Where has the summer gone?

Amazing! Even though it isn't officially fall, it is time for school to start and that means fall to me.

To my surprise, I have accomplished some things since last spring. I FINALLY quilted the Paducah Nine-Patch top assembled quite a few years ago. It is quilted with simple straight line walking foot quilting, which is all it needed. It is happy to be finished!

I also quilted a Miss Rosie top that I made several years back. I think the pattern was called Pretty Maids. It is made in wonderfully murky eggplant, tan, gold, green fabrics, but I changed it to have a plainer, dark eggplant border so there would be spaces for some fancy quilting. The center is straight line walking foot. I called it "It Was a Dark and Murky Night." There were some blocks left over so they were assembled into a small table runner. The table runner will be donated to the Quilt Boutique at our local quilt show.

I made and quilted an appliqued quilt called Bird Haven. It has 9 appliqued blocks and is about 48" square. It was named in honor of Bird Haven Greenhouse and Conservatory in Joliet, IL. They will celebrate 80 years of continuous operation in 2010. I grew up in Joliet and have fond memories of visits to the greenhouse...but I was NOT there on opening day in 1930!

I made a lap size four-patch quilt to be donated through community projects of our local guild.

I joined a small group. Each of us plan to make a journal type quilt a month. This is meant to be a growth experience. I am planning to work on unmarked free motion quilting of objects like leaves, flowers, feathers, etc. I am using Dover Books for inspiration. The series will be called Without a Trace I, II, etc. I quilted a floral shape for the first one. It turned out well but I was not adventurous enough in my choice of thread.

But the main thing is that I have started my "big" project for the year. It is a red and green appliqued quilt based on my study of some antique quilts - pictures - I've not been able to see very many actual quilts. It will have nine 18" blocks in the center and a leafy border.

And...I had some excitement in June. A quilt that I entered in the NQA show placed second in the Bed Quilts, Mixed Techniques category.

My Visit to LLQA - A Trip Down Memory Lane

LLQA stands for Land of Lincoln Quilters Association. It is a statewide organization that meets in various locations throughout Illinois. Yesterday the meeting was in Lincoln. I was the guest speaker. It was a new experience for me - a good experience. What could be better than spending time in the company of quilters talking about quilts?

It was fun getting out the quilts made over the past 11 years and deciding which ones I would take along. (It has not been as much fun putting them away!) Even though I knew it would be the case, I was surprised to see how much my skill level had changed. I think all quilters should assess their own quilting growth from time to time in order to appreciate their own accomplishments.

I took 28 quilts of various sizes, including the first quilt I made in August of 1998. I wasn't able to take any of the Marula Designs quilts because they were all at the Rosemont IQA show.

Today I am working on the exact design for the Bird Haven applique blocks.

A New Quilting Year

I am a member of Hands All Around Quilt Guild in Bloomington, IL. Our annual quilt show was April 4-5. Every year as the date for the quilt show approaches, I find myself scrambling to finish quilts I optimistically entered. This year was no exception!

In March of 2008 I had taken a machine applique class from Sue Nickels. I started a 16" block in that class and finished it sometime that spring. I decided to add a border to it. Pretty soon there were two borders, then three. It grew into an 85x85 medallion quilt with both pieced and appliqued blocks. I named it Touch of Class because the center block was started in a class and because it had a classic sort of look. I started quilting it on my Bernina in January of 2009 and finished it about 2 weeks before the show. It turned out quite nice.

Then I quickly quilted the Bush Tea sample for the Marula Imports booth. This was also needed for our quilt show. There was no time to do the pattern. That can come later.

Now the show is over. This is the time of year that I think about what I'd like to accomplish in the next twelve months. Right now I am quilting a Paducah Nine-Patch top that I made several years ago. It's from one of the Nickel Quilt books. I am doing traditional straight line quilting with the walking foot. It is completely relaxing and does not take much concentration, which leaves me free to think about projects for the coming year.

The first thing I plan to start will be an approximately 45x45 wall quilt with nine 9" applique blocks. I am going to use two different blocks and alternate their placement, separating them with sashing. One of those blocks has a bird on it. I will call the quilt Bird Haven, which is the name of the greenhouse and conservatory at Pilcher Park in Joliet. It was built in the early 1900s and is an Italian Renaissance design. It was designed by the Lord and Burnham Company. My mother liked to visit the greenhouse. When she passed away in 2005, I had her name put on a brick in a walkway and also had it etched into a glass pane in the greenhouse. I have thought for a long time that I want to make a Bird Haven quilt too. The time has come! I came across the fabric for the border just recently. It is an interesting print with green, gold, red, orange, brown - great fall colors. I think I want the birds to be robins. The fabric is collected. (I am good at that part.) I will start it next week...I think.

This coming year I also want to make an old fashioned applique quilt. I have been looking at Rose of Sharon blocks. There are many variations. I am designing one of my own. The quilt will be red and green with some touches of gold. I want to leave areas for fancy quilting too.

I also want to develop the patterns for Bush Tea and Baby Elephant Walk, two recent Marula samples.

It's going to be another busy year!

Ko Ko

I made Ko Ko to show off the chocolate Shweshwe prints at the Nashville show. I did not originally plan to develop a pattern too. Probably because I couldn't envision getting the pattern finished before the show. I cut out the quilt around July 15 and finished the binding on August 16, the day before Elizabeth left for Nashville. That might not sound too remarkable, but I had to go to work 5 days a week. (Employers are so demanding, aren't they?)

There was a lot of interest in the quilt so after the show I started thinking about what could be included in the pattern to make it have value.

The block in this quilt is great because it is made of 16 half-square triangles assembled in a pleasing manner. It doesn't take much work to make a block that is "pleasing" because the Shweshwe itself is interesting and striking. The block does not involve complicated piecing. Make the half-square triangles, arrange them, make the rows, and sew the 4 rows together. Move on to the next block.

Each 8" block has 32 pieces and a lot of seams - some a bit on the bulky side. I think pressing effectively is the biggest challenge with this quilt. So I made the pressing instructions in the pattern very specific.

I didn't have a name for the quilt immediately, but it was named while I was still piecing. The name comes from the Ladies Detectives books by Alexander McCall Smith. (The name is explained on the back cover.) I love those books. Once I started thinking of the quilt as Ko Ko, it reminded me of the books and that made me happy. Ko Ko and I had bonded.

Southern Cross

Elizabeth was in the process of finalizing her U.S. citizenship. I have always lived in the U.S and always will. I am happy here and this is my home. I wondered how I would feel if circumstances caused me to leave a country, home, and family that I love to permanently move to another land. I think there would always be a place in my heart for the first country.

I wanted to make a quilt using the indigo and red Shweshwe to celebrate Elizabeth becoming a U.S. citizen. It would be a patriotic sort of quilt, but I also wanted to tie it to South Africa. Elizabeth had told me about the Southern Cross constellation which is only visible from the southern hemisphere. I decided to incorporate it into the quilt.

The Southern Cross has 5 stars in it. When viewed, 4 stars are approximately the same size and the 5th one appears smaller. At first I was thinking in terms of pieced star blocks arranged in some manner in the center of the quilt surrounded by a pieced border. I couldn't quite get a handle on it. Then I decided to applique the 5 stars. That was the breakthrough.

1. The center appliqued block would have red stars against an indigo background. It would be 12" finished with a red 1" inner border.
2. The outer border would be pieced from 7" indigo and red log cabin blocks arranged in a star formation. The strips in the log cabin block would be 1" finished.
3. The corner log cabin blocks would contain all indigos.

Chocolate Pudding

Many of the quilts that I make take shape as they progress. They grow to be whatever size they end up being. They don't symbolize anything in particular, but they may take on meaning and form personalities as they go along.

Chocolate Pudding is not that kind of quilt. It was symbolic from the start. I met Elizabeth's family (her husband Steven, her mother Tersia from South Africa, and her in-laws Judy and Larry from North Dakota) in April of 2008. I'd learned from Tersia that a South African dessert may be called pudding even though it is not pudding as I know it. I wanted to make another sample for Marula Imports and these were the thoughts in my head:

1. The sample would feature the chocolate brown Shweshwe.
2. I would produce a pattern for this quilt.
3. I would use the Cake Stand block because cake is a dessert that is not pudding. I decided that the blocks would be 8" finished. (I prefer blocks that are 9" or smaller. Cake Stand works best if the block size is an even number. I thought a 6" Cake Stand block might intimidate some quilters.)
4. Since it featured the chocolate prints, the quilt would be called Chocolate Pudding.
5. The sample did not need to be a large quilt. (I am fond of making large lap and bed size quilts.)
6. The sample needed to use fat quarters, but incorporate different prints. (I like using a lot of different fabrics and wanted to give others the opportunity to use different Shweshwe prints.)
7. I would use light shirtings and double pinks to show the chocolate Shweshwe to advantage. (I am a fairly traditional quilter with a fondness for reproduction fabrics.)

At this point I got out the graph paper and sketched the quilt:

1. The center featured 5 Cake Stand blocks set on point. The blocks had chocolate and pink against light shirtings.
2. The border was pieced so it could be primarily brown with a chain of pink squares. I wanted the pink squares to be larger at the corners. The border ended up having 2 different blocks in it - Double Four-Patch and modified Puss in the Corner.
3. Since the blocks were on point, setting triangles were also needed. If the setting triangles were cut in the normal manner, it would require 13" Shweshwe squares. To avoid a lot of waste, the setting triangles would be cut from two fabrics at the most. I pieced the setting triangles in order to use a wider variety of prints.

On the night that I cut the pieces, I only had 5 chocolate prints on hand, but they were half-yards instead of fat quarters. I pieced the quilt using those 5 prints even though I knew that 8 fat quarters would be needed. (You know how it is. When you are ready to do something, you are ready. You cannot stop yourself.)

Marula Designs

Marula Designs is a line of quilt patterns designed for Marula Imports. The patterns feature an African cotton called Shweshwe. Marula Imports is owned by my friend, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and I work together. She was planning a trip home to visit family in South Africa and knew I was a quilter. She asked me if there was some kind of fabric she could bring back for me. (Have you ever known a quilter to answer "No" to such a question?) A long time ago I had purchased an African fabric from a vendor at a quilt show and had used it to make a quilt. All that remained were a few scraps. I showed them to Elizabeth.

She returned from her trip with ten different prints. We were both excited about the prints, but Elizabeth was also excited and impressed by the Da Gama company that makes Shweshwe. 45% of the company is owned by its workers and it supports many worthwhile community projects. Marula Imports was born, the website was created, and Elizabeth made plans to vend at quilt shows.

I made plans to provide Elizabeth with samples for her booth. At the first show there were requests for patterns. Marula Designs came into being.