Elephants!

I love this elephant block!  The elephants' trunks join in a snail's trail. It's a tough block to piece, and you can see I didn't do a perfect job. I'll have to fix it a bit, but I absolutely love the design. It finishes at 24" square. I found the pattern here.

I have been doing a lot of quilting -- went to a really fun retreat and worked on a bunch of stuff. This is the center back to the quilt I showed on the last post, and I'll save the rest for another post. 

I have not been playing catch up on this blog as I had intended, so here's the latest quilt instead. Just finished piecing this top to the size of a baby quilt (currently 36" square). Babies like high contrast, so I figured this would be a good design. I plan to add borders -- I think a very narrow black followed by a larger white & black (lots of white, a very little black) and an occasional wonky red diamond. I made 2-1/2 blocks of this several years ago, but once I decided to finish it, it was very quick.

The back will be fun -- red, white and black elephants! Stay tuned.

Another way to label a quilt

I hate labeling quilts, probably because I'm not very good at it. I should learn to print one on fabric, though I hate stitching those on. I had seen somewhere that a quilter had machine embroidered her label on the binding, and I thought I'd try something similar on the quilt I made for my husband. (You can see that quilt, the purple kaleidoscope, here.)

I used hand embroidery with 3 strands of floss. I wrote the words on the edge of a piece of paper and laid that next to the binding so I could get the spacing right. Nothing, not even a white pencil, showed up well, so I just tossed both paper and pencil and did freehand stitches. I got looser as I went, and I think it shows. This was much faster than making a traditional label, and I like the way it looks!

Challah covers

My daughter got married this summer and when her future mother-in-law invited me to a bridal shower last spring, I wanted to give her something personal but also something she would use. Something homemade, I thought, would be perfect, but nothing so big that it would be awkward for the newlyweds if it didn't suit their taste. I finally decided on challah covers.

 What are challah covers, you ask? On Friday night in Jewish homes, the sabbath is welcomed by lighting candles and saying blessings over the wine and bread. The traditional challah, a braided bread rich with eggs, is covered with a decorated cloth.

This challah cover says, in Hebrew, shabbat shalom -- peaceful sabbath. I think Hebrew letters are absolutely gorgeous, but I don't read Hebrew and so I wasn't at all sure that I could make free pieced letters that would still be recognizable. My son-in-law's family are Israeli and would definitely know if I botched the Hebrew, so I was pretty nervous about this. Google to the rescue! I saw this fabulous challah cover on Malka Dubrawsky's blog, A Stitch in Dye. Armed with that and free piecing techniques I learned from Tonya Ricucci (see her book, Word Play), I stitched this up. I love the colors! Now that I know it's legible and actually really and truly says "shabbat shalom," I may try another that's a little wonkier. How much fun would that be?

The design of this batik challah cover has a history. In one of the Renaissance synagogues still standing in the Ghetto Nuovo in Venice, there are floor tiles set in a design that I copied (above). But the tile was laid with an obvious mistake in one of the sections, as a reminder that only God is perfect. Check out the lower left block here and you'll find the mistake. As I told my daughter, I sketched the tiles from memory (no photos were allowed) and may not have gotten the basic block quite right -- but after all, only God is perfect!

The third challah cover I made from the Circle of Life I posted about here. I knew when I posted about it that I wanted to turn it into a challah cover, but didn't say anything because I didn't want to spoil the surprise! I'm thinking of turning the small kaleidoscope quilt in my last post into a challah cover, too.

Two Kaleidoscopes

Rather than playing catch up with this blog, I'll start by posting my two most recent finishes, both of them made following Ricky Tims' Kool Kaleidoscope Quilts instructions. He explains the process very clearly, step by step, and it's really pretty easy. He has a method that you learn, but the rest is up to you -- choice of size, division of wedges, fabrics, final layout, etc. Although he tells you to "be surprised," I couldn't help but try to plan how it would come out. This one is going up in my husband's office. The quilt is about 42" square.

The following one, only about 15" square, was made using the same method. I made fewer divisions in the wedge and was much more adept at planning what I wanted the second time around. I think it looks like a star that wants to be a snowflake.

The outside is made with leftover yardage from another project, but the kaleidoscope part of the quilt is made with leftover jelly roll strips from some placemats I made for my mother-in-law to use in her new home:

Circle of Life

There is so much exciting stuff going on in the quilting world that I jumped at the chance to join the newly formed Modern Quilt Guild (Central Illinois chapter). Our first challenge was to make a Circle of Geese block and turn it into a finished piece. You can find the free Piece by Number pattern here.

I made mine a circle of life (geese, after all, qualify as living!) and went dark to light in the circle, and then made borders that went light to dark on two sides, and dark to light on two others. The outer red isn't part of the quilt, but the white borders didn't show up on my white design wall!

My friend Mary made a tote from her geese block. The front is the basic block done in purple and teal batiks, but running out of fabric made her get creative on the block for the back -- look at the amazing star that forms in the center when you do it in a different fabric from the background. Wow! (Sorry about the poor lighting in the photo.)

I've been doing a lot of quilting and no blogging lately, so I'm starting with the most recent and will catch up in subsequent posts. Here's a Project Linus top I just finished -- it had been almost done for a couple of years and when I finally pulled it out, it took only an hour or so to finish it up. It's a Disappearing 9 Patch with a bear theme for a local summer camp for children with cancer.

Love and a swap

I'd been putting off making a block for Julie's White Coat Project because I didn't know how to do it. I decided I wanted to make something using selvages since Julie has made quilts with them, but I've never worked with them before. I also wanted to make something with free-pieced letters, but I didn't know what I could do in a small block. Finally, I decided to try Tonya's classic LOVE block.

This is 6-1/2" unfinished, with each letter block finishing at 2-1/2". The selvages are stitched down only in the seams -- is that how it's done? Well, it's how I did it! I hope it plays well with the other blocks Julie receives.

I participated in an I Spy swap, so much fun! I make lots of I Spy quilts and a swap is a great way to get a variety of fabrics. I had a few plans for what I'd do, but the squares started out at 5" (so they finish at 4-1/2"), and that's awkward for using them with other blocks. I've been seeing some rainbow I Spy quilts -- like this stunning one at Mermaid's Purse --and thought I'd like to try one. The swap didn't provide me with 10 squares of each color, so I had to supplement from my stash, but that just means I have leftovers for another quilt! I bordered each square on 2 sides with solids and arranged them stepwise (the picture is sideways). I've sewn much of it together, just haven't taken the photo yet. It's fun and quick.

Zig zags

I really hated that strippy quilt I posted yesterday, so I am inspired to post something I like better! I wanted to put a zig-zag border around my sticks and stones quilt, and thought maybe I'd use black and white fabric that's mostly black for the zig zag, and use scrappy reds for the background. But my quilt group convinced me that a multi-colored background would be more fun. One hundred and twenty-eight HST's later, I started laying them out. (There will be an inner border, not shown here.)

The zig zag did not pop -- too much distraction! So I put the same colors together and it does emphasize the zig zag more.

But of course, being scrappy, I didn't have even amounts of each color, and I found that a little too boring...so I started joining different fabrics of the same color and similar tone.

And now I'm thinking of perhaps stretching it a bit further -- same color but tones just a little bit further apart.

Aren't design decisions fun?

Jelly rolls and t-shirts

Things do pile up when I don't post! I have several projects underway, but here are just two.

First, I saw the Jelly Roll races video and thought it would be a fast, fun way to make quilts for Project Linus. And in fact, my guild had a worknight and made several -- you can see photos here, and Maggie's race-winning quilt (with explanation of how it was put together) here.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be at guild that night (though I was having a great time instead at the Chicago Ethnic Grocery tour!), so I decided to make one at home (photo above). I had purchased a roll of twenty 2-1/2" strips of child-friendly fabrics at a quilt shop in Indy and thought I'd use those. With an added border, it ended up just about the 40" x 60" standard for Linus. I think it's bright, cheery, quick to make, and I really don't like it!! I'm great with scrappy and with letting things happen while I make a quilt, but with this, I had absolutely no control over the design. By using only 20 strips -- half what's in a jelly roll -- the strips end up going vertically, and there is just not enough space in the quilt to compensate for odd groupings when fabric strips end up overlapping themselves in the next row. The most successful jelly roll race quilts I've seen have been mostly monochromatic, or black and white with a single color added. You can see some of these, as well as some tips for making this type of jelly roll quilt, on Floribunda's blog. I think next time I make a strip quilt, I'll try a design where I have more control -- I really like the design of the strip quilt on the Butternut Street blog.

I'm also working on a long-promised project -- a t-shirt quilt for my sister and her husband. I didn't want to use the standard same-size blocks with sashing, and I've been having a bear of a time figuring out how to juggle the pieces to fit everything together. My small quilt group gave me some great ideas, and that has helped me to finally get going again! It's my first t-shirt quilt -- should have started by making a less-complicated layout, but where's the fun in that?

Accidental Landscape

So much fun! Karen Eckmeier taught her accidental landscapes class at my guild recently, and I made this.

It's not quite finished -- I want to tack down the wave so it looks like it's breaking on the rock, and I think I want a little more embellishment before I quilt it. Can you see the one sailboat off in the distance? I think I may put another set of boulders into the border, too, not quite sure yet.

Karen's technique is really fun and improvisational. You can control what your landscape will end up looking like, but you can also just play around until something serendipitous happens -- or do any combination in between. Karen also has a clever way to make a wavy inner border, which you can see on my friend Mary's blog, Comfy Quilts and A Good Book.

Yvonne Porcella quilt exhibit

I so lucked out! I saw in The Quilt Show newsletter that Yvonne Porcella was having a quilt exhibit on Stanford campus right when I was heading to California to visit my daughter, just a few minutes from campus. Yay! I love her style. This is one of the first ones I saw, and there are so many things I like about it -- the piecing, the applique, the quilting, the use of color, the binding.

The lighting was not great for photos, but I wanted to show this flower basket quilt...

...because I love how she interspersed broderie perse with her own flowers, as you can see in this closeup.

I really like the one below. Yvonne Porcella's quilts are free and fun, but not chaotic. I love her mix of black and white with brights, and it seems to me it's not overdone.

Here's a closeup to show her amazing quilting -- really enhances the design.

Another fun one, with people and chili pepper appliques (again, lighting is not so great, and I had to use the camera on my phone since I dropped my other camera):

And I think you can see the quilting in the closeup, especially if you click to enlarge the photo. This is much more lightly quilted, and I love how the lines work -- they don't follow the checkerboard or stripes, but are a design of their own that fits the quilt. Never would have thought of this, but it looks terrific.

This is a closeup of Purple Dog Green Hair -- awesome!!

You can see the full quilt hanging here (with another of her quilts, Moo 2000). I love how these quilts were displayed -- a few quilts along a wall, in several hallways, on a few floors, of 3 neighboring buildings on campus. There were also two other artists, working in different media, whose works were displayed with hers. Wouldn't it be awesome to sit in this lounge to study and look up from time to time to see the quilts?

You can see more of Yvonne Porcella's work here.

The other New York City quilt show

 I was in NYC in March to visit my daughter and my inlaws, but our flight home was the day before the big red and white quilt exhibit opened. Aargh! Fortunately, it's The Year of the Quilt at the American Folk Museum (right next door to the Museum of Modern Art), and I took in quite a show there. And they allowed photos! No flash, of course, so some of mine are a bit blurry, but when I was there for a Paula Nadelstern exhibit a couple years ago, they didn't allow any photos at all. Here are a few of my favorites.

 This double wedding ring quilt was made in the 1930s by an unknown quilter (guess that's why we should label our quilts). I loved her use of color.

 I thought this quilt was amazing -- it has an incredible look from a distance...

 ...and up close you can see the tremendous amount of work that went into it! Unfortunately, the photo I took that gave info about the quilt is too blurry to read.

 Low lighting means I also can't read the info on this quilt. It has a very elegant look to it, but the close-up below also shows how wonderfully scrappy and homey it is.

Below is Jessie Telfair's famous Freedom quilt. It really packs a whollop when you see it in person. I was really moved by it.

 Take a look at the close-up to see how it was constructed.

 This is a late 19th century crazy quilt map of the US -- what's not to love? The piecing in the background is pretty amazing, too.  My photo is a little blurry, but there's a better picture of it on the museum website, click here.

 After seeing the exhibit, I stopped by the City Quilter. They had just expanded into the space next door, and they're going to turn part of it into an art quilt gallery. As I looked around, I saw one of Karen Eckmeier's Happy Villages quilts -- this one of NYC, quite a village! It was a great find for me, since I was taking a class from her at my guild the day after I returned home. More on that in another post. I really like her Happy Villages quilts.

And finally, walking to meet my daughter later that day, I went by the most amazing shop filled with old, old, old (even treadle!) sewing machines. Wow! It's a boutique clothing store called All Staints.

And just last week The Quilt Show website had a video of the interior of this store, which they also discovered when in NYC for the big Red and White quilt exhibit. Take a look here.