Sallie's Shirts 3, 62"x64"

Three tops, plus 2 charity tops, quilted since June. Seven tops, plus Gee's Bend top, to go. No end in sight. I'm feeling somewhat braver, using heavier thread so quilting shows up more.

Gee's Bend Workshop Top, 51"x73"

Started in workshop in Sisters, July 2011. Got off on the wrong foot with the pentagon. Came home with a "volcano". Had to take it all apart, after numbering each piece to maintain order. Pieced again, almost flat; but tough to finally get back to grid. Now I understand. The Gee's Bend women tear their fabric, and work in a rectangular format. This is easier, faster, and far more efficient. Also less chaotic. This top is made from about 5 thrift market shirts.

By tearing fabric into rectangles, the Gee's Benders must have a ton of irregular scraps. Wonder what they do with them?

Machine Quilting Journal #4

THE GRIP: How to hold onto and move quilt under needle

I started with the photo in Diane Gaudinski’s book, GUIDE TO MACHINE QUILTING, page 45. I set that page to the left of my machine and took hold of the quilt as she showed in Fig. 1-21. It felt very awkward for a long time, but eventually it became automatic. Below is a photo of my quilt grip.

Also note the books wedged under the front of the machine supporting my elbows. That suggestion came from an article in Quilters Newsletter by Debra Wagner about the year 2001.

Also I follow Diane’s suggestion of using Neutrogena Norwegian Formula hand cream to make my hands slightly tacky.

That’s it! No gloves, no rubber fingers, no teflon sliders. Just grip the quilt lightly between the 2nd and 3rd fingers of both hands, extend the thumbs toward myself to act as a hoop, and quilt.

Another quilt done. 3 done and 7 to go. Photo to follow as soon as binding done.

Machine Quilting Journal #3

Machine Quilting Journal #3 (#1 is filed under Starters and Enders Quilt, 7/4/11)

From Diane Gaudynski workshop 10 years ago: “Always practice on real quilts.“

No amount of stitching practice sandwiches works as well as quilting a real quilt. It ups the pressure just enough for one to progress. Since my last entry, I’ve done two charity quilts, both 50”x80”. The pressure was off. My mantra is “the baby won’t care.” These are camp quilts and were not for babies, but the idea is the same. I really zipped along trying new edge-to-edge designs from Christine Maraccini. I did ditch stitch the blocks, so I really quilted block by block, chunks of quilting that I could manage.

For ditch quilting I use Madeira Mono poly in the needle, and Bottom line in the bobbin. I use a 60/8 Microtex needle and work free-motion, as it is much faster. For the quilting I used Superior's Highlights in the needle, and Bottom Line in the bobbin. I used a 90/14 Topstitch titanium needle.

This quilt is the Ugly Scrap Challenge. It was started 3 years ago as a grocery bag of ugly scraps of uncertain origin. It has endless borders, each perfect for practiciing a different sashing pattern. Again I used ideas from Chrisitne Maraccini’s book, MACHINE QUILTING SOLUTIONS. By the time I quilted around each border, I pretty well had that pattern in long term memory.

OK: 2 quilts done, and 8 to go.

This quilt finished 60"x72". It has the Mountain Mist 100% polyester Quilt-Light Batting. To my surprise when washed, it shrank 2" in width, and 2" in length. It was light weight to handle in the machine. It's not a warm quilt. That backing was a piece of vintage polyester that I found in the thrift store. It really worked quite well.

My second Gee's Bend Quilt!

Wow, the Sister's trip with the REBELS was too much fun! In 2008 I went and took a Gee's Bend workshop and loved it, so this year I went back for more. Here's the end result..the "mid-west waterways quilt"...Great Lakes at the top, small lakes and trees in the middle...more trees and rivers at the bottom...and...of course...the flames...

Machine Quilting Journal #2

*

After pin basting quilt, I seal the edges with a line of stitching. I may use walking foot or stitch it free-motion for practice. After that, I’m able to trim away the excess batting, and not worry about it creeping back under the quilt.

Quick tips from Cindy Needham’s workshop yesterday: Best tool for cleaning your machne is a big fuzzy pipe cleaner. You can buy them at craft stores. Bend them, and use the bent end to pick up the lint and debris in your machine. NEVER USE CANNED AIR TO CLEAN YOUR MACHINE.

Also from the workshop, I was able to confirm that the Topstitch needles and Metallica needles are the same. I’d suspected that for a long tiime, but was never able to find anyone with expertise to confirm that. These are the workhorse needles for most machine quilters. They work well for high speed quilting.

www.cindyneedham. com for great information and extraordinary quilts

*

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.