The Winter Quilt in a warm home

Happy New Year! 

When Kaela visited in October she asked if she could take The Winter Quilt home with her to Austin TX.  Yes!!


THIS is why I quilt!

xo
Cynthia

Winter Quilt finished

I'm so happy to have this one finished!

The six applique blocks are from an old Jan Patek pattern called The Winter Quilt, from the 1990's.

The broken dishes borders are from a Fun with Barb swap.  Love the mix of reds!

  This time I used my walking foot to quilt the baptist fans, with better results for sure.  I used Fun with Barb's excellent stencil!

A couple people commented or emailed about using washable Crayola markers.  I have used them for many years and have never had a problem.  The marker washes out, but you want to use warm water, and you may need to wash more than once if you are using a high efficiency washer.  You just need that volume of water, so it helps to start off with a saturated quilt.  So, I wash once, and with a big quilt sometimes the marks are still there, but the second wash starting out with the already saturated quilt, does the trick every time!

I never make a quilt that can't be washed and washed, used and used.  I think quilts just get prettier and better with use, even if (and sometimes because) they get a little worn or tattered here and there.    That's what brings out the wabi-sabi over time - many years, lots of use.



Nice having my guys around for the photo shoot:

I'm sure (at least I hope) it's destined for a someday-hoped-for-grandchild but for now I'm keeping the quilt in my sewing room - it fits nicely on the trundle bed and just makes me happy.  

And meanwhile... our kitchen cupboards.  I mean this is the chaos of indecision!!  The dark gray I initially settled on was so wrong.  Working with the already white walls, our blue and white dishes from Japan... our terribly ugly but neutral tile, black appliances we never would have chosen, the white counters which we really like...  and little to no budget... it was just nothing but "ugh" to choose a color.

We finally came around to a dark blue (Ben Moore Van Deusen, just a step lighter from the Newburyport we used on the exterior of the house)  - and again I was so happy to have both David and Tommy helping me!  Very small kitchen = not a ton of painting.

A few mixed feelings, but Finito! 

x Cynthia 

Winter in July with broken dishes swap blocks

We've had such a heat wave, followed by some gorgeous weather, and then thunderstorms.  And July is all but over - how can that be??

Through it all I've had winter on my mind - finally finishing up this project.

The broken dishes border is pieced from Fun with Barb swap blocks (2016 I think?).  Thanks ladies for all the red and white!

The appliqué blocks are from Jan Patek's The Winter Quilt pattern.  It is a very loosy goosy pattern, really a series of sketches, from the late 90's.  For months this was my portable appliqué project.  I adore this primitive style, but decided to call good enough, good enough, after six blocks. I still wanted a large quilt, so I went a little nutso with the borders.

A pleasure to use my Grandma's 830 Record to sew the string borders while my main machine was in the shop getting maintenance.

A scrappy primitive puzzle...

I marked it with my current absolute favorite for overall quilting, a large baptist fan stencil also from Fun with Barb.  It took 1 hour to mark the whole quilt.  I use washable Crayola markers.  Mmmmmm... could have done a better job pressing the top!  I pin basted it to death so I think we are OK.

In other news we had our house painted blue and we are in love with the color, Ben Moore Newburyport:

And I'm emergency painting the kitchen cabinets (again) -

I had painted the dark brown 1982 specials last summer when we first moved in.  I used Ben Moore Stonington Gray, but it looks strangely icy against the Dove White walls, and has bugged me all this time.  David has single handedly painted all the brown trim in the kitchen white... and he's encouraging us to just go ahead and repaint the cabinets a richer color - and with Tommy home to help as well, the time is NOW -

Narrowed it down to these three....

Are we having fun yet?  ;)

Winter Quilt applique

A little bit of applique happening here and there.  I'm working on the Winter Quilt - another Jan Patek pattern (although I would really say it is only very loosely a pattern - more a series of sketches, and one is missing, etc. etc.) from 1998.  I'm changing it here and there to make it more personal to our family.

I adore this folk arty style.  This is Kaela's block - with all the pink - and Shadow and Yumi (long gone) which she - we - adopted as kittens - that was so long ago.



 I made the alternate blocks before anything else, and now I don't like them - too strong.  Shouldn't they be "softer"?



My applique skills aren't advanced, but I sure love the process.



December rolls along... I hope you are all having a good month - we are almost giddy anticipating all our young adult kids being here for Christmas!

x
Cynthia