Thursday, August 23, 2012

Quiltcon block

ART_1570 by sonjaartisania
ART_1570, a photo by sonjaartisania on Flickr.

Of all the ideas I had for a block for Quiltcon, this is the only one I got done.
I just received in the mail the latest "Modern Quilts Illustrated" by Ringle and Kerr and a quilt in there inspired me to adapt it down to block size. I hope it arrives in time.
The solids are the approved Kona colours and the rest is from my stash. I only had to buy some grey - not because I needed it, but because I NEEDED it.
The size requirements were 12.5 inches by anything, so I went big.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Trunk Show Part 2 - More Traditional Quilts

Here's more of my trunk show.  I'm still in my traditional phase here in the mid 90s.

 In 1993 I quilt my job at the Royal Bank and cut up my dress shirts to make this quilt top. The yellow zig zag isn't working for me, so I'll take that off when I finish it - if I ever do.


All of 94 I traveled through Africa from Cairo to Capetown using local transportation. This quilt is my diary of the trip.

In each town I visited, I would go to the tailor shops and ask for scraps of fabric. Once I had a few blocks done, I could just show them what I wanted the fabric for. Most of the fabric I got for free. I embroidered the name of the country, the town, and the name of the fabric, or the type of outfit that would be made from the fabric.

I have enough blocks made for two more quilts.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Trunk Show Part 1 - Gramma Walker's Quilts

I tried to photograph all the quilts I have hanging around so I have a record of them.  I'm going to try to post them in sort-of chronological order.

But first I got to start with the quilts that inspired me to start quilting.

I think this is the oldest one I have from my Gramma Walker in West Virginia.  A nice red and white one that has a sort of Jacob's Ladder block set on point.

 This next one, I was told, was made from my mom and her older sister's dresses.  One wore red and the other wore blue.  I'm going to have to confirm it with Aunty Wanda.  These would have been made in the late 40s early 50s.

This yellow one is a quilt from the "missionary cupboard".  The church ladies in Hanna Alberta made these Bible verse quilts for the missionaries.  We must have had 3 or 4 of these growing up, but this seems to be the only one that survived - probably because we kept it here in Canada and didn't take it out to India.  This one has the verses drawn on with liquid embroidery tubes.  Can you find the misspelled block?

This is one of the older quilts I made while I was still making traditional quilts.  It's a very traditional log cabin quilt laid out in the straight furrows style.


And this last one is a nice scrappy block with several shades of light and dark grey.  I think the block is called the road home.  This one and the log cabin one are single bed size.