Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Tag Archives: Valerie Root


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Design Wall Monday


Today I pulled fabrics and cut for a baby quilt for the new daughter of a friend.  This is the Whirlwind block.  It was getting dark by the time I took the photos, but the fabrics are a pretty blush pink.

This speaks to the state of my stash.  Since I’ve worked so hard to reduce it, I assumed I needed to buy fabric for this quilt.  After all, this mother has a certain color and a certain aesthetic.   I thought I could pull fabrics from stash to piece the top, but was sure I needed to order the back. (I chose one of the Michael Miller “Magic” fabrics.)  When went into my small, dark closet, removed all the fabrics from the Pink drawer,  and brought them out into the light, I found I had plenty to choose from, even for the back.  Sigh.  I’ll probably make a similar quilt for my Etsy shop while I’m cutting.

I like keeping my fabrics in the closet where they’re protected from fading.  I’ve invested over the years in a nice metal basket system where I can separate the colors.  I don’t have anywhere else to keep it, but I do wish it were easier to see what I have on hand.  Ah, well.


Also,  I finished cutting all the scrap fabric for Surrounded by Scraps,  Charlotte Hawks mystery quilt for this year.  I have lots of background to cut yet, but I just ordered it.

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday  at Patchwork Times. 


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Design Wall Monday: Leaves

My mother had a lot of gathered projects or ones with cut pieces and a block or two finished, but I didn’t I didn’t bring any of them home.  I did bring this top of six inch maple leaf blocks (48″ x  60″).  I’m auditioning these fabrics for borders.  I may use them both.  I love the colors in the print, but it’s tropical, which won’t show if I use it for a narrow inner border.  The hand-dye print from Kona Bay is neither burgundy nor rust, which is why it’s still in my stash, but it’s perfect for this.

I’ll finish this up for donation, and I know my mom would like that.

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.


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Grungy Christmas Stars

A while back I made a variety of wonky stars using Christmas fabric scraps.

I put them together with lots of negative space made of various white and creamy Moda Grunge and borders of Windham’s Glisten.  Then I took them apart and inserted a peppermint strip for definition. 

Oftentimes, after a quilt is washed I regret not having quilted it more.  This was not the case.  I quilted shadow stars in the plain blocks, and filled around all the stars in various ways.

I quilted holly and ribbons in the first, wide border.  I quilted roping in the narrow gray border.  

I quilted ribbons in the outer border. (For this I used my Leaves Galore ruler from Sue Pelland.  I just didn’t move it over as much as for leaves.  I guess long, skinny leaves look like ribbons.)

After the fancy quilting, I went back with my walking foot and quilted straight lines wherever they fit to try to make the border quilting a little closer in density to the center.  I didn’t succeed,  but it’seems also pretty flat, so I think it helped.

The back is a creamy batik with faint green snowflakes.

This time I really think I accomplished the vision I had for this quilt.  It’s here in my Etsy shop.


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Lavender Baby Finish

img_2758Today I finished a pretty little baby quilt for a new little cousin.  It was inspired by the color of her room.

IMG_2760.JPGI know you’ve seen this design before (a few times!), but I wanted to keep the pieces large to show the ribbon print fabric, so here it is in living color.  I also used a piece of the new Grunge collection, which perfectly bridges the spectrum between lavender and orchid.  The light fabrics are hard to see here, but they are dots and chevrons on cream.

img_2761The backing is an irridescent  damask in a beautiful lavender.

img_27642016-10-29-12-03-29I quilted this with variegated Poly Quilter from Superior.  It was the perfect colors, but I have never been able to get it to sew in my machine before (I think it’s 30 wt.).  Maybe it was the recent tune-up, but I had little problem this time.  The big size 100 needle punched visible holes in the back, but they closed up when I washed it.

2016-10-28-11-53-53Now I have to break it to Krissi that we’re sending “her” quilt away.  She’s pretty attached.


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A Little Sewing

wp-image-932651337jpg.jpgThis week I began climbing the stairs up to my studio and sitting at the machine for half an hour or so at a time.  My knee is not pleased to be bent that long, much less push on the foot pedal, so I have to take breaks and walk around to stretch it out.

I did succeed in making a dozen 10 1/2″ string blocks for Kat’s October drive.  A good way to get back into sewing.

2016-10-13-12-22-18And yet, I can’t see any reduction in my strings…

2016-10-13-12-22-58aMy Bernina machine has been away at the spa while I was healing (getting her back today!), so I used this one instead.  This is SueAnn, a White, from the ’30s, I’m guessing?  Help me out if you know.

This is the machine on which I learned to sew.  When my parents were first married, my dad worked at the Boston Store in Erie, PA.  They took used machines on trade-in, and had a sale on treadles for, like, $10.  My mom had no machine, so she asked for one of those, but instead my dad brought home this used electric and the cabinet, which I don’t have.  All our clothes were made on this until my mom won a new machine when I was 11, and I started sewing on this one.

2016-10-09-16-25-15aI had a moment of panic when I went to thread her, but I just went ahead and let muscle memory take over, which seemed to work.  It’s not much different from a modern machine, but on the end instead of the front, and the bobbin and needle are turned sideways as well.

2016-10-11-12-22-33I have put the feet away somewhere, a very safe place, Jaye suggests, and I still can’t find them.  I used this walking foot, and, really, it wasn’t a bad choice for stitching the strings to a muslin background.  I like the way this machine purrs along.  In my dream studio I’d keep it set up in a cabinet.

Now I’m working on the design of that neutral Christmas quilt, and hope to do some cutting and organizing until my knee wants to sew some more!


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Sunday Stash Report: 10/2/16

Absolutely no sewing is going on here, but I was able to order fabric!  While lazing around, I conceived of a Christmas quilt using wonky stars of red and green fabric against a background of grays/neutrals (see yesterday’s post).

Other than the Grunges, this fabric was on a great sale at Fabric Shack.  The large piece has a larger print of faint green and gray snowflakes.  It’s a delicious batch of neutrals.  And I think I have a related piece of gray and cream “Glisten” (the ornaments) upstairs in the Stash.

This week:  + 9 yards,  – 0 yards
This year: + 86.25 yards,  – 123.75 yards
Net destashed in 2016:  37.50 yards

It’s in the washer now, and then I’ll be petting it for a while until it can star cutting.

How are you doing?  I’m linking up to the Stash Report at Patchwork Times.


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Sunday Stash Report and a Finish!

IMG_2752Technically, Yuri and I didn’t finish this quilt until today, but I’m counting it on this Stash anyway.  This will be the last report I’ll write for a while, because of my knee surgery, so I want to include this.

IMG_2753This is a leaders and enders quilt that I made blocks for during the last year.  It’s very simple, two colors, because that’s about all I can handle for l and e.  I need to think about the quilt I’m doing, so this has to be fool-proof.  I have a lot of small scraps, but the main reason I do these is to eliminate starting and stopping threads in my regular piecing.  This cleans things up a lot.

IMG_2754It was fun to revisit some of the fabrics in here.  There are bits of peacock fabric from the 2008 Hoffman Challenge, and some from my nephew’s ocean-themed graduation quilt.

The quilting started with stitching in the ditch next to all the sashing using blue Bottom Line, so it’s nearly invisible.  Then I used a gold and blue variegated So Fine (Superior) 40 wt. thread for all the other quilting.  I used orange peel quilting on half the blocks, and free-hand spirals in the alternate blocks.  The border has a series of wavy lines.  I started that with the walking foot, but quickly switched back to free-motion quilting because it was much easier than turning the quilt for the walking foot, and, with the echo foot, seemed just as accurate.

IMG_2755.JPGThis quilt is 62″ x 84″ (or it was before washing!).  It used about 9.25 yards of fabric.

This week:  + 0 yards,  – 9.25 yards
This year: + 77.25 yards,  – 123.75 yards
Net destashed in 2016:  46.50 yards

IMG_2757We’re linking up to the Stash Report at Patchwork Times.


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Twilters’ Birds in the Air Finished

IMG_2744A few months back the Twilters, of Twitter and Facebook fame, exchanged blocks in honor of our friend Frances O’Roark Dowell’s new novel, Birds in the Air, to be published in September.  I sent off forty eight-inch blocks, received thirty-nine different ones back (one went to Frances), added four of my own and some citron batik to make this quilt.  (Thank you, Tina, for coordinating all of this!)  These blocks are from all over the US and several other countries.

IMG_2744bThere was a question recently about whether we quilt in the ditch between patches.  It depends, but I certainly did on this one!  I used my walking foot and worked my way across both diagonals, then vertically and horizontally until all the “birds” were outlined.  I also created some “faux birds” where I wanted them in some of the white areas.

IMG_2745Then I switched to my free-motion foot to work inside all of the triangles.  The colorful birds got a curve on all three sides (orange peel?), while the background triangles got a figure eight design.  It was my first time using this, so they were mostly figure eights, with the occasional one that turned out more like ribbon candy!

Finally, I put feathers in the center and the other open areas.

IMG_2747I bound this with strips left from the blocks I sent and some of the left over binding from the Orlando Pulse quilt.  The back is just the scribbly batik.  The large label has all the contributers names printed on Quick Fuse printer fabric, because, even though each block is signed, some of the pens used aren’t completely colorfast in the wash, and I always want to remember you ladies!

IMG_2748

Thank you, everyone, for your contributions to this pretty quilt!

IMG_2749c


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Sunday Stash Report: 8/21/16

I worked all week on the Birds in the Air quilt, and it’s nearly finished, but still needs the binding.  I used half a yard of ugly not favorite fabric for plants ties, and didn’t buy any fabric.

This week:  + 0 yards,  – .5 yards
This year: + 77.25 yards,  – 110.0 yards
Net destashed in 2016:  32.75 yards

How are you doing?  I’m linking up to Judy’s Sunday Stash at Patchwork Times.


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Sunday Stash Report: 8/14/16

wp-image-1542581575jpg.jpgThis week I didn’t buy any fabric, and I did use a little.  The fall wall hangings to0k a yard and a half, and I used a quarter yard for tying up the peppers in the garden.

This week:  + 0 yards,  – 1.75 yards
This year: + 77.25 yards,  – 109.50 yards
Net destashed in 2016:  32.25 yards

So I’m inching closer to my goal of destashing fifty yards this year.  How are you doing?

I’m linking up to Sunday Stash at Patchwork Times.