Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
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Borders have been on my mind lately,especially as I work through my Crazy Test quilt. I think about the value of borders when the self bordering technique does not work.
Here is another Ferry Building mosaic. The thing that struck me about this mosaic was the two different (large) borders. They are distinctly separate, but close enough in value to go together and look like they were planned. I don’t actually like the peachy hue, but it works on this mosaic. I think a couple of aquas or an aqua and turquoise would look great on a watery quilt.
I love going to see quilts at the various county fairs in our state. I have been to a number of them, but I would still, someday, like to say that I have been to all the county fairs in the state. One thing I like about visiting county fairs is that I am reminded of how much creativity is going on nearby.
Not only do I enjoy the quilts, but I also enjoy seeing the tatting, the crochet, the tole painting, etc. I am really inspired by seeing the preserves, artistic cakes and the table setting displays.
Last weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Los Angeles County Fair. As I have mentioned previously, I dislike the way they display the needlework. They are all behind glass cases and they often have dress dummies placed right in front of the quilts, which makes the work really hard to photograph. Most of the photos I took are more fragments of quilts rather than the entire thing. Enjoy anyway!
I have to gear down my fabric purchases, but I bought at few at a really nice shop last weekend in the LA area called Loving Stitches. It is within walking distance of my grandmother’s house. Each time I have tried to go there, it has been closed. I was pleased to catch them when they are open and glad to find that it is a really nice shop. They have LOTS of fabric and the people were really friendly.
I was pleased to see that they had a wide variety of fabric for all tastes. They didn’t seem to focus on only one type of fabric.
They also had a great collection of Hawaiian shirt fabrics. I was tempted to buy some for a tote bag, but refrained for now. I want to use up some of the tote bag fabrics I have already purchased.
I’ll look forward to visiting them again.
For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area…
Friday October 17th 11-8
Saturday October 18 10 -7
Eddie’s Quilting Bee
480 S. Mathilda Ave
Sunnyvale, 94986
1 888 784 5837
http://www.dianaleone.com
Diana Leone presents her lifetime collection of quilts
350++Quilt,s 100’s of items from her eclectic collections.
Antique Quilts, 1840-1970 Amish, African American, Doll/Baby quilts, Textiles, Many of Diana’s personal items, Blocks, cutters, thimbles, doo-dads & 14k Gold Sewing charm & 3-4 mint Singer Featherweights, Great Prices, collectors & everyone will find a treasure:
View the 1847 chintz, appliques, Canadian Amish, 1700’s Palampore, etc. valued at $7-$12k++ each.
Tickets to own Diana’s quilts, all proceeds gifted to our local Quilt Museum, AQMRA.(not a donation)
All from Diana’s collections! Pre-sale and Meet Diana
Auction of 2 $12,000 quilts from 1847 for Serious buyers/collectors.
This will be the last public sale of Diana’s collection of antique quilts, tops, linens, and Singer Feather Weight sewing machines. Many other items will be for sale including Diana’s newest Painted Art Quilts and Giclees.
Contact Diana at info@dianaleone.com for more information, to preview quilts and art and reserve your purchases.
I am waiting to get an appointment to deliver my quilts – YES, quilts plural!!! – to my quilter. I have to call her and get a date. Last time I tried she was out of town on all the days that would have been convenient for me. I almost finished a third top last night, so I may wait to add the last two borders, and get the back done before I make the appointment.
Above is the back of the purple Bullseye. I was really pleased with how well this back went together. The whole quilt really went together well, but the back was especially easy. The fabrics I used are much lighter than the front. I wanted to use some fabrics that I owned and liked and had also been around for awhile yet hadn’t yet made it to the front of a quilt.
It is really a thrill to have three quilts (almost) ready to go to the quiltmaker. Sadly, two of them were not on my 2007 UFO list, so that list won’t be much smaller unless I get really busy.
TalisCalifornia has made this very interesting version of the Dear Jane block, Dad’s Plaids. I love the way she has switched the background and the foreground within the block. It really has a nice effect that makes your eye move around the block without making them cross (like certain black and white fabrics would).
The Baby Jane group on Flickr is a testament to hope for the future of quiltmaking. These blocks are not easy to put together and they have really done, and continue to do, a wonderful job. They are moving through all of the Dear Jane blocks and I love seeing the progress.
I ponder doing the blocks along with them! I just don’t want to start another hand project until I make some progress on the Flowering Snowballs and my projects from Pamela Allen’s classes.
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ACCI Gallery | 1652 Shattuck Ave | Berkeley | CA | 94709 |
This is another one of the nature related mosaics that decorate the Ferry Building. I have walked past this particular mosaic numerous times. It wasn’t until this week when I happened to standing near a newly moved table that I noticed the border. I really like the way the border sets off the center. I also like it that it isn’t a traditional checkerboard border. I think the classic checkerboard pattern makes a wonderful element in a quilt, but the rectangular tiles (aka patches) in this piece really give the work something extra.
I hope to get a picture of each of the mosaics.
The Chocolate Box is truly finished now. Except for the quilting, binding and sleeve. 😉
I like the the way it came out, but I wish I had made more of an effort to keep some of the non-chocolate edges larger. Live and learn.
After finishing the back for the Purple Bullseye, I realized that I needed a bit more of an edge to accommodate the jagged edge (photo above, bottom right). Since I was in back making mode anyway, it seemed like a good time.
You can’t see the bit I added, because the back is really large and I really couldn’t get it all in. Now Colleen will be able to get it on the quilting machine with no problem.
The last update I gave you on the Bullseyes was on September 8 and I was slowly working through the trimming and sewing the patches together to make blocks.
I went through this process kind of slowly because I was enjoying the fiddliness and taking my time. Above shows the quilt top as it was sometime in the last week or so. You can see that patches are sewn together to make blocks and some blocks are sewn together to make. During the past week I have been sewing chunks together and this morning I had only seven seams left. I finished this morning after wrestling with those last seams.
Finished top!! Hooray.
I hope to be able to finish the back today as well. I already made one piece of it with some leftover quarter circle/triangle patches.
One of the things I tried on this quilt was sewing the seams open. I saw in the Kerr/Ringle color book that they press the seams, on all of their quilts, open. I thought this would be a good project to try it. I was pleased with how easy it was to deal with several seams meeting at one central point. Because of the layers of applique’, it was a little tricky to get all the little bits to lay flat. I also found it easier to press from the back when pressing the seams open. My points matched up pretty well (at least no worse than normal). I did use pins to help that process. All in all, I liked pressing the seams open. I’ll have to read a little more of what Kerr/Ringle say about their reasons and report back.
Lone Stars, Volume I: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, 1836-1936 by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan
Quilt books are hard for me to read all the way through for some reason. Normally, I peruse them, refer to them and glance at them. Lone Stars, Volume 1: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, 1836-1936 by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan was an exception. I persevered and read all the ‘articles’ about the many included quilts. Partially, I really like stories. Tell me a story and you will have my attention. I also was fascinated by the creativity of the women who made these quilts. This book could have given me more about the stories of these womens’ lives, but the tidbits they did give were great.
The quilts in the book were selected as the best of the submissions, so they are all special in their own way. I like many, many of them for different reasons and had a hard time choosing my absolute favorites. Still there were a few that stood out. My favorite quilts in this book were:
Pinwheel Star pg.134: I like this quilt because it reminds me of my Interlocking Triangles quilts: Spiky Stars and Interlocking Triangles. I do wish that the maker had not cut off the stars around the edges, but it does give the piece movement and boldness.
Feathered Edged Star Quilt, pg.122: This is a really complex quilt and I like the way the maker added 8-pointed stars to the middle of the Feathered Stars. She was obviously an excellent quiltmaker.
Sunburst Quilt pg.96: This is the cover quilt and it deserves to be. I like this quilt, because of the checkerboard diamond shaped piece that makes up one of the pieces of the sunburst (in the same family as a Mariner’s Compass). Not only was the maker piecing a difficult pattern, but she went a step further in piecing a diamond made out of smaller diamonds. Amazing! See above for a picture.
Rose of Sharon with Buds Quilt pg.54: The way the maker has clustered the Rose of Sharon flower patches and, especially, the appliqued swag border make this a stunning quilt. The colors, pink and green, make it extremely cheerful as well.
Rambling Rose pg.48: This is an appliqued quilt where the flowers are flanked by a vine underneath. Each unit has a flower, a curved vine underneath, a spray with three buds sticking out of the top and another vine with a flower and a bud at each end, respectively. I like the delicacy of the vines curved around the flowers.
Rising Sun quilt pg.26: The piecing of many of the quilts in the book is not for the faint of heart. The women who made the quilts in this book were not afraid of difficult patterns. This rising sun quilt is no exception. First, there are the curves, which are thin and all meet in the middle of the circle. Surrounding the circles, made up of all of those curves, is a small, curved border of slightly curved triangles. The idea is similar to a feathered star block or the treatment that Judy Mathieson gives to the outside of her circular Compass Roses. I would love to make a quilt like this one sometime, but think it would be prudent to try one block!
Many of the women pictured in this book are wizened and tiny, old women who look like they have seen more life than any person should and who have also worked long, hard days their whole life. The gorgeous quilts that came off their fingers remind me, again, that there is creativity in everyone and you can’t judge a book by its cover.
I have been attracted to repetition lately. I seem to pick up cards with 9 pitchers or, of course, fabric with dots. When I saw this railing, it appealed to me for that reason.
