#43: Halloween

#43: Halloween
Finished: 10/25/12
Techniques: Ruth McDowell technique, freezer paper, machine stitches, curved piecing
Size: 20" x 19"

Description: I've always liked the combination of the Halloween colors of lime green, orange, purple, and black. So I pulled those colors from my stash and created this pumpkin using Ruth McDowell's technique of using freezer paper to piece the design.

The process went pretty well, but the curved pieces gave me a little trouble, probably because I was cutting a few corners in a hurry to get done.  Still, it came out pretty well.

The mini-quilt looks better in person, but one thing that shows up well is the fact that the lime green fabric with purple rectangles almost looks fluorescent!

#42 Grandpa Robbins

#42: Grandpa Robbins
Finished: 10/21/12
Techniques: Photo fabric, Applique, Echo quilting, Machine embroidery
Size: 17" x 18"

Description: My grandfather, Leroy V. Robbins, was inducted today into the National 4-H Hall of Fame for his 50 years of service as a 4-H volunteer and leader. I'm glad to honor him with this mini-quilt. He helped organize the first 4-H program in Louisiana, in East Baton Rouge Parish. One of the 4-H projects he was involved in was raising champion Southdown sheep. As a child, I remember the sheep he raised on his property, which we affectionately refer to as "Robbins Roost."

I started out by printing the 4-H motto words, "Head", "Heart", "Hands", "Health", with the machine embroidery alphabet on my sewing machine. I then traced the 4-H four-leaf clover design onto some green fabric and appliquéd it between the embroidered words.

The picture of my grandpa was the most creative part of this project. I wanted to include a picture, but I had a problem: I didn't have any photo fabric. And according to my pledge for this project, I couldn't buy anything new to create the mini-quilt. So I wondered if I could make my own photo fabric using materials at hand. And this is the reason I love the Internet! Searching "make your own photo fabric" brought up several sites. 

The simplest method I found had instructions to print off a photo by ironing freezer paper onto the back of fabric and running it through an ink jet printer. And while most sites suggested using something called "Bubble Jet Set 2000" ink fixative, one site said it wasn't necessary as long as you weren't planning on washing the project. So I gave it a try. My freezer paper didn't want to stick well to the fabric so I also used a quilt basting spray to make it stick. Then I ran it through my printer and it worked like a charm! 

I made several copies of grandpa's photo to test and practice. Sure enough, you don't want to wash it. Running it under water made all the colors run except the black. And even ironing it with steam made it fade somewhat. Ironing it without steam seemed to be OK, but I didn't iron it for very long, not wanting to press my luck  (pun intended).

Quilting was done with straight stitching and echo stitching within the four-leaf clover.

We lost Grandpa in 2006, but we all feel quite proud about his induction into the 4-H Hall of Fame.

#41 Black and White and ...

#41: Black and White and ...
Finished: 10/13/12
Techniques: Black and White, Machine Stitches, Strips
Size: 24 1/2" x 18"

Description: As much as I like working with bright colors, I've always admired black and white quilts too. Those that I've seen, especially those with splashes of color, I've found to be very striking. I hadn't thought that I had enough of a variety of black and white fabrics in my stash to create a black and white mini-quilt, but once I started looking I decided I did. And then I found that I had numerous strips of black and white, and that cinched it.

When I started creating the rectangles, I didn't like the look. Even though I tried to abut "light" black-and-whites next to "dark" black-and-whites, there was not enough definite delineation between the fabrics for my liking. So I ended up buffering different fabrics with solid whites or solid blacks and that helped a lot.

Quilting was done with a machine wave stitch. I think this will make a nice wall hanging.

#40 Trapunto Sunflower

#40: Trapunto Sunflower
Finished: 10/6/12
Techniques: whole cloth, trapunto, stippling, free-motion quilting.
Size: 12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

Description: Trapunto is the technique of sewing a design onto two layers of fabric, then cutting slits into the under-layer and inserting stuffing or batting, causing a raised effect. The slits are then hand-stitched back together. I varied from the traditional as I did not do the hand-stitching part, but rather placed the two layers (plus trapunto) onto a layer of batting and backing fabric and proceeded with the quilting. Because this is a mini-quilt, I figured I could get away with this departure.

Although I could have used printed fabric and appliqué to create the sunflower, I went with the whole cloth design in white simply for its elegance. The raised effect of the trapunto was enhanced by stippling, or a very dense meandering pattern around the sunflower. When I finished stippling, I found that it didn't get close enough to the trapunto design for my satisfaction, so I straight stitched around the outer edge of the sunflower again which provided the definition I was looking for.

I found stuffing the batting into the underside of the design very tedious work. There were a total of 80 individual slits, including the 32 tiny squares in the center of the sunflower. But as tedious as it was, I like the overall effect. This mini-quilt definitely looks better in reality than in the picture. I think a large quilt done in this design would look spectacular, but someone other than me would have to do it. (But you never know).

#39 Grandpa's Sunset Roses

#39: Grandpa's Sunset Roses
Finished: 9/30/12
Techniques: Machine embroidery, machine stitches, applique
Size: 14 1/2" x 13 1/2"

I was inspired by a new book I got from the public library, Creative Uses for Decorative Stitches by Karen Linduska. I used several of the techniques listed in her book to create this mini-quilt.

I've been remembering my grandfather's rose garden back in Maryland. When we were growing up, we would visit my grandparents' home and I loved walking through the maze of roses. My favorites were the yellow, orange and pick roses he grew. I don't know the actual name of those roses, but I called them sunset roses because of their colors.

I used the machine embroidery unit on my sewing machine and the roses design that came with it. I find that I don't often use the embroidery unit, but this project was a good opportunity. I added other machine stitches in the form of leaves and greenery. The portion of the mini-quilt to the left is done with  machine stitches sewn close together, as described in the Linduska book. It represents the maze or rows of roses of my grandpa's garden. The individual portions were sewn separately and appliquéd onto the background.