Blue Diamonds spread out

One of my readers asked to see the entire Blue Diamonds quilt spread out. I am still trying to find a solution to photographing my big quilts. I want to take pictures like artworks are presented, in a straight forward way but in the mean time here are a few lawn shots I took of it last week while visiting in Manassas. For the full quilt story see the previous post here: http://orangeexplainsitall.blogspot.com/2013/10/blue-diamonds-quilt.html

The backing is all white on white print with the three colors of yarn quilting 

Blue Diamonds Quilt

Earlier this week I finished quilting this blue and white Dresden plate quilt, laid out in a diamond format. Living in Washington DC near the Hope Diamond, that jewel came to mind when I was searching for a title. These Dresden plate blocks were originally based on my great grandmother's quilt of the late1800's. It was around the house since I was a kid and gets special treatment because it is a unique family heirloom. Stuffed with loose lambs wool it has lots of hand quilting to hold it all in place and fascinating patches of old dress fabrics making up each plate.

Great Grandmother's Dresden Plate quilt 

 I found some tips on YouTube about how to make the Dresden plate blocks and then I went full steam ahead producing them last year in blues and whites. When a few dozen of them were finished I realized I wasn't ready to quilt them, and set them aside until I felt more confidant about quilting. This past two months I began the process of hand quilting this the smaller of two tops with contrasting and matched Perle threads. This fits a double bed and the next one is even bigger which is laid out like great grandmother's version in square format.

Folded back you can see some of the quilting and the navy blue calico binding

Title block embroidered on blue oxford shirt cloth

The one challenge this quilt gave me were the bias cut sides. They stretched and made it difficult to keep it flat and even especially on the long sides. The blue and white polka dot framing helped some but it wasn't a completely flat finish. I wonder if anyone has tips for keeping this large diamond layout squared up?  I would love to hear them in comments below so I can use the diamond layout again with less struggle. 

home alone, what to do...

cut glass crystals actually refract the morning sunlight! 

After a nice Saturday which began with gay poets at the Out Write conference, I discovered I was in the midst of Dog Days on 14th St. which is a weekend when the stores and shops put up sidewalk tables and do summer sales.  I wondered down the street and enjoyed a stop at Miss Pixies second hand shop where I discovered a great strand of cut chandalier crystals I couldn't resist. My neighbor Dan Vera invited me to come here him read from his prize winning book of poems on a panel of three prize wining poets.

 Keith left for a visit with his family on Friday so I just wandered and enjoyed the great weather. I took my sketch book and got one victim on the metro for a sketch on my way down town.

 Earlier I drew some pretty flowers Keith left for me.  Feeling a little rusty with my drawing skills but they just need some exercising.

all sorts of things from the garden in a cut crystal glass. 

I ended up at Plan B Gallery on 14th and Q.Street. Where director David Kalamar asked about my quilts. He brought up the Rose Star quilt I had posted on Facebook last year. I didn't know which one he was talking about at first, since he didn't know the name. He reminded me by referring to my quest to choose a background fabric on Facebook. Black or white was the question, the answer as it turned out was off white with a printed bright white flower design. The Rose-Star quilt has been laying around for some time now and he made me realize that was a project I wanted to finish up soon. 

trimming the uneven edges of the rose star on the porch table  to prepare it for binding 

sewing on the red and white micro dot binding tape on the straight edges of Rose-Star quilt 

Having the place to myself I intend to spread out another quilt to baste it together for hand quilting in the coming weeks. This top is white and blue Dresden plates laid out in diamond format. I decided to add a white border on three sides to finish it out to a full bed size. 

lay up of off white top piece and white on white side piece for Dresden diamonds. 

Sides added and pressed and ready to lay on the floor for basting 

The garden is doing well and looking great with our new landlord's weekly lawn mower coming round to keep it looking tidy. I was surprised to find a kind of hard seed in the cotton plants flowers and a red freckling on the hydrangeas that normally turn red in fall.

cotton plant flowering 

pods forming at the bottom have a hard nut inside soon to be full of cotton balls

Lace cap Hydrangea is blushing 

Ironweed flowers are so purple this year it's looking great standing at six feet tall

Swamp milkweed flowers were pink now they are pointed pods spewing little fairies 

Lavender summer phlox and a little black and blue salvia

show & tell quilters

I have to confess that show and tell is about my favorite thing to do. That is one reason I enjoy going to the DC Modern Quilters Guild meeting the other is to see what other artists are doing with their quilting and to learn from them anything I can about how to make my own work better and sometimes easier. This month we had another sewing day at Westover Library out in Arlington, VA it was a lovely day to spend with my new friends. I took my quilting projects and planned to work on the Seminole Quilting with my little feather weight Singer using the new walking foot attachment. It was really the only project I had that was ready to work on for the 4 hour meeting. I have made some headway but I think machine quilting is much more challenging than the fun quilt top piecing projects I have been enjoying this year. I got a few photos of me presenting my projects to the group of ready and curious quilters from one of the other members I admire. Jessie Aller is designer and quilter and she has a great blog here: http://jessiealler.com/

 Elle (left), our new DCMQG president, holding up Jessie's (right) Modern Dresden Plate quilt during show and tell. 

Jessie showing her new fabrics for another Dresden plate quilt which includes her own fabrics soon to be available in fine quilting shops.  

There are a few charity projects that are going on at the group level for volunteers. One of these is hosted by the Modern Quilt Guild Conference, It is a quilt done in the conference colors, the challenge is described in detail here QuiltConBlocks. 
Several quilt blocks were sent to our group and they are being Incorporated into a DCMQG quilt to be donated to a new children's homeless shelter near the conference in Austin, Texas. They asked us all to add a block or two and make a finished twin quilt. I jumped in at the last minute and made one block for the project with fabrics other members shared from their collections. Someone laid out our blocks, on the ugly carpeting, to try and find a nice design for our twin quilt. These blocks will be surrounded with a sort of rainbow of the colors and white. Jessie did a few sketches of various layouts we could try.

Left in turquoise skirt, Deanne owner of the Quilt Haus and creative Sewlutions near Austin TX. who visited and gave out some free samples of fabrics. She also helped us get the donation blocks ready to sew together and began the "rainbow blocks seen here hanging on the wall beginning with Orange at the top ending with turquoise at the bottom.  

possible quilt layout sketches 

The blocks as they looked at the end of the day. 

I was so inspired by looking at these blocks across the table from my spot I couldn't resist adding one of my own but I only had 15 minutes to do it before we had to leave the library. I think the greens in this photo get lost a bit but there will be a photo of the finished quilt once it is completed on our DCMQG blog. 

SwimBikeQuilt Katie, retiring president, looks a bit perplexed on the left in magenta as she is setting us up.

A different Katie's stained glass quilt ready for it's portrait to be entered in a quilt show!

Elle shows one of 3 baby quilts she is practicing new machine quilting stitches on before she donates them to 100 quilts for kids. See Elle's blog for more detail shots and the stories that go with them! ElleMental blog

Aubrie and Katie looking closer for details of Elle's machine quilting

Linda (blogs here: I Finally Have Time )shows a banner of 4 Christmas trees she is making for a daughter.  

Linda's visiting friend Anne shows one of the three blue baby boy quilts she is starting from her leftovers. 

Aubrie's squares with circle appliques 

Finally my show and tell as photographed by Jessie Aller in which you can see the quilts and the other quilters listening to my stories and admiring my work. It sure is nice to have somewhere to be with others who know what it's all about. I am still learning names so some of the quilters don't appear in this post. They were all very interesting and very talented and there seem to be a lot of them because new faces turn up each time I go. Still I am the only guy quilter which makes it easier for them to remember me than the other way around but I dig the support they all offer and I hope to learn all their names eventually.

Diamond Dresden plate 

Red and yellow Seminole

Hand pieced & quilted Rose-Star is getting red and white edges, I tell the viewers on my left. 

Rose-Star spread out for the viewers on the right.

Progress and a visit home

 After a few hours of blind stitching the edges of the Williamsburg Fences quilt all it needed was a label to complete the project.  I dug up a square of green fabric and did a crude embroidery lettering to put on the back. I chose red thread because  the stripe on the reverse has a tiny red stripe between the greens.
I went out to Manassas for a few days. I used this quilt while I was visiting my Mom. It was chilly at night watching TV. I am happy with the results and might make another only bigger next time. I still have a lot to learn about machine and hand quilting.

edges finished and the label applied for Williamsburg Fences lap quilt 

 Then I set to work finishing up triangular side pieces for the blue and white diamond plate quilt. I found a nice baby blue polka dot fabric to run along between the diamond blocks to give it a grid and make it a little bigger so now I think it will fit a double bed when completed with a boarder. .

peek at the diamond plate block quilt top

 I planted a couple dozen tulips and hyacinths in the Japanese red maple bed then added some chrysanthemums to the bed where begonias were looking sad. The daylily pots are there to keep the leaf blowers from wrecking the new mums.

Mom's spring bulbs planted with some chrysanthemums 

 Keith sent home a big bunch of purple lisianthus which were green when he got them and they bloomed out to fully perfect flowers. They fit nicely in the pot from "olde town Manassas"

purple lisianthus 

purple lisianthus in the dinning room with the rooster motif

Time to think about getting back to the Oranges and put some more effort into my Seminole stripes and strips since the leaves outside are full of sunshine and inspiration as the autumn colors begin to show their full color here in DC!

on the flip side

possible layout of blues for backing 

I have been working with Seminole strips the past week. The first, and my favorite strip, is the blue and white from my stay on the Chesapeake Bay. Now that I have the Dresden plate quilt top done I need a backing and I was thinking of using an old medium-dark blue sheet, (on the left in the picture above)  just plain and simple as it's back but that isn't big enough alone. It needs a little more. Which made me think how nice that blue strip of Seminole would would look on a large field of blues. I think it might be kind of modern like some of the big simple designs one sees around on the Internet. Today I measured and have begun to dream up a second Seminole strip to cross the first one and give my Dresden plate quilt back a cross or stripes of two designs. Mixing designs and fabrics up is the fun part of making quilts for me.

Dresden plate quilt top on the queen sized bed

Earlier I laid the quilt top on the bed to see how it fits and as I hoped, it covered everything. It measured approximately 88"across x108"long. That is 5x6 blocks 18" inches square minus the quarter inch seam allowance.  We can see above it fits and it is plenty big enough to cover the bed. Now I have to wonder how am I ever going to quilt this big thing on my tiny vintage Singer Featherweight? Clearly first I need to do some practice sessions with the new walking foot attachment and a smaller project to get the feel of how machine quilting is done.  The other version of Seminole with reds is on the design wall waiting for some more inspiration at the moment is is just not looking appealing to my eye. Warmer colors may be what I need for the next project to balance out the blues.

Seminole strips and stripes on the felt wall.