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-Modern Grunge

I was looking through some postings and realized I didn't let you see this finish, but just the layout.

A few years ago I drove to Albuquerque, three hours away, to attend a Jacquie Gering workshop on improvisational quilts. It seemed like a logical next step since I had taken a several classes with Gwen Marston, one of the original improvisationalists with her Liberated Quilting techniques. This is my Jacquie Gering inspired quilt.

I love this stuff. Just saying.

So anyway, I dorked around and procrastinated for quite some time, but finally finished it last year.

Here's a full shot. It's definitely a wall hanging and I've added a hanging sleeve to the back. Don't you love that background fabric? Keep reading and I'll tell you about it.

As you can see, it's been folded away. Look at those dang creases!

Here's a detail photo so you can see the quilting and one improvisational block. I started this block by fussy cutting a flower for the center and built from there, adding the white fabric square, some turquoise around the center and a reddish brown to complete it.

I used my Bernina's Number 4 stitch which creates this serpentine quilting pattern. To keep the quilting on the straight and narrow, I used a walking foot and its width to keep the rows (semi) regular, along with some painters' tape. Every twelve inches or so, I laid some tape down to ensure that I was not listing to one side or the other with my quilting rows.

Here's the back, but I am sorry I don't know the fabric's name. The background fabric's name is Grunge Basics by Moda. The color is Pool.

When I make an improvisational or Liberated quilt, it consumes me. I think about it; I have dreams about it. This is when I realize what an artist feels when making a painting, a sculpture, a book movie or play.

I guess I'm a sometimes artist.

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.

Black Stack

I've been sorting fabric and for some reason, these blacks just caught my eye. I have a small collection of black with white and white with black because Gwen and Freddy say those fabrics help the eye rest when you have a quilt with many fabrics and many colors.

 What would you make with them?

International Quilting Day: My Favorite Quilt

In the 12 or so years since I began quilting in our daughter's bedroom after she went off to college, I've made and given away more quilts than I can remember. Note to new quilters: take a photo of each quilt you make and put it in a safe place so when you are old and senile, you have it right there.

My favorite quilt, though, is one I kept and hangs on the living room wall. Why do I love it?

1. It's the first quilt I made where I didn't have a clue how it would look at the end.
2. My brain was so engaged in making this quilt that I even dreamed about it.
3. Looking at it is always a new experience. And not because I am old and senile, but because there are surprises, like that fabric in the bottom right,  different from the rest of the border.

 Thanks, Pattie Prothero, for inspiring me to start this most rewarding occupation.

Quilty Pleasures-Make Two Quilts At The Same Time!

"Leaders and Enders" is a term I first encountered on Bonnie Hunter's blog, Quiltville's Quips and Snips. For years I have used scraps of fabric to start and end my piecing because it eliminates having to hold the thread tails taut as I begin a seam (to eliminate that bird's nest of thread you get if you don't). I never thought about actually making another quilt with those scraps!

Essentially, leaders and enders are scraps of fabric that will eventually go into a quilt, chain pieced in between the beginnings and endings of the main quilting project you are working on.

Let me show you because it's kind of hard to explain without looking at it.

I am working on Bonnie's Mystery Quilt called Easy Street, piecing the blocks, which are purple, turquoise, green, gray, black and white.

 Here are some half square triangles (Honey Honey by Kate Spain for Moda Fabrics)
because I want to make a quilt out of them someday in the future. So I "lead" with two half square triangles, right sides together. Some people use two inch squares and here's a guy who uses Dresden plate blades.

 I was thinking about Gwen Marston's and Freddy Moran's "parts department," where you make pieces for a quilt, just to stock up for when you want to make one.

So here we go, starting with the triangles. Don't look at how they are a tad uneven and definitely don't tell the quilt police. And this close up of the lint on the machine? Pictures don't lie! OMG! Get out the lint brush!

After the triangle, I move right ahead to the Easy Street quilt without stopping and chain sew along as far as I can go.

 When I finish chain piecing the Easy Street quilt, there's another pair of triangles ready. I chain right onto the new triangles.

I sew right up to the end of the triangles, the "enders," and leave the fabric under the foot, ready for the next round of sewing.

 I snip off what's behind it,  all the chain piecing I just did with a little triangle stuck to the end.  I clip off that triangle.

 And I toss it into a box.

So far I don't have many half square pieces, but eventually they will add up and I will have enough parts for another quilt. 

Not only do I have some new "parts," but I've saved time and thread, too.

I hope this is a clear explanation. If it isn't, feel free to leave your questions and comments. Also, what have you made with your leaders and enders?

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: Dia de los Muertos Flimsy

The Quilt Cave is seeing a resurgence of activity lately with a bed sized quilt finished and at the quilter's plus a wall hanging that I'm going to attempt to quilt myself. I thought I was done with this particular quilt and even started to hand quilt it, but then it floated around for months while I played around with other projects (that aren't done). Finally, after moving the little quilt for the zillionth time, I realized there was more to do if I was ever going to be satisfied with it.

I bought the Alexander Henry fabrics, Fiesta de Los Muertos and Paseo de Los Muertos, at Thread Bear, my local quilt store.

The red border was where I left off, but someone suggested some gold to brighten it up a bit and I was off like a shot!

I couldn't stop at gold, though, and decided to add one more border and some liberated stars. I am a fan of both Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran, so there are homages to both ladies: stars for Gwen and the house for Freddy.

Because the center of this medallion is so busy, the borders become incrementally calmer so they don't compete.

Below is a detail of one of the stars and also of the house where the couple lives.

When I fussy cut the skeleton couple, I included pieces of two other characters. Don't you love the fellow peeking into the right bottom corner?

I found some Christmas fabric with words for the top of the house's door.

How am I going to quilt this? Heavens, I don't know, but when it's finished, you'll see it here.

Little Quilt "Sketches"

Gwen Marston refers to her small quilts as "sketches" in the new book 37 Sketches. She says she likes to make small quilts because it allows her to experiment without spending excessive time and money, to explore different construction techniques, try new and different fabrics, and most important, to look at new design possibilities.

At Gwen's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat she showed us some full sized quilts she made based on her little fabric "sketches" and they were all beauties. The small quilts gave her new ideas for the larger ones.

I found while making my own small sketches that they can become deeply involving, choices coming out of my ears! Do I want to make some little log cabins here? Maybe a curve along this edge. What colors should I choose? It really made my brain cells proliferate,

Here are the three little sketches I made at the retreat. I like one really a lot, another is okay, and the third is one I didn't like at first, but I like it now.

Someone said this quilt reminded them of the beach, and it does, the sandy colors contrasting with the brighter blues, oceanic greens and multicolored stripes.
It's fun to study the many "parts" (Gwen's term) to this piece. My favorites were the strata on the left with the curves and the liberated log cabins.

 

This quilt doesn't have backing and binding yet,  but it looks like it should be on the wall in a child's room. The strips around the border remind me of party streamers. I cheated a little making the pieced center, strip piecing some .75 inch strips, cutting them into .75 inch rows of squares and then turning them and repiecing the rows to mix the colors up a bit.

This liberated log cabin piece has confounded me. As I sewed the center, keeping to a controlled color palette, I got bored and started adding unrelated fabric colors. I am still not sure if that was a good idea or not, but I am beginning to enjoy this quilt and its little details.

For traditional quilters this stuff is hard to understand.  To wrap your head around modern quilting after many years of looking at traditional block piecing is a giant leap. Nonetheless, it's a fun exercise, one that really makes the quiltmaker think, plan, and play around with design and color in ways they might not have ever imagined.

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-Beaver Island Quilt Retreat Photo Goodness

Here are a few pics of the projects we worked on at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. It was hard to choose because so many were interesting and inspiring, but we are camping and the internet is slow here so I need to limit what I upload or I'd be sitting at this dinette table in the Airstream until Iron River, Michigan freezes over. Or something could happen if you forced a hyperactive person to sit and wait for a zillion photos to upload. It's better and safer to have just a few gems.

This is the wall displaying Gwen Marston's 37 Sketches. They were lovely to look at but their importance as a teaching tool was key to the success of the retreat. Gwen was usually up there with a retreater, pointing out elements, discussing her thinking while she was making a piece, all in her "It's here if you want to use it" way. No pressure to do it her way, but there it was if someone wanted to get inspired. They look like jewels on this black background, don't they?

Throughout the retreat, as participants finished a project they pinned it to the wall. On the last day Gwen had us point out which ones we had made and offer some comments. Gwen gets dressed up for this portion of the retreat; she uses only the finest Michigan clothing designers.

Here's the board displaying the student projects:

And just a few projects that caught my eye:

I like how the birch fabric is used sparingly at the top with a "reveal" at the bottom.

Making long curves was a group favorite. There's something satisfying about sewing those strips together. The birch fabric Pattie and I found at a local quilt shop became a group favorite.

This piece used the birch fabric in a more obvious way, also with good results.

 This one above reminds me of a small city in the shadow of tall mountains. Note the liberated log cabins.

I call this one the liberated Amish quilt and it had some interesting techniques which made it unique: check out the prairie points at the bottom and the teensy floating squares on the bottom right. I am inspired times ten! Turn my volume up to 11! (Do you think I like it?)

Gwen's book 37 Sketches is definitely a gem. No patterns, just a great and inspiring jumping off point for your own little sketches. Go ahead, try one. It's addictive!

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Beaver Island Quilt Retreat 1

I'm a newbie to the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat, Gwen Marston's yearly series of classes, each year fashioned around a particular theme. This time the theme is small studies in solids, which Gwen calls, Small Sketches. We aren't sketching with pens or pencils, but with leetle bits of fabric, piecing improvisationally, muddling through, learning as we go.

Gwen's new book, 37 Sketches, is our text for the retreat, a classy, gorgeous full color hardback, lovingly crafted by a small press, 37 small quilts beautifully photographed along with Gwen's commentary about her ideas and inspiration for making small quilts about 12 inches square. Check out her website for more info about the book.

Gwen is friends with Jean Wells whose newest book is called Intuitive Color and Design. This all started when Gwen had a few days free to stay with Jean in Sisters, Oregon, where she began experimenting with some of Jean's techniques, thus beginning a new quilting adventure and the new book.

Here's Gwen explaining a motif in one of her 37 sketches.

Today we worked on curves, among other techniques, at our own pace on our own first "sketch." I'm just going to give you a taste of what people are working on, so the rest of the photos can speak for themselves. Later I will show some of the finished products.

The first two photos are pieces from Gwen's 37 Sketches collection.

Each "sketch" is just 12 inches square

The variations are intriguing

These other photos are works in progress by some of the students. I am amazed at how quickly the time goes when a quiltmaker is "in the zone."

Beachy

Trees

Forest

Party

Passionista