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.

Return to the Blog after More than One Year Away

Been a long time since I worked on this blog. Going back to work and a number of other good things have kept me otherwise engaged & unfortunately too busy to come back here for over a year.

First I wanted to post a full picture of the Dad Quilt (rather than the partials which posted instead, much to my chagrin).



Seems only right and fitting to return to the blog w/ a picture of the Dad Quilt, it really IS exceptional and my Dad would have been so pleased!

and now for the Rear View:




On a related note, I have subsequently made a bed quilt for my Mother and given it to her this year which was a great success. I will post pictures of it later in this Blog but I expect it to be on display at the big quilt show 'Urban Inspirations' to be held at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) later on the Spring (the weekend of March 25th, 2011). My expected participation in their upcoming show is the culmination of my wanting to do that for 6 years.

The Dad Quilt

For Dad,

Someone remarked on how beautiful this looked in photographs, so I thought perhaps I should include it here even though it's rather more personal than most of my work.

I made this quilt for Dad, during his last year when we knew he was sick. Unfortunately, I only got about halfway through it before he died.

We had a coffee theme in our family (having lived for years in Brazil). Dad was the official maker of the coffee with all due care and ritual; he liked it, fussed over it and as we say these days, it was 'his thing'.



Well, the Fabric House Moda had a collection of coordinated fabrics in a group called “Lotsa Latte” which were novelty prints of a coffee theme. One night at church, after Dad had been diagnosed as terminal and I was later mentioning it to an acquaintance who knew I quilted, she asked ‘so you’re making him a quilt right?’ and I said no, I’m not and suddenly was struck dumb about it.

No, I’m not making him a quilt, why not? Well, ‘cause he was terminal, quilts take time, and who knows much he’s got left. Then shortly thereafter, I was at City Quilter (my local quilt shop, hereinafter “LQS”) and saw the coffee themed novelties of “Lotsa Latte” and thought, Oh I have to make Dad a quilt, a coffee themed quilt, that’d be just perfect and he’d get a kick out of the coffee theme. There were fabrics with mugs and cups; fabrics with old style coffee grinders and several fabrics of coffee beans, one literally that and one stylistically that, along with several other prints which blended well and colored the group beautifully.

a Close Up Detail



So I bought a prepared grouping of those fabrics (I think a set of 5 fat quarters actually), plus some solids of component colors to blend with. I thought the square within square which came with the grouping was a fabulous print. Actually, if you look at it alone, it really is gorgeous, a very well designed print; it’s balanced, well proportioned, beautifully colored and even though it’s got red in it, could be seen as masculine.

The Back or Reverse Side



So when Dad died, I stopped working on this, was just too sad. Yet I kept remembering that he would have liked it and determined in my mind that I would complete it in his memory eventually and give it to my StepMom as a touchstone to Dad. I’d always intended this anyway, to give it to her after he’d used it. It’s just that he didn’t get to see it or use it, but my StepMom is a wonderful, loving person and of deep feelings; very good to him and also to us (which as I learned with a prior stepmother was not guaranteed: just ’cause they loved him, didn’t mean necessarily that they’d be good to us). I could imagine her touched to see the love with which the Quilt was made for him and I could envision her (an avid reader) curled up on a big stuffed chair reading under it.

So about a year after he died (just after Memorial Day) I resumed working on it. Between then (the 1st anniversary of his death) and Father’s Day, which seemed fitting enough, I worked on it. Sometimes I was sad working on it, sometimes crying, but always picturing him smiling at the coffee beans and reveling in the idea that I’d made it for him. Took some time and a bit of patience (I hit a technical snag or two). The LQS had run out of the square within square fabric that I was going to use as a solid on the back side. But now Dad was gone, maybe the Quilt could be a tad less masculine, since I was now making it for Barbara, maybe I could use a different border fabric than originally planned. So with Nancy’s help at the LQS, we decided on a light brown crackle fabric for the back borders and I just had to find a quilt design for the borders.

I enjoy making little design jokes with myself, like a play on words except as a play of design riffs, like the Baby Quilt (at the beginning of this Blog) I did called Swirl Play (a play on similar, but related Swirls, of various types and scales). So since the design motif here was a fabric framed by another fabric, it became sort of squares within squares and the similarly themed fabric reinforced that. So I seized on a Greek key design for the borders, sort of squares in squares, related design entities and simple enough that I could draw it onto paper and quilt through the papers which I’d eventually pull off from the quilt.

I think it came out pretty nicely, and someday, I’ll send it with a relative or ship it to Barbara as long as someone is there to photograph her when she opens the package and sees it for the first time. I think she’ll be quite moved and I look forward to seeing her tiny self curled up underneath it. A comforting thought and I can just tell, Dad’s looking down at us smiling.

Heliconia Happenstance

Another recent work completed for a color class taken last year at City Quilter.

The assignment was a split complementary color scheme. Red and green as complements plus blue green and yellow green (those adjacent to the complement). Turned out to be very difficult for me due to the red. I kept trying different things and adding new fabrics to balance with red.



The split rail fence motif in red and greens are what reminded me of the heliconia of the title.

Ultimately, when the front was finished, I moved on to the back eliminating the dreaded red.

I was vastly more comfortable with no bright red and the addition of the turquoise.

Also of interest designwise, is that the back with the teal is one unit of a Disappearing Nine Patch motif, with additional borders to compensate for it being rectangular rather than square.

Can't Resist Some More - Blame it on my New Camera!

This is a detail of the center panel of the front quilt of the last post with the Green batiks. Its working title is Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P) Orientals.



One of its corners