Quilting Valentine Quilt

February 1, 2012February 18, 2012 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

I listened to the Florida Primary Vote returns as I pinned this quilt together for quilting, my WIP for this week. I have two other quilts that bring up elections when I look at them.

The first is a For-Snuggle-Only flannel quilt (no name on this one), that I tied together on my living room floor while watching the national returns come in from the Bush-Kerry election in 2004, when I lived in Washington DC. My husband is an avid watcher of the political landscape; I’m more of the I’ll-always-vote-but-wake-me-when-it’s-over type. But the political spectacle can be interesting to listen to while quilting, my hands busy while the politicians’ mouths are a-going.

The second quilt is this that I began in a Judy Hooworth class, titled D.C. Dots & Dithers. The political game is always on when you live in Washington, D.C. and I wanted a quilt to contain my memories of living there.

I scanned in my Inauguration Ticket, then printed it out for the top of my label. Underneath you find. . .

. . . a description of the quilt, and my thoughts on it all. I used an already-started quilt top, quilted it, then added the labels — and the meaning — as I worked. Back to the Valentine’s Quilt: I began by stitching in the ditch around all the squares so I could get rid of the pins. Trying to decide how to quilt is always a hard thing for me. I scanned through blogs, my Road to California photos, trying to look for ideas.

I drew up a pattern in my quilting notebook (in the turquoise) and began.

A pause in the action for a beautiful sunset, and dinner (husband was at a business dinner), then when I came back up I looked again at the quilting I’d started. Ugh. Not for me, so I started unpicking the first part I’d started. It may have been the thread (I was using a fine thread) or the too-busy nature of the circles, but it had to go.

So now I have two ~~messes~~ Works In Progress: one on the quilt, and one here, at my cutting table. I’m off to school this morning, and will think about it all when I return.

Thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics for hosting us all on this WIP Wednesday. While I’m linking back to her blog, you really ought to look at her good news of this week: one of her quilts hit print! Congrats!

New address for this blog: http://www.opquilt.com, a birthday gift from my son. Thanks, Peter! No need to change address books–this new address refers over to this site but is easier to type; both addresses work.

Quilt Shows

Road to California–part 2

January 28, 2012February 18, 2012 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

I’ve had some really good comments from readers about Road to California and it’s interesting how they parallel what I was hearing behind me and around me from the attendees: nice quilts, but I’ll never make one of those. And certainly I felt that way about the quilts I wrote about earlier. So, thanks everyone, for writing.

There were a lot of quilts that when I looked at them I began to ask myself: what is it about these that is different, special? Here’s some more that I saw.

Beauty Parlor De Los Muertos, by Nancy C. Arseneault is a classic, as she got all the details just right. She’s from Tucson, AZ.

Notice the clever use of fabric in the floor tiles!

Sunlit Circles, from Ann Petersen of Surprise, AZ uses spiky circles floated over the top of her quilt. What makes this one really interesting, I think, is that border of quilted circles, with an occasional scalloped edge.

Nice quilting, and while close together, it’s not excessive.

And not one sparkle (yay!).

This is one of those quilts that you had to see to believe. Titled The Loading Dock, and made by Mary Buvia of Greenwood Indiana, it reminded me of those books by Jan Brett with ornate illustrations all alongside the main panel. Bruvia hand appliqued much of this “during the long hours of chemo treatments” for her late husband. She made this quilt in homage to him, as Christmas was his favorite holiday.

It was beautifully done.

Yes, it had sparkles, but this is one quilt that should have — to show the snow sparkling in the North Pole moonlight. Just my .02 worth, here.

There were a series of quilts that used fabric to show texture in interesting ways–another use of hexagons in this quilt by Jean Spring (from Steamboat Springs, Colorado) and titled Three Gulls on a Wall.

Holly Dominie, from Readfield Maine, took Australian fabrics to a class given by Susan Carlson, intending to experiment in the “Pointillism” style. This portrait of her daughter is titled Queen of My Heart. It was stunningly beautiful, and I am sad that they hung the ribbon right on this work of art, which was based on photographs Dominie had taken.

I crept in right up to the quilt, then zoomed in, so you could see her amazing work with the fabrics, cutting, laying them down, then the random stitching. I have to say I thought of one of my favorite blogs, written by Kathy Doughty, who features these fabrics (because she’s from Australia, for one thing) to great effect.

This one of her son is titled Irrepressible. Same artist, same technique. When I visited the vendor’s booth that had stocked these fabrics, they were flying off the bolt, snapped up by all of us quilters as we now envisioned what could happen. Not that we’ll ever do it, of course, but we hope and believe that we can, inspired by these quilts. And that’s my big gripe with those “show quilts” from the other post. They DON’T inspire us. We look at them, amazed by the hours and hours, but the stray comments I heard never indicated that a quilter wanted to go home and fire up her sparkle gun, or get busy quilting with lines 1/16th-inch apart. I can admire their work, but that’s as far as it goes. Of course, I could just be weird, an anomaly, but judging from what I heard, I don’t think I am.

This was just the perfect little piece–wavy edge reminiscent of a postage stamp–a tiny snapshot of a day. And that’s the title: Snap Shot from Seaside, and it’s made by Mary Kay Price of Portland, Oregon.

I was very interested in the edge of that bridge–the spiky grasses, the grayed ledge. The grasses were raw edge appliqued, but really fused down somehow so they looked painted on. And the edge? Some fabric paint to blur and soften that so it melted into the picture. Really beautiful.

Early Snow, by Yuki Harding from Green Valley, Arizona, was based on a photograph she had taken, of what I assume to be cherry blossoms shedding their blossoms.

Or I could be completely wrong, and it IS a first snowfall. Whatever, it was interesting, and I loved how she created texture with fabrics and thread.

Here was another stunner of a quilt, that unbelievably only garnered a second place. Titled The World, and made and quilted by Rachel Wetzler of St. Charles, Illinois, is her rendition of the genesis of the world. It’s a well-balanced composition with great detail and good use of color and technique. Maybe it only got a second because it didn’t have any sparkles on it? (Can you tell I’m so done with the sparkle business?)

Such an amazing quilt. I hope it comes to a quilt show near you so you can sit and study it as well.

Kathryn Nolte, from La Habra Heights, California created this visual feast, titled Take in the Night Blooming Jazz, Man. Sinewy, fluid shapes echo the subject of her quilt, with a real live “piano key” border.

Great quilting, too, putting more motion into this quilt. Whenever I went by, there were lots of onlookers clustered around this quilt.

Check out the quilting on the piano player’s pants!

Obviously you are subject to my biases and personal preferences, but if I were to consider a quilt for the Best of Show Award, the following would be on the short list.

The Archer was made and quilted by Wendy Knight of San Diego, California. Unfortunately, it was hung on a side aisle so the lighting isn’t as good I as I hoped for. This quilt is expertly composed with lots of movement, color shifts and values, detail and on top of that is interesting. It also had a crowd every time I went by.

Was I influenced by her expert quilting, writing in text into the background of her quilt? No doubt. These are words from the teachings of “Bushido–which is the way of the warrior.” Her husband is a “student of Japanese history, in particular the Samurai culture” and it obviously influenced her subject matter.

The circular piecing and quilting on the horse’s neck really showed the form of the animal.

More detail. . . and more quilts in the next post! My husband has just made me some fresh-squeezed orange juice downstairs and I’m headed to a late Saturday morning breakfast. Enjoy your day!

Finishing School Friday

Valentine Quilt–Getting Unstuck

January 27, 2012October 2, 2019 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

Tomorrow it will be one month since my surgery. In my dream last night I was clothed in a heavy coat, trying to get up into a tall vehicle, and unable to lift my leg to get in. Over and over I tried, like we get sometimes with our pajamas or nightgowns caught up in sheets and too sleepy to figure out how to untangle ourselves. So that’s how it felt in my dream–like I couldn’t go forward, couldn’t get up in that car that was going to take me somewhere. I was stuck. I woke up, trying to get oriented. The house was quiet, as I had slept in really late and my husband had gone. I stumbled into the shower and began to cry. Why is it that tears come so easily these days? The doctor said it will take six to eight weeks to recover from surgery and I’m only at week four. So I guess I can expect some of this. It just drives me crazy, that’s all. I just want to be me again, an impossible wish.

But as I dressed, still teary, I asked myself that question I do sometimes when I’m in a stuck space: What do you want to have accomplished by the end of this day? What do you want to have done?

I don’t ever need to write it down, because it’s only one thing I have to identify. And today, I wanted to have the Valentine Quilt sewn together.

And just knowing that pulled me into my studio, got me sewing the little white squares on the end of red strips, cutting, ironing, and what you see is up on the pin wall at 2:00 p.m.–leaving me the rest of the afternoon to sew it together.

The original is 64″ square–and 8 by 8 square quilt. I just need mine to hang up in the hallway, so I went with six by six. That will leave me some extra squares to make some pillows to throw on beds.

UPDATE: I drew up some loose instructions and have it for you at its new home: Revisiting the Red & White Pinwheel.

So, the bottom line is I made it through my funk. I climbed up into that imaginary car today — bum leg and all — and got going. I dried my tears, straightened my shoulders and began sewing the cloth together. Like I imagine hundred of other quilters have done before me, in good times and bad.

Quilts · WIP

Valentine Quilt

January 24, 2012October 2, 2019 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

More Road to California is coming–just had a lot of lesson prep to do–plus this little detour.

This is a WIP post–Work In Progress post–hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics. Since having my heck-of-a-December, these weekly deadlines have been quite a blessing for me. They give me a goal to have my hands on the cloth at least once a week. Many thanks, Lee!

But this afternoon/evening I stole away from the computer for a few minutes to start on a Valentine Quilt (Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a Forth of July quilt!). It all started when Rhonda sent me a photo of a quilt she was doing for a class for Mare’s Bears–a local quilt shop near Alexandria, Virginia, where I used to live.

I fell in love with it–so fun and fresh and so red-and-white. We talked on the phone and she told me her inspiration was Le Jardin Cerise, in a recent McCall’s magazine. I looked up that quilt and to me, they looked very dissimilar. The original was a blender quilt, with more emphasis on color, whereas Rhonda’s had an emphasis on value–the light-to-dark of a quilt. She gives credit to the magazine for the pattern, but I give credit to Rhonda for making it sing for me!

So I opened the “red” cupboard. . .

. . . and picked a swath of reds.

Maybe I had red and white on the brain, having shopped at Sandy Klop’s booth at Road to California, where they gave me this very cute bag. (See our photo with her below).

And maybe because Cindy and I (on the right) were all decked out in reddish tones. And maybe because all the stores have put away their Christmas and gone straight to Valentine’s Day. But I think it’s more because of Rhonda’s amazing skills.

Beginning, I cut red squares, until I remembered that Rhonda said she’d done a more streamlined way of putting it together, sewing the thin strips onto the larger.

Okay. Back on track. Then I bordered them with strips on which I’d placed a square, then stitched diagonally to make a triangle.

So here are my first four blocks, with the little pinwheel in the center. Mine’s much more unkempt than Rhonda’s, because I drew from my stash, while she limited herself to six fabrics. Of course, I like hers better (I always do), but mine will work. I have to teach in the morning, but look forward to getting back to this tomorrow afternoon, raiding my stash for reds to make it work.