My version of Hazel’s Diary Quilt top is finished — all 97½ square inches of it! Take a look:

I actually finished it on Wednesday. No room or wall in my house is big enough to lay the quilt out flat so I photographed it yesterday at Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego, where I teach, because the design wall there is just tall enough to hold the quilt.

Here are some shots at home as the quilt top neared completion. I was standing on a desk to take this one:

I really appreciate how the grey border calms down the bright colors in the interior of the quilt.

Shelly Pagliai’s original design calls for a narrow white border followed by a double border of scrappy squares that finishes at 3″ and then another fairly narrow white border. I skipped the first white border and added a strip of my main focus fabric in place of the scrappy squares:

Think of how much time I saved! That wasn’t why I did it, though; I had planned to use a floral border there from the very beginning. I cut my final white border 6″ wide, thinking I might trim an inch or two off after it’s been quilted.

And speaking of being quilted . . . the quilt top and back were delivered this morning to the longarm quilter. I’m excited about being done with the top and very excited about the prospect of someone else quilting it for me!

The first piece of big news is that the center medallion is done! Take a look:

The appliqué around the outer edges of the medallion includes eight vines, 24 petals, four circles, 12 leaves around the petals, and 56 leaves along the stems. That’s 104 pieces total. That doesn’t include any of the appliquéd pieces in the center of the block — but then, who’s counting?

Here is the medallion on point, as it will be in the finished quilt:

The second piece of news is that I changed the layout. Not a huge change but a significant one. After writing a couple weeks ago about positioning the boldest block in the bottom left quadrant, a couple of my readers suggested trying it in the upper right position. I knew that wasn’t going to happen because I had auditioned that block in every possible position and was happy with its final destination. Still am. No, the change was prompted by my daughter-in-law, Jeanne Ann, who pointed out there was no blue in the upper right side of the quilt.

What I wound up doing was switching the position of the top two blocks. Here’s the “before”. . .

. . . and here’s the “after”:

(Boy, the time of day the photos were taken sure affects the colors.)

Now all four quadrants have a light blue in the background of one of the blocks. The two blocks at the top are the smallest visually in that they take up the least amount of space inside their blocks so it was important to position the remaining “heavier” blocks at the bottom.

Now take a look at the revised blocks with the center medallion in place and the setting triangle diamonds complete:

I was hoping to have the top complete by the end of July. Not going to happen, as there are mere hours left in the month. I do think I can have it done by next week, though. Now comes the big push!

I’m working on the squares that go in the setting triangles on my Hazel’s Diary Quilt. Of course I made it harder on myself by departing a bit from designer Shelly Pagliai’s design by adding a sixth on-point square (let’s just call them diamonds) in each corner block.

I assumed that if I added a sixth diamond in the center triangles, the strips would line up properly with the ones in the corners. Nope. The first strip of six diamonds was over an inch too long. Back to the drawing board. I figured that increasing the seam allowances by ⅛” would take care of the difference. My next test strip was the one on the middle right side. It turned out to be about a half-inch too short. (Yes, I will be remaking that one. The bottom center and left center strips haven’t been sewn yet; the diamonds are in place to show my fabric and color choices. I can already see a couple of changes to be made.)

Take Two for the top middle strip: I trimmed the squares to 2⅜” instead of the original 2½” and then simply took a full quarter-inch seam allowance rather than my usual scant quarter-inch. When I put my strip up in the center top of the quilt, it lined up perfectly with the strips in the corners. And only you and I know that those six diamonds are just a skosh smaller than the ones in the corners. I’ll bet if I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t even have noticed, right?

And what about those appliquéd leaves in the center medallion that I wrote about in my previous post? The good news is I am well past the midway point. The bad news is that it’s slow going. I’m just not very speedy when it comes to needleturn appliqué. By the time I get to the last leaf (#56) in the medallion, I hope to report I’ve cut my stitching time in half.

The first 14 leaves have been appliquéd on the center medallion of my version of Hazel’s Diary Quilt:

My, what a difference they make! They add motion and color to what is already a pretty lively block. Since I used a large floral for my four corner blossoms, I’m using smaller prints for the leaves so they don’t compete too much with the flowers.

I realized early on that I would have to be very careful with color placement of the leaves, all because of one particular block, Coal Miner’s Granddaughter:

This was the third block I made and at the time I was very concerned that the medium blue I had chosen was too bright. (I actually considered making a new block but I worked so hard on that appliquéd flower in the center that I was bound and determined to keep the block in my quilt!)

When it came time to lay out the eight blocks that surround the center medallion I deliberately put the bold block on the lower left side, hoping to minimize its impact:

The obvious solution would have been to put the bold block in the center medallion but I reserved that spot for my favorite block, Fair Weather. My thought was to use smaller spots of the bright blue fabric elsewhere in the quilt to balance the bold block.

Here’s the center medallion with the leaves on the remaining three sides pinned into place . . .

. . . and here it is on point surrounded by the outer eight blocks:

You’ll see a bit more of the bold blue in the setting triangles (still to come) which include 2″ finished squares set on point. So what do you think? Is my strategy working?

The center medallion in my Hazel’s Diary Quilt may not be progressing swiftly but it is progressing nicely. The four corner blossoms are in place and now I’m busily cutting out the leaves that adorn the vines. I’ve even got the first set pinned in place:

The goal here is to have the leaves look randomly scattered in terms of color but in fact I’m planning the exact placement very carefully. I’ll explain why in my next post.

Needleturning the leaves should be a very enjoyable experience because I finally have the technique down of turning the points. It took me a long time to master that swiping stroke with the needle when you get to the tip of a leaf and start down the other side. Now that I have the hang of it I’m eager to practice it.

I’m also thinking ahead to the next step: setting triangles with lots of little squares set on point. To show you what I mean, take a look at designer Shelly Pagliai’s original quilt:

I’m thinking about making a small adjustment to the setting triangles that will require even more squares on point. Let’s see if I can figure out the quilt math . . .

. . . is better than no progress at all, right?

I got the vines appliquéd onto the outer strips of the medallion on my Hazel’s Diary Quilt:

These vines are not needleturned. Instead I used a method by Suzanne Marshall I read about a few years ago in Quilters Newsletter Magazine in which fabric is pressed and basted before being cut into skinny strips. It worked really well: the bias edges of my vines were crisply pressed with no distortion at all, which made stitching them in place quite easy.

I suppose a very experienced stitcher would be able to eyeball the placement of the vines just by looking at designer Shelly Pagliai’s placement diagram (from her book A Simple Life: Quilts Inspired by the ’50s). I had to draw a section out on graph paper to make sure I had the curve of the vine just right:

My drawing was to scale so I just laid the medallion on top of the paper, lined up the design, and traced the upper edge of the vine.

Here’s an 8½” length of vine ready to be pinned into place. You can just barely see the line I drew to mark the top of the vine:

Here’s what the bias strip looks like from the back:

(The cut edge you see was trimmed after the basting stitches were put in place.)

Here’s the vine stitched into place before the basting is removed . . .

. . . and here is the finished bias strip in place, awaiting final pressing:

If you’re interested in learning more about Suzanne Marshall’s technique, look for the April/May 2016 issue of Quilters Newsletter. I also discovered a pdf file available online from americanquilter.com that includes appliqué tips and a photo page describing Suzanne Marshall’s bias strips method; it’s the sixth and last page of the pdf.

Now that my vines are in place, I have four six-petal blossoms and 72 leaves to appliqué by needleturn. Onward!

Before I show you the arrangement of my nine pieced and appliquéd blocks in Hazel’s Diary Quilt, let’s review the blocks in the order in which Shelly Pagliai introduced them in her book A Simple Life: Quilts Inspired by the ’50s (C&T Publishing/Kansas City Star Quilts, 2016).

The blocks are set on point, as they will be in the finished quilt:

Row 1 (top center): Block 1, Missouri Farm Life.

Row 2: Block 3, Canasta, and Block 4, Coal Miner’s Granddaughter.

Row 3: Block 5, Corn and Beans and Other Things; Block 6, Best.Christmas.Ever; and Block 7, Aunt Ruby’s Choice.

Row 4: Block 8, Domestic Bliss, and Block 9, Fancy Farm Girl.

Row 5 (bottom center): Block 10, Fair Weather.

Did you notice Block 2 is missing? That’s because I haven’t made it yet. The block, called Summer of ’51, is a vine of flowers and leaves around a square that will create a medallion in the center of the quilt. One of the nine pieced blocks will go in the very center of the medallion. To see Shelly’s original quilt, click here.

Shelly designed this quilt in memory of her mother, Hazel Ilene, who received a little red diary as a Christmas gift in December 1950 when she was a freshman in high school. Hazel wrote in the diary every day for almost four years, with her last entry written the night before her wedding in October 1954.

The blocks Shelly designed were inspired by Hazel’s diary entries and her life as a teenager growing up in rural Missouri during the early 1950s. For each block Shelly chose a traditional design, sometimes modifying it a bit, and added a floral appliqué in the center. Then she added a scalloped red frame around each block, appliquéd in place.

Without further ado, here is the final arrangement of my blocks:

The last block I pieced, Fair Weather, turned out to be my favorite, and that’s the one you see in the center.

There’s a lot left to do on this quilt but it’s very satisfying to be at this point!