Inspiration by osmosis

We made a trip to our storage unit yesterday for some of our rugs and I came across one of my vintage quilts. I have a number of other quilts in storage, but this is the only one I was able to liberate yesterday.

This quilt came from my grandmother's house. My mom thinks it was made by one of my great-aunts on my dad's side. We remember a number of the fabrics in the quilt from various things around mamaw's house, such as one of her kitchen aprons. My mom has a baby quilt of mine that's made from many of these same fabrics and has the same backing. That would date this quilt (and me) in the early 1970's.

It's beginning to feel a little like fall around here, so I placed this folded quilt across the foot of the bed last night and used it as an extra blanket when I got in bed. The entire quilt is very random, but this area made me think of a string quilt. I wanted to sleep in today, but I woke up early with an idea to do a simple, wonky diamond quilt inspired by these blocks. Inspiration by osmosis.

In the sewing room, I had stacked my Good Folks in two stacks, warm and cool, and they jumped out at me as perfect for this project. I spent most of my morning turning these strips...

into this. I asked Sean for his opinion and he said "They aren't straight," so now I'm worried that rather than looking wonky, they just look like I didn't know what I was doing.

I've got some sewn together and I love it. I love it so much that I've already decided to hand quilt it and I think the quilting will emphasize the wonkiness even more (see the chalk lines above). I just hope the wonky looks intentional and not accidental. What do you think?

Play ball!

I'm not much of a baseball fan. I have respect for the game and it's fans, but I can't watch baseball. It moves too slowly for me. However, you can't live in Fort Worth right now and be unaware of the fact that our Texas Rangers are going to the World Series. (I'm told this is a pretty big deal?!)

So, now seems like a good time to share a quilt I made last month for my cousin and his wife's new baby.

My cousin is a graphic designer for the Texas Rangers. He's a third-generation die-hard baseball fan and they decorated the baby's nursery with a baseball theme. The Rangers provided all of their front office staff with tickets to all the World Series games. He and guest (who might not be his wife, she's like 36 weeks pregnant) even get to attend the away games on the Ranger's dime (airfare and hotel included.) The home games are like going to work for him since he works at the stadium. Exciting stuff for a baseball fan though.

This quilt isn't made with fabric I would normally choose, but I like that it's sports and novelty without looking too, you know... like the licensing aisle at Joann. The print is Alexander Henry and the solid is Kona Stone. I pitched these wonky squares together quickly and they really seem to like it.

The label is my favorite part. I think it turned out cute.

So, that's probably all the baseball you'll ever get out of me. But, I do hope the Rangers do well and score lots of touchdowns in their first World Series game tonight.

Just kidding. I know they score goals, not touchdowns.  ;-)