Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

Just received word of the passing of one of my old HS classmates who was a lovely lady of many talents, but one of her claims to fame was designing and making prize winning quilts. One of her best friends, also a classmate of mine, still travels the country teaching quilting classes and as a judge. I believe this is one of their combined efforts that I thought ya'll might appreciate for the aesthetics:

Sorry for the loss of a great quilting woman, Foxfyre. Even combined with someone else, that is a most advanced quilt, like a faceted Mariner's Compass, and thier value and chromatic choices are astonishing. I've done blue and brown quilts. They're most beautiful, and deliver a great deal of satisfaction when completed. Mine was called "Bridge over Troubled Waters." I'll look it up sometime in the next couple of weeks. I have a huge photo book filled with pictures of my quilts from doing 7 "Jewels of the Platte" quilt shows at City Hall of Casper Wyoming from 1996-2006 or 7. The first year of my fibromyalgia was my last show. I sweated blood getting those quilts hung and taken down again a month later. Bridge Over Troubled Waters not only took a lot of time over the drawing board, it was tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, so I never published the pattern in any serious kind of way. going from warp and weft to diagonal and back again is a challenge, even to an advanced quilter, and I did it early on in my career of designing quilts. I loved the quilt and gave it to my son, who loves blue.

How does one get a quilt appraised? I have a feeling that my friend, even though a beginner, is under valuing hers. I think she just gives them away. I did that with several of my paintings as well, but my art teacher said we should never do that.

The best appraiser-locators are probably in Paducah, Kentucky, at the wonderful American Quilt Society Museum there. They might even have a resident appraiser or a list of certified American quilt appraisers on hand.

Another group that could be near and dear to your heart is the American Embroiderers' Guild of America, (aka EGA) which sponsors educational opportunities for certifying highly skilled individuals to become quilt and needlework appraisers. As I recollect from years ago, the quilt appraisers are educated and certified separately from other needlecrafts. Quilting is a multi-faceted institution with so many, many different styles and types of quilted works that have been done. A joint venture between quilting and embroidering is the crazy quilt, which requires advanced skills in both endeavors, not to mention textile savvy.

 

[Sunshine]

Sorry for the loss of a great quilting woman, Foxfyre. Even combined with someone else, that is a most advanced quilt, like a faceted Mariner's Compass, and thier value and chromatic choices are astonishing. I've done blue and brown quilts. They're most beautiful, and deliver a great deal of satisfaction when completed. Mine was called "Bridge over Troubled Waters." I'll look it up sometime in the next couple of weeks. I have a huge photo book filled with pictures of my quilts from doing 7 "Jewels of the Platte" quilt shows at City Hall of Casper Wyoming from 1996-2006 or 7. The first year of my fibromyalgia was my last show. I sweated blood getting those quilts hung and taken down again a month later. Bridge Over Troubled Waters not only took a lot of time over the drawing board, it was tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, so I never published the pattern in any serious kind of way. going from warp and weft to diagonal and back again is a challenge, even to an advanced quilter, and I did it early on in my career of designing quilts. I loved the quilt and gave it to my son, who loves blue.

How does one get a quilt appraised? I have a feeling that my friend, even though a beginner, is under valuing hers. I think she just gives them away. I did that with several of my paintings as well, but my art teacher said we should never do that.

The best appraiser-locators are probably in Paducah, Kentucky, at the wonderful American Quilt Society Museum there. They might even have a resident appraiser or a list of certified American quilt appraisers on hand.

I'll tell her that. She lives in Missouri, but not that far away.

 

[Sunshine]

Oh, and Pioneer Woman's pork chops and green beans along with my scalloped potatoes were excellent. I had a most excellent supper last night and most excellent leftovers for lunch today along with a glass of wine both times. And now, I really must get cracking and start getting ready to work this week. Not long until I don't have to think about getting ready for work!

 

[Foxfyre]

How does one get a quilt appraised? I have a feeling that my friend, even though a beginner, is under valuing hers. I think she just gives them away. I did that with several of my paintings as well, but my art teacher said we should never do that.

The best appraiser-locators are probably in Paducah, Kentucky, at the wonderful American Quilt Society Museum there. They might even have a resident appraiser or a list of certified American quilt appraisers on hand.

I'll tell her that. She lives in Missouri, but not that far away.

When I was still working claims, I sometimes had to price out a quilt that was damaged or stolen or otherwise covered by insurance. And that certainly was not an area of my expertise. There are at least five stores in our area that specialize in quilt supplies and at least two of those owners are sufficiently expert to appraise the value of a quilt. So I would go to one of them.

You might check in your area for such stores and the owners will likely have the expertise or will know where to refer you.

 

[Sunshine]

The best appraiser-locators are probably in Paducah, Kentucky, at the wonderful American Quilt Society Museum there. They might even have a resident appraiser or a list of certified American quilt appraisers on hand.

I'll tell her that. She lives in Missouri, but not that far away.

When I was still working claims, I sometimes had to price out a quilt that was damaged or stolen or otherwise covered by insurance. And that certainly was not an area of my expertise. There are at least five stores in our area that specialize in quilt supplies and at least two of those owners are sufficiently expert to appraise the value of a quilt. So I would go to one of them.

You might check in your area for such stores and the owners will likely have the expertise or will know where to refer you.

Thanks.

 

[freedombecki]

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Everybody!

I liked the yellow border best of all (see a couple of pages back), put on a yellow spool of thread and even ran a yellow bobbin, picked a pretty Stonehenge yellow (tm), and then thought, what's wrong with you, girl? This is St. Patrick's Day and half the Christian world or better celebrates it and everyone has fun no matter what!

So I dutifully filed through greens in ye trusty stash and found the cutest one--a shamrock bright Kelly green fabric that may be the plant for which Ireland received its nickname, "The Emerald Isle."

So these postage stamps went to Ireland, so to speak, and not quite all the way around the world many times.

What else would one do on Saint Patrick's Day when finishing a quilt!

 

[freedombecki]

Today, I retrieved the old bag of country charm red and white strips six-inch squares for a quick quilt. The last two quilts were time-eating handfuls, which ate two weeks of time off March. With 10 quilts as a deadline but only 3 quilts to show for it, I have 3 or 4 areas of extra blocks that can be quick starts to the process. One month last year, I did 5 quilts in one week because of having stashed away leftover blocks, making duplicate blocks and separating them into 4 or 5 piles for 4 or 5 future quilts. It'd be nice to have 10 quilts ready in 10 favored color paths for next year, (dream on), but at least for a few months, I have some socked away to do day-or-two quilts. I researched why I have been so tired this year. In addition to lower levels of Vitamin D and potassium, people taking my kind of meds for fibromyalgia issues also get depleted in magnesium. So I found a bottle of magnesium I quit using during my surgery two years ago, when I was told to knock off the OTC regimen for 2 weeks, and already, my eyelids don't weigh a pound apiece. That said, here are blocks and joined blocks for the Country Charm Red and White Woven Checkerboard Quilt Tops. The inch-wide strips are 6 inches long when finished into a 6-inch square.

 

[freedombecki]

Here's the other side of one of the 6-square parts made so far and a couple of shots of Penny Halgram's diagrams of a charm square that has 5 strips per block and a "rail fence" that has seven strips:

 

[freedombecki]

I was just looking for a sample of someone's traditional Country Charm strip quilt, when I ran into a master scrapper's beautiful quilt:

She wasn't counting strips, just a certain sized square, and joined them in rows around a middle. What a great idea for that foot-high pile of scraps I have on my cutting table right now!​

Well, after I finish the checkerboard, I'm gonna hit that darn pile of scraps that's 5 feet long and one foot high, at least.

Oh, yes, and she calls her quilt "Over the Rainbow".​

 

[freedombecki]

Checkerboard done!

Free at last! This morning just went on forever sewing vertical red stripes against horizontal lights! 7x9 = 63x6 = 378 1x6" finished strips in the Country charm that I made with 6 strips and not 5 or 7 strips in the ONLY samples I could find online.

There's so much creativity going on out there that designers are naming newly developed quilts they've made, so instead of having from 600,0 - 10,000 quilt names to remember, our daughters will have twice that many, at least.

Oh, yes the scans of the border I finished adding a half hour ago:

 

[freedombecki]

Gonna do a seal quilt. I saw some pictures.. Then I worked from a couple of pictures and came up with a seal baby.

Seal1 - (Attached image) Someone's circus seal from the net. Okay for someone else... This seal will have to be a lot simpler for a small child quilt.

Seal2 - The cutest face on a baby seal I could bing quickly. I saw a lot of other seals for anatomical ideas, too. This one was cut off, but that face...

Seal3 - This was the result, and will be refined by my scissors when I cut out a template to transfer the design. Oh, I gotta go get black ink for my copier. I'll have to use the old fashioned graph method, I guess for the time being. No big deal.

Think it will work?

 

[freedombecki]

I need a small size to transfer to another area, so pardon any duplication!

 

[Foxfyre]

Looks to me like it will work.

And if you need more ideas try these:

Along with step by step instructions of how to draw it:

Drawing baby seal face - Bing Images

 

[freedombecki]

Looks to me like it will work.

And if you need more ideas try these:

Along with step by step instructions of how to draw it:

Drawing baby seal face - Bing Images

Thanks, Foxfyre. The design you found is beautiful.

Applique artists do their own designs, for good or for bad. This one still isn't perfect--the right eye is wrong, but I will fix it and redesign after getting my scissors out and cutting until it's right. My scissors are smarter than my pencil, and so is my free motion sewing. I know that sounds silly, but I stick with one media--fabrics, thread, reliable sewing machines, and a willingness to make enough mistakes so I can see the right one when it happens.

It took me six weeks to do one of the drawings in my copyrighted and self-published applique book called "Aesthetics of All God's Children." Most of them only took hours. The Japanese costumed children did not take well to Westernization. It took me 6 weeks to figure that out and reading a book on Japanese folklore. I finally got it. After that, I just tried to get into the cultural mode when doing foreign designs, and of 50, 49 of them were other countries. That one design made the words "culture shock" mean something to me and improved my refinements on other things by paying absolute attention to lines.

For what it's worth, here's an enlarged copy, not the same as the first drawings, but I need to see it here to get a final perspective when I go to put it with fabrics and on a ground of contrast. Hopefully I can find the right materials and get with the program tonight.

Before I reduced the size to compatibility, my size is about 8x9.5 inches, not ideal for quilts in which humans are taller , so that determines that I will probably go for splitting the background into 3 parallels--sky to horizon, horizon sea to shore, shore to front. Ideally, Mr. Seal would be partly in the water or very close to the edge. Unfortunately, in the artistic world we have something called negative spaces, so a lot of license is needed to procure an effect. Negative space can make or break the positive space that the object is.

We'll see if I can do it or not. If not, I will go back to the drawing board a little smarter, and that does happen to me in designing on account of my scissors being far smarter than the pencil. Wasted fabrics go into a big pot with scraps from the cutting table and threads trimmed off seams. Those items make the best pillows for putting under seniors' feet in nursing homes. The pillows are heavy, but tired feet are lifted by them, and they don't disappear like that puffy stuff people buy to stuff teddy bears and other pillows with.

Here's the Seal named after a USMB Poster who stepped up to the plate supporting cereal killer's chat area this morning.

 

[cereal_killer]

very cool what you are doing in his "name" Big props to you!!!!!

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks for dropping in, cereal killer. Thanks for the kind words. I haven't been very articulate in the sewing room today, though. We're having the usual weather changes, and with fibromyalgia one minute you feel great, the next minute you're doubled over, and when that pain stops and you can breathe normally, chronic fatigue sets in. It gets a lot better in the warmer weather.

I shot my wad of up and at 'em by picking the 24 fabrics, climbing ladders to this box and that one, unstacking boxes to check on a certain texture for another, and finally, I told my sweetie we didn't need to go to the quilt store after all. I found enough similar textures and versatile prints to work ok on pastel colors for the seals. Also, I redesigned them to fit a certain size of block that makes a perfect sized quilt for a small child until a 5-ft quilt is too small, whenever that is. Children seem to me to be so much bigger than they were in the last generation. Tomorrow, I'll try and show samples of the fabrics I picked if there's time. Y'all have a great evening.

 

[freedombecki]

"If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring..."​

 

[Mr. H.]

That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby, if I could, change the world

 

[freedombecki]

Nice song, Mr. H.

 

[freedombecki]

The spring sky is ambivalent today about whether it will just shade things a little this afternoon or give us a little sprinkle as the day goes in a westerly direction...

Sewing progress has not been stellar this week due to a little pain. I started taking some magnesium, essential in pain fighting, and that helped a little. It takes a few days to get back into the groove, that's all, but I did what I could by napping as necessary. I may have overdone it in the yard. My sweetie is trying, really he is, but he has to be monitored constantly to keep him going on any given activity, except watching tv. lol Well, we do the best we can.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try another friend's recommendation and see how it comes out. I did some scavenging in boxes for other fabrics for the pink kaleidoscope quilt I found last week (well, 4 12" blocks joined together, anyway) that was likely assembled in the late eighties after 1987, but probably before 1996. The fabrics are late 80s prints, but one was a Jinny Beyer deep dark magenta/red with tiny black vining pinnate leaves all over.

I also found a fabric for a 2-dimensional "frame" that will make a nice backdrop for a sample seal quilt that has northern lights. Well almost, but the "northern lights" are red and purple. Heheh!

I'm gathering fabrics to do the Kaleidoscope border in, hopefully it will make sense, but that's never guaranteed in quiltmaking. I put a dark contemporary red to match the other red around as the first border, and the next one I'd like to do in 1.5" small squares all around in pinks, greens, beige, and a touch of country blue to match one of the prints around the pink kaleidoscopes. That doesn't always work in the favor of the quilt, but sometimes it exceeds itself in working. The important thing at this point is to keep going. That wasn't easy on days I wasn't fighting my pain well. Probably a simple dose of aspirin would have helped. That's all I have for now. Hopefully sometime today I will get something to a point where it will be interesting enough to show to put under the lid of the scanner.

I'm sleepy, out of rep and need a little nap. Also would like to get up and sew when the rest is done. Lately, it's like going to kindergarten. You need a nap after lunch every day.