Hand Pieced Treasures - General quilts

 Going back through my spreadsheet list of quilts that haven't been documented, I see several of my most treasured quilts.  These quilts are either hand pieced, hand appliqued or both.

Several years ago there was a lady on the About.com quilting forum who volunteered to teach people hand piecing.  She even sent everyone a little kit and sample needs.  I enjoyed it so much I made several of them in two sizes.  Then I put them away as I couldn't figure out how I wanted to finish them.  Some time later I went to the first VOS retreat (a group of quilters in Arizona from About.com).  They had a block raffle for black/white & bright blocks.  I didn't win, but loved how the blocks looked on the design wall.  So I made some of my own, using patterns from Quilter's Cache (another About.com forum member).  They looked great with the bright stars.  I then asked for suggestions for borders.  Another quilty friend suggested a vine border.  The hand piecing took a year, the border another year (soooo many leaves), and the hand quilting a third year.  It hangs in the place of honor in my studio, even though it's fading a bit from the sunshine.  I love looking at it and answering questions about it.  It reminds me of all the lovely years spend with my long distance forum friends who taught me so much.  Definitely one of my favorite and most loved quilts.

About the same time I was making the black & white blocks, I was having fun hand piecing Christmas blocks.  I had read somewhere that if you tested blocks using Christmas fabrics, eventually you'd have a Christmas sampler.  I was using a background fabric that Joann fabrics had carried for several years, and I had several yards.  But of course when I started doing the sashing, I was 2 pieces short.  Frantic I asked my quilting friends online if anyone had some, and one of my VOS retreat friends had a yard.  I love putting this quilt out each year.

At one point I thought I might try making a Dear Jane quilt, but rather than following a pattern I wanted to pick out my own blocks from various sources.  After making two dozen four inch blocks using blue and green batiks with white background, I decided I was done.  So I put them away for a while. Later thinking about how I could finish them out, I saw a setting idea on the cover of "Precision Piecing" by Sally Collins.  I liked the effect so I started piecing a Carpenter's Wheel pattern around each of 20 blocks.  By the end I was heartily sick of Carpenters wheels.  Then I decided to do a very narrow sashing with a pieced border.  And of course since it was all hand pieced, I had to hand quilt it too.  After all this handling, several of the blocks were dirty, so I decided to wash it and block it.  And of course even though the batiks had been prewashed, some of them bled.  Sob.  I lived with it for several years until I ran across an article called "Save my bleeding quilt".  I tried it and it worked - HAPPY DANCE!  I dearly love this quilt and it hangs in our dining area where I can look at it from the kitchen & my office. 

 

Several years ago there was an exhibition of red and white quilts which I would have loved to see in person.  But I bought the book and enjoy looking through it regularly.  Since my daughter's favorite color is red, I decided to make her a red and white quilt using Red Batiks.  I had some Hawaiian patterns for hand applique and decided to pair them with paper pieced sawtooth sashing. After my experience with batiks and bleeding, I prewashed these red batiks six times before piecing.  I then used the "dawn bath" after the quilt was done.  There was still a little bit of pink in that water, but NO bleeding!  The quilt was hung in my daughter's apartment over her sofa, which means all her zoom classmates during Covid were very familiar with this quilt.

And another red quilt for my daughter.  I talked about this quilt in Feb 2021 in detail, but since it is one of my favorites that I'm most proud of, it needed to be here too.

Since I was loving applique so much, I decided to try reverse applique.  This pattern from Eye of the Beholder was so much fun.  Originally a table runner, my husband wanted it to hang over some electrical cords in the den.

I have to mention my Christmas Frames quilt.  I've posted about it separately a couple of times, but it definitely is one of the quilts I would grab if my house was on fire, so it should be included here.  Some day I'll stop talking about it all the time, but I do so love this quilt.  And it won two ribbons, how cool is that!

Early on I wanted to try hand piecing hexagons.  I cut a bunch (and I do mean a bunch) of scraps.  I pieced lots and lots of hexagons, then struggled with how to put them together into something that made sense.  This is what I came up with.  I'm not in love with it, but there certainly is a ton of work in this quilt.  Even the border is fussy cut and hand applied down.  The whole thing doesn't look like as much work as it was.  This one isn't a favorite, but I'm including it here because of all the hours it took. 

My sister who lives in Albuquerque went with me to a quilt shop when I was visiting.  She loved this pattern and I agreed to make it for her.  The applique was easy, but getting those wedges even and the center circle actually centered was a big challenge.  I ended up gluing them, then sewing down.  And those very narrow contrast borders were much harder than they looked.  But I'm proud of how it all came out.