I've stitched my way through life. Early skills in utilitarian and decorative sewing have merged with art in the world of quiltmaking. My love of journaling has now crossed into the cloth world, too. I love old songs, old souls, old words; my collections attest to my fascination with memories.
Somehow, every year, the second page of the calendar sends me to needles and thread with hearts in mind.
This is not the time of year for me to be taking great nature photos to use in my Good Morning Girls text messages. Yes, I’m still doing that…today is day 665, by my count. During December, I sent photos of Christmas ornaments, our Santa collection, and amaryllis blooms. This January had warm days with some still blooming plants in our yard, but things are a bit bleak outdoors now. A few daffodils are up, but I needed a photo scheme for February.
I’ve wanted to learn more about photographing indoor vignettes…some “sewing still lifes”, I guess you could call them. So yesterday, I pulled some hearts out to shoot. I found some jewelry, some buttons, and some fabric hearts I had made.
As I played with the red hearts and the companion fabrics I pulled to use as background, I began a plan for a heart quilt.
I made a blue one a few years ago, Loving Blues , by stitching hearts on blocks, then assembling them.
This toile heart is posing on the linen tablecloth I plan to use as my background fabric. See the red border already in place?
This time, my plan is to start with a linen tablecloth from Europe. It has a red border woven in, so that’s convenient…and I won’t have to assemble blocks when I’m done with the hearts.
I’m planning some appliqué, some embroidery, and some who-knows-what for the hearts. I’ll use many of my vintage fabrics, but I have some nice commercial prints that I’ll likely include. I’m thinking one heart per day in February…but these plans may change. They often do. I won’t bore you every day, but I will keep you posted.
And I’ve begun with a heart made from my sister’s red and pink toile drapes that she moved with her from house to house over some 40 years.
I suspended this favorite February pendant of mine over the back of a quilt with red in it. I’m liking this kind of play with the camera.
I love to work on textile projects with the colors of the season. That means that I now need to stitch on red.
I have a couple of big projects in progress, but they aren’t red. So to soothe my soul, I reached back for this piece and began hand quilting it. During the Christmas season, this has been a glorious practice for me. I’m revisiting a piece I made several years ago – improvisationally stitching some Japanese fabrics in freeform hexagons on a linen remnant. It needed color, I thought, so I added the red wool flower.
I’ve learned that a piece doesn’t have to be finished to be enjoyed. This piece has been no exception… it’s hung about on chairs and falling out of baskets for several years when I needed an accent of red. Here you see it in a basket on top of a clock in the breakfast room.
The block from 52 Tuesdays proves how long this has been in the works…and my plan for quilting around the hexagons. This piece, still untitled, was appliquéd in 2015.
A couple of weeks ago, I layered it on a bit of felted wool and began stitching. Two layers of fabric, a needle and beautifully smooth thread, and I am content. The top layer is thin linen (used and washed again and again in its past life); the bottom is a lovely gray wool. There’s nothing like pulling a needle and thread through delicious buttery wool. (I’m using Aurifil #12 and loving it!)
Ahh… Stitching peace in this season.
Another example of display yet unfinished is this holly on wool. Here it is draped over another quilt on the ladder in the den (the backside of Tree Farm). This is one of Maggie Bonanomi’s designs.
And yet another wool appliqué posing atop something else. Just to add a splash of red to the dining room wall during Christmas. Again, the wool pattern is from Maggie Bonanomi.
Sometimes on our quilts-on-location outings, I plan the colors of the quilts with the anticipated background. But sometimes, I just grab some quilts that haven’t been photographed lately and head out the door. On our recent outing to the state park with the cypress trees (that post is here), I carried along a quilt with neutral colors.
The beauty of the browns and grays colors in this landscape made me glad I had grabbed this quilt.
I love neutral color combinations, but Sandhill Tree Farm is one of a very few quilts I’ve made in that genre.
As soon as I noticed the colors of the park office, I knew that quilt needed to pose on those rocking chairs. The color of the building’s siding was a great background for this one.
Walking down Squirrel Run Trail, we found more neutral colors..and a splash of blue popped in occasionally. There’s a plan for a quilt I could love…all neutral browns and grays with a pop of blue.
Sandhill Tree Farm posed nicely on the railing of the deck near our picnic spot, too.
This graphic quilt was oh-so-easy to make. I used the “pine tree block” within the Tree Farm pattern I designed a few years ago. By the way, all my patterns are now free. If I have printed copies available, I will pop one in the mail to you if you ask for one. Otherwise, I can send a .pdf file to you via email. Again, free.
This pattern layers three or more fabrics, then you cut them apart following a preprinted pattern on freezer paper, shuffle the fabrics, and reassemble. The original Tree Farm pattern is more complicated because there are other more involved blocks included, but if you just use the pine tree blocks, it’s a quickie!
I arranged the blocks on the design wall so the blocks having darker backgrounds formed a sort of border. A quick vine for a quilting design, and this one was done!
I love how the natural light comes though the quilt on the railing. For this quilt, I chose one of my go-to quick motifs for quilting, a meandering vine and leaves. Normally draped over a chair in our bedroom, this quilt enjoyed the outing.
Check out the publications tab at the top of the page for patterns, including this one.
Here’s the story of my Challenge quilt for Heart of Georgia 2021, Playhouse in the Chicken Yard.
Participants were to channel the little girl inside, search our memory banks, and make a quilt reflecting some aspect of childhood.
Even though I wrote up the challenge description, I had no idea what my Little Girl quilt would be. I had ideas….so many ideas. That’s not unusual for me. My first thought (and most pervasive for many months of the year) was a little girl in a swing.
I started that…sketched a little girl, even made an image on fabric, painted the skin color, selected fabric to appliqué her dress…and then….
As I remembered the trees where Daddy hung my swings (there were several over the years), I recalled my parents making me a playhouse. On the eve of my 9th birthday (it was on a Saturday that year), they sent me to spend the night with a friend. I now realize they had to scurry to get things done. They enlarged a storage room in an unused building on our property to create a playhouse for me. They added a cabinet, a stove, a bed, some dishes, and curtains to give me space of my own.
What a delightful surprise for my birthday gift! And now that I recall it, the time they took to arrange the surprise makes it even more special.
At some point in time, I came to realize that my playhouse wasn’t the romantic little image of a miniature house that some girls had in their yards, but I never thought about that. It was mine.
You can see from the shape of the building that my playhouse was in a chicken house. Earlier, there had been chickens running around, but that venture had been abandoned. Daddy stored lumber in one end and I occupied the other. My quilt has chickens running around as a nod to its original purpose…and to the fact that my mother still referred to that portion of the yard as “the chicken yard”. Thus, the title of my quilt was born.
When a guild member asked if the chickens got in the way of my playtime, I explained that these were “ghost chickens” on the quilt.
My original sketch didn’t have a little girl in it. I think my idea was that she was inside playing. My husband and daughter insisted that there be a visible little girl. So after the house was stitched down on the pieced background, I had to remove the back layer of fabric and insert a tiny door with a little girl entering. The space was so small that I chose not to appliqué this feature, but to paint it.
In my stash, I found the farm fabrics you see above. I knew those funky chickens had to roam around on my quilt.
There was a cow in a pasture to the left of the chicken house…but no room for this fabric on the front…so I put it on the back of the quilt.
I pieced the grass and sky (fabric overdyed with indigo) by machine, hand appliquéd the building, used raw edge appliqué for the tree trunks, leaves, and chickens.
I worked really s l o w l y on this project because I was having so much fun. I spent an entire day stitching samples of hair to decide how I would create the stringy blonde pigtails you see here.
Another day found me reviewing Sue Spargo’s drizzle stitch to add details to the tail feathers of the chickens.
This playhouse is still part of my life. When we sold the property, we knew the buyers planned to demolish that building, so Jim rescued the door to my playhouse. Our friend and expert craftsman, Tommy, built a stepback cabinet using that door as the back of the cabinet.
He built it so the elements of its construction are visible. He even placed the hook used to secure the door where I can see it as I arrange my collection of small things.
The cabinet is in our breakfast room where we see it every day. I hang small seasonal quilts above it – so made this quilt the width to fit on that hanging rod. Here you see the quilt is at home above the door.
Sometimes quilters like to “play chicken” with a spool of thread…you can see here that I won, but just barely.
As I planned this quilt and began working on a drawing of it, many childhood memories surfaced. I found myself planning another quilt (larger than the 29” restriction on this year’s challenge) with more Little Girl memories. I’ve already begun translating some of those memories to fabric. And, I might eventually finish the little girl on the swing…
This is the time of year Jim and I frequently ride past the cemetery. We are keeping a check on our gingko friend whose leaves provide beauty against the blue sky.
We decided it was time to go with cameras and quilts yesterday. The color was nice, but the carpet of leaves I like for spreading quilts on the ground was a bit sparse. It was crisp and cool and glorious.
I’ve written about our visits to Rose Hill Cemetery before. The posts here and here include more images and some history of the place.
I carried several quilts, but Dots and Vines was one of them. I posed her on a bench near the big gingko tree.
Then I looked behind me on another bench and there was a serendipitous find – more dots. Someone left her paint palette behind…just waiting to pose with my dots!
We took more quilts…I’ll share those later. And, I haven’t forgotten the story of my challenge quilt….it’s coming.
Our quilt guild’s annual challenge quilts were revealed last week. You may remember the challenge this year was Little Girls. Members were asked to turn back their inner clocks to days of their childhood and make a quilt representing some memory from those carefree days.
While I was working on my entry, I hoped everyone was having as much fun with their creation as I was. Every idea that came across my mind prompted memories I had long forgotten and the actual construction of my entry made me giggle like a little girl.
As the quilts were revealed, it seemed that others experienced some of the same thrills I did.
As the Challenge leader this year, I made the ribbons. I had loads of fun painting these little girls on fabric, appliquéing their dresses, and attaching streamers from my stash of fabric and rickrack.
Our procedure is to bring our entries in plain brown paper bags with nothing that will reveal the maker’s identity. This year, contestants were asked to write a sentence or two telling the story behind the quilt. Volunteers hang the quilts and assign numbers to them. Members vote on their favorite and play “Guess the Maker” – using knowledge of individual styles of quiltmaking to assist in identifying the creator of each quilt hanging.
Votes are tabulated as the business meeting is conducted, then ribbons are awarded. Every maker then shares the story behind the quilt she entered while participants check their guesses of makers’ identities.
Quilts in this Little Girl Challenge were especially precious.
Carol shared that her two daughters had input into her creation…one said you have to include sequins..another insisted she include a very decorated birthday cake. Looks like I’m not the only one whose daughter has input.Susan was able to attach meaning to the fabrics in a piece she made using English Paper Piecing techniques from a designer she recently discovered…aren’t those unending connections priceless?Helen’s piece, With Love 2 Grandmothers, included photos of her grandmothers and won the 3rd place ribbon. Helen even had a historical backing on hers – a collage of doilies and laces she collected at a flea market.Gladys, our gal from Texas, couldn’t resist including a state map though she knew it would give her identity away – and on her tag she wrote of sandwiches from fresh tomatoes on the farm.Marie may have embraced the little girl inside more enthusiastically than most…she made three entries. One, Windows to the World, used photographs printed on fabric and pieced in a landscape variation of a log cabin block. Assembled, they reminded her of window panes in her childhood home. This quilt was the second place winner.In another entry, Marie’s Starlit Cabin was a tribute to the memory of a quilt pieced by her grandmother and quilted by her mother. Marie carried the quilt and the love it held when she left home for college.And Marie’s third entry was Lily Learns to Sew. Last summer, Marie spent time teaching a young girl in the neighborhood who wanted to learn to sew. Marie painted sewing notions on fabric using watercolor; then used rail fence blocks (the same block she and Lily included in Lily’s first quilt) to surround it. And what little girl doesn’t love red polka dots?Another quilter named Carol depicted memories of hopscotch with her friends. She used a coloring book as a basis for her appliquéd little girl.Shirley’s entry depicts the love she and her mother share of growing flowers in the yard and of beautiful embroidery.Sally’s Grandmother’s Flower Garden block is a tribute to her maternalgrandmother. Sally even connected the background quilting to her lattices in her grandmother’s rose garden.
My piece, Playhouse in the Chicken Yard, was the lucky winner of the blue ribbon. I’ll share details of its story and its construction in the next blog post.
Even members who didn’t get their quilt finished for one reason or another had stories to share. Becky told of hanging blackout curtains over their windows during WWII and of coloring on the papers that their dry cleaning came in.
Marsha had memories of milk bottles being delivered to her house and hopes to make a quilt depicting that yet. Life got in the way of her putting those milk bottles on a textile piece in time for the challenge.
Carol won the “Guess The Maker” competition. Her reward is a fabric covered Little Girls Journal where she can record memories of making this quilt or more memories from her life as a little girl.
Glorious fall days are made for exploration and photography.
One day last week we took a ride to George L. Smith State Park, loading the car with cameras, quilts, and picnic paraphernalia. The cypress trees here are gorgeous any time of year, but now their leaves are golden and red. And the tannin in the water enhances their reflections, so the beauty is doubled.
Above is an image of a cypress “knee”, a structure thought to be a buttress to the tapering trunk in soft muddy soil. Cypress trees growing outside of a swampy area do not form these knees.
I loved photographing the natural beauty and the covered bridge is a great background for a few quilts.
We photographed quilts inside and outside the bridge and perched them on other spots in the park, too.
Dots and Vines is a graphic quilt you’ve seen in other posts. It may be my most photogenic quilt – I grab it most every time I head out the door. I love its bold colors in contrast with the weathered wood.
Likewise, Heaven in a Wildflower has posed in other settings, too. Like Dots and Vines, the blocks of solid color are especially vivid in natural surroundings. Note to self: make more quilts from solids.
The quilt above is not one I made, but one I was given. My dear friend Mary Ellen is a most prolific quilter and sent this star beauty on blue to me. She’s the inspiration for all these quilts-on-location shots. She and her photographer husband Bruce live in Minnestota and they set the bar for photographing quilts in rustic locations. I’ve written about her photo journey before here.
We weren’t the only ones enjoying this serene spot on this glorious day; I caught this flash of color out the window of the bridge.
And it was picture day for a some four-year-olds from a nearby preschool. Here they wait in line to head to the playground.
This has been a busy week. I took more quilts on this trip so there will be more posts to follow sharing those. And, my guild had our Little Girls Challenge this week – so that’s coming, too.
More details on the Dots and Vines quilt can be found here.
More details about Heaven in A Wildflower are here.
And, we’ve visited other covered bridges with quilts here and here.
We left home to run a few errands and I grabbed some quilts. The day wasn’t especially light filled, but I’ve learned that if I don’t have a camera and quilts, the perfect stage presents itself.
We visited Seventh Street Salvage in their downtown location…and what did we see but a cart sitting in front of circles? Well, well, well….I just happened to have a few circles in the car.
Even though I had written about 108, I wanted a photo of it in an outdoor setting. I had grabbed it and a couple of other quilts with circles and thrown them in the car.
After we did our shopping inside (the garlic/olive artisan bread is delicious, by the way), we got permission to snap some photos and brought out the quilts.
I love the stars in the circles, the repetition of them in mass (like quilt blocks that way), and I am descended from Wheelers, so there’s that, too. The stars in the circles are impressive, as well. I may need to find some quilts with stars to bring back to this spot. And, make a quilt with stars inside circles???? oh, my, the ideas just won’t stop!
The lone magenta quilt is one I haven’t written about before, Going in Circles. In 2018, our guild’s challenge was “2”. We were challenged to make a quilt using only 2 fabrics. As always, I explored several options, experimented with a couple, but decided to do something totally out of my normal “look”.
I spliced thin strips of a multicolored batik in a modern sort of piecing layout with a Cherrywood solid fabric. I drew intersecting circles all over, planning to quilt each defined area with a different motif. But when I got the circles stitched, I liked the clean look of it, so decided just to add some pearls at the intersections.
To continue the clean modern look, I didn’t bind the quilt, instead faced it with more of the graphic batik. The backing is a hand-dyed fabric in soft muted colors.
This quilt hangs on a rack in my sewing room and I see it every day. But writing about it makes me realize that I need to do more of this kind of piecing. It was fun – and I love the graphic result!
I’ve written about the quilt in the center, Dots and Vines, before, and linked to it recently. But in case you missed it, its story is here.
And, the blue dots on brown is my previous post, 108.
Seventh Street Salvage has appeared before in photo shoots, too. Here, and here.
A note about the photos. My signature appears on most of these photos, but it is a collaborative effort at our house. I have learned to take photos and do a bit of post processing. But sometimes Jim and I swap cameras depending on where we are standing and which lens we need….and sometimes we forget who took what. And now there’s the issue of a new camera whose photos won’t import on his older computer. But I don’t have some of the processing software he has …so on this shoot more than ever, we’ve passed digital images back and forth to make this wall and the quilts impressive! His masterful touch in the digital darkroom makes everything look good!
In the last couple of years, I’ve been obsessed with circles.
One of my explorations dealt with blue and white circles appliquéd to a brown linen tablecloth. For all these projects, I didn’t count the circles…just made them until I thought I had enough. I laid the blue circles on the brown linen until I liked their distribution, pinned them in place, and started appliqueing them.
I wanted to hand quilt this larger piece using the seed stitch. I love the texture that stitch gives. I’ve used it on smaller pieces a lot, but wanted to see it on a big piece. I used Aurifil #12 thread, stitched a double seed stitch overall though only the top and batting. Then I added a backing layer (a piece of an indigo overdyed linen sheet) and stitched through all three layers with the same thread around the circles.
I never had a title in mind for this as I worked – I presumed one would come to me. My working title was “blue circles on brown”. That could have worked for a final title. But as I neared the end of the stitching, I decided to count the circles. 107. That could work..it’s a prime number and I like those. But, I needed a label on the back. If that label was a circle, I’d have a total of 108. 108 has meaning in my life and I love for the quilt title to have meaning.
I grew up in Turner County. During the years I was learning to drive, our county’s number was 108. So, the title of this quilt was born.
Between 1957 and 1970, county codes were used as part of an auto’s car tag. The first numbers on the tag were based on the respective population of the county. Out of 159 counties in Georgia, my home was 108th in population those years.
Notice that on the label, I used some of the trims I’ve recently dyed with black walnuts. It’s tempting to “save” those precious bits we made or altered, but I’m in the business of using them. Here the tatting that took the dye so well borders the 108th circle. Oh, and the fabric circle is cut from the center of the napkin with the embellished corner.
I made Dots and Vines, which you’ve already seen, stitched some circles on a bit of linen for a scarf, and made these blue circles and appliquéd them to a remnant of a brown linen tablecloth. I have lots of prepared circles waiting to become part of another quilt, too. The post on Dots and Vines is here.
I guess this little brown linen pillow with buttons attached fits the circle category, too.
I’ve referenced my love of the blue and brown connection before. One post describing a rolled up quilt exploration is here. And a sweet little case I found that’s blue and brown and toile and bows is here.
This finished quilt measures 40″ x 60″, a lap quilt for reading or watching tv. And, yes, for napping.
One of the things I do in the fall is collect acorns. Every year I find myself coming home with a few perfect specimens after every day’s walk. I add them to this bowl…eventually it is filled and I admire it through the winter. In the spring, I throw them out. In the fall, I begin again.
I don’t know exactly what the fascination is with acorns. I grew up with pecan trees. I gathered plenty of those in my childhood. That was the source of my Christmas money every year. Oaks and acorns came later in my life….
I’m still collecting acorns this year…but my latest fascination is with walnuts.
A few years ago, I attended a Folk Life Festival at a historic site in Tifton, GA. Among the many delights there was a woman using walnut and indigo dyes to make the most beautiful yarn. I was captivated. From her I learned that walnut doesn’t need a mordant; that you collect the walnuts while in the green hulls; that they must ferment first, then be boiled before you can dye with them.
I followed those instructions and dipped a few things, but it was a lot of trouble.
I’ve experimented with brown commercial dyes before (that post is here) but the walnut gives a more pleasing color to me. I love the surprise of the varying richness based on the fabrics I use and the time it soaks.
This year, I gathered some black walnuts in their husks, put them in a bucket of water, covered it, and began the fermenting process. After a couple of days, I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I dipped a piece of fabric in there as they fermented.” A friend had brought me a pretty white cotton napkin and I submerged it among the walnuts. In a few days, I had a nice bit of brown fabric.
I found another napkin, damask this time, and some laces…added those to the bucket for a few days. Look at how gorgeous these are!
I had a few pieces of vintage linen that I wanted to see what happened. So I cut a few pieces of those, added a worn white cotton tea towel, and a skein of white embroidery floss. I left these just a couple of days…not wanting to completely obscure the checked pattern in the linens. Oh, my, I’m loving this!
The images above are before and after of dipped fabrics.
And of course you aren’t surprised that I photographed some of the browns with some blues. Earlier confessions of my love for this color combination are here and here. And, if that’s not enough, type “brown” in the search bar…there are more!
Now in the pot are a few more treasures. I don’t remember exactly what I put in there, but do know that some old pink rickrack is getting new life. Stay tuned.
And there are a lot of hickory nuts around here, too. Hmmmm….
As I wrote this and revisited the photos from the Folk Life Festival, I guess that’s what encouraged me to play with indigo dyes, too. There’s a whole category in the sidebar for that!
