The Quilter on Osage Hill

It’s funny how you start out as a new quilter and it takes years to accumulate a stash. I remember when I started out seeing all my friend’s stash and thinking I would never catch up. Then a couple years later I turned around and realized I had a large stash; perhaps more than I could/would ever use. Some of this is because my tastes have changed some and I have older fabrics I don’t love as much as I did at one time. But for the most part I have many great fabrics that I love and am just waiting to find the perfect project for. I am happy to say that recently I have been shopping out of my stash for several projects and that is a good feeling!

I just finished my first all scraps quilt. I participated in the Quilty Fun Sew-along at the Fat Quarter shop and Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet; here is a link to the details of the sew-along . In the end I only had to buy a ½ yard of white fabric for my binding and a ½ yard to add to my outer border fabric. All the rest of the fabrics including background, inner border and backing all came from my stash and most were sale fabrics from Paul’s or Hancock’s of Paducah! I love the vintage looking fabrics I used for the borders and the quilt back:

Last year I finished a large quilt (90″ x 102″) that was originally a Mystery quilt in McCalls Quilting magazine. I am not a big fan of Mystery quilts, but when I saw the final quilt in the magazine I couldn’t resist making it with a friend. It must have been popular because they recently put out quilt along videos for this quilt. Almost all of the fabrics in the quilt came directly from my stash; I think I bought 3 – ¼ yards in the end because I didn’t have many light pink fabrics. I pieced my back using the last of my Alexander Henry’s Farmdale Crossing fabrics which are sprinkled throughout the quilt and some great fabrics I found on the sale table at Paul’s. Here is the finished top; ready for quilting:

Over the years I have also bought many fabrics that I thought would work for backing fabrics for future quilts at Paul’s at $3 a yard. I hate nothing more than having to buy full priced backing fabric especially when you need 7+ yards at $11+ a yard. Many times I have looked at my stack of possible backing fabrics only to find I didn’t have anything that worked. I have been lucky lately and found many of my backing fabrics are perfect for my finished tops.

Here is my Crazy as a Birddog quilt and backing fabric. I think the big flowers are perfect for the back of this quilt!

Here is my Amish with a Twist top and backing fabric. I wanted a backing fabric with a lot of color and at least a little black. I think this big floral print will work well!

Here is my Christmas quilt and backing and binding fabric I bought for $4 a yard at a quilt shop in Frankfort that was going out of business. I have always loved this red fabric with green flowers and it was perfect for this quilt!

You know these pictures of these tops and their backs mean I have a whole lot of quilting to do! I am looking forward to quilting these quilts using George. George came with some samples of polyester threads. I used the samples on the first quilt I quilted on George. I went to start my second quilt and was planning on using white King Tut thread. I was successful at changing the tension from polyester to cotton thread with little issue.

On my Bernina I always used King Tut thread to quilt. I am finding that George does not like the King Tut thread. I believe it has to do with the coating on the thread and thickness of the thread. I am having major issues with top thread breakage even when I pull the the needed by hand. I talked with Mary Bauer, another George owner, recently and she has had no luck using King Tut either. I believe the way to go is polyester thread. My friend Joni recently told me she has heard the Amish quilt with a poly/cotton quilting thread. I went to Quilted Joy in Louisville where I purchased George to see their selection of threads and pick up a couple spools to try out. In the end I got 2 spools of Glide which comes in a wide selection of colors; all solids. I also got a spool of Superior Fantastico which my friend Penny recommended. The great news is it was much cheaper than the cotton thread would have been. Both are polyester threads and I hope for much better results with George on my first quilt which I needed off-white thread for quilting. Here are the spools I got:

Since I closed last post with a picture of my puppy Reginald, I have to include a picture of my other puppy Jorgensen whom we got shortly after the last post and a picture of the 2 of them together. They are a handful and I must admit I haven’t been able to get as much piecing/quilting done as usual, but they are so much fun to have around and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. You just forget how easy old dogs are. As you can see, they are the best of friends!

I guess I better get to quilting!!!

    Sew long from the Quilter on Osage Hill!