Flowers for John Herman

I haven't posted quilt photos for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't because I wasn't quilting - so I'll try to make up for it here. The Civil War Sesquicentennial quilt for Roger and Laurie went under wraps while I completed putting the blocks together and then quilting it, so that I could take it to Chicago with me this past weekend.


I have to post some photos to show the quilting I did, so here are a collection that I took while I had the quilt up on the display stand outside -


Since I posted the story of each block as I made it, I'll just talk about my quilting choices.

I knew I wanted to quilt feathers in the outer border and setting triangles, seen at the top of this next photo.


Some of the blocks got feathers, some got straight lines, some got a combination. And some were just stitched in the ditch of the piecing lines.



When there was a distinct background that I didn't want to play up with straight lines, I used a basic machine-quilting meander. Larger flower motifs that were fussy cut were quilted as though they had been appliqued.


I'll finish this series with this closest crop. The quilting in the sashing strips was the trickiest thing I did. Long diagonal lines (actually quilted in a zig-zag pattern back and forth) are just challenging. There's a meander fill between the two lines, which are spaced about 1/2 inch apart.


I took a photo of the quilt label when I checked to see if I could fit it in my rolling carry-on suitcase. It may not appear so, but there was actually some room to spare. However, my family had to see me in the same pair of bluejeans all weekend.

The title of the quilt, Flowers for John Herman, comes from the floral motifs of my fabrics, which were emphasized for Laurie the horticultural therapist. I dedicated the quilt to our great-grandfather who fought for the Union with the 82nd Indiana Regiment.

Laurie says the backing fabric, visible in the photo above, matches the bedroom paint color. I had not been upstairs in her beautiful home, just on the lower floor, so that was a happy choice.

Usually since we live away from family, I mail my quilts out. This time I wanted my own photo of the recipients with the quilt. Roger decided they should hold it up and recruited nephew Andrew to help. Andrew was lucky to get some height genes from his Mom.

Gallery Show

Dorry and other quilting friends in the Northern Virginia area have just finished hanging a quilt show at a gallery in Herndon, ArtSpace Herndon. The show is called Quilts; Collaborative Art by Northern Virginia Quilters and there are a few examples of my work in the show, on my own pieces and on some of Dorry's. She just sent me a few photos taken as they were getting the show ready.

Here is my quilt, Feathered and Other Fine Friends - the most recent of my Round Robin projects - put together by the five other members and Dorry, and recently quilted by me - hanging next to Dorry's quilt Purple Passion. Purple Passion won an honorable mention at the Asheville guild show a couple of years ago and was one of the earliest pieces I quilted on the longarm.


Carolina Waltz, the Old from New challenge quilt I made hangs in the lower row of this group. The other quilts in the photo are from the same challenge, where we all started with a vintage Dresden Plate block.

This next photo features two quilts I worked on for Dorry - Riverdance and Massanetta Mystery, center and right on the wall facing the camera.


The gallery and the quilters worked together to hang the quilts - the larger quilt in this photo with the orange background is one of Dorry's Round Robin quilts - I quilted it for her.


Most of these quilts have been shown previously - and Dorry's Riverdance and her Carolina Lilies were both in a large National level quilt show - but I think this is the first time our quilts are on display in an art venue.

Dorry and the other quilters had a lot of work preparing for the show - and it doesn't end there as they are planning to man the gallery at least part-time for the duration of the show, since the regular staff are not quilters. There's an opening reception this coming Sunday, January 15th from 2-4:00 p.m. for anyone in the area.

Putting it all together

This picture is not the most flattering - some of the top is put together, but some of it is awkwardly slapped on the design wall. At 8 feet, the top parts are out of reach for me, even from the step stool.

I chose an Oak Leaf and Reel for a center medallion because Brother Roger used the Oak Leaf as a campaign symbol when he ran for Forest Preserve Commissioner.


The four diagonal rows of blocks across the lower right are pieced together. I also have the 3-row section on the lower left attached to the medallion. Upper right there are a few pairs of pieces assembled.

I used 52 of the 53 blocks. They look far better to me this way than when the rows of side-by-side blocks with no relief kept growing on the wall.

There are going to be a couple of straight outer borders to help tie this together. I felt I was making great progress today, but it seems I have a lot of piecing yet to do.