SUNSTITCH: 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.