And then A Quilt For Naomi’s Bubble Teacher

We were all trying to be so careful during COVID. When the schools went remote, our family hired a teacher who didn’t want the exposure of the classroom to teach a small bubble of children in a large home classroom. It was a great arrangement – the kids all loved the teacher, got enough socializing while also getting a lot of individual attention, got their work done – and then, horror of horrors, the teacher came down with COVID. As these things go, you can be as careful as can be, and you never know where it comes from.

The teacher had loved the quilt I made for Naomi, and asked if she could pay me to make one for her. I told her no. I never make a quilt on commission, quilts are so personal, and she could tell me exactly what she might want and be horrified by what might be the result. I told her to tell me the colors she likes the best, and I would make a quilt for her, for her efforts and her time with our bubble, because she was a genuinely devoted teacher to our bubble.

She told me she loved greens and golds, all the colors of the forest. She particularly wanted the close quilting she had seen on Naomi’s quilt. I knew just the pattern, and I had a great collection of greens, one of my own favorite colors.

When I make a wacky star quilt, I always make way more blocks than I need, so I can choose the blocks for the first quilt, and use the rest for other quilts.

She loved the quilt. And when I started working with the leftover blocks, I discovered I had enough for another larger quilt, one I actually liked even better. I gave it to my good friend, who has a son who loves it and pulls it out all the time to cuddle in it. I know, because one of the things I love about her is that she takes photos and sends them to me.

Breathes there a quilter with soul so shriveled that she/he doesn’t tingle with joy when she sees a quilt made with love being used with love?

Same fabrics, totally different looks, and two very happy friends. As a quilter, I live for this to happen 😘😊😁❤️⭐️✨.

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.

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!

36 Strip Challenge

My quilt group had a thirty-six strip challenge. Nine of us cut four strips each for nine quilters, including one set of themselves. At one of our meetings, we put together identical collections of thirty-six strips, and then we each plotted a quilt which would use each fabric.

It sounds easy. It isn’t.

The fabrics are not at all compatible.

I hesitated, I searched for inspiration, I planned and discarded. Finally, I just plunged in, and the idea didn’t work, but it gave me an idea for something that might work. This meandering approach was new for me; normally I use quad notebooks and plan my quilts to the fraction of an inch.

The big flower in the upper central right part of the quilt is where I started, and where I was able to use eight fabrics. From there, I would look at the panel hanging and the fabric strips remaining, and overnight, another idea would come.

I actually started having fun with the project. It took me all summer, but it was work I enjoyed, much of it hand work, which I haven’t done a lot of lately.

My husband loves the finished project. I don’t love it, but I’m not unhappy with it.

Using Up Pink Scraps

Don’t you usually have some sort of default for cutting up scraps of leftover fabric? I gravitate towards 2 1/2 inch strips and 2 1/2 inch squares, just because they are so useful, and because when I am using graph paper to plot out what I am going to need, I often use 1 square = 2 inches, so having squares and strips that size just tends to work for me.

And then again, sometimes I have too many squares or strips. I am finding ways to use them up, but sometimes I get bored, or just want to try some other way of doing things.

With grandparenting, I seem to have a lot less time for quilting, but as our group still has requirements for give-away quilts, I spent some time trying to find a way to use the scraps in pleasant quilts.

Pink really is not my favorite color.

Jonathan’s Star

 

My first quilt for 2016; I’ve been working on it sporadically since October. With my husband retired and after-school care for our grandson, I just don’t have the uninterrupted time to focus that I used to have 🙂  I’m not complaining, and at the same time, it is very satisfying to be able to complete a quilt from time to time.

I am using up a bunch of half square triangles that I cut and sewed to make friendship quilts. I’ve had them ummm. . . maybe seven years now, and it’s time to use things up or pass them along. I got bored with the friendship stars and did one of the eight sided stars in the center, just for fun and to practice the principles of medallion quilts, i.e. that borders must relate to the center.

Le Rouvray

My sweet little granddaughter shows signs of a nomadic spirit 🙂 She is a lively, fun filled girl, with strong preferences.

I’ve had a variety of squares from Le Rouvray, a quilt shop on the Left Bank, very near Notre Dame. I’d go in there, but the fabrics were always so expensive that most of my French fabrics are from the outdoor markets in Metz, Strasbourg and Colmar.

These squares have vexed me for so long. How to use them? I finally found a rosy French red that sort of tied them all together, and just sewed them all together. The quilt is a perfect size for a 2 year old, and has all kinds of French scenes on the back, left over from her Mother’s engagement quilt.

I also found some Eiffel Tower burlap and mounted in to a wood frame. Let’s get her started dreaming of Paris 🙂