(Re)Started Quilt Blog

This blog started as a way for us to share with our family what we were up to after we moved out of state. But over time, as we remodeled our craftsman home in Laurelhurst, it morphed into a historic house remodel blog. It was a way for me to save info I had researched and as a way to record progress on our projects. But I have shifted a lot of my leisure activities to fabric crafts now and they don't really fit into the Laurelhurst Craftsman house theme. I will still use this blog for our gardening and woodworking projects since they still benefit this house.

Once the weather warms up we do hope to do another round of woodworking. I would very much like to finish my master bedroom closet. We decided to try and make the cabinets ourselves but the pandemic brought our progress to a halt. I'm hoping we'll get back to work on the project later this year.

Anyway, since I am seriously considering starting a long arm quilting business, I decided I should shift my sewing-related posts over to my long-abandoned quilt blog. Once I figure out a new name, I'll change the name of the blog, but I will leave it as it is for now.

If you're here primarily for the quilt posts, I would encourage you to follow that blog. I will start using that blog to post about project progress and challenges I am participating in.

I have posted a new post over there.

New Porch Floor

The porch is not finished, but they won't be making any more progress this week because of the snow. The new porch floor is looking really nice. As a reminder, the wood is meranti decking.

The contractor added a groove along the edge and installed it with a separate tongue. This is a photo of an exposed edge so you can see the detail.

The wood is unfinished in this photo. After he finishes the install, he'll finish the floor in place, but that won't happen until we have warmer weather, maybe in March.

Queen's Jewel Quilt Finished

I actually finished this quilt binding before the other two quilts, but it took me a few days to take photos, which are not great. The master bedroom is a bit of a mess.

I ended up making four sets of matching pillowcases for this quilt because Jeff likes LOTS of pillows on the bed and if I wait until the first set of cases wear out to make more, the fabric will likely be gone. So I decided to make more pillowcases right away and store them in the linen closet until we need them.

This pattern was inspired by the Queen's Jewel pattern from Quick Quilts from Your Scrap Bag by Patricia Wilens. I removed the outer border from each block and replaced it with a sashing. 

This quilt was finished with the Dragon Tails pantograph.

And recently I realized this is nearly the same quilt block design I declared was "next" in the queue in April 2018 (but it obviously wasn't). Perhaps that is why the queen's jewel pattern attracted me when I found it. Also, I ended up with nearly the same color scheme (green, blue, and purple); a happy accident. 

Fire Dance Quilt Finished

For this month's Friday Night with Friends, I decided I wanted to try to finish the binding on my Fire Dance quilt. I started at about 5:30PM and I was done by 9:30PM. I don't think I'll ever go back to sewing bindings by hand; I used to take weeks to finish them. (The trick is to sew the binding to the backside of the quilt and then flip it to the front so the "messy" side is on the back. I found several good videos showing how to do it, but this is the best one.)

I made two sets of matching pillowcases for this one.

I had it quilted with the Lorien's Dragons pantograph, which I love.

This quilt pattern was inspired by the quilt of the same name from the Batik Beauties book by Laurie J. Shifrin. I designed some half-blocks to make it larger for my bed.

This was the quilt flimsy laid out on my bed before it was quilted.

Lenton Rose Quilt Finished

I finally finished the batik flower quilt I started in October 2019. I had hoped to take Long Arm Quilting classes so I could finish it myself, but I finally got tired of waiting for the pandemic to end so I paid someone else to finish it for me. 

This is one I designed myself using Electric Quilt 7. I made it using the Providence Block and added a bit of sashing because I thought it looked better. I'm not sure how I came up with the name Lenton Rose but I suspect I named it last spring when all our hellebores were in bloom.

I sorted through the fabrics I used for this quilt and found enough fabric to make three sets of matching pillowcases. I used the burrito method to make the pillowcases and it worked quite well, though I am not exact in my measurements. I tended to make the cuff a little bit wider and the trim a little smaller (or I would just use a scrap I had leftover from the project).

I had it quilted with the Flutterwings quilting design.

Porch Progress

Hand Made Home started the porch remodel on Monday. They started by plastic-wrapping the porch (because of the lead paint) which made it impossible to take photos of the floor removal. LOL

Today they were leveling the floor joists and prepping the floor for the new decking. Tomorrow, they are going to finish the bottom of the boards back at their shop, then on Monday, they're going to start installing the new floor.

Sorry for the bad photo, I had to take it through the screen door.

Meanwhile, I have spent the week up in my sewing room working on my WOOFA list and One Monthly Goal. I've made a lot of progress. I'll do an update over the weekend.

February One Monthly Goal

My February One Monthly Goal is actually five tasks. Over the past few weeks, I have gotten back FIVE quilts from the long arm machine quilter. I would like to finish binding ALL of them. This is a lot for such a short month, but I am anxious to work on a new project so I want to be sure and finish these first.

It was an expensive month, really with no end in sight. I like making quilts. So, I'm thinking pretty seriously about getting a long arm quilting machine and frame.