Sisterhood

Posted on April 6, 2022 by jeanswenson

Sisterhood
April 2022

For this recently completed jeans quilt, I used my and my sister Cathi’s old worn jeans. I had been wanting to make a jeans quilt for some time, but hadn’t found any designs that interested me. I had seen one that was made similar to this, except the folded over piece had been radiused, resembling a cathedral block. I wanted a more modern look so left the folded piece squared off, and mitered the corners. Since the back, or inside, of used jeans can be quite plain looking, I used Annie’s Craft Store’s Magical Winter 5″ charm squares on the inside of the jeans fabric, under my folded over piece, and then topstitched the folded over piece using a decorative stitch.

I constructed the quilt by starting with 7″ squares cut from the legs of the jeans. For most of the jeans I had, 7″ was about the widest I could get making the most efficient use of the fabric. I then cut a 1″ square from each corner of the 7″ squares. I first joined the squares to create my rows, using a 1″ straight seam, sewing from cut corner to cut corner. Next, I attached the 5″ charms using temporary quilters spray adhesive. Once I had a row assembled, I would seam down the flap portion just along the edges that had already been sewn, using a decorative stitch.

When it came time to join the rows, I opted to create two panels since jeans fabric is heavy, as it made it much easier to manipulate through my machine when it came time to do the final stitching down of the folded over piece between each row. I mitered the corners as I worked down each seam stitching down the folded over pieces. I used one of my machine’s fancy embroidery stitches, hoping to allow the raw edges to fray some, but not too much. Once it was done, I ran it through the wash to begin the fraying process. Overall, I was quite happy with how this one turned out, and I think Cathi would have liked it too!

I had originally planned to donate this quilt, but have been having a difficult time this year in finding a location in my county to drop them off for the kids in foster care. As the year ticked by, and many attempts at reaching out to Family Services for the county met with no response, I decided perhaps it was the cosmos’ way of telling me that this quilt was not intended for donation, but instead, for my eldest sister Lynn. I gifted it to her for Christmas, and she was very touched — Sisterhood ❤

Bloom

Posted on March 16, 2022 by jeanswenson

Bloom
March 2022

This quilt will be donated as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge. This year, the challenge is being hosted by Mari over at The Academic Quilter. She will begin the sign-up process soon, so if you’re interested in joining this year’s challenge, check out her blog.

The backing fabric, shown here, is a Mary Engelbreit design from 2001, and has been living in my stash for about ten years now. I think the fabric is super cute, but every time I considered using it in a quilt, I was not sure how to cut the fabric. The individual elements are so close to one another, that I was concerned that even fussy cutting it would lose too many aspects of the overall design. I finally figured that using it as a backing on a baby quilt was going to do it the most justice. The piecing on the front mainly uses scraps and small pieces from my stash, and the flower pot is done using a raw-edge appliqué technique.

Baby Quilts Up for Auction

Posted on March 11, 2022 by jeanswenson

Scooter & Tod

I have donated these two recently finished scrappy quilts to my grandkids elementary school for a silent auction that will raise money for school programs. If you are interested in bidding on either of these baby quilts, you can bid on Scooter (airplane) here, and Tod (fox) here.

Each quilt measures 40″x40″ and is made from 100% cotton outer, with 80/20 cotton/poly batting, machine pieced and quilted.

The auction is open from March 11-19, 2022.

Scooter

Posted on January 31, 2022 by jeanswenson

Scooter
January 2022

Every Spring, I try to participate in the Hands2Help Challenge hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict @fabricaddictquilts. This year I decided to get a jump start on making baby quilts for this great cause. Since I was working to deplete my scraps bins with my recent Tod quilt, I kept the momentum going and made these yellow and blue log cabin blocks with “mostly” scraps. I say “mostly” because I was being a bit too fussy about the colorway, and did go into my stash for some of the blues and yellows. I made the airplane using a raw-edge appliqué technique.

Why the name? Scooter was a super sweet pound puppy that my sister had year’s ago. While this isn’t a dog, I thought the airplane was super sweet, and it reminded me of my sister – she’ll know why.

This was donated to Friends of Short Avenue Elementary for a silent auction in March, 2022.

Tod

Posted on January 29, 2022 by jeanswenson

Tod
January 2022

While putting away my holiday scraps, I found that my reds bin was close to exploding. So, time for a red scrappy quilt! I kept this baby quilt super simple, patchworking 2″ blocks. As for the fox, I found a coloring page online, and then enlarged the image to the size I wanted, and traced directly from my monitor. I know all you techies are cringing, yes, it’s probably not good form to trace off a monitor, but I try to press only ‘very, very lightly’ 🙂 Typically, I either trace using my monitor, or against a window… of course, during daytime for using the window 😂 I made the fox using a raw-edge appliqué technique.

I often hear new quilters ask about the best way to store and manage their scraps. I hear some quilters suggest cutting into standard sizes before storing, and to only keep those pieces larger than 2″. My recommendation is to keep it all, and to not pre-cut it. Since I often dig into my scraps for appliqué projects, the size and irregularity of a piece is not a problem. I also enjoy the crumb block technique, which uses not only irregular shapes, but also very small pieces. Lastly, I sort scraps by color and use photo boxes to keep them in. This way, when the lid no longer wants to stay properly on the box, I know it’s time to do a scrappy quilt! If you are needing ideas for a scrappy quilt, check out Quilting is more fun than Housework’s blog.

This was donated to Friends of Short Avenue Elementary for a silent auction in March, 2022.

Traveller

Posted on January 8, 2022 by jeanswenson

Traveller
January 2022

I’ve been wanting to make a Wanderer’s Wife quilt for awhile and when I came across these jelly rolls, I knew they would be perfect for this project. Part of wanting to do this quilt was the desire to use up some of my orphan blocks. As it turned out, the blocks I used are about half new and half orphan blocks. It does not have as many blocks as some Wanderer’s Wife quilts I’ve seen, but I like its simplicity.

I like being able to repurpose, and I really like how this quilt pattern enables reusing scraps and orphan blocks. The jelly rolls were the only new fabric used, while the blocks that were newly pieced used scraps. I made this as a quanket, finishing it with fleece backing and tying it.

When I had added this quilt to my ‘to do’ list a few year’s back, I knew it by the name Gypsy Wife quilt. Since that time, it has been renamed to Wanderer’s Wife. There is excellent information about the history and current Romani and Traveller human rights crisis here.

While I had intended this quanket to be donated to a foster child, sometimes life just has different plans. In mid-2022, my connection to CPS sort of just dried up. The facility I had been dropping my quilts off to, closed. I left many messages for my contacts with CPS, to no avail. So, the quilts were just sitting, waiting to find a home.

In early 2023, my Dad was admitted to the ER. It’s a long story. Anyways, Joe was Dad’s room mate. I really enjoyed my time hanging out with Joe while visiting my Dad in the hospital. Joe’s sister Gayle and his son Daniel, were so wonderful, and made the time in the hospital much more bearable. Daniel was always such a huge help with my Dad, when the nurses were otherwise occupied. I miss you Joe, and I hope you, Gayle and Daniel find peace and strength in your journey through life.

H♥me

Posted on November 13, 2021 by jeanswenson

H♥me
November 2021

My nephew Joe is getting married today, to his love, and best friend, Bailey. The name H♥me is meaningful to them, hence the name.

Home is where the heart is. (Bailey)

You are my home. (Joe)

I hope through the years they become even better friends and share every possible kind of happiness life can bring.

The majority of the material used for this quilt is new, with a few pieces of the past mixed in. The pattern is called Geometric Slide, by Faith Jones.

Cheery

Posted on October 22, 2021 by jeanswenson

Cheery
September 2021

Here is my finished Hometown BOM (block of the month) that was hosted earlier this year by Jacquelynne Steves over at Art of the Home. She typically hosts a couple of sew alongs each year, and this is the fifth I’ve participated in, which included Save the Bees, Silver Linings (I made two), FaLaLa and her current Snowman & Silent Night sew along.

The colorway inspiration for me came from the border fabric, which has been in my stash for a while, waiting for just the right project, and this was it! The sew along was offered in two colorways – Spring and Summer. I loosely followed the Summer colorway, using the colors from the outer border for selecting the other fabrics for the blocks and setting triangles. I quilted it on my regular sewing machine, doing meandering stitching in the border and setting triangles, and 1/4″ away from the ditch stitching on the blocks. The quilt finished at approximately 66″x66″. Here is how I finished the back…

Lassie

Posted on October 1, 2021 by jeanswenson

Lassie
September 2021

This quanket combines many scraps from Toodles, a quilt I made for my nephew Dexter, six years ago. The colorway is very mid-century modern. The avocado, browns, teals and oranges have made these fabrics a bit of a challenge to incorporate into other quilts over the past six years, not only because of their strong color personality, but also because the colors are all very saturated. I felt the linen color for the background provided the neutrality needed to compliment these strong colors.

This scrappy quilt began by sewing the small’ish scraps (most under 4″x3″), combining them with the solid linen and avocado colored fabrics. I constructed 12″ blocks, but wasn’t happy with how they looked once they were up on my design wall*. So, I used a trick I learned many year’s ago when making Calm Reflection, of cutting the block in half, and flipping it around to create a new design. The technique was one I had found on wont-to-be quilter’s blog, however, I can no longer find the instructions there. Please drop me a comment with your email address if you would like me to send to you. I made ‘Lassie’ as a quanket, finishing it with fleece backing.

“Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that (way)?”
~ Roud Folk Song Index number 5040

This quanket was donated for a child in foster care in October, 2021.

*While the picture of my design wall doesn’t have this latest quanket on it, I thought you might like to see what my design wall looks like. It is a piece of 1/2″ styrofoam insulation covered with felt, measuring roughly 5’x6′. My murphy-style cutting table is immediately behind my sewing machine, a 1950’s Singer 401a, slant-o-matic. The cabinet for the fold-up cutting table has a blackboard backing, so I can keep notes for my current projects. The sewing machine was my grandmothers, and the one she used to teach me to sew over 50 years ago.

Stormy

Posted on September 14, 2021 by jeanswenson

Stormy
September 2021

I try not to have too many UFOs, but this one became an unfinished project last year, during the pandemic. With the rush on cotton fabric for making face masks, it became increasingly difficult to sometimes get fabric, let alone trying to find more of a specific fabric. I needed less than a 1/4 yard of one of the outlying darker blues, but could not find it anywhere. Even as the pressures on cotton fabric eased over the last several months, I still had no luck finding what was needed.

After sitting in a drawer for a year, I decided that a finished quilt was better than a perfect quilt, and substituted a dark solid blue fabric, seen in the top and bottom rows. The piece of past fabric in this quilt is the first band of the darker blue fabric. It was some that my sister gave me several years ago, previously a favored sundress of hers. I have used it in several quilts, and the dress is now whittled down to a just a few remaining small scraps. I made this as a quanket, finishing it with fleece backing.

It was a difficult decision for me to just ‘move on’. From the early designing phase I intended it to have that particular fabric in that particular spot. In reflection, I think this quilt is like life sometimes: we have a certain vision in our minds of how we think it’s going to go, but life throws us a curve ball, and we must decide to move on, or be stuck in a drawer. I chose the name Stormy as a reference to the turbulent year of 2020.

“…a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor”
~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt