Quilts from the Whacky Ladies

My quilt bee meeting of The Whacky Ladies was fun and inspirational on Thursday night.  I was so proud that most of our show-and-tell quilts are destined to become charity quilts, mostly for the programs of Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh.

However, the star of the show was this lovely log cabin top pieced by Irene Hardister and several other women for a raffle at St. Catherine's church.  I think they are going to hand-quilt it.  It is just perfection!

Lori has purchased a long-arm, and quilted many tops that she has been storing up for practice.  She and Carolyn worked on the nine-patch quilts at our charity sew-in day in January.

 She also made some of those stack-and-slash nine-patch quilts for charity.

This was my favorite of Lori's quilts.

Mary delighted Irene by making a tote bag for her.  Irene had chosen a tote bag from Mary as her gift in our "Dirty Santa" Christmas exchange.  Some mean person had stolen it away from her when it was her turn.  Not mentioning any names, but it made a great beach bag a couple of weekends ago!  Irene loved her new bag.  And I could not take it away from her this time!

Not sure why my pics are turning sideways today.  So sorry!

Mary also finished the charity quilt that I quilted for her, and it looks great with that striped binding.

Mary made this gorgeous quilt from a large piece of botanical fabric.  Wow!

Carolyn has found that a good way to keep her motivated is to participate in block-of-the-month projects from LQS Wish Upon a Quilt in Raleigh.  The red and white big blocks are looking very impressive.

She is also doing a batik block-of-the-month from them in a smaller block.

Marilyn was knitting a prayer shawl.  These are given to church members at Good Hope Lutheran church when there is a need.

I had a show-and-tell, but can't show it until after today.  We are going to a party to celebrate my daughter-in-law's thirtieth birthday this afternoon.  Should be a fun time!  It is also my oldest son's birthday, #35.    Happy Birthday Bryson, and Happy Birthday Emily! 

Colorful Quilt from the Past



Circles of Life, 1998



Some of you may recall that my father recently moved in with my sister and her husband due to some health issues.  He had been living in a retirement center apartment in Boone, NC for the past six years.  My sister-in-law, Debbie, recently gave me two boxes of items from his apartment that she had salvaged for me. 

One was this little log cabin quilt that I gave to my father for Christmas in 1998. 

This quilt is an attempt to copy a quilt that I loved from a book about Quilt National, the wonderful innovative art quilt competition at The Dairy Barn Arts Center in Ohio.

Some of the orange-red strips in the off-center log cabins are from a dancing dress of my mother's.  She and Dad used to enjoy ballroom dancing, and this was my father's favorite of her dancing gowns.  He even painted her full-size portrait wearing that dress.

My mother passed away in 1984 from cancer.  Dad kept that dress in her closet until 1998, when he brought it to me and asked me to make a quilt from it.

I actually made two, Circles of Life, and a more snugly lap quilt.

It was nice to see this one again!  Right now it is adding lots of bright color to my kitchen table.

"Taking A Peek" at my Gammill

Yesterday, I almost finished quilting the king-sized log cabin quilt for Eileen. I would say I have about one more pass to go. I worked on it until 6:30 PM, but was just too tired to keep at it. Whether sewing on my Bernina or on the Gammill, I often get back and shoulder fatigue. Better to stop when tired!

Anyway, this is such a large quilt that I have been taking extra precautions to make sure that there are no pleats on the back. The first thing I did was repair my side straps and clamps. I have these long black Velcro strips with clamps on the end. They wrap around the side frame of the table, which has the other half of the Velcro on the top. The clamps attach to the lining and/or batting on the quilt. They help keep it taut. As Linda Taylor taught us in her classes, the clamps are not meant to torture the quilt like the medieval racks- just keep the backing from easing up.

I have managed to break my Velcro straps and even one or two clamps when jerking the straps off to roll up the quilt. So, before this quilt, I stitched the broken sections of Velcro together. For the clamp that was broken in half, I found this fun replacement at the Target store. It is supposed to clamp your towel or beach shirt to the back of your beach chair. I like the fun look it gives to my set-up!

Something else I use to prevent unwanted pleats on the back is this cheap door mirror. Placed on the table, it gives you a view of the underside of the quilt. Look at these wrinkles which could have caused pleats on the back if I didn't check the mirror.

But the best feature of my Gammill for checking the batting and backing is the pivot access.

One of the bars on the front of the machine can be released to pivot up. As my favorite OB/GYN doctor would say before disappearing behind the drape, "Let's just take a peek."

That's what I think of when I lift the top and push the canvas leaders out of the way to see what's underneath the layers. Then you can see the batting layer and smooth it out, and remove any stray threads on the top or batting. This quilt was my first experience with Hobbs Tuscany cotton. It is a very soft, clean white batt. However, I found it to be a little stretchy, and apt to retain puckers. I was able to straighten and smooth the batting before quilting.

Then you can lift the batting to see the lining, or backing layer.

When I took this picture, I had reached a seam in the backing. I do like my backing seams to be wide and pressed open. I prefer the selvage to be removed . I think it adds stretch and can cause puckering. Anyway, here are a couple more pictures of the free-motion quilting on this log cabin.


This afternoon will be a treat. My hubby and I are going to downtown Raleigh to see the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" at the IMAX theatre. I have never seen a film on one of these huge, sense-boggling screens. Should be fun!