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I love mystery quilts, but I’m terrible at following through on finishing them once the mystery is solved and I know how it will look. I finished this one while on vacation last summer. For several years I thought I might extend this 8-sided center to a bed-sized quilt, but decided I’d rather have it finished than possibly on a bed some day in the future.
The front:
I found this mystery on the web sometime in the last 8 or 9 years. If you recognize the pattern or author of the mystery, please leave a comment so I can give that person credit. I chose scraps from several of the batiks that we used for tablecloths at my daughter’s wedding in 2000. Here’s the back, which gives you an allover view of the ‘focus’ fabric.
A close-up where you can see my rough free-form quilting as I was learning to use my new-to-me Bernina 1090 sewing machine:
The photos were taken outside with my old Sony Mavica FD-75. The quilt is about 40 inches across.
My sister cut these square denim blocks a few years ago, in 2003, I think. We did a rag quilt style pillow for our father (who loves walleye fishing in Ontario).
As you can see the pillow includes some olive green denim and a ‘fisherman’ type block salvaged from an old sweatshirt that once belonged to one of his grandsons.
We were on a real denim kick! One day soon I’ll show you the denim ‘picnic’ quilt that inspired all this…
Elaine
My sister cut all these circles from old jeans. We started with a small plate to cut around with the rotary cutter. Skinned knuckles are a hazard of this method. We switched to drawing around the template and cutting with a scissors. It’s a more portable project that can be done while watching a soccer practice or game…
After washing:
Sometimes in the winter my dh likes to hop in his semi truck and haul stuff around the country for hire. Several years ago his truck of choice was a red Mack tricked out to haul flat bed and/or wide or heavy loads.
Bedding for the sleeper cab is always a challenge as the custom mattresses vary according to the size of the truck. My solution has been to buy a dark colored cotton California King sized sheet set and recut it to fit the bed. That usually works for the sheets, but then the blankets are a different problem. No standard blanket is long enough for the bed and if they are long enough, they are generally too wide.
I planned this quilt with a few parameters in mind. It needed to be dark enough to not show dirt easily, quickly and easily pieced, related somehow to the truck colors (red with black interior), and something a man would be willing to sleep under. lol
I collected a variety red fabrics, from orange-red to blue-red, but with no white. Then I found an older Jinny Beyer grey and red border fabric that would work for sashing and borders. The piecing of the red fabrics was of random width Chinese coins, with the sets rearranged as I pieced them. The final decisions on the arrangement of the reds was done while lying in bed recovering from some broken bones. (This is starting to seem like a theme…) The borders were added with no fancy mitering…this is a utility quilt.
I have only this one photo after my mother-in-law and I had tied it and just taken it out of her floor frame, but before the edges were finished.
Getting better photos of those gorgeous fabrics is on my to-do list.
DH’s winter job has some side benefits for me; a couple winters ago he stopped and picked up a Bernina sewing machine that I had purchased on PatternReview.com from a gal in Denver. ‘Free’ delivery!
I found these photos on my computer last week and thought I’d share them with you. I seem to be a magnet for people’s unwanted textiles.
A small stack of scissor cut tumbler blocks was given to me about 7 years ago. I had never pieced this block before, so I decided to give them a try.
The fabrics weren’t my favorites and I suspected by the way they smelled when pressing that some of them were partly polyester, so I decided to do a quick tie job instead of quilting. Also I have a doll quilt from the early 1950s that was tied, so I figured this finish would fit this little quilt.
I found some pieces (from a different era, however) in my stash for the backing and binding.
I think I probably sold this quilt, but I can’t really remember…
Thanks for your comments!