Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

Cross Block and Royal Cross

The research of the real name of the Cross Block started with a stray comment I made on a list saying I wondered what the real name of my block was.

That sent Sarah on a frenzy of Googling, where she found that the Library of Congress has quilt photo called Royal Cross that has similar bones to the Cross Block. Sarah also found that Tazzie has a pattern for the Royal Cross.

Then Leslie chimed in with the sudden realization that she had a quilt from her Grandma in this [Royal Cross] pattern. She posted the pics, which I have reproduced here.

Full quilt


Detail


Comparison between the Royal Cross and the Cross Block.

Blocks are constantly modified to suit the needs of the maker and I am sure that these blocks are no exception. My block and the Royal Cross look similar in the middle, but the outside of the Royal Cross looks like it is meant to draw attention to those squares in the corner. I can’t say much about that as I went on and on in one post about the center of this, among other patterns, not actually being the center. I’ll have to look through the Barbara Brackman book and the Kansas City Star books and see what I can find. If all else fails I’ll post a picture on the AQSG Yahoogroup and start sending photos around to various quilt historians.

What to Do When you Win the Lottery

The lottery is up to $25 million, so I guess I didn’t win on last week’s ticket and will have to buy another one. If I had won, I would do the exact same thing that I did this weekend: sewing, visiting with quiltmaking friends, writing about quiltmaking and more sewing. I could have done without the proposal writing and the cold I have been fighting off, but you can’t have everything.


You may notice that these blocks look very like the blocks that JulieZS showed me on Wed. I looked the block up in Around the Block, a very useful book by Judy Hopkins from several years ago. I was sort of inspired to try the block, so I made the big one for Julie and the 2 6″ blocks for two different friendship quilts that someone requested. The small ones are smaller than I anticipated, but perhaps I will make a couple of more in order to fill in more space in those friendship quilts.

It was Mav-Week as well. In addition to seeing Julie, Mrs. K was in town, so we met over in Oakland and went to lunch at a nice little vegetarian place (excellent lemonade) down Washington and around the corner from the 10th Street convention center entrance. Mrs. K was visiting the Bead Expo. I thought about going, too, but decided to sew and try to shake the cold instead. Of course, she and Vicki had to show me their purchases and, among other things, Mrs. K had bought a strand of gorgeous millefiori (according to St. JCN) beads.



I had to have them. Mrs. K was kind enough to sell them to me and go back and get another set for herself. I am thrilled. Mrs. K puts them on the ends of the ties to her prayer boxes and I will have to find something equally fantastic to do with them. I hope you can get a sense of what they look like from the photos above.

As I mentioned, I also pressed the fabric that St. JCN sent me. I am quite proud of myself for not letting it languish for months unwashed and then pressing it right away. To add icing to the cake, I cut pieces out of the new fabrics as well: strips for the pineapple and corners for the Cross Block. Below are the corners for the Cross Blocks (perhaps called Royal Cross! More on THAT later) that I cut out of those fabrics.

Dots and Denyse Schmidt Join the Party. Fabric Leads to Sainthood


In a effort to update the Catholic Church and make it more appealing to a younger audience, I think that requirements for sainthood should be eased. Sending virtually unsolicited fabric to people really should count towards the sainthood list of requirements.

A nice box arrived on my doorstep on Thursday (accompanied by my taxes, which was not so nice) literally stuffed ot the gils with fabric and little prezzies. St. JCN had gathered together my post-Birthday box and it finally arrived. The fabrics above were in it.

I needed a little infusion of new dots for the Pineapple and St. JCN supplied that for me. I am also ready to do the Chocolate Box with the addition of the Denyse Schmidt pinks.

I washed them yesterday (along with some stragglers that had been laying around) This morning I am pressing them and cutting pieces for the Cross Block quilt. Since I am there, why not?

The Art of Quilting – REVIEW

Being in the dark ages has its drawbacks, especially when quiltmaking shows come along on cable. I am lucky enough to be friends with people who are willing to tape shows and send them to me. That was the case with the Art of Quilting, a special on PBS.

Melody Johnson and Pam RuBert show up right away in the show as does Quilt National. It is a show trying to explain what makes up art quiltmaking and who the players are.

The show starts out being a slideshow of many art quilts with a voiceover by Hilary Fletcher. The introduction is followed by videos of the work of various artists including Jane Burch Cochran, Bob Adams, Pam RuBert, the Chicago School of Fusing, Carol Krueger, Kristin Hoelscher-Schacker, as well as descriptions of their work. The show also watches the artists working and listens as they talk about their work. I was surprised that there weren’t any California art quiltmakers. In between segments the slide shows continue.

I have never seen the detail of Jane Burch Cochran’s quilts and really enjoyed seeing the hidden messages she incorporates into some of her quilts. She said that she is playing with the idea that you are not supposed to touch quilts, but you have to touch her quilts to find the hidden messages. She had one about peace that grabbed my attention. She also gave some hints about being inspired as you work and how to work to facilitate inspiration.

Pam RuBert has a fabulous studio that I covet. I will think of a way to incorporate her lovely large walls in my workroom. Seeing the details of PaMdora’s world is so fantastic. The pieces of PaMdora’s world were on full display during RuBert’s segment, which was fun. I also liked the humble way in which she described her work.

Laura Wasilowski sings along with Frieda Anderson, Melody Johnson and Emily Parson in the segment on the Chicago School of Fusing. The School is fully described and each of the members of the School have a bit. I do like the clear colors that Melody Johnson uses, though she has moved on to more nature colors: fawn, stone, beige, etc. Frieda Anderson gets inspiration from nature. She also said that until recently she carried her Featherweight around in her car. Emily Parson likes the impact of large flowers and their effect on viewers. Some of the designs I liked were their machine quilting designs and the leaves as well as the smaller flowers. I also the simpler designs rather than the really detailed designs. They disparage piecing a bit, but I looked at it as of their progression.

Philadelphia Quilt Art is discussed as the next up and coming venue for art quilts. I want to say that the quilts they discuss are not quilts. I mean paper clips and candy wrappers…really? BUT, I am not going to say that, because the next thing I know, I will be making quilts out of candy wrappers and paper clips. WE must keep an open mind. Still I want quilts to have three layers and be made out of fabric. I can’t have everything. 😉

I like the way the show introduced me to lots of different artists. This is definitely a show that you have running without the sound and just have a great show running. The nice thing, aside from showing lots and lots of fabulous art quilts is that they touch on a lot of different techniques including beading, discharging, machine embroidery, fusing, painting, etc. There is a lot more to quiltmaking than just piecing. But can’t they all coexist without paper clips and candy wrappers?

It is a show worth watching and by which you can be inspired.

P.S. I struggle all the time with the whole art thing. Am I an artist? Am I not an artist? I don’t know and after hearing Wayne Thiebaud, a long time ago, on City Arts and Lectures saying that he is a painter and history can judge wheather he is an artist, I have decided to adopt this as well. I just want to do my work and grow and change my work as I progress.

I think that at heart I am an art quiltmaker, but at the moment I am in an art quilt fallow period where I am sewing with colors and patterns that I enjoy, but that are not necesarily Quilt National quality. What Comes Next and Blood and Oil are both art quilts. They will have companion pieces to follow them at some point. Just not today.

Random Photos and Bits of News

Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors have merged with or been bought by Interweave Press. Apparently, I am the last to know. I read a brief blurb in QNM of all places, then Nina directed me to the blog entry over at the Quilting Arts Blog. I hope Interweave Press doesn’t ruin QA and CPS like they did to Piecework.

In the meantime, Pamelala is busy creating some gorgeous stuff. She posted a ton of pictures of postcards to her website. It is great to see a bunch of her work all together. Then, as an added bonus, she has put together a little online demo showing how her postcards (and, I assume, her quilts) evolve. You can actually see them come to life.

Reorganization of Strip Project – Housecleaning

You may remember the post from February 18 where I talked about the perils of strip piecing. My librarian side took over this weekend and I created a new system for organizing and using my strips for the pineapple project.

The above shows my neatly organized strips. I have divided them into color piles, as you can see. The idea is that I will start from the left and select one strip/fabric for each color I need in the pineapple block. When I am done with that color, I will put the strip on the bottom. I will move across the range of piles selecting one from each pile until I need to start from the left again. For the backgrounds, I will just take 4 at a time and put them on the bottom when I am done. We’ll see how it works.

My other challenge today was in the fabric closet.

I came home after a meeting to a fabric avalanche. It is not quite all picked up, but will be soon. I wonder if the fabric goddess is telling me something.

Google/Blogger notified me that I am using 65 MB of my 1024 MB. I guess I will have to include fewer photos, make them smaller or find somewhere else to store photos. The latter is ideal as I think all 7 of my faithful readers enjoy the photos.

Pineapples are Pretty

The title was inspired, for no particular reason, except that it struck my fancy, by a poster at the Castro Theatre advertising Pretty in Pink, the 1980s movie. Molly Ringwold’s hair was precious.


I finished two more Pineapple blocks for a total of 8 now. I feel like I should have more, but I don’t. As I keep reminding myself this is an ongoing project with no deadline. I am enjoying seeing the evolution of the piece.

The blocks, all together, look pretty good.

I notice an interesting secondary pattern developing. I knew i would, but am just surprised at how much I like it.

Design Ideas for Coffee Quilt

After writing the post about the Coffee quilt, it occurred to me that a row quilt might be the way to go.

When my computer is idle, it scrolls through various quilt show photos I have taken. While it was scrolling through the PIQF 2005 photos, I saw a row quilt that might work for the coffee quilt.

This one is done with 4Patches, which wouldn’t really work, but I could fussy cut the squares with motifs in them instead of making a four patch. I could also make the squares different sizes to accomodate the motifs. Sue Nickels has a row quilt that I liked. I am pretty sure I took a picture of it when I was in her class and will have to dig that out.

I am not starting this quilt, just mulling.

Coffee Quilt

Luana has some new coffee fabrics, which got me to thinking about the coffee fabrics I have been collecting.

I have quite a lot of coffee fabrics, which I was collecting about 4 years ago for some unnamed/undesigned/unstarted project. At some point I realized that many of them were brown and I didn’t like brown. Now that turquoise and brown are popular and look good together, I think I can use turquoise with them to make the brown more cheerful.

Still, I do like the fabrics and would like to think of something nice to do with them. St. JCN and I did “She Had to Have Her Latte.” The Tarts Come to Tea is supposed to be a coffee quilt. However, the name is much better than the Crabs Come to Coffee or something, so I guess it will secretly be about coffee.

I don’t want to do something like attic windows just to showcase the fabrics. I want to do something creative and original. Perhaps a “She Had to Have Her Second Latte”?

I also have some great Dutch coffee fabrics that I bought at Black Cat Quilts. They are pretty special and I would like to do something special with them. Some kind of breakfast quilt? I am not sure. I suppose they have to go to the cogitation pile.

Relief (Sharon’s Quilt)

Finally, I feel some relief. I have finished the top and back to Sharon’s quilt and it is ready to go to the quilter. As I mentioned, I didn’t feel a sense of euphoria or relief after finishing the Nosegay, but I do feel some of that relief now.


Top: with the border on, it is a little too big for my design wall (what else is new with my work these days?)


Detail of front: this is the label. There was one last pink bordered square that I needed to make the piece complete, so I turned it into a label/wish for happiness for the happy couple.


Back


Detail of back. The pink is a map of Paris and the white and black border has French words on it.


Blurry detail of a batik fabric that I used for the border, then decided I really liked. If you have any, I want more. 😉

I looked at my UFO list and it looks like most of the large outstanding projects are out of the way, except the Spiderweb, which is probably next on the list. There are a number of smaller projects, which are more arty that I will have to get back to eventually.

At the moment, the design wall is blessedly empty. Now I feel like I have some brain space and can work on something I don’t feel is hanging over my head. I guess I need to try to finish projects before they get so old that they start shouting at me. I will put the pineapple blocks and the Cross Blocks back up and see what happens with a new project.

Slight Deviation from the Quiltmaking Norm

I spent the day at my friend’s, Single Scrapbooker*, house working on my photo albums. I have been reading scrapbook magazines to get ideas for color schemes for my quilts. Most of the layouts are too complicated for me. I need to get the photos in the albums fast. However, I have been inspired by the layering and detail work. You can replicate some of the ideas in quiltimaking by getting inspiration from the colors, using beads and machine applique’ (or any kind of applique’, I suppose).

I tried creating a page yesterday based on some of the ideas I was seeing. It doesn’t have flair that layouts in the articles have. Still, I like the layout and am pleased with the way it turned out.

*SS has not updated her blog in awhile, but said she got a lot of great ideas yesterday, so I hope she does. She is a good writer and very thorough in her analysis .