Happy Valentine's Day

After my run to the post office today, I took a little drive around town and saw such pretty Valentine greetings on the doors of various homes.  I thought about making something, but just didn't have that budgeted in my time.  However, I do have this treasure.  I think it's about 23 years old.

 I made this when I lived near Camp Verde, Arizona.  I think this was the result when my quilt guild held a workshop with someone from the Phoenix area.  I'm pretty sure every one of these fabrics appeared in quilts during that time.  I'm hoping to make one or two more quilts from these fabrics one of these days. However, for today, I was glad I remembered to get this out.

One of my all time favorite quotes is lettered in the center: "...For it is turmoil and confusion and not calm assurance that mark the growth of the mind."  That was written by Timothy Ferris in Coming of Age in the Milky Way Galaxy.   I loved his books; he has a magic way with words, but I'm not sure how many people are familiar with his works.

Yes, the ink was heat-set (Pigma Pen), but it has faded, as have the rest of the quotes I copied onto this little quilt.

It's interesting to me that I used both hand and machine piecing and both hand and machine quilting.
From the size of those stitches, I'm guessing I used size 12 betweens and Mountain Mist Quilt Light batting.  (I'm told the quality of the batting has seriously declined over the last 25 years.)

This is my other heart quilt.

This one hangs in my living room. This too was made in a class my Camp Verde guild had.  I made this around the time I had started machine quilting; if I quilted it today, it would be full of feathers. I did use a lot of Sulky metallic sliver thread in silver, gold, purple, and teal to quilt it.  The batik background is quilted in huge swirls.

The story behind this quilt shows how times have changed.  The instructor told us to use reds in our quilt and was not very happy with my choices.  She also told us she had spent two and half days figuring out the pattern and not to share it with anyone.  However, she herself had copied it from a famous quiltmaker whose name I have forgotten.
Edit:  I just remembered whom she copied this quilt from: Emiko Tado Loeb.  You can view Emiko's Gallery online here.

I hope your Valentine's Day has been filled with hearts and flowers and many other lovely things.  (I think I'll have my supper on an antique rose strewn plate and my tea in an antique rose cup.)


Happy quilting and knitting, as well....

Baby Quilt from the Past

When I first began making quilts, our tools were fabric, pencil, and, after I graduated from using file folders or oak tag for templates, Shrinky-Dink plastic. I was thrilled with my first Olfa Rotary Cutter. While the Internet existed, it was pretty much confined to military use. I've forgotten about many of the quilts I made--especially if they were never photographed or if the film never was developed.
Here's one that had slipped my mind:

This quilt was made for my friend Tammy Somers when she was expecting her first child 21 years ago.  He is now a 21 year old U. S. Marine.

The back story is that Tammy's grandmother had made a quilt of the "cactus flowers" in Birmingham, Michigan around 1910.  (The pattern is sometimes called "Rosebud" and, like most patchwork patterns, has many names carried forward by oral tradition as well as printed sources.)  Tammy's grandma's quilt is made of green and white solids.  About 25 years ago Tammy was using it on the back or her sofa.  We were car pooling to our teaching jobs at Yahtahey, north of Gallup, NM, and one day I stopped by and saw it being used by her cats as a spot for sun worship.  That Christmas I made her a pillow with the Rosebud block, only I used the colors in the quilt above, which were a bit more blue than the original green.  Tammy gave me her grandmother's quilt--kind of a "Gift of the Magi" O. Henry twist.  It seemed appropriate that when Tammy was pregnant, she needed a  quilt made with the block pattern her grandma had used over 80 years earlier.

In the intervening years, a lot of history has been added to our pasts.  Recently, Tammy posted this photo (taken last Saturday) on my Facebook page in honor of her son's 21st birthday.  So, I'm sharing it with you.

I'd remembered our O. Henry story, and I cherish her grandmother's quilt. I posted about the antique quilt and the quilt I made to honor it here.  However, until I saw Tammy's photo, I'd forgotten that I'd used the same block to make her a baby quilt. The writing on the quilt is because in those days I often copied collected quotations onto baby quilts.  I did the same with my grand-niece's baby quilt. By that time I'd realized that despite being heat set, the words often disappear, so I'd settled for attributes instead of long quotes.

These babies do grow up fast, don't they?  It's fun to see them evolve, but it's equally nice to be able to call up the memories.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

What Was On the Bed - Again

Here's what was on the bed last week:

 This is a very simple Double Nine Patch--in the traditional sense of the title.  This one is set with alternating plain blocks.
Beginning quilters need to be aware that we can make really nice quilts from simple designs.  Furthermore, if we love the quilting part,  those simple quilts can become truly spectacular!

 Yes, it says it was finished in 1990....but it was begun several years earlier.

 One of the fun things about making this quilt was all the color changes in the quilting.

I also enjoyed the double diagonal lines in the background--inspired by quilting in antique quilts. 

 Also signed with a monogram...used to replace the hearts that are the other blocks.

 I also changed the color of the hand quilting thread from block to block. 

 Back then I used Mettler 100% cotton hand quilting thread.

These are a couple of vintage pillowcases with hand crocheted lace.  I found them somewhere as singles.

I'm thinking there are two main reasons for so many single pillow cases that have survived.  One is that sometimes women started making a pair and just never finished the second. The other reason is that one wore out faster than the other.  I know that on the farm, my dad's pillowcase always wore out faster than my mom's.  She said it was because  he did so much welding that there were always chemicals left in his hair, and over time they caused the fibers to deteriorate faster....I'm guessing there may well have been a lot of truth in that!

Happy quiltmaking....

What Was On the Bed

Time for a different quilt on the bed, so before I removed it, I took a couple pictures.....

This quilt was published (minus the borders) in a Better Homes & Gardens craft magazine of some kind in the late 70's.  Quite possibly it was one of their issues of gifts to make for Christmas.  At the time, I was teaching in an inner city school in Peoria, Illinois and having to search diligently to find fabrics that were 100% cotton.

This quilt was completely hand pieced (the old fashioned way) from 60-degree diamonds with two-inch sides. I don't think I had any knowledge of English paper piecing at the time. And, let's face it, traditional piecing was much easier for diamonds this size.

Within a couple of years I had moved to Tennessee, and while I had the templates [made from Shrinky Dink plastic], patches and some fabrics close to me, the pattern/magazine was hidden in a box somewhere.  I remember going to the library at Lee College and looking the magazine up on microfiche to see how the quilt was bordered. It turned out none of the photos showed the borders; neither were they included in the instructions.

I decided this would be my "millennium quilt,"  meaning I'd be happy to finish it by the year 2000.  When sometime in the 1980's, a group of us had founded the Cherokee Blossom Quilt Guild and affiliated ourselves with the Tennessee Valley Quilt Association, the state organization brought Ginny Beyer to Knoxville to conduct a series of workshops.  She invited us to bring quilts for which we needed borders.  Another Cherokee Blossom member and I were lucky enough to attend her workshop.

She helped me come up with a way to finish the edge of the layout with half-stars and helped me design the border that contains the triangles.  I remember working to piece this border section onto the quilt when I was sitting in the Albuquerque airport waiting for a friend to get off work when I came to interview for jobs in New Mexico.

 I quilted it on my hand quilting frame sitting in front of a bay window in the house we rented in Gallup and was quite happy when I finished it twelve years early!

Many of these fabrics were gathered from a wide variety of merchants, including Calfee's Grocery on Spring Place Road on the south side of Cleveland, TN, which had a fairly large fabric department because Mrs. Calfee liked to sew and make quilts.  (At least, that's what I was told.)  So much of the fabric has faded because the fabric companies saw no need for more than a few hours of light-fastness.  Obviously, they were clueless about how many yards of fabric could be sold to quiltmakers for stash enhancement.

I also taught classes at Chandler Fabrics, and remember when Bill Chandler came back from a large industry show remarking how so many fabric merchants were all doom and gloom and that the only happy people there were the people who owned quilt shops.  Compared to the huge numbers of fabric lines today, we were in a fabric desert back then!

Lots of memories in this quilt.

Happy quiltmaking.....

Home Sights

Miss Harriet has been after me to post some pictures from my home.  Since it's been over a month since I posted and since I've not finished a quilt, her wish is granted.  Mind you, she's been asking for many months, and I just haven't managed it.  I decided to put a new quilt on my bed today--needed a change of quilt to inspire me to wait for spring.  Right now our winter is much milder than last year (about this time last year we had a low of -34 F).

 This quilt is "Dolly's Baskets." I dreamed about it for years before I started it in 2002 (with fabric I'd been collecting for 10 years).  I finished it in 2007--hard to believe it's been finished for five years!
It was inspired by a similar basket quilt of solid white and solid violet made by my paternal grandmother in the early 20th century.  When I saw this set on a Mennonite quilt from the same period, I wanted to use it because of all the lovely spaces for quilting--feathers, of course!

I do love the haven my home, and especially, my bedroom, provides.  (And, yes, I know my bedside table is cluttered. Sorry.)  That table was part of the red maple bedroom set in my room when I was a child.  I painted it white 20 years or so ago--and have never regretted it.

 The pillowcases are lonely singles I've collected over the last 15 or 20 years--maybe longer.

 I do love boxes.  I've loved and collected boxes since I was in primary school.

Of course, I have no trouble filling them up!
The bed and armoire as well as the dresser that's not pictured are from a furniture series that was for many years the most popular one in the U.S. I painted the bedroom furniture white about ten years ago--it was a menopausal thing, I think.  I just couldn't get enough light into my life.

I also purchased other furnishings from the same line. I gave away the TV/stereo armoire because it was just too big for my small house.  I have a farm table from the same line, although I now use it in my sewing studio. I have two chairs from the line too.  They've not been painted white, but I did recover their cushions with a very small lavender and white plaid a few weeks ago.

 

After I added sweet LED lights to the kitchen for the holidays, I decided to leave them up.  See that ugly florescent light fixture?  I really dislike it.  I don't know what era it's from, but I'm certain its era was long before the house was built.  Someday it will be replaced, but for now the other lights are bright enough to make our meals very pleasant.

Okay, those are a few sights from my home/haven.

I did finish quilting my great nephew's John Deere quilt, but I want to get the binding on before I show it--and I haven't even cut the binding yet. I'm suddenly behind on children's and baby's quilts--one of my nieces gave birth to a daughter this past Tuesday [they sent a picture to my phone, but since I have pins with heads bigger than the baby's photo, I'm not quite sure what she looks like]; one of my former kindergarten students will soon have a daughter; and one of the members of my youth choir from 20+ years ago is about to have a son, her third.

I do need to figure out a way to get more quilting time into this busy, tiring winter!

A Couple New Designs

Thought I'd post a couple of pictures from the two nights of storms we experienced in five days--but the camera wasn't where I thought it was.
Sooooo....here's a picture of the plan for Alex's Star Song quilt--I didn't finish it until I arrived at the cabin, and now I have a shortage of music notes fabric.  We bought some irregular black on white polka dots to supplement it, but I may wait until we get to a quilt shop.  Hmmmm....thinking about that.

I used the same plan with a few blocks shifted and moved for the Butternut & Blue quilt--but so far, I have only one block for that one completed.
I did finish quilting the Tea & Roses quilt--but don't yet have a picture.
I did deliver the Field of Tulips--but the photos were horrible!

Okay, I admit to being pretty lazy on this vacation.  Of course, with a couple of days with the electric power out for over seven hours, lazy was well reinforced!  Having fun anyway!  (I snatched some library time while the girls are at the new movie that I didn't want to see.)  Think I'll try to read a few blogs too!

Happy quilmtaking........

Happy Birthday, Birmingham Thistle

I realized the other day that I had not taken a photo of this quilt.  I started it over 20 years ago but didn't put the last stitch in until 1995.  Familiar story, probably.

My little quilt was inspired by this one:

It's too fragile to hang for a photo.  In fact, if you look directly above the center block, you'll see the pale yellow stem of the block above--undoubtedly, it was once a comparable green.

This quilt was made by Dorothy Williams in Birmingham, Michigan, circa 1910--so I'm celebrating it's birthday!

A couple decades ago I taught at Chee Dodge Elementary north of Gallup with Tammy Somers Ashley, Dorothy's granddaughter. For a year or two we car pooled to Chee Dodge.  One afternoon I was at Tammy's apartment and saw this quilt on the back of her sofa with a cat lounging on top of it.  I admired the quilt, and we looked at it more closely, and Tammy told me what she knew of its history.

The quilt has thin cotton batting and a solid white backing of a slightly coarser weave.  Dorothy quilted it with "Baptist Fans".

I attempted to encourage Tammy to care for it gently. I thought it was such a treasure and that she was very lucky to have such a legacy from her grandmother.

That Christmas, in honor of her quilt, I made Tammy some sofa pillows from the same pattern.  At the same time I presented her with the pillows, she presented me with the quilt.  We laughed about the similarities to O. Henry's short story "The Gift of the Magi."

I've cared for this quilt quite gently--but nevertheless, some of the patches are disintegrating--and I think the yellow that used to be green is even more faded than it was, despite the fact that this quilt is almost always inside a dark closet.

Here's another shot of the small quilt I made in honor of Dorothy's larger one:

The slightest change of camera angle seems to be yielding huge changes in color today.
I'm thinking I may need to challenge myself to make another quilt like this.  I had penned favorite quotations all over the front and back of this quilt with a violet Pigma pen, but despite the fact that this quilt has never had prolonged exposure to sunlight and has probably been laundered only a few times, the inscriptions are becoming nearly impossible to read too.

Yep, might have to find time to make another.

Sunshine, Anyone?

Here's another small quilt from the 1980's, machine pieced, hand quilted.  Too big to be a refrigerator quilt; well, perhaps if the refrigerator were a commercial one....
No new quilts to show; maybe I'll have some pieces to show after today.
I chose to post this one because it reminds me of sunshine trying to break through clouds--a description that fits this week.  Admittedly, compared to other places New Mexico has probably been fairly sunny--at least we've seen it a few times this week--most often blinding me in the car mirrors on the way to work.  And I shouldn't complain about that because in a couple of weeks we'll be plunged back into early morning darkness because of daylight saving time.  Whoever decided we should have more daylight saving time than "normal" time needed their heads examined. In any case, we are not accustomed to as many hours of dark, gray clouds as we've had every day this week!  (Hmmmm.....maybe I need to take more Vitamin D!--Quick, before the next storm hits!)

Here are a couple of details of this sunshiny little quilt that's been folded on a shelf for too long:

It is so very sad that all those quilts from the years when I hand quilted have faded to a shadow of their former selves--not my fault; the manufacturers insisted we shouldn't expect the dyes to hold for more than10-14 hours of direct light.  How sad!

But, hey, happy quilting anyway.......

P.S.  Today, 3/13/10, a friend called to say one of our mutual friends sent her 20 year old pictures that included at least one shot of this quilt, and that the colors were so bright.  She's going to send some of the pictures to me, so I'll get to compare.  If possible, I'll scan them for  a future post.

Slow Goin'

It's been slow goin' this week.  Haven't touched a machine or quilted all week.  I feared this would happen.  I truly hope that when I actually get to retire in a few years, I'll still have plenty of creativity and energy left for quilting.

This little quilt is one I made in the late '80's.  It's an old, traditional pattern from the Southern US, a variation of a Drunkard's Path with a head and a tail appliqued onto a couple of patches prior to piecing.  This one was made with some of those P&B (and other) fabrics that preceded the real reproductions that showed up in the marketplace a few years later.

This quilt has faded quite a bit from hanging in several of my homes and classrooms.
Here's a detail:

 

It's less than 24-inches square, one of many I made that one of my friends called "refrigerator quilts."  However, I'm pretty sure this one has never hung on my refrigerator because the refrigerator is more or less permanently loaded with schedules, reminders, recipes, and sometimes a few photos.

Somewhere I have a later version in blue, aqua, teal, and violet batiks--because I made one to give away, and then another one for Sanda, and then knew I had to make one for myself.  I've lived in this house for nearly eight years, and I really need to get organized and hang some quilts!

I am sooooo looking forward to coming home from work tonight, hopefully with enough energy to quilt.  In any case, the Victory Quilters meet to work on prayer quilts tomorrow, so I'll have more chances to work on quilts.

Happy Quilting.......

An Unusual Nine-Patch--Ice Cream Social

 

I made this quilt, which I named "Ice Cream Social," in 1985-86 while living in Cleveland, TN.

The border is that dusty pink that was so popular during the 80's, but I was unable to get it to register as anything other than tan in the photo.  I called it "Ice Cream Social" because the pink (that looks nearly white in the photo) and the pale green reminded me of strawberry and mint ice cream.

 

The quilt is composed of nine patches set on point with alternating pink and green solid squaters.  To achieve this look, the center top and bottom squares of the 9-patch were pieced from green, and the center patches on the horizontal axis were pieced from pink.  

It was pieced by machine and then hand quilted.  I don't remember getting bored quilting the same designs over and over, but can't imagine being that patient today!

I would like to do another quilt like this--only in batiks this time.

Savannah Stars & Sew-In

This quilt of mostly batiks and a printed Hoffman sky fabric was pieced and quilted in the early 1990's.  That was long before I had a computer or Electric Quilt, and it was planned on graph paper.

 

The "Baptist Fans" were quilted with Sulky silver sliver thread.

I look back at some of those older quilts now and am amazed at how much excess quilting I used. 

I never really enjoyed doing "stipple" quilting; now when filler quilting is necessary, I almost always choose some other type.

When I was first shown stipple quilting on antique Southern quilts back in the early 1980's, I was told that women just did a lot of stitches in random directions.  In fact, their stippling was in parallel rows of stitches about 1/8" or less apart.  In all the dozens and dozens of Southern quilts I've seen, I've never, ever seen stipple quilting done in random directions, only in closely spaced parallel rows.

Tonight I'm planning to join in for the Friday Night Sew-In--although I haven't decided if I'll continue quilting the Field of Tulips or work on something else or do a little of both.  You can join in too!  Just head over to Heidi's blog and sign up with the Mr. Linky.

Happy quilting......

Little Quilt

Here's a small Amish style quilt I made in the early 90's: machine pieced and hand quilted.  It looks as if it has a lavender border in the photo, but it's actually an unusual blue color.

I've loved this zigzag set since I first saw it in a full-size quilt decades ago.  This little quilt is about 24" square and made from both polished- and plain cottons.

 

It was quilted the traditional way with black thread.

 

Amazing that I found time for all that hand-quilting!

My Baby's First Quilt

I began this quilt for my daughter during the long, long wait for her arrival.

Around that time I was making quite a few baby quilts.  On each, I included hand-inked quotes that I hoped would inspire the recipient at a later point.

 

The little green blotch on the upper border is some unidentified substance that left its mark in several places on this quilt.  I really don't think it's paint, but I have no idea what it is. It does offer evidence that she actually used the quilt.

It's hard to tell from these pictures, but I did do part of the quilting with Sulky holographic metallic thread. (Remember, you can right-click on any photo and open a larger view in a new tab or new window.)

In most of my homes I've hung quilts on the walls as artwork.  For some unknown reason, I have only one quilt hanging in this home.  Perhaps I should remedy that.

Older Quilts - Bowties

Because I'm working on the quilting for that huge Field of Tulips--it's 90" X 100"--there's really nothing new to show.  So here's what used to be one of my all-time favorite quilts.

 All the blocks were hand-pieced with center rectangles.  It hung in several of my homes for many years.  Unfortunately, it was made in the 1980's when fabric manufacturers were insisting that as long as fabrics held their colors for 14 to 18 hours of exposure to light, that was long enough. Not!

Here's a detail of hand piecing and hand quilting:

 

That little beige inner border was once printed with beautiful little rose-colored flowers.  They're barely visible now.  Most of the time, when I take the quilt out to look at it, it just makes me sad that all that work was done with full-priced fabrics that were such low quality.  When I was making this quilt, I carried the pieces everywhere and pieced every time I had a couple of minutes.

I made several more bow-tie quilts in the years following this one--one was given to my baby sister and the rest were given away as baby quilts--and they were pieced with two corner triangles next to squares so that although they looked like bowties, they weren't this old, old patchwork pattern.

I do so little hand work now that I doubt I'll ever manage to produce another bowtie quilt like this one.