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?

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!

Quilty Pleasures-Mi Familia

Friend Ann, owner of my local quilt shop Threadbear, asked me if I'd like to work with her on a quilt, so we have been collaborating for a couple months on something very different.

The center panels are from a collection by Jesus Cruz called Mi Familia (My Family) by Andover fabrics.  I apologize for the photo quality. I think I messed up my phone camera lens so everything looks a little fuzzy.

We thought it would be fun to work on this quilt collaboratively, not really knowing what the end result will be,  making parts like the four patches and flying geese and trying them out as we go. Some parts we made worked, and others were, "What the heck was I thinking?"

Working by the seats of our pants can be scary and absorbing at the same time. "Stop Staring and Start Sewing!" is our refrain.

Mi Familia is still a work in progress, but the way Ann decided on the orange border is neato: Ann had a quilt top in her "whoops" collection. You know those projects you start and almost finish, but have enough misgivings you don't want to complete them? I have a few of those and I'll bet you do, too.

Anyway, the discarded quilt top looked like this, but multiply it by a zillion circles because this is just a piece.

Ann cut each row of circles in half. We thought a scalloped border would be interesting and tried that, but then she started playing around and staggered the rows of half circles until they made a type of serpentine pattern.

She's been fussing around, sewing the two half circle rows together, offset, and making sure they are all the same size. As you can see in the first pic, Ann needs to fill in some spots which requires cutting and matching half circles, not always matching the fabric.  Recycling in action! And it looks really cool!

I made some flying geese using hand dyed fabric supplied by quilting friend Linda S. and the "sky" for the geese is a cosmic, spacy looking black fabric.

There are still more borders to go, so we will keep you posted on how it's going.

Have you ever made a quilt with someone else? Have you ever "winged it," not really knowing what you were going to do with your quilt before you started?

If you haven't, take some time to play a little.  Whether you call it liberated, intuitive, or improvisational quilting, you will have a real mind stretcheroo and may find yourself standing and staring at your in-progress quilt for much longer than you realize.

You may even start dreaming about your quilt. And that's a good thing!

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.

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-Another Finish: Day of the Dead Quilt

Today is All Saints' Day in Western Catholic culture, and connected to this Catholic holy day is Dia de los Muertos which is a day (actually two days) to celebrate, pray for and remember our dearly departed: infants and children today and older family members tomorrow. 

 Families go to cemeteries and put food, toys and other memorabilia on their loved ones' graves. It isn't a morbid time, but time to acknowledge that death is part of the life cycle. The next day, All Souls' Day, is also part of Day of the Dead, so it's a two day celebration.

I love the way the natives in Mexico incorporated their own traditions into the Holy Days the Spanish Catholics were pushing onto them. It's a lot more fun than the basic European version, where we go to church and that's about it.

Why skeletons? Some folks think it's morbid, but those skeletons are the dead coming back to visit for a day with their families still on this mortal coil. They are not to be feared, but friendly family members. Halloween skeletons are scary; these skeletons are not!

The skeletons in my Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) quilt are happy, enjoying each others' company in several ways.

 Sorry, but Ms. Pearl didn't want to move.

The couple in the center of the quilt are flirting a bit, with an onlooker on the right peeking into the frame. The center fabric is Paseo de los Muertos by Alexander Henry. The cow skull fabric is from Luana Rubin's Enchanted Desert collection. I pieced the house roof from scraps.

The surrounding black fabric is another Alexander Henry called Fiesta de los Muertos. When I see this fabric I think of my mom and dad in heaven having a great time. 

I have always been a piecer and much less a quilter, but I am learning a little at a time. Below is a detail of my novice quilting and of a liberated star. I love liberated stars!

So that quilt is almost totally finally finished. I have a lumpy spot in the binding, so will be redoing it to lay flatter. But really, it's done and I am hanging it today to remember my mom and dad on this Day of the Dead.

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.

Stars in My Eyes-Quilty Pleasures Wednesday

I love scrappy stars: liberated, non-liberated, wonky, precise and any other way they might be aligned. I've made stars as parts for a quilt.

But I've never made an entire star quilt. I've been anguishing over starry quilts for a while now, an angst that began when I learned how to make liberated stars, Gwen Marston style.

Then I saw this post today and it just makes me want stars even more.  Is there a Southwest Scrappy Star quilt sometime in my future? But when? So many ideas, I am overwhelmed!

I want to send out an "Hola, chica," to Jodi at the Pleasant Home Blog, who got my mind churning on the stars idea again. I love her blog because the photos are delicious, inspiring, and she has some awesome tutorials.  She's what I would like to be when I grow up!

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 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