Bits and Pieces

This colorful quilt uses some of the smallest pieces I've ever sewn into blocks. Talk about saving scraps...women of the 1930's would be proud.

When I got the spider web die for my birthday, I started cutting fabric remnants. Selecting different colors, I randomly stitched them together. Because of the tiny pieces and many seams, it took several days.

I used a natural muslin for contrast to showcase the web shapes. I chose a meandering stitch to quilt in free motion, with cream thread. Bits and Pieces is 36” x 48” in size.

I love the final product! The die is awesome for using up the smallest of remnants. It looks like an old fashioned quilt that my grandmothers would have made. I can't wait to make other versions with different background colors.

Bits and Pieces

It seemed like a perfect project to sew around Mother's Day. I thought about how women during the Depression years would have spent their time. They'd cut up old curtains, housedresses, shirts, and feed sacks to create a warm quilt for next to nothing, using faded blankets for batting.

Thankfully, I don't have to worry about saving every cent, although I do get a certain satisfaction out of using leftovers to make a bonus quilt or two. It must be my rural Southern thrifty dirt farmer roots showing.

Accuquilt die

55487 Spider Web 6"

Effie's Butterfly Garden

Effie's Butterfly Garden

I've done a series on my husband's grandmother, Granny Rose, her quilts, and my reproductions of those designs. Until now, I only had one of my own grandmother's quilts, a wedding gift. Recently a cousin sent me some old family photos, including a few pics of Granny Hill's quilts.

Effie's Butterfly Garden is my version of one of them. I made my block simpler so that I could use Accuquilt dies and sew it up more quickly. Her quilt and my block are pictured below. I may do another take on the design later using her kite piece.

Effie Hill quilt

Kaye's version

Vintage style 1930's and 1940's small floral prints, like the housedresses she made and wore, are featured with a natural muslin contrast in each block. Backing and binding are a larger floral print. I quilted with beige thread using a walking foot in serpentine lines that intersect to make simple flower petals.

I remember Effie Hill as a strong, independent woman who raised six kids during the depression. She lived and worked hard all her life on a farm in rural middle Tennessee. She grew a garden, cooked and canned, and somehow found time to sew and quilt. I surely must have inherited some of her sewing DNA.

Accuquilt dies used: 55010 5” square, 55735 2 ¼” x 4 ½” chisel, and 55147 2 ¼” half square triangle. I cut the 2 ¼” square from a strip, using the end of the chisel die.

I am thankful 

for the strength 

that lives in my veins. 

~K. Azizian

Summer Sampler

I'm back after a much needed break to catch up on a few chores. Being a carpenter's helper, housekeeper, lawn care associate, and home organizer is hard work in this heat. Not quite caught up, but I feel better now that my surroundings are neater and my to do list is shorter.

I did squeeze in sewing time to finish another project.  Summer Sampler is an adorable retro style table topper or wall hanging, made up of four different blocks in the same colors. The cheery red and blue daisy and strawberry print was my inspiration; I found coordinating fabrics in my stash to cut triangles and strips with Accuquilt dies.

Summer Sampler

The bright white tone on tone print is the perfect contrast, set off with plaid sashing. This cute 30½” square is channel quilted with white thread in a decorative zig-zag stitch. Wouldn't this brighten up the breakfast nook in a country farmhouse kitchen? It's for sale now on my Etsy site.

By the way, aren't those veggies pretty? Local farmer's markets are brimming with fresh produce right now. There's nothing like the rich mouth-watering flavor of Tennessee tomatoes right off the farm. 'Mater sandwich on white bread with mayo...mmmm good.

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts

while eating a homegrown tomato. ~Lewis Grizzard