that I had done a class on many years ago.  It is all finished, but I had decided to do a little trapunto in the quilting so it has been sitting in my sewing room for a long time unfinished.

I had decided that I wanted to trapunto the machine quilted sunflowers to make the quilting show up more.  The first step is to glide your needle with a double thickness of yarn between the quilted layers.

I then pull the yarn through my first hole (making sure that the tails of yarn are even), but not out of the quilted layer.  The whole purpose of trapunto is to leave some yarn behind that act as a fill.  The yarn is then clipped close to the quilt, but being careful not to damage the quilt.  Please don't do this when you're tired or in a hurry because you don't want to accidently damage your quilt.

After you have your object filled, I glide my needle back in the layers and pull the yarn all inside the quilt.  What I like about this technique is there are no holes in the quilt.  I've always liked the look of trapunto, but couldn't get past the old fashioned way of slicing the back and stuffing.  I know there are better ways of trapunto and I will eventually explore those techniques :)

Oh no----

There are spiders on the loose in the bakery!

No, it's just me doing a cake for some special people.  The cake will be displayed with special clear plastic pillars that will be at different levels.  The smallest cake will have a skull on top.

Yes--those are black widow spiders.

Anyone that is familiar with me knows that I don't like spiders!  They are welcome to be outside, but not inside with me--let alone on a cake.  I've been fighting the urge to swat a spider.

I did enjoy doing the cake and hope that they had a wonderful party :)

Happy Quilting

Kay Lynne

Free Motion Catch-Up, A Word on Machine Quilting Thread, & Wildlife on the Farm

Last week was a catch-up week on the Free Motion Quilt Along.  I really like catch-up weeks--I'm not really behind just catching up :)

We've been working on pebbling, which isn't new to me.  The pebbling above is a little different than Christina's.  I went around the pebbles twice to make the color show up more.  The spirals above and the wagon wheels below are the new designs I haven't tried before. 

Above I'm just filling in the spaces for practice and just for fun.

I even had time to sew a potholder together for some more practice.

It was just fun to sit down and practice, but it's not fun when the thread breaks, the tension isn't quite right, and when you're just too tired to really be sewing in the first place!

I really like my veriegated thread, but it is not a high quality thread.  It was bought for a wonderful price, but my sewing machine doesn't always like it because it has flaws in the thread that is why there are birds nests' on the back of my potholder.  The free motion filler designs that I did in the background was done with high quality thread call So Fine from Superior Threads.  What a difference! I didn't have any trouble with my machine, tension, or the thread.  I also found that when you have trouble with thread a needle size can make all the difference in the world!  I use Schmetz quilting needles in both my Bernina and Janome because the eyes of the needles are slightly larger so there is less thread breakage and easier threading of the needle.  If you still insist on using the thread that gives you trouble (like I do), use a metallic needle.  The eye of a metallic needle is even larger to let the thread flaws flow through.  Superior threads has some wonderful advice on thread troubleshooting check out the link at http://www.superiorthreads.com/page/330/

They even tell you what size needle to use on the threads they sell.

The leaves are now starting to turn.  They are even more colorful now than when this picture was taken.

Above is either a hawk or buzzard enjoying a warm afternoon breeze scouting out the freshly combined field.

The speck in the approximately in the middle of the picture above is an eagle.  If you can find the first eagle, the second eagle is directly to the left.

Pictured above is a baby eagle that is about a mile from our house that a friend took.  We had baby eagles near our house this spring--maybe this is one of them!

Harvest is very early this year!  Dean has the corn all harvested already.  He has some double crop beans to combine that should be ready to harvest in about a week. (Double crop beans are beans that are planted after wheat harvest in July.)  Now he's working his second job!

Hope everybody has a wonderful week!  Don't forget we are having a Friday Night Sew-In this Friday!

Happy Quilting and Happy Harvest--Yeah we're almost done!

Kay Lynne

Free Motion Loops & Harvest

Here is my progress on the Free Motion Quilt Along:

The top is my front of the quilt and below is the back.

Some of the loops I found were pretty easy, but some I found very challenging trying to keep them even.  Overall loops are pretty fun to do.  It's never too late to get started on the quilt along.  Check out Christina's blog at http://afewscraps.blogspot.com/

Since I had some open space, I decided to fill it in with other quilting.  I glad I've had a little free time to quilt with all the farming going on.  Our beans are harvested and the winter wheat is sowed.

We are now combining corn.  Every year is a little different on the farm.  So far I haven't been asked to help fix the combine, although I did spend a lot of hours helping Dean last year.

I've always wondered how many pounds of dirt go through my washing machine and down our shower drain during harvest.  I'm just glad that we have a mud room right where Dean dumps his dirty clothes so dirt is not tracked throughout the house.

I didn't even ask Dean how he got his arms so dirty.  Sometimes a farm wife just doesn't even want to know.

Dean is checking the moisture content of the corn--it tested out at 17% which is really good.

We're having a safe harvest so far.  Thanks for stopping by to see what we're up to.

Happy Harvest and Happy Quilting!

Kay Lynne