12 Days Applique

My friend Shirley and I were bored, and we challenged one another to this quilt. We had the patternm by Mimi Shimp, but we both changed it dramatically – I wanted the blocks in the order they were sung, so enlarged them all to 18 x 18. We also used the beautiful duppioni silks readily available in Doha, and other more difficult fabrics.

The main motif was totally hand appliqued, but the minor motifs were machine appliqued.

We had given ourself 6 months to get the blocks finished, and another year to hand quilt the resulting top. The reality – after 2 1/2 years, I machine quilted the finished top just to get it done. I am not unhappy. I love this quilt, and I will hang it for one month every year, from December 6th – the Feast of St. Nicholas – until January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany.

Tile Quilt

Helene taught our Saturday group how to do this easy tiled quilt, another of the stack and slash quilts. Again, I doubled the number of fabrics to make a larger quilt. You use freezer paper ironed onto the top fat quarter to guide your slashes.

Cathy’s Grandmother Quilt

Our friend had a Grandmother shower for Cathy, and we all gave her presents for her new grandbaby. I made this baby quilt – it was one of my first adventures into machine applique, and I love it!

Seaside Bride: Double Wedding Ring

I made this for my son and his new wife. It was a very fiddly quilt to make, and I was never really happy with how I bound the scalloped edges. I swore I would never make another, but I am SO unhappy with this one that I might have to just to get it right.

Sandy’s Farewell Bag

Sandy was leaving and I wanted her to have a little gift:

I sure hope I cut that thread off before I gave it to her! ;-P

Quilts for Louise

Louise had a baby, a beautiful baby boy – who wouldn’t sleep for a while. I made quilts for both the baby and his beautiful big sister.

Nathalie’s Cat Quilt

I had promised Nathalie a fish quilt, but young people change their ideas. It’s a good thing I checked with her, she said she wanted cats, in pink! in purple! in turquoise! and waiting in my stash was a perfect Laurel Burch fabric with pink, purple and turquoise cats. You can see it in the middle and the inner forder.

I wanted to distract her from her evacuation from Beirut during the 2006 Israeli invasion.

Naomi’s Baby Quilt

Naomi’s brand new baby needed a very Gulf baby quilt, so I did a camel with a braided tail. The black around the camel has crescent moons in it, a traditionally Islamic motif. Paper piecing has never been my favorite technique, but it is a lot easier when you blow a small pattern up 400%!

Krista’s Paris Quilt

This is my beautiful daughter-in-law who was teaching English in France, and perfecting her French at the same time. I made her a Paris quilt with some really cool fabric I found that had cafe scenes and Eiffel towers on it.

The background fabric is ecru on ecru, an old map of Paris. The whole quilt was so much fun.

Khanjar

I made this for the first challenge the Qatar Quilters ever held. A khanjar is a curved daggar worn at the waist, primarily in Oman and Yemen. I wanted to use a piece of Damascus silk brocade left over from an evening dress (my husband had brought me the silk from Syria) and I wanted to do some embroidery and embellishment with the fabulous silver thread they use in Oman. I machine quilted a palm tree and my name in black thread on the black background. I kept it. I love this piece.