Monday, February 17, 2014

Freedon Wright's wife and her spinning wheel, part deux

Last year was too busy- among other endeavors, I moved to Virginia.  I had to weed out the homestead, as it would not all fit in the new one.
I still had the spinning wheel that was part of the Freedom Wright household.  I did not think that it belonged in Virginia, and I (fortunately) had not got around to 'restoring' it to a working state.  It now resides at the Lewis County Historical Society.
I felt an obligation because most spinning wheels do not have this kind of provenance.  We usually cannot know who made them, or who used them.  It was a privilege to own the wheel for a time, and a privilege to put it where its provenance can be appreciated and expanded.
Remind yourself what this wheel looked like by going to the old post in 2011.

Okay, it's been a while.... Really.

Okay- it's been a while.   And if not for those pesky New Year Resolutions, I would not be back here yet.
Here is a quilt top I've worked out, along with some pics to illustrate a few of the 'tricks' I used to make it.



Seeing Stars

This looks more structurally complicated than it is.  The single block that makes up this top is a 10 1/2"x 5 1/2" rectangle with it's lower left corner quarter in a contrast.  You make the light rectangles with a dark corner, and the dark rectangles with a light corner.  Then join a dark and a light (mostly) along their un-cornered sides, and you have 10 1/2" squares.  Pinwheel four squares around a common color center, and you have a  20 1/2" star block.  When you line up the star blocks, other stars will form between them, along with diagonal rows of 4 color squares.
I worked this variation out in two sets of colors:  Dark and light green, and Purple and very light tan.  You can see that my variation does not 'line up' like the one that inspired it.  (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/husqvarnavikingquilters/photos/albums/1666048877/lightbox/161819480)  All of my Dark green rectangles have the light green corner, all my light green rectangles have the dark green corner.  Same with the other two colors- so there are four 'bricks' here-
This was constructed by cutting 5 1/2 inch wof strips.  For each set of 4 20 1/2" star blocks, you will need 4 each of 16 inch strips and 6 inch strips of all 4 colors.
Mark the center line of the 5 1/2 inch square that is 1/4 inch inside the 6 inch side of the small patches.
This is how I did them.
Then I pinned all the patches and chain sewed the 1/2 squares.
Here's how I kept the patches centered while pinning.
Make sure that all your diagonal center lines travel in the same direction!!!
You need all you blocks to have the same corner-  no mirror twins!!!

Then it's cut the diagonals, and press.  I took care pressing those bias seams.
Then I worked from my cartoon to assemble my blocks.

Now I have the quilt top's 12 blocks to serve as my cartoon.  Well, that was fun.  Except for the number of times that I twisted one of the 10 1/2 inch sub-blocks the wrong way somehow, and had to rip and resew.  It was a testament to making the same mistake over and over again.  Apparently, I practice what I know.