Quilts from My Sewing Machine #3: Mouse

This is me teaching! Like the lipstick?

Ah summer!!!! 'Nuf said!

You are the very lucky reader who gets to join in this momentous event! You might want to mark it down on the calendar of the most important days in your life! Oh all right, I'm exaggerating a little bit. But just a little.

Forget your calendar, it's not even on mine. I'm now dragging a box over and am going to stand on it. It's not a box of soap however, but sturdy enough. I feel very strongly about keeping a file, notebook, computer document, or ... containing your quilt provenances. I came upon this staunch belief from inheriting my Aunt Marie's quilts. I have lovely quilts that she made by hand, but I have no idea when she made them. I don't know the story behind making the quilt. And I really, really wish I did. One of my regrets. I don't want this to happen to my kids, grandkids or anyone wondering about the story behind the quilt. Hence, I keep a computer document with a provenance on each quilt.

I started this very randomly spaced Quilts from My Sewing Machine in April. Knowing myself well, at least in this one thing, I declared I wouldn't tie myself down to a schedule for this recurring feature. Good thing, too. Here's entry #2 from Quilts from My Sewing Machine.

Not only am I going to tell you about a quilt I named "Mouse," it's going to be from the entry in my Quilt Provenances. I number the quilts in my provenance by when they were finished, so Mouse was my 17th quilt. Some of my provenances are long and some are barely there. I make sure I put in the "details": Name of quilt, start and finish date, size of the quilt, pieced by (because I sometimes quilt a flimsy of my Aunt's) and who quilted it. Recently I've started including the price it cost to get it quilted.

And now, without a fuss or muss, or more rambling or soap-boxing, let me introduce you to mouse!

17. Mouse     July 2008-July 2010         91.5 x 61.5 super twin
Pieced and machine-quilted by myself

The summer of 2008 was a very productive one for me. It was the summer of Quilt Café; AH, MBD, MF and S got together every Monday. We were friends from the Guild but also MBD, MF, AH and I were already good friends. We'd gather, usually at MBD's house, bring potluck lunch and quilt. MBD's husband, WD, made us a wooden plaque than said "Quilt Café." MBD hung it in her big quilting room, really a family room, and our name was born. Sometimes it was hard to say whether we ate more or quilted more!

During that summer I made My Other Daughter, The Yellow Failure, Hubby's Log Cabin, TGS Plays the Blues and started the Blue and Green Christmas. Everyone was getting quilts for presents that year!

This is a picture of my Hubby and
his favorite color: black.

Hubby's favorite color is black. I had been searching for a couple of years for a good pattern to make him a lap quilt. I decided on a Log Cabin with shades of black on one half, and shades of gray on the other. I found some sumptuous Japanese black cotton that cost $15 a yard; at the time good quilt fabric was going for $9 a yard. The Japanese black became the darkest black. I had found some grey on sale at an internet website and the rest came from a local quilt store.

I used Eleanor Burns Log Cabin in a Day to construct the quilt and it went together very quickly. I decided to quilt it myself on the machine using Aunt Marie's Log Cabin quilt as a pattern for the quilting. As I was ironing the top, getting ready to sandwich it, I discovered that the gray I had purchased on sale was of questionable quality. It had already begun to fray along the seams and in a few places had frayed almost to the seam line. What a nightmare!

NO, not that Bond!

YES, that 007!

While at PIQF in October, I discovered 007 Bonding Crystals and found the solution to the fraying seams. I cut strips of good white cotton and, using the 007, I bonded the cotton to the gray. It was a bit of a project, but worth it. I wanted that quilt to be really nice for Hubby.







Referring to one of my Aunt's LC, I looked at how she had quilted it. I used my walking foot to quilt down the middle of the logs. I had it about half quilted when Christmas rolled around. I presented it to my hubby with great anticipation at giving him his first quilt made by me!

I named it Mouse because it black with a blue center square. Interpretation: In old detective movies, a mouse was a black eye. Example: "Where'd ya get the mouse, Freddy Light-Fingers?"

Cat Inspecting Mouse

Mouse Statistics
Started: July 2008
Finished: July 2010
Size: 91.5" x 61.5" (Super Twin)
Pieced and Machine Quilted by myself