Rebel Folk Artist: Mary

Mary's house is undergoing a major remodel.  She made these small quilts for the workers.  The one labeled "color" was for the designer.  He wanted to paint everything gray.  Mary was a first grade teacher in her previous life, a job requiring lots of creativity and imagination.

Dianne is doing complex portraits

 Learned from books by Sue Carlson.....Fish first, then the sun in preparation for the portrait of my husband, whose nose is my challenge. I am also trying out different framing ideas. Fish is traditional framing, the Sun on stretcher bars.

Miki: Colors of Provence

This quilt was inspired by your quilt ( the Circle in a Circle quilt) and the fabrics you gave me.  I wanted to break out of my comfy color zone, and this was how I did it.  Note:  I only gave her a small handful of tiny scraps.

Miki at February Rebels

This is called Mexican Stars.  It is from a pattern by Southwind Designs.  I fell in love with the design and had to make it.

Buffy is Honored!

Buffy--aka Sally--our fearless Rebels leader, was chosen as the featured quilt maker of the year for Quilters Anonymous!  "QA" is a Seattle area quilt guild with around 500 members.  Their annual show is this weekend.  Here are some of Buffy's beautiful quilts on display at the show.

Miki: Bayou Sunset

This is called Bayou Sunset.  I had no reason to make it except fun.  I was trying out a new to me inset circle technique.

Red and White

Here's the red and white quilt, laboriously quilted but...it DOES give a nice surface...

Quilts for AAQI

Want to help? Visit here
Find out what you can do.

"Fragments" 8"x10" 

"Fragments" 8"x10"

This is how I spent my morning today.

They are ready to be hand quilted.

Cinday has an accuquiltgo cutter

Cindy tried out her new cutter making this charity quilt from scraps.

Rebels Challenge 2012: Dawn

Dawn picked up on the theme of horses, and made a quilt for a friend that likes horses.

Rebels Challenge 2012: Nifty

Nifty chose to use challenge fabric in her on going life-work, spider web quilt blocks.

Rebels Challenge 2012, Pam

Lots of learning and experimentation here.  Looks like she is having fun.

Rebels Challenge 2012: Roberta, 50" x 80"

Roberta knocked us out with this glowing Flip and Sew Charity quilt.  She assured us that this is first and LAST Flip and Sew quilt!

Rebels Challenge 2012: Miki

Miki chose a softer palette than the other Rebels.  This is just the first block.  Stand by for more.

Rebels Challenge 2012: Cindy

She credits Janet Steadman for technique/inspiration.

Rebels Challenge: Patty

She had a lot of the strips on hand, and just put them together.

Rebels Challenge: Buffy

Found the colors fun to use, but had some problem hiding the natives and the buffalo.  Sashing is Hawaiian, border is 60's flower power, indigo assembled from bark cloth and Hawaiian scraps.

Roberta's Free Form Camp Erin Quilt

Made from her many scraps from long-arm quilting Camp Erin quilts.  Looks like she is having fun!

Rebels Challenge Fabric

Gift from Miki to Rebels for challenge.  Quilts due, this week,  2/22/12.

Dianne: Birds Quilt

The pattern was in a little book with bird ideas. Very time consuming....and then I decided to try my hand at machine quilting.  Oh, yesI decided to use muslin and see how it worked--  generally just fine. 

Mary's Sea Turtle Quilt

Mary has a 10 year old friend, and a while back, he requested a Sea Turtle Quilt.  Recently she found some Sea Turtle fabric, and made this Hawaiian themed quilt for her friend.

V's baskets

Just Like Sujata, I too had a block with baskets from mutual friend Kathie.  I had worked very quickly on mine and then sort of got stumped on how to finish it,and put it away for a while... Since I have a hard time staying SMALL in size on quilts.... I had to go big, (it's an addiction to go big)  But I wanted to keep the focus on the baskets... I hoped by adding the blue bird fabric in the border to add direction and also mitering the corners to give it a dramatic amount of movement...  The verdict is still out whether I am finished with this quilt. I may applique a bunch of oldies orphans on it...   But I will let it simmer for now and contemplate!

Dianne's Finish, Van Gogh Theme Fabric

Dianne had put this one away for over a year, but finally finished.  This is a great strategy that I've admired and wanted to try for a long time.  Some of the theme fabric is used in the half square triangles, giving unity to the quilt.  It works especially well with these blocks.  Reference:  Quilters Newsletter Magazine, October 2003, article by Sandy Turner.  She states that she has tried several blocks for this technique, but "Birds in the Air" block works best for her.
Another version of this technique (using theme fabrics in surrounding/supporting blocks) is in 9-Patch Pizzazz by Judy Sisneros, C&T, 2006

Spring Beauty and more...

Spring Beauty (top, 56" x 65") is an original design inspired by the work of other quilters. The colors and blocks are similar to a quilt shown by Adele Athea at our guild show in spring 2009. I created the blocks enjoying the brillant colors. Two years later I separated the blocks to create a surrounding frame for the iris print I discovered at our 2011 show last spring. I cut the iris into segments adding strips of vivid green silk. Finally I had a composition that I really liked! I machine quilted it on the 1971 Bernina from Buffy/Sally.

The last post I did was right after our quilt show last April. Last year was full of many distractions and challenges. I plan to rejoin the group with regular postings. If you would like to know more about my last year, I've written about it on our blog http://www.ecofeminismblog.org/. One of the highlights of the year was a trip to central Colorado in early October. These delightful scarecrows appeared outside of many different shops pleasing locals and visitors alike. I knew you would enjoy seeing the quilter lounging with me outside Bev's Stitchery in Buena Vista, CO. The knitter was posing on the porch of Serendipity Yarns in the same town.