Baltimore Album Quilts

Most quilters have heard of these. The beautiful appliqued quilts done by Baltimore women during the 1840's and beyond. The started in Baltimore and then spread. We know them by their characteristic light backgrounds with beautiful hand applique in various scenes. Flowers were the most popular and sometimes you would see scenes from a particular area. Some examples below.

At first when I saw these quilts they didn't do much for me. But then I got for lack of a better word sucked into Civil war quilts. My grandfather was at the Battle of the Crator at Petersburg July 30 1864. Then I started thinking about the Baltimore Album quilts. I should preface this that I was born and raised in Baltimore. Well Baltimore Album quilts were Civil war era quilts also. So I started to take another look at them. And stared to appreciate them a little more. Then I did an applique table runner. First time I really did applique. And I found I enjoyed it immensely. Sometimes I get tired of the precision of piecing blocks. I am a fair piecer but I have my share of wonky blocks and things that don't go together as they should. Then I did another applique project and found my desire for it hadn't waivered and then started looking at the Baltimore quilts again and they just hit me. As a sense of history, a sense of place since I'm from Baltimore. It's like I have to do one.  

I might think on doing a more up to date one. Maybe iconic things about Maryland and Baltimore. Or things Baltimore are know for, sports teams etc. My daughter suggested doing a Orioles/Raven quilt. But actually they could be just two blocks in a Baltimore album quilt. Something to start thinking about. I'm not an artist so that limits me to some degree. But I can trace with the best of them. That doesn't mean I would takes someone else's work with permission. I respect the art world, namely cos I can't do it and they can. And I don't believe you should steal someone else's work. 

I've seen lots of modern day Baltimore album style quilt patterns and this woman I think does them the best:
Pearl P. Pereira 

I just love her patterns, I've yet to do one but I really love the state ones and the Halloween one.

But this lady is the first lady of traditional Baltimore album quilts
Elly Sienkiewicz

It's nice to have a rich historical quilt history in the area in which you live.

 

Flowers are taking over

Well it’s been a while. I have been doing a lot of quilting or quilt related activities. I’ve discovered a few new things, and a new designer, that I’ve fallen in love with.

First and foremost thread. A very nice sewing friend sent me a selection of Aurifil thread. People have been raving about this thread for quite a while now. It’s expensive, but it’s totally worth every single penny. I never thought I’d pay $10 for a spool of thread. It just makes piecing a dream and my Janome just loves it. So does my Rocketeer and Bernina.

http://www.aurifil.com

I had completed my Splash and it’s hanging on the wall

Trees are at work

I’ve been wanting to do a Celtic quilt for quite some time now. So I purchased this book.

karen Combs book

Not sure what happen but after making all the blocks for the first project in the book they just didn’t meet up right. Not sure what happened. I was very disappointed. I must have cut something wrong somehow. I think I’m going to check out the Scarlett Rose books when the sewing budget is replenished.

Scarlett Rose book

That is more of what I wanted to do in the first place.

And then I discovered Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket quilts

Laundry Basket Quilts

I just love her appliqué patterns and now currently working on this one

Spring Sprouts

It’s going together quite well so far fingers crossed.

I’m thinking of this in my future but that pattern is rather expensive and I may try to do something free style based on it. 

Celestial dreams

I’m really falling in love with appliqué. At least, the fusible kind. I’m thinking of trying my hand at needle turn but with this bone spur in my left hand, handwork can be painful. But I manage to sew down two bindings ok, so maybe might not be so bad.

Getting warm here now so I will be escaping more and more into my sewing room where I have a/c that’s under my control. Heat and I don’t mix very well. Some people hibernate in the winter I do in the summer. So hopefully a lot of projects will get finished. 

Pfaff just came out with 3 new great looking machines so the sewing machine lust is running rampant. Not that I need or can afford another machine at this point. But a girl can dream. 

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Talent Vs. Mechanical Skill and Quilting thru the years

Sometimes at shows, magazines and online I've seen these quilts of wonder. And amazed at the talent and creativity I see in them, knowing I could never produce anything like that. I could probably teach someone to do it. Or figure out a way to do it. And sometimes it just a matter of patience and time. But some people are naturally talented artists and it shows thru in their work. In their sense of design and putting things together. Or their free motioning skills. A person who can draw is going to be a lot more talented at it then someone who can't. And you will find a lot of the popular quilter celebs  have art backgrounds not necessary home economics backgrounds as you would think. Especially today's younger quilters as sewing isn't taught in school anymore.

A lot of us older quilters who went to high school pre 1985 probably took sewing in school whether we wanted to or not. We learned the technical skills for making clothing, for the most part and the only people that quilted were our grandmothers. But then we also had the woman's movement and more women were encourage to start business of any sort and the the "women's"  related industries really took off quilting and sewing included. So more younger women were encouraged to follow their interests instead of becoming housewives, secretaries and the like. Not of course there is anything at all wrong with that. We just had more options. So the quilting stars were born. And a good thing for a lot of us what I call the technical quilters. We have learned more to quilt by trial and error and learning skills, then by natural talents. I can't draw, paint, draw a straight line and as much as I wish I could, I can't. Same way I can't sing but does that stop me from listening to music? Of course not. I'm not saying we haven't become talented by doing what we've learned. Of course we have. I make stuff today I would have never dreamed of back when I started or wouldn't have even attempted. Honestly these days I might not try a particular quilt cos I simply lack the funds for the fabrics needed not so much cos the technique or difficulty. I'm a very frugal quilter these days. But now I can judge how much effort something is going to take and I pick projects I can do in certain amounts of time. I do some of my own designs but use other people's artwork in the form of embroidery designs, quilting patterns, stippling patterns and the like.

But the main point of this rambling post is to say THAT'S OK. Just like I can't digitize a machine embroidery design, I can put them together nicely. I can't design fabric but I can take what's out them and match and mix and come up with something original. So if you ever get down on yourself cos you don't feel you can do something or attempt something. Think about what you have done and in this hobby you never stop growing as it's every changing. And don't get down if you aren't producing work that everyone is oh and awing over. If you had fun doing it that's all that counts.

I was looking at well know quilt celeb who can free motion like I've never seen. And all free hand, she creates patterns but still does it free hand. She has an art background and can sketch and draw. She's got that special wire between her brain and hands. I use to follow her blog but then stopped as I will probably never be able to do that and started following people who did things I could. It did make me feel much better about my quilting and not aspiring to be something I'm not. And I'm very ok with that now.I can spend time working on projects that I feel will have a pretty good outcome. And that give me joy working on. Not spending time trying to beat some unbeatable standard I set for myself cos someone can do it.

To Thine Own Shelf be True.

And the most exciting news today I won a Contest!

From Katie, from Katie's Quilting Corner. A quilting celeb in the making

Katie's Quilting Corner 

Check her blog and podcast out they are fun!

 

Wandering down the Meandering path

I've spent the last weekend studying up on free motion quilting. I could never do this before so didn't bother much with it. Not sure why but it seemed I was under the impression that all these greatly quilted quilts have been done free hand and I couldn't be more wrong. It would seem that quilt stencils and quilt paper stencils are big business. There are several ways to go about this. You can print the design out onto newsprint as I did. I was using free designs and just free motioning around the designs. I do need  more practice that's for sure. 

You can use stencils and mark you quilt top with chalk using a pounce with loose chalk.  Or you can use a number of pencils, with markings that can be removed in a variety of ways. Or if you are artistic can do it free hand. I'm not. I meandering fairly well. But still struggling to get my stitches the same length. I've notice that faster I go within reason it's easier to accomplish this. So to me that is the key to successful free motioning. And not all machines are created equal in this area. I can free motion fairly well on my $200 used Bernina 1630, However on my once new Janome 10001 at quite a bit more money I can't. To be fair to the Janome if I had it embedded in a table and had a flat surface it might be better.

An update on my last post. A dear sweet person sent me some Aurifil to try. OMG. What great thread. My machine the Janome thought it had died and gone to heaven. That thread went through that machine like butter. I think the difference being it's only 2 ply whereas the thread it's compared to is 3 ply and it seems like string compared to it. There is a nice explanation from Pat Sloane, quilting gruru and she also has a weekly podcast,  check her out:

Pat Sloane 


There is a lot of other useful information there also. I rather enjoy her podcast as she has a lot of different people in the quilting and sewing fields and you are exposed to a lot of different things.

Below are some links to the things I mentioned in the beginning to help you with free motion quilting. 

Linda Matthews free quilting patterns 
free patterns 
Golden Threads
Forest Quilting free patterns

I'm not promoting or advertising these sites, just some I've found to be helpful or to me, have interesting products. 

Don't be afraid to try new things. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and this is so true in any kind of crafting or artwork. 

Still working out camera issues so hope to have more pictures in the future.

And remember all those that wander, not all are lost

 ttfn

Thread thread and more thread

When I started sewing back in the stone age. Thread was thread. Coats and Clark's, that's what you used for everything. And it did an ok job for the most part. When I was employed by Joann's for that year of hell I was in charge of the thread. Boy things have changed.

I primary quilt and do machine embroidery now. So I now have 100% cotton thread for quilting and rayon thread for embroidery. Before you were never suppose to use polyester thread on a cotton quilt. But now things are changing. I think the quilter's got jealous of all the beautiful colors we had for machine embroidery. Just kidding guys.And are now using rayon and poly embroidery thread to quilt with.  But now there are even different kinds of quilting cotton thread. We have Aurilfil which is supposed to be the best and of course is the most expensive. And Mettler and another brand that I love the cotton thread from Connecting Threads

Connecting Threads

Their thread is very reasonably priced and they are wonderful people to deal with. You don't have to break the bank to buy quilting supplies. I'm not advertising for any one company just talking about where I get stuff from and why. I also like the Mettler cotton. But I think the connecting threads ones are the best so far especially for the price.

I like Maderia thread for embroidery and I have a great place to get it from right in my backyard

Allstitch Embroidery Supplies

They have the best prices on Maderia I've found. And I get it in a day. I brought the Maderia thread chest but as they run out I restock them with the bigger size.

I have thread of every color, size, brand I'm a thread hoarder then I've said it. It has fascinated me since I was a child. The rainbow of colors. I don't believe one can ever have too much thread.

Quote for the day:
This is how I like to think of threads sewn with love in a quilt

“No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread”  Robert Burton

 

Song of the day, we are expecting a snow storm tomorrow and this has been in my head since I saw Argo (great flick by the way, thank you hubby for making me watch it)

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Right along

Well got a lot done on Splash

layout

finished block

appliqued down

appliqued down

This has been a very fun project to work on so far. I could see myself doing another one if different colors. I've been thinking of all kinds of interesting ways to quilt this when I get to take stage.

When the levee Breaks that kinda has to do with waves

Well I've been rather busy this week. I learn how to free motion quilt. I'm almost finished my tree wall hanging and got a good start on Splash. This reverse applique thing is pretty cool how it comes together. She has another pattern here:

Celtic pattern

That I might have to look into. I also got addicted to Pintrest this week. There is so much quilting I want to do. But have to realize as I can't do them all. So have to really pick the projects I can realistically work on and complete. Some of the work some of these quilters do is nothing short of amazing. And maybe in different circumstances I could do something like that also. But as much as I like quilting not sure if I could do it all day or not.

Janome is coming out with a new combo embroidery machine tomorrow I'm rather looking forward to seeing it. I'm a sucker for machines and technology. Although happy with what I currently have in my stable of machines it's always nice to look at the new shiny ones.  Particularly the Pfaff Creative Performance. I've always wondered what Pfaff IDT is all about. Now that it's no longer patented everyone has a version of it. From what I hear you can do quilting without a walking foot.

My current fabric addiction is the Northcott Stonehenge collection. My dream is to have two yards of every single one. I don't remember when I've loved a line of fabric more. I'm currently using it for Splash, which was designed with that fabric in mind. And I brought a charm pack and a jellyroll. And found 6 ones on sale for a must have it now price. It's rather expensive so I hunt the internet for sales of it.

Stonehenge

There are several different sublines of it. They are all so beautiful. I missed it when it first came out.  I tend to like this kind of fabric more so then prints, like the Moda marbles. And of course all the batik fabrics. Well I've chatted enough.

Quotes for the day:

A quilt will warm your body and comfort your soul.  ~Author Unknown
  
Quilters never grow old, they just go to pieces.  ~Author Unknown

In a Stevie kind of mood today

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