Let's Roll

It seems appropriate to post these pictures today.  These are of a quilt I made in response to the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks.  The quilt was part of an exhibit by AQS authors that traveled for 3 years following 9/11.

There is a lot of symbolism in this quilt.  The two towers are represented by the side borders, the top and bottom borders are a variation of New York Beauty, the four stars represent the 4 planes and there is a pentagon in the center of each.  Of course, the center eagle represents the USA.

It is somewhat difficult to see, quilted in gray on the blue background are the Statue of Liberty, The Liberty Bell, the words "In Remembrance" and "Let's Roll"

Let's hope that the death of Osama Bin Laden represents the beginning of the end of terrorism against the USA.  We must always remember those who died on 9/11, but we must also remember those who are still fighting for our freedom.

Let us always remember to celebrate and hold dear our freedom!

Until Next Time,

Lois

I'm feathering my nest!

We have a sofa and two chairs in our family room that are slipcovered.  Okay, so white might not have been the best choice for people who work in the print industry, but I love, love, LOVE my white slipcovered furniture!  We looked a long time to find these pieces as when we were buying them most of the furniture stores were loaded with heavy, dark Tuscany style furniture which is beautiful – in someone else’s house.  Me? I’m a blue and white and yellow person.  I like it light and airy!

However, the last time I pulled the slipcovers off to launder them, I had a major problem!  One of the cushion’s inner casing had split.  When I unzipped the slipcover, there were down feathers EVERYWHERE!  This is NOT a good thing. 

It looked sort of like this, only this is after stuffing several handfuls of feathers back into the casing!

I stuffed as many feathers as I could back inside and slip stitched the split together so the feathers could be vacuumed up.  Then another piece of fabric needed to be appliquéd over the split to contain the feathers.  Definitely not the way I had things planned for the day!

Do you ever have days like that?  Days where you have your ducks in a row, but one of them just won’t stay in the row?  Do you handle it well?  Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.  Today it’s funny, but at the time?  Not so much!

I really DO like feathers -- especially the quilted type and I use them as often as possible in my quilts and quilted things.

This pillow is one of the first things I hand quilted for use in our home.  It’s sort of plain, but using the blue quilting thread helped me to work on even stitches.

Later when asked to teach hand quilting classes, I designed this fancier feathered heart.  It has not only feathers, but stipple quilting and cross hatch quilting as many quilters use these three types of quilting in their quilts.  I encourage new hand quilters to use matching thread just so they can be proud of their first project and not be hung up on the unevenness of their stitching.  With practice the even stitches will come.

Until next time.

Lois

Basket Case

So I promised you another basket quilt and I will deliver!

Several years ago I made this quilt that is called Cake Stand.  I wanted it to be bright and cheerful and it is.  Another name for this block is Basket and yet another name is Fruit Basket.  Most quilt blocks have multiple names so while my intent was not to make a basket quilt, that is what I ended up with by another name.

I have also been making progress on the scrap quilt for Jeff.  Again, using scraps of time, I have the rows “webbed” together.  I had hoped to sew some of the rows yesterday, but that was before the feathers escaped – that’s a story for another day! I have yet to decide if there will be a border.  What do you think?

We will have a houseful here for Easter and I need to give that some thought, too.  There will be lots of little bodies running amok in the house.  I bought the DVD of “Tangled for their viewing pleasure.  Hopefully it will keep their attention for a bit.  I haven’t seen it yet either, but my kitchen duties will probably keep me away from the TV.

So what are your plans for this weekend?  Hope they include family, friends and fun as well as the opportunity to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.  Have a blessed Easter.

Until next time.

Lois

Don't Put all your eggs in one basket!

Though these eggs are not in a basket, they are lovely, are they not?  Fresh eggs are the best!  These were given to m by my friend, Diane, who has chickens among other animals on her mini-farm in the city.  They were just too pretty not to photograph before using!

Actually putting all my eggs in one basket has never been a problem for me.  I’m usually spread all around the place with a finger in this and another in that.  It makes for a sort of schizophrenic hectic life, but at least it is rarely dull and I am NEVER bored!

Recently I was asked to be on the board of directors for the National Quilting Association, Inc. and I gladly accepted.  This is a very worthwhile organization which is not for profit and run completely by volunteers except for a small office staff to take care of the day to day things.  You can learn more about NQA by going to the NQA web site http://www.nqaquilts.org/   The NQA member magazine, The Quilting Quarterly is as fine a magazine as you will find and is a benefit of membership.

In honor of the Easter basket, I thought you might like to see this small basket quilt.  It was made using fabric from a 6” square fabric exchange.  There are two baskets made from each 6” square plus a neutral background fabric.  Just the basket portions used the exchange square.  It was a fun project and one I’ve taught at guilds who wanted to do a little challenge.

While I think basket quilts are charming, I’ve only made two of them.  The other one is quite different using bright fabrics.  When I have time, I will photograph it as there are no digital images of it on my computer.  There are a couple of weeks before Easter, so I will have time to show this one to you as well.

Have you made any basket quilts?  If so, I’d love to see them

Do you tend to stay focused on one thing or are you like me and “flit” from one thing to another?  Inquiring minds want to know! Do you like the new look of  my blog?

Keep stitching,

Lois

Got Scraps - update

When you work full time, it’s a very slow process to complete quilts.  There are just no all day quilting days even if you have a day off.  Most of my quilts are made not only with scraps of fabric, but with scraps of time.

What?  You never heard of a scrap of time?  It is the few minutes it takes for the iron to heat up or the computer to boot up that you spend at the sewing machine with a couple of pieces of fabric to stitch.  It is using parts from a second quilt as your leader and ender to keep the bobbin thread from making a nest on the back as you stitch the current quilt pieces together.  The bonus of that is, not only parts of a second quilt are completed while you are working on the current one, but it also saves on thread.  It is also laying out the precut strips that will make up the pieces of a quilt on the cutting board so that when you have a scrap of time you can quickly cut a few pieces for another quilt.

Here are a couple of pictures of Jeff’s scrap quilt that I told you about a couple of weeks ago.  Here the blocks of the first two rows and part of the third row are stitched together.  As of yesterday another row is also complete.

As I sew the pieces of the blocks together, these are the pieces of the next quilt that I’m using as leaders and enders.  They are for a quilt called stacked bricks.  I have quite a stack of these. 

I alternate the two angles so I’ll have the correct number of each of the rows completed by the time I finish the top I’m currently working on.  Cool, huh? 

 If you want to know more about leaders and enders, Bonnie Hunter of http://quiltville.blogspot.com/  has a book with quilts made from her leaders and enders.  See her blog for more information.

What do you do with your scraps of fabric and time?

Here's to using those scraps to make something beautiful!

Until next time,

Lois

Fractured Flowers

Fractured Flowers

On another blog, Quilting on the Edge, Chris was working on a piece that she was mounting on canvas.  After a nice conversation with her via e-mail, I thought you might like to see the rose that I made several years ago.  This was made as part of a group project while we lived in Alabama.  Studio 222 which meets in Auburn, AL was a big part of my life there.  Someone suggested that we make large flowers, but divide them onto 4 canvases.  We could do almost anything we wanted as long as we kept to that format.  Some of the artists in the group painted their canvases and some stretched fabric over them.  They were all very different, varied in technique and made for a wonderful group art show.  We were fortunate enough to have them hung in a number of galleries around the state and the response was great.  In the shows, the 4 parts of each artists flower were mixed up so that it made for a wonderful, colorful exhibit that we called Garden Party.

As part of the project, the 4 parts of each flower were captured in photos and applied to magnets so that those viewing the show could mix the parts of the flowers to make different configurations on a metal board.  The children especially enjoyed making their own arrangement of the parts.  Some people wanted to see what each flower looked like when the 4 parts were together, as well.  It was a fun project and a colorful exhibit.

My flower hangs like this in the foyer of our home right now.

The fabric I used for the flower was hand painted which was a lot of fun!  Then the petals were appliquéd to the background with batting only where the petals are.  The petals were quilted on the machine for dimension.  The center of the flower has beads and French knots to give it the texture found in the center of a rose.  I laid a rose from my garden on my scanner rather than taking a photo of the rose and printed it on a transparency so I could make it whatever size I wanted and divide the flower wherever I wanted for the 4 quadrants.

Here are a few photos of the group as we were working on how to exhibit the pieces.  We toyed with hanging them close together, far apart and with hanging all 4 parts of each flower together.

You can see why I loved being a part of that group.  Now I only receive the e-mails about what they are doing as it was difficult to be a member and live across the country from the rest.  I really miss our last Friday of the month meetings!  I miss the spontaneity of the group and the encouragement to push the limits of creativity to the fullest.

Are you a part of a group that encourages you to grow in your quilt making?  I hope so.  I sure miss being a part of a group that meets on a regular basis.  However, I have found encouragement from being able to read other quilt and quilt art blogs and being a part of the quilt world through the wonderful Internet as well as enjoying being with my quilting sisters in person.  Find a group whether or not you can meet in person to encourage you and for you to encourage.  It’s a lot of fun!  If we are not having fun, why bother, right?

Until next time -- keep stretching!

Lois

Got Scraps?

It has been a long time since I made a quilt for our son.  I made a quilt for HIS son when he was born.  In fact I made it from quilt blocks I had embroidered for our son when he was a baby.  I hadn’t really started quilting then and it just didn’t get done.  By the time I started really making quilts, well….. he was a teenager!  He was about 15 the last time I made him a quilt.  That quilt was used and abused and is long gone.  It was an Amish style quilt.  I’m sure in my pre-digital photos there is a photo of that quilt.  If I find it, I will post it in a later post on this quilt.

In the in between time, I have built up a HUGE stash of fabrics both yardage and scraps.  After moving cross country twice in the fast few years with literally TONS of boxes of fabric, I stopped buying fabric unless I knew exactly what the fabric was for.  Well, with the exception of yellow fabrics.  When you see a yellow you like, you’d better buy it.  However, where I used to by a minimum of 3 yards, 7 if I thought it might be a back for a quilt.  Since I fell in love with scrap quilts, I rarely by anything larger than a fat quarter unless the store doesn’t have what I want except on the bolt OR if I know I’ll need more for a particular quilt.

If you are familiar with Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville and her Scrap Users System, you night recognize this pattern as Bricks and Stepping Stones.  However, I’ve used 2-1/2” squares for the 4-patch blocks and 4-1/2” x 8-1/2” for the bricks.  Actually I started using this size squares as leaders and enders (see Bonnie’s website http://quiltville.com ) making random 4-patch blocks.  When there were a large number of these in a basket, I had to figure out what to do with them.  That’s how this quilt got its start.

There will be follow-up posts on this quilt as it progresses.  So far it is just pieces on the design wall as I am now making specific colors of 4-patch blocks to fill in.  Even with what I thought was a large number of these blocks, I was short some colors to complete the quilt. though some of the bricks look like they are navy, they are really black or at least I thought they were.  Looking at the pictures, I'm going to have to check that out.  Some of the black prints did have blue prints in them so it may be those that appear to be navy in the photo.

If you have made a scrap quilt, please feel free to share a picture of it with me or just post a comment about it.  If you have a burgeoning scrap collection, start thinking scrap quilt and use those scraps.  You paid as much for the left over fabrics from quilts as you did for what you used, so use them for a unique scrap quilt of your own.

If you “got scraps” make a quilt!

Until next time,

Lois