Primitive Portrait: Berks County 1850

I'm planning a series of Primitive Portrait quilt patterns; this is the first: Berks County 1850 (16"x 20"):

This pattern is simple piecing, then applique; little girl's features are traced with a pen, and there's just a bit of colored pencil on eyes, cheek, and mouth.  She has a sheer organdy apron.   Quilt fabric is Jo Morton's Lucinda's Needle; there are other Jo Morton fabrics as well, including a Meg's Bouquet and a Classics.   

The incredible fun in these portraits is choosing fabric for quilt, wall, picture frame, dress, etc.  I have a bunch of these started :-).

National Quilting Day...

was spent catching up on DJs:

H12 above is the four hearts; I decided to redraw as the teardrop shapes.

Total success with looking for the two issues of Where Women Create: I looked through the current issue a few times at Borders, and Pat Wys of Silver Thimble, in her kindness, mailed me the premier issue, which I have greedily kept until now and must mail back on Tuesday.  Thank you, Pat!!  Now won't it be fun to see that next issue in May...

a rainy day

A rainy day today...

Bored, Rembrandt decided to take a bath.

This Stickle block went OK (well, actually, it didn't, but I won't embarrass myself by talking about it):

The next Stickle was a triangle.  TR08.  At first I thought I would do reverse appliqué as Anina did but as always wondered about piecing it, became interested in the relation of the angles to one another in the original, and also thought it would be nice if all three of the smaller triangles were the same size since it looked to me like maybe that (wacky and wild) Jane had that in mind, so drafted a version:

Emails from College

DS made time for me last week-end on a trip back to Atlanta; we went to dinner.  Conversational snippets: 

DS: “So how’s poorpoorGinger?”

Mom: “She threw up in my moccasins.”

DS: “Sorry.”

Mom: “She’s your cat.”

DS: “Not anymore.”

...

Mom: “How’s your pizza delivery job?” [Recall that this is the DS who could now be excelling himself at either  the Air Force Academy or West Point]

DS: [with great relish] “Wow.  People are unusual [not his actual word].  They don’t know where they live.  If they have names, they don’t know them.  One guy didn’t have a house and asked us to deliver to the Wal-Mart parking lot.  He promised he would meet us there.”

Mom: “Are you learning anything  at that school?”

DS: “Sure Mom, I’m learning all about Gandhi.  In Gandhi class. But this guy at the Wal-Mart.  Turned out he actually did have a cabin.  Sort of.  Out in the woods.  He didn’t want us to come out there.  I think he was a [with enormous relish] squatter.”

Mom: “Move to Milledgeville and see the world.”

... 

Mom: “I know what.  Let’s talk about quilting.”

DS: “You go first.”

Mom: “I’m working on this sampler medallion quilt; the center appliqué uses both freezer paper and fusible web for the reverse appliqué motif; there is a sawtooth border made of 360 half-square triangles, oh and don’t forget the Job’s Tears and Chip and Whetstone blocks.  There’s an inner border to stop the eye and a mix of lights and darks over the entire ground for sufficient contrast.  I started making the half-square triangles from scratch but then tried Thangles, which is working well, of course you have to cut right on the grain, but I may try the computer-generated Triangulations before I’m done, because you can also make quarter-square triangles with those.” 

DS: “Mom, do you have any friends?  I mean ones who come up to the door?”

Also went junking on Saturday.  Didn't buy anything, but aren't these pretty?  Ooo, I can just visualize repainting the first one and doing some decorative painting:


 

A Block, A Gift, A Pet, and a Plea

Poor Anina is too sick with flu to post a DJ block tutorial, so I decided to do the next block in Row C (only two blocks to go now, and they are much more sensible blocks than this one is (!). There are eight of these beeny paper piecing sections for one part of it:


And voilà, le bloc, C07, you little rascal:


Betty sent me this cute sign for my sewing studio; thank you, Betty, I love it!


a quiet affectionate moment with one's pet that is apparently part domestic cat, part wolverine:

Here is my plea. I want to see this magazine, Where Women Create. There are two issues so far. Would any kind soul out there in QuiltyLand be willing to mail these to me and I will pay postage both ways and try to find it in my horrid little soul to include a Small Giftie along with the returned magazines:

I want to see inside these two issues.

Snow Day

The Atlanta snowfall yesterday was beautiful, a once-in-a-decade or even two experience for Georgia, i.e. several inches of snow you can actually pack. How I miss the Northern snows. I especially love how snow on the ground brightens the house inside. Really, there's nothing like it. This little sculpture is outside the library branch (which turned out to be closed; I still have the Northern mentality that forgets places will close during a snowfall even though it's still easy to drive in, as it was yesterday in Atlanta at least):

Best of all, and miracle of miracles, a Snow Day was called for school, so I am Marathon Quilting today.

I think I will want to make more than one Circuit Rider block per month, and do not know in advance which ones Little Quilts is choosing for their BOM, so I'm just going to take a guess when I feel like making one that it will not be one of their twelve:



Forget if I said I'm making the Feedsack version of the Second Saturday Sampler block at LQ, and have decided to make a pint-size Dear Jane size as we go along, then throw in some feedsack Dear Jane blocks and have a little wall hanging. I do love the feedsack Dear Janes that I see online. So here's the 4-1/2" version of the first feedsack SSS:


I've been waiting for Flag Day Farm to come out so I could get my mitts on the bandanna fabric. Decided to make this, and am pondering what to add, am visualizing half-square triangles all around, or am open to ideas...