Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Rocking Chair, Indeed!

A long time family friend of ours called the other day. I had not spoken to him in several months, actually closer to a year. He recently had some health challenges so naturally I asked about his health and how he was doing. We chit chatted for a few minutes; I was trying to politely end the conversation and call my husband to the phone, he is more his (my husband's) friend than mine. He (the friend) asked, "So, what are you doing?" As I had stopped sewing to answer the phone, I answered, "Quilting." He let out a huge cackling laugh and said, "In your rocking chair?" Well naturally our conversation ended much sooner than he anticipated, and I no longer worried about how to politely end the conversation. He probably didn't even realize that I took issue to what he said.

After I calmed down, his comment got me to thinking. Is that the popular opinion? If you sew, quilt, bake, etc., are you just a little old retiree? Sometimes I wish I had the time to sit in a rocking chair. I still have a whole lot of life left in me and a whole lot that I want to get done.

Anyway I digress, I finished two more quilts (from my rocking chair). Have a look and tell me what you think.

The pattern for this quilt is called a log cabin. If you look closely you can see the white center blocks. It's fairly simple because you just sew differing lengths of strips around the block. Generally the block is sewn so that there is a light side and a dark side. I used a new technique and as this was my first time sewing the block I was more concerned with getting block right and less about the light/dark contrast. Again I used African fabrics. I had some left over flying geese blocks from the previous quilt (I sewed 240 of them!) so I used the rest of them on this quilt.





I belong the several online quilt blogs and groups. It's great because you get some really good information and if you have a problem the wonderful women (and men) of the groups are happy to help. I also have several favorite websites and during one of my online visits I discovered this fabric. It's by Moda Fabrics, don't bother looking for it that was my mistake I looked for it after they stopped making it and the fabric stores no longer carried it. But not to be sidetracked, I searched all of my favorite sites, EBay, etc. and I found some of the fabric. Of course I had to purchase it from several places which made it way more expensive than it needed to be. I love the quilt, I love the quilt, I love the quilt. I have also learned my lesson, next time I will just choose some other fabric, won't be looking for out of print fabric again, no matter how pretty it is.

The pattern for this quilt is called a double hour glass. The quilt was again fairly simple. It looks more complicated than it is. A year or so ago I purchased a Creative Grids ruler. You can't imagine how simple that makes the blocks or how quickly them come together. This is queen-sized quilt which I pieced in a couple of weekends.