World in Stitches

Today was a day we wait for all year long in the Q8Quilters Quilt Guild. We have the big Kuwait Textile Arts Association Show coming up this weekend, so today everybody gathered to share what we have been working on this year.

It’s mostly the quilters gathering, but quilters are often craftswomen in other areas, too. We had some Sadu woven pieces show up, and many bags, thanks to several workshops, and some cross stitch and some embroidered pieces.

The challenge catagories this year are Quilting Motion and Quilting Emotion, and there were some magnificent pieces that showed up. Everyone has been busy finishing up projects to be ready for this weekend.

This is a quilt I made for a very good friend’s newest grandchild. I call it Spring Chaos, because of the lifely, whirling hormonal activity going on. I can hardly wait to give it to her.

This quilt is called Black and White and Blood all over. It has to do with Beirut, and Kenya, and Zimbabwe, it has to do with man-made disasters and natural disasters. I made it to celebrate a significant graduation. I can hardly wait to give it to my niece.

This last one is for my sister, a sophisticate who loves black and white. I love the way the 8 pointed cross fits exactly with the cross. It’s called Reciprocals.

The Quiltathon held March 24th at the Dar Al Cid was a huge success! Actually running from 8 in the morning to 9 at night, more than 50 women dropped in, some staying the entire day, some working in the morning, some working in the afternoon, some in the evening - and the group made - ta da! - either 33 quilts or 35 quilts, depending on who you talk to.

Not all the quilts are finished, there is still work to do - but hey, we definitely accomplished our goal! Wooo Hoooooo q8Quilters!

And we got good press, too!

Kuwait Times:

Arab Times:

These are the quilts I made for Alanna’s Orphans. I tried a new technique - it looked so easy when our friend did it. For me, sometimes the “easier” techniques turn out to be harder. Like for me, the dreaded applique comes easy. For me, it is fast. This one was - for me - HARD!

I found myself jumping back and forth from cutting to sewing. I did all the quilting at the end. If I were to do another one, I would maybe quilt as I go, but that means a lot of changing threads. . . no, I don’t think I will do any of these again. Sewing through six layers is difficult to do with accuracy, and then doing the quilting - for me - is not easy. I’m glad I tried it, I’m glad I finished the quilts, and I think I will stick to techniques that work better for me.  

This coming Monday, March 24, all quilters in Q8 are meeting in a huge Quiltathon to put together quilts for the orphanage. Our goal is 20 quilts. I am secretly hoping we complete more!

In support of the Q8Quilters goal of sending 20 quilts to  Alanna’s Orphans project to provide quilts for an orphanage in Kurdistan, I have posted a new page with simple quilts that can be made quickly for charitable projects.

The quilts for Alanna’s project are supposed to be 55″ x 77″ (more or less). Alanna has said AROUND 55″ x 77″ as the kids range in age from 5 - 15, and the quilts will be used as bedding.

Any of the quilts can also be made smaller. They are all good for using up perfectly good fabrics left over from earlier quilting projects.

Over on the right, under “Pages” you will see a page called Quick Quilts for Charity. They are very basic quilts, and you are free to use them and modify them any way you wish.

Don’t you just love people who, instead of talking about “wouldn’t it be nice if somebody . . . ”  say instead “I can make a difference?” 

I want to introduce you to  Alanna’s Orphans and to Alanna. Alanna is a Canadian member of our Q8Quilters (how cool is that? I have lived in TWO countries that start with a “Q” counting Q8!) whose husband came back from a trip into Northern Iraq just full of stories about an orphanage he had visited here, and how moved he was, and how badly he wanted to help.

I want you to go to her site. Just click on the blue type above, and go read her story.

Our Quilting Guild (the Q8Quilters, remember?), sponsored by our parent organization, the Kuwait Textile Arts Association, have committed to donate at least 20 quilts, around 55″ x 75″ for the orphans, ages between 5 and 15. It makes my heart sing to be involved in such a wonderful project.

We are doing it in March! Quiltmakers month! March 24 we will gather from 9 am to 9 pm to cut, sew, sandwich, quilt, and bind a minimum of 20 quilts. The truth is . . . it’s going to be a lot of fun. When quilters get together, there is SO much laughter! And (ahem) there is always food, really good food, there is always CHOCOLATE!

I am going to create a separate page with instructions for some of the very simple quilts we are going to create for this project, so that if you ever need simple quilts, you can use these very elementary instructions. I will also try to post some of the quilts we come up with for the orphanage.

But hurry now! Go read Alanna’s blog!

This isn’t utterly original. I found a camel in a coloring book and copied it. I love the batik fabric, with it’s mottled variations, and I love the background fabric, which was probably an upholstery fabric (I found it in Qatar and loved it’s desert coloring).

As I stitched it, I found myself thinking how very much I love hand applique.

The friend I made it for has a soul for adventure. I travelled with her once, and learned to admire her steadfast calm, her utter sang froid, and her ability to manage people without ever once appearing bossy. We will all miss her presence, and her invaluable role-model.

The problem with a specialty blog, like quilting, is that in order to quilt, you have to make the time! When you are in a quilting frenzy - you have less time to blog.

And I have another consideration - I don’t want people running across these photos who might be on the receiving end. I think I am just about safe, now.

For my friend I grew up with in Alaska, who now has Alzheimers, I made a set of napkins and tablemats, and an apron. We looked at this fabric together, I bought some to use for my Dad’s Alaskan Quilt; she passed, thought the fabric was too expensive. I learned a lesson - buy that fabric now! Who knows what may happen tomorrow!

She made so many sets of napkins for me, and I still have the last set.

The apron is called a “tablier” (tah- blee- ayy’).

When our son started school in Tunisia, we had a list of things to buy him, all of which I could find except this mysterious “tablier”. I thought it might be a writing tablet or board, until someone showed me an apron, identical on both front and back, that children wear when painting or doing work with glue, etc. I liked it so well - and I am so messy - that I figured out how to make it grown-up size, and have been making them for myself and friends ever since.

I even wear the tablier while quilting - keeps most of the threads on the tablier, and not on me!

I hope it will remind my friend of our happier times together, growing up in Alaska.

It doesn’t happen all that often - I have such good self discipline, I work away at my works in progress. . . but I saw the border fabric and fell totally in love. You know the feeling, your heart is beating faster and your breath is shallow and comes in short gasps. . . I ordered the fabric the very night I first saw it, and the coordinating fabric, which you see in the center blocks.

I love Irish chain, I love the motion and I love the way it frames a beautiful fabric, and I love purple and green together, so for me, this all worked.

I had never done a triple Irish chain before, but I found an easy description of how to do it - and did it!

And I mitred the corners of that beautiful striped lilac border fabric:

And then, having just taken a “Master Class” with a lovely woman who tried to teach us so much more than my poor little brain could absorb - but I remembered a couple important things. She said you could do feathers in free motion, it just took a little practice. And she said you had to TRY things, even if you thought you couldn’t do them.

The woman is a total inspiration to me. She is modest, it is just her nature, and sweet, and very funny, too. Her quilts win big prizes every year at the annual quilt show. And she shares, she gives it away, and she encourages people to aspire to do more and to do it better. So . . . with those perfect lilac blocks, I decided to do feather circles.

They aren’t perfect. I used a sandwich plate and a Hera marker (has a sharp edge to mark fabric with a crease, but doesn’t leave any lasting lines) to get perfect circles, and proceeded to make imperfect but passable feather wreaths.

On the front, of course, you can barely even tell they are there. I did them for me, because I needed to know I could do it, not to be perfect. And to me, they are good enough. Here is one from the back, where you CAN see them:

And, because I love the fabric so much and wanted to use ALL of it, or as much as I could, in this quilt, I also made a BIG label for the quilt, with a lilac border frame:

I blocked out my name. Some of you will know me by the quilts, but I am not eager to put my name out on the ‘net. This is just another attempt at documenting my quilts in a way that doesn’t disappear with every move. Sigh!

Sometimes friends are leaving, sometimes it is just right to say thank you. Members of the Q8Quilters each made a block or two in earth colors and in sea colors, and we put the blocks together in quilts to remind Shyamala and Penny of our WARM friendships.

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.