Quilty Pleasures: Our Lady of Guadalupita

I taught a class at ThreadBear a while back on improvisational medallion quilts. The three session class was designed to give everyone a start on the process, so I haven't seen their finished products.  Nonetheless, it was fun sewing along with the students so they could watch the process and get some ideas, with a few instructional stops along the way.

You may have seen the Lady of Guadalupe quilt I made after taking an epic class on Liberated Quilting hosted by quilting buddies Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran. (Click on the link above to get that story.)

Anyway, I still had some Our Lady panels in my stash (and have started another quilt that I hope to finish this winter), so that's where I started. Since this quilt was improvised, there was no clue what the finished product would look like, just starting in the center, working border by border.

Here's a look at the quilt. I built around the center, got bored with that and decided to add details at the top and the bottom.

Here's a close up of the different layers I added around the center panel. Because I wanted this quilt to be finished quickly, I made strategic use of interesting fabric rather than piecing each border. Freddy Moran, whose quilts have a plethora of fabric and color, likes black and white borders in a busy quilt so our eyes can stop and rest. For reference, the half square triangles are 1.5 inches finished. I'm not sure about the orange and rose fabric touching each other, but it's done and a small matter. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Look at the quilting Michael at ThreadBear did, the rose and leaf quilting pattern echoing both the roses in the red border and and the general flower motif I repeated throughout the quilt. Oops! Don't look at that stray white thread. Oh, you looked, didn't you?

Towards the top of the quilt is an arch of Gwen Marston's Liberated Stars. I made the stars first and worried they would get lost in the bold colors, but by placing them at the top,  they become a focus motif. Liberated stars are free pieced, no measuring the stars' points, so each one is different.

At the quilt's bottom, I used Gwen's Liberated Basket technique to make flower pots, the flowers from an old Kaffe Fasset fabric. Gwen has used these same pots in one of the Lady of Guadalupe quilts Freddy and Gwen made for their book Collaborative Quilting.

An aside: If you haven't seen Quiltfolk magazine, please do. This issue is about the Michigan quilt community and features an article about Gwen, my quilting hero and a national treasure.

The backing fabric is Alma y Corazon by Alexander Henry. Love his fabrics and am grateful for Ann at ThreadBear, who made a bee line to this exact fabric, knowing it would be perfect.

 As I was making the quilt, I thought about a student I taught in Corona whose mother had gifted me years ago with a beautiful white crocheted sweater and later, after I had retired to the mountains, sent me a cozy hat and scarf to ward off the cold. I've always been so grateful for these gifts because, well, it was a parent who wanted to show me I was valued, and her son Juan went on to become a teacher, too, which is even better. So I sent her the quilt, now named Our Lady of Guadalupita. The name? Guadalupita, NM is the closest village to our place so it makes perfect sense since that's where I made it.

It looks like Mrs. Rosa Salgado likes Our Lady of Guadalupita, so I am glad to have been able to make her just as happy as I was receiving her gifts of love.

Quilty Pleasures: Lady of Guadalupe 2 In Progress

I've been spending most Tuesdays with some quilty friends at ThreadBear, my local quilt store in Las Vegas, NM, each of us working on projects and just having a good old time hanging out. There are usually burritos from the tiendita down the street involved and my favorite is the ground beef, potato and green chile variety.

Another Lady of Guadalupe quilt has been on the list for quite a while and my friend Betty gave me the push to get started. We are using ideas from Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran's books about collaborative quilting along with our own ideas, the ones that spring forth when the room is spinning with creativity.

Here's what we have so far:

I started with Robert Kaufman's Our Lady of Guadalupe panel from the Enchanted Desert line of fabric. It's pretty old, but you may still be able to find some if you do a little internetting.

The panel's border is a black and white polka dot to make it stand out and not just blend into the other fabrics. Next is a pieced border involving 1.5 inch red squares with 1 inch strips around and in between. It looks like I wove a red ribbon through the purplish-blue fabric.

After I attached that red square border,  it looked a little wavy, so decided to square it up with a turquoise stripe from some fabric I found in my stash. It still looks wavy, but this is liberated quilting, so let's not beat ourselves up about it.

I wanted a sky with angels in houses and liberated stars, so this is the layout today. It's not sewn together, yet, and there will probably be a lot of staring and arranging and staring some more before it becomes permanent.

Next: trees in a forest and a flower garden. This is going to take a while, but my mind is cooking with ideas and I suspect I will dream about this tonight.

Stay tuned.

Quilty Pleasures-Mi Familia Part 2

There is more progress on the Mi Familia quilt and we are excited! This quilt has been a collaborative effort between Ann (owner of Thread-Bear in Las Vegas, NM) and me and we make quite a team!

Today we added the thin black print border, auditioned about 8 fabrics for the wide floral border, and eventually decided on this greenie one.

Here is a closer look at some of the details:

For the past three years or so that particular green has been my go-to color to make a quilt "pop." Love those half circles? Read the previous post to see how Ann made that inspired choice.

The black batik border is next, with the flying geese in opposite corners. The batik has streaks, some of which echo the colors used in the center panels.

While we are working on this project I just can't stop smiling. It's a friendly picker-upper. Maybe it's those grinning guys in the center, but it's just a happy quilt!

Jacquie Gering Workshop Quilt

A couple months ago two of my quilty buddies and I drove to Hip Stitch in Albuquerque for a workshop by Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio fame. I had followed her blog for several years and recently bought her book, Quilting Modern. Her designs were intriguing and new, something I would like to try someday.

That someday came and the workshop was a gigantic learning experience, especially watching quilters try something that took them out of their comfort zones. Let's face it: many of us started making quilts from patterns or from diagrams and to all of a sudden be told, "Just cut a rectangle. No, don't measure it," can be downright scary.

I had been lucky to have done some free piecing-Liberated-Collaborative quilting at several Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran workshops and the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat, so for me it was fun fun and a chance to dive into modern quilting once again.

I started this quilt at Jacquie's workshop and have been working on it little by little. I think I am close to final assembly

The other day at Thread Bear in Las Vegas, New Mexico, we pinned the background fabric, Moda Grunge, to the design wall and I started arranging the blocks. They are a type of log cabin, but not your grandma's log cabin, that's for sure.

This is what I have so far. I think it looks pretty balanced, but if any of you spacial relationships people want to weigh in by leaving a comment, I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Unplanned Community, A Freddy and Gwen Inspired Quilt

Today it's a guest post by sis-in-law Pattie, quilter extraordinaire, the person who inspired me to start quilting. A couple years ago we went to an Empty Spools Seminar at Asilomar, California, for a class with Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran.  I'll let Pattie tell you the rest of the story:

 This quilt is a product of a Gwen Marston-Freddy Moran collaborative quilting class I took 2 1/2 years ago.  My quilting history has always been as a traditional and conventional "interpreter" of quilt design...i.e. I just copied a pattern and added my own fabrics, usually civil war or other 1800 repos.

Taking a Marston-Moran liberated quilting class was a huge step out of the box for me, so huge, it took me 2 years to complete the project.  Deciding on what 'parts' to use and how to arrange them without any absolute design threw me into creative anarchy: Anything goes....nothing is wrong...everything matches...there are no wrong choices....all colors and fabrics go together...the more the merrier.  There was only one rule: use some black and white to rest the eye once in a while.

In truth, I didn't feel very "liberated."  I felt like I had to make decisions based on my preference,  but what was my preference?  How do you build a quilt without dictated shapes, sizes, borders, measurements?

I had a plethora of block designs from Freddy and Gwen to choose from...houses, wonky stars, trees, pinwheels, four patches and even some really cute chickens!   I loved them all!  No fabric was left out; everything went together!

 Each time I sat down to sew I experienced a mixture of frustration and angst combined with manic euphoria. Over the course of 2 years I tenaciously struggled with my new found "liberation" and finally completed my "Unplanned Community," called that because there are lots of houses:) and because the only 'rhyme or reason' was mine.

That's the back of the quilt

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Spiderweb Quilt Reveal

You've seen bits and pieces of the spiderweb quilt I've been working on in an earlier post but it's back from Lynne Horpedahl, machine quilter extrordinaire in Santa Fe, and so I wanted you to see it. Since this quilt's on the way to a new home with MBB in Iowa City, I figured what the heck. Here it is. Click on any of the photos here for a closer look.

I used my insane hoarder's extensive collection of 30's reproduction fabrics along with some others stored for a rainy day, which, happily, is happening more and more as monsoon season kicks in here in Northern New Mexico. I tried to make the colors flow from one to the other which was semi-successful. The tutorial I used was this one. Clear instructions, all went well. Thanks, Marit! Notice the top and bottom borders do not match. That was me listening to my Gwen Marston muse, who said to me, "Everything doesn't have to match." Thanks, Gwen!

The scrappy border is made from strips remaining after I made the spiderweb blocks. There's still a load of them, so it's a given that another strippy quilt will be made sometime in the future.

Lynne the Quilter suggested this art deco look pantograph for the quilting and I am happy with the choice. I worried about the plain aqua centers and sashings looking weird with an all-over pattern. No worries, though, because everything kind of fit right into the sashings and centers.

The binding is machine sewn, thanks to a Pat Sloan machine binding tutorial I found on the internet. Thanks, Pat! The video was especially helpful, showing me how to position the blanket stitch backward and where to sew.

Here's the back, pieced, using a modern print echoing the spiderwebs on the front. MBB chose that. I added the green polka dot center strip because I love those dots and that color was calling out, "Choose me, choose me." So it has a new home.

All in all, the spiderweb quilt was fun to make. What would I do differently? Probably next time I would mix it up a bit more with each web and not try for the colorwash. The way the spiderweb blocks are made makes it difficult, so multicolored in each block will be the plan for next time.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Announcing the Winners and One Block Wonder Update!

The giveaway winners are #'s 10 and 18, Pattie and Rebecca! I used the Random Number Generator to choose the two winners, but I haven't figured out how you show the results in a blog post. I will have to read up on that.  I will get your fabric in the mail this week.

In other news, I am machine quilting this one block wonder which is a tad larger than a crib quilt. The quilt has been pieced since March (here's the post about it), but I am a big wuss about machine quilting and debated whether to take it to the quilter or to do it myself. I have done small pieces that turned out fine, but I quilted one quilt a long time ago that looked seriously ugly and it has stuck in my brain, "You quilt ugly quilts!" I know it's not true, but I am a "paralyzed perfectionist" about certain things and machine quilting is one of them.

There was a quilt show by the Teatime Quilters at Thread Bear in Las Vegas, NM a month or two ago and several of the One Block Wonder quilts our Friday group had completed were displayed. After looking at a couple quilts machine quilted by the same people who pieced them, I was encouraged.

It's just straight line quilting, but I am still a nervous wreck. To keep me calm and to pass the time I'm catching up on Breaking Bad, a television show about a chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer who decides to provide for his family by making meth. The moral dilemmas fly about, I am horrified and diverted enough to keep sewing, and I will never use meth or make it after watching this show. I promise!

That's Minkee you see on the quilt at the top and the bottom of the backing. For a baby, I thought that would be a nice touch, soft and cuddly for naps.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Our Lady of Guadalupe Quilt

 We got back from our road trip on Monday and the unpacking continues. Many of you who are my Facebook friends will recognize this quilt and say, "Geez! Bridget's getting lazy! I've seen this quilt a million times." So I apologize to you and promise to have some new stuff next time we talk quilts.

A couple years ago my sis-in-law, Pattie, and I attended an Empty Spools seminar taught by quiltmakers Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston.  A five day seminar held at the Asilomar Conference Grounds near Pacific Grove, California, it was an intensely creative combination of summer camp and sweatshop and a watershed moment for my journey as a quilt maker.

Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran in Freddy's studio

Gwen Marston introduced her liberated quiltmaking techniques twenty years ago. She is the design half of the Collaborative Quilting team. I love her Liberated Quiltmaking book.

Freddy Moran uses color fearlessly, considers red a neutral, and her book Freddy's House introduced her color sensibility to the quilting world.

Together they challenged my classmates and me to look at old quilts, learn from them, and make our own using no patterns and no set plans.

Here's my Lady of Guadalupe quilt, made using collaborative quilting techniques I learned from Gwen and Freddy.

Gwen taught me how to make liberated stars.

 

Freddy taught me how to make houses for my angels and skeleton buddies.

And they taught me to be bold with both design and color.

In September Pattie and I will be taking a trip to Gwen's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat where we will learn about using solids and making little quilts.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday

We are back for another round of "Quilty Pleasures." A friend said that it sounds naughty, but we know that all things quilty are actually quite nice.

I am a big fan of Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston, authors of the books Collaborative Quilting and Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again: Freewheeling Twists on Traditional Quilt Designs.

 Sorry about the writing on the covers, but I really really don't want to lose these books.

Freddy is all about color;that's her in front. Gwen is the go-to person for design.

Although they live far from each other, Freddy in California and Gwen on Beaver Island in Michigan, they find time to collaborate on quilts, traveling to each others' homes to design and sew quilts. If you ever get a chance to take a class from these two, it's a kick!

Anyway, I was bitten by the crazy colors and free piecing that are signature Freddy and Gwen. My latest project is a smaller quilt, around 30" by 24" and it's called Pure Bliss. I apologize for the photos. It's bright sunny here and I am still learning the camera.

I used a central fabric and started building around it, using scraps I had for the house and the borders surrounding it.

The center fabric was fussy cut from a fabric called Paseo de los Muertos. I like how the little guy at the right bottom corner is peeking up at the happy couple.

The black fabric is called Grateful Skeletons and the outer red border is called Petals. I think they are all Alexander Henry fabrics. Now, to quilt it, which I have been saying for several months now.