Wednesday's Wanderings Revisited

I have thought about turning my Wednesday's Wanderings blog posts into a book. A couple of years ago I read about Blog2Print and I realized this was how I could do it. So when a discount code showed up in the inbox of my email recently and my friend Dina had the patience to help me, I knew it was the right time. The WW posts had to be extracted from all the other 2012 posts.

It took me 3 days to organize it, but 98 pages later, I had a compilation of posts to send to the publisher. Less than 2 weeks later, the book arrived. It's wonderful to hold it in my hands and leaf through a year of weekly mini quilts. Definitely worth it.

 

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Finally, Wednesday's Wanderings Completed

Tonight I will be unveiling my Wednesday's Wanderings quilt for the first time, during my visit to the Moorestown Area Quilters in Mt Laurel, NJ.   

It is finally complete with sashing, borders and binding.

 It was a year long journey, chronicling my wanderings in 2012.

It is a great memory jogger for me about how wonderful the year was.  I am amazed by how busy I was and how many places I visited.

 

There are only borders to the top and bottom. I thought that was all that was needed.

 

 I used fusible machine applique to add the words.

In the background, I used chicken scratch stitching that I did by hand. 

 It's a little blurry in the photo.

 

I wish I could have found the time to repeat a similar documentation of my year for 2013.

Maybe next year.

2012, it was a very good year!

Wednesday's Wanderings Contruction

I have to apologize for taking so long to post my construction technique for the Wednesday's Wanderings quilt.  Thanks to many suggestions and many trials and errors, I found a solution.  For those that are interested I changed browsers, from Internet Explorer to Firefox.  

Yay, blogging life can go on!

Back to quilting now.

  I don't tend to do things traditionally. 

 I also try to limit the amount of work I have to do to make a quilt appear precise.

So I want to share my unorthodox technique for creating my WW blocks

 and how I put them together.

If you have been following this project, you will have seen that each week I created a block.  Each week the block was constructed with batting on the back. If there was a background it was quilted through the batting prior to adding the applique.  This makes it very easy to quilt since I didn't have to quilt around the many parts of the design.  Handstitching  and embellishing were done with the batting in place also.  The batting keeps the fabric from puckering when stitching.

So the back of a block looks something like this:

or this:

I save scraps of batting that I save for small quilts.  

They are all low loft, but you can see that I used a few different types.

 Putting the rows together was the first step in assembling the quilt.

 I butted 2 blocks together, only the blocks, 

and zig zagged stitched them together with a walking foot.

And put them together a row at a time.

I placed Row #1 at the top of the backing fabric, wrong sides together.

And then butted Row #2 up to the first row. 

I pinned both rows to the backing fabric. 

 I used a lot of pins so that the backing fabric stayed flat and didn't bunch.

Then I made a fusible sashing to cover the seam between rows #1 and #2.

After I fused it down, I top stitched along the edges though all the layers.

And then I kept adding the rows to the background.

Until all the rows were added, sashed and topstitched.

Then I added the sashing strips vertically to end up with the top.

Wednesday's Wanderings Quilt

Here it is.  All the Wednesday's Wandering blocks sewed together into a quilt. I have not decided if I want to add borders or just bind it the way it is.  It needs to ruminate.  I would love your input.

I had to surf my blog to put the blocks into the correct chronological order. 

I was surprised that over the course of a year, I needed assistance for this, but it gave me the opportunity to reflect upon my activities and travels of 2012.

I was surprised at how much was squeezed into a year. Reviewing the highlights, it started with our sojourn in Key West, then a trip to Israel.  After purchasing my cute little blue convertible Beetle, my second book came out with a coinciding trip to the wholesale Quilt Market in Kansas City to promote it.  My first lakeside quilter's retreat was then followed by the unveiling of the chuppah and the wedding of my youngest son. Then I delivered a torah cover commission, visited Mark Lipinski and his radio show, and finally "Frosty Flakes" was published in the December issue of The Quilt Life. 

I don't think I could have squeezed much more into one year.  Looking at the blocks and reminiscing about all these events and the many others gives me such a warm feeling.  It was indeed a very good year and a very busy year.  I feel so fortunate that I have been able to elevate my love of quilting  and designing into more than just a hobby.  I have connected with so many people that looked forward to see where I went each week and how I depicted it.

I have been conflicted about whether I want to continue this weekly chronological fiber trip.  It has brought me so much joy to come up with an idea each week and then figure out how to share it.  Some weeks it was easy, other weeks it was hard.  But it was always fun.  But at this point I have some large quilts and projects that I want to work on that I need to devote a concentrated amount of time to design and develop.  So I am going to bid WW a fond farewell with melancholy in my heart.

I will continue to share my journeys both quilting and travels.  This brings me great joy to share what I know and have learned with others. In this vein, if you want to see how I put all of the blocks together, come back tomorrow. You may be surprised.

Wednesday's Wanderings #54 - CELEBRATE!

This is the final block for my 2012 Wednesday's Wanderings. 

It is with a sense of joy and relief that I created this block.

  I am so happy that I made it through the year without too many hiccups. 

 So ring the bells and throw the confetti!

I started with this polka dot fabric and quilted it with wavy lines.

 I used a metallic thread. 

 The bells were added using raw edge fusible applique after positioning the rick rack.

I like to use a rayon thread for the blanket stitch 

It has a bit of a shine.

The block needed a bit more of a celebratory theme, so after adding the bells

 I decided to add some streamers.

 The streamers were too thick to be created from fabric, so I chose to do thread painting. I searched high and low for my beloved blue soluble marking pen, but couldn't find it.  Instead I used a water soluble film (Solvy) and drew my streamer pattern on it.

 I thread painted the streamers by stitching over and over until I thought there was enough coverage.  I tore away the remaining Solvy.  I did not need to soak it.

And then I added some confetti!

The satin stitch was perfect for this.

THE LAST BLOCK!!

The 54th block.

One block a week plus 2 for good measure (and to make an eye pleasing layout).

A wall hanging with a year's full of wanderings and memories. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me on this journey.

Finished quilt to follow.

CELEBRATE!

 

Wednesday's Wanderings #53 - Sasha and Addison

I spent most of the last week in Chandler, Arizona.  It is just outside of Phoenix.  My brother lives out there with his wife.  His 2 grown daughters and their families live there too.  I flew out there for a visit and to mainly help my niece who had twin girls not too long ago.

They are identical twins, but Sasha is considerably larger than Addison.  They are tiny little miracles.  They were born at 31 weeks and were teeny tiny.  One was a little less than 3 lbs and the other was a bit over 3 lbs. They were in the hospital a long time before they were allowed to go home.

In addition to these girls, my niece has 2 boys that are 4 and 6. 

Yes, that is 4 children under the age of 6.

I was busy, busy, busy trying to be helpful.  I had the joy of feeding these 2 little girls, changing their diapers, changing their clothes and even taking them for a walk.

Oh that was fun!

My block this week was inspired by the photos of Anne Geddes.  She is a wonderful photographer who poses babies in whimsical  settings.

I printed the twins faces on fabric and placed them in the center of the flower

 and outlined them with a ring of yellow fabric

stitched down with a blanket stitch.

(Aren't they adorable?)

The faces/flower babies were "planted" in a pot.

I added their names stitching by hand using a backstitch and Dazzle,

 a 12 wt rayon/metallic thread from Wonderfil Specialty Threads.

It was 5 days of family time and reconnecting with my other niece and her 2 children too. 

It is so heartwarming and easy to be with this gang of people that are my family,

 but live way too far away. 

Wednesday's Wanderings #52 - A Liberated Menorah

Happy Chanukah!

Tonight is the 5th night of Chanukah.I knew I had to make a menorah.

As a designer of Judaic designs (OyVey! Quilt Designs), I have made many, many menorah quilt patterns.

So I decided to challenge myself, I would go "organic"! Or liberated!

No scissors, no ruler, no pattern, except to square up the block at the end.

I am on the fence about the results.

I started with a quick sketch on a piece of paper that is about the size of the finished block.

I started by cutting out the fabric for the candles and the background using only scissors without trying to be perfect.  Can you tell?

 I sewed them into a strip set.  I did use my 1/4" foot.

After cutting the strip set in half, I added background fabric to the top.

 And then I joined the 8 candles with the middle taller candle, called the shamash. 

This candle is used to light all the others.

 After attaching the middle section of the menorah,

I added triangles by stitching diagonally across squares.

My trusty companion resting in the middle of my mess.

 It was late.

 Then I cut the remaining pieces of the block to check the layout.

This is the block after stitching the pieces together. I am not crazy about the candle all the way on the right.  I kind of like the other ones.

I used a loose satin stitch to add the candles, quilted the block

and finally got to use my ruler to square up the block.

It was certainly stress free to be liberated,

 but at the same time it was a challenge not to use my ruler and rotary cutter.

The block has a whimsical feeling and I am happy to use it to celebrate Chanukah, when a small amount of oil miraculously lasted 8 nights, keeping the flame lit in the temple in Jerusalem.