Making Waves

Two more classes - DONE!!!  There's one more this morning and then I get the afternoon to deal with the aftermath. The studio looks like a hurricane went through it. And I spent an hour this morning pulling samples for the applique class so all that will have to be put back as well.

There's some good news to this - I did find a tub of half quilted items. Seriously??  How hard would it be to sit down and finish up a couple of those? Thank goodness because I'm going to need some fast finishes this year. It would appear that I'm working, but not finishing a whole lot......yet.

I found table runners and quilts and wall hangings - basted and half quilted. That's sad. So we'll get those done. I may have to have a marathon day (OK - days) for quilting.

I received a very nice e-mail about book buying last night. I don't have time to share that story today (I'm NOT anti-book buying, however that's not how I made myself appear yesterday!) so that'll be a topic for later this week.

When I got home yesterday, I felt like sewing - actually trying to tidy up a wee bit. So I decided to work on the mystery quilt that was Friday's class. Not allowed to let those class projects slide - they MUST be done. Since I was able to find more of that red, and there were bits left over from the initial quilt cutting, I decided to make my quilt larger. Of course!  But the original size was 43" by 61" or something like that. That's too small for my liking. Anyway - I managed to scrape together enough to make 6 more blocks of the churn dash.

In case you've forgotten, here are the two blocks that made up the mystery quilt. A framed block and a churn dash.

A corner of the mystery quilt

The original pattern called for 12 churn dash blocks. Now I have 18 of them. Notice what's beside my design wall?? Yep - the design wall is in the bathroom. And yes - that's Mickey on the other side!

There's a huge space in that bathroom and I might as well use it. This is my portable design wall - the one I carry to class. Well, I've started to carry it to class where appropriate. It was on the studio wall but had to be removed when the new bookcase went in. Now I want to make two more portable ones. They'll work great in that bathroom. I don't think there's room for three panels, but two for sure.

Portable design wall in the bathroom

Never mind that I had to stand in the tub to take the picture!


I went back to my quilt reference library (that should be a hint about where my book buying priorities are) to try and find the pattern for those scrap quilt blocks that I'm making.

Remember those????

Scrap blocks

I found the book by Sharyn Craig (published 1991)  that I was looking for, however, it's not the pattern for these blocks.

Designing New Traditions in Quilts by Sharyn Craig

The book is mostly "what ifs" for designing quilts. Sharyn calls this pattern Ocean Waves. But to me - that's not Ocean Waves. And my block has four half square triangles, this one has three.

The pattern in the book is called Ocean Waves

Pulled out Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Quilt Blocks and looked back at the references to Ocean Waves. Hmmm - many, many different versions of Ocean Waves.

If you see the block that I've highlighted below - that's the block that I'm working on and in Barbara's book, this is called Ocean Waves.

Ocean Wave block identified in Barbara Brackman's Block Enclyclopedia

I made an Ocean Wave quilt years ago - it doesn't look like this at all. Back to my quilt reference library and pulled out a book on Ocean Waves. Totally different look!!

Ocean Waves book by Fons and Porter

Shoot - I looked this up days ago and I remember checking the copyright date. I want to say that it's 1989. Yes, confirmed - 1989 - I didn't even start to quilt until 9 years later.  Let's just say that I have a lot of OLDER quilt books and I LOVE them all. Have a look at the photo of Fons and Porter on the back cover. Don't they look young!!!!!  Of course - we all did back then.

Photo of Fons and Porter on the back cover of their book

Then I had to find the Ocean Waves quilt that I made. I have to say that took a wee bit of time. I searched through the quilts piled on the bedroom floor and the ones on the banister. Couldn't find it. Hmm - it has to be here somewhere.

Then the next morning, I went back to the banister and it was right there. This is not the first quilt that I made, but it was close. The fabric were bought at Fabricland because I didn't know that quilt stores existed. I was going to make a Baby Block quilt for M. She was two and moving to a queen size bed. No middle ground at our house - go big or go home! The year was 1998.

Anyway after making a couple of placemat sized "quilts" and lots of leftover blocks, that was it for me. I switched to the Ocean Waves pattern. Not sure why I picked this pattern. I must have seen the book in a store and thought it would work with my three fabrics. God forbid we waste anything - even then.

Two Tumbling Block (Baby Block) placemats

Here's the quilt. It's queen size and I'm not sure that she ever used it on the bed. Who in their right mind would make a quilt like this for a two year old?

One quarter of the Ocean Waves quilt

I had Carol Cunningham quilt it. At that time, she was one of very few long arm quilters around here. Now we're a dime a dozen and wait times have been drastically reduced.

She stitched in the ditch on all the small half square triangles (as per my request) and my intention was to hand quilt something in the white squares. I ended up machine quilting the centers. 

Center squares were machine quilted by me

Is there a label on that quilt? Yes, as a matter of fact there is a label. It was stitched on (including the whole story) in 2018. Oh dear! But it's on!

When I was cleaning up a while back, I came across some books that very heavily influenced my quilting when I first started. I have them sitting here by the computer to share with you one day. Hopefully, I can do that soon. But I have so much show and tell from recent classes, it's going to take a while to get through it all.

On that note, I'm out of here. Got to load the car and I'm off to class.

Have a super day!!!!!


Ciao!!