Journal Quilts for memories

    Except for one tv segment on Boston's The Good Day Show, I don't believe I ever quilted until I saw an enticing sign in the Cambridge Quilt Shop advertising a journal quilt workshop. Geri Barr from Australia had our group layering fabric backing, batting and top to commemorate a memorable or significant event each week in our lives. If you type "journal quilt" in the search area in the top left of this page you can see I have written many times about these. Better still, my website has two very long pages of these journal quilts.

     I missed making these small, 2- hour 8" x 8" quilts that start out as 10" x 10." I hope to get back to them...one a week. This week I am remembering 8-year-old Hannah's asking me fairly recently if I got my ears pierced:
"No, Hannah, but if I ever get up my nerve, I'll have you and Erika go with me."
"Oh never mind," she said. "Don't worry. You only have about ten years left and it would just be a waste!"
"Only ten years?" I asked.
"Oh, or twenty," she recovered, a bit red-faced.

      After layering and adding ideas, I pin the three layers together to quilt them. Next, I place the "sandwich" under a posterboard frame, the center of which is 8" x 8," draw and sew along the markings. I then cut off the edges with pinking shears. Fiskars work very well. After making do in the past, I finally got good markers: Sewline yellow fabric pencil for dark fabrics and The Fine Line blue marker for light fabrics. Both markers rinse out immediately and beautifully with water. Remember to only spend 2 hours on these. They are "sketches" or fodder for something else. If you spend much more time on them, you may cease to create one a week.

        I wanted 3-D flapping ears and the flying clocks. I use multicolored thread for the writing hints. I have two suitcases full of these soft quilted memories and am starting a third.

Heart and Flower Die Cuts with Grands

click to enlarge

     My flower and heart dies arrived for my new Accuquilt machine. I wanted to cut out some hearts and flowers for the children to make something.
     First, I WonderUnder-fused the backs of fabrics from my birthday quilt and rolled those through the die cutting machine. I cut the bigger hearts in half and took the flower stems, petals, flowers and circles in a plastic bag to the children's house when we went to Friday supper. Hannah and Erika placed the cut-outs on a 1/4 yard of quilted yellow fabric which I had halved, one section to each girl. The children made their placements, pinned them and I returned home to iron and stitch the hearts and flowers on.
     Erika just wanted to hug hers as it was, but I stitched a bias tape around the edges. Hannah wanted to turn hers into a purse for craft projects. I slipped some new scissors in since she was frustrated that hers were not sharp enough to cut the fleece she was using to make a quilt at home.  I bound Hannah's with grosgrain ribbon I had fused. My sewing is NOT professional, but sometimes you want to find results fast. I must slow down! (two blogs in 24 hours is not slowing down). Oh, I also bought a Fiskars scissor sharpener. Did not know about those.