Reems Creek Chronicles: Holiday Quilts - International

I'm overdue to post photos from the last Remarkable Robins cooperative quilt-making. Our leader Dorry chose the theme - Holidays - and suggested each of the 7 participants chose one she would like to decorate her house with seasonally. I chose Ground Hog Day, not with the intention of confounding my fellow quilters from other continents, but because I was already thinking about seasonal quilts and felt like Winter would not be my strong point. Before they got too carried away with their protests about not even knowing what a Ground Hog was, I told them they were under no circumstances to depict the hairy rodent on my quilt, and suggested that since Ground Hog Day is all about the Shadow and there are plenty of traditional quilt blocks and settings that incorporate the Shadow, they need not look too far for quiltable ideas.

The plan for the quilt was a secret to most, but each of us was to make a 6 inch block, provide 1/4 yard of fabric to 4 other quilters, and 1/2 yard to two more quilters. It was up to us how to divide up the fabric, and we could use 6 different fabrics or any combination we chose.

This is the little six inch block I made. It's one of the many Robbing Peter to Pay Paul blocks, which is how I see those final six weeks the Ground Hog's shadow sighting predicts: will we have six more weeks of winter? Or will spring arrive in Six weeks? I hoped the colors and prints would suggest winter, even to those who live where the our winter with snow and ice does not happen.

The next four quilters made18 inch blocks. The fifth made four 6x18 inch sashings, and the final quilter put it together with an outer border.

The first quilter to take on my challenge was Judy from Virginia, living in Australia. She drafted this masterpiece of dimension herself, claiming it took every tool in her quilting studio to do it. I have no idea how she was able to do it - or even where you would start, but I know it involved circles. Keep staring at it and you'll see 3 different stars rising and falling from the hexagonal shape.

Next was Canadian Rhonda, who was not confused by the concept of Groundhog Day. She made this clever take on the three dimensionality of Tumbling Blocks, amped up with holes for the groundhog to peek out of. The marble-print fabric that appears on the left side of the lowest left block is the one I supplied in fat quarters for the first four quilters.

Heather in Australia used Margaret Miller's Blockbender Quilts as her inspiration for a Sunshine and Shadows setting of the colors of my block.

And then Dorry from New Zealand living in Virginia took inspiration from one of Heather's inspirations and masterfully made all these shadowy triangles.

Jo in Australia didn't shy away from all the Y seams of 12 Attic Windows blocks for the sashing strips.In the photo of Dorry's block above you can see the tiny Orange Peels she appliqued inside the window of the inner blocks of the sashings that mimic my starting block. I quilted them in the other 8 blocks, as you can see below. The light green fabric you see at the top of the photo below is the one I supplied for the sashing and borders.

My quilt was assembled by Dorry's sister Kerry in New Zealand. It's hard to talk about Kerry's contribution to my quilt because it was not long after our group presentation that she passed away. You don't see it in the above photo, but in this one you will see that she precisely copied my starting block - down to the fussy cutting I did of that Jason Yenter Wintergraphix fabric. Where I cut four matching petals from that swirling print, she made 32!! After all that, she left me some space to quilt more of those shapes all around, so my quilting stamp makes a big impression.

I was happy to discover this print, also a Jason Yenter Wintergraphix, that I used for the back of my quilt to celebrate that Orange Peel design I quilted after the inspiration of that same block.