Quilting STRONG: Home

   Given the quilt challenge topic "Strong," I remembered the countless lessons and encouragement in my childhood home to be physically, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and morally strong. While I thought about other images of strength for this quilt, I quickly doodled my head above a fast scribble of my house on scratch paper (see below).

     No matter how I thought about the flags of "Boston Strong," weights of all kinds and symbols of strength in mythology, I was always drawn back to the major import of home for encouraging the strength of people, the oversized head image in my scribble very slightly influenced by Francisco Goya's giant.

     I enlarged my scribble and used a light box to pen it with a Sharpie on fabric. I then "scribbled" again with scissors and fabric, spottily gluing down the quickly cut fabric for house and lawn with Aileen's Tacky Glue. The home image is neither calm nor orderly. It's size looms big, multiple and important.

   
    After being fairly satisfied with the image and thinking that painting would have been much easier, I layered maroon tulle atop the 12" x 12" to further secure the small pieces of fabric. I also cut a black backing larger than the quilt and brought it over the front sides to hand-stitch a border. I machine-stitched a bit of everything with invisible thread and then embroidered the face and clouds with a back stitch and a running stitch, respectively, using no. 8 thread. Click to enlarge the images.

Framing mini-quilts: an easy task

     People always wonder what I will do with my numerous 8" x 8" and 12" x 12" journal quilts. I stack them in little suitcases of similar size. Framing and big quilting suggestions abound. I just enjoy "leafing" through my portable exhibition to show friends; but Donna Jean's suggestion of sewing them to a pre-stretched inexpensive canvas caught my attention. I wanted to try it. Here is what I did:

     I bought the pre-stretched canvas on sale at Michael's. I selected a compatible fabric for attaching the quilt with a running stitch.  And I cut the fabric about two inches wider on all sides. I next centered the quilt on the frame cover, turned it over  and stitched a simple little running stitch all around. I want to be able to easily remove the quilt from the frame, yet make the piece secure enough to hang. 

     I set the canvas upside down onto the running stitches that I had just sewn. 

     Making sure all was centered carefully, I spread Aleene's Original Tacky glue all around to each EDGE of the canvas and over the stapled area, one side at a time. This glue dries relatively quickly and holds beautifully. It can be a messy task with fingers so I used a big wooden knitting needle. I smoothed all the edges, giving special attention to smart corners.

      My regret was that I cut the landscape quilts to fit the frame. Landscapes should not be cramped. I also forgot to finish embellishing them with hand stitching before framing. It can still happen, but I was too interested in the framing to slow down. If you click the photos to enlarge, you can almost see the frame supports for the quilts which can now hang easily with a little more importance and respect :*)  !

This is what I did during Boston's 2013 snowstorm, along with reading The Snow Child, a novel by Eowyn Ivey!

Hearty Beating: a journal quilt

Click to see naughty errant heart waves.

   

      I belong to an international 12 x 12 quilt group, The Material Mavens. Every two months we have a new theme chosen by one of the members. It was my turn and I chose "surprise," having no idea what to do. Not one idea came to me. I do love surprises. One should have them at every gathering, dinner party or meetings up...even in blogs and journal quilts. Today was REVEAL day when all show their quilts on the theme.

     Life intervened to save the day, somewhat. I had some wild times with my heart and some good news as well, each happening, positive and negative, a complete surprise to me. I won't bore you with details, but the loud colors, the brash conflicts and softness in the quilt show the two extremes. Previously, in times of Afib thinking, I had quilted and beaded tiny rectangular heart quilts; and this assignment gave me an opportunity to display them. Across the center of the 12 x 12, I sewed some fusible thread in an EKG chart similar to an irregular reading and placed foil over the stitching to iron the iridescent waves.

     The 12 x 12 quilt content is purposefully irregular and needs some balance and resolution but the topic has none. so that is appropriate for my "Surprise" journal quilt. The backing comes over the sides of the front to make the binding or edge.

Birthday Reflections in Fiber: a Journal Quilt

     Birthdays keep happening. I wanted to make a journal quilt as an extra for a friend's celebration (perhaps for people to sign the back or to hold greetings in an envelope attached to the back). I Googled "quilt birthday cakes" Images and blogs, and found many quilts and quilted cakes. One complicated piece at Threads of Conversation tempted me. I tried to paper piece it without a pattern. I made the top backwards and sewed the pedestal on upside down twice and gave up. My proportions were so bad I had to add a frame.
      I decided to free-motion machine quilt with a multi-colored Superior thread and 90/14 needle and to bring the backing of cherries around to the front to form the edge or binding.It would help to slow down to plan!

Click to enlarge

       I stitched  some quotations* I had found for fabric fortune cookies should I decide to take those as a non-caloric addition to the party. So why were these quilting failures so much fun? Practice does not make perfect!.  Why would one want to quilt when people's eyes glaze over when you talk about it or your work is not perfect? Clueless here.
      Often I make quilts for people and then want to keep them. Aren't they fortunate! I may add "For LinLin1 on one side of the lower pedestal and "love LinLin2" on the other side. The whacky construction mirrors the whackiness of additional years. By the way, I have a real present for her.

*The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.(English proverb)
   Age, like distance lends a double charm. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
    Youth is a gift of nature, but age is a work of art. (Garson Kanin)

Harmony on the Homefront: a Material Mavens quilt

    My friend, Alice, founded an international 12" x 12" art quilt group blog, Material Mavens. I had given her a book for her birthday about a similar group which lit a fire in her. She is quite the organizer.

     Our first challenge was to make a quilt about "harmony." On September 15, we all revealed our quilts and a new theme was chosen for the next two months.

Home Harmony

        My journal quilt design developed this way:  Three things happened at once. My accuquilt cutter arrived. Joe and I were babysitting the grandchildren while their parents moved their home to another state.  I needed to think "harmony."

       I was excited to try the cutting machine and placed an inexpensive blended roll of batiks into the chopper to get numerous triangles and many squares of two sizes. In creating the quilt, I limited myself to what was available in this particular stash of batiks.

       Off and on, the children concentrated to make houses of squares and rectangles. They had "house" on the mind and organized a tabletop of multi-colored homes (small square and triangle on big square as in the center).  Harmony, however imperfect (I put the house on in the wrong direction) prevailed in several directions. This two-sided quilt is an homage to that time, the youngsters' design, and my new helper, the fabric cutting machine.

Material Girls Adventure: a journal quilt

     In late June, my friend Ann and I headed west to the Material Girls Quilt Guild show in Leominster, Central Massachusetts.  We took off the day for culinary pleasures and art. Certainly, Jessica's works at that show were a major draw. We started at a top diner, did the show in depth, and stopped for a seafood lunch and baskets of farm strawberries on the way home.  I couldn't ignore this outing when there is a strawberry challenge quilt to be made for the Journal Quilt Connection 12" x 12" group! (see last week's strawberry blog)

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     But sometimes things don't work out! I wanted a basket weave pattern (such as I found at the fabulous  Quilter's Cache/Marcia Hohn), alternating the yellows with the reds); but I didn't have enough basket yellow.  I thought I would have a learning experience this afternoon and gamble on two prints of no contrast. I learned my lesson :*{ I did a basket weave and I used some strawberries albeit accompanied by kiwis. I alternated the strawberries with cars and put a simplified strawberry pattern on the back and drew it around the sides for a binding. Let me tell you, the back looks better than the front. Why the cars? We drove and drove and drove! all over the place, having a good time looking for quilt stores, inspired by the fabulous show where we saw great talent and picked up inspirational books and fabrics. Such sweet memories make me fond of this troubled little journal quilt!

Oh Sleep It is a Blessed Thing: a Journal Quilt

      After teaching English and history to 7th graders and becoming enamored of art history along the way, I decided to go to art school on my 50th birthday. My feet were like lead in cement, walking across the street from the museum to apply to the SMFA. I painted and painted, dawn to dusk, and the best time for dreaming up ideas for my canvas was in bed after everyone was sound asleep. So quiet...I could think.

click to enlarge

      Dreaming up new ideas became a habit but that is not good if everyone in the house awakens at 6 a.m. to go to work or be walked (dog). Nevertheless, I still love to think late at night, and then when there are lots of new adventures and beginnings as there are in our family now, I really need to sleep more to keep up with the crowd. 

       This is my second 12" x 12" journal quilt for my new group in Massachusetts, the Journal Quilt Connection. For July, birthdays or new beginnings is the topic. I was planning this as an extra quilt, but the Ohm and Om fit right in with the idea, if the website I found is correct, which explains the meaning of OM. I saw the fabrics with letters and pictured them and images coming out of my head as my head was on the pillow. I made the binding by pulling the backing over the sides to hem. I used a batik fabric for the face and machine stitched absolutely everything.

         First I sketched the idea, then gathered the fabric, scissors, glue stick and Wonder Under. I was off!