Monday, March 1, 2021

Quilt Reveal: Oak Leaf and Reel

 

 

Hello and welcome to my blog! Today, I am participating in the Dust Off an Old Quilt Book blog hop hosted by Beaquilter.  This is my third year participating in this blog hop, and I have enjoyed it each year.

In 2019, I dusted off a fairly new book, Cultural Fusion, and added a border to an existing quilt. I haven't quilted that quilt yet.

Last year, 2020, I made a Patchwork Envelope. I still haven't added the embellishments I am planning for that quilt. In that post, I showed you my oldest book, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America, from 1935, but I didn't use it.

This year, I decided to dust off that old book and see what  I could make from that book. There lots of great choices. My favorites were pieced, but I don't have a lot of time, and thought a quick one block applique quilt would be a good choice. It could double as my small quilt of the month. I looked for a block with a relatively small number of pieces and chose the oak leaf and reel block.

The book doesn't have patterns, so I had to dust off another book, Folk Art Quilts, to get the pattern. You can see that book at the top of the post. I am expecting to get extra credit for dusting off two books for one quilt.


 

My fabric choices are shown in the first picture of this blog post. Even though it is winter and there was lots of snow on the ground, I chose an orange for the oak leaves. I chose the blues for the background to give it a modern twist. Then when I was cutting the fabric, I decided to give it another twist, and use the orange as the background and a blue for the leaves. Then I thought of using white as a background with the blue leaves. That would be the ultimate minimal modern quilt. Although I like them, I have a hard time making minimal quilts. I keep wanting to add more. So I decided against the white, and to leave the blue leaves on the orange background.


Well, it is nice, but boring.  I initially thought about adding a border. But adding a border would involve piecing, since I'd already cut the applique pieces so they would fit the fat quarter background.  It wouldn't be just four pieces to add to the border. I would have to piece the pieces to make them long enough and I'd already decided that this quilt would be applique instead of piecing.



I went to the Cave of Wonders to see what would help, and the genie threw some pieces at me that had been in the Maximum Minimal quilt. That woke up the Maximalist in me, and every day, as I walked by the table, I would add, remove, or move pieces on this piece. I didn't take pictures on this part of the process. This process took about two weeks and I have a lot of little bits that can be used on another quilt.

Then I looked at the calendar and decided I had to be done, so I used a glue stick to hold all of the pieces down.

With all these little curvy pieces, I knew that I had to free motion quilt this. The quilting holds down the applique. I haven't done any free motion quilting since my machine broke. I think it was the darning foot that broke it. It came in a kit with lots of different sewing feet and it was sturdily made but didn't have any give.  I have one that does have give and used it.  Free motion quilting is my favorite part of quilting. The only reason I have quilts that need to be quilted is that basting is my least favorite part of quilting and it has to be done first. 

I chose the dark teal for the binding and cut the pieces and sewed them together. But before I added them to the quilt, I changed my mind and decided to use the fabric that was used for the center flower.

I knew that it would be dark by the time I hand stitched this down, so I took a quick photo to prove that I had stitched the binding on the quilt.



And here is proof that I am hand stitching the binding down. I am scheduling this posting for early Monday morning, which means I can't show you a good reveal photo.


I took this photo before binding because I knew it would be the best lighting I would be able to get today.  I will replace this one with one of the bound quilt when I get a chance to get an image, so you may want to come back to see a grand reveal. This is my third year for the Dust Off An Old Book Blog Hop and my first year having a finished quilt. 


[Edited to add] Here is a quick shot I got before the wind blew the quilt away. I was able to catch it while it was still on the porch, but I will try for a better photo later. Maybe in the summer. This photo shows the colors pretty well. I've made several quilts lately with a yellow background. Each quilt has a different background and each one moved closer and closer to orange. This one definitely hopped the line to orange.

 

Thank you for visiting me during the Dust Off An Old Book Blog Hop. Thank you to Beaquilter for hosting this. Be sure to visit the other bloggers who are also participating in this hop.


Monday 3/1

Words and Stitches  

 Samelia’s Mum

High Road Quilter (that's me)

Tuesday 3/2

  Karin’s Crazy World

Lemon Tree Snippets  

Wednesday 3/3

Beaquilter

   Cynthia’s Creating Ark

  A Quilting Readers Garden

Thursday 3/4

Kathy’s Kwilts and More       

Quilting Patchwork Applique

 The Darling Dogwood

 Creatin' in the Sticks

Friday 3/5

Beaquilter (the hostess)

Quilting at the farm  

 Kathleen McMusing

 


Also linked with:

Monday Making

15 comments:

Julierose said...

I love how you added fabrics to your Oak Leaf and Reel--so pretty on that background lovely work hugs, Julierose

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

I think your final fabric choice worked out great! A great finish within the deadline.

Karrin Hurd said...

Beautiful quilt and lovely fabric choices! Thanks so much for sharing!

Carla said...

Very pretty. Great job 👏

Robin said...

What a fabulous mini quilt! It's like you went on an adventure abroad and the story of your journey became a quilt. I love everything about it - the colors, the fabric choices, the whimsy of it all, the quilting. Too fun! Thanks for sharing this journey with us all.

Anorina @SameliasMum said...

It's a beautiful quilt.

O'Quilts said...

Oh My Goodness!!! You did a brilliant and beautiful job xo

Kyle said...

You started with a old traditional applique design and transformed it into a completely different style. You may have used an old book as a jumping off point, but you created something uniquely your own.

Emily said...

Wow! I love the pieces you added to the original applique shape! Amazing!

Kathleen said...

What a fun piece and you sure did liven up that traditional block. Great job!

cspoonquilt said...

I love the way you adapted the pattern to make it your own! The fussy cutting really added a lot to the
design ! Thanks for introducing me to this blog hop. What a cool way to get some new projects and creativity going! take care, cw

JANET said...

You did such a great job on this quilt. The design is so original. And I love the colors you used. On my screen the orange is a slightly burnt orange, so it isn't so bright. It's perfect with the teal. You have a quilt to be proud of!

Kate said...

It was really interesting to see your design process on this one. The addition of the pink to the teal really added impact and interest. Congrats on a very fun finish.

Ann said...

Yellow and orange backgrounds are starting to appeal to me, too. This is so pretty. And I enjoyed watching your applique placement process. What fun to see the changes you made. Congrats on a beautiful finish so quickly.

Cynthia's Creating Ark said...

A fun project, some times a project needs a bit of extra time sitting and looking at before we srart the next step. Well done.