Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

I confess. I made a dozen "hero star" patches for us to have a huge quilt, and then my fibromyalgia stole my willingness to quilt larger works in the past 3 years. The patches are 18" squares that contain over 300 log squares apiece that measure 1/2" in width and have varying lengths. I call them "hero stars" because one year, I made 24 log cabin star quilts (and other variations) and donated them to the Casper police department to distribute to needy families they may have run across on the beat or use to take in their squad cars and use as wrappings for victims of shock, one of the largest claimants of lives of people who've been in a traffic wreck. So because of the brave police, I got a lot of practice, and the first thing I thought of when it was time to make wounded warrior quilts for our troops, who were getting hurt with vicious IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, I used the star as my basis mainly because there was no need to train on how to do a different type of quilt, and besides, I love log cabins and realized they really could look cool. So my very first wounded soldier quilts bore "hero stars" on them, now named after the heroes in the US military.

That said, here's glimpses from the scanner of parts of this little quilt. I call it "Hero Star and Liberty Rose" and it is small for a child, probably 45 x 55 give or take an inch (I'm estimating). Here's a glimpse or two:

 

[freedombecki]

3 more scans of "Hero star and liberty rose" child quilt to show borders added to one of the 12 squares completed 2 years ago or longer:

The light blue first border, if you click on the image, you can see the "liberty rose" for which I partially named the quilt.
It may be a P & B print, but I'm not sure. The red stripe came from our local quilt shop.

 

[Sunshine]

Becki, last night I watched the George Clooney movie, The Descendants. There was a gold and white quilt on the bed of the dying woman throughout the show. At the end the rest of the family crawls up under it to watch TV. In the special features, they said that Hawiian quilts have special significance as objects of healting, that not everyone is qualified to make one. Do you know anything about this?

 

[freedombecki]

Becki, last night I watched the George Clooney movie, The Descendants. There was a gold and white quilt on the bed of the dying woman throughout the show. At the end the rest of the family crawls up under it to watch TV. In the special features, they said that Hawiian quilts have special significance as objects of healting, that not everyone is qualified to make one. Do you know anything about this?

I plead "Doh," and it's true. I walked through the entire National Museum in Honolulu, 1998, saw dozens of masterworks that were cared for through the years and even centuries of humid climate of Hawaii, my jaw likely close to the ground. After leaving, my head was filled with images that were so inspiring. It probably blocked out any history or lore I may have read about them. While I appreciate them, have designed and taught others to design them, I devised machine methods of making them, not the tried-and-true handmade. Through it all, I missed the legend you heard, Sunshine. Somewhere in my souvenirs is my gold ground, forest green designed Hawaiian quilt sample for classroom teaching, but it is a small wallhanging. I designed it from my memories of the pineapple plantation we visited there and added hearts to remember our wedding anniversary there, a couple of months after we got home, and it was hanging on the wall at the shop less than a week later. I retired it to the employee coffeeshop, a short time afterward, where its deep colors would be protected from front window light. I'll see if I can find a picture of my standard teaching design. I am waiving my copyright on this piece for anyone to use as they wish. The corners and border remind me of the ocean surface and tidal surf because Hawaii is our island state so far away over the great Pacific Ocean. But what a great place for our enjoyment to go and bask in its beauty on special occasions!

Found!

I'm waiving my copyright on this piece so anyone who comes here can click on the thumbnail, print out, trace, increase size, and make a Hawaiian quilt or use it as it is. My hope was that it was detailed and aesthetic enough to fit in with a Baltimore Album Quilt, which is my idea of quilt perfection. I've only shown it in public at the city hall shows I did at Casper Wyoming years ago. The oddity is that I am virulently allergic to raw pineapple. I can eat it if it is cooked with no after effects, but its chemistry when raw melts my oral tissue down to blood vessels, and one little acerbic touch, and there's blood everywhere. Weird reaction, hm. Just sayin'

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, the Hawaiian pineapple small quilt has green area in one whole piece, through thick and thin, and the gold area is also one whole piece.

 

[Sunshine]

Becki, last night I watched the George Clooney movie, The Descendants. There was a gold and white quilt on the bed of the dying woman throughout the show. At the end the rest of the family crawls up under it to watch TV. In the special features, they said that Hawiian quilts have special significance as objects of healting, that not everyone is qualified to make one. Do you know anything about this?

I plead "Doh," and it's true. I walked through the entire National Museum in Honolulu, 1998, saw dozens of masterworks that were cared for through the years and even centuries of humid climate of Hawaii, my jaw likely close to the ground. After leaving, my head was filled with images that were so inspiring. It probably blocked out any history or lore I may have read about them. While I appreciate them, have designed and taught others to design them, I devised machine methods of making them, not the tried-and-true handmade. Through it all, I missed the legend you heard, Sunshine. Somewhere in my souvenirs is my gold ground, forest green designed Hawaiian quilt sample for classroom teaching, but it is a small wallhanging. I designed it from my memories of the pineapple plantation we visited there and added hearts to remember our wedding anniversary there, a couple of months after we got home, and it was hanging on the wall at the shop less than a week later. I retired it to the employee coffeeshop, a short time afterward, where its deep colors would be protected from front window light. I'll see if I can find a picture of my standard teaching design. I am waiving my copyright on this piece for anyone to use as they wish. The corners and border remind me of the ocean surface and tidal surf because Hawaii is our island state so far away over the great Pacific Ocean. But what a great place for our enjoyment to go and bask in its beauty on special occasions!

Found!

I'm waiving my copyright on this piece so anyone who comes here can click on the thumbnail, print out, trace, increase size, and make a Hawaiian quilt or use it as it is. My hope was that it was detailed and aesthetic enough to fit in with a Baltimore Album Quilt, which is my idea of quilt perfection. I've only shown it in public at the city hall shows I did at Casper Wyoming years ago. The oddity is that I am virulently allergic to raw pineapple. I can eat it if it is cooked with no after effects, but its chemistry when raw melts my oral tissue down to blood vessels, and one little acerbic touch, and there's blood everywhere. Weird reaction, hm. Just sayin'

That's georgeous. I tried to find a picture of the one in the movie, but couldn't. The woman who wrote the book is the one who told the story in one of the extra features they have after the movie on CD. From when I was traveling, I saved up enough hotel points for 10 nights there. I've got to get enough leave time. Was going last year but got sick and used all my time, and now I'm planning a trip with some friends in a bit. But when I go, I want to take enough money to buy two and have them shipped back. That way each one of my children will have one. I expect it will take a pretty penny. The ones they claim are real are not chap on eBay.

Funny thing. My grandmother was an avid quilter. She quilted her whole life. Died at 96. When she died the ones who lived nearby swooped in and got all the pretty quilts. I got one that was not at all lacking in workmanship, but which I didn't think was very pretty. But, it looks a lot like those Hawiian ones. How funny is that. LOL. Even though I got hind tit, I got the really 'spiritual' one! Life's funny that way. Sometime this weekend I will pull it out and send you a pic.

I doubt you actually missed anything, though. That story is likely not one they share with 'haolies.'

 

[freedombecki]

Becki, last night I watched the George Clooney movie, The Descendants. There was a gold and white quilt on the bed of the dying woman throughout the show. At the end the rest of the family crawls up under it to watch TV. In the special features, they said that Hawiian quilts have special significance as objects of healting, that not everyone is qualified to make one. Do you know anything about this?

I plead "Doh," and it's true. I walked through the entire National Museum in Honolulu, 1998, saw dozens of masterworks that were cared for through the years and even centuries of humid climate of Hawaii, my jaw likely close to the ground. After leaving, my head was filled with images that were so inspiring. It probably blocked out any history or lore I may have read about them. While I appreciate them, have designed and taught others to design them, I devised machine methods of making them, not the tried-and-true handmade. Through it all, I missed the legend you heard, Sunshine. Somewhere in my souvenirs is my gold ground, forest green designed Hawaiian quilt sample for classroom teaching, but it is a small wallhanging. I designed it from my memories of the pineapple plantation we visited there and added hearts to remember our wedding anniversary there, a couple of months after we got home, and it was hanging on the wall at the shop less than a week later. I retired it to the employee coffeeshop, a short time afterward, where its deep colors would be protected from front window light. I'll see if I can find a picture of my standard teaching design. I am waiving my copyright on this piece for anyone to use as they wish. The corners and border remind me of the ocean surface and tidal surf because Hawaii is our island state so far away over the great Pacific Ocean. But what a great place for our enjoyment to go and bask in its beauty on special occasions!

Found!

I'm waiving my copyright on this piece so anyone who comes here can click on the thumbnail, print out, trace, increase size, and make a Hawaiian quilt or use it as it is. My hope was that it was detailed and aesthetic enough to fit in with a Baltimore Album Quilt, which is my idea of quilt perfection. I've only shown it in public at the city hall shows I did at Casper Wyoming years ago. The oddity is that I am virulently allergic to raw pineapple. I can eat it if it is cooked with no after effects, but its chemistry when raw melts my oral tissue down to blood vessels, and one little acerbic touch, and there's blood everywhere. Weird reaction, hm. Just sayin'

That's georgeous. I tried to find a picture of the one in the movie, but couldn't. The woman who wrote the book is the one who told the story in one of the extra features they have after the movie on CD. From when I was traveling, I saved up enough hotel points for 10 nights there. I've got to get enough leave time. Was going last year but got sick and used all my time, and now I'm planning a trip with some friends in a bit. But when I go, I want to take enough money to buy two and have them shipped back. That way each one of my children will have one. I expect it will take a pretty penny. The ones they claim are real are not chap on eBay.

Funny thing. My grandmother was an avid quilter. She quilted her whole life. Died at 96. When she died the ones who lived nearby swooped in and got all the pretty quilts. I got one that was not at all lacking in workmanship, but which I didn't think was very pretty. But, it looks a lot like those Hawiian ones. How funny is that. LOL. Even though I got hind tit, I got the really 'spiritual' one! Life's funny that way. Sometime this weekend I will pull it out and send you a pic.

I doubt you actually missed anything, though. That story is likely not one they share with 'haolies.'

You never know. I view films and judge based on character portrayal after taking an elective theatre class in college. So far, from what I've viewed of him (which honestly, probably isn't much) George Clooney has done a remarkable job of character creation and executes its eccentricities in minutia.

The quilt, i found and will describe as best i can in my next post.

 

[freedombecki]

Its care would shame its maker. It is unkempt and holy, frayed, and if a true antique, saw use but no care. The location of the holes where batting peeps through along the edges echo its dismal care, which may have stupidly included vinegar baths to "set" the nile green that faded to bile green by exposure to harsh cleaning agents. The willy-nilly quilting tells me it was not quilted by the same person as the maker, who was a fastidious perfectionist to put it mildly. The recipients of quilt often bear grudges against the maker for real or imagined slights and take it out on the quilt. Other care failures come from sheer ignorance of the year or decade the hand-stitched top may have taken to produce, not to mention the hundreds to thousands of hours engaged in quilting the top to a batting and backing without getting willy-nilly stitches. That's why I know the quilt was not quilted by the maker of the top, unless she suffered a stroke between the time she put her last needle-turn stitch in until she clamped the quilt sandwich onto her frame or moved it through a lap hoop. If she was just not very bright or just didn't have a hoop, it could account for the unseemly quilting job done on that puppy, or the maker's stitches rotted out from using inferior thread and were replaced by someone else a hundred years later.

This is all speculation on my part. There are set directors who study quilts and could have used a new quilt and aged it without losing a mordant dye to sunlight. I aged a quilt on my front porch once to see what an antique quilt would look like if it aged for a month in bright sunlight. My husband wouldn't let me take it down (for his reason,) so 3 years later, it looked like the ghost of the pretty quilt it once had been. We're still married, too.

Eh, all that and I'm betting they found that one in a flea market.

Rule of thumb for collectors: do not let an inexperienced dullard or the village idiot wash the quilt that got a blue ribbon at the state fair in detergent, bleach, or vinegar.

 

[Sunshine]

Its care would shame its maker. It is unkempt and holy, frayed, and if a true antique, saw use but no care. The location of the holes where batting peeps through along the edges echo its dismal care, which may have stupidly included vinegar baths to "set" the nile green that faded to bile green by exposure to harsh cleaning agents. The willy-nilly quilting tells me it was not quilted by the same person as the maker, who was a fastidious perfectionist to put it mildly. The recipients of quilt often bear grudges against the maker for real or imagined slights and take it out on the quilt. Other care failures come from sheer ignorance of the year or decade the hand-stitched top may have taken to produce, not to mention the hundreds to thousands of hours engaged in quilting the top to a batting and backing without getting willy-nilly stitches. That's why I know the quilt was not quilted by the maker of the top, unless she suffered a stroke between the time she put her last needle-turn stitch in until she clamped the quilt sandwich onto her frame or moved it through a lap hoop. If she was just not very bright or just didn't have a hoop, it could account for the unseemly quilting job done on that puppy, or the maker's stitches rotted out from using inferior thread and were replaced by someone else a hundred years later.

This is all speculation on my part. There are set directors who study quilts and could have used a new quilt and aged it without losing a mordant dye to sunlight. I aged a quilt on my front porch once to see what an antique quilt would look like if it aged for a month in bright sunlight. My husband wouldn't let me take it down (for his reason,) so 3 years later, it looked like the ghost of the pretty quilt it once had been. We're still married, too.

Eh, all that and I'm betting they found that one in a flea market.

Rule of thumb for collectors: do not let an inexperienced dullard or the village idiot wash the quilt that got a blue ribbon at the state fair in detergent, bleach, or vinegar.

Likely they did get it at a flea market and wanted it to be worn for effect.

You sound like my mother on quilts. She woud look at them and say the stitches were so big you would hang your toenails in them! LOL. According to her and my grandmother the stitches were supposed to be so small you couldn't see them. That is what has stopped me from buying some really pretty quilts - big stitches!

 

[freedombecki]

Its care would shame its maker. It is unkempt and holy, frayed, and if a true antique, saw use but no care. The location of the holes where batting peeps through along the edges echo its dismal care, which may have stupidly included vinegar baths to "set" the nile green that faded to bile green by exposure to harsh cleaning agents. The willy-nilly quilting tells me it was not quilted by the same person as the maker, who was a fastidious perfectionist to put it mildly. The recipients of quilt often bear grudges against the maker for real or imagined slights and take it out on the quilt. Other care failures come from sheer ignorance of the year or decade the hand-stitched top may have taken to produce, not to mention the hundreds to thousands of hours engaged in quilting the top to a batting and backing without getting willy-nilly stitches. That's why I know the quilt was not quilted by the maker of the top, unless she suffered a stroke between the time she put her last needle-turn stitch in until she clamped the quilt sandwich onto her frame or moved it through a lap hoop. If she was just not very bright or just didn't have a hoop, it could account for the unseemly quilting job done on that puppy, or the maker's stitches rotted out from using inferior thread and were replaced by someone else a hundred years later.

This is all speculation on my part. There are set directors who study quilts and could have used a new quilt and aged it without losing a mordant dye to sunlight. I aged a quilt on my front porch once to see what an antique quilt would look like if it aged for a month in bright sunlight. My husband wouldn't let me take it down (for his reason,) so 3 years later, it looked like the ghost of the pretty quilt it once had been. We're still married, too.

Eh, all that and I'm betting they found that one in a flea market.

Rule of thumb for collectors: do not let an inexperienced dullard or the village idiot wash the quilt that got a blue ribbon at the state fair in detergent, bleach, or vinegar.

Likely they did get it at a flea market and wanted it to be worn for effect.

You sound like my mother on quilts. She woud look at them and say the stitches were so big you would hang your toenails in them! LOL. According to her and my grandmother the stitches were supposed to be so small you couldn't see them. That is that has stopped me from buying some really pretty quilts - big stitches!

Your good teaching likely saved you a lot of tears. When I made my first hand-stitched large quilt, that's what my grandmother told me, too. It's still in the family 25 years after completion.

 

[freedombecki]

One other thought I had. In Hollywood, props are kept at various locations, and it doesn't rain in California, man it pours is a fact. It could've been an old quilt used in a covered wagon flick or one in one of the actors' family's attics that arrived on a covered wagon. Those people used everything they had. The quilt could have been used as stuffing in a log cabin when it lost its charm, or was just considered the everyday quilt after so many years of being the Sunday fold-up-and-put-away-before-retiring quilt when a better quilt was acquired.

It could've gotten some beating up at a summer picnic, a pillow fight and quilt tug-of-war while mommie was outside hanging the laundry and talking to the neighbor over the fence.

Maybe an actor who owed his fame to a film company left his possessions to the stage set department to be remembered by.

Who knows? Maybe George Clooney or a director ran into a quilt auction that was selling the quilt used by Benjamin Franklin or his favorite historic figure, and wanted it shown in the film.

Every quilt has a story. The only one we really know about that quilt is that it gave an endearing touch to a setting in an act that otherwise could've seemed cold or uncaring. Even a dilapidated quilt says "I care" when you wrap yourself in one on a frigid night, plus 3 under the quilt suggests family closeness.

 

[freedombecki]

Finally. The four-patch I've been wanting to make with light squares. My cutting room is on top of itself in red, white, and blue fabrics, but I ran into a half dozen 40% and 50% off sales recently, and bought several 3-yard clips of stuff I may never had touched otherwise than getting a really nice quilter's cotton for a song. Following weeks of augmenting my red and blue stash, I've had time to sit and sew some now, after doing massive cuttings in the last 6 or 8 weeks. So, I'm working toward that fantastic quilt that reminds me of a scotch plaid (next post). Below is some of my join efforts from recent days, although I cut all the 3" white squares this morning, to the tune of about 200 squares, from some nicer bleached muslin.

 

[freedombecki]

My quilt is showing a different path than the one I liked so well, and it's not clear to me what I'll be getting. The piece so far measures 20x60", and I hope to have a 50x70" quilt when all is said and done, though I would settle for smaller, but not too much smaller than that.

 

[Sunshine]

Not going to be able to get the quilt out tonight. Too much stuff in front. Will work on it next weekend. I won't forget. I will get you a pic of it.

 

[Emma]

Wish I could make a quilt. I'm no good at stuff like that.

 

[freedombecki]

That's what I said until a friend had a baby. I thought it would be easy, so out came the sewing machine. 3 days later, I had a small primitive-looking thing, but it had bright colors & she loved it.

My workmanship was uh, bad, to put it mildly. But babies burp on quilts anyhow, so nobody really cares. I couldn't afford the one in the catalog, and you could make a quilt for a song back then.

 

[freedombecki]

Log Cabin in the Round by June Ryker. This dear lady came to a shop in Wyoming years ago to teach classes, of which I took two--flying geese and a round log cabin. June went on to write several books and patterns, but she used bias strips, not straight-grained ones, to make the curves come out right. She is/was a master at her art. I've never seen another person take a stab at her technique, but her quilts are truly remarkable in that there was nothing like them before nor after her gift of the round (really rondelay) Log Cabin.

The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, June Ryker, Logs in Flight
​

 

[freedombecki]

This was my best quilt. It won Best of Show at the State Fair in WY beloved Equality State in 1993, and the superintendent of the arts and crafts competition said the cowboys at the fair paid me a special tribute. For the first time ever, all of them came to see this quilt. Pardon its precocious name, "Aesthetics of Southwestern Applique Album Quilt," but people liked it so much, I drafted my rough drafts as best I could into a makeshift instruction book and self-published it for those who couldn't make it to classes. Wyoming is a one-community state, the 7th largest, it's just that roads between our houses were just longer, that's all. My little publishing enterprise was not a very good success because my phone kept ringing off the wall with thousands of questions about this or that instruction. I finally decided to take a couple of weeks off from work and rewrite the instructions and expand the patterns to accommodate those who wished enough patterns for a king sized bed. Happily, there was only 1 error when I finished the second edition--ten months, not two weeks later, of gross slave labor and parried consternation. Even so, it gave people a way to enjoy my patterns, gleaned from my second lugubrious effort. To add weight to my misery, I wasn't happy with the 2 years in which an attorney did not get my copyright to the Library of Congress, so I cancelled and did the work myself. Fortunately, people at the Library of Congress were kind enough to help me through the process, and 4 months later, my copyright was granted. In the 23 years I owned a quilt shop, the book was its only profitable venture, since we did 100% of the publishing ourselves after 1 printer charged me more to print 20 copies than I ever charged students who took classes and received the patterns, divided by 20. On our final day of negotiations, I told the gentleman, "Congratulations. You just forced the public to pay the highest price ever paid for a hand-written, all hand-done publication." WE both laughed, but I never again went to anyone else for help after that due to I am very hard-headed about some things, especially when it comes to giving people a good product as I possibly can do all by myself.

Here's the cowboy-loved quilt and best seller. It sold 80 copies, and after that, I lost count, and when my husband retired, he just made 20 copies here and 20 copies there as requests arose. That said, here are some of my personally made samples from my book, "Aesthetics of Southwestern Applique Album Quilt" book

1) The quilt that got best of show at WY State fair, 1993
2) A Four-seasons Wallhanging I made from the "Live Oak" design
3) The Eagle Wallhanging that got the best wallhanging award at the same state fair the same year My husband omitted the fancy border when he photographed it. I'm sorry, we're just not professionals.

 

[freedombecki]

Hating days I wake up and have used up all my rep the late night before, I'm going to go to my sewing machine and finish up that quilt. It now is a right half and a left half and is about 60 inches long, and each piece is 20" wide. It already has 960 pieces in it, and will have a couple of borders, probably not much over 975 pieces when done. Hopefully it will go to a needy child or be a prize for a wounded soldier. I don't know who's picking what at Charity bees this year, because I've been in all winter, avoiding colds and illnesses. A bad immune system means if you go out, you will get sick, 99% of the time, no backs.

However, I love quilting, and the birds are singing spring love songs this morning.

Have a great day. I think I posted some of the squares the other day, I'll try to get one shot of the border when it's all done. Oh, I love this quilt. The arrangement of the double four-patches is such that it truly does look like a scotch plaid, and I will love seeing the full effect. Sorry about being the world's worst photographer and being too nervous about camera instructions to take very bad pictures. My dear one has dementia and can't remember how to use a camera. Woe is me.

 

[freedombecki]

This is a picture I found somewhere, and loved its scotch-plaid effect so much, I had to make one as part of my never-ending, ongoing Charity Bees quilt effort. Hopefully, the one I made like this one (discussed below) is a little different, of course, as I have a whole different set of color groupings than the lady above, who may have made the quilt some time in the past or even earlier this year, I'm not sure when I latched onto the pic, but it wasn't distant past: Her quilt:

​

The difference in the quilt above and the one I finished today is that I used blue and red squares where the large red squares are, then let the red tiny squares (rather that the above blue and multicolors) dominate and red and white postage-stamp sized squares on light grounds dominate the other way. I delivered 9 quilts in postage stamp-sized squares here and there to the Charity bees yesterday afternoon.

I've discussed most of them since my last delivery on January 30, where I delivered a total of quilts between the first and last day of January. These are time-consuming what I've been doing, but I have gotten in front of the sewing machine most days for at least two hours, and often all day to finish one or more items. I forgot about the pillowcase, so it will have to be given some time later. I think it's important to keep the group supplied with quilt tops, because that's what I'm best at and it aggravates my sneaky little fibromyalgia disease the least because it is restful to piece squares and strips by machine, At least, it's comfortable to me, because I've done it for so many years.

I dedicate all I did to the purposes of almighty God (with gratitude) to whom I can only give what he gave me first--a good life and the realization his purposes are for our betterment as men and women and never our falling. Amen

Here's a shot of the border of the quilt I just finished an hour ago: