Farm Quilt - inspiration to finished!

"The Farm" - finished!

!

I had so much fun with this project, from inspiration, to design, to completion.  Much love was sewn into the quilt!  Made as a gift for my cousin, Julie, to honor the memory of my aunt, Marilyn, and to my grandparents' farm in Wisconsin.  After my grandparents were gone, my aunt and uncle moved to the farm after their retirement.  

Starting the design process.  For the most part, I made this quilt with my scraps ONLY.  I feel it pushes my design skills to use what I have, and I feel connected to my grandmothers, who were both quilters, and did not usually purchase fabrics for their quilts.
I started designing the sky in horizontal strips of hand-dyeds and batiks, but not loving the look.  The rust batiks would become the windmill. 

It is so quiet at the farm...you can see so many stars...and the sky is so blue!  The air is so fresh!
I spied these quilts by Terry Kramzar on the internet (you can find her website here) and was just drawn to them!  I love the pieced background technique, which I adopted for my sky.

Sky completed (much better!), starting to add the borders.  The log cabin scrappy blocks below are leftovers from my grandma's quilt!  

I kept my inspiration pieces close by while designing.  The farm's actual windmill is at the top - no vanes remaining!

Getting there!  The dark blue print edge triangles were in my stash - leftovers from a previous project, which I had cut the wrong size! Twice! So I had lots of them. :)

I like to insert all of the pins before closing them.  I feel it keeps the quilt-batting-backing layers nice and flat, and the finished quilt, if a wall quilt, is flat, square, and smooth. 

Basting the quilt prior to machine quilting.

I added an applique border on left and top, because of Marilyn's flowers growing at the farm, so graceful and wild and free.  I also added a thin orange/red print piping, a favorite design technique of mine.

We visited Wisconsin to deliver the quilt to Julie.  While there, we drove down the road to Anderson's Maple Syrup business, owned by descendants of my godparents, who started the business.
I don't think I had ever met Christine and Jan (her mother) before, but they were so warm and welcoming, and we felt and instant connection.  Christine has since visited us in Illinois.
Julie, me, Christine, Jan

"The Farm" photographed at the farm, where it belongs.  

"Fun" Pillow!

We took a car trip to Minnesota over Memorial Day weekend, and I wanted a hand-sewing project to work on in the car.  What to do? While I enjoy hand work, I just don't do it that often - so I had to dream up a "fun" (you'll get the meaning later) project.

I ended up with this charming pillow, inspired by two wonderful bloggers.  

This fabulous quilt, Spring Shoots, is by the creative and talented quilter, Lou Ann at Nifty Quilts.  If you have never visited her blog, you really should!  Her quilts boost scrap quilts to an art form.  And this quilt has been up on my inspiration board for a while!

Then this lovely bounty of scraps landed in my lap from another quiltland blogger, Barb of Fun with Barb (hence the "fun" reference).  Hers is another great blog, not to be missed! Barb has excellent workmanship as well as design, creating some knockout handcrafted beauties. 

I won the fabrics from a feature on her blog, and after spreading them out to admire them, I started wondering what I would use them for...until I got the idea to make a pillow, inspired by Lee Ann's quilt!

I brought along a picture of the quilt to inspire me, plus some hand drawn leaf patterns to use for patterns, and went to town creating leaf after lovely leaf.  I cut out the leaf patterns from paper, and then wrapped the fabric over the edges and hand sewed to secure. 

This was a perfect passenger seat, or hotel room at night, project.  I even had the idea I would continue the hand work and actually hand-applique the leaves onto the background after we got back home.

Then the reality of my busy life, and other quilting projects in the queue, suggested that I use machine applique.  And voila! I guess I should call it a fun & nifty pillow! 

Scraps giveaway, design wall progress, Ethan's gift

Do you ever hope that you will win a giveaway on a blog? on one of your favorite blogs? Well guess who just won a package of scraps? I did, over at Fun with Barb.  I wasn't the first winner, but Barb is sending me a package of scraps, too! Yay! I LOVE scraps, and scrap quilts - and Barb's scraps will be yummy, I am sure! Everyone's stash is so different - almost like a fingerprint.  I wonder what I will make with them???  Barb's blog is terrific, always filled with inspiration and lots of fun, too.  Her quilts are stunning, and her workmanship is exquisite.  

And - to "pay it forward" - I will be sending out a package of my scraps to someone who responds to this post.  I will mail to anywhere in the U.S.  Please make sure that I have some way to contact you - like your email address. I promise to send a nice assortment for some fun playtime.  Thank you!

My design wall has been frozen like this for a while...I know we are ALL busy, but I literally do not have more than maybe an hour of free time each day, after my two jobs.  This colorwash quilt will be a wedding gift for my lovely daughter, Emily, and her wonderful husband, Matt.  I wanted to make them a wall quilt, and something that would complement their modern house and design scheme.  I showed Emily some colorwash examples, and got the thumbs up!  Then I got a nice selection of batik pieces from my friend Wanda of Exuberant Color.  Wanda is an excellent quilter and teacher, and an expert at the colorwash style.  Check out her blog for many fabulous examples! 

Another project for my spare time - this is a small quilt made for some dear friends who suffered the most profound loss:  both of twin girls that they were expecting.  I stopped my other quilt projects and made this - I just had to do something, you know? Just a small thing, to show them that we love them.

They do have a darling 3-year-old son, Ethan, who wanted to give something to his angel sisters, in heaven.  So, after the memorial service at our church, there was a balloon release of pale pink and violet balloons.  A few appropriate words were spoken, and then Ethan gave the signal for all of us to release our balloons, and we watched them climb upward, between the bare branches of a big tree. I am adding a few soft pink sequins, denoting the sun glinting off the balloons. 

"Ethan's Gift"

Round Robin Quilt - Christmas Angel

This quilt dates back to 1996 - almost 20 years ago!  My quilting bee group decided to do a round robin challenge.  Each of us started with a different center, of own choosing, and then passed the center block to the next person (5 of us, total), to add a border.  My center block was the appliqued angel - from a commercial pattern, sorry I do not remember the name of it - plus the narrow gold border and piano key border.

Sue added the first border - the wonky star blocks, with that fabulous swirly blue fabric.  The stars turned out to be a recurring theme, in each border.

Linda added the folk art applique border - also from a commercial pattern, which I have forgotten, sorry! Note the buttonhole stitch edging.

Barb added the 9-patch border - always love the basic 9-patch - and more stars fabric helps my angel to float!

Lori added log cabin blocks - and see, more star fabrics!

Finished quilt - I just echoed the narrow gold and piano key borders.  I love this quilt, and I am always happy when Christmas time rolls around, and I can display this quilt once again.

Round Robin Quilt - The Swing

It's Round Robin Quilts today!

My friend, Sujata, mentioned something about Round Robin quilts the other day, so I thought I would tell the story of a couple of my quilts.  This was a guild challenge, done in 1993 with my partner, Linda Brzykcy.  We were given a set of coordinated fabrics (the floral print, and the stripe - maybe one more, I honestly don't remember! It was 22 years ago, forgive me!
We had a size limit, but that was about the only rule. 

I created the center block, inspired by one of my children's books (see below).  The book features silhouettes, so I started with that - in black, and a black piping. I added lots of different fabrics to frame the center image, and a narrow black border.  

Then I passed the quilt to Linda, who added a 9-patch border, made of two different beige prints - which provided me the perfect backdrop for the floral applique.  One more black piping before the binding, and I was done.

Finished quilt.

My inspiration piece - my mom used to read to me out of this sweet book.

This poem is also a song - which my mom used to sing to me, and I used to sing to my girls, as I pushed them on our backyard swing.
Lots of nostalgia in this quilt project.

Quilt Inspiration - from clip art!



This is the altar cloth that resulted from clip art inspiration - shown here in my living room!  



This little thumbnail sketch was a piece of clip art, seen in a church bulletin years ago.  We were back home in Minnesota, in my tiny home church - one of those cute little white churches, with a green steeple, like on a Christmas card? Yes, that's my home church - where we were married, actually.  If you use every inch, you can seat maybe 120 people.

St. Paul's United Church of Christ
Delano Minnesota

Anyway, I loved the beauty and simplicity of this sketch, and thought it would make a great design for a quilted altar cloth - and planned then and there to make an entire matching set for the church, as a memorial for my parents.  They were long-time, very active members, and I thought it would be a fitting tribute.  You see the altar cloth above.



Companion piece made for the pulpit.  I also made a matching stole for the minister.

Then I decided to make a similar set of paraments for my current church, First United Methodist of Downers Grove, IL (below).

An artist friend, Janine Johnson, modified the original design a bit, making it more appropriate for our church.  I pieced the background in a brick design, using different beige fabrics, to suggest the bricks on our church. Sorry I don't have a close-up shot.

Pulpit and altar pieces - don't the autumn floral arrangements look stunning alongside them?