Gee's Bend quilts hanging in front of the Stitchin' Post, Sisters, OR, July 9, 2011

Rebels & Virtual Rebels Go to Sisters, Oregon, for Show & Workshops

Perfect weather (70s in the daytime, and low 40s at night), fabulous quilts, lots of great time with friends, great workshops and lectures.

This is the side of the Stitchin' Post shop. Quilts were done by employees as a challenge. There were 1400 quilts in the show! This year there was a new program on Sunday for those willing to stay another day. Special guests this year were 7 women from Gee's Bend. Pictures of their quilts to follow in next few days. It was all pretty intense, but wonderful.

Starters and Enders Quilt, 53"x79"

Home Sewing Machine Quilting Journey 1

Current focus: improve machine quilting. I'm 10 tops behind., What are the bottlenecks?

1. No backs (new house rule: make back as soon as top is done)

2. Skill level

3. Dithering over WHAT DESIGNS to quilt

Plan: Focus on skills, keep samples of patterns I learn, and QUIT DITHERING. Share that journey on blog, as I go.

Started with Pam Clarke's QUILTING INSIDE THE LINES, for this quilt. It was almost a free quilt, since it was made of the most eclectic scraps, i.e. 2 1/2" strips cut into varying lengths, and sashed with plaid thrift market shirts. I had to buy a batt, and decided to try the low loft poly by Mountain Mist, as it was the least expensive. I'm not a fan of poly batts; but decided this was worth a try. It worked fine, and I may use it again.

Pam emphasizes "practicing with a purpose" and has 10 motifs to master. The 2 for this quilt are "swirl" and "loop". The loop was easy, but the swirl took a couple of hours of paper and pencil practice to learn. I wondered why she chose the most difficult motif as the first one. Maybe, because once learned, and burned into brain, the others are easy. At first, I practiced drawing "east to west", but then realized I'd be quilting "north to south", so I turned paper 90 degrees. The "swirl" is half way to a spiral, a motif I've wanted to be able to do for a long time. I also quilted "leaf" motif on the border strips, and had a terrible time with them. They are mutant forms. I've done lots of leaves, but had trouble with Pam's version.

Bobbin thread: Bottom line by Superior, no lint, and long bobbin life

Needle thread: Highlights by Superior, 40 wt poly, no lint, no thread breakage
Needle: 90/14 Topstitch, titanium, available from Superior

Scrap childs play

My 11 year old daughter got into my scraps the other day.. 

She insists she doesn't like to sew, but...

she put some scrap blocks together... (like mother like daughter!) 

She picked out the fabrics, put it all together, and I quilted and bound it

Nifty does a tile quilt experiment

Nifty had an applique emergency, i.e. no hand work to do, during down time at the office. She decided to give this technique a try, although she didn't really have any directions. This block took care of the emergency, but she is not sure she wants to do any more.

Patty's Batik Scraps Quilt

Patty loves batiks and has a new batik quilt almost every month. I'd guess she has lots more scraps than this.

Patty, Work in Progress

Inspired by picture in CALIENTE QUILTS, by Priscilla Bianchi. We are auditioning fabric for setting triangles. Turquoise was the favorite.

Heat Wave

Buffy's last post prompted me to post this little quilt in progress.

I like her take on scraps... blame it on the rotary cutter. 

Here is my latest one I can blame my rotary cutter for!

 East coast is hit by the heat wave. I now have memory of the heatwave in the form of this little quilt.

Going Around in Circles Scraps, 15"x16"

Very few scraps from a full size quilt. Cutting with templates seems to produce few scraps. Let's blame all of our scraps on the rotary cutter!

Patty's Next Thrift Market Find, $2, about 40" square

Patty's Thrift Market Find, $7

Some silk, rayon, and unidentified fibers here.

Thrift Market Shirt Quilt by Patty

Mary"s Log Cabin start from Marston Class

Cindy's great quilt idea!

Cindy has been collecting commemorative towels for a quilt. As her husband bikes across the country this summer, and Cindy trailers along; I'll bet she'll fine a few more. Cindy will be able to check out thrift stores from coast to coast!

Roberta's Collection of Dutch and French Chintz

She started with a panel from Jovita's shop. How many years ago? Then she bought a kit from Den Haan and Wagenmaker on her trip to Holland, and the French chintz on her trip to Provence. Now to get it all together into a medallion, maybe with stars.

Camp Erin Quilt

One of the Rebels is an angel named Roberta. Every year she makes sure that 100 kids--those who've lost a family member--each gets a quilt. And she quilts most of them! These quilts are donated through Camp Erin, where kids, ages 7 to 17, go for a week in the summer to process their loss while having fun. When they arrive, they get a quilt, and they take it home to remember their experience. This year I donated this quilt top.

Going Around in Circles, 75" x 75"

Templates from Mary Mashuta. Able to use fabrics collected over several years. Used Ricky Tims circle-piecing technique of stay stitching all curves.

Wheels, 64" x 64.5"

Vintage fabrics from friend's 50+ year stash. Background from Goodwill.

Inspiration from PASSIONATE PATCHWORK, by Kaffe Fassett. He used vintage blocks he bought in Houston.

I saw a woman do free-hand, free-motion feathers, ten years ago, in Paducah. I couldn't believe it. At least I knew it was possible. Another 10 years, and I may have it.

When This You See, Remember Us

"When This You See, Remember Us" was the special exhibit of friendship quilts, album quilts, memory quilts and signature quilts I put together for our April quilt show. Other guild members loaned their special quilts to add to the ones I've made. Memory quilts are one of my specialties and each quilt had a story to tell.

Top picture: At the beginning of the display I shared a number of smaller quilts. You may recognize the "Orange Scribble quilt I posted earlier this spring. Draped over the top of the information board is a small fan quilt I made from a single large block. I discovered this block while in Paducah for the AQS show several years ago. By adding borders and hand quilting it, I turned it into a doll quilt.

Center picture: In the heart of the exhibit is the hand pieced and hand quilted grandmother's flower garden, an heirloom in excellent condition belonging to Janice Berry. She said her grandmother Orlena Matilda Ford Hurdle pieced it in the 1940s and that it holds strong memories for her. Orlena hand-pieced because she and her husband ran a movie theatre in Milan, Missouri where her grandmother spent a lot of time in the booth selling tickets. The hand quilting was done by a local church group.

The small quilt featuring a circle of quilters belongs to Joan Beyette who told me each of the figures represents the members of her small quilt group who meet weekly forming a circle of quilters.

The large Lone Star in the center is a memory quilt I created and called Richmond, 1898. I used a variety of reproduction fabrics to make my new quilt look old. In my imagination my maternal grandmother, Marie Coghill, was working on this traditional star in 1898 at her house in Richmond, Virginia. Once she finished the top, she probably would have hand quilted her quilt, although there are surviving quilts from this time period where the maker skillfully machine quilted her quilt on a treadle machine. I designed and machine quilted this lone star.

Bottom picture: These signature blocks were given to me by a friend who discovered them here in a Northwest Arkansas thrift shop in February. Anyone know the name of this block? I hurried to create a top with the fifteen blocks in the group, adding the vintage block I cut in half to finish the upper corners. I was determined to finish it for this display. The blocks were a range of sizes so I used "coping strips" on each block to even out the size problem. I chose a very busy fabric for the coping strips and for the sashing to disguise the varied block sizes. The black cotton sateen added a crispness I appreciated. I machine quilted it on the 1971 Bernina 830 Sally/Buffy LeBeouf gave me several years ago. (What a friend!) The stack of friendship blocks were meant to be sewn together and be viewed side by side, so I called this quilt Side-by-Side Friends.

Lisa, quilt-in-progress

Problem: How to use Judy Robertson fabric keeping the piece intact to better show the beauty of the hand dying? Solution: Applique blocks on top of it, add shadows, and insert silk pieced branches! More applique to come.

Flower patterns adapted from Piece O'Cake Designs

Crazy Block by Alexis

Great use of scraps.

Fragment II, 12" x 15"

Idea of calling these small studies "Fragments" comes from AMISH-INSPIRED by Piece O'Cake Designs (Becky Goldsmith & Linda Jenkens). I used only the yoke, and 2" of the sleeve, so have lots of this beautiful plaid left for another day.

Inspired SPOKES

HELLO REBELS!

Inspired by a quilt that I saw at the RED & WHITE show, 

I came home and pulled out my scraps so I could make 

something to try embroidery on...

A totally new experience for me...  I so loved it!

I think I'd like to make a whole quilt like this one day...

This is only 12" square...

And thought to post it after seeing the gorgeous crazy quilts
in the last post! lovely!

Magnificent Crazy Quilts

Two magnificent crazy quilts appeared at our recent quilt show here in Northwest Arkansas! The blocks in each were set together in unusual designs. The first quilt hung in our antique quilt display. Brought in by one of our founding members, Ann Roberts, who inherited this quilt from her grandfather. She guesses it was made by his mother or another relative in either Massachusetts or New Jersey before 1900. This strippy setting allows each block to receive more attention. Each of the four dividing strips is a different fabric and is embroidered with a different chain of delicate flowers. The quilt is in excellent condition with bright colors, but contains no names or dates to help us identify the maker or her location.

The second picture is a crazy quilt brought in to be appraised. It is spread out on a table to be examined allowing us to see the pointed edges created by setting the crazy blocks on point. The third picture is a detail from that quilt showing the embroidered initials of the woman who sewed this wonderful "fancy quilt."

Some historians believe the designation of these quilts as crazy quilts is a reference to the crazed patterns of tiny lines that can appear on the surface of china with age or exposure to the elements or just over time. The pattern of irregular lines allowed the women to use the odd shaped scraps left from dressmaking and tailoring. Usually each line is enhanced with embroidery stitches creating a visually rich surface.

Crazy quilts were "fancy quilts" often enhanced with personal memories, favorite flowers and fanciful stitches. One quilt I saw from Texas had a blue silk ribbon and a red silk ribbon incorporated into the blocks. Each had been awarded to the maker for county fair awards prior to 1900 the time period elaborate crazy quilts were most popular. These two magnificent crazy quilts were among the highlights of our quilt show for me and reminded me of how talented our foremothers were with needle and thread.

From Aeroplanes to Sunflowers

Quilt lovers attend quilt shows hoping to see a variety of quilts. We like old quilts and new quilts because there are always surprises and designs that please our senses. The airplane block would be relatively easy to recreate in a quilt for someone enamored of flying.

The sunflower quilt in the second photo made me smile. I can see it with the quilt draped over the edges of a bed with the flower heads reaching for the sky. The lovely hand quilting in parallel lines fills the center. As you can see, there were a variety of vintage quilts collected by our guild members.

Quilt show, Northwest Arkansas

Every two years springtime in the Ozarks brings our guild quilt show. Quilts bloom along the aisles of the Benton County Fairgrounds. It is so much work we could not possibly pull it off every year! But what a way for quilters to "recharge our batteries."

We spend three whole days immersed in the realities of sharing our quilts with friends and with strangers. We spend whole days with our quilting friends--laughing and enjoying the show we have created. This year we had more space and added a fine display of antique quilts belonging to our members. One of the oldest quilts featured a large collection of fabrics from the 1890s with lots of indigos and many double pinks. I actually found this quilt top in a flea market here in northwest Arkansas about a decade ago. All the edges are cut on the bias so the top is stretched and will not lay flat. However the colors are vibrant and when quilt historian Terry Thompson saw the quilt she considered it a "library of late 1890s fabrics."

I repaired any of the damaged triangles and added the two borders to stabilize the edges. Then I added a backing to support the weight of the top and tacked it in place. Next I put on the binding and hanging sleeve. On the extensive label, I included samples of each of the four reproduction fabrics I used in repairs to help future quilters know what they are seeing here. Without these improvements I would not have been able to share this orphaned top with quilt lovers. And I feel my work has incresed the likelihood that the top will survive many more decades.

When this quilt with its simple collection of triangles is seen from a distance, the dynamic arrangement of lights and darks reminds viewers of the artistry of our foremothers. I plan to write more about the show in the next few days. Right now I am still recovering and the car is not fully unloaded!

Sallie's Shirts IV, 58"x59"

Decided to enlarge this medallion to a functional size. Ran out of some fabrics, and made lots of substitutions. Still a pile of scraps. Plan to use them in an improvisational starters and enders project.

A quilt for a colleague

I belong to a group of 40 women professionals. One of our long-time members is going through her second round of chemotherapy plus divorce. The group suggested sending her a card, but I said, "It's time this woman got a quilt!" Two volunteers with "junior high sewing skills" stepped up to help, one sent a beautiful embroidered piece, and the group gave us a budget of $50.

I asked the quilt recipient what colors she would like. "Earthy, grassy green with touches of purple and gold." Yikes! Just the colors I DON'T have. Thank goodness the Rebels came to the rescue. Look at all these beautiful fabrics they donated!!

Alexis suggested the volunteers and I make a simple rail fence pattern. Wa-la! All done in a day.



And look what Goodwill provided--the whole back for only $4!

Everyone in the professional group will sign the quilt with good wishes, and I'm sure this colleague will be very pleased. Thank you Rebels!!!

Another baby quilt by Alexsis

Baby quilt by Alexsis for baby boy named Grayson

Scraps that keep on giving, 30"x30"

Experiment # 3. Started with 8 women's shirts, size medium, plus Kona solids. First quilt, not shown for now, was 64"x64". Second was 30"x30". Still have lots of scraps and ideas to try. I could see this idea worked up as a 4 quadrant quilt with lots of confetti sashing and borders. I don't usually use pink, or florals, too romantic for me. I like the mix of textures and scales. Guess that is what scraps are all about.

NYC Scraps

I had the good fortune to go to NYC for a quilting retreat hosted by Victoria last weekend. I took only a few solid fabrics and used scraps supplied by everyone else. Here's what came home with me. It's 72 x 80. I brought home some strips from the scrap pile, and am wondering about a border. Any ideas?

Strips of Confetti Scraps

Scraps from last project, sewn into strips to use for border

Seabiscuit Time Span

Seabiscuit is a working quilt. All winter this quilt hangs over the drafty French doors of our owner-built cabin/house. A decade ago I discovered this top in Paducah, KY for $10. I liked the energy I saw in the topsy turvy triangular blocks. The wide black sashing is unusual. Once I got it home and studied my options, I decided to applique different batiks with an orange and black color theme in the white junctions. These circles added new geometric visuals, toned down the white, and resemble the sea creature called a seabiscuit.

Additionally, I was reading the book about the life of the famous race horse named Seabiscuit. The name seemed to fit. I used large free motion swirls in quilting the blocks, but opted for a contrasting orange thread and uneven straight lines to emphasize the importance of the wide sashing as a resting place for the eye among the busy blocks. The binding repeats the orange and black batik theme of the seabiscuits.

Living with this quilt for months at a time each winter has only increased my appreciation of Seabiscuit. I still admire the simplicity and the energy I see here. I wish I could consult with the original maker and see if she, too, is pleased with the results. I am glad her abandoned quilt top came my way!

Orange Scribble quilt top

Top view: finished top

Middle view: closeup detail

Bottom: original abandoned top

"No one would want this top unless they knew one of the children," said my friend when she gave me this thrift store top. I took that as a challenge to transform it into something visually interesting. I took in a few crooked seams to make the top more square and headed for my stash--what fun I had. Wish I had more of the side border fabric, but that was it!

Yesterday was the deadline to turn in our quilts for the April show here in Northwest Arkansas and I have been overwhelmed by finishing the hand quilting on my "Spectator Pumps: Versatile and Spectacular". (You can see this quilt as a top behind me in my profile photo.)

Playing with this orange dominated top released a burst of creative energy. I am now working on completing various tops to be include in our special exhibit, "When This You See, Remember Us." I am putting together a group of album quilts, signature quilts, t-shirt quilts, memory quilts and reproduction quilts. Some of the quilts are borrowed from other guild members and many are from my own collection. Our show is April 8 & 9 at the new Bentonville Fair Grounds located in the northwest corner of Arkansas. Y'all come if you can!