Welcome fellow Celebrate Hand Quilting blog and Facebook friends.  I’m Shirley Lucher-Suter on FB and shirlsu in the blogging world.  So glad you’ve stopped by!

Pardon the spiderwebs at my doorstep and the dust on my doormat.  This blog (actually more of a digital diary) seldom has visitors but I’m thrilled to be part of Caron’s blog hop and becoming better acquainted with hand quilters.

My quilting history:  My grandmother was a life-long quilter but I didn’t pay much attention to the process until I was around age eight.  By that time, I had learned to machine and hand sew and anything involving fabric and thread fascinated me.  She invited me to join her at her quilt frame to thread needles and watch as she stitched.  She was a ‘utility’ stitcher, only 4-5 double-thread stitches per inch and could quilt a full-size quilt in a few days.

Eventually, she let me help with the quilting but always made fun of my little stitches and slow pace.  In hand sewing, I had been taught to always take small stitches for added strength and longevity… it was a habit that extends into my quilting today.

I began my own first quilt at the age of 15, using scraps from my garment sewing and from friends’ old clothes.  It was a simple square patchwork but because I hadn’t learned the importance of keeping the squares a uniform size, the top is ridiculously wavy.  I hope someday to completely disassemble and re-make it.  Lots of memories live in that quilt top.

Altered Tumbling Blocks – 1980
First finished quilt

My first completed quilt was made when I was in my late-twenties for our son’s first big boy bed.  It is a hand stitched, scrappy altered Tumbling Blocks .  I used an ugly mustard-colored blanket for batting and rolled the backing to the front for border/binding.  It is full bed sized and has been very loved and washed many, many times.  It still survives.

Through the years when life allowed,  I’ve continued to make quilts.  Many are hand pieced and all are hand quilted with the exception of one, which was used to test a very early quilting machine my father-in-law was developing.  I hated it and felt it ruined my quilt top.  I still carry an aversion for machine quilting because of that.

I continue to love making quilts.  I’ve recently made a few machine pieced quilts tops on newly acquired vintage sewing machines but I continue to enjoy hand piecing and always have a hand project in the works.  I also enjoy cooking, eating, reading and travel but you can most often find me with needle and fabric at hand.

I’m so glad you stopped by.

Shirl

The Scrappy Split-16 quilt garnered much attention this week.

Backing with brick strip

On Monday, I received the yard I was short of the wide mottled green backing fabric so I was able to sew this brick strip and the additional fabric to make the back plenty long.  If my calculations are correct, the brick strip should hit about chest high when a person is snuggled under the quilt. 

Hanging out the wrinkles

I flipped the backing over and spread a king size Hobb’s Poly Down batting on it, after trimming it a few inches from each side.  Atop the batting, I placed the quilt top and allowed the ‘floating’ sandwich to relax for two days to eliminate wrinkles.

Early Thursday morning, the quilt was rested and wrinkle-free for installing in the frame.  I worked on it alone so it took several hours but gave me no problems.  I was a little apprehensive because of the multitude of bias pieces but it rolled even and straight, just like it should.  Perfect!!

I made a simple stencil of my ‘signature’, including my name, location and date (hopefully) finished.  I may be a bit too optimistic in assuming the quilt will be finished this year.  The body will be somewhat intensely quilted and it’s rather large…106″ x 120″.  It remains to be seen how the borders will be quilted.

The plan is for Bob to develop a custom design for the borders.  Though he’s been dabbling at it for weeks, I’ve seen nothing. <shrug>  I may give up the wait and choose a design of my own.  I prefer quilting the borders as I quilt the body so we shall see.  I won’t wait much longer.

Signature quilting done

I love having a quilt in the frame.  I enjoy quilting during the day when I have abundant natural light and can glance out the windows to watch the marvels of nature.  I usually quilt for several hours each day until my hands get tired, then I play on the Net until time to cook dinner.  I spend my evenings hand piecing my Tumbling Stars quilt top as I watch movies on my computer monitor.  Yes, life is simple and good!

Because we celebrated Mother’s Day last weekend while Jacob was here, we will have a quiet, uneventful observance.  As usual, I purchased my own gift and it was delivered Friday.  My new-to-me 1925 Singer model 66 is here.  I spent a little time getting familiar with her.  Oh, she is a sweetie!!  If the weather clears, I’ll spend time during the next few days cleaning the wrought iron treadle base that was part of my grandmother’s machine, to make a nice home for this ‘new’ one.  Maybe my next machine-made quilt top will be totally treadled.  That’s the plan!

Shirl

Do you hear that?  Do you hear thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk?

I finished stitching the corner miters on the Split-16 quilt last night (see previous post).  They lay perfectly flat and look clean and nice.

Only one step was left before loading it onto the frame…. I still needed to sew the brick strip to the quilt backing.  I laid out the backing and while measuring for the strip placement, I discovered the quilt top is longer than the backing by 16 inches!!!  How in the world could that happen?

Tumbling Stars

Yes, the thunking sound you hear is me banging my head on the quilt frame.  How many more wrenches can be thrown in my path to finishing this quilt?  Oh gosh, I better not ask!

This is not the worst disaster that can happen – at least I keep telling myself that!  I can get more fabric from my favorite online store, Quilt Unique Fabrics.  She has a terrific inventory of wide backings and she ships fast.  This is where I always purchase backings.  I noticed she only has 5 yards left so I placed my order for one of them.  She’ll surely ship it out on Monday and I’ll have it Thursday.  Another disaster averted.

In the meantime, I’m hand stitching my Tumbling Stars quilt top.  It’s made using the English Paper Piecing method and cut from Kona black and batiks I’ve collected for a while.  I love how bold and striking it looks.

I haven’t decided on the finished size but I’m half way to queen.  In an attempt to finally quench my paper piecing addiction, I suspect it will grow to be queen/king size.

Shirl