Sturbridge Collection II – Chopin – A Passionate Quilter From Texas

Well, here it is 13 July 2014………..The time flies when one is having so much fun. The weather is definitely Summer Time in the South! We reached 99 degrees and 50% humidity yesterday – Lovely. This is a good time to stay indoors and work on quilt projects – just like the Cold Winters in the North!

If you follow my Blog you know that I had been working on a Quilt called Enduring Love #270 using Judi Rothermel fabrics from Old Sturbridge Collection called Enduring Legacy. Being a Type A Perfectionist and OK – Compulsive Obsessive Quilter, this project was doomed from the beginning – I just did not realize it! After working on it on and off since late April, stopping at one point and redoing the entire quilt, I arrived at the border of 6″ Stars.

I will not bore all with my lovely trip through the vicissitudes of the life of a perfectionist quilter, so here is the bottom line. Because I am chemically sensitive, all fabric is washed before bring it to the Studio. I NEVER once thought that by washing this fabric some of the dyed pieces would have faded and that the fabric would have stretching issues.

All I will say is that the left over fabric (and there is a lot) is put up so high on my shelves that I doubt I will ever see it again – maybe the dust will cause it to disintegrate someday and I will never have to “make myself use it”. Maybe I will give it to a quilter who needs some frustration in their lives! (LOL) Once the fabric is washed it turned into a thinner more stretchy fabric that I did not realize UNTIL I had made 36 – 6 inch stars for the next to the last border…….So here is what I came up with and I am not pleased with it at all. Without the Stars, the quilt does nothing for me and I am sure a Judge would run past it, therefore it is going to be a utility quilt. I think that if anyone has purchased this line of fabric and pre-washes they will have a mess on their hands. The fabric fades and becomes very thin and stretchy – a lot of work that will be in vain because the quilt will not last. Now needless to say, there were some errors I had made when making the quilt, but when I say it was doomed from the beginning it was and it was due to the pre-washing. Learned a BIG lesson on this one. (I wonder if I will ever get over the time I have lost in devoting to this quilt?)

Now on to more positive things. I have completed my Stars Across Texas embroidery project – I have decided to wait awhile before I design a setting. There is something to say about hand work and that is, “one can control the outcome”!

Last year I became interested in Reproduction fabric and Australian quilts. The Australian quilters love English Paper Piecing (EPP) and their quilts really pop and look great. There is a lot of intense hand work in their patterns and sooooo challenging! I cancelled all of my US magazines and only subscribe to Quiltmania. LuAnn of luannsloosethreads.blogspot.com blogged about a quilt that she was starting that is in Quiltmania Magazine Number 107. Be sure to go to her Blog – she does some great work. Here is a picture of the quilt called Brinton Hall by Leigh Latimore (http://leighquilts.blogspot.com) Check out her Blog also.

I immediately knew that this would be my next project. So off to the Stash to pull fabrics. I am working on the Center Medallion now doing the EPP rings around a “fussy” cut Center. I have missed working with my batiks this last year so I will be using them in this quilt. Hopefully it will not be a disaster.

LuAnn also blogged about a book that is absolutely great when developing an in-depth understanding of EPP. The book is called “all points patchwork” – English Paper Piecing Beyond the Hexagon for Quilts and Small Projects by Diane Gilleland. Amazon has it on their website for about $12.00. There are 220 pages of illustrations of “the many ways to use EPP as possible”. (a direct quote from her Idea Book versus Project Book). It is a great book!

I love the Blogging world – quilters share so many ideas and projects and they are all inspiring. So with that, I am now going to go and work on EPP Hexagons. I have covered up the sewing machine for at least 2 weeks and will be sitting here working on EPP watching some movies and resting my weary mind from the last quilt project that I want to forget. Doesn’t this look inviting?

EPP Set up — My EPP Sewing Table and a TV – What more do I want?

Have a wonderful week, enjoy life, and always take time to take in some Sun (good Vitamin D).

Greetings from the State of Texas where our 5 year plus Drought is OVER! We are officially drought free. This is the way it goes here in South Texas and what a relief that we are in El Nino weather pattern. Our grass is growing back and our 95 pine trees are looking so pretty. I feel for the families who have lost loved ones and their homes. Mother Nature can provide blessings, but at the same time heartache.

The last time I posted I believe I was working on a quilt by Carol Hopkins Designs. The pattern is from Civil War Legacies – Quilts for Reproduction Fabrics. I keep calling my quilt Enduring Legacy – well….. DUH that is the fabric line by Judi Rothermel. This pattern is Enduring Love #270. I love the quilt and the fabric line and it was coming together so pretty. I knew that when putting the Medallion together that a few of the star points were “cut off”, but decided that this would be a “utility” quilt and not one to show. The pattern calls for 8 borders. The Medallion has a serpentine 2″ border strip mitered, a 2″ border not mitered, and then another 2″ serpentine border mitered! So in my stressed stupor from the last 15 months, I followed the pattern. Moving right along I finished the first 3 borders and attempted to start the 40 stars for the next border. Here is a picture of my progress about 3 weeks ago. I was fairly pleased with myself for getting this much done even after Clay’s neck surgery in April!

Enduring Legacy with 3 Borders — Absolutely Beautiful – Looking Perfect?

The next border consisted of 40 Squares in a Square Block. I was very careful to measure and make sure that each 4 1/2″ block would be perfect and not have issues like I did with a few of the star points! Quilting right along, Ms Perfectionist put the entire border on ONLY to find out that I was off 3/8 of an inch when I put the top border on! LOVELY!

I kept telling myself and hubby, oh well, this will not be a quilt for Show….. After ripping the entire border off, redoing the side borders and thinking, ahhhh now it should be OK (yes I checked to see if all corners were squared) I still had a problem. I decided to walk away and “think about it”. But I do believe that this one put me over the edge (Type A’s have this problem – LOL).

Sunday morning I made up my mind that I would take the quilt apart to find my mistakes. Boy did I find some, and the worst was in the very first Serpentine border. I continued on searching out the problems and found out that they began when I put the 2nd border on – which was NOT mitered, and of course made it really bad with the 3rd border! One would think that I would have listened to 3 friends who kept reminding me to not start any quilts that would require concentration while I was under stress. As I ripped all borders off and reached the “stars with cut off points” I decided that I needed to continue ripping and start this quilt over. Good thing I did as I quickly found out that my center block (Birds) was 1/4″ off.

When I am in the process of working on a quilt and have “issues” (nice word for mistakes) I back into the problem and try to find out exactly what I did to get to the point where I am now. Well, one major mistake was this. I pre-wash all my fabrics and immediately iron them. Guess what! I forgot that I had set them aside and did not press. I guess I thought that I would “press as I go”, but even forgot that. So my mistakes really started before I started cutting. LESSON LEARNED!

Then if was off to the computer hoping to find some more fabric just in case and Whittles saved me. The background fabric was more difficult to find. Although I have plenty, I love the fabric and found it at The Hen House (www.thehenhousemi.com). So that was pure dumb luck. This quilt will now become a Show quilt for next year. I will correct all mistakes and make sure that it is of Show quality, even if it never receives a Ribbon, it is a quilt that will be worth all the work. MORAL OF THE STORY – Do not expect anything to go right when under stress! Won’t Happen!

So here I am on 30 May 2015 “starting over” with Enduring Love #270. I have the Center Medallion corrected, 4 of the 12 Center Stars have been re-made, and the Square in a Square Border has been checked and appears to be “OK” (fingers crossed) as I do not want to have to re-make them. All fabric has been received, washed and YES, I just finished ironing the first set of fabrics and will iron the additional ones tomorrow. Quilting is sooooo much fun!

Border Fabrics — Border Fabric – Judi Rothermel Sturbridge Collection II – Enduring Legacy

Enduring Legacy Fabics — Judy Rothermel Sturbridge Collection II – Enduring Legacy Fabrics

Center Medallion 30 May 15 — Center Medallion – 30 May 2015

I tried to salvage all of the 12 Stars that circle the birds, but quickly found that I was sloppy (probably not concentrating) and did not square the star points or the center of the star as I made them. Therefore in the end – a total remake of all 12 stars! They are all cut out and ready to be sewn together. Let’s hope I am more careful when putting them together and not forgetting to square each section!

Have a great week-end and updates coming down the pike on my Texas Quilt!