Three Generations Quilt

A few months ago, my 87-year-old grandma sent me five curved-pinwheel quilt blocks.

This adorable woman hand-pieced the blocks in the late 60s and early 70s, but never got around to finishing the quilt. When she heard I had taken up quilting, she wondered if I might want to put these blocks to use.

I did. Not only that, but I roped my mom into the project as well. Because, really, how cool will it be to have a quilt that was worked on by three generations of women, over the course of 40 or 50 years? I might even have to think of some small task I can give my 3-year-old on this quilt. Then we could call it the Four Generations Quilt.

I think the blocks are cute—I haven't seen this curved pinwheel design around much. Grams also sent the cardboard templates she originally used and all of her leftover fabric. Some of the prints she sent look like 30s reproductions, and some are just plain dated, but some of them are actually very retro cool. Like the ones used in this block, which is hands-down my favorite of the bunch.

The only remaining issue was how to use these flower-like blocks in an overall quilt design. So I scanned one of the blocks and played around with it a bit before coming up with the above design. Along with my grandma's five pinwheel blocks, my mom will make three, and I'm making four. That will give us a total of 12 pinwheel blocks. Then I'll make the alternating blocks: A print square (not necessarily blue) in a white frame, and set all the blocks on point.

Something about having the blocks on point seemed to enhance the movement of the whole thing. When I look at this design, I see my daughter blowing on a pinwheel out in the backyard on a summer day. Or maybe I picture a farmhouse windmill lazily turning in the breeze, while hens fuss around nearby. Fitting, I think, for a quilt that had its genesis with a woman who was born and raised on a farm almost 88 years ago.

My Single Girl

Oh, how I love Denyse Schmidt's Single Girl. I've been wanting to make this quilt for ages. I literally wanted to make it before I even knew how to sew. In fact, DS quilts are what originally made me want to learn how to sew. Single Girl is everything I love about modern quilting: Bold, geometric, scrappy, yet minimalistic. I'm going to employ a phrase graphic designers love to use to describe their work: It pops.

And now I'm finally making one of my own. But like most things in my life, there's no part-way on this. I couldn't just piece together a little baby Single Girl. I had to go and make it king-size.

Well, if I'm gonna make this dramatic design that I've been admiring for so long, I might as well do it up right. Right? This puppy's going on my own bed. That means it has to be king-size. That means I have to make twenty of the Single Girl rings. Twenty.

And since I can't spend more than an hour or two a day sewing, it's been sloooowwwww going. It took me at least three weeks just to draw out and cut all the pieces. Now, for the past two months, I've been piecing the quarter-blocks. Piecing in the background feels like it's taking forever.

But it's getting there. Just five more of the outer background pieces, and it's done. I can't wait to piece together the quarter rings and see the complete top. And my thoughts have now turned to the back. A plan for that is definitely coming together in my head.

Here I Am

To blog or not to blog. I've been debating it for a while.

On paper, I think I'd make an excellent quilt blogger. I love modern quilting—I spend almost every spare minute sewing. I'm a graphic designer, so modern quilting really appeals to my design sensibilities, and I think that qualifies me to write about such things. So what's been holding me back? I may spend every spare minute sewing, but there aren't nearly enough of those spare minutes as it is. My little monkeys are ages 3 and 1, which means I don't have enough hours in the day. If I start a blog, that's even less time spent quilting, since I'll have to devote at least a little of the day to blogging about quilting.

But now I'm taking the plunge. I made up my mind when I came across this: The Process Pledge. And it kind of inspired me, because I've always thought if I did eventually start a blog, the process is exactly what I would like to blog about. I want to start doing a lot more quilts of my own design, rather than just working from somebody else's pattern. Maybe blogging my efforts will help me develop that by forcing me to think more consciously about design decisions. And if nothing else, even if nobody ever reads it but me, this blog will serve as a detailed journal of what I've made, how I made it, and (hopefully) my improvement over time.

Just bear with me if I let it go a few days (ahem) between posts. My life often doesn't go as planned, but I suppose that's part of what's fun about a blog. So, off we go.