Feb 2008 Diagonal Stripes

After a furry of 4 blocks squares sewn up into quilts sith a stack about 6 inches high still waiting to be trimmed and sewn into block, I decided to take a break.

A month or so before Christmas Eleanor Burns featured many interesting ideas on her weekly Quilt show on RFD TV. One time she showed what she called a Candy Cane quilt that was so quick you could sew it up while waiting for dinner to cook. She had her ten year old granddaughter demonstrate the ease of this quilt on the show.

She had this great technique to sew up strips into a tube, cut the tube into units and once the units are clipped open, sew those strips together and you're done.

Here's the specifics:
1) Cut 12 to 14 fabrics that compliment into 4 inch strips. Then cut on fold and trim the selvages.

2) Sew these 12 to 14 strips together in a nice combination being careful to consider that the first and last also blend. There will be two tubes from fabrics you cut.

3) Sew the first and last together so it make a tube

4) Iron - toward the same direction. This is one of the most important steps as it makes the next steps much easier

5) Lay out the tube on your cutting mat and cut into 2-1/2 inch units

6) Start at #1 fabric, fold in half and cut on the fold

7) Start at #1 fabric cut at the seam (or rip seam between #1 and last fabric)

8) Sew first unit to second. Be sure to set up so seams are toward you as you sew. This is much easier and you wont be fighting the seams as you sew. This starts the diagonal

9) Repeat step 7 and 8 for the rest of the fabrics

Sounds really simple doesn't it? Every little imperfection of sewing multiples along the way. As I didn't want to make the same size quilt the results from the one strip of 4" units I doubled the size with 2 strips of each fabric. This left 4 tubes to deal with.

I started this on 12/31/2007 and did finish up the top on 1/05/2008 sewing about an hour a day before I went to work. It was slippery slop as distortion took over and the rectangle needed some tucking on the seams that sewed the strips together to squeeze it up so it measured the same distance across. Even though I really tried to be careful with the 1/4 inch seam allowance daydreams happen and in the end it had some issues.

I fixed it the best I could and trimmed the edges with wider strips.
Peachy Jan 2008

On to the next one. This wasn't so bad, I thought, once your get started. So I planned to make a couple more. This time I would make one in shades of beige and yellow in king size for my own bed in the summer.

So I carefully selected 14 fabrics, cut them out carefully into four 4 inch strips doubling the last size with 4 strips each fabric instead of just 2. Then began to sew together. This time I added on a "tube at the end of each row to make it wider.

Beige/Yellow fabrics

I was about a foot and a half into the quilt, which by the way I started backwards so the large piece was on the top and the strip was on the bottom with all the seams going the wrong way. I flipped it and started adding fabric strips from the other end. What a relief to not fight the seams and to have the large piece on the bottom.

I could tell right away that this would never be large enough for king size bed at the rate I was going so I cut up 2 more 4" units for a total of six 4" units for the whole quilt.

As I sew the pattern got more and more obquere when I started for the other side. The fabrics were not falling in the middle of each color so I was losing the diagonal pattern. I just ripped and added a half unit of fabric here and there along the way. I had cut up some 4" x 2-1/2" units just for this purpose. This only multipled the problem. Don't do it, even if it looks like this will work. Good thing I'm making this for myself. I managed to finish it up today 2/23/2008, but it was an annoying, tedious struggle, ripping, adding, sewing. I had to tuck some long seams to correct the wideth in about six places. Then to correct the mishmash of added pieces that created some bubbling, I just seamed up the extra in a couple of places so it would lay flat.

My mom, Frances, had a similar problem with a patchwork she was making on her lap each evening while watching TV. She sewed lots of scraps together using those small appliqué stitches. It was beautiful. She showed it to us every time we would visit. It probably covered the a queen size bed at least. One time when I visited, she showed it to me. As we layed it out on the living room floor it buckeled up and didn't lay flat. She has worked on her lap and even though parts of it were flat as she worked there were bubbles of fabric. I'll need to lay that piece out again and fold up the extra into a seam so it lays flat. When she was still alive, I just didn't have the heart to cut up her work. She knew this had to happen, but you just get so involve in your work and think it all good and perfect that you don't want to admit there is another solution.

Years ago in one of the quilting afternoon seminars I attended, I remember the leader talking about humble blocks. This where you try your hardest to do the best and still things don't quite work out. My kids remember this concept about quilts and life. They often ask me where the humble block or piece in on the quilt. Sometimes it's just that little piece of fabric hidden in the pattern that blends but it not the same where I ran out of the matching fabric and still have to finish.

Sometimes its obvious, but OK, was in a wedding quilt I made my grand nephew Dustin. I had interesting fabric in soft rose colors. They had a queen size bed. I ran out of the colors as I went along and had to use a blended color for the very edge of the blocks.

Dustin - Niki Szeluga Wedding Quilt Aug 2005


This beige/yellow one had so much to be humble about. Good learning in life. When you think you can do it all easily sometimes you get caught in your own arrogance. Those roses are still out there, so take a smell.

Finally, now I can start back on that unfinished red-white quilt from the 70's. It looks like a picnic compared to the beige/yellow diagonal. I opened the plastic bag that had held the pieces of the red/white quilt. The pieces were all a jumbled wrinkled mess. Have to start some place. To the ironing board I go.

Four Block Quilts

More on four block quilts later

The Fabric Stash

From July 1976 today Feb 2008 the poor red and white Hexagon quilt has been tucked away in a plastic bag secured with a rubber band.

Five years ago in 2003 when I was 57 I started to be concerned about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. This included the various projects that I had started over the years that were in a vast array of completeness. I worked for Qwest at the time and was invited as part of a training program to attend a motivational conference. This subject was discussed.

I pretty much decided that day to take some kind of charge of the items that had built up over the years. One of those was the massive amounts of fabrics I had collected over the years including much that my Mom had saved. I took a good look at the plastic boxes sorted by color and guessed I had enough fabric to make a 1,000 quilts and I had better get started. I figured I would live for another 20 years or so and could make 50 quilts a year to use up the fabric. I could have decided to donate it all to a worth cause, but that would have taken all the fun out it.

In the 80's I had sold many crafty products to the local grocery store chain to include baskets covered with calico fabric and lacy. It was a great product and fun to make and gave me the opportunity to collect a lot of fabrics. It seems I never used what I bought, but had cut out twelve inch to twenty-four inch circles several times from the fabric.

As my Mom, Frances, was a quilter and loved fabric too, I gave her all my scraps. She used some of them up in a variety of ways, but there was still plenty left that she gave me when she moved into a retirement home.

She was one of the best at appliqué. Her tiny little stitches were perfect and even. One odd project she started took the scraps as they were, turned under the edges and sewed them on to a light orange background.
Crazy quilt top - Frances Swanson 1980s

She took three panels of orange fabric about nine feet long and sewed them together. She placed the scraps willy-nilly on the fabric and appliquéd them on in a random pattern with random colors. Some of these fabrics were from my basket project in the 80s, some were from dresses she had made for my sister and myself in the 50's. Some were probably from dresses she made for herself.

I think she was trying to make this big enough for a kind size bed for me. The piece measured nine feet by 11 feet. It is huge, even for a king sized bed. The patterns are very busy for a small bedroom and the orange color doesn't do much to complement the project.

I have had this folded up in a drawer for several years since we cleaned out my Mom's things. She passed on in Jan 9, 2004. Ever year I think of her on that day. This year was no different.

When I awoke on Jan 10th 2008 I had a clear picture what I could do this this appliqué project that Mom had spent so much time finishing.

Let's use this as fabric

I had been using up some scraps with a pattern from an Eleanor Burns TV show.
1) Cut 3 inch strips into 10" units
2) Sew two fabrics (light/dark)together -
3) Cut these into 3 inch units
4) Sew 2 units together into a 4 block with opposite light to dark
5) Cut 5 1/2 inch strips of light fabric into 5 1/2 inch square. Then cut diagonally.
6) Sew these around the block.

Four Blocks from Scraps Nov 2007

This was such an interesting project which I am still working on that resulted in six quilt tops so far with varying color themes.

The thought I had that morning was to do the same kind of thing with Mom's fabric. Make 5-6 inch block and border it with some interesting orange fabric. It would be a bit abstract, but some coordinate. I haven't the nerve to cut her fabric up yet, but I am getting close. I might start with the edges and move in so if I do decide to keep one large piece, it will still be together.

Here are some of the quilt tops I made recently from the stack of four blocks.


Laying out pattern for blue 4-block Nov 07


Blue 4-block Nov 2007
6-9-2009 finished for my Great Niece, Brianna Kihlthau's High School Graduation present





Purple 4-block - Ready to sew together Nov 2007 Jan 2009 finished it for a gift for my daughter Jamie who loves purple





Purple with old white/purple fabric from Mom Nov 2007




Rose - 4-block from scraps Nov 2007 June 2009 finished this for my cousin Gene and Sylvia's 50th Wedding Anniversary present in August


Rose 4-block details Nov 2007



Tan border with blue stripped 4-blocks Jan 2008 February 2009 finished this quilt for my brother Alan's 70th birthday present


The blue stripped quilt was made using most of the blue stipped 4-blocks. They didn't seem to go together with the other quilts so I made one just for them.

Detail of Blue Stripped Jan 2008

Learning to sew

My Mom Frances Swanson really did teach me to sew. I was in 4-H from an early age of 9 and finished the hand sewn apron in very small black and white checks with very small tedious stitches all lined up a micro millimeter apart. I received a blue ribbon at the Weld County Fair that made us all smiles. I moved on to learn other things about sewing; dresses, bathrobes and pajamas. Who makes pajamas anyway unless you are learning to sew?

Life happened and sewing was put aside until I had a little girl who looked so cute at age two or three in little dresses with rick rack tacked along the edges. Jamie was the first little girl I knew who had a pants suit out of the most awful brown plastic-like alligator textured material that would barely take a stitch it was so rubbery. This was about 1969 when pants suits were just making a break through. Women had worn mostly dresses before that. My little girl just barely two was running around like a women in a brown double breasted rubbery pants suit. Whatever was I thinking?

My Mom got a job working in a retail store owned by her best friend Sally. That was pretty much the end of my need to sew for Jamie. Her Grandma waited patiently until the end of each season where each day Sally would mark things down 10% every few days. Mom picked up the most delightful outfits for Jamie at a fraction of the cost. These pants suits were uptown, kind of like little dresses over pants. She had great new clothes a lot of the time up until be moved to Texas when she was about 6.

It was hot in Texas where we lived right on the border in Brownsville. I should say, down right dripping wet humid. None of our polyester clothes that worked great in Colorado were bearable in Texas. I sewed lots of hideous loose fitting, gathered at the top dresses, for myself and bought some great seconds from the Carter outlets and other not such great quality items right along the border on the Texas side. We got use to wearing and using things that were seconds, as there was little else to pick from there in the early 70's unless you had an unlimited budget, which we didn't.

I made throw pillows, placemats, tablecloths, drapes and hardest of all; a pair of tennis shorts for Stan, my new husband. He must have thought I was nuts. Well I did it. It was complicated, for me, and at the time it seemed a logical thing to make as he really liked to play tennis and I really like him.

Stan's Mom, Alice was a real sewer too. She visited and I guess wanted me to make sewing my career along with cooking and keeping house for her special son, Stan. This was in 1973 or maybe 1975 right after John was born when she made a visit to check things out. She bought me a really nice hardwood sewing cabinet with great drawers on both sides for my lowly Singer sewing machine, so I wouldn't have to work on a card table anymore. I still have that sewing cabinet, but long ago got rid of the Singer and moved to an Elna. This cabinet was so nice that in the 80's Stan, after we moved back to Colorado and Stan started his own business, he used it for a desk in our living room as it was finished on all sides.

While Alice was visting in Texas, she bought me every book at the same place she bought the cabinet, that the Singer dealership had in stock. She figured I would know how to make curtains and drapes, sew in some sleeves, gussets, buttonholes and things you couldn't imagine I would ever do.

She also decided to sew a little bit herself. I had this old iron baby bed that I had re-welded one of the sides to make it lower. so it looked like a love seat. My Mom, Frances, had bought some five inch foam to make the seat cushion. It was covered in the great paisley drapery fabric in trendy colors for the 70's of avocado green and harvest gold with swirls of my favorite rust and browns. She had made me drapes to match for our home in Colorado.

Jamela on third birthday - 8/1/1970

Well Alice decided to improve on that deal. When she decided to do something there was no stopping.

We found a used baby bed mattress somewhere in Brownsville along with lots of velvet baby blue striped fabric at one of the stores carrying fabric seconds. Stan loved blue. His eyes were robin egg blue and somehow he needed blue in his life. I was more a yellow-brown person with orange highlights and red hair to match. It was a dilemma. So baby blue velvet it was.

Alice was good at this. She had probably upholstered everything in her house and more. She was from New York and knew the ropes to find things and had the skills to make them work. The baby bed mattress was deeper than the cushion my Mom had made. It was almost too high when you sat down on it.

Alice added piping around every seam and ran a great big zipper on all the pieces. It was amazing, now that I think back on it. You would have thought that she visited for a whole summer, but I bet it was only a week. She complained a lot as she sewed about the machine, tools, zipper availability and the like. That is probably why she bought me the new sewing table.

John 2 months old - 4/15/1975

We had that baby bed deal for a long time in our harvest gold carpeted living room. We still have the frame.

The only thing that Jamie remembers about that baby bed - sofa is that I would hide her and her brother's Christmas presents under it, with clear instructions not to go under there and touch the presents. They were easily in sight through the iron bars of the bed. She convinced her little brother when he was barely two to sneak under there and carefully open the ends to see what was in the gift.