Partial Blocks Done on the New York Beauty Variation Quilt

All 36 of the corners are complete, and 12 of the ray sections.  The Venice lace arrived from cheeptrims.com, so I laid it atop one of the arcs above the rays to see what it looks like.  I have 51.5 hours in this quilt so far.  It took 8 hours to finish ten ray sections.  Maybe I can complete the remaining 24 by Saturday night.  Maybe. 

Cutting, Cutting, Cutting for New York Beauty Variation

I finished cutting all the pieces for the center of the New York Beauty Variation quilt!  I'll cut the borders when I finish sewing the main part together.  There are 684 patches in the central section of the quilt, not a whole lot, in comparison with some other quilts I've made.  But because they were irregular, it took a while to cut them all out -- 14.5 hours, to be exact.  I put together three of the curved-block arches and quit for the night.  Last picture is what I plan to use for the backing.

Starting the New York Variation Quilt

I have two partial blocks put together for the New York Beauty Variation quilt... I’ll wait ’til the Venice lace arrives (just got a notice that it has been shipped) to finish putting the blocks together, in case I want to sew the lace into the seam. Now I’ve just done a bunch of calculations to see how many of each patch I need to cut from each piece of fabric, so I can do all the cutting at once. I have 28 one-yard pieces of cream-on-cream, 25 one-yard pieces of white-on-white, and four other one-yard pieces that don’t quite fit with the rest, which I might use in the borders. 

Here are the partial blocks. There’s a little more contrast between the cream and the white than it appears here, and there will be more when I quilt it, as I will use a dark cream thread in the cream areas, and a pale silver in the white areas. I will use two layers of batting (Hobbs 80/20 against the batting, and Quilters’ Dream Wool on top), so the quilting will show up well. 

Back to the cutting table!

New Project(s): Blocks Cut

The 50 blocks are all cut apart now, and I have 196 six-inch squares, plus four that were pieced.  I'll use them for smaller squares or triangles.

While I cut the blocks, Tiger snoozed, all squished into the smaller cat bed, even though I brought the bigger one upstairs for him.  And over there on my serger chair is Teensy, sawing logs.

Starting a New Project, with Old Blocks

These blocks were given to me by my late sister-in-law; they'd been put together by her mother.  There are 50 twelve-inch blocks.

Now to decide what to do with them!

EQ8 Design -- New York Beauty Variation

I just put together an EQ8 design for the next big quilt I plan to make -- a New York Beauty variation.  It will be in tones of cream, ivory, and white TOTs (tone on tones), and will be embellished with lots of Venice lace and pearls, and possibly silk ribbon embroidery, too.  The lace will go around all those curves.  I need 36 yards.

I have quite a few other things to do first, but at least this pattern is now ready and waiting.  I have the fabric, too, including the backing -- got it at a smashing bargain from Marshall Dry Goods Co.  Here's the diagram:

Labels on 1936 Sunbonnet Sue Quilt

Saturday I finished putting all the labels on the back of the 1936 Sunbonnet Sue quilt.  The Sue blocks were made by relatives and friends in 1936 and given to my mother, Hester Maurine [Winings] Swiney.

It took the better part of two days to get them machine-embroidered and sewn onto the quilt.  I still need to steam them, maybe give it a little spray of sizing.  The wind was lifting the quilt there on the back deck as I was taking photos, and the sun is low, so some of the puffy areas look more puffy than they really are, and some of the labels don't look quite straight.  Optical illusion!  They're straight, they're straight.  😉

My sister Lura Kay used to play with these 18 Sunbonnet Sue blocks, when she was a little girl in the early 1940s.  She had few other toys.  She gave me the blocks four years ago.  I designed the Irish Chain spacer blocks in EQ8.  I wish I could show it to my mother!

Here are the labels:  first, the block; then the label that is sewn directly behind it on the back of the quilt.  The last label is the main quilt label.  There's a hanging sleeve at the top.  It will be hung, rather than used on a bed.  It's a keepsake!  Those Sunbonnet Sue blocks are 82 years old.

The quilt measures 87" x 87". I used #40 Omni thread on top, #60 Bottom Line in the bobbin, both in pale yellow. The batting is Poly Dream. There are 68.5 hours in the quilting alone.