Hopeful Homemaker

This little mini quilt was a delight to make.  When Treehouse Textiles offered a free pattern, I jumped in, so here is my Treehouse stitching sampler!  The pattern is a great mix of improv and pattern, giving the maker lots of opportunity to make an original piece.

First off, I chose low volume scraps, a few pre-made half square triangles, and one favorite square of Liberty tana lawn to create the background.  Next I selected a few Liberty prints for the flowers and started on the bouquet.  I particularly liked making those cute flowers, using some favorite green scraps for stems.  Every piece in this project holds memories of other projects I’ve worked on.  That’s the joy of sewing with scraps.  You get all these happy memories in a new project!

This Treehouse stitching sampler also represents some firsts for me.  I had never embroidered on a piece of fabric for English paper piecing before, but those hexagons were begging for flowers on them.  The tiny beehive is a remnant of my Beehive mini quilt from years ago.

I also added some patches to this mini quilt.  “You are enough” was a gift from my sister.  The skinny strip above is a scrap from a lone star block.  I also used a pattern from my favorite embroidery artist, Yumiko Higuchi, along the side of the quilt.  I loved the motif of a teardrop made of flowers.  (It reminded me of my Through Tears She Saw More Clearly quilt.)  For the quilting, I chose big stitch style hand quilting with Perle cotton, size 8.

Finally, I finished the little beauty with a pre-made bias tape with a crochet edge to it.  I bought it years ago in a quilt shop but never used it.  I’m happy it’s found its home.  This turned into a wonderful little mixed media kind of project for me, and I loved every minute of making it.

Of course I couldn’t resist adding fresh peonies to a few photos of this sweet little quilt.  I think I need to do more sewing like this.  Just looking at it makes my fingers itch to go dig through scraps and come up with a plan!  

I hope you’re sewing something fun today!

We took a trip to the beach over the summer and had a lovely time.  And of course, I brought along some stitching.  I had wanted to make an updated version of my Prosper Quilt when I finally released the pattern .  I love this version, my Prosper in Conservatory Crafts fabrics.

These photos were taken during an early morning walk along the beach with my husband.  When we found the heart on the rock it seemed like the perfect spot to pause.

The actual sewing of this quilt top was back in 2019, and it has hung patiently in my closet ever since.  Lots of things went on pause for me in 2020, and it’s nice to be going back through them all now, trying to finish up and enjoy them.  Prosper in Conservatory is no exception.  It waited until I was brave enough to put something I cared about on my (new to me) longarm, and then it got the organic straight line quilting treatment.

Most of the fabrics here came from the first release, called Chapter 1, from Conservatory Crafts fabrics which are curated by Anna Maria Horner.  I loved the whole collection and wanted to feature them.  Three years later, these fabrics are still gorgeous and so fun to look at.  They looked so beautiful against the beautiful cliffs of Laguna Beach.

The backing is made from two colorways of the same print by Arounna Khounnoraj.  It looks blurry, but it’s just the shadow on all the shapes.  This is one of my favorite backings ever, and so rich in color.  I have yardage of the black colorway stashed, too.  It will be amazing with applique, if I can ever decide what to applique on it!  For now, we’re loving our new quilt!

A few years ago some friends and I made some Sisterhood quilt blocks to celebrate our friendship.  The clever pattern by Berene of HappySewLucky is paper pieced and so much fun.  That round of Sisterhood blocks prompted me to return to the same pattern in 2020 when I wanted to make a mini friendship quilt for my friend Pantera.  So, at last, I’m sharing a few photos of my Sisterhood mini quilts.

This first one is the most colorful one I’ve made, and it’s also my favorite.  I definitely used “louder” low volume prints in the background, as well as a better range of skin tones for the arms and heads.  Some of my favorite scraps went into this one.

Recently I shared the Courthouse Steps quilt that I made using Pantera’s gorgeous hand printed fabric .  This first Sisterhood mini quilt was made for her, and I included a few scraps of her work in it.  I wanted to send something tangible to tell her I was thinking of her in the pandemic.  This is such a great quilt block for sharing with women.

I quilted it with a small crosshatch design that looks amazing on this block.  The backing is a fun house print I’ve had for years, and I included tabs for hanging in the top corners.  Two different black and white prints won the audition for binding.

And I made a quilt label!  This is one of my worst faults as a quilter.  I rarely label my quilts, and it’s something I need to fix.  I always feel like a simple label written in sharpie is insufficient and would rather embroider one.  But the time difference between the two approaches is huge.  And that’s a discussion for another day.  Still, this one was essential.

And there you have it, my favorite of my Sisterhood mini quilts.

For record keeping, here are a few photos of my own Sisterhood mini quilt.  I love it too, for different reasons.  I love the Liberty lawn in it, and you can read the story behind it here .

For this version, I quilted in crosshatch lines once again and still love it.

I backed it in a Liberty cotton, and bound it with one of my favorite Liberty designs:  wiltshire.  That little red strip in there is my favorite.  It hangs in my laundry room with most of my other mini quilts.

And finally, here is my original test block, still just a block.  I think I’ll save this one to include in a quilt.

Happy Sewing!

Jennifer