Chris's June Project

John's sister Chris teaches at Hinsdale Central. She celebrated the end of her school year by doing a wall hanging for the second floor of her home. This 39" by 76" quilt hangs nicely, and the colors of these fabrics highlight the Carribbean paint colors throughout the house. She was pleased with the results, and I'm amazed at how others can take fabrics from my stash and do such interesting things with them!

The Isherwood Hockey Quilt - and a few other things

Michelle Isherwood is one cagy mom. She gave me her son Anthony's hockey jerseys almost a year ago in preparation for his 18th birthday this month. For some of the jerseys she bought duplicates so that her son wouldn't miss the jerseys she gave me. This quilt is 70" x 90" and - I think - very handsome. The border colors are his Montini HS school colors. Click on the quilt to see some of the details of Anthony's jerseys.

Michelle has a younger son Adam, and she's begun saving his t-shirts. I'm thankful her younger son isn't a hockey player. Hockey jerseys make for very heavy quilts. This quilt only took about 30 hours, but I couldn't work on it for much more than 2 hours at a time. This one will make the next t-shirt quilt seem like a snap.

Hard to believe it's Friday, June 13th. Lots of fun White celebrations are coming up - my mom's 80th, my dad's 83rd, my parents' 60th anniversary, Jen Thompson's shower, and Jen's wedding August 30. Currently there are 3 "life celebration" quilts in my studio. Niece's Molly's Housewarming quilt and Jen Thompson's wedding quilt are providing a nice balance to these 3 sad commissions.

A word about Jen's wedding quilt. She and Tim are having a hard time deciding on a color palate. There's a previous post with a stack of fabrics that are being considered. The answer is - and this is genius I must admit - a reversible quilt. Tim knows he wants blues, navy, and neutrals on one side. Jen wants greens, blues and neutrals for the other. I recently met Tim when my sister Paula and I went to Manhattan to see Jen in a dance gala (is she ever terrific!). I've wondered what kind of man could measure up to Jen. Tim is great - handsome, nice, smart, generous. Now I'm really psyched about their quilt!

The Quilter's Husband

My husband John? No. Check out this web site -Quilter's Husband.

One of the great pieces of equipment I have is a standing table. When I'm cutting or pin-basting a quilt, standing is necessary for leverage and mobility. In fact, it's such a necessary piece of equpment that I could almost use another. But then I could almost use another sewing/sitting surface. What to do? My studio is huge - really, it's 22'x 25'. The answer to my problem is The Quilter's Husband. At this website I found pieces of pre-cut PVC pipe adapted to raise the church-type banquet table from the standard 29" to 36".


The current project is a quilt made from hockey jerseys, some of which are so heavily embroidered that they don't even bend. Still, these jerseys are the basis for a quilt, which must like all quilts be quilted. That means basting together the top layer of the jerseys, the middle batting layer, and the bottom layer of muslin. The two 5' banquet tables with their wonderful additional legs gave me a 10' by 3' standing surface, idea for all the pin basting this quilt needs.

These three layers have created a piece that is fairly heavy. So, off come the legs from one of the table, and it can now be placed in L-fashion to my sewing table. Now it can support the weight of the quilt as I begin to work on it.

Paying attention to the ergonomics of quilting is important. And these little PVC legs are fabulous!

I'm Stuck

Sometimes I get stuck. And I'm stuck on niece Molly's quilt. Her palette is not a comfortable one for me - corals and greens. We went shopping in November, and Molly chose many of her fabrics. I filled in with some from my stash. Look at the March 31 entry. After three months of thinking, I decided to use this fairly complex block that is a 4-patch. Two of the four patches are fence rails, one patch is a 9-patch, and the final patch is one of 2 focal fabrics Molly chose. And I originally thought I would join these blocks with a dark green sashing, as illustrated in the 3/31 entry.

But as I started cranking out these blocks, the dark green sashing fell from favor. And I've begun to experiment with layouts that don't use sashing. This first one staggers the blocks. The second one groups the 9-patches of 4 blocks to create a rather busy secondary pattern. I think I'm leaning towards the first option with the staggered rows. I'll just keep the blocks on my design wall - er, floor - and keep playing for another few days. The hockey quilt will keep me busy enough.

Also check out this picture of the amaryllis. John's sister Terry gave us this in early December, and it is now on its FOURTH set of blossoms. I think it must be very happy in the studio.

Completion

The three Toma quilts are finished. Look at the April 9 "Plugging Away" entry to see these quilt in process. Recycling t-shirts and sweatshirts is a great idea. But when there's a sentimental attachment to the shirts, it makes each one of these quilts invaluable.

International Quilt Festival

Neighbor/traveling companion/walking partner/sewing buddy Susan and I went to the Rosemont Convention Center for the International Quilt Festival. It's a cornucopia of vendors and quilts.Quilting certainly is popular, but the demographic isn't an attractive one. We are mostly overweight gray-haired ladies. And I think we tend to be a happy lot. There are certainly some very talented and creative women. That's the direction I hope I'm headed in. Here are some quilts that caught my eye.

Click on this quilted wall hanging to see the detail of "The Indian Women Gathering at the Well." It's brilliant.

My Quilted Jacket in Turkey

John and I were both unprepared for how much we would love Turkey - the land, the food, and especially the people. Ankara, Turkey's capital city, is in the middle of the country's Anatolian Plain. It's a city of 4 million, the second largest after Istanbul. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and went to the Ataturk Monument and Museum. Just like some of the museums and monuments in DC, this one was crowded with tourists from everywhere. These two young women are university students studying in Ankara and symbolize the open warmth with which we were met. Later that evening a group of us were trying to find a restaurant in downtown Ankara, and a young couple helped us with directions and even accompanied us on our walk. Thanks to Susan for snapping this photo!

Just Plugging Away

Quilt design and the actual quilting are what I find most fun to do. The past 10 days have included neither one of these steps. What I have been working on are three death quilts - er, I mean life celebration quilts. I'm pleased with how these pieces are turning out. In addition to the quilt for her aunt, Bridgett Toma requested a boy quilt and a girl quilt from the leftovers. I'm glad to be a contributor to keeping the memory of Sheila and Bridgett's mother in the present, but it's sad knowing that these little grandkids will not know their maternal grandmother. I want to get these quilts completed so that I can return to the hockey jersey quilt, which truly is a joyous celebration of a young man's life.
What I'm really looking forward to working on is niece Jen Thompson's wedding quilt. She and Tim have chosen colors and a design. I'm beginning to put together Jen's palette. Soon I'll make a little design board to send to Jen to make sure I'm getting her colors right - a necessary part of the process. I'm looking forwared to this happy project!

T-shirt Quilts and Model Blocks

It's so hard to get back into the swing of things after being out of town. One project that's ready to sew together is a quilt of big half-square triangles, and there's a second one in the making. Both of these are from the shirts of Corinne's mother, and these quilts are for Corinne and her sister. I'll get this off the design floor today and then begin laying out the hockey jerseys.






Another quilt from shirts is for Bridgett Toma - she wants this for her aunt as well as two baby quilts out of the leftovers. Here's a tentative layout of the shirts.












Niece Molly has chosen fabrics for her bed quilt. I'm struggling with the design. Here's something very tentative.

Ok, get busy, Quilter Girl! No more delay tactics.

The Dardenelles with Pearl and Varsha

Ok, ok, - I know this isn't about quilting. We met these darling young women on the bus from the Istanbul Airport to our Oran Hotel. Even though they weren't on our tour bus, we had several opportunities to run into Pearl (right) and Varsha during our two-week visit. The second day of our trip we drove west out of Istanbul along the Marmara Sea towards Gallipoli and used a ferry to cross the Dardanelles to get to the mainland, the Asian part of Turkey. Behind the girls is the European part of the country. We always meet the nicest people on our travels! (One fascinating fact I learned on the trip was the connection between the words Gallipoli and Portugal. At one point both ends of the Mediterranean were controlled by the Gauls, as these names indicate!)