I Don't Want Another Red Quilt Sampler
Top picture is the finished quilt, 2nd picture shows the 12" block that I made which won the contest.
Each year at the Kuna Quilt Show they have a Challenge Block Contest. A fabric is selected and people get a piece 9” X 11” then make a 12” block to enter the contest…any block they want and using their own fabric to make the block big enough. During the quilt show people vote for the block they like the best. The winner gets their block back and chooses 11 more blocks and then is expected to make a quilt out of the blocks by the next quilt show. In 2008, my block won 1st Place. It was the Snail’s Trail block. It had 256 pieces in the 12” block. I did it by paper piecing. I chose blocks that would work as a Sampler quilt trying to balance color and have an even amount of pieced and appliqué blocks.
I liked a quilt that I saw in Diana Leone’s Sampler Book, which had no pattern, so this is my version of that sampler quilt. The challenge fabric was the red fabric, but I didn’t want the quilt to end up being a red quilt…hence the name. “
Charlotte's Own
I made this “dragger” quilt for my new granddaughter from a panel I bought. It is calendar for the year 2008 called Love Is. Since Charlotte was due to be born on the 20th of December I took the chance that she would come on time (she came on the 22nd) and added wide borders with log cabin blocks in the corners to make the quilt larger enough for her. Even though the panel was from a new line of fabric I had the floral and all other pieces that almost matched perfectly to finish off the quilt. I quilted hearts in the log cabin blocks, a big meander in the borders and echo quilted designs in the calendar itself, adding a gold star around the 22nd of December for her.
This is the quilt that she can drag around, use as a saddle on the dogs, pee and puke on...and Mommy can't say anything. Each child needs one of those.
Discovery is Another Word for Innovation
This is one of Ricky Tim’s Convergence quilts. I made a challenge for myself…I took a large print, a batik, a ditsy calico and a funky texture and put them into one of his small quilts. The large print was a map of Asia with all sorts of animals superimposed on the maps, the batik had both the red and turquoise and gold colors that were in the large print, the calico was the red and the texture was grasses and reeds in gray. I disliked the way the red calico became dominant once the fabrics were all cut, so I fussy cut some of the compasses out from the large print, adding spires for suns to the background and raw edge appliquéd them over the largest of the calico pieces. I added triangle flags to the right border out of the batik but it was mostly lost in the large print. Overall quilting echoed the shapes of the sun in the body of the quilt. I echoed squiggly lines in the flags, leaving the background unquilted.
I did two more of his Blended Convergence quilts with some hand dyed fabric and forgot to take pictures of them before they "went away". I wasn't too fond of them.
I may do another one of these someday, but need to find a much bigger print to make it work better.
Dos Equis
I made this from a block exchange we did at one of our retreats in Fairbanks, AK. I added more blocks and used a setting from the book Designing Quilts, A Value of Value. As soon as my husband saw it, he saw X’s and said it should be called Dos Equis…the name stuck. I gave it to my brother and he loves it, too. This is a great scrap quilt or stash reducer.
Delectable Mountain 27x27
I used this pattern for a border once and loved it. One day when I was messing around with the block I came up with this setting that gives the illusion of a circle. I think the block strips are only finished ¾” wide. I may try this one out in a larger version out of scraps someday…it was an easy and quick quilt to make.
I would have to buy a lot of lights for the background as my stash tends to be more mediums than anything else...we'll see what happens
Circle Play Quilts
The last year that we were in Alaska packing to move to the lower 48, I found out that Reynola Pachisich, who wrote "Circle Play" was going to teach a class at our guild. So while I was packing up my sewing room I was also cutting out fabric for Circle Play quilts. I bought the book and cut out circles from a printed batik fabric called Coral Reef which was in reds and purples, one from a fabric called Islands which had sailboats, tiki huts and waterfalls, and another set from fabric that I purchased while in Hawaii. During the class I worked on the Coral Reef fabric, then during travels that winter I worked on the other fabrics...setting up a design wall wherever I could (one time in a campground shower house!). I split the Hawaiian fabrics into two quilts, one with bright colors and the other more muted, natural colors.
Even thought I had books on color, I never really understood about color until I took this class. My quilts have been much more vibrant after this class as I finally realized the relationship in color, scale, texture and value. I use fabrics together now that I never would have in the years prior to this class.
Coral Reef
Vacation Paradise
Hot Flashes
Hawaiian Naturals
Hawaiian Brights
Labels: circle play
Cathedral Window 9x9
This mini quilt was made the 1st year after we retired. I wanted some type of hand work that I could do in the evenings and on the road( I had already knitted a couple dozen scarves and was going batty). I found a used book on Cathedral Windows and got the bug! After making a half dozen blocks I realized that I didn’t like the hand work, but had worked too hard to just toss it. So I made a total of 9 blocks to make a more pleasing arrangement of “windows” and called it good. I still love the look of this quilt, but hate making it. This one finished at 9” square. Hand work is just not my cup of tea.
Labels: cathedral window
Grape Arbor 29x49
This is another one of the colorwash bargello quilts that I made after retirement.
Labels: Watercolor Wash Bargello
Earth's Bounty 51x61
The 1st year of retirement I made kits from my stash so that I could do some sewing while we traveled around the country…this was one of the bargello quilts that I made from the kits. I made 15 quilt tops that first winter traveling (all lap quilt or wall hanging size)...but didn’t take along any fabric to make borders out of nor took any materials for backing or batting. So that started my UFO list big time. I still have one from that time that I haven’t finished. This one went to friends as a wedding gift. I quilted it in swirls, then quilted a free verse poem in the border. I forgot to write it down and it was impossible to figure out the writing on the front side since it was on printed fabric, so I had to use a mirror and get it from the back.
"When the smell of damp earth brings delight to your senses, knowing winter's frost will soon be upon each plant and all we have left are our memories and plans for next years bounty."
Labels: Watercolor Wash Bargello
Brown Bargello
Another one of the retirement bargello kits that I made into a quilt. I haven’t come up with a name yet…keep thinking of something earthy or something with the blue. One of the fabrics had a bit of blue in it and the blue really popped out in the finished quilt, so I added the small blue middle border. I did an allover spiral quilting motif. It was really hard to see where I was quilting on this one as the varigated thread would blend too well at times. It would have been far easier to quilt it from the back side...a lesson that I just may use in the future.
Rainforest
This is another of the bargello quilts that I started during our first winter of retirement. I finished it this past year as a wedding gift for friends, Forrest and Sara Gibson. Between the fabrics in the quilt and the ”watery” effect of the border, I can never tell if this is truly out of focus, a little out of focus or if it’s just the quilt itself. I did triple mum quilting on the body of the quilt and then flames/waves in the border. It turned out to be one of my favorites from the “bargello” years.
Labels: Watercolor Wash Bargello
Fireweed Summer 50x61
I made this quilt after buying the book Colorwash Bargello. I had lots of floral prints that I bought when I thought that I wanted to do colorwash quilts. When I found out that you cut out a kazillion 2” squares and then put them on a design wall in order to make the quilt I decided to pass. One of the biggest reasons was that my quilting area had no design wall nor a place to put one. When I discovered that you could have a colorwash quilt by strip piecing I was hooked. This one and another were the first of many…and what later made me decide to make up kits for our first year of traveling during retirement. The first one went to a friend for their wedding present and this one I kept.
Labels: Watercolor Wash Bargello
Raven
I made this quilt after a class on design by Erika Carter. This was another big jump in my quilting life. After this class I was more willing to try to design something even though this design is less than what I saw in my mind’s eye. I did take the time and beaded a “feather” fringe next to the beak and a few beads here and there on the body of the raven. At times I have thought about redoing the quilt and correcting some of the mistakes that I made on it, but as usual I have gone on to other things. It was a hard class because she wouldn’t allow us to talk to each other on the premise that too many times our artistic thoughts are sidelined by comments from friends or loved ones. She is probably right that we try to please others in our quilting endeavors rather than work for our own art, however, I wasn’t then and probably never will reach the “artistic” level that she has achieved. I do find that I rarely ask my family “what do you think about this?” when I have a quilt or fabric on my design wall. Her class gave me the confidence to “do my own thing”.
Labels: Erika Carter class
Twisted Log Cabin 18x36
This was a class I took on a triangle log cabin that was paper pieced. I used some of my hand dyed fabric for this piece. As I was making the blocks it did not look like there was enough difference between the center and outside motifs, so I only made 3 motifs…after the blocks were actually sewn together I liked the way it came out, but decided not to make it any larger. I used my own hand dyed fabrics for the whole piece. The black was not quilted except in the border and it gives it a softer look…almost sueded.
Mariner's Compass 15x15
I made this small compass as practice for another quilt but didn’t use it. When I took a machine quilting class from Maurine Noble, I sectioned it into 8 parts and then did a different quilting stitch in each section. All of the sections but one, the cross hatch, was done free motion. I was just not brave enough to do that without a guide. Maurine’s class was a cross roads for my machine quilting. Prior to her class I sort of dabbled at it, but after the class I got serious or just had a better grasp of the process and have been able to do it better.
Labels: machine quilting, Maurine Noble
Libby Lehman class sample
I took a class from Libby and this was some of the Thread Play and reverse machine appliqué that she taught. Her class was so much fun and she is a great teacher. I have used some of her techniques from time to time, but I’m not much of an art quilter so will probably never produce any of it in a whole quilt. I sure connected with this piece so turned it into a small odd shaped quilt. I set it on the table or pin it to my wall from time to time and remember the class and all the fun we had.
Labels: Libby Lehman
Rebirth
I did this quilt after Ree Nancarrow’s landscape class for our annual auction for Denali Quilters. It told the story of a forest fire and how, no matter how devastating the fire is, there is a regeneration of the forest from the ashes. At one point I thought of doing the same design but in each stage of regeneration, one with blacks and greys for the aftermath of the fire and then the third one with smaller trees and green quilting threads through the dark earth….maybe someday, but not soon. I was not pleased with the flow of the landscape on this one, but no matter how hard I tried it never came out the way it should…as if looking into the distance. ..which is probably why I tossed the design when I moved. If I ever feel the urge to do the triptych I will redesign it for a better flow.
Labels: Ree Nancarrow
Window to My World 40x40
I made this quilt after a landscape class from Ree Nancarrow. I think I got an F in the class as I was too interested in putting favorite fabrics in the quilt rather than ones that would make it realistic. Each of the fabrics have a different quilting motif in them, plus the bottom has extended tree roots for each of the trees in the quilt. It was fun to make and fun to quilt. I have made a couple more of them and each one is unique although I have never been able to get the realistic look that Ree does. A lot may have to do with the fact that my fabric tends to be a little on the brighter side, almost surrealistic. Maybe someday I will do one that I could get an A or B on.
Labels: Ree Nancarrow
Teal and Purple leftovers.
For graduation from high school I promised my daughter, Selene, a quilt to take to college in whatever colors she wanted and however she wanted it made. She wanted teal and purple but could never decide on how she wanted it made. So I took Margaret Miller’s book, Strips That Sizzle and made her quilt by the time she graduated from college. She no longer wanted a full sized quilt, so I had lots of blocks left over from her quilt. I used it to make this quilt that I gave to a benefit for an injured friend. There wasn’t quite enough for a nice sized wall hanging so I added the strips in the corners and loved the effect.
This next one was made from scraps from the graduation quilt. It was one of my color disasters. Even though the colors were different, teal and purple, the values were too similar so there is very little contrast for the log cabin design. You have to be looking closely and even squint a bit to realize that this is the barn raising version of a log cabin. I still love the quilt and it hangs from time to time in my house.
Wedding Quilt
I made this for a wedding gift for a local couple. The design came from a Milligan/Smith book. It was so long ago that I don’t remember how I quilted it and never took a picture of the details.
Baby Quilt
This was a baby quilt that I organized for a local lady. My block was the boots in the upper left corner. After the quilt was done, I took it back and quilted the baby’s name in the center block with dark threads. I did the block with cowboy boots.
Raffle Quilt from Batik Beauties
This was a quilt out of Laurie Schiffren’s book, Batik Beauties. I used a large batik that had a fish that I didn’t want to cut into tiny pieces. The book quilt used batiks that were all a muted design so the colors flowed together in blues and purples and greens. Since the fish batik had teal, purple, orange and gold as the primary colors I used these in the large pieced blocks. I didn’t like the results but the winner of the raffle was very pleased.
Labels: Laurie Schiffren
San Blas mola 20 x 22
The center of this piece is a San Blas mola I purchased it Seattle one year. I was able to find a burgundy fabric in my stash that almost perfectly matched the base fabric on the mola. I made the points to match the other fabrics in the mola. It was a fun piece to do
Labels: mola
Loatian Hmong center 25 x 25
The center of this quilt is a Hmong piece that was a gift. I used a Drunkard’s Path to frame the piece. The fabric was a small floral with pink and purple flowers which matched the piece and corner inserts. But from a distance the colors all wash out. I keep saying that I will one day make a suitable frame for it, but haven’t so far. I am totally amazed at the workmanship on this center piece. I would love to meet the person who made it.
Labels: Hmong needlework
Jungle Rails 53 x 62
This colorwash rail fence quilt was for Darcy and Wayne’s house warming gift. I bought it as a kit and then added the floral border complete with tropical flowers and parrots. The quilting is multiple wavy lines signifying heat waves and rain. One of my first attempts at free motion quilting.
Labels: wastercolor wash
