Sweetheart Quilt
I know this pattern originally came from one of the Quilting magazines. As I never do anything the way I am told, I changed the block size and created my own quilting patterns to accomodate my growing machine quilting skills. This one his half hand quilted and half machine quilted.
I made it for my son, for the girl he would one day marry. Thanks be to God, he chose a wonderful woman, and I was delighted to send him the quilt to give to her. Then, I forgot it until I went to photograph the Seminole quilt, and found this quilt next to that! I wonder how many other quilts are out there that I can’t even remember?
When I teach this quilt, I show the class, and then fold it and ask what color it is. When they say “red and white” we look at the quilt again, to see the huge variety of colors that qualify as “red” in this quilt, all the way from deep purples to orang-y oranges, and the entire range of prints and solids in between. Scrap quilts are fun that way – they can fool the eye. And there is a real art to making sure the colors blend, and that no one color draws the eye and attracts too much attention to itself.
Seminole Graduation Quilt
This was one of my very earliest quilts, and looking at it now, I am in total wonder at how carefully I worked on it.
This pattern itself, sometimes called Bethlehem Star, sometimes called Lone Star (and more names, these are just the two I could remember!) is very complicated for a beginner. I used Quilts Quilts Quilts! one of my all time favorite books, to guide me in the making.
Then, I drew and quilted a Seminole in the bottom left quadrant, my son’s name, year of graduation and degrees in the bottom right quadrant, and some autumn leaves in the upper quadrants. Looking at it 8 years later, I am impressed at how hard it must have been for me, but I chose to do it. Woooo Hooooo on me! And hand quilting on black! Imagine!
Bordered, of course, with my first efforts at Seminole piecing. It is at the same time attributable (I couldn’t have done it without the guidance of Quilts Quilts Quilts) and utterly original, with all the Seminole touches.
