QUILT MARKET – Spring 2012 – part 4

block at market entrance

I keep finding pictures I want to share and inspire.

Favorite applique at market

APPLIQUE:

A NEW challenge to all applique folks.  I did not even buy the pattern, but I absolutely love it!  It comes from Patchwork with Busyfingers of Australia.  I bought a pattern that was not quite so challenging, but I cannot find it!  It is called Lancaster.  Does that indicate that a lot came home with me?  I am afraid it did not come home with me and was left in another vender booth.

Marcus Fabric’s new eagle fabric

BORDER FABRIC

I am a real sucker for border fabric and strips.  I want three yards of this one.  I love the eagles.  You will want this!  People wonder if it is applique!  It is by Marcus Fabrics.  If you own a shop, you need a bolt of this!  Maybe two!

Another quilt with eagle sashing

Here is the same fabric in another quilt.  I saw this in a school house done by Red Crinoline Quilts (formerly Bonnie Blue Quilts).  Paula Barnes and Ellen Robison did this class on “Don’t be Afraid of Border, Stripes, Plaids & Directional Prints”.   This was a fun session, as they showed many quilts they have made over the years and how they created interest by using the variety in fabric types.  I was inspired to use the stash of these that I already have.

Homespun is still home warming

Here is one to remind us of our box of homespun.  Next time I need a guy quilt, this might be it and I would not have to buy fabric!  The gals showed this to remind us that in quilts the plaids can get big or not in a perfect line and still make a charming quilt.

Tube quilt all made with scraps.

After all this inspiration, I worked on something very simple for my friends to learn next week.  I do believe I was visiting another planet when the tube concept hit the quilt world.  I did buy a book a year ago and finally tried it out.  I went to my drawer of 2-1/2″ scraps and whoa-la!  All I had to cut was the setting blue.  I almost had enough WOF strips to do the entire quilt.  Then I pieced a few strips to make them work.  I can see this as an easy guy quilt for the next graduate!  I would leave out the flowers!

Now that I am sharing about my stash and scraps, I need to confess my plans for the future:  Which quilting friend has been instructed as to how your quilting stuff will be distributed?  Don’t expect your family to have a clue!

QUILT MARKET – Part 3

A few years ago Penny Haren wrote her first quilt book, Pieced Applique.  Her publisher is Laundour right here in Des Moines Iowa.  A few of us local quilters were invited to spend an evening trying out her new technique.  I was fascinated with the technique.  I visited a number of shops to find all the fabric that was used on the cover quilt.

Penny Haren’s first quilt

By the time the quilt book was on the market, I had a sample quilt done for one of my local quilt shops.  Jacque was able to sell a lot of the books and I taught the technique four times!

Penny’s second book

When her second book came out, I already had three more sets of the original blocks done as I did them for the classes.  I added her new blocks and was able to make a queen sized quilt.  I thought I had the right amount of the border fabric, but the flowers were so large I wanted a wide border.  No one had more of the fabric so I had to get creative.  I found the individual flowers at Mary’s shop.  She encouraged me not to just put them on one side.  Make it appear like a plan rather than desperation!

NEW

NEW from Penny

Penny has published two more books since I sorta moved on to try other things.  However, at market, I fell in love with her new quilt.  I happen to be really fond of medallion quilts and this NEW one is stunning.

Medallion Quilts

Women of Courage

Penny was not the only one showing medallion quilts.  The above one is Women of Courage and will be a block of the month.  If fact, I already got an email about a shop offering it!  The colors of this one go well with my home, but I need to pass.  However, If I see that border fabric, I will have to have three yards!  Along with each block, there will be a story of an ordinary women doing extra ordinary things.  It sounds like a fun read and should entice a lot of quilters. (As I am prof-reading this, I am wondering if the above quilt is a true medallion.  It is a sampler but they are not arranged in rows.  But there are not frames. hm)

cottage

I spotted this quilt at a vendor  and it is a free pattern on line!  I just forgot to write down the vendor or take a picture of the info!  While I am sharing about medallions, I will mention that quilt historian, teacher, writer, etc., Bettina Havig, spoke at our local guild this week.  She also taught a class on planning a medallion quilt.  We used strips of 2″, 3-1/2″  and 6-1/2′.  It was so logical as your finished pieces would interact as they would finish at multiples 1-1/2″, 3″, and 6″.  My project is now boxed up to properly age while I work on other things.  I did get on line and order two of Bettina’ books.

Urn quilt reproduced

I did better with this medallion.  It is Andover fabric and has been on the market for some time.  I was able to track it down at ReproductionFabrics.com.  It is a John Hewton design and the original is in a museum.  It would be from the 1800s when they called them framed quilts.

ANTIQUE

18″ square doll quilt

Speaking of the 1800s, I purchased a doll quilt from one of the three antique vendors.  It is said to be the 1840s.  Cindy had three lovely doll quilts and it was so hard to decide.

MODERN

At the sea in KC

This is another vender attraction.  They are fighting for our attention and our $$$.

NEW – lots of solids

One more picture from market and I will end this post.  We were told that the NEW trend would be SOLIDS.  This stack came home with me and I have already gotten into it.  The next change we can expect will be pastels.  Of course there has to be CHANGE to cause us to buy!

It’s For the Birds: Bloggers’ Quilt Festival

The Bloggers’ Quilt Festival is run by Amy Ellis of Amy’s Creative Side.

I am sharing a quilt I made a couple years ago in honor of the English style of framed quilts.  The birds are in the toile fabric.  And as a bonus for the birds there are four trees as cornerstones.  There are smaller birds in these trees.    Peacocks are also in a couple borders.

Bird Toile

Tree of Life as cornerstones

Enjoy all the birds in the festival.   In this last picture you can see one more set on birds in the outer boarder. On the bottom boarder I did a little bit of Brodery Perse where there had to be a seam to keep the birds facing the correct way.  It was not hard to overlap some flowers to make the seam less obvious.

quilt with outer boarder

I should say that I removed a real bird nest from my porch.  It is a spring ritual.  We live in a timber but they love the shelter of my porch!

QUILT MARKET – Spring 2012, part 2

After all my sharing about circle quilts in my last post,  I went to the sewing room and started one of my own

My attempt at the circles.

Of course, I picked the easiest pattern, as that is a great way to try a new technique.  I will add that I am not doing them with the same ease as the demo appeared, but they do get easier the more one does.  Looking at the picture helps me consider any re-arranging that might be necessary. What was exciting about cutting this out, besides that cutting partial circles was easy, was that all the fabric came from my stash!  I wonder how long I could go without buying fabric?   Now I want to share some other quilts that really got my attention at market.

Edyta Sitar

A wagon load of beautiful

Edyta Sitar’s NEW

Edyta Sitar never disappoints us with her NEW.  Wow, where does she get the ideas and the time to put them on paper, let alone sew them.  A couple of these Laundry Basket Quilt patterns came home with me.

Jo Mortan

Jo’s reproduction of a museum quilt

Jo always draws a crowd as she has a great following.  I went to her school house and really liked seeing this quilt.  I purchased the center panel when it went on the market a year ago.  Now I could see it put in a quilt in the same format as the quilt that is being preserved in Lincoln NB. (I like to sit in the front row at school house for the above reason, but this was a full house and I was glad to have a seat. )

Another Booth

A booth at Market

I did not get a good picture of most of the booths.  There were so many of them!  They were so striking!  This one takes us back in time!

Another 6 pack of Sylvia’s Bridal Quilt

6 of Sylvia’s Bridal Quilt

Before I left for market, my quilting friends were here and we did another six blocks.  Now I need to stop playing with circles and get our next set ready!

International Quilt Market – Spring 2012

Welcome to Quilt Market

This is the second time that I have had the priviledge to attend Quilt Market and this time was just as exciting as last time.  Thursday is School House Day.  There are 14 thirty minutes sessions during the day.  I made it to 13 of them.  The problem is that for each session there are 30 of them going on!  You have to make a lot of tough choices!

Something NEW

Market is all about something NEW  That is what makes us buy.  At the turn of the century (1880-1910)  dark colors, like black and indigo, were the rage.  How do you get women to buy more?  Change the color palate!  We are all familiar with the pastels of the 1920s.  Women were buying again!  The above picture is a design of Elisa Wilson a few years ago.  You saw it in all the shops and quilt shows.  There are still women making this quilt, but Elisa had to have something NEW!

A winner for 2011

Last year the above quilt was winning ribbons in the shows I attended.  What could Elisa do to get us to buy her second book, Crazy Curves, Continues , or new patterns?

Fan Dance

She had to come up with NEW ideas and patterns.  She did not disappoint us!  If you like paper piecing you can add a lot to your circles with Fan Dance.  This is available as an individual pattern if you already have her book.

Another NEW pattern is above and I missed getting the name.  All available at http://www.backporchdesign.com

GUY QUILT

If you are a little overwhelmed with all of this, how about the ‘guy quilt’ above?  It only has 1/2 the number of circles.  Just think, all this went through my mind in 30 minutes in one School House.  My mind had to grasp 12 more of them!

Friday is Exhibitor Day

Exhibitor day is when you really see all the NEW.  And textile people do it with flare!

All the new fabrics from this company are on display.  I would love to do this in a room of my house:  layered cake, foam board and scraps of batting!I will try to add more of market in other posts.  Now I am either going to unpack or play with circles!

Guess which one will win!

Happy dreaming about your next project!

Where is That Binding Fabric?

When the quilt comes back from your faithful long-armer, do you have any trouble finding where you stashed the binding?  I hear all kinds of tips on this and never follow them.  This morning I have hunted everywhere for the binding of the below quilt.  I finally went out side to work with flowers to clear my mind and come back with more clear thinking.  I think I used every drop of border fabric on the border.  Now I need a new plan!

scrap pineapple quilt

Each year I try to do one scrap quilt in honor of my mom and her sisters.  They were all young married and having babies during the Great Depression.  I do not know if they had time to quilt as they were so busy re-making clothes to fit their growing families.  Nothing was wasted.  I did not buy any fabric for this quilt and had to change background fabric along the way.  It was made by a very clever technique a lady showed me but had never put into writing.  I wrote out the pattern and have taught one class on it and another is in the works.  Most of us cannot part with our scraps and this is a beautiful way to use them.

GRADUATES: 

One of my quilting buddies did this quilt for a granddaughter. WOW!  Not your traditional t-shirt quilt!

Very special Graduation quilt by Sandi

I forgot to take a picture of the back.  It is a traditional t-shirt quilt.  Sandi made one like this for the first granddaughter who graduated a couple years ago.  Now they all want one just like it!  She has at least 3 more to go!

Thrifty Aunt

Now I will show what this thrifty aunt did.  I kept the pattern very simple so it would go fast.  Then I felt a little guilt that I did not ask what colors she would like, so I put pretty fabric on the back to make it reversible.  Instead of paying someone to quilt the gift and make it rather pricey, I quilted the drop before I added it to the bed top part.  Then I made the top like a devon and added a comfort to that part.  In the summer she could remove the comfort and have a summer spread.  She gets it today and I sure hope she likes at least one side!

Twin sized quilt for Ashley

It did challenge me a little to figure out how to make the pocket for the comfort.  The first one I showed you made by Sandi will be a life long treasure.  My gift will be in a garage sale when Ashley gets married, but that would be okay as it will have served her well in college.  Each quilt we make has a different purpose.

Reversible quilt/ devon for Ashley

I was challenged a little to figure out how to make the opening for the comfort to be added and removed easily.

May you also build some memories at this special time of the year!   And a happy Mother’s Day to you!

 

 

More Penn.-Dutch & American Girl Quilts

Caught up with the teacher:

I have completed the first two borders on the wedding sampler.  My numbers came close to those of Cheryl.  That is always a happy result.  The strings of HST could have been real boring, but I made them at an all day sew and spent about 8 hours getting them done and pieced together.  I could also pay attention to all the chatter as it was such a mundane process.  I carefully pressed each of the HST when they were squared up.  Now the question is do you press the connecting seams when you make a strip of 25?   I remembered making a long strip of flying geese and it became an accordion, so I did not press the connecting seams.  I just assumed that mine were all a perfect 2-1/2″ and went with that measurement.  It worked.  The next border will be 5-1/2 wide strips of the pink.  Then comes another batch of HST and they are ready to go!

first border of HST of Barbara Snyder’s wedding sampler

Primitive Portraits:

While working on the above blocks I got out a kit that I have been curing for a few years.  It is a Primitive Portrait: Berks County 1850.  The designer is http://www.Folkartchildren.com and a blog by the designer is http://www.sewprimitive.blogspot.com.  I had set it aside for awhile as I was not liking the face and skin.  The facial features came done in ink so that was not the issue.  I asked friend Carolyn to give the lady a make-up job and it really inhanced the project.  Then I studied the other issue and trimmed the back of all fabric behind the skin and stuffed it to get rid of the shadows. The blue dress was giving the arm bruises!  I now loved the project and did the hand quilting.  It just needs some binding.

Primitive Portrait: Berks County 1850

American Girl Dolls Quilts:

My other Penn.-Dutch project was done some years ago.  I so enjoyed the books of the American Girl Dolls.  They teach little girls American history through the eyes of a nine year old.  I decided to do some textile and quilt research to go with each doll.  I designed a quilt for each one and in addition to writing the patterns, I wrote a textile history lesson.  I used them for a monthly gathering of some ladies at a local quilt shop.  It was lots of fun and motivated me to do research.

Kersten’s first quilt 1854

The above quilt was designed for Kerstin, a Swedish Immigrant settling in Minnesota.  She was taught piecing at her new country school.  Having a complete selection of Penn.-Dutch colors would not have been realistic for a poor immigrant in MN., but the autograph design was very popular at this time period.  Permanent ink came on the market about 1840, so the autograph quilts were very popular.  It was also appropriate for an immigrant who was leaving behind relatives she would never see again and who met new friends along the way and new ones once settled in America.  She could have traced the signatures from letters the family received.

A more realistic quilt for Kersten

I will confess that I just could not resist making her one with the bright colors.  I am sure she would have loved it.  I also made her one that was more scrappy and would have been realistic as the school girls traded scraps with one another.

Now I must move on to preparing for my friends day with 6 more blocks from another time period: Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler.

Penn – Dutch Colors – gotta love those brave women!

In 2011 I was privileged to make two trips to Lancaster County, Penn.   It just seemed right to follow along with Cheryl to make the blocks of Barbara’s wedding quilt.  Making five inch blocks is a great way to improve ones accuracy in piecing.  The colors that we now refer to as Penn-Dutch were real popular about 1850.  However the only women brave enough to put them all together without some other colors to tone them down were the women in Penn.  Insidently, Dutch is really German.  It has something to do with the language.  These German immigrants that settled in Penn. found very rich soil and were successful farmers.  Their wives were able to buy the fabric for their quilts, rather than using worn fabric or scraps.

Sashing all in place

Last week I was able to put all the sashing in place.  I have yet to square it up.  Cheryl had us make the outer triangles extra large so the square up should go well.  Then it is time for borders!

Doll quilt purchased in Texas

While recently in Texas I purchased the little doll quilt.  There is a cloth note stitched on the back saying that it came from Penn.  What a little treasure to add to my collection!  When I spotted a vender from Penn., I was on the hunt.  Down on my knees I dug through boxes searching for blocks of the colors the Penn. women are so well known for.

With all this to inspire me, I got out a partial project of my own and decided it was time to finish it!  I will add it to another post.