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.

I can’t tell you off the top of my head the number of times I have moved. I guess I don’t want to think about it. It is always massive, lots of lists of things to do, lots to go through, chuck out, sell, pack up . . . I always think about the old joke about “How do you eat an elephant?” (Answer) One bite at a time.

With quilting, one bite at a time works, too. It’s how you actually get things finished. Here is just a short list of things you can do when you have ten minutes before you have to be out the door:

• design a block in your ever-present squared notebook

• figure out fabric requirements for the quilt size you want

• figure out how many strips of binding you will need for the quilt you need to get finished

• spin bobbins for your current project

• prepare some practice quilt bats for warming up before you quilt

• Practice a new quilting motif

• computer design a label for your quilt

• print off the label for copying later on the light table

• cut a binding

• attach a binding (be sure to wear an apron if you are already dressed for something special)

• clear off your sewing table

• sort your threads

• organize your needles (machine / metallic, hand quilting, embroidery)

• cut scraps into usable squares

• put away some fabrics

(DO NOT get started looking for just the right fabric! You can lose hours that way!)

Please! This list is not complete! Add YOUR suggestions for how a quilter can use ten extra minutes to make life easier and more organized!

I just realized that I have patterns of behavior in quilting. I often have up to ten quilts in production at any one time, I usually sandwich three or four in one session, and I quilt three or four in a row while continuing work on the others. So I have fallow periods and then I have times when I complete many quilts at the same tune.

I have three baby quilts just about finished now, and three other quilts just about ready for the upcoming quilt show.

The first two I love because they use up leftover fabrics from projects I have been working on. When I find a fabric I love, I don’t want to waste a scrap of it! (Remember the January cutting project when I cut all my scraps into 2.5″ squares? Here they are!)

I love it that the scrap squares are all the same fabrics in both quilts, but because of the alternate squares, they have a very different look.

This quilt I started ten years ago, when I was still beginning. I have to admire my courage, way back then, working with mitred angles in the center square, which turned out so off square that I had to sew a wonky inner border on it. I got one of the friendship stars backwards and never even noticed it until working on it now to finish it up. I had always hoped to hand quilt it, but when I pulled it out recently, I realized it wasn’t worth hand quilting, and besides, if I haven’t done it in ten years - let’s just get this baby finished.

For all its flaws, I love this quilt. I still love using stripes in borders and mitres, and with all the flaws, I still love the colors. For the runt of the litter, it’s cleaned up good.
 

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!

Map Quilts

28 January 2008

These are all the map quilts in one place, with class instructions on how to make them: 

I left my Heart in Africa 

 Moroccan Dreams

Turkish Delight 

African Kaleidescops 

1.  Start with a graph

Find the country you want to map, or state, or entire continent, and draw it onto your graph paper. It may change several times - that’s OK. You have time. Figure out what colors you want to use, and why. Identify any motifs you may want to use, appliqué, pieced or quilted.  Figure out what you are going to do with the area that is NOT part of your focus country!

2.  Gathering the Fabric

This actually takes the most time. You need many many different blues, for example, if you will have sea, shading from the very lightest to deeper purple, if it goes deep. You may want desert tones, or greens. You may want fabric from the country you are making, or you may want to appliqué something onto a square, and to identify where you will want it to go.

One really fun part is to ask your friends. You don’t need even a fat quarter, just scraps big enough for a couple squares. The greater the variety you acquire, the greater your flexibility in placement. As an example, I probably use 50 different “sea colors” ranging from the lightest blues to the deepest purples. My friends gave me Egypt fabrics, and Sudanese fabrics. 

These first two steps can take months, or even years. You will come up with all kinds of amazing ideas. Keep your plans for your map quilt in one place, and write down your ideas when you think of them, so you don’t forget them.

3.  Distributing the colors

I usually figure out where I want different colors - all the golds to almost white in the desert, for example, maybe this quadrant will be red. In the Africa quilt, I used pure black for some places where terrible things were happening. It helps the balance of the quilt to have colors grouped together, and that takes some planning. Also, now is the time to make any specialty blocks you may want to include.

Take a look at your fabrics, and at your graph. Figure out how big you want the quilt to be. In the first Africa quilt, for example, the smallest I could cut the giraffe fabric and still have it be effective was 3.5”. That one fabric, and my desire to use it, drove the entire quilt to its current huge size.

Even if you have been cutting fabrics all along, when you finally get to the point where you are ready to start - you will have to start with cutting. To have enough of every color, you just cut a lot. Even so, there are times when you will have to get up from sewing to cut some more.

I don’t go to a lot of effort to be accurate about terrain, but if you want to include a lake, or mountains, or something particular to that region, you can either use fabrics which show what you wish to emphasize, or you can create your own lake, or desert, or fields of flowers - it’s your quilt, you get to be the boss! 

Mountains: You can make a large mountain by making it four squares big, white mountain with blue sky , for example, or black mountain with blue or white sky. As long as you have planned ahead, anything is doable. Smaller mountains can be exactly the same size as the other blocks. It’s just nice to have a little variety. 

4.  Execution:

Break your quilt into doable sections. You might use quadrants, and each quadrant usually has a dominant color. Cookie trays can keep the squares in some kind of graduated order. Always have the graph on the wall, so you can check it frequently, and use a project wall, where you can hang the completed sections and check them as you go along. 

You might do two rows, sew them together, and then sew them directly to the section where they belong. It might seem fiddly, but it helps you keep track of where you are on the graph, and it helps you see where you might want to add more deep / light colors, etc. It is also just a lot of fun to watch it grow.

As you go along, check off each row as you complete it. Again, it may seem fiddly, but it is easy to get lost and confused, especially when you are working on a section of coastline, and you need to get the half-square triangles going the right ways! 

5.  Quilting and Embellishing

It has been so much fun, just watching all those colors come together and blend into a fabric collage of a country. Now is time when you can make it even more special.

Make the sandwich. 

Do a quarter inch outline of the continent/country you are working on, very first thing. It helps keep everything stable, and it gives your focus some definition.

If there are particular quilting motifs you want to use - a mariner’s compass in the sea, for example, or camels crossing the desert, or a hand of Fatima, or a teapot - you’ve been gathering them all together, and now you get to have the fun of putting them in.

You might want to do waves, and spirals, and fish in the sea. You might have your own ideas to make this quilt uniquely your own creation, and now is the time to explore them. These map quilts are not serious quilts, they are supposed to be fun.

6.  Surprise.

In every map quilt I do (and in many of the others) I put a surprise. In the Morocco Dreams quilt, I put a camel in the desert, so big you couldn’t see him unless you stood about ten feet away. He was in slightly lighter colors than the rest of the desert. I also outlined him in hand quilting. 

You might want to machine quilt in the name of the person for whom you are making the quilt, the date and the place. You  might want to machine embroider your own name in the quilt, in an inconspicuous spot, where some quilt-heritage researcher may someday find it and rejoice! Most of all, this is where you can have fun with embellishing the map so that it tells something about why you chose this country, something about how you feel about this subject. Here is where you can use charms and beads and crystals to highlight special and unique qualities.

Photos and more instructions at :  worldquilter.wordpress.com.  Click on map quilts under categories, over on the right hand side.

On the historical record page are several quilts which I have recently been able to rephotograph, or photographed photographs (lousy quality) just so I would have SOME record of these quilts. Brianna’s Wave was made after I made Mom’s Seaside Quilt, and as I was cleaning and straightening and cutting up in January, I found the original Wave pattern - I had to figure out an exact size so the border would fit.

I still have some left, and I am glad because I really loved the Greek-key kind of impressionism of the wave border.  This was paper-pieced: