A Few More Vintage Quilts

Back in April I posted a vintage quilt and the same customer brought a few more.  I always get such a warm fuzzy feeling when these are finished and OUT of the closet.

Log cabin.  Love. 💓

For this Dresden Plate, first you need to see where it started.  

I always love the transformation.

Working with a scrappy palette, using 5" squares, is not new.

You may notice that these quilts already have the binding attached, and they're ready for trimming/hand stitching.  I have several customers who like having that part done for them, because manouvering a large quilt around on a domestic sewing machine is kind of hard work.

There has been a lot of this going on.

The garden is mostly planted, and some is RE-planted because of the rainy, cool spring.  Yes, the zucchini is growing nicely! 😆

Next week, (assuming I manage to return to weekly-ish blogging) I will tell you about my trip to Quilt Canada in Ottawa.

Vintage Dresden Plate & Quilty French Floors & Zucchini Update

Boy, I have a lot of catching-up to do, quilt-blog-wise.

This vintage Dresden Plate was quilted back in mid September.  I love vintage quilts - never met one I didn't fall head over heels for.

There were a couple of blocks made with new fabric, just to get a useable size of quilt.
Yes, those plates are a little wonky.  The centers aren't round.  The plates aren't centered.  But it is so pretty!  As requested by the owner, there is not too much quilting here.  Stitch-in-the-ditch around sashings, and inside & outside the plates.  Loopies inside the wedges, and motifs both in the corners and in the centers.

Pretty, pretty on the back.

French floors as related to quilts: 
1) Chevron.

2) Square in a Square.

3) Checkerboard Border - reminds me of Courthouse Steps.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
What the hell?  How can I be doing a zucchini report in November?  Well I got sidetracked and never finished back in September. 
When I was in France, there was zero chance that DH was going to pick zucchinis.  So when I got home... guess what?  Eleven more.  And a couple of them were, not surprisingly, pretty large.

Picked end of season:  11
Picked YTD:              127

Today's plan for supper is to make a big pot of vegetable soup and a Butternut Squash Tart With Fried Sage.  Some of that zucchini is coming out of the freezer and jumping into the soup pot.

Favorite Block, Sweet Friends, Garden/Zucchini Update & recipes

No, I have not finished the quilt I showed you last week.  I'm still plugging away at it.  If I could get DH to refresh his memory on how to use either the vacuum or the hoe I might make quicker progress.  However, if he DID get out the hoe, I'd be a little worried about his aim when he got near the zucchini plants.
I will tease you with what I think is my favorite block so far.  I love Dresden Plates.

As far as sweet friends go... Margaret occasionally sends me squishy parcels.  Those are the BEST things to find in your mailbox.  If you need to cheer up a quilty friend for some reason, or just remind someone that you're thinking of them this is a great way to do it.  It's much better than getting another hydro bill in the post.

This was the harvest on Thursday morning.  As of yesterday the cucumbers started to outnumber the zucchinis, so it's a good thing I planted a small variety.  They're bigger than pickling cukes but smaller than conventional ones.  And it's easier to give them away too.  I had two offers of zucchini politely declined by people this week.  Bummer.

ZUCCHINI REPORT

Picked this week:  16
Picked YTD:         41
Gave away:           5

Zucchini recipe of the week:  Zucchini Fritters, link HERE.  I served these with Curried Tomato Preserves.  I like to try something new most years during canning season  and that tomato recipe was a huge hit for me.  I'm definitely making more this year.  link HERE.  

9 Reasons Why Your Longarmer Might Be Late With Your Quilt In The Spring, and My Fave From St. Jacobs

I don't know where you live, but HERE we had a bit of nice spring weather and then we got blasted TWICE with more winter.  Now that the temperature is finally Helen-friendly, I check the Weather Network and see that the pollen counts are off the charts - which explains the sneezing and stuffy sinuses.  Nevertheless... I love spring!!! When the weather gets warm and I can strip off the jacket, scarf and mitts I have a difficult time staying indoors.

9 REASONS WHY YOUR LONGARMER MIGHT BE LATE WITH YOUR QUILT IN THE SPRING

1.  The asparagus is up and needs to be cut every morning.  Harvesting (heh heh, I love that term) is best done before noon, when the plant is fresh after a good night's sleep and has sent all it's energy up into the world.

2.  Lettuce has reseeded itself from last year's crop.  This needs to be inspected every day and overcrowding dealt with by judicious harvesting.  Don't buy baby greens from the grocery store... take those thinned out babies into the house, rinse them off and store them in damp paper towels in the fridge.  Eat later with a light salad dressing.  Yum.

3.  That damned garlic is at it again, sprouting everywhere it shouldn't.  Large clumps need to be dug up, separated, and replanted where they belong.

4.  Oh, the lovely peas you planted during the nasty rainy and cold weather are up.  Yippee!  Now to weed... you can't do that until the peas are sprouted 'cause you would be courting disaster.

5.  The Raspberry patch needs to be corralled.  Raspberries spread by runners and they will end up taking over whatever space they feel entitled to.  Chop off the offenders and rip them out, or transplant them into pots, to share with a friend.  DH and I used to throw a plant swap every spring.  We'd barbecue burgers and hot dogs.  Guests would bring side dishes along with transplants from their gardens.  It was a big horticultural free-for-all. One of the guys brought a zillion garden gloves from Costco. He had only recently moved and had no plants to share, but he was able to take home enough to make a really good start.  One year our neighbours came on their lawn tractor, and contributed a huge landscape rock. This type of event is best done in the spring or early summer because that's when we're all dealing with the over-abundance.

6.  Strawberries.  See issues with 3. Garlic and 5. Raspberries.  These things are EVERYWHERE.  Again - dig 'em out and either transplant or share.  Your friends will love you.

7.  Oh, your quilter has discovered the CILANTRO seedlings and is perhaps rolling around in them.  Just like 2. Lettuce, this will reseed itself into beautiful large patches of spicy, lemony, goodness.  On the downside it also must be weeded, as you can clearly see.

8.  Johnny Jump-Ups. 😊😊😊😊😊  These little violas are completely edible.  Bake a cake!!  Decorate it with petals!!  Your friends will think you are completely off your rocker.

9.  We cannot forget the Useless Assistant.  She wants to go for a walk.  How can you refuse on such a gorgeous day???

MY FAVE FROM ST. JACOBS
I always have a good time with the Beach Girls, and St. Jacobs was no exception.  I was disappointed that my quilt was not hanging at the show, they had it laid over a small table, which does not show it to it's best effect.  However there was not one single inch of space left in the building for hanging quilts, so I understand why it was displayed that way.

My favorite was absolutely this Dresden Plate.

Appliqued and hand embroidered.

Hand quilted.  So often I'm disappointed with hand quilting because there just isn't enough quilting. (Not that anyone cares what I think.)  But this one?... gorgeous!

Oh, love.

Kudos to Dorothy Sittler, whoever she may be.  Beautiful.

Dresden Plate and Mother Nature and Books

Have you been around me long enough to know that I love Dresden Plate quilts?  If not, well, I do.  I also love wine and martinis, not necessarily in that order.

This is kind of a modern take on the Dresden Plate, because of the choice of modern fabrics.

The quilting shows better in pics from the back side.  The center of the plates all have a bird quilted in them, as requested by the maker.  Love.

Yes, now on to MOTHER NATURE.  I'm tempted to start referring to her as "she who must not be named".

I gave up with the pics on the 16th - it was mostly rain all day.  Today it started as a drizzle then stopped.  DH and I went to Costco this afternoon and... the SUN came out.  We got home in time for Sadie and I to take a 20 minute walk.  As I donned my sunglasses (!) I commented to DH that I had just put the kiss of death on the weather.  Sure enough, 5 minutes later the sun was gone and the wind turned bitter.  In a normal year, by now the lettuce, dill and cilantro have sprouted in the garden.  The garlic greens might be peeking up from the ground.  This year?  Um, no.  Buried under snow.

Two very good books I've read during all this shitty weather I mean the past couple weeks:

Dresden Plate Quilt, Selvages, and Garden Update with Zucchini Report

The Dresden Plate is at the top of my FAVORITE QUILTS LIST.

I have made two of my own and I have a third in progress.  This quiltmaker repeated all of the fabrics identically in each plate, and also positioned them identically in the background square.  She used different fabrics for the centers.

I quilted S.I.D. around the sashing, outside of the plates, and around the inside circle.  Mauve thread was used in the sashing and inside the plates; the rest was white thread.  The maker requested feminine quilting, so I went with flowers.  So pretty.

One of my hobbies seems to be collecting selvages.  I have, probably, twelve pounds of them by now.  Never done a thing with them.  But LOOK!!!  I MADE SOMETHING!!!

OK, On to the garden update.  Can anybody tell me what the hell these are?

I swear to God, I planted Butternut Squash seeds.  I'm not sure any of them sprouted because I ended up with these football sized things, AND I have pumpkins growing too, which I also did not plant. I have "people" who do that for me. 😀 These HAD to come out of the compost, because that's where the pumpkin seeds would have been.  I am accustomed to butternut squash growing from the compost, so when I had volunteers back in the spring I gave some seedlings to my neighbour.  Won't she be surprised!  ha ha ha, I'm so bad....

Cherry tomatoes have been ripening for about two weeks now.  Oh, so good!  And the rainy summer has made the peppers very happy - look at the size of that jalapeno.  It is easily the size of the overfertilized produce that you buy at the grocery store, but mine are organic.  Yay me.

Now, what you've all been waiting for...
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  13
Picked YTD:         59

This week I made five jars of Zucchini Pickles from one of my Bernardin cookbooks.  I've never made them before, so hopefully they're edible.

A Black & White Christmas

Modern quilt, from a Drunkard's Path base.

Love the pillow ticking fabric.

Modern Dresden Fan.

The turquoise really pumps up the black & white prints.

Labyrinth quilt.  So graphic!

You don't dare mix up your piecing with this quilt.

I knocked off work at 2:30 pm on the 24th.  Went directly upstairs and cracked open the Baileys. 😁
DH and I had very specific plans for Christmas Movies this year.

• Dec 23rd - Diehard
• Dec 24th - The Sound of Music
• Dec 25th - The Grinch with Jim Carrey

I had never really thought of Diehard as a Christmas movie before.  But in fact, it takes place at a Christmas office party,  so I guess that qualifies it.  I was giggling at the 80's hair.  And startled to see people SMOKING IN THE AIRPORT. Wow, the good old days, eh?

DH has never (!) seen The Sound of Music.  He gave me a bit of stinkeye when he realized it was three hours long, ha ha ha.  But he was a trooper and sat through it. 💓

Today I started The Winter Project.  All three bedrooms need painting, so this afternoon I did the cutting in part on the first two, which are the same colour.  Tomorrow will be 'roller' day.  Room number three is the master bedroom, and it can't be started until a large hunk of drywall is replaced.  Bad windows were leaking for, like, 30 years.  That problem is finally fixed.  DH has torn out the bad drywall, but he had enough brains to stay away from the home improvement store today.  Also, it was pouring rain.  That is NOT a good day to bring home drywall in the back of a pickup truck.

When I'm working on a Project I am grateful for leftover turkey in the fridge.  We don't have to worry about cooking for DAYS.  When repeated turkey dinners get nauseating we can switch it up with either turkey pot pie, or shit-on-a-shingle (translation:  hot turkey sandwich).