Celtic Solstice Clue #1 Finished!

Clue #1 from Celtic Solstice is finished! Yeah! As you can see there's a little bit of everything in the mix. Some Kaffes, batiks, and odds and ends from my stash. Since most of my black and white prints had been used for an earlier Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, there was one shopping trip to get some more of those. Several of us traded fabrics to give ourselves a nice scrappy selection. Since the local Jo-Ann's did not have the Tri-Recs ruler set (despite the fact that the web site indicated three sets available at my local store), I did find Marti Michell's version of triangle in a square rulers (Wonder Triangles), and used those to make my blocks.

The next clue will post next Friday, December 6 - on St. Nicholas' Day. There's a lot of buzz on Bonnie Hunter's web page, on Facebook, and other blogs. It's not too late to jump in! To see what everyone else is doing, click here.

Celtic Solstice Begun!

Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery quilt has started with clue number one posted early today. I have made good progress this morning with approximately half of the 96 triangle in a square blocks with orange centers completed. I am committed to staying ahead of the game and completing each clue as it is posted. There are two sizes to this mystery - a king-size and a lap size. I will be making the smaller quilt.

Quilted!

Okay, I know this looks an awful lot like the last photo of this quilt, but this one is quilted!

Grandmother's Choice Revisited

Finally got around to putting the first border on Grandmother's Choice. The top is hanging upside down on the wall, but you get the idea.

Today I also was able to get the backing pieced  for Argyle Christmas. The batting is in the dryer as I type this. Normally I am not a pre-washer, but Sue Garman wrote a post once about why she always washes and dries the batting, so now I follow suit. Basically the batting gets tossed into the shortest setting available on my washing machine and is run through the cycle. No detergent is added as it isn't dirty. Then into the dryer before sandwiching the quilt. Tomorrow is scheduled for sandwiching Argyle Christmas and starting on the machine quilting.

Argyle Christmas Top Finished!

On to the next project! I have Grandmother's Choice to square up and add borders to. I have the fabrics for the borders, so maybe later today I can get to it. Last week I was able to score some nice fabrics at bargain basement prices when a local store had a fall sale. Backing fabric for $1.99 per yard and no junk fabric, either. Backing for Argyle Christmas was among the finds.

Our guild meeting this month featured Becky Wright, who styles herself as a Civil War presenter. She has a soldier's quilt that was hand pieced by a very young (18 years old) Civil War veteran who was seriously injured in a skirmish in Indiana. The young man sustained the injury within three months of mustering into the army. This is the quilt he pieced while recuperating:

It is an Ocean Wave quilt and the quality of the photo is not great because I cropped and enlarged it from another photo. The fabrics are all Civil War or pre-Civil War vintage. While the quilt was in St. Louis, Ms. Wright was able to get it appraised by an AQS certified quilt appraiser who was over the moon at the opportunity to see and evaluate the quilt. Words like "pink seaweed", "authentic indigos", and "brown madder" were tripping off her tongue nonstop.

Reap the Whirlwind

I haven't posted much this week, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy with quilty things. Our guild meeting was Friday evening and as I am Program Chair, I was busy with  getting through the meeting and taking care of our guest speaker. She was Becky Wright, Civil War Presenter. See her web site here. I had seen Becky's lecture last year at another guild in the area and thought enough of it to engage her for my guild. The house was packed Friday evening and she didn't fail to deliver despite the fact that she was suffering from a cold. She's a trooper, though, and soldiered on. Her talk centered around a Civil War era quilt that she purchased in 1977 at an estate sale. It was sewn by a wounded Civil War veteran during his long recuperation from a grisly wound.

Surprisingly Becky had never had the quilt professionally appraised. I was instrumental in making that happen. One of our guild members is a certified AQS appraiser. I was able to get in touch with her and she came to Becky's workshop this afternoon to do the appraisal. Becky was quite pleased to have the quilt authenticated by someone who really knows her stuff. The appraiser was equally thrilled to have had the opportunity to see such a rare item.

It was also suggested that Becky get in touch with Kansas City Star Publications with the idea of writing a book using the copious research she has on the soldier's quilt. Becky has 14 quilt patterns  published and another on the way, which is a nice book's worth. If this idea does come to fruition I will be the first in line to buy a copy. The two blocks above are from her pattern, "Reap the Whirlwind". I chose to do the paper-pieced miniature and the blocks finish at 5". About half the workshop participants made the full-sized version and the rest of us chose the miniature. I wanted a table topped in fall colors, so this is a bit of a departure from my usual color palette. It needs tweaking, though, and right now there is not time to mess with it. Another project consigned to the time out box for the time being.

Puzzler Block

The fourth block in the Puzzler series  consists of nine pinwheels set together in a larger nine patch configuration. These blocks are 18" square and there will be 12 when the top is completed. To refresh your memory, here are the other three:

I have also been working on the Argyle Christmas quilt. The top is nearly finished, lacking all but the final border. I needed to have the top nearly finished before selecting a border fabric, which I did today. I would have posted more photos of the process along the way, but couldn't lay my hands on my camera. This evening it just popped into my head where to find it. Does that ever happen to you?

Christmas Argyle

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Here's the very beginning of a new Christmas Quilt from "Simply Modern Christmas" by Cindy Lammon..It's "Argyle" and you can see the plaid starting with the white strips travelling from block to block.