Tasty Thank You!

Around noon today, we got a call from Edible Arrangements asking if we would be home to receive a perishable delivery? I was pretty sure it was a mistake - perhaps someone had given them the wrong phone number. Today is not a birthday here or any other occasion. But no, they had my name, the delivery was intended for me. Hmm.... what could this be about?


It's from Robin's Dad/Jewel's husband, CJ. (He and I share the same initials!) - it came with his hand-written note thanking me for helping to finish Jewel's Baskets. What a sweet surprise - pretty, too!

Jewel's Baskets

Back in 2008, when I was still quilting professionally, and shortly before we moved, Jewel asked if I would quilt a quilt she was piecing. I agreed and put her on my schedule - always about six months out for custom work. Her time on my schedule came and went and she hadn't brought the quilt to me. There are a lot of reasons a person might change their mind about having me finish their quilts, so I didn't say anything.

Some time later, Jewel's daughter Robin asked me if I had Jewel's quilt. Jewel had forgotten where it was. The missing quilt turned out to be an early symptom of the Alzheimer's Disease that killed Jewel in early 2011. I contacted Robin after the funeral was over to say that I knew she would find her mother's quilt, and when she did, I would be happy and honored to quilt it for her family. Robin let me know when she found it, and put the final borders on the quilt. I just got back from delivering the quilt to Robin.


Jewel was a beautiful woman, and I knew Jewel's Baskets would be beautiful and a pleasure to work on. Her quilts were always pretty, made with rich colors in quality fabrics. This one turned out to be a king-sized quilt with plenty of room for traditional quilting.

Robin is an accomplished quilter, and she likes to incorporate circles in her designs, so feathered wreaths were the obvious choice for the setting blocks. I made a swag to fit the side and corner triangles.


To let Jewel's work be the star of the quilt, I kept the quilting to a minimum on her baskets. They got simple cross hatching while the flowers in them got simple continuous curves, with leaves quilted on the green fabrics. The red inner border has classic Egg and Dart, based on a circle.


Robin pieced the backing out of seven different floral prints. Sorry about this photo, but I had to rumple it up because it was much larger than the 2 king sheets I laid it on for protection on the driveway, the only place close to big enough to see the entire quilt.


I know Jewel's family will treasure her quilt.

Gary gets the quilts

On Thursday, Gary bought lunch for the Firehouse Bee and me, and got to see his wife's finished quilts.


(I'm in the aqua sweater on the left)

The Bee ladies had no trouble talking him into entering the quilt in the local guild show next September. It can be displayed as an exhibition quilt. The woman in charge of the show layout is the one just behind Gary's shoulder on the right. She can make sure it gets a place that properly shows it off. Gary said he and Barbara went to the show every year, even when she was in a wheelchair.

When Gary phoned me Wednesday to make sure I would be there for lunch, he said he was concerned he was going to fall apart at the sight of the finished quilt. Helen (of the Bee) had set it up so he would see it when he first came in the door.


After the lunch and photos, Gary said it was good it was displayed like that, and that it was such a beautiful spring - it was a happy quilt and he felt happy to see it (and he didn't break down at all, though some of the ladies did.)

I know some readers will be interested to know about the framed quilt on the wall in the back of the previous photo. Here's a closeup. The bee ladies made it for the firehouse, in appreciation for use of the community room there for years.


One of the senior firefighters Norris works with was so taken with it he had it framed, making sure the label with its dedication was readable under the glass.

This bee meets at a sort of "substation" to the one in our neighborhood - a good 20-25 minutes drive from our house. Everything they do is a "community quilt." These are quilts that are given to shelters and social services organizations. Gary had given them Barbara's quilting equipment and fabrics which are now stored in the bee's lockers at the fire station. Some of the fabrics have already gone into quilts for deserving families.

The Flower Garden is quilted

I finished quilting Barbara's Flower Garden yesterday -


This next photo shows the quilting best - that is the happy result when you use a light colored, low contrast fabric for the backing, but it does mean the quilter has to be extremely careful when tying on and off. Barbara had marked the roses in the cornerstones in pencil, so I quilted those as she intended. Crosshatching the background was my idea - it's very traditional and mimics hand quilting, which we know Barbara did. Crosshatching is difficult and time consuming to accomplish on the longarm, but the pattern designer used a leafy vine in the green sashing. When I followed her lead with the leaves there to go with the little pre-marked roses, I wanted a design for the block backgrounds that uses straight lines. Straight lines make such a striking counterpoint to the curved lines of the flowers and leaves of both the setting pieces and the applique' of the blocks.

Although all the flowers had all been quilted to the batting by Barbara and the Firehouse Bee members who finished making the top, I had to quilt many of those lines again to adequately support the quilt backing. I used thin threads in about 10 colors so my lines would disappear on the front.

Just for completeness, here's a photo of the entire quilt -

The bee members are preparing to bind and put the label on this quilt.

Barbara's Flower Garden

This morning, before making the Civil War block of the week I met one of the members of the Firehouse Bee that finished Barbara's work preparing her last quilt.


It is a spectacular quilt. It was purchased as a kit, with all the little squares that make up the backgrounds of the flower already cut and the fabrics for the flowers and leaves chosen by the designer, ready for the quilt maker to start working.

Although it was a kit, a top like this nonetheless represents a lot of work by both Barbara and the Bee members who finished getting it ready for longarm quilting. Barbara had all the little squares pieced together - that part was done by fusing to a foundation and then sewing in straight rows, so it's not as technically difficult as it might appear - but she still had to position the squares to get the color wash effect. Then she fused the flowers to this background.

This next picture shows the foundation on which the floral fabrics were fused and sewn together for the background.


The flowers were then cut and fused on top of the pieced backgrounds. Barbara intended to quilt this project herself, and it appears she was going to use a hybrid "quilt as you go" method. She had begun the work of outlining each of the flowers, having placed batting under the blocks, essentially doing some preliminary quilting as she went.



The Bee members finished the outline work - some of it with zig zag stitches, some with straight stitches, following the lead of Barbara's work. Then they pieced it all together with the green and white sashing strips. Gary had given them Barbara's tools and fabrics - they identified two that I can use for the backing. There are so many layers of fabric, interfacing and glue in some places it will be a challenge to quilt. I would like to do traditional crosshatching in the color wash squares, but may have to come up with an alternate plan if my thread or needle break trying to get through the seams. I will post these photos on the longarm forum and ask if any of them have quilted one of these quilts.

The quilt will now hang in my "quilts to be quilted" cupboard for the next 10 days or so. Sister Joyce will be arriving with our Dad and her daughter on Monday so I'll be busy getting ready for them, and clearing out the studio so it will be ready for us to work on her new quilt.

Barbara's Garden Trellis

This first quilt for Gary is done except for the label.









I talked with Gary last night: he told me the quilters who are finishing up the piecing wanted to talk to the quilter he'd lined up to finish Barbara's last quilt. I know them and met with them this morning. It turns out they were totally, in fact joyfully relieved it was me. Like Norris, they were touched by Gary's story and want to see the quilt beautifully finished. I saw the blocks - they are gorgeous but will be challenging to quilt. They are already planning the label for Barbara's Flower Garden and are talking about asking Gary if they can enter it in the group category in the local guild show. I should have the quilt in a couple of weeks at most - you'll see it here when I do!

an uncanny choice -

Norris and I went to a local quilt shop on Friday to pick out an appropriate fabric to bind the garden quilt by Gary's wife (we'll get her first name soon, for the labels). I had one fabric picked out, but last minute changed my mind to this one - without realizing which fabric line it came from -

Per the manufacturer's website:

• Northcott is donating a portion of the purchase price for every yard we sell of selected collections to Breast Cancer Research. Participating collections will be identified by the Northcott's Quest for a Cure ™ logo.
  

I don't think I could have chosen more appropriately.

My Design Wall -- and two special quilts

Here's what's up on my design wall, in three parts. Unusual for me to be working on more than two things at a time -

The Civil War blocks placed side-by-side, in the order I have done them. This is not how they will go in the finished quilt.



This next picture shows two blocks that are the very beginnings of a quilt I'm making for our house. The little four patches are of silk charmeuse. The layout for this quilt is not decided. The only decision thus far is that this quilt will end up very different from you are seeing here.



Then, I have my ongoing "leaders and enders" project which I'm enjoying so much I'd rather just finish. But no, I'm trying to savor and spread out the fun of playing with these tiny pieces. This project started with a bundle of what would be called charm squares, except some fabric manufacturers have lately usurped the term, so that it unfortunately means something slightly different nowadays. This bundle is like the old meaning - a group of small cuts of fabrics, every one being from a different fabric. There are 40 of the squares, each precisely cut at 2x2 inches. Heather who lives in Australia sent them as a surprise gift! Heather is a new member of the International Round Robin group I've been participating in quilt-making challenges with for coming up on 6 years - (hard to believe it's been that long.)



Sorry the photo is blurry - I promise to make better ones next time. The fabrics are all Australian prints - from native florals to aboriginal designs. Possibly difficult to tell from the layout here, they will be simply framed and set in a 6x8 block quilt that will allow each little square to shine. The top row is starting to give the flavor. The large dark green square was necessary to make the layout even, and I will use it for quilting (big surprise there!) I have been looking at Australian animals to continue the theme. I might use a larger, more stylized version of one depicted in the larger gridded square that came with the 2 inch squares (upper right in the photo).

And finally, I have to write about this latest machine quilting project. Late last summer, Norris came home from a Fire Department mission telling me he might be in trouble. He had been talking with a fellow firefighter whose wife died of breast cancer a couple of years ago. Gary told Norris the story of how, as she was dying, she had it in mind to complete two more quilts for their grown sons. Cancer was already in her brain and she was losing her eyesight. Gary told of how she would sew pieces together then would ask him to tell her if her piecing was good enough. Those blocks are now in the hands of a local quilting bee to piece together into a quilt top. Norris had volunteered my machine quilting to finish the two quilts. Of course Norris was not in trouble: this family needs to see and use and love these quilts as the maker intended them to, so I'll happily do my part.

Last night Norris brought home the first one. This one had already been partially machine quilted on a domestic machine. Gary's wife had done a beautiful job basting the quilt layers together and had quite a bit of the lattice quilted. I'll be finishing up what she started there, and adding some feathers to the outer border and the floral square areas between the lattice. (The picture is showing the quilt sideways.)




Unlike when I was doing this for customers, this time I'll do the binding. I also want to make and attach a quilt label. Gary said he didn't think his wife made labels, but Norris was able to explain their value: his own family found quilts in the attic after his father's death that come from his side of the family, but the complete story of who made each one is possibly lost forever.

Gary is supposed to be getting the second quilt back after Valentine's Day. He accidentally sent another quilt - that one was completely hand-quilted and bound, but he decided to leave it with me so I can add a label to that one also.