Holly's Hollyhocks

Holly's Hollyhocks 

by Holly Matucheski

This is one of my mom's wall quilts.  Visiting my Dad this weekend to clear out more of my mom's sewing room, I found it, and hung it on the wall -- July being the season for Hollyhocks.  I am also lamenting the fact that my own crop of Hollyhocks did not grow this year.  Sigh!

 To my knowledge, my mom did not keep track of or document her quilts, so in the coming months, I'm going to start featuring some of her quilts here.

Detail Shot of Hollyhocks

I want to say that she designed this herself, but I don't know that for sure.  I have a vague recollection that she worked this up on her own ...  I have not seen a pattern for it.  There is no label on the back of this quilt. 

Donations of fabric, kits, and patterns this week will go to:

• Wisconsin Warmers
• Linus Project
• Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother
  
• Lakeside Quilt Guild Charity Quilts
• Lakeside Quilt Guild
  

 

Progress on The Morningstar Quilt - Borders

This Morningstar Quilt has been stalled out for a couple of years now. Even during the pandemic, I couldn't bring myself to work on the background fills of the applique blocks to finish them off.  So I set that aside in favor of the outer borders, hoping inspiration might strike as to a solution for those forever backgrounds.

 

This is how I worked it up in You Doodle Pro, where I can draw on a photo, to get an idea of how the stitching might look.  I never intended to use a green thread -- It just showed up better here.

Here it is stitched out.  One pass in the purple, and a second pass with the tangerine thread.   The thread colors were meant to be subtle.   You can see I was using the black "beads" in the border as landmarks for the larger loops.

 It's probably easier to see from the back, with those interlocking loops.  The second smaller set of loops was fund to do -- The larger loops were a bit too big -- I'd get lost moving from 1 black bead to one on the other side. But I made it work.

Here are the undulating waves in the black border, stitched out with red thread.

Next Steps:

I could move on to the binding, but I still need to finish the backgrounds on the corner applique blocks. 

Quilt Sandwiches and 1000 Safety Pins

 Remember this one from last summer?

Day at the Lake - pin-basted and ready for quilting.

First task is to outline all the appliqued characters so that they pop out.

Next, it will be time for quilting the backgrounds. 

I can't wait to see this one done and hanging on the wall.

I used Quilters Dream Wool Batting this time.

 

This one should look familiar: The Starlight / Winter Blues Quilt #2

Pin-basted and ready for quilting.  

I plan to do another diamond grid on this one.

 

Spend the holiday weekend enjoying the new air conditioning, and sandwiching 4 quilts for pin basting.

I have quite a stack ready to be quilted now! 

 Here's a detail shot of the lovely blues 

and the snowflake batik backing.

 

 

 

The Heart of Winter Quilt

with a Hobbs 80/20 cotton batt. 

 

Here it is from the back --  blue spring cherry trees.

 

Holly's Christmas Quilt -- all pin-basted and ready for quilting.

I am looking for the right Holly motif to do the freemotion quilting.

A wool batt -- because this quilt will be out and in use around Christmas time. 

I think it's the Maywood Christmas series.

In case you were interested in my method for pin-basting quilt sandwiches:

From the Deli : Board Basting a Quilt Sandwch Revisited

My helper, Sophie-the-Newfie, fresh from the groomer.

Actually she stayed out of the way, and slept most of the day to escape the heat.