Quilts From My Sewing Machine #5, Christine's Summer

It's another glorious Saturday. I came home yesterday with a virus, but I feel better today. I guess it wasn't a virus...it sure felt good to sleep most of the day though!

This Saturday is my turn for the sharing of family quilts. I like the story behind this one. It's about a sweet, giving friend of mine.

Name:  Christine's Summer
Life Quilt #13

Begun in April 2008 and finished November 2008

Size: 46" x 53" (lap)

Pieced by myself and Quilted by Ann L

I decided that I would start making quilts and humanitarian items for the guild and the Church. My first project was a pinwheel quilt. I had found some red plaid 5” squares in Marie’s things and decided they would make a cute single bed quilt for the Church. The Church Humanitarian site said they needed twin size bedspreads and quilts. I counted up how many blocks I would need. To make the single size I needed 63 block and I did my math and found I'd have 68 blocks!

 It was after I made all the 68 half square triangles that I realized that it took four half square triangles to make a block. I never have had much luck in quilting math! Obviously now I wouldn't have enough for a single quilt. But, no matter, I could still give it to the community quilts. I now had 17 blocks. I could make a 4x4 block quilt, which amounted to a baby quilt, and have one left over. What I really wanted was to make a 4x5 block quilt to make a rectangular lap quilt. But I lacked 3 blocks to do that layout.

I decided to cut down 3 or 4 of the red pinwheel blocks to make smaller blocks and border them with a plain fabric. (1-31-14: I notice now that only one red block was cut down. And it bothers me! I want one or two more smaller red ones. I found some good blue plaid fabric in my stash and made 3-4 large pinwheel blocks and 3-4 smaller blue plaid blocks with borders. (1-31-14: There are only 2 small ones and 1 large. I guess I changed my mind.)

I was ready to put the top together, when tragedy struck! I fell and broke my right hand and all quilting came to a halt while I had the cast on.

After the cast came off, I still couldn’t get right back into quilting. The first day after my cast was off, I spent a blissful day quilting. Then there was payback: my hand hurt miserably for a week. My PT told me “Bad Girl!” and I had to temper my enthusiasm. The new quilting regime was quilt for an hour and ice hand for 20 minutes, quilt for an hour and ice hand…

The backing is a lovely turtle batik. I was saving it for
something special. Christine chose it for the backing
and it did, indeed, get used for someone special.

When I got the pinwheel quilt top completed, it was very cute. I began having second thoughts about giving it to charity because I liked it so much. Enter Christine. Having a cast on my hand had stopped me from being able to tend to my flower garden, just as the beginning of prime springtime. At church I was bemoaning the fact, when Christine Lopes, a girl just back from her first year at BYU, offered to help me weed and plant! It was a match made in heaven. All summer long Christine came over weekly and we put in a morning in the garden. Even after my cast came off, she continued to come. She was having a blast and I thoroughly enjoyed her company. We capped off the summer by painting my refurbished, redecorated quilting room.

Stupid thread! It was invisible until I
took the picture, honest! Then it
just jumped out as I clicked the shutter.

I showed Christine the quilts I had done and was working on. She liked them all but it was clear she like the little pinwheel quilt a lot. I was happy to find just the right person to give my lovely quilt.

I delayed a little in getting it done, thinking that I would be able to machine quilt it myself. Alas, when I tried machine quilting on a charity quilt my hand was sending painful repercussions to my brain. I shelved the idea and Christine’s quilt went to the quilter.

As I mentioned above, Christine helped me paint my new quilt room. It's good I had help because the part I did made my hand ache. Here is a picture of Christine with our cat, Daytona and shelves from the sewing room. 

 Not to be left out, my dog, Miko, kept us company!

I wish it wasn't so wobbly, but this is the best picture I have of my sewing room. Walls are lovely sage green. Dresser is both cutting and ironing space . Drawers hold notions, fat quarters and plaid cut-down shirts.

And here's another wall. I keep fabric in the stackable Sterilite drawers, plus more containers on top!