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.

Mother's Day Beth: a journal quilt

This week I am doing, not one, but two journal quilts...and really there should be a third for the east of Weston MA big water pipe break.

But this is Mother's Day weekend. I subjected my daughter-in-law, Beth, mother of my three grandchildren, to a quilt portrait: I put tea or coffee cups in the background because she makes me welcome at any time, and is always offering coffee, tea or supper. She is a devoted mother. The three paper dolls make her crown, and she always has plenty of bags on her shoulders.

Who will be next in this two hour exercise. Thanks to Clara Wainwright and Adrienne Robinson for the inspiration for this sort of casual portrait quilt and to Geri Barr for the idea of these sketches, 8"x 8" journal quilts, one a week for a year. Hoping not to portray Beth so horrifically as I do myself, I used the stamp filter on Photoshop Elements for a teeny bit of help, but mostly, I cut out free hand and scribbled with the glue stick and sewing machine.

Click to enlarge.