I recently described this work as “my first major quilt.” It was completed in 2007, so it doesn’t belong in the catalog of my latest work, but the elements I included in it still appear in many more recent designs.
The quilt was made over a period of six years. I completed other quilts during that time, but this was an ongoing project. One of the first piecing techniques that intrigued me was English paper piecing. I basted the 1” hexagons on freezer paper and had a portable project. Since I was still working full time, I stitched while riding in the car and on visits with my mother in her assisted living facility, on the porch with her at her nursing home, and in hospital waiting rooms when my sister was ill.
As I was learning more about the world of quilting, I began to think of ways to combine these hexagons with other quilting techniques. Once I learned needleturn appliqué, I wanted to add some curves to my pieced elements. I assembled ten of the Grandmother’s Flower Garden units, appliquéd them to a background, and planned to add a vine with leaves in the border.
I actually made another small quilt to explore the technique of the two-colored border with the vine separating them. That worked, so I interpreted it large scale.
I wanted a bit more interest in the center of the quilt (well, not really the center…I was already embracing the idea of asymmetrical balance), so I made a bouquet of flowers using some elements of flowers from Barb Adams and Alma Allen’s Quilting in the Garden (a quilt I completed sometime in this process).
I made my first bow with trapunto here. I loved the bow. I still like bows. Especially plaid bows. They reveal the folds created when a ribbon is rumpled to tie a knot.
Certainly not the least challenging was the quilting. Then a beginner, I quilted the hexagons with a continuous curve motif, echoed around the appliqué, used my version of one of Diane Gaudynski’s filler designs in the inner border, and stitched a double grid in the outer border. The only element of the quilting that was marked was half of the straight lines (they are 1” apart) and then quilted 1/4” away from that using the edge of the free motion foot. Then, as now, the straight line quilting is the most challenging motif in free motion quilting, but I do still love the effect.
When it was time to give this quilt a title, I enlisted my husband’s input. He came up with Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden to honor the traditional blocks of hexagons and give tribute to my quilting grandmother, Ollie Jane Hasty.
This quilt has had quite a career appearing in quilt shows and going to lectures with me. She has earned some ribbons and accolades, but I haven’t retired her. She hangs in the stairwell of our home, as close to the center of our lives as she can be.
The quilt used all cotton fabrics, some reproduction feed sacks. Batting is Dream Cotton request. Quilting thread is DMC machine embroidery cotton 50 weight / 2ply. Finished dimensions are 58” x 68”.
I am creating a journal quilt again this year, Fifty-two Wednesdays. Each week, I select one image from my life and stitch it into a rectangular block.
There is a phrase buzzing around on Facebook these days when people describe their husbands, “not perfect, but perfect for me.” Well, that is certainly true of my husband, but I recently thought of the phrase with respect to houses. I was cleaning out some old file folders filled with inspirational ideas for decorating, sewing, and gardening. Along with those, I have kept a folder filled with house plans. For many years, I thought my dream house was in there somewhere.
Many quilts are made in small units, or blocks, which are then assembled into a larger quilt top. Most quiltmakers I know have an abundance of “orphan blocks”. These can result when a project is abandoned, when extra blocks were made to test color combinations or size, or when the stitcher simply changed her mind about where the design was going.
Some of these baskets and bunnies still reside in a basket awaiting their opportunity to shine. The photo you see here is a quilt top that came about when my minigroup needed a quick project for a donation effort a few years ago. The timing was Spring, my stitching sisters remembered my collection, and we got busy. The completed top was quilted by a local longarm expert and we had a sweet little quilt in record time!
I’m upstairs now in my sewing haven cutting up some coveted fabric collections and sewing them back together. I boast in Fifty-Two Tuesdays that I’m all about using the good stuff. But sometimes I think I should experiment with less desirable fabric, “in case I mess it up.” How’s that for a negative self image?
I sometimes have sleepless nights.
This little quilt is a special treasure. It was made with strategies I don’t normally employ. I bought a charm pack of French General fabric (red is not usually my go-to color), came home and started stitching (I often mull over design plans for quite some time before I start cutting and sewing), I appliquéd baskets in front of tv several evenings until it was done, assembled the top and quilted the project all in about a month.
love…a basket sitting on one square, its
The quilt is named to honor a sweet perky little lady I knew in my childhood. Miss Lily. Here she is pictured beside the love of her life, Mr. Charlie.
When I first conceived “Fifty-Two Tuesdays” I proposed to make a mini quilt each week for a year. I planned a written journal to accompany it, thinking that at the end of the year I would have a finished quilt and a book. I shared this vision with my writing group at the outset. They embraced the idea and as the year progressed, they asked questions about the structure of “the book”. My creative focus was on the quilt itself and keeping a journal of the details; fabrics included, threads, batting, techniques.