Monday, April 28, 2014

Tribute to Flowering Dogwood - Finished!

Woot!  Woot!  I started cutting the purples for this quilt last Sunday, 8 days ago, and today it is done!!  If I hadn't spent an hour last night trying to figure (with no success, I might add) how to NOT be a "no-reply blogger", it most likely would have been done last night.

Sidenote on the "no-reply blogger" issue, it happened when I switched my profile from Blogger to Google+.  I'm NOT a happy camper, but hope to resolve it some way or another within the next day or two.  Thank you SO MUCH to Karen of sewmanyways.blogspot.com for helping me out.  If you have switched your profile to Google+, then beware that you may have inadvertently become a "lurker" on blogs where you leave a comment.  Google+ shows your comment posts as no-reply.  MOST annoying, and at present, not fixable.

Here it is yesterday before applying the binding.  I wanted to get an outside picture in the daylight that was left!


On a chair, Lake Erie in the background.  Still not much green happening here other than the luscious lawns. . . where is global warming when you need it?!


And if you thought, 'Hmm, is that writing on the bottom border?' you were right!  This happened for two reasons:  1) my menopausal brain took a hike AGAIN, and I could not for the life of me recall what I did in the top border.  I did not relish the thought of unrolling the entire quilt off the roller (I did this on my longarm), so while contemplating what to do, and investigating some of Leah Day's designs, I realized (reason #2 for the design choice) I really wanted to keep it simple.  I suddenly had an epiphany and thought to simply write on it.  It says, "flowering dogwood . . . pink . . . white"  twice across the bottom.  I really like how it turned out.


I might go back and add a French knot over the i of flowering and pink.

So, the wavy design is Cynthia's, of Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, and, as she says, easy peasy, and a grrrreat way to ease back into the feel of the longarm after 4 1/2 months' absence.

I did two bars of the wavy design, and on the third bar a loopy flower design I have used over and over again, that I originally saw on a quilt many years ago in American Patchwork & Quilting magazine.  The flower was a nod to the dogwood flowers.  Nine bars of colour lent themselves well to this repeat!  In the sashings I did a simple leaf and loopy line on some and straight-line quilting on others.  The straight lines through the grey represent the straight and dotted lines of the interstates.  This winter I bought a new blue ruler recommended by Angela Walters when I asked her what she was using in her Craftsy class "Dot to Dot Quilting."  I decided to give it a try with my new extended base I'd also bought. . . let's just say I had some serious issues with slippage.  I ended up just eyeballing the lines using the hopping foot as my guide, and I had much better success in general, except for when I'd get near the end, and the tension clips got in the way of that new extended base. . . grrrr.  Ah well, it's not going to be entered into any contests, that's for sure, although I had thought I would put it up for sale.  Since it's a first quilt-along, I might as well have a first quilt for sale.  We'll see.

A glimpse of the back.  I had it in my stash from eons ago, like a lot of the fabric in the top!  As for the binding, it, too is from forever ago.  It looks like a rock path, very à propos because of the theme of this quilt.  It reminds me of the asphalt roads, as well as the rock of the Appalachian mountains through which we travelled, where I was in awe of all the dogwood growing wild everywhere, and what started this quilt idea in the first place.  I hand-stitched the binding down on the back, as I prefer that look, and by the time I pin like a demon, and then go back and re-sew all the half-inch or so spots I miss, I could basically have it hand-sewn down!

Label, sewn as a piece of the backing as I usually do

Here are a last couple, now that it's out of the dryer and all soft and crinkly.  Sorry that the first one is indoor lighting.  With today's gale from the Wicked Witch of the East, it would be blown into Lake Erie in a flash!


Rolled up!

And one last one!  I loved making this quilt, and feel an Ode coming on to the pink and white magnolias which are bravely bursting out in frothy blooms despite the colder than average days!


Quilt Details:
Name:  Tribute to Flowering Dogwood
Size:  51 X 57.5"
Pattern:  Scrap Quilt #1 from Quilting is More Fun Than Housework's Scrap-a-Palooza
Materials:  100% cotton fabrics entirely from my stash; quilted with grey Isacord 40 wt in 0112 Leadville (my Avanté loved it, as did I)
Free-motion quilted on my Avanté longarm

Linking up with Marelize of Stitch by Stitch "Anything Goes Mondays".
Update May 2:  I linked this post to Laura of Quokka Quilts "TGIFF".  "Thank Goodness It's Finished Fridays!"

19 comments:

  1. Beautiful quilt! Found you through Anything Goes Monday - LOVE the name of your blog!! :)

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  2. I love the colors in this quilt! And it is great that all the fabric came from your stash. Gotta use these scrap quilts as a way to use up older fabric so you can buy new!

    I also like how you quilted it and the story behind it. nice job!

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  3. That's a lovely quilt. The colours are great and I can't believe how tidily you managed to quilts those words! So glad you found my blog so I could find yours as well.

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  4. love, love, love it! Amazed how quickly you finished it. I'm so impressed with your long arm ability. You use so many painting methods when making choices. I guess it's all about value, color, hue...

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  5. Hi again. About the no-reply status on google+: I've seen a few blog posts about fixing this by temporarily reverting back to Blogger, making adjustments, then going back to google+. Here's a link to one tutorial: http://www.flusterbuster.com/2013/02/are-you-no-reply-blogger.html. I hope it helps. I haven't migrated to google+ so I haven't needed to try it.

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  6. Love your quilt. And I feel your pain with the comment and no-reply issue. See my blog post with the links at http://frommycarolinahome.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/noreply_no_commnet/ on this very issue!

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  7. Replies
    1. Thank you Barbara! And thank you for helping to appropriately name the quilt! See below for my sister reminding me that it's all down to you! Dogwood #2 tribute is underway here...

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  8. Oh wow!! That was completed so fast!! How the heck can you quilt writing so neatly??!! As a non-quilter (GASP - your own sister!! Whatever went wrong THERE??!!), I can't imagine writing with thread! Well, you did write on all 3 of our quilts here, but still.....this writing is sooo perfect!
    Imagine if Barbara hadn't kindly named the trees for you! This quilt would never have come into existence. Or if it had, it would have been named "Tribute to the Beautiful Flowering Trees we saw During our Trip North, Dotted Throughout the Appalachians, Though I Have no Clue What They Are." And THAT would have been quite a mouthful! :p

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    1. OMG you crack me up. You're stealing my thunder, as I've heard from at least one reader how much they enjoy YOUR comments! What's with that? Get your own damn blog!

      And ya, I owe the precise name of the quilt to Barbara, for sure! And hint: I practised writing the words on the quilt with a disappearing ink pen (that's an idea for a post, thank you!) so I wrote them once on the quilt, and then just went for it. Not bad for winging it, I think! Did you find my initials written in with all the quilting in the bars?! You're right: I always quilt-write on my quilts.

      And yes, I changed the comment gadget settings to make it easier. This was after Cynthia's suggestion, and after it wouldn't let one blogger write a comment. Glad you noticed but oh no, does than mean you're going to write even MORE sarcastic remarks??!! I just might have to mark you as spam, LOL. Sister who Prolifically Adds Mirth to my blog. Ha.

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  9. Hey, that time I didn't have to prove I'm not a robot! Whatever you did has made it easier to comment, without all the security hassle!

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  10. Bonjour Sandra! I like how you resolved your memory problem. I also love your label incorporated on the backing. Voilà des idées très orignales qui me plaisent beaucoup!

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  11. .would have loved to read all of your blog post,but the text colour was so light on my monitor that I could only get about every fifth word. I've never had this problem before. Interesting pictures though.
    Pat F in winnipeg

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    1. I haven't had the light text colour problem, but sometimes I have noticed that the font is difficult to read. Like an exclamation mark for instance blends together to look like an I rather than a line with a dot beneath! :)

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  12. I'm impressed by the tiny quilt label sewn into the backing... I've never seen that before, and I'm glad you did a close up because my eye was drawn to the spot of colour in the photo above. I also love the name of your blog... I just had to pop in for a visit from TGIFF. I also changed to Google + and had to do the adjustments listed above to stop being a no reply blogger. But, it can revert to being no reply at any time, which I just found so frustrating that I ended up changing back to my Blogger profile.

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  13. love all the fabrics. Toured around your blog a while too. Thanks
    LeeAnna Paylor
    Not Afraid of Color!
    lapaylor.blogspot.com

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  14. I love your blog! I just found you this morning and this quilt is perfect for spring. I'm now following you on Bloglovin and I wish you all the success in the world!! Susan

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I wholeheartedly appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, as they make my day! I answer every one by personal email. :-) Unless... you are a "no-reply" blogger, which can occur for a few reasons. You can get around that by writing out your email within your comment so that I can answer you.