Category Archives: 2005

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Naomi’s Baby Quilt

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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%! 😉

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Khanjar

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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.

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Indian Spice Kaleidescope

I made this for my cleaning man’s wife. He was going home to see her and his daughters, back in Kerala. I admire him so much, sacrificing, being away from his family so he can provide home and education for his daughters, and a better future for them. He works so hard, and he misses his family so much. Yes, I sent money, too.

I love Kaleidescopes. Those who think they are a simple block haven’t explored their possibilities – Kaleidescopes provide a great intellectual exercise in color placement and all kinds of repeating techniques to create mood and motion.

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Doha Fish Quilt

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This turned out to be one of my very favorite quilts. My challenge to myself was to find everything I needed for the quilt in Doha, Qatar. I found a wonderful shop, Anwar al Doha, which means The Lights of Doha, and there was the fish fabric and the mottled navy background fabric. Each block was so fantastic! I love this quilt!

I was using it to teach a class on Stack and Whack. Oh, did we have fun. Stack and Whack is a technique pioneered by Bethany Reynolds. You need wild fabrics, with a lot of variety in the background, to make them, but they give great immediate gratification to beginning quilters, and you can hide a multitude of mistakes in their bright and whacky design.

(I kept this one for myself!)

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Dancing Stars

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This is inspired by a quilting pattern by Evelyn Sloppy, but I wanted a more square star, so I re-drafted it on 16″ square graph paper to get the resulting (approx) 12″ square. The trick is, while drafting, to be sure the points cross 1/4 inch BEFORE the unfinished block edge, so that when stitched together, all the points will be there.

After drafting the star, you copy it on freezer paper and iron it to the top of a stack of 13 darks and 12 lights, and slash. After slashing, you shift pieces, so that the background of every star is composed of five different fabrics, and the star itself is composed of 6 different fabrics.

Since I was going to so much trouble anyway, I used double the lights and double the darks, and made a Dancing Star quilt first for my sister, with light background and dark stars. A couple years later I got around to making up the one for myself, but it won a judges commendation in a local quilt show, so I am happy.