The Quilt Files, Episode 20

Technically, this project shouldn't really fall under "quilting," because no actual quilting took place ... but it was pieced together, and I think patchwork falls under the general heading of quilting-type crafts.

Anyway, there was a wedding in the family this month; and I know, usually I make quilts for family weddings. But this wedding was for a cousin on my mom's side of the family, and my maternal grandmother had already made a quilt for my Cuz. (And actually, she finished it ten years before the wedding, he just chose not to receive it until he got married.) And when my Grandma has made a quilt, I really can't compete:

Isn't that gorgeous? Not just the applique, which is wonderful (and looks like it's that really hard, fold-under-the-edges type), but all the quilting, which is a feature in itself on these quilts with the light-colored tops. So there wasn't any point in going whole-hog on the quilting front. I didn't have a ton of time, anyway.

Instead, I went for the accessories. I checked out their wedding registry and saw they had chosen two colors for their bedroom: sage and a kind of dutch blue. I bought the sage sheets and took them to the fabric store, where I found a really nice paisley I thought would suit both those colors. Then I found a few more coordinating fabrics, which was harder than you might think; while there were many fabrics using sage with shades of teal (it's a nicer combo than it sounds), there weren't many that worked with sage and blue. But I found a few of near-solids and a pattern that kept to the color scheme, and a little bit of piecing combined with some pillow forms resulted in this:

You can never have enough pillows on your bed, right? I was rather pleased with these, because I made a nice pattern out of a limited number of fabrics, and the neck bolster I made without a pattern. I just measured the size and managed to cut out the right size of circles to get the perfect fit. Now maybe I should make some of those bolsters for my own use....

The Quilt Files, Episode 16

Grandma edition!

It's almost Thanksgiving, which of course makes me think of family and family gatherings and PIE! (Sorry, no pie with these quilts, but I'm already salivating at the thought of pie right now and I get distracted easily.) In addition to getting ready for Thanksgiving, I'm trying to collect photos from all my cousins of the quilts my grandmother has made for her 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. We were talking about quilting a while back, and I mentioned I had finished a quilt and this time I remembered to take a photo of it before mailing it off. She sighed and said she'd wished to do that with all her quilts, but it was too late to bother with it now. I thought, ooo! Christmas idea, and have been steadily collecting photos from my cousins ... not all of them, I'll have some arm-twisting to do this weekend, but maybe I'll have the album ready for Christmas if not Thanksgiving. With all the thoughts of family and Grandma and quilting, I thought that this month I would feature the two quilts Grandma made for me and Boy.

This quilt, the Star Spin design, wasn't actually made for me. When TSU and I got married in the summer of 1987, Grandma hadn't taken up quilting yet. She spent a lot of her years after retiring practicing oil painting (I have some nice ones hanging up in my workroom), and when she got tired of that she decided to try quilting. Grandma started quilting around 1988 or 1989, and soon afterward my cousins started getting married (3 in 1990 alone) and Grandma started making quilts for wedding gifts. (We did get a quilt from Grandma and Grandpa for our wedding, but it was made by a church guild and has not lasted as long as our marriage; it's seriously frayed. And it's pink.) She eventually realized that all her grandchildren except me had a quilt from Grandma, so she told me I could have this one when she was done with it. After my grandfather passed in 2001, Grandma moved out of her house into assisted living, and this quilt moved into my house, where it keeps us warm all winter long.

After she finished making quilts for all her 11 grandchildren, Grandma could have taken a well-deserved rest. But the next generation started making an appearance, beginning with Boy in early 1994, so Grandma went back to the fabric store and started over. She's now got 11 great-grandchildren, and a grand total of 22 quilts. This is Boy's Twin Star Quilt, which for now just hangs on a quilt display rack, since it's a queen-size and too big for his bed. You can probably tell that by now Grandma had discovered the fun of using cotton batiks for the fabrics, and she found some really lovely ones for this quilt. I'm sure when he finally gets to the age where he has his own house, he'll really appreciate this lovely remembrance of his Great-Grandma. She's still quilting at age 93; after all, you never know when another great-grandchild might arrive!

The Quilt Files, Holiday Family Edition

It looks like there's no doubt of having a white Christmas up here in Michigan, as I sit here hibernating in the house during a snowstorm. The holiday cards are all mailed (even the overseas ones); the cookies are baked; the presents are purchased (except for one on backorder I have to pick up next week) and even mostly wrapped; the tree's been up since Thanksgiving; and Boy is shoveling the driveway! Now all I need is to have tonight's concert cancelled, so I don't have to drive through a foot of snow this evening ... but even if I end up sledding driving tonight, I won't feel too bad, since I get cookies at the end. I'll play anywhere for treats, as my musical buddies well know.

Anyway, I'm feeling fine and all Christmasy, so I thought I'd share the beautiful wall hanging my maternal grandmother quilted for me in 1996. Actually, all my girl cousins received hangings that year (there are five of us); of course, I think mine is the best.



I just love how the poinsettias in the border fabric echo the large poinsettias; these large flowers were pieced, not appliqued. This means each different piece of fabric was sewn together at a seam, rather than cut out and stuck to the background. It must have required lots of precision (something that's not always my strong point), for the flowers and leaves all match up and yet don't look overly angular. Plus, how did she get the flowers to overlap the borders like that? I've yet to attempt something like this, although I have something in my "to-do" drawer that's similar.

Thinking about getting to those new projects is something for the New Year, though. Right now it's almost Christmas! Hope yours is safe and happy and filled with family.

Photo of the Week--12/1/08

While we were living in the northerly latitudes of London, where the winter season meant total darkness before 5 pm, it was essential that we escape to the Mediterranean during the February school break. In 2001 my parents brought my paternal grandmother across the pond, and four generations of us visited Spain for a week. We rented a minivan (minivan on tiny European roads = very interesting) and drove through Andalucía, hitting the beautiful cities of Seville, Jerez (home of the sherry industry), Granada, and Córdoba.

A common feature in these cities is the Alcázar, or "fortress," a stronghold needed during the many years when Muslim and European empires were battling for control of the region. Here is the family in front of part of the Alcázar of Córdoba: my grandmother, my mom, Boy, and my dad. This was the second trip to Europe for Grandma (she also came with us to Italy), who was almost 82 at the time. She had never owned a passport before we moved to London, but was so excited to visit us and try a little traveling. Grandma passed away just about a year ago; while she inspired me in very many ways, one of the most important was this: you're never too old to expand your horizons.

The Quilt Files, Family Edition

I first started quilting about eight years ago, after having seen my (maternal) grandma do it for the past twenty or so. It seemed only natural to try it myself; I like to sew, and making a quilt means I get to play with color and patterns that I would never be able to wear myself. (Even better, I don't have to worry about fit, or put in any zippers!) So my grandma helped me get started; after a couple years, my mom joined in as well. She just got too jealous of all the pretty fabrics we were working with, and started quilting as an excuse to buy some of her own.

So a few weeks ago my mom called and asked if I wanted to display a quilt at the Ypsilanti Historical Society's annual quilt show, along with her and Grandma. I thought, why not? She said they would submit their first quilts, and my first quilt was almost finished ... so I buckled down, finished the hand quilting on that sucker in time for the show, and voila! Our entries look like this:



Grandma's "Star Spin" pattern is featured on the table in the middle; she finished this first quilt around 1988, after she'd been retired from teaching for a few years. She has since made quilts for each of her 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren; I inherited the Star Spin, since I got married before she began quilting. My mom's quilt is the one to the left, with the dark blue borders. It's a fairly simple pattern, just squares and posts, but you can tell she has an eye for color. Mine is the log cabin pattern on on the right with the turquoise borders. Log Cabin is also quite easy to do, although you can arrange the squares in many different ways to make interesting patterns. It was the first quilt project I ever started, but the most recent I've finished, due to the hand quilting taking so long. (Okay, due to me being lazy about the hand quilting.)

I'll get into the details of the Log Cabin in another episode of the Quilt Files, once it's back from the show and I can get more pictures of it. In the meantime, if you're ever in the Ypsilanti era, you can check out our quilts—plus dozens more, including some incredible handmade ones from the 19th century and some amazing machine quilting work—at the Ypsilanti Historical Society through October 12.

The Quilt Files, Episode 1

This blog is a wonderful way to avoid starting Chapter 17, I've discovered. Unfortunately, now it's exerting a pressure of its own. If I haven't put something in the blog for a couple of days, I feel guilty. My invisible audience is clamoring for more! If I don't create new entries, they'll never come back! If I can't write something in the blog, my own personal procrastination vehicle, how pathetic is that? It's bad enough I'm avoiding Chapter 17, which is something productive that could actually be published some day (soon, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), but now I can't think of something to blather about in my blog! If I do more than one vacation photo a week, I'll run out quickly. I've gone through all three cats, plus the shelter. Nationals are over. I can't read more than one classic every couple of weeks, and I don't want to blog about reading science fiction or Stephen King, that's not very impressive.

I know! I will introduce a new feature to The Blathering: The Quilt Files. I can blather about projects I've done, complete with pictures. If I limit it to once a month, I might last the rest of the year. Maybe it will inspire me to finish that last row on the quilt I'm making for my niece (if I don't decide to keep it for myself, heheheheh).

So here is Episode 1 in The Quilt Files: My first finished project, completed December 2002. It's actually a lap quilt, about 35" square. I had purchased some charm packs (4.5" square) featuring this family of fabrics for another project. That project required red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, and purple fabrics. These were the colors left over: black, white, pink, light blue, and maroon. I figured, easy peasy: piece together the squares, add borders, and voila! A handmade Christmas gift for Grandma! (They always appreciate handmade, or are too kind to say they don't.) The piecing took only a weekend, and then it took several weeks of quilting by hand to finish the project. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I alternated diamonds and 8-pointed stars in each of the squares, stitched in the ditches of the small border, and quilted diamonds in the big border. Considering I started with leftover scraps in weird colors (and I tried several arrangements before settling on this one), I thought it turned out fairly nice.

Of course, Grandma was thrilled to have a handmade gift. When she left her home for hospice care, it was one of the things she took with her. My aunt says that when Grandma passed last December, she was using my little quilt. I like to think she spared a thought for me that last day.

Now the quilt is back with me, hanging off my writing chair. When it's not too hot out, I like to wear it in my lap. It's warm and cozy and the cats like to sit on it. And now I'm the one who looks at it and gets warm memories of a loved one. Not a bad result for my first quilting project.