A New Passion--Fabric/Quilted Postcards!

My friend Linda has inspired and motivated me...again!  Linda has been an accomplished artist for years.  Her paintings employ a variety of media and are symbolic, allusional, and totally unique.  Every time you see one of her paintings, you see something new and breath-taking.  I started quilting years before she did, but since the quilting bug bit this artist friend, she has now inspired me to try both journal quilts and now, fabric/quilted postcards!

The ones here are for my little great nieces, Katie and Alice.  Readers of this blog may recall that I made both girls little "quilties"--miniature versions of the quilts I made when they were very little--to take with them on trips.  Both girls are now at a camp in Wisconsin.  I had promised them I'd write, so I thought it would be fun would be to send each niece one of my fabric cards.  I found the cute girly fabric at Hobby Lobby.  I used friend Lin's method of adhering the binding strips to the four sides of the cards with adhesive, using Steam a Seam.   To personalize Katie's and Alice's cards, I bound each with fabric that was used in both their original quilts and their little quilties.  I found another super fabric at Hobby Lobby that was printed with the 50 states. So I used the Steam a Seam to adhere cut-outs of both Texas (where the girls live) and Wisconsin (where the camp is located).

For the backs of the postcards, I used fabrics to coordinate with the bindings--yellow for Katie and pink for Alice. Before binding, I fused both front and back to a product I've never used before, a very stiff double-sided fusible interfacing called InnerFuse.  I've added some swatches of the fabrics used for the fronts here to better show their character.

For the very first postcard I made I used another technique:  using fusible fleece for the batting. This postcard is lightly quilted, whereas the other two above are not.   The fleece was fused to front and back and then the two fused layers were sandwiched and then bound with narrow strips of fabric.  This is an early birthday card for Linda, who's been mentioned often in this post today!

 

Aqua in Abstract: Finished At Last!

The quilt I began at Quilting Adventures in March, 2009, is finally done! I picked it up from my wonderful machine quilter and friend, Judy Steward, yesterday.  All it lacked was for the binding to be hand-sewn to the back, and this morning I have done that. 

I've discussed this quilt before, but to review briefly:  We began by doing "blind contour" drawings of a still life.  My still life consisted of a slender vase containing a few branches with leaves, a more rounded vase beside the slender one, both of these backed by a plate standing on its rim.  These items were arranged in front of some draped fabric.  Finding anything recognizable in the abstract design that resulted is difficult, except for some leaf shapes, some rounded ones that must be the plate, and who knows where everything else is! 

The resulting blind contour drawing, though, seemed an interesting design to me, and teacher Katie Pasquini-Masopust encouraged me to choose this to become an eventual quilt, over all the other drawings, water colors, and designs we had done in class.  I had brought a collection of batiks in my favorites shades of aqua, turquoise, teal, and dark blue to the workshop, so I cut the shapes from these.  Teacher Katie suggested to me that I add  some satin stitching, especially between some of the like-valued appliques, for added contrast.

After I had appliqued all of the shapes to a foundation, I did a bit the satin stitch embellishing, before handing the quilt over to Judy to be machine quilted.  Here are some close-ups of her superb quilting:

Here I've turned up a corner of the quilt so that you can see the lovely batik that I chose for the backing.

  I am indebted to my talented, creative teacher "Katie PM" for teaching me and helping me to work toward my dreams of becoming a true "art quilter" and to my good friend Judy for her constant encouragement and her exquisite machine quilting!

A Future Ballplayer!

Only today I re-discovered this picture of Malcolm, taken in California in October, 2002, after his first birthday, a picture that foreshadows his love of and skill at baseball!  It was so striking when Malcolm was a baby and toddler--his love of balls! 

I looked quickly through the pictures taken in 2002 and found others.  So this post is going to be pictures of the very young Malcolm.  No doubt I'll have to focus on each of the other three grandchildren in future posts, to keep things fair.

In the picture where he's standing, notice the blue sun-suit that is adorned with a baseball glove and baseball.  And, of course, a ball in each hand, and more on the floor!

Malcolm is not only a great baseball player, but reading is another love!  So perhaps the next picture foreshadows another passion--never mind that the book is upside down!  I took this picture on the day we celebrated his first birthday.  And the big blue ball. . .

And, finally, Christmas of 2002, Malcolm with his old pal Lenny the cat! This picture taken right before Christmas.  Notice--two yellow balls, one in each hand!

A Journal Quilt: Baseball, Soccer, and Gardening in Michigan

I am the grandmother of three grandsons and one lone granddaughter. So I suppose it is not surprising that I have an embarrassment of riches in my fabric stash of "boy fabrics." Too, our oldest grandson, Malcolm, during his first year of life was drawn to balls as if they were magnets.  For his first birthday party, the theme was balls of all sizes and types.  Early on, then, in this adventure of grandmothering, I started collecting fabrics that featured balls and also little and big boys playing ball.

The journal quilt I made today reflects our May visit to Michigan, to visit our family there and to watch both Malcolm and Dawson play baseball and soccer. Two recent blog postings featured photos of both boys and descriptions of all the fun we had.

 The center four patch features two fabrics of widely disparate themes, but they have a similarity in that the baseball fabric is of baseball cards picturing kid players and the gardening fabric is of seed packets. We spent a lot of time not only at sports events but also planting a spring garden. Around the edges of the quilt, four different fabrics are used as borders—a dog fabric for Ace, their beloved Labradoodle, gardening tools, balls of all sorts, and at the top, soccer balls. Six fabrics in one small journal quilt is enough to make a person dizzy! Close-ups below show details of the fabrics. This quilt was quilted with variegated thread very simply—stitched in the ditch and then around the edges of the cards, the packets, and the flower pots.  I used yet another ball fabric for the backing.

In Time for Father's Day

Last year I put together the center portion of the photo above, the box with many small cubbies.  I entered an enlarged photo in a calendar contest sponsored by one of my art quilting magazines.  My entry wasn't one that was selected for the calendar, but of course I've kept the filled box (which once was a children's beading kit), knowing that someday I would put it into a shadow box frame and hang it in my craft room.  So, just in time for Father's Day, here is the completed shadow box.  The contest theme was "Life is a box of ____________" and my entry was titled  "Life is a box of memories of Daddy." (Click on the photo to see it enlarged.)

I've taken some close-ups of sections of the shadow and inner box and will focus on each of these.  This next photo didn't turn out as well as I would like.  At the top left is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Daddy.  Below it, a too-faded picture of little sister Martha; both of these glued to fish fabric, to symbolize his favorite leisure activity--fishing.  In the top left of the inner box you can see a rising sun.  This is symbolic of Daddy's always rising before dawn, making coffee and his own breakfast, before coming in to awaken each child and our mother.  A shovel for the gardening he loved, a book because he was a voracious reader, more tools beside the book.  The curled paper in the upper cubby beside the sun will need no explanation for my siblings:  these came from the Big Black copy pencils Daddy brought home from the office, which all of us kids loved!  The dog stands for the three dogs I recall our owning:  Pluto, Chocko, and our beloved Inky, a dog I bought for a quarter downtown in Austin, a mongrel who lived the longest of all of our dogs!

Next a picture of Daddy and Joe digging, glued to newspaper fabric, symbolizing of course his career as a newspaperman--a career that began at age 14 and continued until his death.  Below the picture of father and son is one of those Big Black copy pencils I mentioned.  A typewriter charm is tied with a red bow.  We siblings all can recall how fast Daddy typed with just two fingers!  The pansy button symbolizes Daddy's love of flowers, as do the flower pots and more gardening tools.  The baseball and bat and other sports balls fabric:  Daddy loved all spectator sports. A favorite summer pasttime was his taking us children to see the Austin Senators play.  The picture of Daddy with oldest sister Kathy is in front of our house in Austin at 2504 Spring Lane.  This picture is glued to fabric of children fishing.

Finally, in the lower right of the shadow box, a picture of Mother Alice with newborn baby Alice.  More gardening tools are glued to the sides of the inner box, and then a silver fishing pole and fish charm are in the bottom right cubby, and the fabric below the inner box is a gardening print.

This blog posting, then, is in honor of my beloved Father, David Anderson Cheavens, who died far too young in 1970, at age 63, when I was only 31 years old, 7 months before the birth of Susan, our third child, who never got to know her Granddaddy. 

A happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. 

Arkansas Reunions/A Journal Quilt

Last weekend Bob and I flew to Arkansas for his 55th high school reunion. For part of the weekend, however, I journeyed on to Ft. Smith to visit dear friends Sherron and Charles.  I decided to construct a crazy quilt journal this time, and practice some of the techniques I learned in a recent class.  Crazy quilts aren't traditionally quilted, but of course decorative stitching plays an important role.  The colors of the quilt were chosen deliberately:  Central High's school colors are "old gold" and black; the green fabric is for Sherron's favorite color.  The black center portion is Route 66 fabric; this symbolizes all the far-flung places from which the graduates of the class of 1955 came.  In the lower right corner are a lion and a tiger.  The tiger is for the LRCHS's mascot.  The lion in honor of friend Sherron, who was part of a committee to select a sculpture for the University of Arkansas, Ft. Smith (where she formerly taught English).  Their mascot is the lion, and Sherron and her committee worked long and hard and selected an excellent sculptor to depict a ferocious lion.  The freehand "55" is self-explanatory!

Finally is the applique of the happy little girl flying a kite, with the words "I 'heart' today."  This symbolizes my friend Sherron, who indeed loves every day!  She is the most optimistic, upbeat person I know.  This has always characterized Sherron, ever since we met as college freshmen. Spending time with her is always a joy, and I always come away feeling as uplifted as that kite!

Below, some pictures from my Ft. Smith visit and some close-ups of the journal quilt.  Sherron and I together, eating a delicious lunch at Hardscrabble Country Club; the lion sculpture; and then Sherron and Charles with their Crazy Quilt pillow, which project has been the subject of one of these posts.

Oil Spill Quilt Now Finished

I finished the oil spill journal quilt today.  Because in my first posting about this quilt, I didn't really discuss the construction of it, I will now.  I have had the center portion of the quilt for a long time, a lovely piece of fabric I knew would come in handy some day.  It seemed better than any other in my stash to represent the deceptive beauty of the oil spill, all the vivid colors which are lovely but which represent something so deadly.  The bird fabric, too, I've had for some time and used once in a banner in honor of a young man who died tragically young.  I had other bird prints, but these looked as if they could be sea birds.  The fish fabric was a no-brainer; I was glad that I found this one with a suitably-sober,  black background.  I "fussy cut" the Mother Earth out of a larger piece, and I drew with ink the crying eyes.  The huge teardrop is out of proportion to the eyes on Mother Earth, but I wanted to make the teardrop prominent and thus made it large.  The "veil"--a raggedly-cut piece of sheer fabric, was a last-minute inspiration.  As soon as I tried it out, both the quilt and the poem came together.  Today I have quilted this journal quilt very simply and minimally.  I used "invisible" thread in the hope that it would blend in to all the different colors in this small quilt. In the bobbin I used a variagated thread, and this shows up nicely on the back of the quilt--which back used the same black fish fabric as the front borders. 

A Mini Quilty for Alice

When my great-niece and namesake Alice was born, I made a crib quilt for her--my first ever crib quilt.  Her older sister Katie was so taken with this quilt  that she wanted me me to make one for her.   So soon I made her a "napping quilt."  Pictured here are Katie on her quilt at the left and Alice on hers.  This photo was taken 8 years ago!  Both girls became attached to their "quilties," as they called them.  Even today, the quilts are folded at the ends of their beds.

Fast forward several years.  Katie was going to England with her grandparents, who wanted her to pack lightly, since they were all going to have to manage their own luggage.  Katie asked me if I could make her a very small quilt from some of the same fabrics as her "quilty" since she was concerned she'd not be able to sleep well without her quilty.  This I did, and the little quilt made the trip to England and then joined the other quilt on her bed. 

Fast forward another couple of years.  This summer Alice is attending a sleep-away camp.  She, too, requested a small quilty to take to camp, one using some of the fabrics from her crib quilt.   I had to search to find these scraps,  and those that I found were quite small.  She had always loved the soft, touchable Minky fabric that I had used to back Katie's small quilty.  I found some scraps of this fabric as well.  Alice's little quilt is a bit more complex than is her sister's, because of having to use such small pieces of fabric.  It makes me happy that these little girls are so attached to their quilts that they want reminders of them to take with them when they're away from home! 

PS  These little quilties are more accurately "blankets" than quilts, since they are not quilted and there's no batting between the fronts and backs.  But I won't quibble about terminology; the girls will no doubt refer to them as their "mini quilties!"

Crazy Quilt Pillow for Sherron

Several weeks ago, I took an all-day class from quilt teacher and artist Alice Kolb.  I've gotten to know Alice in her role as co-administrator of the wonderful Quilting Adventures workshops that are held each spring in New Braunfels--workshops which I have now attended for three years.  Alice came to Waco to teach a class in crazy quilting, her specialty, a class sponsored by our local Homespun Quilters' Guild.  In the class I assembled a pillow top, using all green fabrics, chiefly batiks but a few others as well.  I knew at the time that I would turn this piece into a pillowtop for beloved friends Sherron and Charles.  I am leaving tomorrow for Arkansas, where I'll spend parts of two days and one night with them.  Earlier this week I did the decorative stitching on the pillow top; this morning I have put the pillow together and inserted a form.  Here is a close-up of the crazy blocks and the decorative stitching:

I am saving this as a draft and plan to publish it once I get to Sherron and Charles's house.  I want this to be a surprise, so I don't want to give Sherron a sneak peek at it before my arrival!

June, 4:  Now I am at Sherron's house and the pillow has been presented.  Both she and Charles seem to like it a lot.  Here are some pictures of the pillow with its new owners!  At Sherron's suggestion, I added my initials to the bottom right of the pillow.

An UNFINISHED Journal Quilt: Oil Spill--Vale/Veil of Tears

On Friday, May 7, on the front page of the New York Times this photograph of the oil spill caught my eye.  I cut the picture out and pinned it to my bulletin board.  Every day since I've looked at it, amazed at its beauty, horrified by what it depicts.  I knew that eventually I'd base a journal quilt on that photo. 

I've assembled the quilt, but it is unfinished.  I've not sewn down the appliques.  It's not been "sandwiched" with the batting and backing.  It's not been quilted.  But since I am leaving day after tomorrow for Arkansas, I wanted to get it posted and will eventually post an update.  Unable to sleep last night, I worked on it then.  Earlier in the day, thinking about how I was going to construct the quilt, I made up a poem based on it.  So, first the quilt; then the poem.

Here is my poem:

Oil Spill:  Vale/Veil of Tears

She weeps, Mother Earth—

She weeps for the birds of the air

And the fish of the sea.

Mother Earth cries for the

Men who can no longer go down to the sea in ships

To cast their nets.

She weeps for the white sands, now dark with sludge.

From afar this spill of oil is beautiful—

Its colors, the colors of a sunset.

But the beauty is deceptive.

Close up, noxious fumes sicken men,

Kill innocent wild things.

So in this vale of tears,

We, too, like Mother Earth,

See through a veil of tears.