Heritage Star is Quilted

Here is another project I have checked off my Pre-Vacation To-Do List:  the quilting of The Whacky Ladies Bee blue and white auction quilt for Heritage days.

 

I used the a technique similar to the  "Flurry of Angels" by Jamie Wallen and Nichole Webb (No Boundaries) for the quilting in the patchwork block and striped borders.

I put a curly motif in the white narrow border.

For the center medallion star, I put big swirls in the blue areas.  I wanted to do some close quilting in the white areas so they would recede to the background.  I decided to do pebble stippling, a decision later to be classified in the "What Was I Thinking?" category.

The pebbling looks great, but is more or less a form of longarm torture!

The backing is a light blue fabric.  There is not actually a bulge in the quilt!

This is a group effort by the Whacky Ladies Bee.  I am handing it off to Marilyn and Kathy for the binding and hanging sleeve, and Lori has offered to make an embroidered label.

Today I am off to visit my father at my sister's house near Greensboro before we leave for vacation on Saturday.  I am hoping that Dad will be strong enough for them to join us at the beach for a few days.

Here is a quilt made by one of the Whacky Ladies, Lori Mann.  She used orphan blocks, leftover patchwork, projects from workshops, and other "Bits and Pieces" to make this quilt.  Most of the blocks were cut in half diagonally to make half-square triangles.

Notice that she could not bear to cut the Celtic Knot in half!

This made a very striking quilt.  Good job, Lori!

If you would like to see the "Daffodil O'Keeffe" art quilt that I mentioned recently, visit my friend Janice's blog.  She has a photo of it on her Symposium post. Stunning!

Baby Quilt

Between Symposium classes and yard work, I sneaked in a little longarm quilting last weekend to finish a customer's quilt before I go on vacation.  This is for a baby shower for a brand new grandchild for my friend Karen.

This is a sort of combination rail fence.  Some of the rails are large and some are small.

As usual when working with very linear quilt top patterns, I used a swirly, curvy quilting design.  I did a swirly hook, feathered back inside it, and feathered back up.

The backing fabric is a coordinating stripe, I believe by Laura Ashley.  The curves look good on the back!

Heat wave here this week.  I am thinking of having Kasey's fur coat shaved off for the summer.  What do you think?

North Carolina Quilt Symposium Part 2

On to the rest of my Quilt Symposium weekend!  Actually, I did not attend on Saturday.  We are going away on vacation next weekend, and The Hubs and I had to do some yard work before we go.  He got the hedge trimmers and cut back the overgrown branches from our shrub borders, and I hauled them off to the woods.  Good to get that done.

On Sunday, I had a three-hour class with Frieda Anderson.  Her work is well-known, as she has written two books and designed many art quilt patterns.  She dyes fabrics in gorgeous jewel tones, and most of her work is in a bright, tropical palette in gradations of color.

So, I arrived early on Sunday morning, and there were literally heaps of these colorful strips of dyed fabric on a table in the front, as well as dozens of Frieda's colorful quilt samples on the walls and windowsills.  What a delight for the eyes!

Frieda had lost her voice after teaching classes and then presenting a group lecture at Symposium.  In order to simplify the instructions, she had us all work from the same pattern.  We each got a copy of Sister Trees, and also three of the glorious hand-dyed fabric strips of our choice!

She had made up this quilt in two colorways:  the bright pastels above, and a more muted palette with brown hills, blue sky, and chartreuse trees.  I decided to make mine with blue sky, green hills, and purple tree trunks.  I have not decided what color to use for the leaves.  Orange, perhaps?

I have not finished constructing the hills yet.  We used pinking blades on the rotary cutter to make "furrows" for the hills.   I haven't made any leaves yet.

You might be able to tell from the above photo that I had a little trouble constructing the sky.  I had to add some bits and pieces here and there.  These sky strips are made of fabric fused with Wonder Under.  You trace the pattern onto the release paper of the Wonder Under, and then burnish it with a credit card on to the fused side of the fabric.  Pretty cool trick.  For the  darker fabrics, you trace the pattern onto the release paper with a black Sharpie pen, and then iron the design onto the fused side of the fabric.

One problem with taking a class on fusing is that there have to be irons available for constant use.  Throughout Symposium, fuses were blowing and circuits were breaking from all the irons.  We could only have two in the room and two in the hall.  We blew the two in the hall right away, so we took an empty classroom hostage and set up some ironing stations in there.  Quilters are good at sharing, fortunately!

I did not get my elements all constructed and fused, but I understand this method very well.  I do intend to finish one day!

Frieda shared several ways to add interesting stripes and textures to her quilts, and also to bind and finish her small art quilts.

They don't call it The Chicago School of Fusing for nothing!  Even the bindings are fused on!  Frieda is also making fabric-covered Peltex backings and either Velcro-ing or stitching the bound art quilt to them.

After class, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my fellow classmates from the online Pamela Allen classes!  Katherine McNeese is a physician from Williamston, North Carolina.  How nice to put a name to a face after several years of connecting by e-mail!  We arranged to meet for lunch, then picked up our quilts together from the quilt show.  Katherine is the creator of the beautiful Daffodil O'Keefe studio art quilt in bright yellow and green.  Sure wish I had my camera so I could have taken some pictures at the show!

Finally, a report on the Apron Silent Auction:  every apron was sold, and we raised approximately $2,000 for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle!  This was a very fun charity fund-raiser.  Kudos to my Anything Art bee pal Roberta Morgan for spearheading this effort, as well as the whole Wearable Garments and Accessories division of the quilt show!

North Carolina Quilt Symposium Part 1

It's now history...North Carolina Quilt Symposium is over for another year.  Congratulations to the board and the committee for such a successful convention.  It was fun to walk across the college campus and see fellow guild members, Carolina Longarm members, famous quilt teachers, and many, many students getting together through our love of quilting. 


On Friday, my DSH (Dear Sweet Husband) drove my bucking bronco Subaru to the dealership for repair of the misfiring cylinder so I could get to my workshop on time in his car.  I was there in plenty of time to get to my class with Joyce Becker on Quick Little Landscape Quilts.  I was the second person there!  Here is a shout-out to one of my peeps, Kathleen from Oak Island, who walked in the door and exclaimed, "It's Jeanne!"  like I was a celebrity.  Kathleen said she reads my blog every day.  What a doll!  I also met a quilter from Australia via Cary, NC, who was in both of my classes, and a fellow quilter from Wake Forest whom I had never met.  It is fun to make connections!


Joyce Becker was an interesting and very down-to-earth teacher with lots of ideas for making landscape quilts using printed fabrics with landscape features such as grass, rocks, flowers, mountains, and animals.  Actually, I already had one of her books, but did not realize it until I saw them on display at the workshop.  Joyce had lots of quilts to show us, and it is amazing how much more beautiful they are in person than in the book photographs.  She utilizes lots of intricate threadwork to enhance the scenes in her quilts.  Joyce does not fuse her fabrics, but starches them heavily and either uses a repositionable spray glue, or glue stick to anchor them down before stitching.

Joyce advises using a photo mat to define the area of your scene.  I like the idea of not having to back or bind the finished piece!  I decided that my project would be a scene from our helicopter trip over the island of Hawaii last February.  It is a pass between some of those steep cliffs that end right in the sea.

I begged a piece of the light sky fabric on top from my fellow student Millie, used one of my Setacolor painted fabrics for the blue and white area, and a piece of yellow-green silk for the sunlit edge of the cliff.  I did not have the right green fabric for the hills in the foreground, so I went shopping at the vendor mall at lunchtime and found some that worked just fine.

This piece needs to be refined and then stitched down by machine.  Joyce showed some techniques of adding Angelina, dryer lint, tulle, paints, and inks to create the desired landscape qualities.  A very enjoyable workshop!  I think I will definitely finish this project.

During my whirlwind lunchtime tour of the vendor mall and quilt show, I also bought an item I have been coveting for a long time...a hand-made African basket from French Connections in Pittsboro, NC. 

These baskets are very sturdy and roomy, and come in an array of colors and patterns.

I would show you more pictures of the quilt show, but alas, my digital camera has been missing for over two weeks now.   I thought I left it in the mountains, but when we went back last weekend, I couldn't find it.  I miss it terribly!  I am hoping it will still turn up.  Charlie has a very nice camera with a huge lens, but it is not as easy to carry around as my Canon, which is about the size of a deck of cards.

Next time I will tell about my class with Frieda Anderson of the mythical Chicago School of Fusing.  It was another fun day!

Blue and White Sampler Quilt Top

I was able to finish the blue and white sampler quilt top last week in time for the Whacky Ladies Bee meeting on Thursday night.  All I had to do was add the white border strips, navy blue flange and the last block border which was partially assembled.  Doesn't it look handsome!

I will try to get this quilted ASAP so I can turn it over to the binding team and get it done before the July guild meeting.

I almost did not make it to the bee meeting.  I went to four stores Thursday afternoon to find the supplies for my Friday morning class at Symposium.  On the way home my "Check Engine Light" came on, and the car started vibrating and shaking.  I went to four places to try to get it checked out.  One of the auto parts stores had a hand scanner that checked the code, and found out that Cylinder 2 was misfiring.  Since I just had a tune-up at the Subaru place, Charlie took it back there the next day.  It was a loose wire,  all fixed now at zero charge since it was their fault.  Yippee!

My father, who has been recuperating from pneumonia and some other health problems,  moved out of the nursing care facility in Boone, and has moved in with my sister and her husband near Greensboro, NC.   We are so grateful that Katy will be his caretaker, with help from Hospice nurses and CNA's.   He just was not getting any better or stronger.  Maybe now he will perk up a little! He sounded happy on the phone tonight, sitting on the back porch and watching the lightning bugs.

Some Quilt Symposium reports coming soon!  I have a class tomorrow morning with Frieda Anderson, which I am looking forward to.

Ruffled Apron for Symposium Raffle

Each time that the Capital Quilters Guild has hosted the North Carolina Quilt Symposium recently, we have had a silent auction of some sort of garment to raise money for charity.  We have done the art bras, boxer shorts, purses, and this year, the apron.  Aprons have been resurging in popularity  lately, and over sixty people have agreed to make one for Symposium.  I finished mine last week.

I found a free pattern for this ruffled apron on the Internet on a blog called One More Moore. 

I used some fabric by Tina Givens of right here in Wake Forest.  It has fairies and some coordinated prints in yellow, salmon, and brown.

I found out it is hard to photograph an apron without a manikin or model, and I don't think The Hubs or Kasey wants to be it.