All posts for the month October, 2015

Giving the Sawtooth Stars Quilt

Not only is my Sawtooth Stars quilt finally finished, it’s now in the hands of the person I made it for: my aunt, Mary Ann Doyle.

Aunt Aummy, as we call her, has been a special aunt to me and to many of my sisters and cousins on my dad’s side of the family. She remembers all of our birthdays, made Christmases at the farm extra special, and takes care to know each of her nieces and nephews—and great-nieces and great-nephews—as the individuals we are.

So I wanted to make a quilt just for her. Blue is her favorite color, so I used that as the background. Then I made 18 large stars, one to represent each of her nieces and nephews. Each star is made from a different fabric.

Around the large stars, I placed 27 small stars, one to represent each of her great-nieces and great-nephews. Again, all the fabrics are different, for a total of 45 star fabrics.

I didn’t have enough boy-looking fabric to assign one star to each person, but I did make the two yellow stars at the top with my two cousins who have passed away in mind. You can read more about the making of the quilt top in this previous post.

I did the quilting myself on my home machine. I sewed straight lines from the corners of the stars and did close wavy lines in the blue background. I struggled with the quilting, as I mentioned in this previous post, but it certainly serves its purpose. The photo at the top shows the quilt after it was washed, and the close quilting made it extra crinkly and cozy looking.

I pieced the back with two Amy Butler prints plus a few extra pieces to fill out the size, which ended up being about 67″ x 72″.

And I added a label to the back, of course.

The binding is a little different for me. I didn’t have enough of the blue on the front of the quilt for the whole binding, so I made a two-piece binding.

I followed the tutorial in the book String Quilt Revival. It calls for two strips the length needed for the binding: one strip is 1″ wide and the other is 1.5″ wide. After some preparation, these are sewn together (which had to be the most boring thing I’ve ever sewn). It’s then sewn onto the front of the quilt and folded over to the back for hand stitching. I really like that the seam of the two strips sits right on the edge of the quilt, giving it a very nice finish.

This one has been in the works for about a year, so it’s kind of exciting to have it completely done and at its new home. Now, on to whatever is next!

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by Christine Doyle on October 28, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Quilting

Posted by Christine Doyle on October 28, 2015

https://christinedoyle.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/giving-the-sawtooth-stars-quilt/

Wisconsin Fun 2015

October is a beautiful time of the year to go home to Wisconsin, and last week, I did just that. The main purpose of the trip was to spend some time with three friends from high school. We met in Appleton on Saturday, went to the farmer’s market, the Trout Museum, had a tasty lunch, got some cupcakes, and did a little shopping at the mall. It was a lovely time.

I have photos of none of that. But I did take a few shots of some of the other fun I had while I was up there.

On Sunday, Jenny and the kids came to Mom and Dad’s to visit. It was a warm day, so while I was waiting for them to arrive, I got out the sidewalk chalk.

My design looked even better with the addition of a cute girl.

Mom and Dad were feeling under the weather, so Jenny, the kids, and I decided to check out the changes that have been made at South Park. They’ve really fixed it up nice, with new shelters and a great playground area. We spent some time on the fishing pier, too.

Back at Mom and Dad’s, we did a little painting and dyeing using some dark sunflower seeds Jenny had gotten. The seeds looked black, but when they got wet, they were actually purple. Jenny soaked them in water, and I used the color as a wash behind my doodle.

Mom was feeling a little better on Monday, so we took a walk at my favorite park, Hartman Creek State Park. The hike around Hartman Lake (aka Turtle Lake) was windy, but pretty.

On Monday night, Mom didn’t want to spread her cold germs around at the quilt guild meeting, so we stayed home and did some improv sewing. Mom gathered up a pile of scraps, set up two sewing machines and an iron, and we just sewed.

Mom made an improv cross block.

I started making an improv Log Cabin to get loosened up.

Then I decided to make a piece that said “Mom fabric” to me. Her scrap pile has more reds and blacks than mine ever will.

Finally, I wrapped up my session with the beginnings of an improv Halloween wall hanging. I’ll cut out a silhouette of something spooky and put it in the middle.