Another quilt from Chicago

I was so pleased that we could take photos of many (but alas not all) of the quilts on display at the Chicago Quilt Show. This one is Reach to the Stars by Jane Robertson; it was the BSR winner (Bernina Stitch Regulator). I love the spontaneous, fun look it has -- and black, white, and red make a dynamite color combination! Quilt shows are so inspiring. I have heard people say they come back depressed because they know they will never make a winning quilt, but I guess I am not interested in competitive quilting. There were some fabulous quilts at the show and I got so many ideas (and lots of pleasure!) from looking at them. (Remember, clicking on the photo will enlarge it so you can see more detail.)

Playtime!

Our guild has a block of the month project (more on that soon) and I've been making the blocks each time. They are all star blocks, and the stars use the "quick corners" method, which involves stitching small squares over larger ones and cutting off the excess fabric. That leaves you with lots of triangle pairs. I threw them away (regretfully) after the first block because I didn't know what else to do with them. With the second block I chain pieced the triangle pairs together and set them aside. I finished the third block yesterday and decided to open and trim the pairs for both blocks. Then I tried seeing what I could do with them. I did the pinwheels and square-in-a-square blocks, and then decided to just play. Here's what happened first:

I loved the long lines that were forming, and thought how cool it would be if I had more blocks and mixed the colors up! But I kept playing, and what fun. Here's the next thing that I rather liked:

As I do more blocks and get more triangles, the designs should get really interesting! Now I'm as excited about my throw-away blocks as I am about the real things!

Kathi's retirement quilt

My sister Kathi's husband is about to retire from the military, and Kathi has worked hard with Family Readiness for many years. As a parting gift, the 351st Civil Affairs Command in Mountain View gave her a beautiful quilt.


Here is the explanation she was given with the quilt: This quilt is given to you because of the friendship we all feel for you. The fabrics in the quilt are representative of the countries in the Pacific theater. The color purple represents Civil Affairs. The stars on the quilt represent your husband’s rank, and the diamonds in between the stars symbolize your worth as a friend. The dragons on the back of the quilt represent your leadership of the 351st Family Readiness Group that you organized 10 years ago, which was a wonderful vehicle for supporting the troops deployed to Bosnia and their families. The white Kutani Crane is a symbol of longevity and good fortune, which is what we wish for you. With friendship and best wishes, The 351st Family Readiness Group.

A lovely tribute, isn't it?

Here is the back of the quilt:



Fortunately, the back is every bit as beautiful as the front! Kathi has it on her bed with the back side on top. When she gets some purple pillows to coordinate with the front, she'll be able to reverse it and use whichever side strikes her fancy. Here's the quilt on the bed:

Chicago Quilt Show 2006

This amazing quilt was one of my favorites at the Chicago Quilt Show in April. It's called Introspectively Hexagonal and was hand pieced and hand quilted (how long would that have taken?) by Pamela A. Danesi. She says that this piece is a meditation on hexagons, and it is. It's amazingly intricate and completely beautiful. I would never have thought a quilt so monochromatic would be so powerful! It's hard to see it in the photo, but it's a huge quilt. Below is a detail; click on the photo to enlarge it so you can see it better.

Puppy Dog Quilt

Isn't this the cutest puppy dog? It's from another Linus quilt. My sole contribution to this quilt was handstitching the binding, but I took a photo anyway because it shows what a little creativity can do for a quilt. Here's the whole quilt:

This is a quilt made by volunteers with fabric donated for Project Linus. As you can see, the fabric is not very childlike. While I don't think everything needs to be novelty prints, it's nice to give a child a blanket that appeals to children on some level. Here someone stitched up a very traditional pattern, and then appliqued a puppy on it -- what a difference!

Raggedy Quilt

Last fall Debbi, the chair of our Project Linus committee, was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the wonderful way that guilds work, everyone immediately contributed flannel squares to make her a quilt and Marilyn N. designed the quilt. Several of us got together and stitched it up in just a few hours. This photo shows the back of the quilt. The other side looks exactly the same, but has raw flannel edges sticking up around each square. We fringed all those edges and washed the quilt, making the edges soft and raggedy. If you've never seen a rag quilt, here's a website that has photos of several: click here I'm very pleased to report that Debbi has finished her treatments and is doing well!

Jocelyn's poster

You're right -- this is not a quilt! Jocelyn presented her honors thesis in a poster at an undergraduate research conference last week. I understand from the psychology professor in the family that she did a great job!

Barbie Quilt

I may not be a big fan of Barbie dolls, but there is some mighty cute Barbie fabric out there! This is another Linus quilt. Jocelyn & Valerie pulled all these fabrics from our boxes and boxes of donated fabric over winter break, and we designed the layout. I finally got around to stitching it together and then sent the top off to another volunteer to be quilted and bound.

Beautiful job of longarm quilting

Here are two closeups of the quilting. What a spectacular job! Connie Lightle of Tolono, Illinois, did the quilting through her longarm business, "Maggie and Me." She does a fabulous job -- she even won an award at the big quilt show in Houston!

Val with her quilt

Here's Val with her quilt! She picked it up when she came home for spring break. Finished at last!

Baseball Linus quilt

We work with donated fabrics for Linus. Someone donated some St. Louis Cardinals fabric, so I made it up in a simple pattern. Hopefully some young Cardinals fan (there are plenty in this part of the world) will get this. If you double click on the photo, it will enlarge and you might be able to see the fabric design a little better.

Linus quilt

Here's a closeup of the quilt I made. It was really cute and I hated to part with it, but it was for a good cause. I had trouble quilting, even though I just did stitch in the ditch. I think I won't start with a long, lengthwise seam again! Another woman quilted hers in the ditch, too, but in small boxes. I'll do that next time.

All those Linus quilts

Here we all are with our Linus quilts! The guild is going to send the photo (hopefully with a little cropping first) to the magazine that published the pattern. It was so much fun to make the quilt!

Val's Quilt is DONE!!

And here it is!! I can't believe it! Tomorrow I will call the quilter and will have it all done by the time Val gets home for spring break. Hoorah!

Val's quilt - almost there

Hoorah! The two side borders are on Val's quilt! I have most of the top and bottom borders already pieced. As soon as the piecing is complete, I'll attach those final two borders and be DONE. A professional quilter will do the actual quilting. This quilt isn't going to look good with stitch in the ditch, and I can't do anything else.

Autumn bargello fabrics

Here are the fabrics for my autumn bargello that I'm making in my Quilt University class. It was interesting to me that while I think of autumn as my favorite season, I don't work in autumn colors on my quilts. But I do like this color run. The fabric running along the center is my fracture fabric, a tiny strip of which will run between all the other colors. Right now it looks like a tree, which is good -- I was thinking autumn tree when I put it together. I am going to try to structure the bargello to keep the look of trees. I ran the idea by Ruth Blanchet, my instructor, and she came up with a good way to do that. I'll give it a try and post my results!

Here's the summer bargello I made for my Quilt University class. It looks like summer to me! This time the bargello matches at the seams (the spring one was staggered), making it harder to put together.

I haven't chosen a border for my spring bargello yet, but I'm considering a pencil thin, peach border next to the summer bargello, with a bigger purple border. I'll do "broderie perse" with the flower fabric on the border, letting some of the flowers come onto the bargello. (Broderie perse is Persian embroidery, where you applique a design that is cut from a fabric.) Here's a closeup (blurry, sorry) of a section of the bargello so you can see the fabrics. The flowers are all cut up in the bargello, but I'd like them in the border because they're pretty. I'm also posting a photo of the flower fabric.

Spring Bargello

I'm taking an online course at Quilt University called Bargello Seasons. It's great! We're making a different type of bargello for each of the four seasons. Here's my first. Some of the colors are from the fat quarter packet I received when I joined the guild, and then I supplemented with other fabrics. I have my summer color run, but haven't started sewing on it yet.

Check out Quilt University if you haven't seen the site yet. There are lots of great classes taught by world class teachers. It's terrific!

Do You See What I See?

I was one of 12 people in a Project Linus swap. We were given the same pattern and border fabrics, but then we each bought 5 fabrics and cut strips of them for 12 people, giving us each 60 fabrics to work with for the quilt squares. We also supplemented a bit from our stash. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you will have a better idea of some of the cute fabrics in this quilt. I'm in the process of quilting it right now. Thursday night we are all bringing our quilts to the guild meeting and will have our photo taken to send to the magazine that printed the pattern. The quilts will be donated to Project Linus. They are so cute! It was really fun to make. Jocelyn did most of the cutting and some stitching, and both JJ and Val helped with the layout.

Val's quilt top pieced!

At last! It took me awhile to get up the nerve to stitch the blocks together, but it worked. I still have to add the pieced border, which needs to be laid out on paper first. I am hiring a professional quilter to do the quilting. Goal: Have it back, all quilted, so I can give it to Val over spring break.