Celebrate your favorite shutter bug with this camera quilt block!
Quilt #2 was this French Rose quilt. Fun to put together all of the flowers and sew them on the blocks leaving raw edges. My Mother-in-law made one, too! It's funny how using different fabrics can make the quilts look so different!
At this warm time of year, a sweet quilt made from feed sack fabrics seems a good piece to consider. This circa 1940s quilt was made in LaGrange, Texas, a small town between Houston and Austin, known in quilting circles as the home of the Texas Quilt Museum.
About a year ago I posted my Bulging Checkerboard quilt (Stand Back!), and got a lovely email about it from a quilter in Portland, Oregon named Margaret Ellis. She also wanted to make that pattern, but in the same size as I did (51 x 51) vs the original 102 x 102 size of the pattern. Since that time we have corresponded regularly and shared photos and ideas about a number of projects. And, yes....she did make the Checkerboard quilt too. I have had a pattern in my queue for a long time, "Labyrinth Walk", (click for link to pattern). This pattern also makes a huge quilt: 84 x 84! Maybe it's just me, but this is waaaayyyy to big to put on a wall (unless you had a specific large, prominent space in mind), and I think the whole effect / impact would be lost if it was used as a bedspread. Why do these creators make these quilts so big? I had been able to scale down the Checkerboard to one-fourth size, but for some reason was having trouble doing this one. Margaret reminded me of a fun math fact: halve the dimension and you get 1/4 the size! So she was kind enough to put together a complete set of cutting instructions at the new size of 45 x 45 and sent them to me in December (along with a picture of her version of Labyrinth). The reason it is not exactly a one-quarter scale is that the white strips in the original are cut to 1.25" wide. There is no way to scale those in half and still have room left for a 1/4" seam allowance on both sides. So she just made those 1", which still worked out fine. I put these new instructions in my "stack of things to be done" because a) we were going away for a week at the end of the month, and b) I was working on another quilt. Then, just after the first of the year, I saw a Facebook posting for an Art Auction at Homer Plessy School in New Orleans. Loyal readers know that my daughter lives in Nola, and one of her good friends is on the board of this school. YES! I will make Labyrinth as it is a perfect candidate for an auction. But the art piece submission deadline was March 15th! Suddenly, I had to get very busy working on this. Luckily, we have had a string of single-digit and below-zero temp days, and my wife had an out-of-town weekend conference, so I had plenty of time to work on making this quilt. Here is my finished piece: As in some other 3D quilts, the farther back you stand, the better the dimensionality. And, like a lot of quilts, this looks so much harder to make than it actually is! The fabrics are white, light gray, dark gray, and black batiks. There are really just two different blocks and they are arranged in 3 x 3 rows: the "2 concentric squares" block (5 of those), and the "maze" block (4 of those). Each block is about 12" square. It's all in the design, cutting and piecing. The former block is made up of 30 pieces for each, while the latter needs 64! The two gray borders on the right side and bottom, plus the diagonal black corners, reinforce the apparent depth of the body. As usual, I did minimal quilting: white thread in the ditch of all the white strips, plus grays and black ditching along the border edges as necessary. Let me know if you can find your way out of the maze!
Add An Element Of Surprise To Your Wall Quilt. Using a mixed combination of a pinwheel in a cathedral fold, a new and exciting block creates a stunning feature on your wall. The Pinwheel Surprise i…
It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving arrived. It has been such a strange and unwelcomed year, but it has helped us to count our blessings. We have found blessings in simple things this year, things we generally take for granted. We have found time to explore new avenues, some because we wanted to and others because we had to do so. Now we head into the Christmas season and the putting of 2020 to bed once and for all. My latest adventure in my creative world has been working on a quilt filled with luscious Kaffe Fasset fabrics. I was so inspired by an Escher quilt that Ramona made and knew I had to tackle a similar project myself. The geometric design is right up my alley. This is a quilt that could go very wrong VERY QUICKLY, but my first four rows have gone together well. I love it. The depth of the interlocking cubes is fascinating to me. This one is called Escher Cubed and it is constructed using 60* triangle pieces (with y-seams) in proper color combinations. I also finished my fall quilt that was this year's Autumn Jubilee quilt from Carole at From My Carolina Home. I believe it is still a free pattern. We have been enjoying it throughout the season and look forward to decorating with it for many more years. I quilted it using Dream Wool batting so it has a marvelous texture to the quilting. Of course, any quilt on the floor is meant to be slept on. There were two on it until I admonished them. Note how one takes the discipline!! Sigh. Our Gridster Bee block for the month of December is for a feather block. I love the block even though I did have some issues with printing it out. My first one ended up being a smidge too small so I have one to keep for myself! It is a free download from Zen Chic. As the weather has turned a bit more fall-ish here, I have had requests for some flannel nightgowns from the granddaughters. I used my ruffler attachment on my Singer 201 and just loved how it did the ruffling so perfectly. While working out in the garden, we came across these two little guys. They must have hatched sometime this fall and managed to survive. I did not see the momma lay this batch of eggs. We did adopt them out to new homes as they needed to be rescued from the birds who like to eat them when they are small. In the garden, the pomegranate tree is absolutely loaded this year. We've been juicing them and giving them away as fast as we can! As with any tree like that, when it rains, it pours. They will be good for Christmas decorating too. We have just finished off what I assume will be the last of the tomatoes for the year. The temperatures have been a bit too chilly for fruit to set these late November days. Onwards into the Christmas season.....
- Results from #10
We asked our readers to celebrate the marks & memories on the quilt of their souls with a hand-sewn quilts Reader Challenge based on the theme: Mended
3 dimensional quilt blocks are a lot of fun. They add a lot of dimension to the quilt and even though they might be a bit confusing to begin with, once you get the hang of it, they are super simple.
Store notions and gadgets in a quick-to-stitch sewing station caddy. Fabrics are from the Sew Yummy collection by Monica Solorio-Snow for Cloud 9 Fabrics and Essex Yarn Dyed Linen collection by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.
Whether travelling by plane, train or automobile, for a week or a weekend, you are sure to find a few travel accessories to sew and take along with you.
Make a Big Impression with This Beautiful Quilt! This pattern is very popular and it’s easy to see why. The finished quilt is simply stunning, no matter what colors you choose. Plus, it’s a joy to make. Construction is much easier than it looks. The quilt pattern was brought to our attention by visitors to …
This is what I have done so far on block number six of my Victorian Fan Quilt. I have worked a spray of spider web roses and buds,with gold bead highlights and then finished the spray off with a gorgeous gold bow charm.
Today is the Fiberactions reveal day. We created pieces using the word stretch as our challenge theme. Click the link to see the interpretations revealed throughout the day and to learn more about our group. Seemingly like magic, the water strider skates across the pond as if on a length of stretched plastic wrap. Magic, it is not. In addition to his hairy legs which trap tiny air bubbles and act like life preservers; it is surface tension which allows him to stay afloat and stride so gracefully.
I was so determined to finish the Lancaster quilt last week and I wasn't sure that I was going to make it. Sooo, what does one do? I got up at 4.30 yesterday morning (Sunday) and put the last stitces...
I have always been a fan of M.C. Escher's work. It's fascinating to me to try and figure out his optical illusions and to see how he starts with one object and ends up with something completely different. His Geometries are even more intriguing to me. When I saw this pattern AND saw it made from Kaffe fabrics, it was a win/win for me. Cutting all of the pieces took some time. The fabrics had to be organized into light/medium/dark sets and then cut into strips. The strips were subcut into parallelogram shaped pieces. And the sewing began. And the ripping came shortly there after. After much sewing and not as much ripping (thank goodness!), the blocks are finished! Two different blocks were needed to complete the design... a left facing triangle and a right facing triangle. Once all of the triangles are made, the pattern gives very good directions on placing them in the right order so you end up with this! I could never design something like this, but I can follow directions! Blocks will be cut in half to fill in the top and bottom areas. These blocks aren't sewn into rows yet. It's going to be a slow process, too, to make sure they stay in the right order. This is one of the coolest patterns I've used. The link to the pattern has one made in black, white and red, too. I might have to make another one at some point, but need to finish this one first. Happy Quilting!
2145 votes and 97408 views on Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Quilted by © Norah McMeekingWhat beautiful quilting pattern! I found it on Pinterest.Intricate marble patterns on an elegant inlaid table inspired Dancing Ribbons, by Cindy Rounds Richards. Use the pr
For me the best antidote to nuisance is to get my mind and my hands busy doing something that makes me happy. I started to play with s...
This is a detail of the quilt. The sand was all beaded and the ocean was many layers of sheer with fish on every layer so it looked 3D!
Two weeks ago I attended a class with a very talented local quilter, Shirley Mooney. We started with a single length of a stripey fabric, and a 60 degree triangle ruler. Through out the day we turned the fabric into something completely different. Siren Song by Michael Miller Fabrics Shirley encouraged us to take photos on our phones and study how our arrangements looked on a smaller screen. This was my first attempt: Then it grew to look like this: Then I swapped out 3 of the centres and made all the centres dark, and that looked better: Someone else in the class had the same fabric, but in pink and purple. She went for a different approach: Another student had something completely different: We spent the whole day cutting triangles and playing with the layout. Once we were happy with our layouts we pinned them to sheets and took them home to sew up. The knack is in matching the stripes perfectly, as shown below. Due to the care and attention needed to get the stripes matching correctly, I only got 2 columns sewn together the next day, and even they aren't 100% perfect, but I'll settle for 97.5% perfect in this case. The rest is still pinned to the sheet, waiting to be joined up. Because I'd purchased plenty of fabric, I had enough to do 2 different designs, so I've got 2 designs pinned onto my sheet. It's carefully strewn across my sewing table - I need to be careful that it doesn't accidentally get bundled into the washing machine. Imagine all those pins and triangles floating around in the washing machine. I'll be certain to post more photos as this progress, but it's the start of our winter school holidays now, and my kids are off for 3 weeks. We've got a couple of trips planned so I don't expect to get a lot of sewing done in July. Shirley has a blog called Don't Wait to Create, and is on Instagram with the same name. I recommend you take a look.
Here is the last part in my series of reports from the 13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Show 2014. Of the many excellent exhibitions outside the contest, one features the work of Shizuko Kuroha. She is famous for seeing the potential in Japanese indigo, and creates fantastic quilts with depth, glow, sheen and lustre, in spite of using mainly blue indigo, with a sprinkling of black, white, brown or red. In this exhibition Japanese weaving technique was also shown: The white tread is painstakingly tied, dyed, tied and dyed resulting in a much controlled space dye. The posters that NHK produce are excellent - oh, how I wish I could read Japanese easily!!! The illustrations help a lot, though. They also had a TV screen with a film showing the different steps in dying, weaving and finally quilting. Ms Kuroha is often seen demonstrating her work; of course she is at the show every day and always encourages the crowd that gather around her table. Here is a link if you want to read more about her. Moomin Apart from the Swedish wool embroidery exhibition, NHK are celebrating another part of Northern Europe, Finland, and the wonderful world of Moomin. Tove Jansson, who wrote these children's stories was born 100 years ago. The illustrations in her books have charmed both children and adults the world over. One who has been spellbound by the charm is the Japanese quilter Yoko Saito. You might well know that she is famous for her taupe quilts. Together with her students and followers, she has made 50! quilts from the illustrations in the books. Yoko Saito made these dolls. As well as this winter landscape. Her quilt was used for the official poster of the show, and then there is the 5m!!! long quilt seen on Tanya's blog. (I had no chance to take a picture of the quilt). Here are some of the other quilt copies, made by Ms Saito's students: Sachiko Tanenaka Noriko Mukai 小出保子 Aren't they just great? NHK's carpenter contributed with the Moomin House. Quilts made by 60 of Japans top quilters There is such a variety of quilt styles in Japan. Many prefer a traditional style and have excelled in making meticulous copies of Baltimore Album quilts, scrappy quilts from reproduction 30s fabric or fabulously rich crazy quilts. Others have devoted their efforts to Wa quilts, Mola, Hawaiian. Year, by year, however, we see more individuality and thinking outside the box. Here are some examples from the top quilters of Japan. Wonderful Small Flowers of Japan by Fumiko Miura Inspired by Japanese embroidery, wouldn't you say? Detail from Needleworks of the 1920s by Sanae Kono Peaceful Scenery in Spring Mist by Toshie Yamagata This pale indigo quilt shone like silver! Bubbles and Vortexes by Keiko Takahashi She is famous for her colourful quilts. The sparkle in these come from the metallic thread. Hearts are Linked by Sachiko Yoshida There is a fantastic collection of antique kimono silk in this quilt. I can't imagine how large Ms Yoshida's stash is or where she has found some of the very unusual colours like lime green or aqua. The dots are all joined with chain stitches. The title refers to how the hearts of the people of Fukushima are joined, although many, many residents are still living far from their home towns. A Flight by Fumiko Nakayama, the Queen of Mola. Flowers in a Red Room by Keiko Miyauchi, the Queen of appliqué. Detail from The Hidden Lake by Hiroko Koike Spring Midnight by Yoko Sekita Have you ever seen the Japanese Hina dolls for Girls' Day? They sit formally on tiers. During the day, that is. At midnight the all get up to party!!! Stories of Ties by Machiko Miyatani At a Café - my 'Ecole de Paris' - by Yoshiko Kuriha Maybe at a cafe in Monmartre you would see these Amedeo Modigliani models? With this quilt I end my report on the 13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival.
I got hooked on origami sometime after Math Craft admin Cory Poole posted instructions for creating modular origami, but I had to take a break to finish a quilt I've been working on for a while now. It's my first quilt, and very simple in its construction (straight up squares, that's about it), but it got me thinking about the simple geometry and how far you could take the design to reflect complex geometries. Below are a few cool examples I found online.
Explore Lin Moon's 193 photos on Flickr!
Exhibition of Wall Quilts, ArtsPost Galleries, Hamilton While we stich, life is not elsewhere. In a world that is increasingly connected with non-stop news, quiltmaking does not happen in soli…
The six members of the New Wrinkle Contemporary Art Quilters group know what most people think when they hear the word “quilt.”
Detail from an embroidered quilt, ca 1900, in the collection of the Jewish Museum My cousin sent an April 12, 2014 article from the Jewish Daily Forward called "Why Jews Suffer from a Quilt Complex?" Author Jenna Weissman Joselit discussed why her Jewish "home and ... parents’ home and ... grandparents’ homes were entirely quilt-free." "East European Jews and their descendants, as I've just discovered, had little truck with quilting. Feather bedding was one thing; patchwork quilts quite another." The article: http://forward.com/articles/196183/why-jews-suffer-from-a-quilt-complex/#ixzz2ymyvYwz4 This is true in my personal experience too. My Jewish grandmother's house (and my Irish-Catholic grandmother's house---both in New York City) were entirely quilt-free. My Jewish grandmother loved handwork, knitting full outfits (skirt, cardigan and shell) and crocheting doilies similar to this by the dozens. It's a question I have considered for awhile. To discuss it we first need to divide the quilts and quilters into two categories. One: Contemporary quilters working after 1960 Two: Historical quilts made before 1960. Then we have to define "quilt." A layered patchwork textile with layers held together by quilting or tying. Contemporary quilters working after 1960 Rosh Hashana by Linda Frost, 2010 This quilt traveled in a 2012-13 Smith-Kramer exhibit America Celebrates! Quilts of Joy and Remembrance. Linda can represent the thousands of Jewish quiltmakers working after 1960 during the current revival of interest in the form. There is no lack of contemporary Jewish quilt artists making bed coverings and art quilts, so we shall move on to the second category. Historical quilts made before 1960 The Reiter/Freidman family Baltimore Album quilt 1848-1850, Baltimore Collection of the American Folk Art Museum One of three similar Baltimore album quilts attributed to Baltimore's Jewish community about 1850. Read more here: http://www.folkartmuseum.org/?p=folk&t=images&id=4268 Quilt photographed during the Kansas Quilt Project In 1986 I participated in the Kansas Quilt Project, which documented about 13,000 quilts made in Kansas or brought to Kansas up to that date. The majority were vintage quilts made before 1950. We looked at the quiltmaker's religion. About 59 percent of the quilts were identified as being made by a quiltmaker with a known religious affiliation. The number: about 7,700 quilts. The highest percentage (22.5%) was made by Methodists followed by people identified as generic Christians, then Roman Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and Lutherans---not surprising as these specific denominations ranked highest among Kansans in general in the 1980s. Fundraising quilt made by members of the Sunday School, First Methodist Episcopal Church, Topeka, Kansas, 1883. Collection of the Kansas State Historical Society. Church members paid a dime to have their names included. The contrast between Roman Catholics and Methodists was interesting, however. Catholics made up the highest percentage of Kansans (34.6%) at the time, with Methodists at 26.9%. Yet Catholics did not make quilts in proportion to their numbers either in 1886 or 1986. Catholics made 7% of our total; Methodists over three times as many. I did the accounting and was surprised to find that of all those quilts only six were made by Jews: Six quilts made by 1-1/2 quilt makers identifying themselves as Jewish. I know it was 1-1/2 because I was the half and a friend was the whole. We both began after 1960. The Kansas Quilt Project also asked about quiltmakers' ethnic origins and found over 8,000 identifications. British heritage was first with 41% reporting that background, German ethnicity was a close second at 38% and then the numbers dropped to 13% for Scandinavian, 5% for French and 1% for Czech. Ethnicity such as Italian, Mexican, Amish and Jewish were insignificant at less than 1% each. Fundraising quilt made by women of the First Baptist Church, Jamestown, Tennessee 1937-1939. From the Quilt Index. Community members paid a dime for each embroidered name raising $22.10. The quilt then sold for $10.00. The $32.10 bought chairs for Sunday School. My theory at the time of writing the book on the findings of the Kansas Quilt Project: "Protestant church activities, such as Sunday School quilts and Ladies' Aid Society quilting groups traditionally were a strong influence on quilting." Lititz, Pennsylvania, 1942 Photo by Marjory Collins. Courtesy of the Library of Congress The caption: "The Moravian sewing circle quilts for anyone at one cent a yard of thread and donates the money to the church." The Moravians in the photo, like many Protestant women's church groups, raised money for church improvements and maintenance by taking in quilting, an activity still carried out in church basements. Women also raised money by charging for signatures, and by raffling (if such gambling was allowed) and auctioning quilts. Quilt auctions raise significant funds for the Mennonite Relief Services. Based on data from the Kansas Quilt Project and personal observation I would have to agree with Jenna Weissman Joselit that quiltmaking was not a popular activity among Jewish women in the past. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Bertha Stenge was one of the most prominent quiltmakers of the 1940's and '50s, winning national prizes with her work. Bertha Sheramsky Stenge (1891-1957) Bertha Stenge, The Quilt Show Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago See more of Stenge's quilts here at the Art Institute http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Stenge,+Bertha And read a biography here: http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/collections/daisy/biography.html Berger/Miller quilt Another of the 1850 Jewish Baltimore Albums from the collection of Jane Katcher http://www.janekatchercollection.com/html/albumquilt.html Bertha Neiden 1914 Bayla Schuchman, born in Gorodish, Russia, emigrated to the U.S. in 1909. By 1914 when this photo was taken her name was Bertha and she was Americanized enough to enter her quilt in the Nebraska State Fair. Her wool patchwork seems to have more in common with the European tradition of tailor's patchwork or intarsia patchwork than the American quilts of her era. Read more about Bertha Neiden and her quilt: http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/pwp/pwp_identity.html And read more about wool intarsia quilts here at this post I did a few year ago: http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-on-intarsia-and-inlaid-applique.html As far as reasons for the general lack of traditional Jewish quilts in America: Jenna Weissman Joselit discusses European bedding, immigrant culture, access to cotton versus goose down, etc. Quilt dated 1880 by an unknown maker in classic American applique style. One does not find this style of bedding in traditional European cultures. Quilt historians have looked at quilts and immigrants from many angles. The consensus is that the typical American patchwork quilt derived from a few sources, particularly the tradition of patchwork in India and its trading partners Holland and Britain, combined with a widespread European/Asian tradition of quilted bedding. "Armenians make quilts Alexandropol," probably early 20th century, photo from the Library of Congress Japanese quilted bedding about 1930 from the Library of Congress. People all over the world have slept under and on quilted and tied bedding. American quilts are distinctive in their combination of the two techniques, so distinctive that we can view the acquisition of the techniques and designs as a sign of American acculturation. European immigrants from the Pennsylvania Germans of the 1600s to the Ashkenazi Jews at the turn of the last century did not bring the patchwork quilt tradition with them. In the early-19th century the Pennsylvania Germans adapted the bedding of their "English" neighbors to their traditional design sense. It is probably this combination of German folk arts and British bedding format that had the most significant impact on the traditional American quilt. Unfinished top by Mary Jane Lewis Scruggs Collection of the Kansas Museum of History We can see much Germanic design influence in the flat, stylized flowers, red and green colors and mirror-image symmetries in Scrugg's top, evidence of the Pennsylvania-German impact in the American quilt. It is also evidence of this particular African-American quiltmaker's American culture. She was born right after the Civil War to former slaves. Read more about her quilt top here: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/220469 Embroidered quilt, ca 1900, in the collection of the Jewish Museum The Museum's caption: Quilt. Russia and United States, c. 1899 Velvet: embroidered with wool, silk, and metallic thread; glass beads 81 1/2 x 65 in. (207 x 165.1 cm) The Jewish Museum, New York Purchase: Judaica Acquisitions Fund See more at: http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/1986119#sthash.v9VM6XOn.dpuf Cross-stitched embroidery detail showing European dress and dance My first thought in seeing this quilt was that it was a crazy quilt, a very popular style from 1880-1920. Detail showing cross-stitched rooster and seam-covered patchwork on the patchwork triangles. Looking closer at the embroidery I realized that much of it is cross-stitched pictorial work, not typical of the American crazy quilt, which usually features irregular pieces, outlined pictures,satin stitches and seam-covering, linear stitches. An American crazy quilt Perhaps the cross-stitch embroidery was done in Russia and the pieces assembled into patchwork in the U.S., a rather unusual example of Americanization in a single quilt. See another quilt in the Jewish Museum's collection here: http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/object_collection.php?objectid=2772&lefttxt=quilt
Earlier in the week, I started a new kawandi quilt project. I got the back all pressed up, inserted a layer of thin cotton batting and then trimmed, pressed and pinned down the pieces around my edge. I stitched maybe one row around ... and then didn't get any further. Life, generally, just got in the way of any sewing. This morning, up too early for a Sunday as I had to drop my daughter at work by 7am, I sat in my sewing room when I got back and thought I'd add a couple of rows to my kawandi... and then kept at it for a couple more hours. I turned on my audio book and enjoyed the process. I did eventually have to stop and get some jobs done around the house (blurgh) but looked into the room and saw the sun shining on my sewing table, so thought I'd sew a little bit more. I tried to film a little bit of the stitching and upload a short reel to TikTok. Anyone else on TikTok? I much prefer Instagram, but I thought I'd give it a go and try to be more active on the platform. Here's the link to the video if anyone wants to have a look. @sameliasmum Hand quilting on a sunny Sunday afternoon #quilt #quilting #kawandi #aurifilthread #sewingtiktok #quiltingtiktok #handmade #sameliasmum #bigstitchquilting #slowsewing #sewing ♬ Little Things - Tiqta In other exciting news, I've been selected as an Aurifil Artisan for 2023/2024. This will be my second year collaborating with Aurifil. I'm looking forward to seeing the upcoming list of challenges and working on the themes, in my own way. Fun!
Treehouse Series #10 Hand dyed cottons, commercial prints, fused, hand embroidered, machine quilted. Mounted on painted watercolor paper on painted cradled wood panel, with fabric accents. 11x14x1" $100 Email me.
I like adding texture to quilts and this is one of my favourite 3D blocks. This block is quick and easy to make. How to make a Windmill cathedral window and centered tucks with bow ties block Learn…
Explore Laurraine Yuyama's 2330 photos on Flickr!
Two of my children were fortunate enough to be taught by a fantastic keyboard teacher named Dianna. To thank her for her outstanding teaching and calm, gentle manner, I made this music quilt for her. She seemed to really love it, which is the best reaction you could hope for!
My quilt top based on the kaleidoscope block Grandma’s Surprise is finished: It’s the result of a recent class I took from Joyce Gieszler, author of Then and Now Quilts (Kansas C…
