Quilting Page

Who'd have thought I'd take up quilting at nearly 50 years old? Though I've loved to crochet since my Nana taught me as a small boy, I've never before been into sewing. One day I was looking for some crochet yarn when I saw some fabric. I swear it called me. It was just some fat quarter bundles but the color and texture screamed at me. On a true impulse, I bought it. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it at the time, but I had to have it. Ultimately those fat quarters became my first quilt and I became instantly addicted. In roughly reverse chronological order, I am using this area to post pictures of my work and, perhaps, thoughts, feelings or learnings associated with them.
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Family Room Wall Hanging
Looking to fill in some space in our family room, I came up with this simple wall hanging. Finding just the right fabrics in the right colors that work for me is sometimes insanely difficult. I finally found this purple/beige gradation from an internet site and am happy with the way it turned out.
Hanging in our family room
A closer look
Hannah's Quilt
Hannah Watson is my Goddaughter adopted from China. I wanted to incorporate some pictures and her adoption information into a memorial quilt to document her heritage. Continuing with Shelly Swanland's Cathedral Window technique, this wall hanging is the result. I scanned the photos in and used Adobe Photoshop to create the soft pink background and lettering before printing on fabric to incorporate into the quilt. This turned out to be the most challenging quilt I've done so far. I started and scrapped an alternative design. I also really learned to appreciate the limitations of a lower-end sewing machine. This pattern ultimately creates some bulkiness. Even getting that bulk under the presser foot proved to be a problem much of the time -- much less sewing over it! To top it off; that really cute butterfly fabric in the pink & purple has a rubbery coating with iridescent glitter. Really perfect fabric for the project... but sticky on the machine and difficult to sew over. Not my best craftsmanship... the finished product still turned out cute and I think provides the desired keepsake.
Completed Wall Hanging
First pic seen. It was e-mailed from the orphanage in China.
Chinese name and birth information.
Significant dates surrounding Hannah's arrival in America.
Early pic as an American citizen.
James & Karissa Wedding Quilt
As soon as James announced he was engaged I knew I wanted to make the couple a wedding quilt. Much more ambitious than anything I'd tried before, I worked closely with James and Karissa to be sure it was something they liked instead of just a 'cedar chest' memento. They chose this basic bargello design which I ultimately created in "Electric Quilt". The pattern is made up of 2,107 individual rectangles pieced traditionally by starting with strips, forming tubes of the color run, then cutting the tubes into more strips. We all three went to the local quilt shop and selected these 11 beautiful batiks. As always, a lot of learning, but I'm really pleased with the result. I did my first hand-stitching on this quilt using a modified applique stitch on the binding. Completed 5/22/06 - time to spare before the June 24th wedding! Much too large to think about quilting myself on my domestic Janome, I hired Dana Davis, Overland Park, Kansas, to quilt it. Her work is exquisite. I couldn't be more pleased with the overall wave pattern and her thread selections. I think I'm about bargello'd out now! At least for a while.
The Full Quilt 114"x96" (Large Queen Size)
Various shots.
Mose Memorial Pillow
Some dear friends of mine recently lost a beloved dog. I wanted to use some pictures they had to create a memorial in fabric. I'd been learning Shelley Swanland's technique for machine piecing Cathedral Windows and decided to use that to make a pillow incorporating the pictures. This technique is definitely not 'quick and easy' but I love way it creates soft curves using straight-seam piecing.
Finished pillow... click on it to see a larger view.
Hexagon from Triangles
I wanted to branch out and challenge myself. I've always been drawn to optical illusions so decided to play with triangles to create this effect. The hexagon is made up of a single triangle block pattern rotated various ways to create the effect. The points aren't perfect but it was fun -- I learned a lot and do like the overall look.
Complete. 34 1/2 " from side to side. Close up of center star. The single base triangle block.
"The Big One"
This is what I'd call my first real quilt. It's approximately 8' by 7' and is now hanging in the two-story entry to our home. This is my interpretation of Marge Edie's pattern "Fractured Rhapsody". I saw this pattern in her book and loved it. Everything is doubled in size and it's made from 15 different and wonderful batik fabrics chosen for the room. I was truly stunned when I got the inner top together and measured it to find it was actually square!  I generally am a no-fear kind of quilter who trusts my intuition and enjoys the constant problem-solving. At this point, however, I was stuck for a while and afraid to move ahead with the borders.  I really did not want to mess it up.  Once the borders were finished I was afraid, again, to move on to the quilting.  I thought about hiring someone to quilt it for me, but just really wanted to try and do it myself.  Sooooo... as usual, I finally just went for it.  The entire thing is free form quilted on my low-end domestic Janome.  I don't think the bargello technique needs much quilting so it's fairly sparse following the natural curve lines formed by the pattern to contrast with the rectangle piecing.  Finished in March '05, it took me about a month of weekends.
Hanging in our entryway.
Various shots.
Mom's Wall Hanging
My mom saw this lap quilt the day after I finished it and loved it so I hung it on her wall. I decided to continue working in the bargello mode and wanted to try the 'quilt-as-you-build-it' technique from Bargello Quilts by Marge Edie. The pattern is from this book.  I truly love Ms. Edie's sense of design, but I gotta say that I hated this quilt construction technique.  I'm sure it works for some but I'll not use it again.  Way too much pinning, way too much time. Honestly, at least for me, results are much more accurate and faster the traditional way. This was primarily a 'practice' quilt to see if I liked the construction technique and to prepare for 'The Big One'.  It was also a really good way to use some exquisite hand-dyed fabrics I'd bought on e-bay.
Table Runner for Alice
My wife was beginning to wonder why everyone but her was getting a quilt! She picked the fabrics for this to go with our kitchen wallpaper. This was my first bargello-style project. The pattern is from the book Bargello Quilts by Marge Edie. I followed her pattern, but did not use the 'quilt-as-you-build-it' technique she describes in this book. I used standard strip piecing with 1/4" seam allowance.
The finished product on our large table.
A few closer shots.
Wall Hanging for Kay
My sister had a bag full of fabrics she had used for projects throughout her home. They were beautiful but included everything from silk to upholstery fabric. I was still naive enough [OK... stupid enough 8)] to think I could work with these together. Actually, I really wanted to make something for Kay so what better fabrics to use than her own. Not my typical fabric palette, they were truly beautiful together and reflected her own great sense of style. I knew it would be a bit of a challenge, but what better way to learn! She and I picked out the block designs together and I jumped in. It really was interesting and I learned a lot. Sewing silk to upholstery was bizarre enough, but I think my primary learning was to NEVER sew velour face to face again! The stuff has a mind all its own!
The finished product.
Close-up shots of the different blocks.
SLU Quillow for James
When James came home for a visit while I was still working on my first quilt, I already had the idea to do a Saint Louis University quilt for him in honor of his graduation from there coming in May. I decided to do a "Quillow" which is a quilt that folds up into a built-in pocket to make a pillow. Alice wanted me to surprise him, but if I'm going to make something for someone I love their interactive participation whenever possible so I shared my plan and asked him to go with me to the fabric store. James got into the idea and my newfound passion was contagious. We had a really great time designing this together. He found the primary green/blue/black fabric and really liked it, so we designed everything else around that. This was my second quilt. I love the subtle woven effect in the sashing -- James' design.
The front of the pillow with the SLU Crest. I found this highly detailed image of the crest on the SLU web site and printed it with my photo quality inkjet printer onto what are supposed to be colorfast inkjet fabric sheets. We'll see how the image holds up over time.
The quilt unfolded. The pillow face is sewn to the backing - right side in, so that the back still appears solid black. It's lap-size quilt.
A close-up of one of the corners. The small fluer (from SLU Logo) is machine quilted in a gold metallic thread that picks up on a little gold in the base fabric.
My First Quilt
This is the one that started it all. A lap size quilt completed in October,2004 - this is the fat quarter quilt I did on impulse. The basic strips were cut 3" wide. I still love the fabrics.