Category: Quilts

Good Heart Quilters · Quilts

Good Heart Quilters — Summer Fun Day

Elizabeth E.2 Comments

I’m leading with this shot of a houses quilt, because this was the very first project our group, the Good Heart Quilters, had ever done together.  I designed all the houses on my QuiltPro quilt program, passed them out.  Leisa and I went shopping and bought two fabrics, and we passed them out.  The requirements: make eight houses all alike, using pieces of the two fabrics.  The trees were created by each individual quilter, as well as the setting.  When we met yesterday at Lisa’s house (a different one that the above Leisa), she was busy putting borders on everything and found this first quilt.  I was glad to see it again.

Our group has changed, shrunk, expanded and changed again, but the core members shown in this photo are me (2nd from left), Lisa (in bright green shirt) and Leisa (on far right).  JoDy is in the red-stripey shirt, Jean is next to Leisa on the right and our newest member is Carol, just moved here down from the mountains near our city.  Our first unofficial meeting was when Lisa was pregnant with her daughter when she helped us tie a quilt for my son.  Her daughter is now 15 1/2.

Here’s a slideshow of our day, with lots of finishes.  The blue quilts with all different patches is another one we did together, when we had about 12 members.  Lisa was “headed for the borders” all day long, getting things done.  I didn’t catch a photo of Carol’s finishes, but she was working on flannel rag quilts for charity–the local hospital, and you’ll see Karen working on her bargello quilt.

As usual, WordPress puts in ALL the photos from the post, so you’ll see the above two again as well.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I brought my Polaroid patches to show and one of Simone’s girls (soon-to-be-added member) asked me “What is a Polaroid?”  Gulp.  How do you explain the magic of what we saw when the picture would develop right before our eyes, rather than having to take film down to the drugstore?  These are young girls of the digital age, and the idea that it would take 5 minutes to get a photo is rather like us having to imagine hand-cranked ringer washers.  But she listened politely, and afterward had fun sorting through all the squares.

You’ll also see Lisa’s collection of EPP rose stars, and the other set of patches laid out is my Summer Treat quilt (click for the tutorial).  I hope to wrap that one up today, as well as work on my last two squares for the Far Flung Bee.  I’m still a little tired from yesterday, but it was a lovely day of quilting: our potluck was delicious (recipes are above under “Good Heart Quilters”), the quilting was fun and the company was divine!

Quilts · Something to Think About · WIP

Milestone–100 Completed Quilts

Elizabeth E.10 Comments

I want to make a hold-in-the-hand book–full of clippings and writings and photos–about my quilts, following the example of my friend Lisa, and my father’s art journals (which we children all covet) and in keeping with my desire to leave some sort of legacy behind for whoever cares to know what I do, or create. I haven’t made much progress on the journaling part, but today–since I was moving at about sludge pace–I decided to update the list.  At least I could do that.

So I was surprised to notice that I have reached a milestone of sorts.

I have made 100 quilts.

It’s a loose compilation with these caveats: include very few tops (only two large quilt tops are included and a few minis, class samples for when I taught Amish quilts in Texas–the first time we all fell in love with solids), and no sewing projects.  So the era when I was sewing up a storm for my children, dressing them in clothes of my making, yielded very few quilts of any kind.  Those were mostly the ones to go on a bed, rather than express my creativity.

That did change, right about the Amish quilt craze time, when I made Sunshine and Shadow, a classic quilt comprised of one-inch squares, which I had laid out in the corner of my bedroom.  When my then-husband pitched his shoes off into that same corner that night as he went to relax, something in me snapped a little bit.  That was my art, my creativity.  Something I had done, which stayed done.  That slight shift canted me towards a greater appreciation and reverence for the act of creating, of making quilts.  I had found my medium in which to work. (And by the way, that husband is long gone.)

The one-hundredth quilt technically isn’t completed yet.  It’s Scrappy Stars, which you all know, but I did drop it at the quilter’s and it is a WIP for sure, but I’m counting it.

Near the end of our trip to New York, we wandered over to Grand Central Station via the elaborate subway system/tunnels.  We emerged into a new tunnel that had a banner embedded in the mosaic on the wall that said: “Dripping water hollows out a stone.”  I guess I feel a little bit like that today.  That my hours and days at the machine were like that, and all of sudden I look up and the decades of working with cloth and thread has yielded this body of work, a lovely surprise.

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Of course, any good quilter still has a few quilts they are working on.  I’m reveling in the COMPLETED quilts today; next week I’ll detail some others that still need finishing.  Many thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced and her guest, Kati of the Blue Chair, for hosting us today on WIP Wednesday.

And many thanks to those who played along in Project Gingham.  Next post I’ll round up everyone’s project, plus give you a look at my first received Far Flung Bee blocks!

100 Quilts · Quilts

Project Gingham!!

Elizabeth E.16 Comments

A long time ago, in a galaxy garage sale faraway, Elizabeth found a whole lotta’ gingham.  She shared with Krista, who really likes vintage fabrics.  Then we hatched the idea to share with a few others. And today’s the day everyone is sharing with us, but first–my reveal!

I’ve titled this quilt: Gingham Quilt.  Really original, but certainly it has to get points for being descriptive, doesn’t it?  I auditioned a lot of different block ideas, and then decided that just about anything would work with these prints, especially a lot of white.  I know some of the checks get in the way of the bow-tie, but I wanted this to be a fun, summery quilt, without freaking out about anything.  So there you go—some things you just live with and love.

I had seen in a Roberta Horton book that she had used a different fabric for the outside blocks in order to create a border, and I wanted to try that too.  I picked up the cool lavender almost randomly, wanting it so it wouldn’t intrude on the crisp white in the middle of the quilt.  A slight shift, only, in that border, and I tried to use many of the darker ginghams to highlight that shift.

Detail of the quilting, which is a spool of thread and a needle.  My quilter Cathy always has a great design for me.

Two glamour shots of the quilt.  I wanted to show one of my favorite ginghams–one not likely ever seen again in today’s mass market.  It’s that true lavender in the middle of the quilt.

I left this picture bigger so you could click on it for detail.  This is made with (deep memory, here, from my CloTex degree) a dobby loom.  The word comes from the early days of fabric manufacture, when a little boy would sit on top of the loom and pull up individual warp (or lengthwise) yarns so the weft (crosswise or selvage-to-selvage) shuttle could glide across and make a design.  Dobby is short for “draw boy,” or so the rumor goes.

If you look closely on the back, you can see white yarns (threads) that are carried across the back, and create the design on the front.  The floating yarns are the tip-off to which side you are looking at. A lappet is another type of machine but it’s my understanding that the lappet can only do one direction of thread, whereas in this design both the warp and the weft are involved.  Like I said, we aren’t likely to see this fabric ever again.

Label.

I chose a Jane Sassaman print for the back, and not only because I got a bunch of it for a deal when I went up to Michael Levine’s in Los Angeles, in the garment district, but more because it seemed to be in the mood of the front.

I think of this as the quilt for a picnic, for throwing down on a meadow somewhere and pulling out a wicker basket, kitted out perfectly with gourmet feastiness.  Right.  Not my life.  In reality, I think of the time I went up and took my then 4th-grade daughter out to lunch. . . on the front lawn of the school.  We got a lot of crazy looks from the gardeners and the kindergarteners as we enjoyed our sauteed pepper-and-onion sandwiches, just the two of us, with moms picking up kids in the school’s driveway just three feet away.  It’s a great memory; it’s that kind of a picnic quilt.

Now hop on over to the other blogs and see their Project Gingham reveals!

Krista, of KristaStitched

Cindy, of Live A Colorful Life

Rachel of The Life of Riley

Suz, of PatchworknPlay

Kris, of Duke Says Sew What

Becky, the Sarcastic Quilter

Quilts

Quilting Resource–Judy Martin

Elizabeth E.2 Comments

With all the modern quilts flooding the blogosphere, it’s good to remember some of the more traditional quilters that have been around for a long time.  Judy Martin is one of those.  I’ve frequented her site over the years, because she always has a free block of the month, or quilt of the month for us to download.

So while I may say “traditional” I think this one–Posts and Rails, the block and quilt that are up there now–read very modern.  She also has a list of her patterns that takes up 28 pages, and has one of my current favorites: Cloak and Dagger, which I saw in a Roberta Horton book.  From Judy’s list, I found out which book it was in, hopped on Amazon (it’s way out of print) and was able to pick it up so I can have the pattern.

I have several of Judy Martin’s books (she has a publishing company) and they always have great designs, which are drawn in full color.  She also has many quilts for sale for very reasonable prices, if you are interested in that.

Here’s one called Big Sky Log Cabin, and she made it by leaving off the last two logs of a Log Cabin block.  I think this also fits into the modern quilt sensibility, if that’s your bend.  I also think of her as a master of stars and star combinations, which I love.  Even though I have not ever made a completely “Judy Martin” quilt, I have used her block ideas in swaps and in sampler quilts.  She’s another one of those masters in the quilt world who I have learned from.