Ta-Da! Lots of Hexies and WW7

I feel like I've been on a 2-week sewing vacation while watching the Olympics. I've accomplished so much :)

I finished the hexie top which I started in Barb V's workshop last October :) One of my favorite fabrics is the baseball player on the right. It looks just like my great grandfather, Frank Hankinson. 

Great similarity, don't you think? 

I put many of my favorite fabrics in this quilt. Rachel made the blue star with little dogs along the outer edges. How cute! 

I've been making Morris hexies on a weekly basis. I chose the alternate version of #12 Hampton Court because it had fewer pieces and a large center to showcase a favorite bird.

My first try at #13 Oxford Rose but I wasn't thrilled with the way those swirls came together in the center.

So I made another with completely different fabrics.

#14 Canterbury was fun to make because the fabrics worked really well together. 

#15 Kelmscott Tile is another alternate block with fewer pieces and larger diamonds. In the past I've had a hard time finding a use for that feathery Hoffman fabric but it finally seemed a good fit as the outer diamonds. 

And here is #7 Courthouse Rock in the Westering Women series. These pretty coordinating fabrics are from Barbara B's Alice's Scrapbag by Moda. 

Have a great week everyone!




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Copyright 2016, Barbara Schaffer

Project 70273 & Orphan Blocks

As soon as I read about The 70273 Project on Lori's Humble Quilts blog, I knew I wanted to give my support. You can read about Jeanne Hewell-Chambers quest to gather 70,273 blocks--that's one for each person who was murdered by the Nazis in 1940-41--and sew them into quilts. Just think about the magnitude of this project. It's beyond monumental!

  

An atrocity such as this is hard to fathom in any way, shape or form. But on a more familiar note, and the reason for my decision to participate, is that mental illness has found its way into our family making this project even more meaningful. 

I learned about Aunt May from my father. She was my grandmother's sister who was born in 1881 in NYC, married in 1909 in NJ, had a daughter in 1911 and. . .

. . . was institutionalized for 10 years or more at the NJ State Hospital for the Insane aka Greystone Park.

In 1920 she was 37 and a 'patient.'

In 1930 she was 46 and an 'inmate.' She is not in the 1940 census but her husband is and was remarried by then. I guess I will never know what really happened to her. She is a lost soul. 

This block is for my cousin who has been in and out of institutions since she was a little girl. 

Here we are when we were little. Kris (left) has struggled her entire life with mental illness which has affected our family in unimaginable ways.  


I hope you will consider making a block or two to support this worthwhile project. 

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On another note, I've been sorting through some quilting memorabilia as I wanted to make a donation to AQSG for their upcoming auction in September. In so doing I came across these 1930s orphan blocks which I thought you'd like to see. They're not in great condition but are fun to look at. 

I was always going to garage sales looking for 'quilty' items and over the years had collected quite an assortment of goodies.  

Star Flower?

Butterfly

Double Wedding Ring



Water Lily

 

Texas Star

Grandmother's Flower Garden

 

Orange Peel

 

So last Saturday I shipped a box for the auction filled with old quilt catalogs, templates, quilt and needlework patterns, postcards, unfinished blocks, embroidery transfers, and these tulips which I tucked in for padding.

Have a great week!

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Copyright 2016, Barbara Schaffer

The Games! It's A Finish! It's Progress!

Don't you just love watching the Olympics? I do! It's been good quality sewing time, too, as I finished one project and made some progress on another.

But first . . . 

In 1979 I made my one and only Olympic Wallhanging quilt and entered it in McCall's Needlework & Crafts first national contest inspired by the 1980 Winter and Summer Olympic Games. 

The design had to be an original depicting the Olympic Games Theme, Sport or Symbol. I chose two winter and two summer sports and the Olympic torch intertwined with red rings embroidered with the location and year of all the Olympic games. 

I used a 14" pizza pan for the circles.

The bright yellow background fabric is a cotton/poly blend which was about the only thing available back then. 

 

I cut out a cardboard hexagon and marked the entire background using a lead pencil (erasing as I went along) and did some echo-quilting in the circles.

It won an honorable mention in the McCall's contest and 1st Place in the wall-hanging category at a small NJ quilt show at the Perkins Center for the Arts in Moorestown, NJ, in 1981 :)

 

I got to sew the binding on Potluck which I started last year. Barbie Vanderfleet-Martin quilted it for me and did a wonderful job!

 

I was on a quest to empty my scrap bins :)

The 4-patches, half-square triangles, and bricks are all 2" x 2".

I had plenty of leftover triangles (surprisingly the correct size) for two strips. I chose a rust-colored non-descript pattern for the binding as I didn't want it to overpower the rest of the quilt.

The back. Just using what I had on hand. 

 
Do you recognize the one on the left? It's an oldie.

And the label. 

I also finished quilting the center of this NJ Repro.

The quilting pattern is an Orange Peel which I had to adjust ever so slightly to fit each block.

 

So now I'm up to the borders. I'm still unsure as to what quilting design I want to use for the inner border (maybe a simple cable) and I'm leaning toward hanging diamonds for the large grapevine. 

Have a great week! 




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Copyright 2016, Barbara Schaffer

 

Snapshots of the Adirondacks

Would you like to take a little tour? We've been spending more time than usual in the Adirondacks and thought you'd like to see some photos.     

 

The Babbie Rural & Farm Learning Museum in Peru, NY, has lots of interesting buildings filled with antiques and childhood memorabilia. Right up my alley :)

 

Have you ever seen a cordwood cabin? It's made of stacked logs and bottles with mortar and sawdust insulation. It also has a living roof. 

Asgaard Farm & Dairy in Ausable Forks, NY,  was once the home of artist, Rockwell Kent. Today it is a working farm and sells homemade goat cheeses, caramels and handmade soaps.

  
The First Baptist Church of Jay NY was est. in 1798. Love the separate entries :)

Lupines along the road. How pretty!

  Flag Iris and . . .

. . . Tall Meadow Rue down by the river. 

Valcour Island on Lake Champlain is a historical gem. The lighthouse has just reopened after undergoing years of renovations. Last Saturday we celebrated my husband's birthday there and toured the island via boat. It was a perfect day! 

Beautiful sunsets on the Ausable River are always a treat :)

Thanks for taking the tour. Next week I'll have some quilting pics to share. 





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Copyright 2016, Barbara Schaffer