As I flung this Dreamcatcher at Dusk on my bed today morning, the sun streamed in from the windows, creating its own patterns and textures on the quilt…and I fell in love with it again!
Wouldn’t you agree it is lovely in the morning sun too?
More Insanity recorded!
How I have enjoyed piecing this quilt, originally made by Salinda Rupp in the 1860s! Salinda’s quilt is not all perfect and symmetrical like other quilts of that era! Whimsical blocks and use of whatever scraps she had in hand make this such a lovable creation.
So, here comes Row 9 in my series of posts on my version of Salinda’s quilt, which became popularly known as the Nearly Insane Quilt. The blocks are all set on point, with 7 and 6 blocks in the alternating rows.
The blocks are 6″ square and, except for a few, foundation paper pieced by me. I drafted all the patterns for FPP on the free Quilt Assistant software, based on patterns in Liz Lois’s book, which contains only line drawings of the finished blocks.
Most of the fabric used is Summer Breeze 3, with a fat quarter bundle of matching solids by Moda Fabrics, and the Dutch Garden 2 Collection by Boundless Fabric. I also used a couple FQs in blues and greens plus a jelly roll of yellows I had in my stash.
Number of pieces: 29
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Technique: Foundation paper pieced (FPP)
Number of pieces: 41
Level of Difficulty: Another easy one. Looking at it now, I wish I had used fussy cut flowers for the other two cornerstones in the centre too!
Technique: Foundation paper pieced
Number of pieces: 72
Difficulty Level: Easy! Squares in squares and flying geese become really pretty, with sharp points and also simple to piece when you use foundation paper to piece them! The centre pinwheel is made with regular piecing.
Technique: Foundation paper-piecing and machine -piecing
Number of pieces: 49
Level of Difficulty: I think Salinda used up all her scraps to piece this one! Probably one of the last ones she pieced.
Technique: Foundation paper-pieced.
Number of pieces: 49
Level of Difficulty: Easy, but so pretty! This was one of the first blocks I pieced!
Technique: Foundation paper pieced.
Number of pieces: 48
Level of Difficulty: intermediate, with lots of points to match, unless you do FPP, like I did. This is one of the blocks that makes Salines’s quilt so special! What went on in her mind? Did she decide to just use up all the extra HSTs she had at hand to sew the centre?
Technique: Foundation paper pieced
Nearly Insane Quilt Block 59
Number of pieces: 36
Difficulty Level: Easy. I made the centre 4-patch first and then built the block around it. The corner triangles were foundation paper pieced.
Technique: Machine-piecing and foundation paper-piecing.
Here are the links to the previous seven rows!
Row 1 ( Blocks 1 to 7)
Row 2 (Blocks 8 to 13)
Row 3 (Blocks 14 to 20, with a couple missing)
Row 4 (Blocks 21 to 26)
Row 5 (Blocks 27 to 33)
Row 6 (Blocks 34 to 39)
Row 7 (Blocks 40 to 46)
Row 8 (Blocks 47 to 52)
Breaking News! The Foundation Paper-Piecing Patterns for the blocks of the Salinda Rupp Nearly Insane Quilt are now available on my store!
Begun in 2012 as a Block-of-the-month by Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches and finished in 2021, this quilt taught me almost all I know about quilting!
Last year, my Just Takes 2 Quilt (pattern by Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches) finally got quilted, nearly ten years after I began it!
Tina Katwal of The Square Inch did a fabulous job and the quilting is nothing short of exquisite! Here is a gallery of some of my favourite blocks! I included some pictures of the back; zoom in to see the quilting.
The colours so remind me of the monsoon evenings at home in India, with the red of the sunset playing hide and seek with the charcoal grey, water-laden clouds! The original, incidentally, is in red and white. Here is the full quilt!
Such a sense of achievement finishing an UFO! What have you been doing-creating more UFOs or finishing up the projects in hand?
If you are as entranced by tiny piecing and antique quilts as I am, you have got to have seen the Salinda Rupp quilt! I have been brave enough to attempt to recreate the quilt and am sharing my version here!
The blocks are all done and the quilt is now being quilted. However, after an absence of several months, I decided to update the record of the blocks. So here comes Row 8 in my series of posts on my Nearly Insane Quilt, based on a 19th century quilt by Salinda Rupp... The blocks are all set on point, with 7 and 6 blocks in the alternating rows.
The blocks are 6″ square and except for a few, foundation paper pieced by me. I drafted all the patterns for FPP on the free Quilt Assistant software, based on patterns in Liz Lois’s book, which contains only line drawings of the finished blocks.
Most of the fabric used is Summer Breeze 3 (with a fat quarter bundle of matching solids) by Moda Fabrics, and the Dutch Garden 2 Collection by Boundless Fabric. I also used a couple FQs in blues and greens plus a jelly roll of yellows I had in my stash.
Number of pieces: 36
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Technique: Foundation paper pieced (FPP)
Number of pieces: 29
Level of Difficulty: Another easy one. Doesn’t all the fussy cutting make it pretty?
Technique: Foundation paper pieced with handle of the basket appliqued.
Number of pieces: 108
Difficulty Level: One of the more difficult blocks to piece, especially as the borders have pieced rectangles instead of squares.
Technique: Foundation paper-piecing
Number of pieces: 29
Level of Difficulty: One of the more difficult ones, but was not as complicated as I made it! First I cut the diamonds in the wrong direction and then I joined one of the yellow oblong pieces wrong. And then all those points…
Technique: English paper-pieced. This block would be impossible to piece otherwise.
Number of pieces: 37
Level of Difficulty: Easy, but so pretty!
Technique: Foundation paper pieced the centre strips and English paper pieced the stars.
Number of pieces: 30
Level of Difficulty: Easy! Salinda was also trying to use her leftover scraps, just like me. Makes the block look busy, but…
Technique: Foundation paper pieced
And here are the links to the previous seven rows!
Row 1 ( Blocks 1 to 7)
Row 2 (Blocks 8 to 13)
Row 3 (Blocks 14 to 20, with a couple missing)
Row 4 (Blocks 21 to 26)
Row 5 (Blocks 27 to 33)
Row 6 (Blocks 34 to 39)
Row 7 (Block 40 to 46)
Breaking News! The Foundation Paper-Piecing Patterns for the blocks of the Salinda Rupp Nearly Insane Quilt are now available on my store!
A miniature silk quilt completed in 2018, for Andy Brunhammer & Jim Smith’s Hope Project.*
The beautiful cream colored silks were a gift from Tina Katwal of The Square Inch, Chennai!
Ready to hang…
*The Story of the Hope Project:
I quote Jim:
A couple of years ago a Facebook connection was making Cranes quilt blocks, and I learned that he was making 1,000 Crane Blocks. I asked him about his idea and why did he feel inclined to make the 1,000 Cranes.
I had read about the young Japanese Hiroshima victim, Sadako Sasaki and her challenge to herself about attempting to fold 1,000 Origami Cranes. The tale spins in different directions whether she survived her goal before she passed away from complications attributed to the nuclear explosion and sickness…
I then asked Andy if he was willing to, between quilt projects, to possibly create Crane paper-pieced blocks from leftover scraps. I told him that I had an idea of designing and creating, once we reached 1,000 Cranes, a possible series of Cranes Quilt panels that we could donate to a children’s hospital.
Andy agreed. I created a pattern. At the time we were asked by a friend of ours, Melissa Helms, to design a quilt for the 25th Anniversary for a children’s cancer society...
And so the Hope Project was born, which I joined in.
The Hope Project was premiered at the UUC Octagon Art Center in Clearwater, Florida in January this year. Five of the 40 odd quilts made by Jim and Andy were also recently shown at Houston 2019. They eventually hope to donate their collection to a Pediatric Cancer facility/ organization/ hospital…
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