SUNSTITCH

Friday, October 23, 2015

Singing

Singing.
Today I viewed the DVD about the Gee's Bend ladies once again. They filmed the singing of these fantastic ladies and my thoughts went back to the singing from last Saturday, when Ramsay's choir director Myrna Ria Ross was laid to rest.
Look at YouTube under Ramsay Concert Choir and you can see the choir singing for her.
I have been retired for ten years and the names of my former pupils who were there have been forgotten by me, but not their smiles. Thanks. I was glad I went.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Hoping for another busy ten years.

Stories:

Isn't that what it's all about; telling stories of how a quilt was made and why. This year I turned 70 and I have made a point of making lap quilts to a few old school friends, who also turned 70. For my friend in Germany, it was a green quilt, because I have been impressed by how the German engineers have managed to create fully functioning "green" homes. Aardvark Quilts has a pattern called 'Domiciles' that I bought and turned on the side for a green quilt. For my other friend, whose golden wedding was the same day as her 70 birthday, I made 'Deckchair' also from Aardvark Quilts in golden colors for their summerhouse. These are the only patterns I have ever bought, I usual try to design my own, with more or less success. For my sister in law it was a nine patch quilt inspired by a quilt Becky Blair put together out of BOM blocks. The color of the quilt matched Kari's own colors. Dark hair, tanned skin and always dressed in vivid colors of red and green. And for Annette, a quilt with hexie flowers - she saw photos of my experiments on the design wall, and said she wanted the blue. For my children, who know enough Danish to read the headlines in a paper, I made a table cloth and placemats with copies of the frontpages of Danish newspapers. I hope to go on making quilts for friends and family because there is always a story when you make a quilt for a person you know. I believe every quilt tells a story of relationships. Only once did I burn myself, when a plumber, who was installing our new bathroom asked me to make a quilt for his sick father, who - he said - was confined to a chair, which was dark red ( he was an Alabama fan) Well, I chose to make a black, white and grey quilt - no red - so it wouldn't clash with the chair. He had given me phone numbers and e-mail, all fake; I never could get in touch. As I tell people, selling my quilts is not for me; I have kept this quilt as a reminder .... well, not to trust sob stories.

'Domiciles' from Aardvark Quilts

My green version, still on the design wall.

I do like house quilts

No border for this type of quilt.

I tried to 'write' 70 with lighter colored houses.

Not very obvious.

Testing the fabric for the backing; sometimes the most difficult task.

The light green was the best- with flowers.

"Deckchair " on its side

Difficult to get the strips lined up perfectly, since some of the batiks were a very fine cotton blend, while others were the heavier Kona.

For a Golden Wedding gift this color was perfect.

A good place to hang quilts to be photographed

Too much white

This became the finished quilt, with just two white squares.

Experimenting with with 30 blocks

I used two sets of Jelly rolls, and again liked my design

Add sashing or not add sashing, that is the question.

The finished quilt.

Too -- red? Too... dark?

Grab all the reds in your stash

This red version may turn up at a later date

The blue version, she liked.

All the lazy person's version of grandmothers garden.

The story of this quilt is, that I could not find any 100% shirt cotton in my neighborhood fabric stores. What to do? Buy up ten to fifteen -at least- nice thrift store men's shirts and finish this Kaffe Fassett quilt just like shown in the pattern of the book. This quilt went to my niece's newborn boy.

Had to add a stripe in the middle of the backing.

Handmade by Gerda. Forgot the date on the label, and now I wonder: " Is he six or seven years old?"

The Danish newspaper place mats

The Obamas' visit to Buckingham Palace

8 Oscars to Slumdog Millionaire

Facebook also in Denmark.

Culture, Ideas and Books, all sections of Weekend Avisen on a table cloth. "Week-end Avisen" = "The Week-end Paper"

IMPORTANT

To find the starting point of my Ten Years Quilting Saga, click on 'older posts', beginning 16 October, 2015

Monday, October 19, 2015

Quilts of All sizes

More Quilts - all sizes, all purposes.
I have made a few small quilts. I won't dare call them art quilts. But at first I was bold enough to enter an "art quilt" into a quilt show. Apart from the border, the judge game me high scores; that was encouraging. I had copied pictures from my childhood, flower fairies, and I gave it a modern twist with a huge Marimekko flower.

I tried my hand on 'using found objects' on a tiny hand quilted fall quilt. The quilt I eventually named "Fall" was one with Isaac Newton watching the apple - in this case a button - fall from the famous apple tree. ( I can't help inserting a picture of the real apple tree, which we saw this summer,when visiting Newton's home)

Making that tree got me started making pictures - not quilts - using silk screening. I must admit that it has kept me away from quilting for some years. I have had several exhibitions of these pictures and sold many. I also experimented with marbling on fabric and made a quilt with the marbled fabric.

Playing on the Web.

My first "Fall" quilt.

The tree is silk screened

The apple tree in the orchard at Newton's home in England.

A collection of my pictures all done after I first discovered screen printing.

I won a bunch of BOM stars made by the guild members. I put them together in a quilt top and Lena Colley quilted it. Then it made its way to Birmingham's sister city Hitachi in Japan. I wonder how they managed to translate the title. The dark spots of the backing fabric reminded me of watermelon seeds.