"Many Blessings" Quilt Pattern From Darlene Zimmerman a/k/a FeedSack Lady

Darlene Zimmerman has created a series of new quilt patterns called "Amalie's Story: Quilts & Letters From The Civil War complete with a look into Amalie's life. Each pattern comes with multiple quilt sizes as well as Amalie's life story and letters from the time of her life when she made the quilt". I have always had a very soft spot in my heart for traditional quilts & I like sleeping under them the best! When I saw this pattern advertised in a magazine I fell in love with it and contacted Darlene immediately. She had not even had the patterns listed on her web-site yet. I have a very large stash of reproduction prints that I have saved and I culled many of the the pinks & browns to use for this quilt. My friend Janet picked up off white on off white background fabric for me in her jaunt to the mainland this week. I was going to just use lights from my stash but decided that a unified background was important to this design.

It must be the cooler nights that are already settling in (yes, I do sleep well in this weather)! that have made me yearn to make bed quilts right now. A friend and I are also planning to make a log cabin over this coming winter - that's always been a favorite pattern of mine because it is so amazingly versatile. My other favorite is nine patch quilts & all of their many great variations. I am also still plotting out my next art quilt and doing experiments to get the right technique/techniques that I want to use - makes my pens and inks real handy for drawing it out too!

I am still in shock that September is so close at hand. How did the full heat of summer go by so fast? This time warping speed causes me some tears and frustrations at times - so much that I want to do and I feel like time is closing in. Fibro holds me back at times that I want to be speeding forward. I want more time dang it! Don't you think that retirement should start at 30??? I sure as heck do - though when I was 30 I am sure that retirement was far from mind as I climbed that foolish career ladder! Odd that when I achieved what I wanted I realized that it felt hollow - art and color were where all of my time should have been spent. Then again, being a starving artist held/holds very little appeal! So - I better get to work now cutting up some of my lovely reproduction fabrics. Ahhhhh -- the hum of my machine is soothing!

Quilts Galore AT The Fair

There were some stunning quilts at the County Fair this year. It is the first year that I did not enter anything in the quilts division (sigh). The fabulous news is that the Quilts - and, of course, other fabulous things like cross-stitch, garments, beaded items etc - won the coveted black and white award from the State. It is given yearly to ONLY one exhibit in the Fair and is awarded for overall excellence. Kudos to Superintendents Krispi Staude & Christy Hinkle ! Richly deserved!

The first quilt pictured is a stunning beauty from the "Quilted Diamonds" book by Linda Franz. The book was sort of a spin off from the "Dear Jane" book by Brenda Papadakis. I loved making my Dear Jane and thought, briefly, of making a quilted diamonds quilt too. This quilt was one heck of a lot of beautiful hand work - unfortunately I don't remember the name of the talented person who made it. Apologies. As you may be able to see it did get a Special Award. It blew me away. Fabulous work - and a lot of it !

Below is the quilt that won Best Of Show. Created by Trish Lehman. Grandmother's Flower Garden is all hand done - it's one of my favorite traditional quilt patterns and Trish did a lovely job with vintage fabrics. Again - this is one heck of a lot of beautiful hand work. I love seeing hand work well rewarded. I think we all tend to rely on our machine a lot ... but hand work has it's own tranquility that is special. Hooray for Trish!
The next quilts below were two my personal favorites....though there were many others that I did not photograph. Friend Janet Wright did a color study that was beautiful - but I was rushing through and did not get a photo of it. Apologies J ! Once again however, I must also offer apologies to the artists of these two quilts. I neglected to write down their names. I better get better at doing that huh?! Everything about these quilts tickles me...just fabulous.

The little children's quilt below was made by friend Dot Merlino. For good reason it won a Special Award. Dot not only did a great job on this "I Spy" version but her machine embroidery skills were highlighted in the wonderful & creative way that she added "I Spy" hints embroidered in the border. This is one of the more joyful quilts I have seen & what a lucky child it will be who receives this quilt!

There were so many more quilts that I loved - I just did not take photos of them all. We have an amazingly talented quilt group here - and each person is a fine example of what quilting should be about. Talent, warmth, friendship. Great going Island Quilters !

Another Trip Down Quilt Memory Lane

Join me in another trip down memory lane! Above is a LeMoyne Star quilt. When i made it I thought it was so dang good. I didn't know that there was a much better way to join the inner points so that they would lay flat. My machine quilting was truly awful - and I thought everyone used muslin as a quilt back ! It looked good enough on a wall - but I keep it now to remind myself to never be too pride-full. There is always a lot to learn no matter where you are in your quilting life!

Everyone, it seemed, had to do a Maple Leaf design. This one is just when I had laid out the blocks prior to putting them together. I didn't usually take photos of much of work back then. It's also odd to look at my quilts - not nearly as much color as I seem to always use now!

I have always love Log Cabin blocks - and I still do. This is the first quilt I made using Log Cabin blocks. I made it during a particularly stressful time in my life - and called it "The Rocky Road of Life" - though I suppose "Streak of Lightening" would not have been a bad title either! It's the first quilt that I used polar fleece as a backing - with no batting. Now I still use polar fleece but I think that using a batting layer works best. It adds some stability and looks much better - and prevents shadowing too. Come to think of it - it feels like time to do another Log Cabin block quilt sometime soon! At least this one showed some lively colors - despite the rocky road I was on !

Early Quilt Experiments

After reading my post about the quilt 'talk' I gave, cyber friend, Karoda asked if I had ever posted any of the pages from my quilting memory book on my blog. Of course I never had, but her comment made me think that it might not be a bad idea.

I have no photos of the early quilts I made in 1976 – and if I did I suspect that I would cringe. I had fallen in love with the richness and simplicity of Amish quilts. These quilts became powerful images in my mind. Those first quilts were Amish knock offs. During that time I also made quilts to sell. A twin sized quilt was $50. I thought I had hit the jack pot. I wonder how long they lasted? Most of the solid colored fabrics that were available then were a poly/cotton blend – can you imagine? There were no rotary cutters. I am not sure if I had decent scissors and I would not have recognized a template if one was tossed to me. I was so young and naive at this point. My quilting then was also questionable - sketchy at best – I can’t imagine what I thought I was doing using a puffy polyester batting either! Maybe that’s all I could get at the time. I remember Mountain Mist being available– I used to love the packaging and free patterns that came in the roll. I think, if I were to see any of these first quilts I would think they were just plain horrid – and be even more shocked that someone bought them. One person, I remember, bought a set of 4 quilts – WoW $200! That was a lot of money at the time ! Horrid quilts perhaps but they were the beginning of my love affair with quilts and quilting.

These photos represent the beginning of my "return" to quilting after being on hiatus when I thought, for some insane reason, that I needed to climb the a career ladder. The photo of the little hearts baby quilt is an old Polaroid - and, as such ,it's not a great photo. The hearts were, at least, all hand appliqued and the quilting - what there was of it - was all done by hand. The fabrics were relatively boring - pinks and creams. There is also a scary photo of what I looked like at the time! Yikes !

I find that having a 'quilting memory book' is really valuable thing. I like looking at where I have been in order to see to where I am. Does that make any sense?! I keep my ribbons and acceptance notices in the book too (funny thing though - I seem to not have kept too many of the rejection notices !). Hope you have enjoyed this peek at my past !

Simple, Scrappy Bed Quilts

I like very simple quilts a lot & I am inordinately fond of scrap quilts - probably because they are always so much fun to construct. I have a good supply of 5 inch "sample"squares & I love using them for making the simplest of scrap quilts. For this quilt I used some of my stash of oriental fabric squares with a simple set & borders. I staggered the borders a bit to add a bit of visual interest. This is the quilt I am currently sleeping under. The back is fabulous too - I should take a photo of it - it's Asian floral fleece in red & white with a wide border of coordinated solid red. Yummy! I have used these wonderful little "sample" squares to make several quilts. They are colorful and so much fun to work with. Oddly enough - one of these scrap quilts is one that sold very quickly....and I even got a nice note from the new owner telling me how much they enjoy the quilt! Simple is such a good thing ! Sometimes I get so engrossed in thinking that I need to show off more quilting / pieceing skills that I forget that I generally prefer simple patterns over complicated - well except for my hand applique - and with that I seem to like to stitch fantasy, complicated, time consuming pieces!

Have a great day - and, as always, thanks for taking the time to have a look at my ramblings !

Aunt Doe's Quilt

I'm trying not to wallow in sadness. Trying to force myself to do the things that need doing. Yesterday, with all of it's sorrow, also marked the day I finished the quilt top for our Aunt Doe. Today, one of the things that needs to be done is sewing (seaming) the backing for this quilt. I am using a cream colored ,double micro velour, fleece from my favorite Malden Mills. It's Aunt Doe's 90th birthday in August and I know that she will like this quilt! Some years ago I gave her a small quilt & she always mentions how cozy it is and how much she uses it. This quilt is 88" X 109 ". Betsy Sauther of Nautilus Quilting is going to grace the top with her beautiful longarm artistry.

I have a passion for reproduction fabrics - both 19th century & early 20th, so my collection is rather embarrassingly rich. With the exception of the background white on cream fabric, this was made using stash fabrics. It's a very small part of my stash reduction plan. I think that the pattern is the most traditional of traditional, and some years ago I had cut it out of issue #99
( Sept/Oct 2004) of Quiltmaker magazine. They call the pattern "Chimney Sweep" - though I know it has many other names. I just call it traditional comfort! The finished blocks are 11.25". I like it well enough that I think I will make another for our bed. I seem to bounce back and forth between making traditional & art quilts. I love the balance it gives me. Next up is the fast approaching dead line for the Grab Bag challenge. I will really be pressing the deadline on this one so please wish me luck and energy to get it done in time!

The Comfort Of Tradition: 32 Blocks Done; More Work To Do

Finally! I have finished all 32 quilt blocks for this xtra long queen sized, ultra traditional quilt. I am ready to begin adding the sashings, cornerstones, and setting triangles. It's going to be a beautiful quilt & I like it well enough that I want to make another one for our bed. All of these blocks were made using Judy Rothermel's fabrics from Marcus Brothers. DH has been kind enough to continue my subscriptions to both of her reproduction lines for some years now- mid eighteenth century types & 30's. It's always great fun to open these packages - and it's a gift that continues to bring me much enjoyment. As I worked on each block I thought it was the prettiest one yet! Scrappy traditional quilts ares still my favorites & I think they prove that all colors can, in fact, work together.

Oddly enough I am doing a lecture in May that is about what we call our quilts and what we call ourselves in relation to our quilts. Is there a difference? Is quilt art for the bed as well as for the wall - or is a quilt for the bed and textile art for the wall? An interesting dilemma at times. I am most fond of traditional patterns. They calm me down and comfort me. I LOVE having a hand made quilt on my bed. I am also, however, a person who makes "art quilts" that are meant solely for display on a wall (or maybe in a cat bed!) - so am I a quilter, an artistic quilter, an art quilter, or a tectile artist? Am I an artist at all? What do you call yourself? What do you think of this "naming" issue? I would love to hear your comments - I need information for this upcoming lecture ! I still have not started my notes for it !