Quilty Pleasures-A House of Quilts

I'm wrapping up a stay in SoCal where sis-in-law Pattie has played hostess to me for almost a week. Besides being an accomplished cook (with 5 kids, it was a matter of survival), she has been a quilter since 1975. Her first quilts were made with templates, scissors, needle and thread, and that's it.

Pattie has made many amazing quilts and the house is her own personal quilt museum. It's not a "don't touch" place, though, and these quilts are used, loved, washed, and used again. I went around and took some snaps. These are just a drop in the bucket, though, because I suspect she has plenty more in storage, ready for some more lovin'.

Quilts are on the walls:

Sunflower

An Alex Anderson Pattern and Pattie doesn't know what it's called

On the furniture:

Double Irish Chain, machine sewn, hand quilted

Log Cabin, hand quilted in concentric circles

Postage Stamp Baskets, machine pieced and quilted

Red and White Toile

30's hand pieced, machine quilted star quilt

 

 

Left: Sampler Quilt made of Civil War fabrics Right: 1920's top found in Leadville, Co, quilted recently by the person who found it.

And, of course, on the bed:

Another Double Irish Chain, machine pieced and quilted, originally to be a table cloth. Folded on top is Pattie's Unplanned Community quilt

Even on the ottoman:

Mariner's Compass

It's am impressive body of work, don't you think?

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Beaver Island Quilt Retreat, More Quilty Goodness

People made the most amazing pieces at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat and I had fun taking photos of the work we completed.

Here are a few little quilts to enjoy, to contemplate, to derive inspiration.

The first one is a view from a window at White Birch Lodge, where most of the quilters stayed and where the retreat was held.

The next two are what I call samplers, the quilters trying some of Gwen's techniques.

Here's a color study. It reminds me of the beach or the cliff behind my house.

 

This quilt's shape and use of different elements makes it look Asian. The large stitch quilting adds to its Asian-ness, don't you think?

 These quilts make me look and look again at all that is going on. I want to make a collection of little guys to ring the upper walls of my sewing room!

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-An Interesting Toile and Last Look at the Christmas Tree Skirt

It's a cool, gloomy day at the Nickel and Dime Ranch, but we were outside this morning setting a couple fence posts in concrete. The fence around the Growing Dome is finally getting started.

But today is Quilty Pleasures Wednesday, so I wanted to show you some fabric I bought--twice. Do you do this? You just loved it and had to buy it? And when you get it home you find the exact same fabric in one of your stash places? I do it with books, too, but not as often.

I love this toile because it is sneaky. On the bolt, a shopper could just pass it by and say, "Oh, boring toile again," (unless they love toile).

But at second glance you see these nifty little vignettes:

I have this fabric in mind for a very dear person's quilt. But I have to think about other fabrics to go with it. Because it's toile and so traditional, I am thinking about a traditional block style. If you have any ideas regarding colors or block pattern, let me know because I have Bubkis.  For folks interested in who makes this fabric, here you go:

And one more look at the Christmas tree skirt I made as a sample for a class to be held at Thread Bear in Las Vegas, NM. I quilted it in the ditch, but don't tell anyone that after I was all finished quilting it, I realized that the little lever on the walking foot wasn't hooked onto that screw dealie that holds in the needle. So it really wasn't walking!

Color on these last two photos is odd because I used the camera phone. Here's a look at the binding. I procrastinated like mad because I didn't know what to use. A scrappy binding wouldn't have looked good since it was already segmented on the edges, so I went with this brownish fabric with red, green, and tan stripes. While I sewed on the binding I watched a BBC telly show on hulu.com called Misfits. Loved it, but I'm warning you it's not for the proper person  unused to gross teenaged-boy humor and there's lots of shagging and wanking. (Sorry....just using their terms.)

That's it for Quilty Pleasures Wednesday. I'm excited because in a couple weeks I will be learning from Gwen Marston at her Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. Now that will be cool.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-A Christmas Tree Skirt

It's not finished yet, but I wanted you to see what's in the works. I know it's the end of August, but Thread Bear fabric store owner Ann wanted to do a "Christmas in July in September" sale and advertise some upcoming classes at the same time.

You should have seen me tromping around, trying to find just the right tree. Did you know that trees in nature have junk growing around their trunks? So I mashed down the grass and tossed the pine cones to get the skirt to lie flat. It's a good thing the neighbors can't see this place because rumors of my sanity would be flying fast and furious. (I know that's not good grammer, MBB. Want to be my editor?)

To make the quilt I used a 9 degree ruler made by Marilyn Doheny, length 18 inches. She offers ruler sizes up to 25 inches with an extension available to make it 35 inches long. The hardest part was cutting the wedges because it required utmost attention to be sure everything was lined up correctly. Plus, I didn't want the rotary cutter to stray.

Here's a detail of the fabric called Holiday Hoot Owls by Alexander Henry. I didn't fussy cut these because I wanted to be frugal with the fabric, but I like how the owls randomly show up here and there just to say, "Hi."

The skirt still needs to be quilted, which will be in the ditch, and bound, which will be scrappy. Because it's a circle, I will make this a bias binding.

I will not say, "Merry Christmas," just yet.