Democracy Defended

Last year, for my birthday, I was given the Christmas 2024 edition of Quilter's World magazine, A Very Merry Quilted Christmas. As I flipped through the pages, I found the pattern for "Noel Surrounded" by Lyn Brown. The green colour appealed to me because it wasn't the traditional "Christmas green" and I thought I might make it work for one of my great nephews, whose favourite colour is green. When it came to purchasing the fabric, however, I switched out the red for a dark purple, not wanting it to appear to be a Christmas quilt. I also decided that I wanted my quilt slightly smaller, so I left off the final inch and a half of the border.

The quilt block used, Burgoyne Surrounded, is a rather large and complex block, It finishes at 22½" square and is composed of 97 pieces! Yes, that's per block. But there were only 6 blocks and the designer simplified the process by using strip piecing techniques. 

Unfortunately, that did leave me with a lot of already-stitched together leftover strips. If I were to do it over again (and I have no intention of it), I would have completed the last few units from individual pieces rather than strip pieces, which would have left me with more usable fabric leftovers, rather than already stitched-together strips. However, I do appreciate the fact that trying to write that into a pattern would have made it overly and unnecessarily complex. 
I have to admit that I really love my fabric choices. The green and the deep purple together just really "zing". 
As I was working on the quilt, I was trying to come up with a name for it. Certainly, "Noel Surrounded" was not appropriate for a quilt that wasn't a Christmas quilt. The designer included this blurb with the pattern: 

Hmm, as a Canadian, I tended to side with the British. Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth, and officially, King Charles III is still our head of state. And we were able to peacefully evolve into our own sovereign nation without bloodshed. And without severing ties with the British crown. And my feelings were further complicated by the fact that the current president of the United States is threatening our sovereignty, and has made himself - essentially - our enemy. No, I definitely did not want to celebrate the United States of America by calling this quilt "Burgoyne Surrounded". Not to mention the fact that that name would mean nothing to the recipient. Or the vast majority of anyone other than the astute student of the history of the USA. 
So, I was still looking for a name for this quilt when I started seeing photos and videos of the protests against ICE's (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) heavy-handed tactics in US cities, like Portland. And of course, I realized that there were many US citizens who were not happy with the decisions and directives coming from the White House. And so the "No Kings" movement was born, protesting the fact that the president, instead of being the servant of the people, was acting like a dictatorial monarch. And because of an inflatable frog costume worn at a peaceful protest in Portland, the frog became an icon of "the resistance". And more and more frogs appeared. And I found myself siding with the frogs, and the unicorns, and dinosaurs... Because we all recognize that democracy is at stake. 

And as I looked at the green in this quilt top, I realized it was the same green as the frogs (or very similar), and I decided to quilt it with frogs in solidarity with the protesters. 

(The design is Pond Lily, and I just used it recently in Swan Lake Surprise.)
Initially, I thought about calling the quilt Portland Defended. But then I realized it was much broader than that and decided on Democracy Defended. And I believe that that is very consistent with the original meaning behind this quilt block. - freedom from autocratic, dictatorial control. And makes a lot more sense to the non-historian than "Burgoyne Surrounded".
I have to admit that I was thinking of Betsy Ross as I was working on this quilt. But what difference will a quilt make? What difference will all of the protests make? Will they make a difference? Or is it too late in this world's history? Allow me to explain. 
I believe that the United States is portrayed in Bible prophecy in the book of Revelation:

 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
Revelation 13:11

If you want to know the explanation for why and how I believe this beast is the United States of America, this video gives a good overview:

The question is: Will the United States recover from this, or is this the beginning of the final downward slide that leads to the enforcement of the Mark of the Beast? I guess only time will tell. But the Bible gives us this admonition: 

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man (Jesus) will come at an hour when you do not expect him. 

Matthew 24:44 NIV

Celtic Dragons

 

Earlier this year, my daughter, grandson and I visited a large fabric store in the city. Damian and I went in search of dragons, and found them in the form of a 6-dragon panel, with Celtic motifs at the top and bottom of the panel.

I purchased the panel, and later decided to continue the Celtic idea, using the Celtic Twist quilt block that I had used in the Tales of Ireland quilt. Since the individual dragon panels were 10" square, I decided to reduce the size of the quilt block to match. 

It made for some relatively small pieces. And it is a rather challenging quilt block. Nevertheless, I made 14 of them. Originally, I had thought to incorporate the Celtic motifs from the panel into the quilt top, but didn't see any way to make that work. I may later make use them in a pillowcase to coordinate with the quilt. 
Damian and I chose colours from the dragons to use in the quilt blocks. He said that he wanted the quilt to be slightly larger than Dancing Snowflakes, that I made him for last Christmas.I used my Quilt Pro 6 design software to plan the layout and calculate yardage. (I purchased my software, but you can now download it for free because they're not making it any more), and included a narrow border of each fabric. I ordered what I was hoping were the best colours online, but when they arrived, the red was more pinkish - definitely not a dragon red. Fortunately, I also had an orange-red in my stash, so we substituted it for the pinkish one.
When we went to the close-out sale at our local quilt shop, we found a thick black minky with an arrow design. They didn't have any of the regular black minky left, or not enough, and I figured since dinosaurs are rather medieval and arrows were used during medieval times, shooting them from slit windows in castle walls, the arrow minky was appropriate. 
The original plan was for this to be a joint project - me making the blocks, and Damian stitching the blocks together. But recently, when I thought about making it for him for Christmas, I didn't want to leave him out if he still wanted to be part of the project. He didn't. So, I went ahead and made it up. 
I've been going to the local Lutheran church for their weekly craft/sew day, and made up the first block there. I like to have one block made, especially for complex blocks, to see how it looks and use it for reference when I make up the remaining blocks. But since it is rather complex, and I tend to get sidetracked by the socialization (I make more mistakes there than I do at home), I decided to finish the quilt top at home, rather than at the church. 
One night when I was having trouble sleeping, I got up and finished the binding on a couple of quilts, and added the first two borders to this one. 

When I got up the following morning, and went downstairs, I was rather startled to discover that one of the links in the quilt top appeared to be glowing. It was an almost perfect square of light from a window in another room, highlighting that one link. 
I chose Irish Swirls as the most Celtic-looking pantograph I own and quilted it with a variegated thread that featured the colours in the quilt top. 

I used a black Glide 60 in the bobbin, so I was close to finishing the quilting before the bobbin ran out. After I changed the bobbin, the top thread broke, so I rethreaded it, did a machine tie-off and started quilting again. And it seemed to be quilting fine without any issues until I was further down the row. That's when it started skipping large areas, so I knew that there was a bobbin issue. Somehow the bobbin thread had come out of the slot/guide (whatever you call it), so I rethreaded it, did another tie-off back before the stitching had started skipping and finished the quilting without further problems. 
While I was attaching the binding, I noticed some of the stitching in the quilting was really loose, so I figured I would have to re-stitch that area. But when I pulled on the loose stitching, the thread kept coming and coming. The entire length of quilting between those two tie-offs had come loose. And it had looked like perfect good quilting. But there apparently was no bobbin thead. What I later concluded was that the bobbin thread must have come loose with that thread break and the upper thread was rather rough-textured, compared to Glide, and that the extra thick minky was holding it in place until I started handling the quilt during binding. 
But now I was left in a quandary as to how I was going to replace all of that quilting. My Red Snappers would not snap over the thickness of the quilt in order to load it back onto the longarm. I don't own corsage pins (except for a few in some corsages that I still have around) and my regular pins were not heavy duty enough for the job. So, I ended up doing the job on my Janome sewing machine. There are a few zigs and zags where they don't belong, but it's really not noticeable unless you're looking for it. 
Finished, thankfully, and ready to gift on Christmas day. 

Home on the Farm

 

As I stated in Amazing Grace, I started about 4 different quilts before I settled on the one for that occasion. This was one of the quilts I started. Yet, when I posted a picture of the first block, the Barbara Frietchie star, to Facebook, one of my great nieces said that she loved it.

Well, generally, family takes precedence and, since I had already given both her brothers their quilts, I decided it was time for her to get hers. 

It's interesting that the purpose for which I originally purchase fabric is not necessarily what it becomes, or for whom. this batch of fabric went through a couple of different recipients before it became my niece's. I had purchased the dark green, brown and yellow fabric, but when I looked at the block pattern again, I realized that I needed another colour. I found this red in my stash that was left over from my Canada 150 quilt, and felt that it worked quite well. This is the first quilt I planned on using the farm panel in, but the unit clerk's impending retirement made Farm Friendship a higher priority. Personally, I prefer this one over that one. But I designed them both myself. 

I fiddled with the brown fabric to make all of the pieces with the farms right side up. It worked in the Barbara Frietchie blocks, but not in the flying geese. I used the no-waste method and I couldn't figure out if it was even possible to end up with all of the farms oriented in the same direction. So, it didn't happen. As my mother used to say, "A blind man will never see it." And I used the easy eight method for the HSTs in the Barbara Frietchie blocks. Originally, I was going to use part blocks of the Barbara Frietchie star to surroud the panel and not use the flying geese, but then felt this might look better. And I'm pleased with the results. 

The quilt is packed up now and hopefully, I will get it in the mail tomorrow. 

Licorice Allsorts

Isn't this a cheerful quilt? I rank it amongst my favourites. I purchased the Colourworks Concepts jelly roll from Sew Sisters during their Stuff Your Stocking event a couple of years ago. Then I had to determine what to do with it. I googled to find jelly roll quilt patterns and was disappointed to discover that there really aren't that many options. For layer cakes, there are patterns a-plenty, but for jelly rolls, the selection is limited. And I definitely did not want to do a Jelly Roll Race. I have never particularly liked stripes and I find the Jelly Roll Race boring. 

One of the patterns I did find was Sorbet, and this pattern really appealed to me: much more interesting and challenging than the Jelly Roll Race and not stripes. However, my quilt was definitely not sorbet colours, so I searched for a name for a sweet treat that would suit this quilt. 

The filled circles reminds me of stuffed olives, but that didn't fit what I was looking for. However, it also reminded me of Licorice Allsorts.

In my opinion, licorice allsorts have got to be one of the worst excuses for candy out there. While they are quite fascinating in their varied appearance, they are disgusting to eat. And that's because I really don't like black licorice, and I couldn't get away with just eating the coloured candy from around the licorice. Besides, it all was contaminated with the flavour of licorice. However, with the black and multi-colours in this quilt, I decided this was the most appropriate name. 

And I chose a pantograph named Licorice with which to quilt it. 

It's a fun and fairly east design by Patricia Ritter and Tracey Russell from Urban Elementz. 

Mystery, of course, had to help.

I used some colourful thread from my stash. I don't remember which one I used in the top and which one in the bobbin. I think I used the one on the left in the top. I had purchased it back when I was renting time on a longarm and most of the label was missing. But I was able to determine that it was a Wonderfil thread from the cone and what remained on the label. Searching for the colour code on the Wonderfil website, I found that this is actually a 30 weight rayon, named Mirage. This is probably at least the third quilt I have used this on, and I don't remember having any problems with it, which is great, considering my problems with other variegated threads. The thread on the left is Wonderfil Fabulux in Ocean Breeze.

Here's the back of the quilt. Isn't this just such fun fabric? 

This quilt is for my great nephew, Thompson, but I don't intend to mail it to him until I have quilts made for his sister, Katie, and brother, Declan. I don't want anyone feeling left out.