Lisa: Plant Life

Color Inspiration for Corduroy Quilt

Thrift market sweater ($4.99) found 3 days before workshop on using solid fabrics with Gwen Marston in Sisters, OR. It is hand knit of a soft wool, in my size! The design feels South American to me.

Buffy's Beautiful Quilt

I noticed Buffy forgot to mention that she won a ribbon for her BEAUTIFUL quilt at the quilt show in Seattle.


...And I think she'll get mad at me for posting this, but here is the beautiful woman herself showing us the terrific back of this quilt.


Her quilts are gorgeous...and beautifully made....

Mostly Corduroy, 58" x 60"

Deb Rowden (debrowden.blogspot.com) suggests we get ready to celebrate National Corduroy Day on 11/11/11. This is made from mostly thrift market fabric. The garment corduroy was a better quality than I could buy at local fabric stores in 2008, when I made this quilt.

Four Block Grocery Sack Quilt, 18"x21"

The last of the workshop on the Grocery Bag Scrap quilts. There were 4 blocks left over, too tidy to put in previous quilt. See post 11/9/10.

In Memory of Lorene Chaffee and Nora Cope

After I retired in 2000, I went to Lorene's small farm house in Little Flock, AR, every week for 5 years. She mentored me in the fine art of combining fabrics. Despite very different styles, she was a romantic and loved florals; we worked together well. These are all beautiful. The blended quilt is especially remarkable. If you have tried this, you know how hard it is to do well. These pictures were taken in Nora's Quilt Shop in Tulsa, OK. Lorene died this year, and Nora was very frail, when I last saw her; but their teaching and mentoring continue to support the tradition in NW Arkansas, and Tulsa, as well as Western Washington.

self portrait revisited

This is a quilt I finished recently... 

incorporating a self portrait drawing I did 15 years ago...

It's based on feelings and emotions from an intense & difficult time...  

how we deal with what life hands us...and that,

 Sometimes you just want to be wrapped up in a quilt until you recover....

(heavy i know)

Tasty leftovers 2

  A very nice beginning from a very good ending! 

   

  

 

I see a pattern!

October Rebels, Dawn's practicing machine quilting

Drama Queen

Drama Queen
In preparing for a special exhibit I put together in 2009 called The Drama of Two-Color Quilts, I was inspired to create this black and white version of a favorite block usually called Ohio Star. This block is a basic nine patch block with four of the nine patches subdivided into quarters. I continue to discover the endless options of this single block. This variation sudivides the four corner patches into quarters. The block is set on point with no sashing. As you can see, I have not yet quilted my black and white “Drama Queen”.

My favorite antique quilt is on the right--I discovered this beauty in Paducah. The vendor's only knowledge about the quilt was that it was from Bardstown, Kentucky. I love the color combinations and believe the cloth was hand-dyed because several of the pieces in one block are corduroy dyed exactly the same color as the cotton fabric of the other blocks. The pattern is one offered decades ago by the batting company Mountain Mist on their paper wrappers. The quilter's initials are embroidered in yellow floss. When exploring all the elements of this quilt, I located a single cotton seed buried in the batting, so I've come to believe the cotton batting was carded by the maker. Did she plant it and cultivate it too? The quilt is in excellent condition showing few signs of wear. I call this quilt Bardstown Beauty.

My Mother's 1942 Vacation

My Mother’s 1942 Vacation
This memory quilt draws on my vintage fabric collection and features the green handkerchief appliqued in the center and the chenille flowers—both recall the 1940s for me. The flowers in the border fabric appear to be oleander flowers that thrived in south Florida and are part of my childhood memories.

My mother, Marie Virginia Donovan Neilson, was in her early 20’s when she and girlfriends made this trip to the beach. I’m guessing the cottage is located in south Florida because of the landscape and architecture. She lived on Miami Beach and had attended high school there, graduating in the late 30’s. In high school she was an athlete who participated in the track, swimming, softball, volleyball and basketball teams. She was an athlete despite being born with a clubfoot. Her mother, Marie Coghill Donovan, massaged and manipulated her foot and leg several times a day in her infancy to minimize the effects of this disability. I believe she also wore a metal brace for many years. Mother’s disability was unknown to me until one of my Girl Scout friends noticed that mother’s leg turned slightly and she bluntly asked her about it. Because Mother died in 1979, I have no direct information about this vacation trip, only these pictures. Marie appears in the black bathing suit with the skirt.

On the back of this memory quilt, as part of the label, I included a photo of me about the same age as my mom in these pictures. That photo of me was taken circa 1973 in Kansas City, MO. size: 31”x 31”

Elegant Simplicity

Elegant Simplicity, 2000
This memory quilt contains pictures of my mother, Marie Virginia Donovan Neilson, as a child, Marie and Paul at their wedding, Marie with the firstborn child (me), as well as pictures of me with my three siblings, Karl, Marsha and Lea. The variety of doilies on the batik fabric squares reminds me of Mother’s appreciation for fine textiles.

The single black glove is tribute to her simple elegance. The diagonal line of the glove helps to recreate a new rhythm for the viewer’s eye. I drew heavily on my vintage textile collection for the doily and the crocheted lace trim on Elegant Simplicity. All the photos are carefully documented on the back of the quilt.

Elegant Simplicity was pieced on my 1946 Singer Featherweight and I hand quilted and then machine quilted some sections on my 1971 White Sewing Machine. The fabric mostly came from Quilt Your Heart Out. Not for sale. 38”x 43”

Fall Quilt...

On Halloween I saw this cool wooden construction and thought it was a quilt.



Today, blustery, cold, rain pelting down, I found out it IS a quilt. Will start quilting tonight so I can sit under it soon!!

Orphan Block, Grocery Bag Quilt #4, 50" x 80"

The Orphan Blocks from the Innovative Scrap Piecing Workshop, by Nifty and me, are finally set into a Camp Erin Quilt. It was a battle, which probably shows, but I had lots of practice with curved-seamed piecing. Enough to "get that out of my system."

Cindy's Quilt of the Palouse from Jean Wells Workshop in September

Wonderful interpretation of eastern WA landscape. She still has to add foreground detail, and is almost finished with quilting.

20"x 24"

Basket top finished

It was crazy fun!

Basket blocks inspired by Gwen Marston's Collaborative Quilting II.. 

A baby quilt for our niece's new born!

Grocery Bag III, 50"x80"

Ragamuffin top done.

These are all orphan blocks donated to me by fellow bloggers.... 

I'm happy to say it's done at 109" X 111"

Nifty Quilts does Matisse Cutout

October Rebels: Patty's Framed Square

Grocery Bag Workshop, abandoned blocks, views 1 & 2

Needs a little work, but what an engaging project.

Basket full of Scraps

I am having way too much fun to make just one or two!
It is nice to use up all your scraps and these baskets are perfect for collecting scraps.

I left a little tutorial ( kind of.. sort of..) here with more pictures.

Improvisational Scrap Quilting Workshop

Buffy and I led a workshop yesterday for our local quilting guild. Ten talented and enthusiastic souls showed up with their scraps. We gave them 20 minutes to make each block, with Buffy's advice, "Don't think. Sew!" Look what they made in the first hour! We couldn't get it all in one photo.




Buffy added the dark and light strips, with Anna Williams inspiration. Aren't these gals amazing!

Basket full of Scraps

This morning's crazy patch.

Cindy's Sunshine and Shadow Quilt

A Little Note Arrives...

A couple of years ago I went to Sisters, Oregon, with Lee Ann and Cynthia for the annual quilt show, Gees Bend workshop et al. I threw myself into it that year and even made a block to send for the square competition. The group they put my block in was won by a woman from Colorado, and the other day I got a nice note with a photo of the finished quilt. I remember thinking my block was really in the spirit of Gees Bend (hah! as if...). Those who know me can probably find it. Hint: it involves turquoise but it doesn't involve chickens...(the challenge was that they sent out the fabric and you could add one color of your own...)

September Rebels, Mary's 9-patch

September Rebels, Cindy's Bright Quilt

Take an Ugly...

A few years ago, when the Rebels group was beginning, we gave ourselves the assignment to "take an ugly and make something with it."

Some shopped for quilting fabric at the thrift store for the first time. I had an old, faded, holey piece from my sister-in-law, Bonnie, (the black floral background,) and sewed on some 4 patches from a charm pack experiment. The border is a long strip I picked up at an antique store. It looks like it was pieced from a garment. Were they going to make a rug with it?

Anyway, I thought it needed texture, so added embroidery floss ties and buttons from Grammy's button box. Ah, the memories. I used to play with those as a little girl.

This is my first experiment with "out of the box" quilt making, thanks to Buffy and the Rebels!

Roberta's Camp Erin Quilt

Camp Erin is for children who have lost a primary family member (parent or sibling), and are experiencing grief. Roberta asks for tops that are 50" x 80". She then pieces backs and quilts them. Before the tops are quilted they are used as table cloths in the eating area at the Quilters Anonymous Guild Show in the spring. (Covered with plastic, of course)

September Rebels: Cindy's Fishy Quilt

September Rebels: Mary's Quilt

Julie taught art at the same school where Mary was a teacher. Mary's boys both took her art classes.

Mary's still a new quilter, but we are moving her right along and she is already "doing her own work."

September Rebels: Dawn's Art Quilt

September Rebels: Patty's Batik Diamonds

Front and back (with label). Patty really likes batiks.

Nifty Quilts "15" of fun", queen size quilt

She started with a 5 sided scrap, and added to it randomly, and pulled scraps blindly from scrap box. To my eye: great use of white and dark darks to make it sparkle. Also note the stripes and polka dots for fun.

Off-the-floor

Shadow on deck of Washington State Ferry

Back from Sisters, OR

Cindy, Mary, and Buffy went to Jean Wells workshop in Sisters last week. She is a very good teacher with extreme depth of knowledge from running her quilt shop for over 36 years. The workshop was on Intuitive Landscape quilts. Projects to follow as they are finished. The focus was on color and design. She introduced us to the Zen-tangles, which we hadn't seen before. See the books at www.zentangle.com I've ordered the first 3, because I believe there are great machine quilting ideas here. All of my workshops at Sisters have been first rate. It's a wonderful destination. Beautiful weather and scenery and over all small town ambience.

The Rocking Chair

I was digging through some old files, and came across these two quilts... 

This above was inspired by my grandmothers rocking chair that she sat in, to quilt... 

I think of her, and I can see her sitting in her wood rocking chair 

with her faded wall paper around her and floral pictures on the wall...

And this, for a good laugh, is the first quilt I ever made,

in it's now, VERY MUCH LOVED, condition...

eek! to funny.