I’m Back!

Hello everyone! Bet you didn’t expect to see me again, not after almost two year’s absence from Persnickety Quilts. I’m as surprised as you are. Once I lost my blogging mojo, I didn’t expect to get it back.

During my hiatus, I lost interest in quilting too. Weird, huh, after 35 years. Worse yet, I didn’t even care that my passion had waned. 

I hadn’t stopped creating all together--just changed my focus to a decades old project of collecting, restoring, and archiving family photos. While I was at it, I rejoined ancestry.com and developed several new branches of our family tree.

A few friends have encouraged me to revive my blog and even offered to help. Since photos are my biggest hurdle, Linda will be taking pictures and Sherry will focus more on official quilt portraits. I'm so lucky to have their help and support!

Most of all, I want to assuage any concerns about my health. I’m still here, not necessarily "kicking" but relieved to say my Multiple Sclerosis seems to have slowed its progression. As long as my left hand works, I can use the computer and reconnect with you!

It’s good to be back!

The Churn Dash Swap

If you're visiting from Barb Vedder's blog, Fun With Barb, welcome! Here's the link to our Churn Dash collaboration. We had so much fun swapping blocks and creating "sister" quilts. Enjoy!

The Process Pledge

Have you noticed this logo cropping up on your favorite quilt blogs lately? The link leads to an excellent post about changing the focus of our blogs to include the process of quilt making rather than simply sharing the final product. When you read the post, read the comments as well. They're enlightening.

You won't see much about process on my blog because most of the quilts I share were finished years ago. It's hard to recreate the design process for readers, once sketches, notes, and memories are gone. But if my quilts have stories, I will tell them.


This Square in a Square quilt, for example, is typical of what I was making in the early 1990’s ~ traditional pattern, controlled color palette, loads of hand quilting.

Roberta Horton‘s Mood Indigo fabrics inspired this quilt. I'd sent away for 4” sample squares of the collection, reasoning that variety was more important to me than quantity. Horton's plaid and striped fabrics were unique for the time and I simply wanted to document them in a quilt.

I'd read Horton‘s book, Plaids and Stripes: The Use of Directional Fabric in Quilts,  where she suggests cutting some of your fabric “casually off grain” to mimic the look of antique quilts, and add the interest your eye seeks when using nothing but linear fabrics. I laugh now when I see my timid attempts to heed her advice.

This quilt was a good candidate for hand quilting, since the fabric is luxuriously soft and easy to needle. I used Mountain Mist Cotton batting, which requires quilting as closely as 1/4" to 1/2" intervals. It has a flat loft and puckers with washing. If you don't mind doing all that stitching, you're rewarded with a quilt that looks antique.

People sometimes ask, especially about my small quilts, "What are you going to do with that now that it's finished?" "Own it, look at it, love it," I'm always tempted to reply. In this case, I truly made it just to chronicle a beautiful collection of fabrics. The joy was in the making. That was enough.

Horton’s Got The Blues

30" square
machine pieced, hand quilted
© Diane Burdin, 1993

Fun with Barb and...

Have you seen Barb Vedder's new blog yet? Fun with Barb and Mary follows the exploits of two quilters who maintain their long-distance friendship after one of them moves from the East Coast to the Midwest.

Wait a minute... why does that sound familiar? Barb and I are longtime quilt friends too and have had plenty of fun together. When her move from Chicago to the East Coast made us long-distance friends, believe me, the fun didn't stop!

Diane and Barb, 2002

Before she moved, Barb and I collaborated on a Churn Dash block swap based on this pattern from the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine. We used Civil Was reproduction fabrics and shirting prints, making enough blocks for two large quilts with no two blocks alike.

The blocks finish at 5" and my quilt measures 64" x 85". It was machine quilted by Robyn Saunders of Batavia, Illinois.

Click to enlarge

 Link to Barb’s quilt HERE. 

Odds and Ends

Wow, Thanks for all the love on my last post. I didn't anticipate getting compliments on my smile as well as my quilt! I heard from old friends and total strangers from as far away as France! Well, guess who's grinning even wider now? How gratifying it is to connect with others who enjoy quilmaking as much as I do.

Several people wondered if Milly Churbuck’s hand-dyed fabrics were still available. I'm sorry to say she is no longer dyeing cotton fabric. Following the trend for wool applique, rug hooking, and needle punch, she now works exclusively with wool. She is also semi-retired and only vending at a limited number of quilt shows. 

Regarding the Hourglass blocks in my August 14 post, some readers wondered how I pieced those tiny blocks with such accuracy. Here's how:



I use this technique to construct Hourglass blocks. Normally, I’d start with squares cut 1 ¼” larger than my desired finished size, but when working with small, fiddly pieces, I add an additional"fudge factor" of ¼” to ½”.

After sewing the block, I trim it down to size (in this case, 2").use a seam ripper to pick out a few stitches where the seams intersect. This frees the seam allowance so you can press it in opposite directions, eliminating bulk.

Press the block gently with steam.


Finally, trim each block precisely to 2” (1 ½” finished) using a bias square ruler and rotary cutter. As you pin blocks into rows, match carefully where blocks intersect. I probably alternated the direction in which I pressed seam allowances for each row. However, if you want to eliminate more bulk, press seam allowances open. If doing so, shorten the stitch length on your sewing machine to make seams more secure.

Hope this clears things up.

Wandaful Quilts!

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Have you ever visited my friend Wanda at Exuberant Color? If you have, you’ve been treated to daily posts of color-drenched inspiration, like the photo above (Wanda's little quilt, photographed in my lilies). If you haven’t, today’s the day to visit and enter her anniversary giveaway. She’s offering six fabulous prizes and you get to choose your favorite!

Wanda has been quilting for 50 years! In that time, she’s owned her own quilt shop and managed others. She’s sold everything from sewing machines to her original fiber art. She’s transformed her cozy home into a studio with sewing spaces and fabric collections even professional quilters would envy. After thirty years of teaching beginners and advanced quilters, she can explain how to do almost anything related to quiltmaking.

Wanda has a penchant for batiks and machine embroidery, gardening, photography, and computers. She absolutely loves color and is “driven to create with it.” Fortunately for us, she’s driven to share all this through her blog, Exuberant Color. Thank you, Wanda, for your generous spirit and daily doses of inspiration!

Little Faithy

I've won a blog giveaway! Lucy at Quilting with the Past made a twin to her own doll, Little Faithy, and sent her to me all the way from the Netherlands. Apparently, the pattern for the doll included a poem describing Faithy's origins, so I wrote a poem to thank Lucy for her generous gift.

The Face of Faithy

As Lucy stitched this prairie doll for me,

From bits of cloth stained brown, as if by age,

Her thimbled finger, needle, and fine thread

Shaped more than playthings from an olden day.

A flowered frock of unassuming form,

An apron fashioned out of muslin plain,

The bonnet sewn from madder calico,

Did more than clothe a humble faceless frame.

For with each stitch her expert fingers took,

A bond between two faceless women grew.

A friendship formed from stuffing, cloth and thread,

A seaming of two lives through friendship new.

So, when I look upon this prairie doll,

Imbued with love and generosity,

Instead of visage blank and features plain,

It’s Lucy’s face that gazes back at me!

© Diane Burdin, 2008

Thank you again, Lucy, for drawing my name in your blog raffle. I love Little Faithy and think she'll be happy in my home.

Perfect From The Start

Remember the awkwardness of learning a new skill as a child, like struggling with clumsy fingers to tie a shoelace, or write in flowing cursive, or use both hands to play a simple tune on the piano? For years, I was convinced I had a klutz gene, when what I really lacked was the patience to practice. Why couldn't I just be perfect from the start?

As a novice quilter, I often felt “all thumbs.” In fact, the first time I tried a thimble, it refused to stay on my finger, let alone push the needle through all three layers of quilt. And what about those impossibly tiny, even stitches I’d read about—twelve to the inch! REALLY? Perhaps this wasn't the hobby for me, because I still wanted to be perfect from the start. 

Now, I'm a seasoned quilt maker and my thimble feels like a second skin. I've made many quilts over the years, all with small, even stitches. The handcraft has brought me nothing but joy. Unfortunately, Multiple Sclerosis has sapped the energy, strength and dexterity I need to continue quilting.

My advice to anyone coping with an impairment like MS is to continue doing what you’re passionate about in any way you can. Stay creative! Since I can’t sew with needle and thread any more, I’m going to try stitching words and pictures together, to chronicle the quilts I've made and collected through the years.

While I’m at it, I might as well give blogging a try. It feels a bit awkward, writing for an audience that may not even exist. So, if you stumble across Persnickety Quilts, why not leave a comment and let me know you're out there? I'd love to hear from you. Together, we can make this perfect from the start!