Grrr, Wanting Something for Nothing & No Appreciation for Fine Hand Quilting....A Rare Speckledhen

[ApiaryandAviary]

Speckledhen, how are you doing? Did you take today off? We did. It was sunny but cold and windy. I am so happy with my quilt your making. Your encouraging me... I looked at the fabrics at Wally World this afternoon and they did not have the fabric I wanted. I will look in a bigger city soon enough and maybe they will have it. I know I want cotton and not a blend. Since my sewing machine died in my last move I nolonger have a sewer so I will be stitching by hand for a pillow. Ok a pillow does not compare to your work.

I have been Irish crocheting a cover. Not sure exactly where the pattern came from or how old the pattern is. I have no instructions in writing. My fingers do it from memory from a pattern my grandmother used to do very often. I don't know where she got it. If I don't think about it they just do it. It is like playing a piano. If I don't over think it the music pieces come back to me and my fingers just do it. Anyways, I think my first row/column is a bit long and I am not certain how many rows/columns I will need to do. Tomorrow morning when the cats get off the bed I will toss it on the bed and get a snap shot for you.

Talk to you soon. Take care.

 

[speckledhen]

Speckledhen, how are you doing? Did you take today off? We did. It was sunny but cold and windy. I am so happy with my quilt your making. Your encouraging me... I looked at the fabrics at Wally World this afternoon and they did not have the fabric I wanted. I will look in a bigger city soon enough and maybe they will have it. I know I want cotton and not a blend. Since my sewing machine died in my last move I nolonger have a sewer so I will be stitching by hand for a pillow. Ok a pillow does not compare to your work.

I have been Irish crocheting a cover. Not sure exactly where the pattern came from or how old the pattern is. I have no instructions in writing. My fingers do it from memory from a pattern my grandmother used to do very often. I don't know where she got it. If I don't think about it they just do it. It is like playing a piano. If I don't over think it the music pieces come back to me and my fingers just do it. Anyways, I think my first row/column is a bit long and I am not certain how many rows/columns I will need to do. Tomorrow morning when the cats get off the bed I will toss it on the bed and get a snap shot for you.

Talk to you soon. Take care.

I'm good. Actually, we went to Cleveland, TN and I did check out Hobby Lobby, got three teal/turqoise prints to change things up for the last leg of the quilt.
And the rose, well, the closest they had to a rose was an expensive batik print. It still was not quite rose, seemed a tad bright, more of a muted fuchsia, but I got a 1/4 yard, figured if it didn't work, I could use it elsewhere. They had no cotton blend battings, but I did get a spool of super light gray thread in their brand to try. Will try it to be sure my machine likes it before beginning quilting.

Let me tell you about the saga of the rose pink batik:
The battle to remove excess dye began. I never buy batiks due to the cost so I never had this issue and have ceased pre-washing all my fabrics, except that anything in red, I wash. Today's good quality fabrics have never given me any trouble with shrinkage later or color runs.

I soaked it in a bowl of hot water. And after about 40 times of soaking, then wringing it out, even using my homemade dish soap, and still having a tinge of pink in the water, I grabbed a few items that didn't matter and threw it into the washing machine with it, detergent and some vinegar, though folks say vinegar won't set dye in batiks due to the process used to dye them. I also threw in a color catcher. It came out white, no dye transfer. So, I cut the selvage off the piece and put it on a piece of bright white fabric and wet it and smashed them together. After ages sitting there, no dye transfer. I wanted to be 100% sure if I put it in this quilt, I would not run on other fabric prints that had some light beige or white in them.

Still, when I placed it on the ironing board next to the fuchsia color I used in the blocks, it seemed like a bright, though deep, pink, maybe too bright. So, I cut a strip and laid it over one of those fuchsia strips on the blocks on the design board. I could not believe it. It completely toned down to a more rose than the one I already used in about 9 of the blocks! It was the wildest effect that I called my DH in to see it. His jaw dropped. It was crazy how it changed before my eyes. Maybe it's the batik effect, but since I think I've gotten all the excess dye gone, I will use it in a couple of the final blocks. I did do two blocks yesterday, but I'm to the point I have to assemble a few of them to bring it together so I can have more room on the design board or I'll have to lay it on the floor. And my crazy cat wants to get in my room so darn bad, he's getting sneaky, LOL.

If I assemble the blocks some, the seam allowances are taken up and they give more room on the board, but still may not be enough to allow the top and right sides to be on the board. I need a bigger wall! I wanted to move my triple dresser to that wall, but it is maybe 3/4" too big. I'm going to re-measure. The other wall would allow the entire quilt up there.


ETA: I still need yardage for the border. Thinking a 4-5" fairly plain border all the way around, a tone-on-tone fabric rather than a straight solid.


ETA, again: Not sure how much more I'll get done today. I have a headache and a pullet dying from what I think are internal injuries who was going to be the best of my new Barred Rock line, so I'm pretty bummed. I also moved my triple dresser over and put up a new design wall so I could get an entire queen size quilt on it. My sweet husband helped and I hope he didn't hurt his back. The dresser is solid wood and quite heavy, even without the drawers in it.


Got more done, here is it so far, not sure the blocks won't move some, but I have only 7 left to make, then have to buy some border fabric and batting and will be ready to put together.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, I got this far, even though I broke the crap out of my toe. Wednesday is our grocery day. IF I can get a shoe on by then, I will try to find a border fabric and the batting, but that is something my DH cannot pick out for me. Well, he can get the batting, but not the fabric.

Three blocks left to go:


And my toe, ouch.



Sadly, my sweet pullet did not make it.

 

[ApiaryandAviary]

What happened? I love Summer colors and the jewel tones of winter.

 

[speckledhen]

What happened? I love Summer colors and the jewel tones of winter.

well, with my foot, it was because I moved the dresser to a different location to change the design wall, not being used to where it is now, I went around the corner and cut in too close. With the pullet, I believe she had egg yolk peritonitis, at least that's what it appeared to be when I opened her up, that plus it seemed her back was very sore, probably a combination of the infection plus her guy jumping on her because she was too slow to move out of the way.

 

[ApiaryandAviary]

well, with my foot, it was because I moved the dresser to a different location to change the design wall, not being used to where it is now, I went around the corner and cut in too close. With the pullet, I believe she had egg yolk peritonitis, at least that's what it appeared to be when I opened her up, that plus it seemed her back was very sore, probably a combination of the infection plus her guy jumping on her because she was too slow to move out of the way.

You speak, I feel she might have been your favorite. Sorry to hear she is gone.
Ouch, that looks like it can hurt. Hope it heals quickly.

 

[speckledhen]

You speak, I feel she might have been your favorite. Sorry to hear she is gone.
Ouch, that looks like it can hurt. Hope it heals quickly.

Well, she was the best of the new line of Barred Rocks I added last year. I only had three pullets I kept from the batch. One has wry tail, Mary is gone so I'm left with one I can breed from. They are all super sweet girls. Actually, personality-wise, my favorite is the wry-tailed girl. She's a hoot, that one!

 

[speckledhen]

Blocks completed. Have to look it over to be sure I don't have two sides that are too similar together and start assembling them, squaring them up along the way. I did most of them but I see some may have been skipped so will double check each one. I could not find any border fabric or batting so I just ordered some rose-pink tonal fabric and Nature's Blend batting from JoAnn online. I hope the fabric is what I want when it gets here or back to the drawing board and running around three counties to find it.
***it may be slow going for a couple days doing the top rows. I have to step up on a step ladder to reach the blocks and the toe is making it difficult. I actually think I broke not just the toe but further up as well. I got 4 blocks together today, but had to quit until tomorrow.

 

[ApiaryandAviary]

So happy you are able to machine quilt a hand quilt. The colors really look like they are coordinating beautifully. Love The jewel tones of Rose red and Rose pink with Teal and Turquoise.

 

[speckledhen]

So happy you are able to machine quilt a hand quilt. I no longer own a sewing machine. That works.
Anything I do must be done by hand completely and I am not the most experienced quilter at all. I am an amature, but I do Plan to do my best on the Cathedral Window quilt only this time with colored fabrics instead of the Unbleached Muslim I used for the small Pillow so this will Really be the task for Me, a queen size. I am getting the fabrics together first. And as I work on the Irish crocheted cover of lattice work and Roses in all shades of Rose. Would love to see the colors in natural light and not the candle light bulbs glow of inside lamps. The colors really look like they are coordinating beautifully. Love The jewel tones of Rose red and Rose pink with Teal and Turquoise. Always prefer colors on the blue end and not yellow end. I guess my amature thoughts shows, as I would never buy hand dyed fabrics. I guess I am less trusting of hand dye jobs and would not want the costs of hand dyed fabrics. I am not that trusting. I must not have the hand crafts ideas of some.

If I could not have gotten that batik to stop running, it would have been put aside for other uses, but it finally did. And I put a color catcher in the wash with it in the last attempt to be sure. There are only 4-5 blocks with one strip of it in there anyway. When this is complete, I will wash the entire quilt with several color catchers, as I have taken to doing in the past year, from recommendation from a friend in VA who is a master quilter herself. If there is an issue, I'll know it myself immediately, but I do not anticipate it. Angie uses the same type thread I now use most of the time and washes all quilts before they go to their new owners with color catcher sheets in the wash. Angie's quilts are amazing, but she has one of the big quilters on a huge frame, I think a Tin Lizzy, it's called, something like that.