Chaos in the Quilt Room

Normally, I am an orderly person, an organized person. In my normal life, I keep things under control.

My quilt room, I think, reflects my chaotic subconscious. It costs me a lot of psychic energy to keep myself on track, to stay productive in a steady sort of way. Very counter to the creative spirit within.

I have house guests arriving in one week. I need to finish up my current projects and turn the quilt room into a guest room. Where to start?

I have one quilt finished, one ready to bind and two ready to quilt. All the rest are still in what I think of as the production stages.

I have finished Ursa Minor:

It is a small quilt, a hanging or a table topper. It has a hanging sleeve. I made it for a church fund raiser, and it is related to Ursa Major.

KTAA Show Unveiling

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. It has to do with what happens when we see things in black and white, and are willing to spill blood over the differences. 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 star fits exactly with the cross. It’s called Reciprocals.

Baby Blankets in Production

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.
 

Round Robin

We did this as a guild project in Germany, with the Rheinland Pfalz Quilt Guild. Each person created their own center block, then the piece was passed to other participants in the Round Robin, each of whom added a border or embellishments. So the center is mine and the outermost setting blocks are mine, as well as the sandwiching and quilting, but friends did the rest.

Ala’s Quilt

Ala means “all good things”, my Arabic speaking friends tell me, but when I looked it up, the meaning was grace, a name I dearly love. This was a baby quilt for Ala. December 2004

9/11 Quilt

This is the second of two, the first I made for my nephew, with whom I shared September 11th. We shared a bathroom. He said “Hey, did you see a plane just flew into the World Trade Center?” and I rushed to his room to see the early morning news. “That can’t be an accident,” I said, it isn’t easy to hit a building like that. And just then, the second plane hit.

Like the rest of the world, we were glued to the TV, wondering what next tragedy would evolve. It shattered our serenity, to watch the buildings just collapse, “pancaking”.

I actually made three quilts in the resonance of that event, one I started as we watched TV, a counter to the horror we were watching, one I made for my nephew and one I have kept for myself. The border fabric was a serendipitious find, with I think seven different cities skylines, including New York – with the world trade towers – and Washington, where the terrorists hit the pentagon.

The pattern was uploaded to the internet on the old AOL Quilt site, and I can’t remember who designed it, only that she was kind, and generous, and gave the pattern and instructions free to all of us. I am sure she called it something like “And Proudly Still Waves.”

World Quilter

The one constant in my life is change. During my last move, the movers lost/stole/misplaced all my quilting books, including my quilt journal. A small thing, to many a meaningless thing, but to me – irreplacable.

You are always welcome to come by my virtual studio here and say hello. I will post my babies – you may find them ugly, but remember the Thumper rabbit rule, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin at all.” The truth is, I quilt for myself, not for you. If you say something mean, I will delete you!

Part of my reason for creating this site is for my own records, and a part is to share with other quilters. So please, you are welcome.

This is my self-portrait. People who know me tell me it looks just like me!