Lemonade

I made a quilt I loved, but I tried a new technique, I stitch-painted a section of a quilt to get the arm quilted, but also I wanted it to look realistic. I succeeded, I loved the look, but, horror of horrors, it distorted the quilt top. I mean really badly, it drew up the fabric tightly, so that around it, the fabric sagged.

It was truly horrible.

I had also used really expensive fabric, fabric I bought from a historical reproduction producer at the World Quilt Show in Holland in 2003 or so, fabric I can’t replace.

I obsessed over how to fix it, and finally, I cut it up. My friends gasped in horror, but the truth is, it couldn’t be fixed.

I have saved the pieces, the arms I love, the pomegranate. I have some fabric left, and one day, maybe even one day soon, I will give it another try. I loved the idea. I had great fun working with transparent and translucent fabrics, and oh my, as much as I hate snakes, I loved working on this one; the fabric just made him so tempting and sparkly and I thought how perfectly analogous it is, that the symbol for the embodiment of sin is a snake and that the snake could look so alluring. If it’s not alluring, it’s not temptation, right?

The snake is gone, most of the snake, but a part of him I rescued, and he protects my iPad, which I also love in a metaphorical kind of way, as the gateway to the Internet can lead to good or to evil, depending on your choices and whether you can resist the allure of temptation. He is a reminder, with his open mouth, ready to strike, and his thin, venomous teeth, to monitor myself, my choices . . . And I do like it that he has been redeemed from a quilt that was a terrible failure

(For my foreign quilting friends unfamiliar with American idioms and adages, the title is based on an old saying “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”)

Kuwait Map Quilt

There is a new Kuwait baby quickly approaching his birth date, and a baby for which a very special quilt needed to be made. His parents were instrumental in our having had such a good time in Kuwait. We were introduced by one of my Qatari friends who had spent time in Kuwait, and she was right – we were meant to be friends.

The first night we met, we started talking and never stopped. We explored restaurants together, strolled through the souks, and heard all kinds of stories of old Kuwait. Our time with them was – and is – priceless.

I like for a baby quilt to have legs – useful as a crawl pad, useful as a cover to sleep under, washable, washable, washable and in the end, able to be hung on the wall of an otherwish anonymous college dorm room. This one will do the trick, plus having lots and lots of patterns to keep a baby fascinated as he learns how to focus his eyes

I’d forgotten how much work a map quilt can be in the preparation stages. This relatively small quilt (60in x 60 inches until I washed it and it shrank about 2 inches in both directions; I’ve never had that happen before! It was noticeable!) has 900 pieces, and those 900 pieces had to include sea pieces, Kuwait pieces and Saudi and Iraq desert pieces (pale, pale, pale) Of course, there had to be a lot of variety.

Seeking, planning and cutting took longer than assembly. The land portions are quilted in the ditch, a grid, and the Arabian Gulf segments have waves quilted in thin silver strands, so they glint like the sunlight on the Arabian Sea.

There are many many blocks made from fabric finds from the Kuwait souks, also a few with Kuwait memories. In Arabic, there are “sun” words and “moon words” so I found a sun and a moon. A family nearby us had a private zoo where, from time to time, a large cat would escape and put my village in a panic until it was recovered . . . so there is a large cat. In the end, this was one of the most fun and rewarding quilts I have made.

Sheherazade: Magic Carpet

I don’t finish quilts as quickly as I once did, and I’ve been working for a while on this one, but oh, what fun. I loved choosing the fabrics, I loved designing it, and I loved figuring out the quilting motifs for all the borders.

I had a conversation with a quilter in our small group who quilts exquisitely, both by hand and machine. I told her I was giving up on machine quilting. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I found myself thinking that all I needed to do was to slow down and practice. I hated machine quilting when I started, but I got so it became acceptable. Taking it to another level is going to take some commitment. I’m no where near where I want to be, but I’m working on it, practicing, trying some new things, and there are elements that make me really happy.

This is the finished quilt:

Here are some close-ups. My favorite element is the paisley that turned into a minaret top in the purple hand-dye border.

I modified a technique my friend Paramjeet taught me. She encouraged us to go outside the lines, to try new things, anything we could think of. Nothing is out of bounds. The minaret tops have bands of zig-zag quilting, using a Coats and Clark metallic. I know there are people who say Coats and Clark is trash thread, but I have tried a lot of metallics, and the Coats and Clark metallics seem to break a lot less frequently than others.

For the yellow segment above, I made an iris template from some Indian design books I have. I really love it, and used it again in the fuchsia border, which is supposed to carry a carpet-border sort of feeling. I used a contrasting thread and went over designs more than once.

The quilt is designed for a baby girl coming who is very special to me; I want her to grow to be a strong and clever woman, so I made her a strong quilt.

Razan’s Stars

My sweet friend was having a baby and would not tell me if it was a boy or a girl! I had some lushious saturated fuschias I was dying to use, but it’s a good thing I went with a neutral-gender palate – she had a healthy baby boy!

This is the baby quilt I made for Razan:

Star Quilt for Razan’s Baby

The squares are eight inch squares, the stars a little irregular, but stitched on tightly so that the quilt can be washed. Finished size 52 1/2″ square.

Chained Islamic Stars

I actually started this quilt many many years ago, I believe while we still lived in Germany, and I got 37 squares finished and ran out of steam. It is a very fiddly design. I designed it myself. The finished square was 9 inches and the post and sashing was one inch, but it was all one inch, (cut 1.5″) and man, it was tiresome.

I also didn’t quite know how to make the chain work, but last week as I sorted in preparation for packing up the quilt room, I knew what to do. When I had a surprise and one morning of my week fell open, I was able to stitch 36 into a nice quilt top that I can use as a table cover – or something. I got to show it at the Qater Quilt Guild meeting yesterday, before it gets packed up. It will be months before I can get to it once more.

The truth is, even after 10 years, I love the intricately patterned fabrics I found for the stars. Ten years later, I rarely use white as a background – now, I am itching to try this same pattern (I can figure out now how to do it with less fuss) with a dark background. I love the way it has all gone together.

For my Kuwait friend – I don’t think you ever even saw this unfinished one, but slowly slowly I AM working on that pile of UFO’s you assigned me!

Barbie Gets An Edge

It’s not really starting a new quilt if you are using up fabrics and pieces you’ve already cut, is it? It’s like using stuff up, not going out and buying something new?

I went to my box of scraps and thought it would be fun to do a quick pink quilt, you always need a girlie quilt when a new baby girl comes along and I had a lot of pink 2 1/2 inch squares to use up. I thought it would be fun to put some 1 inch borders around each one, just to liven things up a little bit.

It isn’t a quick quilt. The four patches were a piece of cake, but putting the borders on is WORK. And I know I am making it harder on myself, but it matters where the colors go, like different colors have to be touching, and they have to sort of drift into one another . . . don’t they? It’s taking a lot longer to put together this top than I intended. At the same time, I find myself enjoying the process, and isn’t that the point, too? I am not doing this like a factory, it’s supposed to be FUN, not work!

Here is where I started:

This is where I am:

I still have six more rows to go:

Here’s where I am having fun – you know how Barbie is all sweet and that sweet pink, mostly like Pepto-Bismo Pink, some innocent and light pinks, sometimes hot pink, but very very pink, right? But I am thinking about Barbie grows up, Barbie faces real life with all it’s thrills and disappointments, the good times and the betrayals, and Barbie shifts into some raging reds, some violent violets and some outrageous oranges – all full of pink, but verging on out-there. I’m having a lot of fun with it. It makes me grin. It’s not a baby quilt. It’s not even a little girl quilt. A girl has to grow into this quilt!

Iceburg Experiment

My friend Paramjeet showed a new piece at our Quilt Guild meeting on Monday. She is working on half square triangles for a quilt, and with the trimmings she had left over from trimming down the half squares so they would be perfect, she made a small wall hanging of little irises in a field. It was beautiful. I looked at it and thought “I could never do that.”

Except that today, as I was finishing the quilting on the Lenten Cross, my mind kept turning to all my scraps from my own half square triangles, from the mystery quilt I am working on, and how they are all right here, right in the waste basket and hmmm. . . . I dug them out.

Paramjeet used flannel . . . so I go digging for flannel, only two, one orange with orang-er stripes, no that won’t do, and one purple . . . well it will have to do. I cut a square about 14 inches to play with.

I did just what she said she had done, well, maybe not exactly because I had a pile of scraps and I couldn’t remember how she made them all lie still while she stitched, I think she said they just stuck to the flannel but mine are not so well behaved, so I have to innovate a little . . .

And just as I am thinking what a total failure I am having, I make myself keep going, make myself finish, clip away the excess tulle, pin it on the wall, walk away, turn around and see if it looks anything like an iceburg on an icy sea . . . and . . . it does! Magic! Thank you, Paramjeet!

Update: Well, my little bubble has burst. A friend said she really likes my “praying hands” even though the attachment was labled “iceburg.” Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

Lenten Cross

I’ve been thinking our church needed a new hanging for Lent. We meet in the basement of a church that is not our own, and we don’t have a lot of things to make it our own. Lent this year is particularly somber, and as I am experimenting with low contrast (because I really love high contrast and I need to challenge myself) I envisioned a lighter purple with texture on a darker purple.

I went straight home from church, pulled out the fabrics and started cutting. After I got the main parts assembled, I needed to let it hang a little bit so I could percolate how I was going to finish it.

The lighter purple is an Italian textured silk I just love. The center is cut from quilter’s plastic, covered with the darker purple and then with the silver fishnet, an effect I just love and reflects Kuwait’s fishing and pearling history.

The priest blessed the cross today, and it can be hung tomorrow.

African Pathways Quilt

I know it looks like I haven’t been producing for a while and to some extent, it is true. I am working on a mystery quilt, I am working on a serious hand applique border to a pineapple quilt, and I have finished a few little projects but I forgot to photograph them, and once they are gone, they are gone, sometimes I don’t even remember I did them!

This one I just finished, and it was a labor of love.

In June of last year, a dream came true – we were able to take our son and our daughter-in-law on safari with us in Zambia. We stayed in the Robin Pope Camps – Tena Tena, Nsefu and Nkwali – and a second dream came true – at Nkwali, we stayed in the famed Robin’s House, which was pure heaven for a party of four who would then be going in separate direction. A third dream came true – they loved the trip as we hoped they would.

I had intended to make this quilt all along – for our son and his wife – and I started it, and had a lot of fun with it. I’ve been collecting fabrics forever with an African theme, and then a good friend had spent several years in Africa and I begged for some scraps from her, which she gladly and generously gave me.

Then my husband had a trip scheduled to the states unexpectedly, and I have an opportunity to get the quilt sent back with him. It hurried the process a little. I had it all put together and machine quilted, but I wanted to quilt some animal tracks on the paths. More on that later.

I don’t have a way to hang the quilt properly to get a good full scale photo – the quilt finished size is 84″ x 84″ – so I put it on the floor, climbed a ladder, shot the quilt and then tried to shop out all the background, so that is why it all looks so funky.

My husband says he loves this one almost as much as I Left My Heart in Africa.

I started with the Elephant tracks:

The elephant tracks took a lot longer than I had thought they would. I had done them on the entire path. Time is growing short. I did one set of lion prints:

And then, nearby, I did one set of impala tracks:

That is going to have to do. I told my husband, whose tracking book I had used to do the animal prints, that the hungry lion was waiting in the bush and ate the impala, and that is why there are so few lion and impala prints. :-0

Here is the label on the back (you can see the backing fabrics on the entry for March 2, 2009)

The rest of this entry is purely for people who love fabrics. You have been warned.

There is one fabric in this quilt that is almost thirty years old. It is the remainder of three meters of fabric I bought when we lived in Tunisia, lo, these many many many years ago. I loved it then, and I love it now. It has been in all three of the Africa quilts, in many other quilts made for family members and close friends, and now I am down to mere scraps, fortunately, enough to include in this quilt, because Tunisia, although North African, is truly also Africa. The pattern featured Bedouin jewelry patterns, the hand of Fatima, crescents, special pins to hold the sefsari together at the shoulders – and it is in turquoise and purple (be still my heart!) with black and white accentuation. Here it is featured in the center, and the second scrap is in the upper right quadrant of the quilt:

I was really really lucky to have a good friend who had also lived in Africa – she shared some scraps with me. There are people who might think some of them are ugly – an artist friend of mine told me once long ago “there are no ugly fabrics, only people lacking in imagination.” She also told me “the eye will blend!” two mantras I repeat to myself when I start obsessing over just the right fabric or just the right placement. She was right. You can cut chunks out of fabrics, any fabric, and make it work. There are some really really fun fabrics in this quilt:

Don’t you just love it? This one was from a big orange, very orange celebration of Gabon’s independence!

This fabric was from Senegal; don’t you love the digitalized palm tree?

I will admit, it was a challenge for me working in browns and yellows, not my favorite palette at all, but I find when I force myself out of my comfort zone, I grow, and learn to see thing in new ways. Some of the colors here I really did not like, but my artist friend was right – the eye will blend. Africa is a country of enormous diversity, and the quilt incorporates some wildly disparate colors, prints and values.

African Pathways is made with two simple blocks – a hatchet block, sometimes also called an anvil, and a 4 patch. In this quilt, all blocks were 4″ finished. The hatchet block is made by stitching a 2 1/2 incl square diagonally across opposite corners (diagonally) and cutting off the excess, leaving a 1/4 inch seam, flipping the top down and ironing, and a four patch is made up of 4 smaller blocks, cut 2.5 inches.

I have a friend who is a beginning quilter. When I showed her how the quilt was made, she said “Oh! I could do that!” It was an Obama moment – “Yes. You can!” This quilt pattern is a real confidence builder, and a great teaching quilt.

There are many, many ways these flexible blocks can be put together. Other quilts using these blocks are here:

Hugs and Kisses
Reciprocals
Black and White and Blood all Over
Quick Quilts for Charity (Instructions for making two hatchet block quilts)

Here is my computer plan for the quilt; having the grid all mapped out helped me to plan the pathways and to know how many of each fabric to cut for pathways, how many 2 1/2 inch squares to cut for the 4-patches, and how to place them. The quilt is built in quadrants and then sewn together.

Happy Anniversary, lovebirds.

Church Banner: Nestorian Cross

Our priest asked me to create a banner for the church, and provided some examples of a Nestorian cross, examples of which have been found in the Gulf, and since our church is a church in the Gulf, he thought it would be fitting.

I really wrestled with it for over a year. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Finally, I threw up my hands, prayed for God to use my hands, and just got started. Honestly, I had no idea when I began how it would finish up.

I started by drafting a very large circle on freezerpaper. I found a piece of fabric that made my heart sing for the background – a sea-life batik, and it was perfect for Kuwait, with the ancient traditions of fishing and pearling. I added a layer of net that catches the light here and there, like the sparkle of the sun on the waves.

Then, I segmented the circle, and gathered up all my neutral silks and beaded and embroidered neutrals, hoping to get a stone mosaic effect for the circle around the cross, and I liked the effect so much, I decided to mosaic the cross, too, to get a more elemental and carved feeling.

While in the original, the circle around the cross comes out from the cross, in my version, the circle is separate.

For something that took me so long . . . meaning the thinking about it took so long – I actually had a lot of fun when I started working on it.

For me, the richness and textures of the fabrics bring to mind the richness and infinite variety of the population here, the rich brew that develops when cultures cross, mix, trans-pollinate – isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?