A Quilt to Comfort a Friend

I made this quilt for a friend who suffered a terrible accident, and then I wasn’t sure she would even like it, so I’ve never given it to her. I hope one day to be able to; it’s one of my favorite quilts.

A Quilt for Naomi

My little 7  year old granddaughter wants to sew. Together we designed a simple quilt she could start with, and then she lost interest.

She wanted a rainbow quilt, and she has a birthday coming up. I have finished unpacking the last box, hanging pictures, arranging the furniture, and my hands are itching to quilt.

I find the lushest rainbow fabrics I can find, and cut them into simple 8.5 inch squares. My friend from Wales said “Oh! they look Indian!” and when I looked again, I could see what she meant, there is a sort of curry flavor to the choices. I’ve been influenced by my friends from half way across the world and I am not even aware of how much I have been influenced.

I had a lot of fun with the quilting, doing sand dunes in the orange, fireworks in the red, daisies in the green, sunbursts in the gold, waves in the blue and stars and initials in the purple 🙂

And then, I added six rainbow pillows to make her new bedroom (they bought a new house with more room and we bought back the house we had sold to them) lush and welcoming.

 

Today, she turns seven. I hope she loves her rainbow. (The far left pillow is red, a deep saturated red, so I don’t know why it looks orange in this photo!)

Rolling With Life Changes

On March 13th I came home from swimming at the Y and told my husband we needed to shelter in place. He had been fighting a cold for weeks, and he surprised me, he didn’t argue, he went right to bed and slept for two days. I think it was a relief for him to stop pretending he wasn’t sick and to rest, and let his body heal itself. He even took a hot bath.

I started cutting out quarantine/ sequestration quilts. I had wanted to try something with a more modern feel, so I did two, not that complicated, all half square triangles.

The first is called Corona Pandemic. It spreads.

The second is called Corona Vaccine. It is targeted, and, God willing it will be developed soon, and will work.

One More Just For Fun

 

This was easy and fun. One day, a friend and I wandered through the really cheap fabric souks in Doha, and there discovered these panels, many different kinds, for the equivalent of around $3/each. They are Indonesian, highly patterned and colorful, tightly woven. I’ve used several as backings for larger quilts. Really nice quality. Each panel is about 6 feet by 4.5 feet. All I had to do was to sandwich and quilt. I love the dragons, and I have set this quilt aside because I know that the right occasion will come along when this quilt (finished!) will be just the right gift.

Charity Quilts 2019

I had an obligation to provide some quilts for our small group charity, and I wanted to finish up some of my fabric stash. What came of it is fairly unimaginative. I loved putting the colors together, and the blocks went together quickly. The quilting was easy, and great practice.

As I look at the quilts, I am bored, and I know they reflect the joylessness of doing something you should do for love, but you’re doing it for duty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are all approximately 40″ by 56″- big enough to snuggle under while reading.

Education for Ministry Quilt

I have a special mentor who led me through four years of theological discussions as part of a University of the South (Sewanee) School of Theology program. No, I am not a priest. This is ministry, as in how we live our faith, and . . . do we understand what we believe? Do we believe what we say we believe?

As you can imagine, this is exhausting and sometimes distressing. My mentor is a wise and humorous woman who led our groups fearlessly. Although I am still a part of the program now, in another capacity, I wanted to tell this mentor in a significant way what her mentoring and her fine example means to me.

I had a lot of fun with this quilt. I found a fabulous metallic batik, which had several different colors, so when I cut it into a kaleidoscope. I could make entire squares of different colors.

As usual with my kaleidoscopes, color placement was everything. I wanted the center cross to be the most important part of the quilt. I hand appliquéd the two circles, padding the outermost with two layers of batting and hand embroidering the EfM on the cross, using an EfM lapel pin. Rarely have I been so happy with the entire process.

Except that I was terrified I would ruin it by quilting it. I have a friend with sterling instincts for quilting and she quilted it for me, using some metallic threads and enhancing the cross with radiating lines so the quilt almost vibrates with energy. 🙂 🙂

 

Here you can see some of the metallics and some of my friend’s fabulous quilting:

 

Now it gets even cooler. I had ALMOST enough blocks left over (I always make extra blocks because I am really picky about placement) but I had some fabrics that would fill in and I could make another, smaller quilt for another EfM mentor who had encouraged me through some of the rougher parts and who had generously admired the first quilt. It thrilled me to be able to thank her, too, for her part in leading our group through the heavy weather of theology.

 

I wish you could see these quilts in person. I don’t usually brag, but these thrill my heart.

Cursillo Bags

Another friend in Kuwait taught us to make these bags in various sizes. They are wonderful for traveling, for carrying make-up, jewelry, or charging cords, or medication, and keeping them sorted.

I made two sets of these bags for different Cursillo’s, 70 each time!

That’s my “helper,” Ragnar, in the background. He gets jealous. He bites my cords, my computer cord, my sewing machine pedal cord, my telephone cords. He “helped” me buy a new quilting Bernina, (as I was waiting for a new pedal for my Pfaff) which I love for it’s quiet industriousness. I still also love my old faithful Pfaff, a real workhorse, and my ancient Singer Featherweight.

New Duffle

In Kuwait, a wonderful woman we all called The Bag Lady taught us how to make these wonderful duffels – and also purses, and all kinds of bags. I had some fabulous fabric, with which I made my first duffel, and because I loved the fabric, I used the duffel all the time, in fact so much that this spring, I noticed that the straps on the duffel had become noticeably worn, thready and stringy.

And – I still had some of the original fabric! Enough I could make the pockets on a new bag. Woo hoo!

Here, you can see the old bag and the new bag, side by side. The old bag with its worn straps is on the left, and the new bag is on the right.

I love the old bag so much that I’ve cut the pockets off to make small bags to use for jewelry, cosmetics, medications, charging cords, etc. The fabric I love has a new life!

Baby Quilt

I love these quilts; you applique the star, you sew the blocks together and the right fabrics give it interest and liveliness.

 

As you can see, I also had a lot of fun quilting this 🙂

2018 Charity Quilts

You’ve seen this quilt before in other color ways. I love that it makes the best use of fabric, uses every inch, and goes together relatively quickly. I am not patient with block assembly, but this one is relatively mindless, and gets the job done.

The original star was called a Sloppy Star. I wanted a much larger star, and re-designed it to fill a full 16″ square; when assembled, it comes in about 15″.

 

 

 

 

The kids love the wild colors. The charity loves the wild colors, and displays a quilt for a while before they pass it along to a recipient 🙂