Fa-la-la-la-la

I am madly sewing hanging sleeves onto quilts....and I even hope to get this new quilt pulled together and ready for the show....Ho, Ho, Ho!
This one is called "Reggae Rhythm" because it has African fabrics as well as wild contemporary fabrics (which are scraps from "burp cloths" which I sewed for the baby while at my daughter's, LOL!).



Meanwhile, Mr. Pear has hopes of his own, and has pulled all of our Christmas decorations out of the attic. He is on the right track, it is definitely time to get some of that up and celebrate the season. I can see it will be a busy, fun weekend!!!!

Getting ready to hang

It is 2 days away from a quilt/art show which I am having with a friend at our local Episcopal church parish hall....


My sewing machine is warming up so I can sew bindings and hanging sleeves on these quilts!
I'll post some photos early next week of the show after we have hung it!

The Bible Quilt

Here are the nativity and the resurrection blocks.
Jonah (love the sun!)

This folk art bible quilt is one of the most interesting I have made.

Patterns were from Jan Patek. Many of the Old Testament Stories are illustrated, as well as the nativity, the wedding in Cana and the Resurrection!

I love Kaffe's fabrics

I enjoy using the beautiful large prints designed by artist Kaffe Fassett.

The quilt with scrappy nine-patches is one I made and sold a few years ago.

The one on the right, I call "Summer Window" is going to hang in my art show this November.

Published long ago....

More of my past unearthed at my Mom's....this is an article from Quilt magazine in September 1981.
I was truly in love with quilt-making!

The title says, "An Innovative Quilter-" the large bed quilt features a center grouping of fan blocks and lots of room for pretty handquilting! It was purchased from me by a dear friend and fellow quilter who was so encouraging to me in those early years, Mary Jo Dalrymple.

The 3 wall-hangings were Castlewall (2 versions in larger photos) and Clamshell (small photo). They published directions for my "clamshell" quilt.....which you can hardly see here!

In the 1980's we were always on the look-out for any all cotton fabric which would work well in our quilts...we could call each other and spread the word when we found some!

Today we have many gorgeous fabrics to work with...here are some of the fabrics I will be making into quilts this fall....and winter, I'm sure! These are mostly by Kaffe Fassett, wonderful colors, design and visual texture!

New Zealand Baby

This is a baby's nursery in New Zealand.

Here is the mom, Krista with Eva Gabrielle. They (and her handsome dad),were

at the wedding this weekend.

They sent the photo of the quilt I made for their daughter. It is nice to see that they

love it enough to decorate around it!

Wedding quilt almost finished

These blocks have now become a bed-size quilt! (see 2nd photo)

The blocks are scrappy and feature fabrics which remind me of summer in a mountain meadow....Andrew and Mary met in the Tetons two summers ago.

I got it back Sunday from my friend Darlene, who has "Sew Graceful Quilting", a long arm quilting service. She does beautiful work! I asked her to quilt it loosely and she did....fluidly and loosely, looping feathery shapes in a meandering pattern.

I still have to sew the bright blue binding on it and send it to the kids....their wedding is coming up! August 11th!
Bright blue for the binding, will pick up the center of each block which is a 4-patch of various blues and white.

Golden Curry

I am making a "brick" pattern wallhanging using my Kaffe Fassett fabrics, with others. This will be a hanging for the art show I am doing with my friend Tracie at St. Paul's Epsicopal church this coming November...I want lovely rich pieces to hang there!

Family connections

Having a quilt shop for 11 years gave me a
lot of time to make things for and with
those I love!!!!!!!


Here, in May 2000, my daughter stops in
with my 10 month old granddaughter. My
mother has come up from Little Rock for
the Mother's Day weekend. Four genera-
tions in the shop that day!



The next photo shows my mother sitting by a window in a farmhouse in Wisconsin.
We went to visit my niece and her family that summer.
Mom worked on quilting a pink and brown basket quilt
which I had pieced. It is now owned by my daughter.



This last photo is also in Wisconsin...my great-nephew, Lane. He is reacting to a quilt which I made and brought up there for him.....He loved orange to I used lots of orange around fabrics featuring objects he would recognize....cows (they have a dairy farm), tractors, Big bird, Bob the Builder, etc.

He just said, "WOW" !

Morning Glory quilt

The fall of 2000, a school near my quilt shop had a fence covered with beauty!
Morning Glories!

My friend Tracie , who was spending some time at my quilt shop/retreat center, offered to help me make the hand-appliqued blocks for the morning glory quilt. She even went by the school and took a photo of the flowers for us to enjoy!


Here are some of the blocks we made....the round close-up
of the morning glory alternates with the more geometrical
trellis block! The finished quilt was 3 times this size....




This quilt was sold to someone who fell in love with it....another to a good home!

A garden gate quilt

A charming pattern, was it from "Country Threads?" I forget....

But since I had a garden gate like this and a black cat who could strike the same pose, I was compelled to make this one!

However, it was a very HOT summer that year...

2000....I chose cool and frosty colors for my Garden Gate quilt. The orange traditional pumpkin turned into a "ghost" pumpkin...a pale white/green orb. I used lots of blues and lavenders...and turned my red and white flag stripe fabric to the "wrong" side for a paler frosty effect. I liked the morning glory block so much, that I ended up making and selling a morning glory quilt* later that summer.

*to be posted in a minute

Sunflower Baskets

A quilt photo found in a scrapbook from 2001.



This is a quilt top I made from a pattern in a Fons and Porter magazine.

I sold the top to Lonetta Blevins, who then had it hand quilted.
The baskets, in reds, blacks and golds, are machine pieced and the sunflower border is fused and blanket stitched on the machine.

A wonderful look for sunflower lovers!

National Quilting therapy

After September 11, 2001, a quilt shop in Georgia, Little Quilts, asked for small quilts to be sent to them to give to the families of all the firemen who perished in the World Trade Center.

I made one (the "flag" log cabin on the bench photo) and sent it in...they sent me back a postcard saying they had recieved 2,200 small quilts....and the photo of them all layed out together!

Now my daughter lives just "up the road" from "Little Quilts" and I was able to visit the shop recently....what a treat! I did forget to mention to them that I had sent a quilt back then!

Blooming 9 Patch

This old polaroid is of the first "blooming 9 patch" quilt I made. From a pattern by Blanche Young. It is so much fun...each new fabric or row of "blooms" is added gradually by mixing it with the fabric of the last row before it is allowed to stand on it's own....a lovely colorwash result!

This queen-size quilt helped my daughter to start her internet travel business, as it was given by me in partial payment to the talented young woman who designed her first "Caribbean Journey" website!

Lili's Caribbean Beach Quilt

This is a photo of my then 3-year old granddaughter in her bedroom...standing on the bed for the photo shoot only!!!!

Her wall quilt is of beach cottages, cabanas, and palm trees with a sandy beach and"snail's trail" ocean waves. It is a paper pieced quilt from a commercial pattern. It was fun to do, and is embellished with all kinds of buttons, parrots, fish, bananas in the palm trees, a cat in a window...flowers in the gardens and on the trees.

The bed quilt is a wonderful, crazy quilt done in brights....lots of squares within squares and checkerboards. From a quilting magazine....

Both were made by me and machine quilted commercially.

May Basket quilting

These baskets are scanned off of a small lap quilt which I made for my daughter, Laura's 16th birthday. She has a May first birthday...so I always think of lily of the valley for her too!

One quilt given to a very good home!

I was looking through some old photo albums and found this one...probably around 1980.

I sent a indigo blue and muslin basket quilt, which I had made, to my sister-in-law for Christmas.
I know they have treasured it in the years since! It went to a good home!

(This quilt was machine pieced and hand quilted.)

Sleep tight!

Two doll bed and doll quilts.....from our childhood, and from flea markets....

these were part of a "dolls love quilts too" display at our quilt show this weekend!

Twenty-some years ago...

A yellowed newspaper article from the 1980's. Several bloggers have been posting photos of themselves 20 or so years ago. I came across this one from my curly hair days...showing me hand quilting with a hoop.

This was also the time of my Laura Ashley fashion theme!

An early quilt...churn dash!

I found this old photo from 1982....the children playing in my pine chest and a Churn Dash or Hole in the Barn Door pattern quilt. I was in the process of doing the hand quilting using a wooden hoop.

Grandmother's flower garden

I have to post this in it's current state because blogs may be obsolete by the time I finally finish it!

This is a good example of the journey being as important as the destination. I did not inherit a traditional grandmother's flower garden quilt so I felt I needed to make my own. Each rosette takes about 3 hours of peaceful, meditative hand piecing using the English paper piecing method.

I get burned out and put it away...then bring it out and start again....it was a good thing to do last night when I needed to stay off of my feet because of tendonitis...

(Read more about this on my April 1st post on Indigo Pears....)

Teton Meadow Quilt top

This quilt top is going to the machine quilter, Darlene, today.
It is for the coming wedding of Andrew and Mary in Flagstaff this August.
They met in the Tetons, in the summertime, so the theme for the wedding is mountain
wildfowers.
I tried to make their quilt using a meadow border and the colors of wildfowers and summer skies in the west.

Family Valentine Quilt

Two more blocks from a small quilt made about 10 years ago. (see the entire quilt in the first photo)

It features the date of our wedding and the birthdates of our children...I think I need to add the granddaughter...but I might be starting something if I do.....

These blocks are string-pieced using pink and red fabrics and a special fabric with calligraphy wording...

Family Valentine Quilt

This is a portion of a string-pieced romantic Valentine wallhanging....about love, friendship and family...including pets....

I will scan and photograph more of it as Valentine's Day comes. This was made in 1994.

St. Bridget's Cross

This is in anticipation of February 1st which is St. Bridget's feast day.
I made this quilt using a block designed to look like St. Bridget's cross, for a young couple who were being married at the Vatican.
I used fabric on the back which looks like illuminated manuscripts...one legend of St. Bridget says she founded two monasteries where illumination of biblical texts was done.

January 2000

This is a little different!
Doing a scrapbook in fabric. The first block in a millenium quilt made to remember the year 2000.

This one shows several commemorative fabrics and one representing the fireworks we saw in our town square (which is on a mountain top)...the clock for time passing...champagne and a full moon!

Quilts for Twin Girls !

These are two crib quilts for the newest babies in the family.

The bunnies are hand-appliqued and machine quilted. The "Jewel Box" quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted.
Both are with clear pastels reproduced from 1930's fabrics.

Nana's Garden Quilt

This is the "Nana's Garden" quilt which I gave to my mother. It is queen-size and has a border of periwinkle blue rose print...only later did I remember that my mom does not really like "blue" roses!

A great photo of my grandaughter, Lilia and our cat Shadow....
of course the bed has a quilt!
This one is "Sandcastles"...I'll try to find a better photo of the quilt to add to the post!