Awaken - February Kitchen Table Quilt

Awaken - February's kitchen table quilt -

is finished and already in use.

(photographed here on our back yard patio table)

This is the Tula Pink backing.

It has been in the stash for several years

and I'm happy that it finally found its intended quilt.

The top measured 63" x 63" after quilting.

Another look at the back

and our very khaki grass.

Binding - Brandon Mably's wrinkle

I'm so happy to finally have found a way to use it.

Quilted with unevenly spaced lines in Glide Aquamarine thread

across each pair of rectangles using the pink inserts 

to guide the lines' back and forth direction 

without quilting over any of inserts.

Wonderful texture!

* * *

March's kitchen table quilt has been in process

for a while now what with cutting and making the strip sets

so they could be sub-cut and grouped by fours.

Bonheur (which means 'happiness')

promises to be another fun one.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.”

Andy Stanley

Awaken - The Flimsy

The blocks for Awaken have been sewn together.

The top measures 64" x 64"

The top and back were pin basted

before I took a photo of the flimsy

because the indoor light was not great

and the weather outdoors was worse.

My goal is to get Awaken

(February's kitchen table quilt)

quilted and finished this week.

For those who have asked if I'm saving the 1974 newspaper

from the back of the string pieced diamond star blocks -

you can see in this photo the largest pieces

that I've been able to save.

Otherwise . . .

. . . this is what happens when they're removed.

 However, I did photograph the back of each block

before any of the papers were removed.

It's slow going but I am making progress.

Quiltdivajulie

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“There is a voice that doesn’t use words.  Listen.”

Rumi

About Those Kitchen Table Quilts

These are the squares for my February kitchen table quilt.

And these are the blocks made from those squares.

(Amy Ellis's Day Hike pattern 

was used for block construction -

but this layout is my own)

The 49 blocks are now clipped 

to be webbed together into a 63" x 63" top.

(hopefully this weekend)

And happily, I found some fairly outrageous 

Tula Pink yardage in the stash for the back.

I've named February's table quilt AWAKEN.

Squares cut from yardage for the top of Farmland - September's table quilt

So WHY am I making a series of twelve

64" x 64" (ish) quilts to be used on our kitchen table?

There are several reasons . . . 

USING the stash ranks very, very high on the list.

That means working with only the fabrics in the stash

and not running out or going online to buy more.

That limitation encourages me to work more creatively

and generates quilts that are much more interesting.

Final fabric selections for the top of Trick or Treat - October's table quilt

Our current table quilt has been in near-continuous use 

for the past two years and it is past time 

for it to be retired from daily use.

(it will become the quilt in our grand-dog's kennel)

I enjoy making utility quilts (see definition in sidebar)

and I can't think of a more utilitarian function

than a quilt serving as a table cover.

(the top of our table is dark slate - 

cold, hard, and noisy under the dishes)

A different quilt for each month will 

definitely make the table more inviting.

Final fabric selection for the top (center section) of Sweater Weather - November's table quilt

When I started thinking about this project late last summer,

I realized it was the perfect way to reinvigorate several

 projects/fabric pulls in my design studio closet.

Some of them retained their original design plan

but their layout has been adjusted 

to fit the 64-ish" square plan.

Others were fabric pulls waiting for their purpose to be defined -

and after culling through my books and other resources,

I've chosen low-stress multi-directional designs that allow 

the colors and the fabrics to be the focus.

Still other months were an excuse to pull semi-seasonal colors

from the stash and decide how best to showcase them.

(Farmland, Trick or Treat, and Sweater Weather 

shown here fit this approach)

Stop border, outer border, and binding for Sweater Weather

Making utility quilts like these 

creates a variety of surfaces on which to grow

my liberated free motion quilting skill set.

(much better than boring practice sandwiches)

Short lengths of yardage to make a scrappy back for Sweater Weather

I make these quilts just like I make my lap quilts --

with a properly pieced top, Hobbs 80/20 batting, 

backing, free motion quilting, and binding.

At this point, they are all cut out

and ready to be sewn . . . 

one month at a time.

* * *

For those who are concerned about stains,

we have used a quilt on our kitchen table 

for nearly 10 years now and even with occasional spills, 

none of those quilts have been permanently damaged.

(a quick spray of spot treating spray and

a trip through the washer/dryer has worked every time)

* * *

I've created a tabbed page here on the blog

for this series of quilts -

click here if you'd like to check it out.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the thing you can't hear, and not bothering.”

A. A. Milne