Wedding Quilt: The Kerrs

Though the actual quilt won't go into the mail tomorrow, I'm going to go ahead and post the pictures of this gift that I actually finished in 2010.

This quilt is quite different from what I usually do. It came about from a impulsive purchase of five fabrics at a local quilt show that contained this beautiful lemon yellow. My mum -who is also a quilter- and my husband -who simply loves me- thought I was so funny when I came home with the purchase because I was /that/ excited over the yellow in the fabric.



Per my usual, this quilt is hand-quilted. Nothing fancy, just straight lines around the 'squares' with no. 8 black cotton.

Detail


And for the back...



Detail

Random Finished Quilt: Charm Patch -- Update

Here are some outdoor pictures that I was able to grab today (before spring leaves North Texas this week)...

Front



Back

After seeing this photo, I realised that the other photos just didn't do the quilt justice -- at all.

Random Finished Quilt: Charm Patch

I realised late last week that I hadn't blogged about this quilt that I finished in December. It's one of the few quilts I have made in the past several years that wasn't made for a wedding or a baby gift from the get go. The front was an experiment with sashing/in-laid borders with left over squares from a larger project.



When my home re-modeling job caused me to take down my sewing area, I pulled out this top to quilt because the width of it is under 45 inches and therefore I wouldn't have to sew together a backing.



I know the backing is a Kona Cotton solid, but I'm not entirely sure what specific colour it is. To quilt it, I used my favourite no. 8 perle cotton (platinum) as well my favourite Welsh pattern -the wine glass.

This is one of three quilts I'll be blogging in the next week. There is one other quilt I forgot about and I finished the "Broken Fiestaware" quilt. I'm hoping to get some outdoor photos tomorrow while it's still pretty in North Texas before winter stops by.

Not-A-Quilt: Scarf for Fairy

Since I dislocated my shoulder earlier in December, I've been unable to quilt. However, it turns out that several of my friends love scarves and with it being Christmas; I thought I would whip up a couple crochet/knitted scarves.

This is the first one I finished for my friend Fairy.

Wedding Quilt: The Fraysures

Over the course of 2010, I have fallen in love with French General fabrics for wedding quilts. Kaari Meng's French inspired fabrics, in my experience, are girly enough for the girls but not so girly that men like them -- well, at least my South Louisiana husband likes them. And he has no problem telling me how girly most of the fabric in my stash is :)



So when my cousin Win got married this summer (I know but at least I got it done this year), I grabbed four charm packs of French General's Rouenneries line and got to work laying out a simple Four-Patch pattern set on point to take advantage of the beautiful reds in this line of fabric. In the end, I didn't use all the squares and used them to piece together a backing.






When it came time to quilt, I went with my favourite Welsh quilting motif -- the wine glass. I used no. 8 perle cotton in the most brilliant shade of platinum that is more warm then cool.

Sneak Peak

Someone will be receiving this in the mail this week.

Baby Gift: The Paisley Quilt

This is an example of what happens when I screw up a pattern. When I started cutting and piecing the quilt, I had planned on doing a simple Nine-Patch but as you can see that didn't happen. Like the Fleur-de-Lis quilt, I sat on this quilt top for a long time because I couldn't figure out how to quilt it.

Finally, I decided to just follow the paisley pattern on the front which to be honest, I regretted about half of the way through. As you can see by the pictures below, that though the quilt is 45"x45" it took me a few months to execute all that quilting in no. 8 perle cotton in white. I'm glad I did it though as it really was the best choice for a quilt with such a bold pattern for the patchwork on the front and the 'loud' blue fabric especially when contrasted by the white.

Now I just have to send it to the new parents to be in honour of my latest niece, E.

Front


Back


Front/Back - to prove that I really did just follow the paisley pattern of the blue fabric on the front 0:)

Theatrical Production: Theatre TCU's "The Crucible"

About two weeks ago, I was asked by our Props Master to discuss quilts with one of the students who works in the prop shop regarding a quilt for our production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. In the short thirty minute discussion, I agreed to make a custom quilt for the production as I showed them images of quilts from The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England. The problem with a production set in Colonial America is that we have no proof from that era that the average person did or didn't have quilts. Most Colonial historians will argue that women simply didn't have the time to execute quilts given that the examples of quilts we do have from the Revolutionary period were executed by women of significant wealth and leisure. My argument typically lies that though we don't have proof they did, we also don't have proof that they didn't. So in an attempt (and probably frankly in vain), I found this quilt in the the Victoria and Albert Collection that was scrappy and I thought could be executed rather quickly as well as could be something a person would have executed (if they did) in Colonial America. I took it a step further by executing the quilt in linens which would have been available at the time and attempted to make it look like the fabrics came from the costumes made for the production.

Besides the quilt top being made of entirely linen, another unusual feature of this quilt is that the 'sandwich' is made from four layers: the top, a layer of muslin, the batting, and another later of muslin. This was done for the theatrical production. Due to the different weight of linen used in the quilt I made an attempt to ensure that the quilt would light evenly. Another aspect to the quilt being made of linen, I took the time to hand-quilt it in a utilitarian manner with 'normal' quilting thread to try to further make it as 'authentic' as possible. I also took the left over muslin used in the layers to make the binding which surrounds the quilt.

All told this quilt took me 75 hours to complete over a course of 11 days. The 75 hours include the time I spent shopping, cutting, piecing, basting, quilting, and binding. Approximately 50 hours was spent quilting alone.

Front


Front/Back

Baby Gift: Fleur-de-Lis Crib Quilt

It is officially finished --as in sent to the brand new parents.

I have to admit that this quilt was a lesson in being brave for me.

When I pieced the top, it was the first time, I had futz-d around with the Lover's Knot pattern and it would be an understatement when I tell you that I learned alot. Though a relatively simple square, executing it the way I did (the same way I had watched my mum execute it), I realised my momma had it right when the Lover's Knot she executed got nick-named Damn Lover's Knot. I highly recommend that every quilter try this pattern at least once in their lifetime but if you would like a way to make your life simple with this pattern then I recommend you think of the 'knot' as the acutal square and not the four blocks that make up the knot. Your sanity will thank you.

Then it came time to quilt the top and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what to do. So I ended up sitting on the quilt for close to two years. Pulling it out, looking at it, and then simply putting it back into the growing pile of quilt tops I was accumulating at an unreal pace. Suddenly, over the summer in the midst of a remodeling project (that still isn't done but that's another story), I needed something to work on and since I very well couldn't piece nor piece a backing because I had lost my sewing area, I started pulling out quilt tops that was under 45" wide. The moment I pulled it out, I saw that the knots kind of made a fleur-de-lis shape. From there, using the actual knot to guide me I started to quilt fleur-de-lis with no markings up front and loved it. Unfortunately, I started to panic it wasn't enough so during a Saturday sew day with the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild, I asked fellow quilters for their opinion. By that point I had come up with the idea to quilt the black knots as knots in black as to not distract from the green fleur-de-lis and they agreed as well as provided the idea to quilt partial fleur-de-lis along the edges.

I have to say it was one quilt that I kept looking at amazed that I had made that.

Front


Front/Back

Wedding Quilt: The Marschalls

Pictures taken before I boxed it up and shipped it to the newlyweds. My delightful husband is actually holding it up. I'm sorry that you can't see the binding all that well; it's made from strips of the same fabric red and blue fabrics in the quilt since I had extra.

Bartering Gift: Stars Across the Pond

Or simply the Edinburgh quilt as that is it's destination. As many people know, I love film especially British film but as a whole it's quite hard to get my hands on copies of the films I want to see. One way I get around this is I have started bartering quilts for DVDs from my friends in the UK. This is one such quilt.

It is machine-pieced and hand-quilted with three different colours of perle cotton no. 5. By the end, I was quite surprised that I didn't want to give this one up in the end; but alas, I found the strength to box it up and ship it :)

Baby Gift: 'Broken Dishes'

Along with 'Knots', I also sent 'Broken Dishes' to our friends as a baby gift. This quilt is a little different as it is not quilted but tied at all the corners using perle cotton number five which is partially why it is so puffy.

Baby Gift: More Pictures of 'Knot'

I finally got the roll of film developed that had more pictures of one of the two quilts I sent to my friends in honour of their new baby girl.

Here is the back, so you can really see the quilting:

Baby Gift: Knots

This is one of two gifts I sent some friends of ours in anticipation of the arrival of their baby girl.

It is machine-pieced, and hand-quilted with a pale pink perle cotton. Because the pattern was so involved, I decided to quilt it all over with random swirls. I will post more pictures of it later, once that roll of film is developed (I know, I know).

Baby Gift: "Polly Goes To Paris"

I made this quilt as a baby gift to the Scenographer I work with. It was really hard to actually give this quilt away because I loved it so much. However, I was able to part with it only because I still have more of this fabric left. It came from a line called "Polly Goes To Paris" and it illustrates one of the pitfalls of the major quilting fabric design firms: they print a series once and that's it; once it's gone it's gone.



The quilt is machine-pieced; the pinwheels are made through a folding process involving fabric and each one is hand-stitched to achieve the curve; and finally, it is hand-quilted using a pale pink waxed cotton, black perle cotton, and an off-white perle cotton.