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!)

Turkey and Lambs

No quilting for me today and tomorrow. We came back from our 2-week Turkey trip, and my jet-lagged brain is still in Istanbul with some of the lovely people we traveled with. We are especially missing our guide Orhan. Our immersion into Turkish culture was wonderful, and we were sorry to see the trip come to an end. But now it's time for my yearly Easter tribute to John's mom. She baked lamb cakes for her grandchildren and passed on her recipe and one of her lamb pans to me. So now I bake lamb cakes for the grandchildren - we'll deliver the kits tomorrow. Along with the lamb cake is vanilla frosting, coconut dyed green, some jelly beans for the eyes and nose, and - as you can see - we haven't found a good way to do the mouth. This tradition is a wonderful way to remember Sophie Moscinski.

Hi Ho Hi Ho, It's...

off to Turkey we go! John and I have done some remarkable things in the past three years - our Central Europe trip, the cruise around the Horn of South America, the week in Beijing. Now we're flying to Istanbul and touring the western half of the country, including Ankara, Konya, Izmir, Ephesus, and Canakkale. I've already outlined the work to be done once I return home. The Hockey Jersey Quilt for Michelle's son and 2 memorial quilts for Corinne from some of her mom's shirts are at the top of the list. Niece Molly's quilt is also ready to start - I have all the fabrics but haven't decided upon a design. And today Bridgett Toma dropped off some shirts of her mother's - she wants a quilt for her aunt.

Bridgett and her sister Sheila were the first ones I ever did memorial quilts for. Pictured here is Sheila's quilt. Sheila is a teacher at Kennedy, and her mother who was younger than me died quite suddenly in the fall of 2004. Sheila gave me their mother's t-shirts and sweatshirts to be made into quilts. Along with all the shirts was a bag of flannel pj bottoms. At the time Bridgett was pregnant with her first child, so I made two baby quilts from the shirts and flannel bottoms.

Sheila had no idea the path her quilt request would lead me on. Since then I have done over a dozen "memorial" quilts . I think the deaths of my cousin Jim White, Joe Keeley, Fred Snively, my uncle Leonard White, Dodie Wallace. And I marvel at how therapeutic quilting has been for me.

So we're off to Turkey. Perhaps I'll find some inspiration for future projects! Be back March 20, just in time for the World Figure Skating telecasts! What a geek - quilting and skating...

Black History Tribute via Valentine's Day

My husband, aka Mr. Jazz, requested yet another wall hanging made from some of his tastiest new jazz t-shirts. I'm passing this off as his Valentine's Day present (yes, I know it's late). It's beautiful, isn't it? John has named this quilt Some of the Great Ones. Mr. Jimmy Heath in the upper left corner is someone I've actually met on jazz cruises - he's a gentle man with a charming sense of humor who makes fabulous music. The Dizzy shirt in the lower left is clever. The inner border takes its cue from the Duke Ellington shirt, and the Count Basie shirt inspired the outer border. Click on this picture to see some of the fabulous detail in the shirts and borders. Our front hall has dark paneling, but this wall hanging brightens up the room quite a bit. 36" x 52"

The Freedom to Experiment

I love having a variety of projects to work on. And then the project that's calling the loudest gets attention. For Sunday's Reversible Workshop, I had to put together examples of quilted borders ready to be added to a quilt - I used my hand-sewn tumbling blocks piece. Which meant I put aside the scrap reversible, which was my original demo for this class. But first I wanted to do John's request for a Jazz T-Shirt Wall Hanging and even pass it off as a Valentine's present. So I've been balancing these projects along with an experimental pillow to go with Cecilia's bed quilt. This is 14" x 14".

I just love the red accent fabric Cecilia chose for her quilt - it's a rich mottled batik. The 1/2" pleats sewn in rows of opposing direction create a pretty interesting texture. This pillow is a symbol of my reinventing wheels. Someone has invented the rules for this technique - I just need to find them. But meanwhile, I do think this is pretty nifty.