Checkin' In

You know it’s been too long between posts when your nonbloggy friends point out your infrequent updates. I got an email from my buddy Sheila recently, asking what the heck I've been up to. Well, there’s plenty going on, just very little that’s appropriate to share here on a quilt blog.

Health and family matters require my energy and attention right now. I need a little time to process all that’s happening. When I can write about things without sounding like I’m completely spilling my guts, I’ll share. I know many of you have dealt with the same issues I’m facing. They’re not new, just new to me.

In the meantime, let’s look to quilts for the solace and distraction they provide. My quilt (above) was inspired by a late 1800’s quilt (below) which appears in Sandi Fox’s book, Small Endearments: Nineteenth-Century Quilts for Children and Dolls.


I don’t know if I tried to recreate the antique quilt from memory or if I was just lazy, but I substituted four patch blocks for the nine patches of the original quilt. The result resembles the antique enough to please me.

The primary fabrics are from Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Collection, produced in the mid 1990's. It was a great line of reproduction fabric, with lots of fine detail and several strong colors.


The background fabric is a mottled chocolate brown print which makes the quilt look old while still letting the colors shine.


Mine looks like it could do with a good pressing before it gets quilted!

Thanks for checkin' in on me!

A Vacation Souvenir

Our family vacations tend to center around what my husband and kids enjoy--Civil War battlefields & other historic sites, museums, zoos & aquariums, or driving 22 hours to see family in Florida. Sometimes it feels like I’m just along for the ride. 

Of course, the best vacations have something for everyone, and our recent trip out West included a stop at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, home to both dinosaurs and an impressive collection of quilts!

This spunky nine patch was my favorite. Made by Mollie Stine for her daughter Alice, it traveled with the family from Missouri to Montana in 1898. Details of their covered wagon journey were documented in a Bozeman newspaper (below).

double CLICK to read

Two hundred twenty-four nine patch blocks pack a punch, especially when a wide array of browns are paired with bold cheddar. The interplay of color in this quilt creates an energy that's palpable!

Source

I began piecing nine patches the minute we got home! but I'm afraid my dream of duplicating the Stine quilt is a no go. The rotary cutting and machine piecing are beyond me

Updated June 2018: No quilt yet, but I did share some blocks with my friend, Barb. Hope she enjoys them!

Fiber Therapy

Vicki Hodge from "What a Load of Scrap" celebrated her first year of blogging with a fabulous fabric giveaway--a chance to win 5 fat quarters and 50 3” squares of beautiful reproduction fabrics. I seldom enter drawings, but Vicki's prize was hard to resist. Lo and behold, I won!

Vicki, thanks for such an awesome prize! I can't stop petting, sorting, mixing, matching, and imagining all the possibilities these fabrics hold for projects yet to come.

Update: Vicki Hodge has a new blog, “From the Button Box” as well as a book, Button Box Quilts. Check them out!

Gilding the Lily, Part 5

As you can see, I finally settled on a traditional layout for my Carolina Lily quilt. Plain alternate blocks give those busy lilies some much needed breathing room. They are now the focal point of the quilt, without overwhelming the whole design.

Those 15 ½” setting squares and 7” borders provide yet another opportunity for choice, this time, of a quilting motif. Will I decide on something tasteful or will I cross the line again, between classic elegance and over embellishment? Wait and see.

I found a gorgeous inspiration quilt at Feathered Fibers (Click the photos for more incredible detail). Everything about this quilt is perfect. In fact, if I had seen it 18 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of grief in the design department! 

Let me know if you can recommend a machine quilter who stitches like that! Thanks.

Gilding the Lily, Part 4

With a betrothal announced, I finally had an incentive to get this quilt finished. As usual though, I couldn’t do it myself. That’s what I get for waiting 18 years!

I’ve mentioned my awesome quilt friends before. They’ve come to my rescue many times, finishing ill-fated projects with their expert needle skills. This time, they were particularly generous and agreed to assemble an entire quilt top for me!

What makes their gesture so poignant is that these are the same friends who made my son this baby quilt 23 years earlier. They’ve known James his whole life and put such love into both quilts.


Here are my dear friends Mary, Sheila and Kathy. Ever modest, they insisted on squatting for this photo, to show off more of the quilt.


And here they are again, striking a more glamorous pose. They'll be furious that I shared this photo, but I just love it. Their personalities really shine through!

Gilding the Lily, Part 3

To make a long story short, I nixed the urn idea and added stems and leaves to the lily pattern. Choosing a less intense red fabric helped reduce the "pulsing" colors. After the ladies in my quilt group made 12 blocks for me, I took a little break.

In fact, I didn’t think of this project again for 5 or 6 years! As I gathered materials for a Gwen Marston Beaver Island Quilt Retreat in 1998, they came to mind. Gwen's retreat topic that year was Four Block Quilts and I figured having an extra set of blocks to play around with might come in handy.

I stitched four lily blocks together and came up with this. The green center portion didn’t appeal to me much, but the new block had potential for creating some interesting secondary patterns.


Had I continued, the resultant quilt might have looked like this. Interesting, yes, but way too busy for my tastes. Besides, it would have required 4 additional blocks, which I just wasn’t up to making.


I guess I hadn't learned my lesson. Once again, I'd taken a simple block and schlocked it up. After picking out the seams, the project got shelved again, until… 12 years later, when our son and his University of North Carolina sweetheart announced their engagement. Could there be a more perfect wedding quilt for this couple than a Carolina Lily?

Gilding the Lily, Part 2

Let me put these Carolina Lily blocks in a clearer context for you. Eighteen years ago, I belonged to a bee group that stitched and swapped complex quilt blocks with one another. When my turn rolled around, I chose the lily pattern and fabrics as previously described.

It was obvious that my dueling red and green fabrics wouldn‘t work. Any sensible person would have stopped right there and replaced one of those colors with a fabric that did work. Not me! I thought if I found an additional fabric that contained both colors, it would somehow bridge the gap and actually calm the block down. 

I carried those swatches with me everywhere, auditioning any fabric that contained a smattering of red and green.

At last, I found a paisley print that matched. "Wow" I thought. "I've hit the jackpot. I've struck gold!" Literally... it was a metallic print. Before I could think twice, I bought the fabric, cut the pieces for the urn and added them to my sample block.

You see where this is going, don’t you? The fabric looked perfect... from 6 inches away, but when it caught the light, the Carolina Lily turned into a gaudy, glitzy, Christmasy fiasco. I had, quite literally, “gilded the lily!”