Nice, bright shot, Original work 'Romantic Florals Old & New'

I recently received this picture, photo by JoAnn Gatch, in great natural light.

Here's the latest Charity project I've made to donate through my Guild (Empire Quilters Guild in NYC). The fabrics were all donated to the Guild and these fabrics seemed to want to go together. This is called Romantic Florals, Old and New. The center panel is composed of a group of 6 1/2” squares which I cut by rotary cutter and candlelight, after Hurricane Sandy. In my apartment which had no heat, nor electricity and I’d come home from work and find it was still early, maybe 7- 8:00 PM. So since I wasn’t going to bed that early, what to do? Listening to the transistor radio, I started looking at these fabrics and seeing how well they all went together. So I cut a few squares of each of several floral prints. Over the weekends when I was able to be home during the day, I starting playing around with the resultant 25 squares and changing their arrangement. Here are some shots of it on my own King sized bed which. I wanted to show the whole thing, on a bed. When I heard at the Guild that larger sized quilts were needed, large than lap sized, I decided to grow this quilt larger and began making a border comprised of blocks made from 1/2 square triangles and 1/4 square triangles to surround the center panel. Added some corner squares for good measure. From another angle: Then to grow it further I added another couple of rows, top and bottom using a setting of Roman Rail. After speaking with several of the more experienced Quilters in my Guild, on the Service Committee, I'd learned some recommended bed quilt sizes and suggested border sizes. Then consulted with them further on setting more corner squares. I've donated this top asking that it be long-arm quilted (rather than tied); I hope to post pictures of it when complete.

The next quilt was made at a Class called The Big Quilt, featuring fabrics with those large repeat design motifs (often Asian themed) and showing one way to work with them. The Class was held at my Local Quilt Shop. This particular fabric captivated me because I thought it such a beautiful floral print, but unusually executed in this coloration of brown and gray. I couldn't imagine how I'd work with it, until I saw this wonderful peach colored print that would be the perfect accompaniment. Here's the Quilt One of the corners for the detail Then I decided to be a bit playful on the back, I'd try piecing several different fabrics. My Mother was a weaver and taught me to weave when I was a child. As I worked on piecing this backing, it began to resemble warp stripes, the (sometimes) patterned yarns on a loom during a weaving. One of these prints is of coffee beans and so I titled this backing, Coffee Mocha Warp Stripes.

Earlier this year, Crazy Cats Checkerboard done for charity. Fun combination of fabrics and colors, turquoise used with red, there's a design challenge for me. Some recent charity work: this top was donated, in several sections; a quilting colleague (Sara N.) assembled the top from 2 or 3 sections and chose the backing fabric. Fortunate choice of this unusual ombred fabric. Unusual in that it goes from red, to yellow to green to brown, rather than the much more commonly seen monochromatic ombres, you know, all shades of blue for example. The reversible (2 sided) bindings afford really interesting design possibilities. Note the happy accident of the printed binding matching all colors in the ombred back, really fortuitous happenstance and my noticing it and putting it to work. To me, that final detail is a particularly masterful touch.

Techo quilting & more

I documented this last year prior to entering these 2 pieces in a show, called "Urban Inspirations" 2011, last March as I wanted to document some of this work BEFORE it was shown. Just didn't get around to finalizing this for the blog, so here goes.

"This type of stitching effect I sometimes do where you really only see the resultant texture in the fabric since the thread color matches the fabric. I guess I'll do it here on Forum first. This tone-on-tone echo quilting, I think of it as 'techo quilting'."



another area of detail:



a more overall shot of this type of detail



And the 2nd entry

A twin bed quilt I made for my Mother, this her 80th Year (this photo only, credit to Tahli de Courcy at The City Quilter):



As you can see it's a Disappearing Nine Patch, which pattern I find really great.



Here on my bed while Mom was in the Hospital, I had to wait a few months after the Mother's Day I'd originally planned to give it to her, was more like Summer I think it ended up. She just loved it as I knew she would; and in our colors too (blues & greens).



This was my first experience sending out to a long arm quilter ("LA"). Bill Magargal seamed the backing for me, backed & LA quilted it, made the bindings & bound it. I think he did a spectacular job!



These next couple of shots were an interesting discovery. I took the photos outside in a sunny park, on the grass, it really made it look very 3d:

I love the swirl motif, just flows across the entire surface.



I'm so fortunate to have found Bill with whom to collaborate. He's both a long-arm quilter for my LQS (1 one of 2 they use & recommend) & the father-in-law of my oral surgeon. How small a world is that???



Look how three-dimensional this looks (shot in sunlight in late afternoon in a park)

Indonesian Jazz Hands - color study

I'd taken a class in design and color with Davida Hyland and she assigned us to make four different color schemes working with only 4" squares of color (in 2008?).

So this scheme was for contrasting colors, but in colors which I didn't usually use; get ready for brights!



When I first quilted these circles I sensed something Indian, Sanscrit; I don't know if it was the shapes or colors or the combination of both, but I liked it.

Some details of the front:





The back



the back ended up much more fun sewing and quilting



I couldn't find a compass at home at the time, I used a salad plate for the larger circles and the top of a spice jar for the smaller; shapes traced onto the quilt in chalk and machine quilted.



like doodling with one's sewing machine



Good Fun!

'once a weaver always a weaver'

This was sort of a Sampler for myself. First time I used Charm Squares (Andover 5" squares I received as some promotional thing).

Used them to teach myself the high speed HST (Half Square Triangles as shown at Fons & Porter, among others I'm sure).





The fabrics seem themed sort of colonial type period reproduction.

The package included some squares of what I know to be called 'Yarn Dyes', but Quilters seem to call 'Homespuns'. Made for interesting blocks I thought.





Was sort of fast & fun work w/ the squares & a rotary cutter.



I ended up entering it into a Show a year ago last Fall whose theme was Recycling. This seemed interesting, almost as if the Charm Squares were manufactured approximations of scraps accummulated over a life time.