Darcy's Iris 60" x 65"
One year for Mother's Day my daughter, Darcy, spray painted this iris for me on a piece of fabric. I wanted to do something with it and finally decided on this setting after buying the book Batik Beauties. The blocks and sashes are out of purples, teals and a few golds.
I made a frame of the blocks on point and then set the iris on top of the frame with raw edge applique. The blocks are quilted in a triple cross hatch and the iris is free motion quilted following the design of the painting. I used lots of pale thread in the stamens to tone down the color a bit. If I get a better photo of the center I will add it at a later date.
Labels: batik beauties, painted iris
Black and White Challenge 51" x 51"
When our guild had a black and white challenge, I decided to do a quilt from the book Strips that Sizzle. I was so sure that I knew what I was doing that I didn't review the directions before I started. I had all my black, white and gray fabrics strips and cut into blocks when I realized that I was supposed to have two sets of colors, one in black and another in whites and or grays. Of course, it was too late to drive to town and didn't have enough fabric left to start over, so I paired the black and white blocks with red ones.
I know that I like it much better this way than I would have just in the blacks and whites. I quilted all of the red blocks in perpendicular lines around the red "path". The black/white blocks have radiating lines out from a center point on one of the edges.
It was interesting to note that over half of the ladies who participated in the challenge used red as an accent color for their quilts.
Labels: black and white challenge, Strips that Sizzle
Circle Quilts
These quilts are about 50" in diameter. The first one was a challenge at the Denali guild called 1-2-3-4-Quilt. You were to make 1 quilt, using 2 fabrics that you received from the guild, adding 3 and only 3 of your own fabrics and make 4 blocks.
The guild provided a batik and a coordinating print as there had been a lot of complaints from members that "you couldn't use regular prints with batiks". Mine was a funky plaid in reds and yellows and the batik was a floral in orange, pink and coral. I added a gold marble, a green stripe and a red mottle. My blocks were the quarter circles. It was a sheer accident, but I love the kaleidoscope effect that happened.
This quilt was donated to our annual fund raising auction. The colors are similar but none of the fabrics in the first one are in this one. In this quilt the colors came out as chevrons rather than the kaleidoscope effect and I don't like it as well.
Will I ever do another one of these? I don't know. I still have the circle ruler so I may. It would be nice to have lots of colors in it so that it would take on a real kaleidoscope look. It's on my "someday" list.
Labels: circle quilt
Ugly Fabric Challenge 23" x 29"
This was my first ugly fabric challenge and the first time I did paper piecing (c. 1993). The mottled green background was the ugly fabric and I don't know why I used the coral colors in the irises...probably didn't have enough purples to make the irises and it was too late to go to town to buy fabric (at that time we lived in Denali and town was 125 miles away).
I was showing the finished quilt to my husband and discovered that one of the flower lobes was in green rather than coral...the only solution was to applique the lobe over the green. I can still tell which one it was because that lobe is a little puffier since it still has the green under the appliqued piece. I had fun doing this piece and it opened a whole new world to me with paper piecing.
Labels: iris, paper piecing, ugly fabric challenge
Tiny Tim's Tulip Garden 49" x 56"
This is a quilt that I designed from the book Strips and Curves. It was an ugly fabric challenge at the Denali guild c. 2001-2003. My personal challenge was to use only fabrics from my stash in the quilt.
The challenge fabric was white with tiny tulips and green leaves on it. I had very few light fabrics in my stash, but paired it with the few lights I did have...not all that successfully. The fabric was also a problem in that it was probably a poly cotton blend and thin. I had to line it with a solid white so that the seam allowances didn't show through on the right side.
I really like the almost transparent circle that goes into the border on the upper right hand side. Don't know how I did it or if I could do it again.
I quilted the stipped part of the blocks along the strips or in the case of the swirl, echoing it. The plain part of the blocks were done in a flame or wave free motion design. Unfortunately, I did not quilt the border as heavily as I did the body of the quilt so it ripples a lot. One of my first learned lesson on keeping the quilting even in the quilt.
I keep saying that I should add cross hatching to the border so it doesn't ripple, but I probably won't.
Labels: Strips and Curves, ugly fabric challenge
Modifed Charm Quilt 108" x 108" c. 1995-98
We decided that one of our challenges at the Denali guild would be to do a charm quilt. About half of our members were beginning quilters who would not have a large stash available to them so we "modified" the rules for a charm quilt. It could be any pattern, not just a one-piece pattern, and you could add one fabric as a background. I chose a fan block, using black as my background. My original design was to have the fans circle and meander over the quilt top moving from one color into another sort of like a watercolor wash quilt.
I'm not quite sure what happened, but the colors didn't flow from one to another so I came up with this design. After I got it all done, my husband asked what I planned on doing with it...he liked it and thought it would look great on our bed. I had already put the binding on the quilt and it was only as big as the top of our mattress. But I got the idea that I could build a "frame" to go around the quilt using large "fans" in the corners and then just set the original quilt into the frame. Easy, right?
Wrong. Not only was my sewing machine giving me fits, but it seems that the frame was not quite square. It looks fine on the front side, but the back is a mess. In some places there was barely enough material to turn under and others there was lots of excess fabric...and we won't even mention the corners
. I finally decided that if there weren't any tucks or pleats on the front side that I'd be happy. The quilting is awful...I used a pale green on the backing with matching thread on the back and black on the top. My machine would lose tension and all of a sudden the pale green thread would show up on the top. I ripped more stitches than I left in I think. At some point I gave up and took a black magic marker and touched the light threads on the top of the quilt and called it good. Of course some of it bled over to the back so I have little black dots all over the pale green backing. I still love the quilt and it gets used on our bed each year...I just try not to look at the back...EVER!
Labels: charm quilt, fan block
Lone Star 50" x 50"
This is one of two Lone Star quilts that I made out of teal fabric, about 1990 or so. It was before we had electricity in the house and I finger pressed all my quilt blocks at that time. Somehow I convinced myself that I would be able to press enough to make the Lone Star by the strip pieced method. As you can see, I did get it done, but not without lots of ripping and blue air from the language in my sewing room. I quilted a gentle curve in the diamonds of the star and cross hatching for the background. One of them had teal background and was a wedding gift for Jack and Jenna Fontenella, this one I gave to Darcy.
AE (after electricity) I took a class from Patti Jordan and that star went together like a dream. I'm glad I persevered to finish the teal stars, but am also glad I took the class AE as I don't think I would have done another after all the ripping I did on the first two. My piecing shows a marked improvement after I was able to press pieces...always knew it would but it was far more dramatic than I thought. Still, it's fun to look back on those days BE (before electricity) and marvel at how much I did get done.
Labels: Lone Star
For Legs 60" x 60" c. 1990
This log cabin quilt was made for my husband. He loves the log cabin design and to him a "good" quilt is made out of browns and golds. Since I made it after the 50th anniversary quilt that I made for my folks, it used every last scrap of brown and gold in my stash...which was not very substantial at that time. I had to buy the material in the border. I had trouble matching it, in fact, one clerk said, "You'll never find anything to match those 70's prints." But I came close if you don't look too closely!
Even though there had been articles about dating fabric on antique quilts, this was the first time I realized that it was also true for modern fabric. And then I learned about the color council of America, or whatever it is called that decides on the colors that we get to use.
Anniversary Quilt 45" x 63"
I made this quilt for my parents 50th wedding anniversary in 1989. I was unable to attend the actual party, but wanted the quilt to be there for me.
I started out making a kaleidoscope quilt, but evidently the template that I was using was cut incorrectly. After putting the first row together it formed an arc rather than a straight row. I thought long and hard about correcting the template, even found the mistake and
tried to compensate for it by my seam allowance. But in the end I picked up all the pieces and quietly moved them to the trash can. It was a hard lesson, but now I always make a test block before I cut out the whole quilt.
I didn't have enough golds left to make a quilt, but decided to add browns with it. So used the pattern, Hole in the Barn Door, which was rather fitting since both of them were raised on farms in Kansas.
I had a "drop dead" date that the quilt had to be in the mail, so after the top was complete I did minimal quilting on the whole quilt, then as I had more time I added other lines to the quilting to keep it evenly quilted...for example, on the gold border, only the largest half circle was done all the way around the quilt, then I added a second quilting line and then the third to complete the swag. This was one of only 3 quilts that I have hand quilted. I think the quilt took about 5 weeks from start to finish after I started on the second one!
Labels: anniversary quilt, Hole in the Barn Door
Cross Stitch Star 70" x 84"
A friend's mother showed me how to turn just 6 cross stitch blocks into a full sized quilt by using star points. About the time that I got the blocks my mother mentioned that she had run out of handwork to do, so I sent her the blocks figuring that I would have plenty of time to figure out how to do the rest of the quilt. Two weeks later the blocks were in the mail and I still had no idea how I was going to actually do the work. I finally decided use the quilt-as-you-go method since we didn't have the room in our house to put up a quilting frame. I had a book on lap quilting by Georgia Bonsteel and I went to town...there are a total of 30 blocks in the quilt, all done with white thread and stitches that are so uneven it's pitiful.
My thought orginally was to use it on the bed, but the quilting shrunk the size so it was too small and I no longer liked the quilt so didn't want to put more time into it by quilting a wide border. I occasionally use the quilt during the holidays for an afghan. Probably the only reason I still have it is because my mother worked on the cross stitch blocks.
Labels: cross stitch star
Darcy's first quilt 48" x 48"
When we moved into our log home (1975) Darcy needed a bedspread for her first bed. I made pinwheel blocks out of fabric from clothes that I had made for her, cut wide lattice out of an old white bedsheet to make it big enough for the twin bed and unfortunately used a cotton batting but tied the comforter. This resulted in the batt shredding around each of the ties. Since it was a utility quilt I was not bothered at all when she drew on the white lattice, drug it around the house and generally used it up. When she went to college I decided to take it apart, get rid of the wide, drawn on , dirty lattice and make a smaller afghan sized quilt out of it. It literally started to disintegrate when I took it apart. I was going to just toss it, but mentioned it over the phone and she was horrified that I would consider throwing away her "blankie". So I salvaged what I could, at times making one full block out of several partial ones, then added a narrow white lattice with red cornerstones and a small border. It was done by the time she came home from college the first summer ( 1992) and the look on her face was worth all the work. But next time I find a quilt it the same condition I'll remember that it's best to leave it as it is...and let them remake it if it's important.
Labels: blankie
