Kits to make quilts are wonderful. They are a great way to make a quilt if you don’t have a large fabric stash, if you aren’t comfortable selecting fabrics, or if you just want to jump right in with a ready supply of coordinated fabrics in the right colors. A good friend advises that they are great for travel or retreat projects, because they are packaged ready to sew on the go.
Hartwell Commons was made from a kit. I ordered the block-of-the-month kit early in my quilting career, I suppose it was in 2002 or so. When the first package arrived, the schoolhouse block, I opened it ready to jump right in.
Instructions were given for two techniques; paper foundation piecing, and appliqué. I did not know either one. So I bundled it all back up and put it back in its big ziploc bag. It waited month by month as its companions arrived in the mail and the charges were added to my credit card bill. I paid the bill knowing that maybe someday I would have the skills to make the quilt.
My friend’s advice came to light a couple of years down the road when we were preparing for a girls’ getaway to a friends’ lake house. I was lamenting that I didn’t know what project to take, and Dale said, “do you have a kit?”
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I grabbed the first couple of month’s packages, some substitute fabrics (I had already realized that using someone else’s idea of fabric combinations was not my way of working) and off we went to Lake Hartwell.
By then, I had learned both techniques of paper foundation piecing and needleturn appliqué. I love to do handwork and don’t like to travel with my sewing machine, so appliqué was the approach I used.
Once started, I quickly finished all the houses, but uh-oh, I didn’t know all the embroidery stitches and had never worked with silk ribbon. So the blocks sat again waiting. The next retreat with the same group of gals to the same place meant the embellishment phase could begin.
The embroidery was done, blocks were assembled by machine, and I was ready to do the quilting. I referred to Leah Day’s 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs website for ideas and video instructions on filler designs for the background. All the varied filler designs are still favorites of mine, and I often run downstairs to look at this quilt on the wall when I need ideas on another project.
Quilt details: Finished size is 85” x 88”. The pattern is called The Quilted Village by the City Stitcher. Cotton fabrics, silk thread embroidery. Completed 2010. Cotton batting. Quilting thread DMC machine embroidery thread, two-ply, 50 weight cotton. Free motion quilted on home machine. Since there are lots of goat farms around Lake Hartwell, I made the label in the shape of a goat.
This photo is one I made a few years ago to use on the invitations to my family reunion. Pictured are a platter and pitcher from the Tea Leaf dinnerware which was my grandmother’s pattern. On the evening of Ollie Jane’s wedding in 1890, her mother hosted a supper for family. She served the meal on those dishes and gave them as a gift to the bride and groom. These two pieces in the photo were later purchases, but I do have one plate left that was on Ollie Jane’s table that night. The large pitcher was one she used and I still use it, too.
Happy Fourth of July from Bunk Bates. I don’t know who Bunk is, or even if he is a he or a she. But this photo has been a part of my life for as long as I can recall. It was in my Great Aunt Nellie’s photo album. The name “Bunk Bates” was scrawled across the bottom.
idered 48 French knots to represent stars, added some free motion quilting, and layered it atop a piece of an old quilt. I guess it represents my freedom from all the rules of quilting, because I followed few of them.
In February, I was quite busy with several demanding projects. Some of them kept me occupied at the computer, others at the sewing machine, preparing for our guild’s imminent quilt show. What I needed was some hand stitching to soothe my rattled nerves.
I found three colors I liked, chose a solid fabric for the background, and stitched them over a few evenings in front of the television. Recently, I layered the top with Dream Wool batting and a piece of hand-dyed fabric from Wendy Richardson as the back. I outlined the appliqué and stitched several rows of echo quilting using a variegated thread. The various edge designs; pebbles, straight lines, and continuous curves were stitched using a neutral color thread of the same weight.
This whole project was based on revisiting something I had liked from an earlier quilt. Four Little Pitchers was my entry in our guild’s annual challenge in 2009. The challenge was to make a four-block quilt. I drew the shapes of the pitchers based on some pieces from my pottery collection, used needleturn appliqué to stitch them to the black background, and separated the four blocks with a tiny (1/4”), subtle sashing of black with silver dots. Then I appliquéd the vine using the pattern from Emily Senuta’s basket book, and continued the design with the quilting motif. In that case, I continued the vine in green, then echoed all with a black thread.
The sashing turned out to be so tiny and so subtle that it became invisible, but I always liked the result of the vine motif and wanted to work with that design again. Especially after I began using wool batting, I wanted to use it to give extra dimension to the leaves in the quilted vines. The vine in the latest project is twice the size of the original pattern.
There is something soothing about the pulling of thread through cloth. I find myself out of sorts if days (okay, even one day) go by without some time spent stitching.
The top photo is one of me working on Blocks in Blue while staying at the Inn at Iris Meadows in Waynesville, NC. That quilt was hand pieced and machine quilted in 2005. It finished at 27” square, and was one of my early attempts at free motion machine quilting. I used invisible nylon thread in the top, a matching cotton thread in the bobbin.
Today I find myself doing two things I thought I wasn’t doing anymore. Prewashing fabric, and dyeing fabric.
And, last week I stitched the wool piece you see here from a Maggie Bonanomi 
So, I had some blackberries we weren’t eating as fast as we should, I boiled them with some water in the microwave, and added some fabrics. If you think you see bits of berries in the bowl, you are right. I’m hoping for a mottled effect.
When antiquing, I keep my eye peeled for vintage linens like the ones I found today at Blue Moon Antiques and Vintage Junktion (both stores in Warner Robins, GA). I’m always hoping to rescue a treasure from the trash bin. I look for linen or cotton, and pass up any that have a polyester feel to them. I want hand embroidery or appliqué, but don’t turn up my nose at some older pieces that were machine made.
As I’m looking and touching and plundering, I’m dreaming. I’m planning and scheming projects galore! I love it when a vendor asks, “what are you going to do with these?” Today I pulled out my phone, shared a few photos of recent pieces, and gave them some ideas to ponder. I could see their wheels turning as well as mine. After all, they love the vintage cloth, too. That’s why they have so much on hand.
This newly completed piece is one I began earlier this month in a “Second Chances” class with Susan Lenz in Tifton, Ga. Susan’s work with textiles takes on many forms, but in this class, we worked with grave rubbings and vintage linens to rescue memories and bits of fiber that might otherwise be lost.
The dove’s image is on dupioni silk, the background fabric is synthetic. The ruffle is from a cotton pillow sham, the black lace a remnant in the bin of fabrics. The dove is stitched with hand-guided, free motion quilting on a sewing machine. All the other stitches and beading are done by hand. Some beads came from Susan’s bins, others were supplemented from my supplies once the class was done.
The quilt back is a piece of a tattered silk log cabin quilt I found a few months ago in an antique store. The label is a linen piece I bought from some other antiquing trip. I’ve been rescuing such treasures for a long time, but only when I became acquainted with Susan’s work was I daring enough to cut them apart and use them fearlessly.
Children are so observant. They see details that we adults pass right by.
Quilt details: Finished measurements: 36″ x 50″, batting was probably 80% cotton, 20% polyester, quilting was straight lines with walking foot.