Patchwork of the Crosses

The holidays gave me a little time to catch up on my reading, so I was able to read the fourth book in the Green Knowe series by Lucy Boston, "A Stranger At Green Knowe."  It was very different from the other books in the series with a very unusual start.

In this book, the Chinese refugee boy from the last book, Ping, returns to Green Knowe to stay with Mrs. Oldknow. During a visit to a zoo in London prior to his arrival, he was fascinated by the giant gorilla, Hanno... as a refugee living in an orphanage, he seemed to develop a special sad bond with the caged animal.  When Hanno escaped from the zoo and made his way to Green Knowe, Ping secretly befriended him.  Obviously, England doesn't have a lot of gorilla hangouts, so the thickets and overgrown gardens at Green Knowe were an obvious hiding place for the gorilla and the story develops around Ping's efforts to keep the gorilla free while trying to keep him fed.  The early chapters of the book detail Hanno's life as a young gorilla in Africa and the trauma and cruelty of his capture.  It's a very odd and different start from the rest of the books, but is handled very compassionately. 

The book struck me as a very personal statement and almost a comparison by Lucy Boston about the tragedy of life in a zoo for animals and life in an orphanage for children. I found it to be a great book - fun in some ways, very thought provoking, and sad, as well.

The book was awarded the Carnegie Medal in 1961, and  has been considered by some as the greatest animal story in English children's literature.                                                                                                                                     

Have any of you been reading this series of books?  I'm able to find the entire series in my library, but the books are also available at a reasonable price on Amazon.  Let me know how you like them!

Click here to check out our Pinterest board with pictures of blocks from our customers.

Click here if you need to order additional paper piecing supplies from our website.

History can "cover you"!

Little Quilts has a FabricMaker Fabric Printing System which can print in rich, vibrant colors on good quality fabric with washable inks that retain their colors. Amanda brought in several postcards that she wanted printed to use in a quilt for her mother. The postcards are from the 1915 Panama Exposition in San Diego. She used a template from the EQ7 program. This is the awesome quilt that she made, which I am sure her mother loved. Way to go Amanda!

You never know what will show or tell...on our Second Saturday event

Mary Ann made the cutest penguin dish towels for her niece

 

Janice finished her Christmas presents quilt just in time for the holiday! She did all the embroidery of the tags on her machine.

 

To top it all off, Janice even had time to finish knitting her Christmas sweater!

Sue brought in a beautiful wool appliqué table topper that she’s had fun working on.

 

Applique Fantastic!

Jeanette stop by to show Wanda her Baltimore album style quilt that she just finished. Jeanette was in Wanda’s year long Baltimore Album class some time ago and then finished the many blocks on her own. .

 She made the quilt for this antique bed so it has a really large border so it would hang nicely over the side of the bed. This quilt is stunning! Great job, Jeanette

Patchwork of the Crosses

Did you get caught up on your blocks during the holiday season?  Hope you're ready for a new one!

 Now that the new year is here, I know you're up for a challenge!  Today's block will require careful cutting and piecing. Cut four of the striped fabric on an angle and, then, cut four of them on the reverse angle.  If you have a Fussy Cut Finder, it will be helpful in making sure you find the correct placement.  I used a grease pencil to mark the angle on my acrylic template - it's a great way to make sure you're lining up all the stripes on the correct angle.  Be careful when gluing the fabric to the template papers...you don't want to stretch the stripe.

These are the fabrics I used for the block.  I also used a neutral fabric from my stash.  This is such a beautiful stripe and there are lots of options for using it.  Be creative!

Send me pictures of your variation and I'll post them on the Pinterest Board so others can be inspired.

If you need additional paper piecing supplies, visit our website here.

Peace and Unity Quilt

One of our favorite block of the month participants, Jackie, just finished Peace and Unity for a gift for a friend who's a "history buff". What a nice gift.... as the blocks of the quilt came with pertinent historical stories of the final year of the Civil War. Jackie also participates in our Lucy Boston packets of the month. Many of her Lucy Boston blocks can be seen on our Pinterest posts. Check the website for details of it and our other BOM's at www.littlequilts.com.

Patchwork of the Crosses

Happy New Year from all of us here at Little Quilts

Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses posts will resume next week.

Happy New Year..what are you planning for 2015?

Besides coming to visit Little Quilts...... If your planning to complete a UFO, here is your inspiration!

Check this out!

Mary, one of our Autoship customers from Hammond, Illinois, participated in our “Bouquets for a New Day” Block-of-the-Month  last year.  The beautiful “Bouquets For A New Day” pattern was designed by Sue Garmen.  

Mary finished her quilt in January, 2014, entered it in the 34th annual Decatur Quilters Guild Quilt Fest in Illinois, and won a first place ribbon.  Way to go, Mary! 

Inspiration for your next project....

Judy’s grandson designed his own quilt for Judy to make – he even helped with the fabric selection!  We think he and Judy make a great team!   

 Judy also finished the Project Tote class here at Little Quilts and this is here finished tote bag.  It’s a heavy-duty bag made from upholstery fabric and wool with a beautiful wool appliqué block in the center. 

 

The inside of the tote has as many pockets as you want to hold all your project supplies.  If you’d like a bag of your own, watch for the class on our class schedule for next year coming out next week, or order the kit or the pattern only from our website.

 

Wool Works Show and Tell - part 2

Wool Works is one of the most popular clubs at Little Quilts. It’s a great place to gather to work your wool projects…rug hooking, spinning, wool appliqué, penny rugs or anything else done with wool. There’s always lots of fun show and tell, too. We thought you might enjoy seeing what some of the group is working on.

Love this great patriotic quilt!  Sometimes we get Show & Tell not wool related – we love to see that, too! 

 

 A special rug for a new grandbaby.  And what about the backdrop. I am a sucker for a scrap quilt.  

 

Wool Works Monthly Class Show and Tell part 1

Wool Works is one of the most popular clubs at Little Quilts.  It’s a great place to gather to work your wool projects…rug hooking, spinning, wool appliqué, penny rugs or anything else done with wool.  There’s always lots of fun show and tell, too.  We thought you might enjoy seeing what some of the group is working on.

Millie is making great progress on her newest rug hooking project.

 

 Anne does a lot of braided rugs and was sharing some of her newest creations.  Isn’t the turkey just the cutest thing? Zoom in.

 

 

Patchwork of the Crosses

Merry Christmas from all of us here at Little Quilts!  

Patchwork of the Crosses blog posts will resume in two weeks - enjoy today with your family. 

OH MY Dear...!

Dorothy brought in her Dear Jane quilt that she recently finished. She came in to select the perfect binding fabric. Not sure you can see the scallop on the border. The quilt is stunning. We’ll be sending the picture to Brenda Papadakis, the designer of the “Dear Jane” quilt. She loves to see the many variations of this infamous quilt that continues to attract quilt makers around the world! Dorothy said that by the time she finished it she wanted to rename it the D--n Jane Quilt!

   

Patchwork of the Crosses

Another beautiful block to work on.  Playing with fabric is so much fun!  

These are the fabrics I used for this block.  There are so many possibilities with this fabric...be sure to send me pictures of your beautiful blocks so I can post them on our Pinterest Board for everyone to enjoy and get inspiration from!

Go to our website if you need to reorder supplies.

Tote Inspired

Diana was taking Wanda C.’s Project Tote class that was a two session class, these past two weeks. She came to the second class with the tote finished!. Diana added stitchery to both sides of the tote even though she only needed one side with a wool stitchery block. She said Wanda’s original design and directions were so well written, she went home after the first class and finished the tote! Wanda C. teaches the class and facilitates many of our Wednesday Workshops; not to be confused with our Wanda H. who teaches the Baltimore Album classes and designs our Saturday Sampler program. We’re thankful that we have the best teachers at Little Quilts!

 

Scrap Quilt Extraordinaire

Carol Ann was in Muriel’s “Scraps of Life” Class this past Fall and made this quilt for a special niece. The Christmas fabrics all came from her stash, and she sashed it with a neat stripe fabric. The quilt turned out to be queen size, almost king size. What a special gift!

 

Jo Morton Little Women Club - coming soon - Preview!

A parade of new projects from Jo Morton that will part of the Jo’s Little Women Club for 2015.  Getting excited about these!  Jo’s Little Women Club patterns are available only to club members.  Go to our website to join.

 

Strips Become Beautiful Quilts....

Joyce brought in her finished quilt from a Laundry Basket Quilts book, Friendship Strips and Scraps. She added lots of additional details. See the lady bugs on the close-up ! Great job. 

 

 

 Joyce's house quilt using Edyta’s strip method is done too!

Book available at Little Quilts!

Patchwork of the Crosses

I've got a large selection of POTC blocks done by now and I was anxious to see how they were going to look in a quilt, so I just had to start stitching some of them together. I thought you might like to see my progress!  I keep laying my blocks out, and, then, as I make new ones I keep rearranging.  But isn't that the fun of the creative process?

The big hold up for me (as you can see!) is stitching the background fabric to all the blocks.  Each block has twenty-four honeycombs which seems very doable, but then there's an equal number of background blocks and they just seem to slow down the progress.  I hope you've been diligent with adding the backgrounds as you go to keep that part of the project from becoming tedious.

Once the backgrounds are on, it's a simple matter to add them to the quilt.  I'm finding that making the little connector squares is very quick and easy and stitching the blocks together using the little sashing squares is also very quick.  As the quilt gets bigger it may be a little cumbersome, but right now it seems to go very quickly.

I've decided to begin setting my blocks four across and five down - that way I'll have a usable size quilt, but, I can easily add more blocks all around if I decide to make it bigger.  Not having to make that decision up front is one of the great advantages of English Paper Piecing!  If you've been following along since the beginning, you should have sixteen or seventeen blocks completed - almost enough to finish a twenty-block version.

I think I need to schedule another road trip - I seem to make the most progress on my blocks when I'm riding in the car.  I love the portability of English Paper Piecing!

Send pictures of your progress and I'll post them on our Pinterest Board.

If you need more paper piecing supplies, check out our website here.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

This was one of the most unusual quilts we saw at Houston.  It’s actually one quilt, but, depending which angle you look from you see different faces.  Looking at the quilt from the left you see Jackie Onassis.  Looking at the quilt straight on shows Oprah.  Looking from the right you will see Mother Theresa.  Very different and fun to see!

 

 

 

 

Star Light, Star Bright

Looking for a quick and easy Christmas idea?  We loved this star idea made from yardsticks.  If you don’t have enough yardsticks at home, we have them with the Little Quilts logo on them!

You will not believe your eyes!

Teacher of our Embroidery classes, Elisabeth Frolet just finished Wanda’s year-long Baltimore Album class and this is the beautiful result.  Elisabeth designed her own border for the quilt.  She will use a wool batting and plans to hand quilt it.  Stunning!

 

Elisabeth’s sister was visiting from France and we were so excited to meet her and see her beautiful first quilt.  What a great beginner project!

 

 

Patchwork of the Crosses

Time for another block.  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are ready to get back to work!

This block is made with a great border print from French General by Moda Fabrics and a coordinating red print.

Study the block carefully...you will need to cut the inner corner honeycombs with the template points going down the center of the tan strip.  The outer corners are cut with the template points going down the side of the tan stripe - cut four and then cut four reverse.
Have fun with this block!  Send pictures of your completed blocks to littlequilts@mindspring.com.
Check out our Pinterest Board to all the beautiful blocks created by other Lucy Boston addicts!

Go to our website if you need to order more supplies.