Sue Garman

Uh-oh! It's That Time of the Month Again!

2012-02-02T01:20:00.002-06:00

Yes, it's time to make a new posting, as it's the first of the month. I must confess that I am way behind on just about EVERYTHING, so I am going to again post photos from the International Quilt Show held in Houston last November. Not that those are second to anything else I'd post; I love the quilts that hang at the Houston quilt show - The show is overwhelming, wonderful, exhausting, unbelievable, and more! In the meantime, before I post photos and comment on them, I promise to do better planning and more picture-taking in February so that on the first of March I can show you all of the things that I've been working on lately.

And one more thing... I invite you to go back and take a look at the January posting. Brenda Gael Smith was kind enough to give me some links that you might want to check out. If you go to www.twelveby12.org, you will find photos and artist statements on all 288 quilts in the Theme Series and Colorplay series. These are 12 inch square quilts that are all nothing short of stunning in terms of techniacl merit, creativity, and design. Both of these exhibits will be on display at the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati April 13-15 of this year, as well as in Long Beach, CA on July 27-29. The Theme quilts (144 of them, to be exact!) are featured in a book that contains extensive background information about the Twelve by 12 project. You can check it all out at www.tinyurl.com/12x12book. These quilts will challenge you with their originality!

For now, though, let's take a look at some other quilts that hung in the Houston show. These are all landscape and naturescape quilts - I love these quilts but rarely have time to do pictoral quitls any more -- though these quilts inspire me to make time! This first quilt, below, is called Peaceful Sunset at Nara and was made by Michiyo Yamamoto of Chicago, Illinois. She says that the sunset, over an early capital of Japan, "is amazingly peaceful. Each second, it seems the sky changes to bright yellow, then orange, then red. Birds cross the horzon on the way back home." Michiyo dyed kimono silk to make this quilt. I love how she reflects the landscape across the water.

In Butterfly Garden, Ellen Anne Eddy of Porter, Indiana, used free-motion embroidery, machine applique/quilting, and oil stick rubbing to make her quilt -- and includes hand-dyed fabric along with a wonderful assortment of threads to embellish the quilt. Can't you just feel Spring bursting forth when you look at this quilt?!

In Gyotaku Fish, Karen Huggler of Columbia, Missouri was inspired by a Japanese technique of fish printing called gyotaku. She used commercial and hand-carved stamps to make the stamped images, which were further enhanced with paint and threadwork, and then free-motion quilted. Finally, bobbin work and decorative threads were added to complete the quilt. Quilters like Karen are masters of incorporating unique methods into quiltmaking - from Lumiere paints, inks, couched threads and ribbons to photo transfer, trapunto, and an assortment of applique methods. Her work showcases her multiple talents well!

Sara Sharp of Austin, Texas, chose to create a sun-printed fabric using bird feathers as the sky in Birds Sing Because They Believe in Spring. Sara is drawn to bird images because, as a bird watcher, they always show hope for the next spring and inspire her with their graceful flight and freedom. Note that Sara built the bird nest out of fabric "twigs." The detail in Sara's bird is amazing!

I love this next quilt, by Suzanne Kistler of Visalia, California. Through the Waters was inspired by a 2006 Class V rafting trip where Suzanne thought she was going to die after falling out of the raft twice. Her quilt thanks God for carrying her through the waters. Notice how Suzanne captures the weight of those huge rocks and the wildness of the river while using minimal fabrics and piecing. I believe that sometimes we tend to "overdo" images in pictoral art, and this is a perfect example of how minimal applique works well! Suzanne added extensive beading to convey the sparkle of the whitewater.

In The Meadow, Betty Busby of Albuquerque, New Mexico, commemorates a trip to British Columbia. She used silk painting, paint stick, turned edge applique, fused applique, thread painting, and machine quilting to make her quilt. Again, here is an example of how simplicity captures the essence of a quiet meadow beneath a cloudy sky.

Pat Durbin of Eureka, California, captured a scene and a mood at Glacier National Park in Lift Your Eyes to the Hills. As in the quilt above, much of the quilt is painted. I am always intrigued when a scene is reflected onto water-- everything has to be subdued and reversed. In addition, Pat manages to portray the lake bed - that's not easy to do well!

If you've ever hiked the Appalchian Trail, you may have come across Mayapples. In Mayapples, Terry Kramzar of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, builds a memory of the delightful surprise of blooms hiding beneath the canopy of Mayapple trees.

In this close-up of Mayapples, if you look carefully, you can see how Terry has used a wide variety of threads and stitching to enhance her gorgeous quilt. Threadwork like this does much to add meaningful texture to a quilt top.

Mary Ann Hildebrand of Comfort, Texas (I love the names of Texas towns!) took a picture of cypress trees along a creek and made Cypress Sentinels. She used a scrunched fabric technique (which she learned in a Judy Sisneros workshop) and the styles of Cynthia England and Ruth McDowell in making this quilt -- and appliqued the leaves closest to the viewer to ensure they looked more realistic. What makes this quilt so lovely, in my mind, is the definition she gave to the tree trunks (along with the uneven border at the top) -- the coloration of the trunks is wonderful - as well as the ground beneath the trees. Good job, Mary Ann!

Here is another quilt that captures the texture of tree trunks and the rough bark. In Grounded, Doria Goocher of San Diego, California, explored bias line design. In her words, "Grounded evolved from the idea of a tree's roots being strong, growing deep, and seeking individual directions while remaining part of the whole." Consider how Doria captures the texture in her piece through a wide variety of color and prints in her trunk - and how she chooses to separate these with handmade bias.

Gay Ousley of Abilene, Texas, toured Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon, when she was being courted by her husband. She had a photo of a waterfall -- and the colors called to her -- and the texture drew her in. You can almost hear the falling water in this quiet quilt called Portland Reflection.

This next quilt is quite different in "weight" and style. Carol Taylor of Pittsford, New York, used transparent organza leaves and berries, appliqued with satin stitching on a background, and quilted extensively to create more texture, in Bountiful. I love the overlay of different transparent organza fabrics; it adds such depth!

Weeping Dorothea by Ann Harwell of Wendell, North Carolina, chose a 100-year old weeping cherry as her subject. The tree is at the Dorothea Dix Hospital, founded in 1856 as North Carolina's first hospital dedicated to the treatment of mental illness. It sits on a hill in south Raleigh, overlooking downtown. The hospital is being slowly decomminssioned and the patients and staff relocated. Notice how Ann has pieced the sky - isn't it lovely? Whenever I hear quilting and mental illness in the same breath, I am reminded that the father of occupational therapy, Dr. Duntan, used quiltng as therapy for his "nervous ladies." I'm not surprised; I've often referred to my quilts as my "therapy!"

Based on a photograph, Daphne Green's Looking West recalls a sunset seen on a 30th anniversary weekend vacation on Vancouver Island. Daphne says the quilt reminds her of three things she holds dear: her husband, trees, and ocean views. Look at how Daphne has pieced the sky with squares set on point... and made the borders look just like an actual picure frame. What I notice about so many of these naturescape quilts is that thread is a critical component of the composition - as is a combination of commercial and hand-dyed and painted fabrics.

Inspired by photographs, Peggy Spitzer and Lori Olek of Fargo, North Dakota, created Sentinels of Fall. The quilt started with a hand-painted background and bindings. Notice how the paint fades from gold to blue as your eye moves from left to right. It adds a sense of the sun rising. Also used to make this quilt were Tsukineko inks, water-soluble crayons, and colored pencils. Lori used 28 different threads in quilting Sentinels. I love the soft tones used in this quilt.

Melinda Bula of El Dorado Hills, California, says "I love to visit gardens whenever I am on the road. I was teaching and lecturing in southern California and my friend, Nick, too me to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena early one morning. The shadows on the water lilies' pond cast blue and turquoise reflections on the water. It reminded me of Monet." Melinda hand-dyed most of the fabrics used in this quilt. Note the wavy lines of the water; they add so much to the vision of Monet's lilies.

Added to the wiggly-lined applique is Melinda's wiggly-line quilting that adds texture and a sense of movement to the water and a sense of texture to the lily pads. I love the colors Melinda has chosen, too!

That's all for this month -- there are so many inspirational quiltmakers to see when you go to a quilt show. I hope this little tour has inspired you!

Until next month, happy quilting. I hope to show you some progress on a new red and green quilt I'm working on, as well as more quilting on my Sarah's Revival quilt and a (surprise!) quilt that I made for a quilt magazine article. Also, blocks, blocks, and more blocks!!!! It's not like I have been sitting still... I just don't have time to pull the camera up to snap photos!

See you in March -
Sue

(C)Susan H. Garman 2012

Happy New Year!!!

2012-01-02T00:41:00.003-06:00

Welcome to 2012! It's great to welcome in a new year, though I wonder where the last one went. Normally, you will see pictures of what I've been working on in the past month - or see pictures I've taken at quilt shows. This month, since I did little quilting during the frenzied holidays with family and friends, I'll show you some of the wonders from the International Quilt Association's quilt show held in Houston in 2011. WIth hundreds to choose from, I am starting with a "timely" selection from one of the special exhibits at the show -- "Text on Textiles 2011" where Sue de Vanny of Greenvale, Victoria, Australia, made a lovely fabric collage callted Time. Sue says, "The development of the text and words itself wasn't too hard; though, finding the balance of the words, size, tone and font that enhanced the quilt proved to be a challenge. The challenge is there, too, for the viewere to find key words in the quilt. For example: creative time, enough time, time zone, winter time, and son on... I hope you have "time" to enjoy my creation." Yes, Sue, we have plenty of time... whoops! No, wait -- we don't! Let's move right along and keep viewing these quilts so we can get back to making our own quilts!!

The next set of quilt photos show part of the "Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge" sponsored by the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection. In this challenge, artists made 12" square quilts focused on a theme -- sometimes the theme was color, sometimes it was a subject... but all of the quilts were great. Let's take a look... first, the blue Color Play quilts.

Blue Meditation on Balance ~ Deborah Boschert ~ Crofton, MD

My life is full of repetition; some of it is comfortable and meditative, and some is monotonous and maddening. The hand stitching in this quilt reflects this reality. I am continually seeking balance in my life. As I worked on the basic design for this quilt, I kept trying to add just a bit of dynamic asymmetry, but I just couldn't make it work. I guess part of me desperately wants to keep everything in order.

Winter Night ~ Gerrie Congon ~ Portland, OR

My favorite blue fabrics are in my stash of shibori dyed indigo fabrics. They also work very well with a bit of black. I used a piece of silk with shadowy indigo coloration for the snow. I cut strips of silk indigo shibori for the shadows of the fence posts. One of my many indigo moons became the focal point of this landscape. I brought in black with the fence. I love this simple abstracted landscape.

Stolen ~ Helen L. Conway, Merseyside, United Kingdom

When I was in Australia and since my return I have been reading a lot about Aboriginal art and considering wehre I felt it appropriate to draw the line between inspiration or appropriation which are two very different things. This piece was inspired by the artist Kitty Kantilla.

You Know How I Feel ~ Diane Perin Hock ~ Healdsburg, CA

Blue and white with a bit of black. Well, to me that was sky, of course, with the silhouettes of birds in the distance. The image came to mind immediately, but it took me a bit longer to decide on how to execute it with quilting and oil pastels. The title comes from the old Nina Simone song.

Mt. Hood in Winter ~ Terry Grant ~ Portland, OR

Mt. Hood is the highest peak in Oregon and, on clear days, the spectacular backdrop to our city. I combined two relatively new techniques for me in this piece - fused fabric collage and loose, doodly thread drawing. That tree is a Douglas Fir and Oregon's state tree. So the whole thing is my valentine to my beautiful home state!

My Tree ~ Francoise Jamart, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Last month, I took pictures of my garden on a bright sunny winter afternoon. I used one of these pictures to burn a screen. I then printed my fabrics with black and white fabric paint. The blue and white backgrouind fabric had been dyed beforehand with this quilt in mind.

Blue Dishes Completed ~ Kristin La Flamme ~ Waipahu, HI

My idea was to make the broken dishes quilt block out of conceptually broken pieces. It seemed natural to use a kind of crazy quilting to suggest pottery shards or mosaic pieces. I based many of the embroidery and beading on motifs commonly found in blue and white Delft pottery, imitating the curves and stylized flowers.

Streaming Blue ~ Karen Rips ~ Thousand Oaks, CA

Shibori is so much fun to do and this piece was no exception. I started with white fabric, stitched it, painted it black, and then dyed it blue. I put in some little white dots at the beginning of the process to keep some white in the picture.

A Feeling for Snow ~ Brenda Gael Smith ~ Copacabana, NSW, Australia

When I first experienced snow as a 10 year old, I remember being surprised at its consistency. This quilt is dedicated to my sister Chantel, a snowboarding enthusiast with a great affinity for the snow. I was inspired by blue and white folk embroidery and Nordic knitware. I created by snowflakes with freezer paper scherenschnitte stencils and fabric paints.

Stacked Blueware ~ Terri Stegmiller ~ Mandan, ND

I love the look of decoupage and collaged papers and wanted to try and portray that feeling with this quilt design. Using many different shades of blues, I created the coffee cups, varying the lights and darks for dimension. The use of commercial print fabrics lends a sense of whimsy and intrigue.

Reboot ~ Nikki Wheeler ~ Poulsbo, WA

Blue and white can be so calm and relaxing, the perfect reprieve in my otherwise crazy, hectic life but not this quilt. I really didn't have a good idea of what I wanted when I started experimenting, but instead just started playing with color. I started by quilting plain white fabric. I then painted them with either dark blues light to medium blues, or sparkly white. I then played with cutting and sewing back together with black thread and a zigzag stitch. The final quilt is a disappearing nine-patch that reminds me of an old computer screen in need of a reboot.

Next come all of the Purple Yellow Color Play quilts. These quilts challenge my ideas about creativity: where do the ideas for them come from? They are all SO unique and original -- and have such strong links to color. I can only wish that I could create quilts in this fashion!

Culmination ~ Deborah Boschert ~ Crofton, MD

I was in the midst of moving, house hunting, house selling and generally preparing for major upheaval while working on this quilt. Rather than trying to create something entirely fresh and new, I gave myself permission to use some of my beloved regular techniques and motifs. Cutting leaf shapes and stitching tiny lines and x's seemed just right. I was feeling hopeful for our new adventures... the culmination.

Sunset ~ Gerrie Congdon ~ Portland, OR

At an exhibit of modern Chinese design, I saw textile pieces that were created from overlapping pockets of organza -- which was the inspiration for this piece. I painted silk organza with Dynaflow paints and then stitched the pockets which I arranged and stitched to a silk background painted with the same colors.

Purple Rain Protest ~ Helen L. Conway ~ Merseyside, United Kingdom

There was a Purple Rain Protest in the apartheid part of South Africa. During the Cape Town protest, the police turned a water cannon filled with purple dye on the protesters to mark them out for easy arrest later. One of the protesters climbed on the cannon and turned it away from the people and sprayed the dye all over the city centre buildings turning them purple.

#2 ~ Diane Perin Hock ~ Healdsburg, CA

My challenge to myself in these Colorplay challenges is to head toward the abstract. Playing with batiks and the idea of underground layers led to this. Simple as it is, I like how this piece emphasizes the patterns of the fabrics.

Aspens - yellow and purple ~ Terry Grant ~ Portland, OR

Our family had a cabin on a lake that spanned the Idaho-Wyoming border. In the fall the aspens turned the most brilliant yellow, while the mountain maple were an equally brilliant red. Walking through one of the aspen groves was like walking under a solid canopy of glittering yellow. This is the feeling that I was aiming for.

The Pointy End ~ Kirsten Duncan ~ Townsville, QLD, Australia

I sat. Stared around the room. Nothing. I really DON'T like violet and yellow together. Time to think more broadly about that purple... maybe lavender, maybe amethyst... Wait! up on the top shelf of the dresser! There are two little cups that I bought in a thrift shop a few weeks ago. I bought them because I love the colors together. Here they are...

Kyoto Revisited ~ Karen Rips ~ Thousand Oaks, CA

This was my color choice and I started with a piece of deconstructed screen print I had. When I started laying the yellow and purple strips on it, I saw an Asian landscape come to life.

Lupins ~ Brenda Gael Smith ~ Copacabana, NSW, Australia

It's remarkable how often the complementary colors of purple and yellow appear in flowers. Lithesome lupins were my inspiration. Freeform piecing combined with machine quilting in yellow and purple variegated threads.

Lollipop Forest ~ Nikki Wheeler ~ Pousbo, WA

This quilt is the beginning of my work with circles. I started with a plain white piece of fabric and quilted it like crazy with circles and spirals. Next I brought out the paints and painted the circles purple and the spirals yellow. I then added fabric paper circles and free motion stitching. The edges are finished with deep purple yarn, couched with gold thread. I just love the energy of the contrasting colors and rich texture, and the swirling cirlces are very much my life right now.

So what would you choose to design if you were given a color - or two colors? or a specific subject? Would it be a reminder of your life? Or something you'd seen? Or just an imaginative construction? Where do you start your designs? The next theme in the Twelve by Twelve challenge that I'm showing here is "Chairs." Before you take a look at the quilts, think about what you would put in a quilt with the theme of chairs. Would you start with a chair... or a shape... or a color... or a memory... or a feeling? Take a look at how these talented artists conveyed the idea of "chairs" and pay attention to their thought process; we can learn from their experience!

The Comfy Chair ~ Diane Perin Hock ~ Healdsburg, CA

One of my favorite things to do is to curl up in a comfy chair with a good novel and a cup of coffee or tea. I wanted my piece to convey a sense of simple, homey contentment. I drew an inviting armchair and fused fabric onto the polka-dotted background. I decided to let the chair "float," to represent a sense of peacefulness and lack of distraction I hope for at those quiet moments. The scene was not complete until I added the book in progress and the steaming mug. I added shading with pastel crayons and detail with machine stitching. I also added small inserts of red fabric in the binding to reinforce the color of the book and mug.

Sofia and Martina ~ Terry Grant ~ Portland, OR

My almost-two-year-old granddaughter, Sofia, had recently gotten to know her almost-two-year-old cousin, Martina, from Ecuador. During a visit, they spent time at my house. I found the two little chairs that my children had when they were young. Each quickly claimed "her" chair and used them for coloring and for meals. Several days after Martina and her family returned to Ecuador, Sofia came to spend an afternoon with me. When she spied the little chairs, Sofia looked at them somberly, then went over and patted the seat of one and said, "Martina," a bit wistfully. Then she patted the seat of the other and said, "Sofia."

Stacked ~ Brenda Gael Smith ~ Copacabana, NSW, Australia

This theme brought back memories of a time when Brenda accompanied her father on a trip. Unfortunately, though I took a photo of the artist's statement, the photo was blurry. I love these very structured chairs - and the use of color.

Chairs ~ Francoise Jamart, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

As usual, I had several ideas competing in my head, but the family dining table with its sturdy oak chairs quickly became the stronger one.

Summer Stripes ~ Kirsten Duncan ~ Townsville, QLD, Australia

The sumer of 05/09 was the Summer of the French Canvas Stripe. Everywhere I went I saw these beautiful fabrics! It was also a time of reminiscing about our childhood holidays. My brother retrieved an old folding deck chair from the depths of Dad's garage. He sat on it and it collapsed - don't they always? Here is my celebration of the classic canvas deck chair with its distinctive color combinations and always-uncomfortable wooden crossbars. The chair is free-motion machine embroidered.

She Sits to Dream ~ Deborah Boschert ~ Crofton, MD

For me, chairs represent the idea of slowing down, waiting and being still. That doesn't necessarily mean inactive or without purpose. This quilt is a wild, loose, quirky combination of colors, shapes and textures. When I am still and open, dreams have potential. I really wanted to loosen up for this piece, so I embraced messy edges, drippy paint and unexpected color combinations. The leaf shapes and stitches further explore the idea of potential growth.

Time Out ~ Karen Rips ~Thousand Oaks, CA

When I was a child, we had a rocking chair in the living room.

Again, my camera failed to capture more of the text associated with this quilt. I'm so sorry - I love the interpretation of a chair in this quilt!

That's enough for this month. I'll be back in February with an update on what I'm working on. I've started a new red and green quilt... and am working on a small 4-block quilt that will go in a summer issue of Quiltmaker, more civil war fabric 7-1/2" star blocks, more of my block-of-the-week blcoks, and I helped my daughter finish her king-sized French Braid quilt, which I'll be quilting for her on my longarm. I'm also still hand-quilting my new Sarah's Revival quilt... slowly but steadily!

So... I wish the best of 2012 to all of you -- keep on quilting!

Sue Garman

Quilting Away.....

2011-11-30T22:11:00.001-06:00

I have been having so much fun lately - once the Houston quilt show was over and done, I felt sort of lost, trying to figure out what I should work on next and what my priorities were. I was also waiting on the delivery of my Grace quilting frame, which I purchased at the Houston show. It is a 4-pole frame for hand-quilting and immediately after it was delivered, I loaded my Sarah's Revival quilt in it. Take a look:

But wait... there's more! The most exciting thing about this frame is that I never have to baste a quilt again -- it's magical! My back is still giving me fits from the last quilt I hand-basted, so this is a blessing and then some. So while I was taking pictures, I thought I'd show you a few things about how I hand-quilt. First of all, I'm a stab-stitcher. I don't do the "rocking" method of hand-quilting -- I've taken plenty of classes but so far they just don't stick. My friend Georgann has finally convinced me that I CAN learn but I don't NEED to learn... so I'm giving up the ghost and sticking with stab stitching; we even engaged in a little friendly competition to see which was faster/better -- and we totally tied!

Look at the above picture. I love hand quilting - it is pure therapy for me; I problem-solve, watch tv, listen to the news, and daydream while I am quilting. Every problem disappears. Better yet... the quilt starts to come alive! Look at the photo above -- I am using wool batting and it quilts up so nicely - better than any batting I've ever used before. I pre-shrink my batting (even poly batting) because I am persnickety. I pre-shrink all my fabric, so why not preshrink my batting, too? Despite the labels on every batting I've ever used (including 100% poly), batting shrinks. Sometimes it shrinks a lot. So I put it in the washer, fill it with hot water, let it sit without agitating, then spin the water out and throw it in the dryer til it's still damp but not sopping, then I air dry it. Yes, like I said, I'm persnickety but it works for me.

How about some other tips? Here goes.... When I do cross-hatch quilting (diagonal lines in both directions), I like to use blue painter's tape to mark the lines. I lay the tape down on the quilt top and just run my needle right against it -- it keeps my stitches straight and keeps the lines at an exact 45 degree angle.

How do I keep those lines at exactly 45 degrees? I have a ruler that is made for a longarm quilter, but a drafting ruler could serve the same purpose; it has a 45 degree (adjustable) angle on it; I run it against the rail on my frame and lay my tape at the 45 degree angle. In this way, I keep my angles perfectly aligned at 45 degrees.

Here's another photo of the ruler -- it's also wonderful when I'm longarm quilting and want to do cross-hatching.

Next, how do I mark lines other than straight lines? I use a simple mechanical pencil. It's not a fancy quilter's marking pencil, but a cheap Papermate pencil. It has a very soft lead. I like this because I can use a VERY LIGHT HAND to mark a VERY LIGHT LINE that will not smear and that will disappear once I have quilted across it. Below is a photo of the markings of some lines in the quilt border. You might also notice the Staedtler Mars Plastic eraser; this is the best eraser for quilting as far as I'm concerned.

The Mars Plastic erasers are available in office supply stores; they usually come in packs for 2 for a couple bucks - and they last forever. If you find some, try them out; you might find them to be good for your needs, too.

What else am I working on now? I started a new quilt; it doesn't have a name yet, but it will have lots of piecing and applique -- and several feathered star variations that have "halos" of color within them. You'll see these blocks once I get them made, but in the meantime, I whipped out a simple block just so I'd have something to work on at a bee this week. Here is Block Number One:

And here is now much applique I've gotten done so far... not much but it's a start!

I can offer yet another tip to everyone. It is my firm belief that up to 50 percent of the time spent in making a quilt is spent in choosing fabrics. They can make or break a quilt, so taking that much time is not a problem... but we can speed up the process a little. I generally go through my stash and pull fabric after fabric and put them all in a couple stacks on my work table -- or in a separate box where I can keep them all together. Why? Because when it's time to select fabrics for the next block, I just choose fabrics from the box, not from the entire stash! It makes it a lot easier because I know they are al meant to go together. Occasionally I'll add another couple fat quarters, but usually I stick to my original group of fabrics. This is what is going in the next quilt:

Another thing that I did this past week was to take a couple of UFOs out of the UFO chest (it's a big seaman's chest... and it's full). I made a bunch of these for a "make it and take it class" years ago -- that is, I made all the half-square triangles and even cut out the rectangles, squares, and setting triangles. I thought it was a great idea for a class but I missed the boat somewhere because the class didn't fill and I was stuck with a dozen of these un-made blocks. So I made a couple. They are perfect as gifts -- go buy a ready-made frame with a mat in it and put this 8" block in it... and voile...

Once it's framed, it makes a perfect little gift for a friend or a family member -- without too much effort on your part! This is one of only three "quilts" that I have on display in my house (and the second one is the same size as this one...). Most people find that rather unbelievable -- I don't have quilts on display! Last weekend, though, my guild did a "Tour of Quilt Studios." It was a blast -- my studio was included on the tour and for the first time in forever, I hung quilts everywhere. It was SO MUCH fun! Maybe I need to re-think not having quilts on display. Here's the framed quilt:

Another project I worked on this month was making stars out of leftover fabric. These stars are wonderful -- they are 7-1/2 inches (finished size) and "float" in the block, so they block can actually be cut down in size. To make them, cut four 2-3/4" squares and four 2-3/4 by 3-1/2" rectangles from background fabric; cut eight 2" squares for the star points; and cut one 3-1/2" square for the star center. Flip and sew the star points on the sides of the rectangles, then sew the units together in strips and rows -- they take just a few minutes, once you've done the cutting -- and they are perfect stash busters or scrap-eaters. This past week, I made 32 of them!

Last, but certainly not least, when my Friends of Baltimore quilt won first place in the Group category at the IQA Quilt Show in Houston, there was an awards ceremony, where I had the pleasure of celebrating the moment with many friends - and with Elly Sienkiewicz, the "queen mother" of Baltimore album style quilts. She is such an angel - so full of joy! My friend Georgann snapped these photos -- I love the second one, as it displays that sense of friendship that quilters around the world share with each other.

May this season of the year bring you much joy, along with health and plenty of time to quilt. Until next year.... happy quilting!

Sue

I'm IN!!!!

2011-11-08T23:24:00.002-06:00

UPDATE: Lori L from Wisconsin was

was chosen to receive the free copy of

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine.

Yay, Lori!

Yes, that's right - I'm in the new Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine. The magazine is on the racks now in your local quilt (or craft) shop - just look around for it. It is FULL of block patterns -- one hundred of them, to be exact! You can find mine there -- it's called Reel Roses. It's simple... but it looks cool when set with alternate empty squares of background fabric, perfect for quilting in!

Pick up your copy of the magazine and check it out. And go online and check out www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks.

Here is my Reel Roses block...

And I challenge each of you -- choose a block. Any block in the magazine! And figure out how you can set it, sash it, colorize it, or whatever... to make it truly unique! Or take a simple block and set it in a simple array. Here's an example of my block, set with alternate chain blocks:

Here's my favorite example of taking a simple block - in this case, the Old Maid's Puzzle block and doing something unique with it. Take a look - it's just some half-square triangles, right? Kind of plain, right? Doesn't do much for you, right?

Aaaaahhhh... but wait a minute! I love this - if you take a block, twist it, turn it, and put lots of these blcoks together, sashed and set with fabrics that have different color values, you can change the whole look of the block and make it absolutely unrecognizable! Here's a set of Old Maid's Puzzle blocks, which I made into a quilt. Can you see the block? Would you have ever guessed this quilt was made of Old Maid's Puzzle blocks?

So... are you tempted? I'll give one of you a head start! Add a comment to my blog within the next 48 hours... and I'll pull ONE of your names out of a hat. You'll get a free copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks! Feel free to add a comment about anything quilt-related, but I'd really like to hear what kind of quilt you'd like to see me do next. I'm between projects (well... sort of... it's not like I don't have 50 UFOs in a line, waiting their turn to be finished....) and I'll be deciding in the next couple of weeks what kind of quilt I am going to make next. What do YOU think?

And don't forget to click on the Quiltmaker link above. Not only will you see some clever ways that blocks are used, but you'll have the opportunity to join a real Blog Tour -- each of the block designers in the magazine are highlighted one day this week - and my day is Wednesday, November 8. You've obviously checked out my blog... but check out some others. At the IQA Quilt Show in Houston this past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Jan Krentz for a while - she's delightful! So is her blog. Check it out!

Until next month... happy quilting!

Sue

(c)Susan H. Garman 2011

Quilting is SEW MUCH FUN!

2011-11-06T12:18:00.000-06:00

Oh my goodness - it was such FUN to find out that I had won first place in the Group Quilts category of the International Quilt Association (IQA) show in Houston this month! The suspense just gave me butterflies in my tummy on the night that the awards were announced.... they started out with an Honorable Mention (not mine), then Third Place (not mine... tension rising!), then Second Place (not mine... oh my goodness - I GOT FIRST...), then FIRST PLACE. Many thanks go to the IQA for hosting such a wonderful quilt show, to the judges for their hard work in choosing from amongst so many beautiful quilts, to the sponsors (APQS Sponsored Group Quilts -- these sponsors put their profits into promoting quilting!), and of course to my friends. Some of you already know, but 5 blocks were made by dear friends who asked if they could each applique a block for me in order to help me meet a deadline. They are Jerrianne Evans, Cynthia Clark, Pat Cotter, Georgann Wrinkle, and Marsha Fuller. I have long said that the growth of quilting is founded in the fact that quilters form much-needed supportive communities - and this quilt is a small example of that.

And here is another of my quilts that was juried into the show: Lily Rosenberry. It did not win a ribbon, but that did not bother me one iota. It is an honor to be juried into this show, and the judges have a difficult time selecting the winners from a select set of quilts -- I have no argument over any of their decisions, nor should others.

In future blogs, I will be showing pictures of other quilts from the quilt show -- but here were two of my favorites. The first, below, was made by Melinda Bula and is called And Our Flag Was Still There. It brought tears to my eyes -- in her words: "Attending my son's graduation from Marine Boot Camp in August, 2010, I was moved by the young men who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. I consider myself patriotic, but nothing prepared me for that day. This is for all the families like mine, who raised proud and devoted young Americans who have and will continue to protect the United States and what it represents, with their lives." The quilt is phenomenal!

And the quilt below caught my eye -- the wooly bear was so realistic! I make it a practice to take a photo of the page identifying the quilt, its maker, and the caption about the quilt but in this instance, I somehow failed to take that picture... so I cannot identify this quilt's maker. Nonetheless, I love this quilt - and the fact that it has a very uneven border on it. That takes skill!

As I said, I'll post more photos later - right now I'm in a rush to get back to the convention center to pick up my quilts! Before I close though, here is just a quick breezy trip through what I've been working on this month. First, I am continuing with the great block-of-the-week program offered by Homestead Hearth - but I'm making SEVEN of each block. That means that at year's end, I will have over 350 blocks! What am I going to do with them? Two of them are being exchanged with a friend in the program, one will go to my guild's auction... and the remaining four... I will figure out how to set them all differently! Here's the stack so far -- 38 weeks times seven...

and here are the past week's blocks. They are easy and fun to make!

I'm also working on some 3-inch basket blocks. They are so very fast to make. I don't know what I'll do with these yet -- either set them in some nice array, or perhaps use them as sashing strips, or perhaps use them as a border around a set of basket blocks. Time will tell me what to do with them, but they are mostly just a nice "take along" project that I can stuff in my purse and work on at my leisure.

Finally, I want to show you what I finished this morning. You may recall that I showed a challenge that one of my bees decided to take on -- I drew a tulip vase design (12" square block), and the group agreed to each take the design and change it, colorize it, modify it, etc., in whatever way they wished. When everyone is finished, I'll share the set - but so far I've seen it enlarged as a 24" block with a border, shrunk to an 8" block and paired with 3 others to make a wall quilt, set on point as a 12" block... and someone is even making pieced basket blocks and just using the tulips in the border. Quilters are so creative! My choice was to enlarge the block to a humongous 36 inches... And then to make four of them!! So here's the quilt; it measures a hefty 84 inches square...

It's certainly different - but I love it's obnoxious colors! One might wonder how I got all those blocks to be cut square and more-or-less "centered" in the 36 inches. Well... my little pea brain had this idea! Just take my 20-1/2" ruler and mark the vase on it with a dry-erase marker!

I then marked the corner point with a pencil (don't forget to include the quarter-inch seam allowance!) so that if the ruler slipped, I'd know it.

And for each block, I just laid the ruler onto the block, lined up the dry-erase vase marked on the ruler, and cut the block out. Easy enough, I'd say! I love it when a plan comes together!

Okay, friends - that's all for now. I will be back in just a couple days... Quiltmaker's One Hundred Blocks Blog Tour begins in just a day or two and you'll be hearing from me again then!

Happy quilting...

Sue Garman

(c)Susan H. Garman 2011

Three... Two... One... and a Half....

2011-10-02T22:40:00.004-05:00

I'm pedaling as fast as I can this month, trying to get ready for the big quilt show that comes to Houston in just four weeks... wow! I have received notice that my Friends of Baltimore has been awarded a ribbon, and am honored. In addition to Friends of Baltimore, four other quilts of mine will be in the show. One is my bubble gum pink and chocolate brown Lily Rosenberry quilt. The three others are older quilts which are to be included in the Lone Stars III: Texas Quilts Today exhibition that includes some of the quilts in the book being published this Fall by Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes. One of those quilts will actually hang at the new quilt museum that is opening up in LaGrange, Texas - the city famed for its "chicken ranch house of ill repute" captured in the the old Burt Reynolds/Dolly Parton "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" musical/movie. But all of this aside... there is so much to get done... and so little time... So before the night escapes me entirely, I'll give you a quick tour of what I've been working on lately.

First of all, my Borrowed Roses quilt is now finished! I am just so happy every time I take a look at it -- I love the colors, the design, the quilting... and the fact that, believe it or not, it was so easy to make! The pattern is available from Quakertown Quilts (www.quakertownquilts.com) - but check your local quilt shop first!

Here is a close-up of some of the quilting in the quilt. I love quilting quilts -- it is the final step that brings them to life. I don't quilt for others (in general), as I just don't have time and honestly don't relish the responsibility. On occasion, I will trade binding for quilting with a good friend of mine -- and I consider that a fair trade, given that I really dislike binding quilts!

But HERE is the quilt I really want to show you: Sarah's Revival! I almost called it Murder on Queensburg Lane because 1) I live on Queensburg Lane, 2) there is a lot of blood-red fabric in this quilt, and 3) I watched so many murder mysteries while I appliqued the blocks in this quilt. Ha! This quilt is still in process; I have yet to add a couple of flowers, finish the corners, and then baste, quilt, and bind it. But it excites me to see it at this point already. I used an entire spool of red thread to applique this quilt - no surprise there, eh?! This quilt will be sold as a block-of-the-month after the quilt show -- and after I finish the pattern-writing. What fun it was to make -- it went together so quickly and so easily!

One of the fun parts to make was the cornerstones and top center medallions; they are entirely appliqued, which meant that they went together so easily!

In the meantime, since I never work on just one project at a time... here is a rather poor picture of a really lovely quilt. It is a bed-sized extended 9-patch quilt with a border of 3-inch evening star blocks. I just love the black bars separating the blocks and the outer border from each ohter -- they really make the blocks stand out. This quilt was not made by me; it was made by Becky Stephenson as a fund-raising quilt for The American Cancer Society's annual Relay for Life. This is the third year I've quilted the raffle quilt for Becky; we all know people who have been affected by cancer, and this is one way I can contribute to helping find a cure. Becky's work is impeccable -- which makes it a joy to quilt her quilts!

Here is a close-up of the blocks in the quilt -- the stars are quilted in the ditch, while the 9-patches and setting triangles are all quilted with feathered wreaths.

I liked Becky's quilt so much... that I decided to make my own version. It took part of a day to do each of the following steps: cut the units, sew them together, assemble the quilt top, and quilt it. In the photo below, you can see my quilt, and though the binding is sewn on, it is not sewn down yet. Whee! It's fun to make quilts that come together in such a short time.

At Quilt Market this year (the wholesale show that preceeds the Houston Quilt Show), I will be doing a schoolhouse for vendors on what I believe is a trend among quilters: they are working out of their stashes, with the price of fabric now topping ten dollars a yard. They want to make quilts that use their stash, are a bit more complex than "yellow brick road" types of quilts, but don't take forever to make. I will be showing several new quilts that meet those criteria... and you'll eventually see those quilts when I update this blog. So for now.... the countdown has begun and I need to get back to sewing; time is flying!!!

Happy sewing to everyone -

Sue

Sometimes... You Just Run Out of Time!

2011-09-13T22:45:00.005-05:00

I love quilting - it is my absolute passion. It draws me in, it defines a part of me, it soothes my soul, it is therapy, it is a creative outlet, it is fun, it represents friends and community, it is a source of income, it is beautiful to look at... I could go on and on and on. But... no... I don't have time! This past month, I worked harder than ever - on quilting, on family issues, and more... and so only now have I forced myself to update my blog... which I committed to update by the 1st of each month. So much for commitments! And so now I'm rushing through the evening, trying to throw things into my blog so that I can cross updating it off of my list and get it out of my job jar. I usually show you what I've been working on over the past few weeks... or show you sets of quilts that have lessons in them. Tonight... it's mostly what I've been working on over the past few weeks -- starting with Borrowed Roses. Here is the quilt, just as a reminder... the photo is poor, but you'll find a nice one here next month, once I totally finish the quilt. Right now, I'm in the midst of machine quilting it. So here goes.... Above is my quilt; below is a photo of the original 1929 quilt.... notice the detailed quilting in it. Rose Kretsinger, an extraordinary quilt designer who designed this pattern using classic blocks and motifs, designed all of the quilting patterns for her quilts, though she never quilted the tops herself; she hired out that job. I like the quilting patterns she chose, so my quilt is quilted much like the original.

First, I quilted in the ditch around all of the appliqued pieces. Then came flowing feathers...

With cross-hatching joining everything together. In the photo below, you can see the flowery backing fabric that I chose. I needed something that would hide all of the cream-colored thread used in the background, along with dark green, gold, and red thread; the print needed to be fairly busy.

And here's another picture that shows the feathers and the cross-hatching. My guild has chosen to make a quilt using this pattern for its annual raffle quilt (and so you can see a gorgeous picture of their quilt at www.lakeviewquiltersguild.org after September 19th...), which will be unveiled at the next guild meeting.

And yet another photo. Can you tell that I love feathers that knock your socks off?!!!

One item that has been under wraps is the next issue of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks; it will be out in November, but I'm going ahead and ringing their bells NOW so that you'll be on the lookout for this issue. They have included another one of my blocks in it - one that I call Reel Roses.

And so here is a sneak peak... of Reel Roses. It is an easy block to make, though I admit it has a lot of applique perimeter! The nice thing about the Quiltmaker 100 is that you get patterns for all of the blocks in the magazine. Wheee!

And so what else have I been working on? Aaaahhhhh... I'm glad you asked! I am reviving a quilt made in the mid 1800s by Sarah Holcombe; it will be called Sarah's Revival. It has 36 appliqued papercut blocks in it. Here are nine....

And another nine....

And yet another nine...

I've actually finished all 36 blocks and 1-1/2 borders and one cornerstone. How did I get all of that done in the last 5 weeks? Easy! I set a goal: applique one block per day, come heck or high water... and so I did. I have finished all the drawings for the patterns, including the borders and the cornerstones, and I have precut all of the sashings... so now it's only a matter of finishing up those last 2-1/2 borders and the cornerstones. I'm on a roll here... this quilt is growing on me, so when you see it, I think you'll like it too. At least I hope so! If I had more time, I'd photo the blocks and the borders that are laid out on my floor, ready to be sewn together. Yes... if I only had more time. Sometimes, you just run out of it!

Until next month (which will be sooner since I'm so far behind this month!), happy sewing --

Sue

It's All About ANIMALS!!!

2011-08-07T19:05:00.007-05:00

This month, I seem to have misplaced my battery that goes with my new camera... and my camera that goes with my old battery pack. What's a gal to do? Well... not take pictures, that's for sure. Rather than waste another day hunting down the missing culprits, I am going to go ahead and 1) post pictures for your wandering eyes (along with a few comments I have about realistic pictoral quilts) and 2) tell you what I've been working on this month.

What better way to start off a picture foray than with some cattle? Texas is known for its longhorns - and though these are not longhorns, they are still beauties! I want to point out that most pictoral quilts leave a rather plain background (save for a few hills) - yet this brave quilter managed to incorporate a wonderfully complex background by giving you illusions of trees with foliage and branches - that are complex without being extremely detailed. I know that many of us (myself included) often forego illusion in attempts to be very detailed. There's a lesson here in simplicity...

The Girls of Tyrone Farm was made by Beth Miller based on a montage of three photographs taken on Tyrone Farm on the south coast of Australia.
Native Americans are one of Denise Havlan's favorite subjects. In her original design, Moonlit Mirage, she sees a mirage of what used to be. Notice the wonderful binding on this quilt -- it picks up the colors of the work therein, and holds it all together very nicely. I love this next quilt - but what animal does it represent? Aaaahhh... but of course! It's a "river of bats cascading across the sky," according to Vivian Mahlab of Austin, Texas. Anyone who has seen the bats fly out from under the bridge in Austin where they nest wil recognize the breathtaking view! Vivian's view, though, is called Bat Tide - Annadale, Texas - so perhaps these bats are from another part of Texas!

Inge Mardal and Steen Hougs, from Chantilly France, are well-known for their realism in quiltmaking. In Angling, they illustrate "the meditative qualities of angling."
If you live where grackles reside, you may or may not appreciate the next quilt. Grackles tend to congregate in very large groups - in Texas, they are usually in populated areas where there are phone lines and trees juxtaposed - and they emit raucous cries that are not the most pleasant. In Return of the Grackle, Diane Rusin Doran of Glenelg, Maryland, displays her view, saying, "each year, as we slog through the remnants of February, I search for signs of spring. Some people look for robins, but I look for the grackles. Their brash iridescent exuberance tells me that spring is surely near. This digital collage contains numerous photographs and a painting." What I love about Diane's quilt is it's freshness -- and the evidence of a grackle arriving with a fierce announcement of spring!
Pictoral quilts often include the American icon: a bald eagle. Here, Rosalie Baker of Davenport, Iowa, shows us an eagle soaring above the Mississippi River in the Quad City area. I truly appreciate the fact that Rosalie made this quilt only after getting permission fromm the photographer, Ron Hodgson, who snapped the photo of the eagle as seen in Where Eagles Soar. Respecting copyrights is so important to all of us who express ourselves through art.

In Wind Racer, Cassandra Williams (Grants Pass, Oregon) whose us a horse "struggling to escape the violent storm pursuing him. Could this be the horse's nightmare?" Cassandra has used cotton and lame in her original design -- and the lame sparkles against the dark sky. What a great use of embellishment!

Joanne Baeth of Bonanza, Oregon, shows us some sandhill cranes in Sunset and Sandhill Cranes. She says they actually fly over her house every morning and evening on the way to the fields and wetlands. The barns in teh quilt are what she sees out the window of her sewing room - her own special world of beauty. Sandhill cranes are lovely birds - they also live on Galveston, and I love seeing them when they arrive on the island, with their clucking calls and gentle beauty.

This quilt, by Diane Steffen of Lake Ozark, Missouri, is really a two-quilt work called Rare Catch - note that the background is pieced in strips. It's nice to see that kind of subtle designwork inserted behind realistic pictoral quilts. According to Diane, "blue lobsters are very rare genetic anomalies and their color is an extraordinary cobalt blue. They are a one-in-5-million occurrence..." I like when we know what the maker says about her quilts!

In Ruffled Feathers, Roxanne Nelson of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, reflects her love of birds, color, and quilting. She sees fabric as paint, using it as a pallet wherein she blends fabrics perfectly, with each fabric "stitched to match the texture of the feathers." Her quilt was inspired by a photography taken by Gayle Reeder. Please note on this quilt that Roxanne very carefully appliqued her pieces and did not resort to digitally printing or painting her feathered friend. We can all learn a lot from experts like Roxanne. Her quilt is also on the cover, with an article, in this month's AQS magazine.

Here's another quilt without a pedigree. What I want to point out on this one, though, is... look at the zebra's stripes. Many of them are actually long feathered geese strips. What a novel way to use geometric piecing in a pictoral quilt! Ideas like this are what often sparks creativity in someone else's next quilt.

And here is another zebra, Wild Stripes, made by Melanie Marr of Houston, Texas. She was inspired to make it, based on a photo she took of a zebra at the Brownsville Zoo in South Texas. Melanie chose the background color to add intensity to the quilt - which it most definitely does!

This little owl is a cutie. Ruth Bloomfield of Atherton, Queensland, Australia, calls it Waiting for Dinner. What I want to point out on this quilt is that the owl and branch are made mostly from scraps sewn together, while the background is a busy batik print -- an overall stippling gives the background a wonderful leafiness, though! In addition, having leaves on the branch extend across the inner border gives the quilt some really nice dimension.

I love pictoral quilts like the one below - you can almost feel the emotion in the dog as it trots along in Run! by Hiroko Miyama of Tokyo, Japan. What a great quilt!

Here is another quilt with intense emotion in it - the tiger's eyes burn right through you! This quilt, below, was made by Patt Blair of Mt. Baldy, California. Patt is an accomplished teacher, author, and award-winning quilt artist. We can see why in her Tiger Eyes.

Now here is yet another "animal" - Our Divine Miss Beetle by Sonia Grasvik of Seattle, Washington. The wonderful beadwork makes the beetle sparkle - and the lovely quilting in the background makes the quilt just "sing!"

In Let's All Spring Forward by Rosalie Baker of Davenport, Iowa, we see red-eyed tree frongs from the rain forests of Central America "where spring is eternal." These frogs are often used to promote the cause of saving the world's rainforests - even though they sometimes have a comical air about them because of their coloration and funky looks. Rosalie has done a great job of capturing them in their habitat.

Last but not least is SHH! She's Sleeping by Barbara McKie of Lyme, Connecticutt. She saw these seagulls watching a sleeping baby sea lion and managed to make it a quilt using disperse dyes, trapunto, free motion emboridery, and free-motion machine applique. Barbara is obviously a student of many different facets of the art quilt world, and a master of many! Take a look at the quilt - and the close-up below.

That's all I have in terms of photos this month. Next month I will show you what I've been working on, assuming that I find either a camera battery (new) or camera (old)! I'm on block ten of a 36-block red and white applique quilt. Once you see it, you will probably recognize that it is based on an old 1847 quilt you have seen - one that sold for $8,812 in 2010. That's enough information to tantalize your mind... I'm also working on quilting my Borrowed Roses quilt (the pattern is now available at Quakertown Quilts!). Quakertown closed one of its retail outlets, but it is still alive and well and doing a booming internet and wholesale business at www.quakertownquilts.com. I will confess that they are my distributor, of course!

So... until next month, when I catch up a bit and show you more, I hope you are having a great summer!

Happy sewing --
Sue

Progress and Princess Feathers...

2011-07-03T00:16:00.018-05:00

Woo hoo! After several months of what seemed like endless hours of hand quilting, I have finished quilting my Friends of Baltimore. Wheeeeee!!! I have sewn the binding on and now have to stitch it down, add a label on the back, and add a sleeve before I'm done. I'm nervous about the binding - I want the quilt to hang perfectly flat after all the work I've put into it. It may take a tiny bit of blocking to make that happen, which is just fine. Here's a picture of it, lying on the floor upstairs.

All of the blocks are quilted with cross-hatching, while the borders are quilted with bead board quilting. Everything is stitched in the ditch, and all of the applique is stitched in a matching color. I love hand quilting - it is pure relaxation for me (except for the finger sticks!).
Now that I'm finished quilting Friends, I am having a bit of withdrawal -- what shall I work on next? First - here are some other things I've worked on this past month - and have at least partially finished. Below is my Borrowed Roses quilt. I need to make a few adjustments to the pattern, and then it will be available via mail order (probably in 2-3 weeks) from Quakertown Quilts.

Here's a close-up of the quilt -- it is one of the easiest applique quilts I've made, as the pieces are large (the blocks are 22 inches square), and the feathered swag border, while it looks difficult, is actually very fast and very easy to applique because the pieces are also large. Yay for easy, right?!!

This will likely be the next quilt that I quilt, though I think that I'll quilt it on my longarm. The original quilt was made by Rose Kretsinger back in 1929, based on a classic Rose Tree block. I've seen many quilts with this design, but I loved the border on Rose's quilt. Below is a photo of the actual quilt made by Rose -- she designed all the hand quilting but had someone else actually do the quilting. It's hard to find many people willing to do that today at an affordable price. But isn't the quilt design lovely? I may use her ideas in my own quilt, though it will be more challenging on a longarm.
And here is a close-up of the quilting in Rose's quilt. These photos were taken by Becky S, a friend who had the good fortune to visit the Spencer Museum, where the quilt was taken out of storage and shown to a group on a bus trip from the Common Threads quilt shop in Waxahachie, Texas. What a treat!
I also finally finished assembling all of my triple four-patch blocks into a king-sized quilt. These blocks were all from several block exchanges that I was involved in over the past decade - I often cannibalized the blocks and used them in other quilts, but I finally had enough to put this together. Done is good!

Here is a close-up of two of the blocks. They are 6 inches, finished size. Think about getting a group of quilters together to trade these, 20 blocks at a time, with others. They are fast and fun - and can be set in many different ways. While the exchanges I was in used civil war fabrics with shirtings, I have seen the blocks also done in 30s fabrics and batiks. It's a flexible block when it comes to fabric.

I continue to make my block-of-the-week blocks -- I make seven a week, so it's more like a block-of-the-day! After twenty weeks, I have 140 blocks -- I'll continue through to the end of the year (the first block of every set of seven comes from Homestead Hearth's block-of-the-week) and have a TON of blocks. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, but it's always handy to have a set of blocks to pull together and make a quilt in short order. Think of all the ways 7-1/2" blocks can be set -- sashed, on point, set alternately with large quarter-square triangle blocks, set alternately on point with scrappy squares of fabric... It's exciting to think about the options! My original thought was that I would give a set to my guild for it's auction - but I don't have a full set yet, so that will have to wait until next year....

Okay, you have to keep this under wraps - no telling anybody, pelase! I signed up for a Secret Sister program at my guild. We are doing it, starting in September, until our holiday dinner in December, so it's manageable with only 4 exchanges. What is also nice is that the gal who is organizing this suggested what to give to your secret sister each month: 4 fat quarters or 4 blocks, or a gently used quilting book, etc. I like the block idea so my Secret Sister will be receiving a few blocks each month. I may make more, too.... These evening stars, set in a "floating" design, are quick and easy to make, using a flip-and-sew method for the star points. Again, hooray for easy!

This next quilt is special to me. My 7-year old granddaughter and I worked on it together. She designed the applique and helped sew them on the machine. I set the blocks, under her direction, and quilted the quilt. Each block has special meaning for her - they plant flowers to attract worms that turn into cocoons that hatch into butterflies, they love fishing and the beach, and they have a wonderful love of family. So this is Dahlia's "Love Quilt." What makes it special, though, is that we made it together, laughing and playing the whole time. She owes me big time for doing the binding on it, though - it's my least desirable thing to do when it comes to quilting.

So that's what I've worked on this month. What comes next? I have a lot of ideas in mind - including a large "cutwork" applique quilt with tons of blocks all in reds and creams. After that, maybe an alphabet quilt - every time I see one of these, I fall in love with it. This one is particularly appealing to me because of its bright colors and its simplicity.
Quite a while back (15 years?), I started work on a Princess Feather quilt. I have the blocks done now and just have to figure out how to set the blocks. The Princess Feather is a classic pattern - folk lore says the design was based on a "prince's" feather. Before I end this month's blog, I thought I'd sare some classic Princess Feather quilts. Once again, I want to show you how creative quilters are with their designs -- isn't it wonderful that everyone can take an idea and do whatever they want with it? Take a look....

Here's the classic design - red and green feathers radiating out from a center red star. In this version, the quilter enlarged the quilt by adding a large border. That's a great way to "grow" a quilt without having to do a lot more work.
This quilter may have been feeling patriotic with her red and blue version of the quilt - and a Lemoyne Star in the center of each set of feathers. A simple border frames these feathers.

This quilter was similarly patriotic -but stopped at one princess feather set, choosing to add eagles in the corners of her quilt. I find these variations to be fascinating!

Here's a quilter who decided to use a vibrant cheddar for the background of her princess feathers. She also chose to use a single color for the feathers - and added multiple borders to enlarge the quilt and frame the feathers. Interesting....

In this version, the quilter also used a cheddar background - but used the classic red and green for the feathers.

This quilter used a chrome yellow background with her red and green princess feathers... but look at the motif in the center of this quilt....

And then look at the motifs used in this princess feather quilt. While they are a bit different, could they each have been inspired by another princess feather quilt with a motif like this? The quiltmaker of the quilt below certainly took liberties with the "princess feather" motifs -- she had a penchant for using vibrant colors, too - and look at the scalloped border on this quilt. It's quite unique for this style of quilt.

Here's another classic princess feather - set on a blue background. Check out two things: the unique center motif... and the border of mini-feathers. That's a lot of extra work, but it sets off the center of the quilt quite nicely.

Here's another quilt where the quilter took liberty with the princess feather design -- she added leaves (or are they meant to be feathers?) to the motifs. It's a dynamic interpretation of the classic design.

And yet another quilter made a classic version... but used teal instead of green for the feathers.

This quilter again interpreted the classic princess feather design in a unique style. Her feathers became swag sets - with flowers at the tips. These motifs were replicated in the outer border.

In this version, the colors are unique - and the feathers are replicated in the setting triangles. The creativity of quilters just doesn't cease, does it?

Some princess feather quilts took liberties with the direction of the feathers - in this one, they don't "spin" as in the classic design. And the center Lemoyne Star is modified in the flowers that stand between the radiating feathers.

This quilt resembles the one above - but her flowers are a stylized folk art design. She still has a version of those little flowers the above quilter used in her border. It makes me wonder if there was a pattern that used these at one time.

Here's another variation of the princess feathers - they serve as long flower leaves, though. Notice that the quilter must have run out of the feather fabric she started with - and resorted to using another color for four of the blocks and the border. Do you ever wonder what someone was thinking - or what their limitations were in terms of fabric availability?

Last but not least, here is the classic princess feather once again... with no border, no unusual motifs, no whacky colors... just plain and simple. I have yet to decide how I'm going to set my four princess feather blocks... but my guess is that it will have something versus nothing in the border - even if it's just a red floater strip around the outside of the blocks! In closing, let's all give thanks to the many men and women in the services who sacrifice much so that we can enjoy the bounties of freedom. We owe them a lot! Happy Fourth of July to everyone. Stay cool, keep stitching, and enjoy life!
See you next month --Sue Garman(c)2011 Susan H. Garman

I Was Just Thinkin'....

2011-06-04T14:53:00.030-05:00

This month, I started thinking about how many quilts we see "come and go" across time. We spot one at a quilt show whose beauty and creativity knocks our socks off... and then we are on to spot the next one. Sometimes it pays to take a look backwards and remind ourselves of what we've seen that inspired us -- and why! I decided to take a walk down memory lane by showing you some photos of old quilts. These quilts have stood the test of time -- but I want to look at them through the lens of what made them great... and keeps them great. Join me!

Probably the most unusual thing about this quilt (from today's perspective) is that it is basically brown and blue with a touch of pink. There's nothing odd about a brown and blue quilt - but the intricacy of the designs, all jumbled together, dazzles the eye.

Here's a close-up of the interior border -- you can see the colors a bit better here, along with the repetitive motifs: 6-pointed stars and hexagons, flowers and butterflies, hearts and flowerpots... And, again, it's not the colors or the motifs; it's the dazzling array of all the motifs and contrasting colors, together in the same quilt. It's amazing!

In the red and white quilt, below, the piecing is phenomenal. Think about it: quiltmakers of a hundred or more years ago were working with simple tools; they had cardboard templates for the piecing, which was often done entirely by hand. It's a wonder that a block of this complexity could be made so well. This quiltmaker added a unique floral border which softens the hard edges of the geometric blocks. How many of us would have the patience to tackle a quilt like this without a rotary cutter and ruler? Similarly, here's another quilt that was made before the advent of rotary cutters. The Carolina Lily is seen in many early quilts - but today's quilt makers often avoid this block because of the many set-in seams. It is a block that deserves to be tried, though -- it offers many different setting opportunities to quilters.
The Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt below was made entirely of silk. It is so fragile today that it was displayed on a wedge-shaped platform surface. Age could not steal its beauty -- it was made in 1860 and was entirely hand-pieced and hand-quilted.

Here's a doozy, below. There is nothing terribly unusual about it... except that it's hard to figure out how the quiltmaker made it: there are 9-patches, there are lots of half-squre triangles... but did the quiltmaker assemble this in block sets? Where are the dividing lines between them? Did she have some unusual combinations of squares and half-square triangles? Or did she assemble this row by row, picking up the next piece, as required, in each row. Hmmm. Sometimes it's really difficult to figure out how things were done a long time ago!

These old Log Cabin quilts that use stripes and solids in pair relationships always seem to catch my eye. I've not seen but a handful of these quilts that have been made in the last 50 years -- but I've got such a quilt on my "someday, I'll make this" list!
This photo gives you a better view of those color-matched strips in each block. I should also note that today's quilters don't usually use solids as much as quilters of yesteryear did -- but we should just think about it once a while. Maybe someday we'll surprise ourselves with our creative use of them!

The following red and green quilt is fun because the princess feather blocks are so angular, and have flowers between four of the feathers -- and added to this are the quirky birds in the border.

Here's a close-up of those birds. They are absolutely delightful! You can catch glimpses of the cheddar which was popular during a portion of the 1800s.
Talk about a challenge... could you dare to begin making the quilt below without paper foundations? Oh my goodness - I cringe at the thought! But think about this: this quilter did not have a fabric store or an internet or a book of quilt patterns that she could use to make her pattern. She likely drew out the pieces by herself and hand-pieced and hand-quilted the entire quilt. Such effort makes my quilts seem like such paltry offerings!

And here are some cherries -- but notice the coxcomb flowers in the border. You'll see more of those motifs in another photo. This quilt is just lovely -- and someday, I'll probably be making one much like it, full of red and green cherries.

You can see the coxcomb flowers better in this close-up. Keep an eye out for another quilt with coxcomb flowers in it....

Patriotism was ever-present in the early years of our nation. Eagles were everywhere, along with flag and star motifs. Here's a favorite old quilt -- I love the glorious eagles in this quilt, along with the single vase on each side that spreads flowers across the length of each border. This quilter had such imagination!

And here's a close-up of the eagle -- and the roses with their fluted interiors.

The grandeur of the above quilt is quite a contrast with this next quilt -- with its very simple but lovely rose trees. I'm working on my own rose tree quilt and should have it done soon.

Here is another quite different block - it resembles the rose tree, but it is actually a tree of flowers set in a blue vase. It is unusal - and attractive.

And here is yet another red and green quilt with berries, flowers, vines, and vases. The coxcomb flowers in the blocks are very reminiscent of the coxcomb flowers in the border of the Cherry quilt, above.

And here is yet one more red and green quilt. What is unusual about it is that the vases and flowers on three of the borders face inward -- while the vases and flowers on the top border face left and right. What do you think the quilter was thinking? Was it made that way to accommodate pillows... or what? We may never know.

Now here is what you might really call a quirky quilt! Filled with stars, there is barely a spot for your eye to rest! But oh my, the colors and the arrangement of designs makes your eye dance across the face of the quilt! I believe that quilts like this are hard to make today because too often we are trained to create resting spots for the eye, and to certainly match our fabrics more carefully! But it is clear that the delight in this quiltmaker's eye abounds. Compare the last quilt to this one, now. There are plenty of places for the eye to rest... and the mind! The Princess Feather is a lovely block - and the only thing that keeps me from finishing the Princess Feather quilt I started 7 or 8 years ago is the fact that I cannot decide on the "right" border treatment for the blocks. That obviously didn't stop this quilter!

Can you figure out the difference between the last two quilts and this one? The small-star border on this one amuses me - since the other borders all have medium-sized stars. Go figure! But there is plenty of space for the eye to rest, for sure. And of the three quilts, none suffer from lack of interest.
This quilt takes the prize, though, for no resting spot for the eye. It just goes to show... every rule is made to be broken! I love the bright colors in these blocks -- and the fact that every block has a different center block. Wow!
That's all for this month. I didn't include anything that I've been working on this month because everything that my hands have been into are just a little further along, but not finished. Next month, hopefully you'll see something FINISHED!

Until we meet again, happy quilting!

Sue Garman

Spring Has Sprung!

2011-05-01T23:58:00.006-05:00

I love this time of year in my little corner of the world -- when the flowers start blooming, the weather is lovely, and it's pleasant to be outside. Despite the fact that many of you believe I am extremely productive, this month I have proven to be quite the opposite: I have nothing new to show you! I spent most of my quilting hours in front of myBaltimore quilt - I've finished hand-quilting 12 of 16 blocks and most of one whole border - but I have nothing else to show you. Never fear, however, I have a stash of old photos to share! The first one is an old pictoral quilt of mine: The Garden Lady. I have fun making "thematic" quilts, where I choose a theme and then flesh it out with all the accoutrements that go with that theme. This month's whole blog is devoted to the theme of "flowers." Enjoy!

The Garden Lady, Susan H. Garman

This next quilt, "Spring Beauties," was made by Terry Aske of New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. In describing her quilt, Terry says, "Every spring, I eagerly await the first tuplis poking through the hard ground. Aftera along, dark winter, I marvel at the incredible range of colors that these spring blooms display." Terry'sgreatest challenge was deciding which colors to include or omit in her quilt.

I loved seeing Roxane Lessa's "Angel's Trumpets" at the quilt show in Houston last year. She hails from Raleigh, North Carolina, and angel's trumpets bloom in many of the neighbors' gardens. The flowers are very large and droop down - presenting waht Roxane calls, "a bewitchingplant!"

The quilt below, "Sunflower I" by Patricia Schumacher of Lawrenceville, Georgia, is part of a sunflower series that Patricia has done. She says that her rheumatoid osteoarthritis causes severe joint pain, so the time that she spends with her flower quilt garden replaces time she might otherwise spend in a garden - and relieves the pain as she becomes involved in making the quilts. I'm sure that many of us find comfort and "therapy" in quilt making!

Lest you think that Patricia's sunflower quilt is simple... look again! Patricia's quilts have an enormous amount of embellishment, with the sunflower center composed of dozens of different colors and shapes of tiny beads. See the close-up, below....

Pat Kroth's "Florilegium II" uses hand-dyed, raw-edge fused applique. This Verona, Wisconsin quilter has created the "glorious perennial garden in my mind's eye." But she confesses, " my intentions are always grand in the spring, but with art-making and sewing as priorities, somtimes by late summer, the weedsmake a better showing." We can probably all identify with that statement!

"Still Standin'" by Pamela Druhen of Northfield, Vermont, gives us a view of the cottonwood treesthat line the west shore of Isle LaMotte on Lake Champlain. A violent storm wiped out many of these trees in 2008 - but these two are still standing. Pamela's techniques included dye painting, heavy threadwork, and heavy machine quilting.

Melinda Bula's "Rain Drops," below, is full of detail. Her choice of color - and added color - is amazing. Try taking your camera out into the garden and photographing a few flowers. Transfer the outlines of the flowers onto paper and develop a pattern for your own realistic pictoral flower!

The small quilt below - smaller than a handkerchief - is the third in Houstonian Kumiko Frydl's "Mission" series. She traveled extensively for a number of months and had little time for quilting - so she made it her mission to create and completel a project in a limited amount of time. Wouldn't you love to see her other miniature quilts?

Hallie O'Kelley's "Tropical Beauties," below, was inspired by her husband's striking photo of a brillian tropical flower. Hallie dyed the fabrics - and screen printed the border fabirc.

"Jill's Geranium," by Jean K. Smith, was designed when her daughter asked her to make a quilt of her favorite flower, the geranium. Jean resorted to buying a live geranium and with freezer ppaer on her design wall and an overhead projector, she had all of the ingredients for her quilt.

Barbara McKie's "Under the Sunflowers," below, started with a photo transfer. These exuberant sunflowers grew in a neighbor's garden in Lyme, Connecticutand inspired the quilt . They seem to want to reach out and touch the gorgeous sky!

And here is another set of flowers - daffodils - by Barbara Holtzman. Inspired by a photo by Desirae Nelson (who gave permission for its use), Barbara says she gets new energy every spring when she sees the daffodils popping up.

Last, but far from least, here is a quilt by Andrea Brokenshire of Round Rock, Texas. Her "A Great Garden Discovered," was based on the discovery of a garden of irises growing along a stream that cascaded down to a creek below, near Laek Georgetown, Texas. This quilt is a wonderful example of the artistrythat can be created when painting on silk.

I hope you've enjoyed this snapshot tour of spring quilts - and I hope that your garden overflows with the brightness that the season brings into our lives.

Until next month... happy sewing --

Sue Garman

Knocking Out UFOs -- Whee!!!

2011-03-31T21:57:00.008-05:00

Oh my, but it is SO much fun to knock out a bunch of UFOs -- as in finish them! This past weekend I had the pleasure of going to a 4-day guild retreat on nearby Galveston Island. I find quilt retreats to be wonderful because I am inspired by everyone else's projects, I learn by watching and listening to other quilters, I get to sew as much as I want, and I have the joy of friendship - all at once! So let's take a look at a few of the things I've been working on this month.

First of all, my "Borrowed Roses" quilt top was nearly finished when I left for the retreat. I just needed to assemble all of the blocks and then stitch down the corner ribbons and tassels. I don't like the corner ribbon design, so ignore what you see below; I'm going to revise the ribbons and tassels and you'll see the revision next month. I've been asked if this will ever be a pattern. Yes -- but I never publish a pattern until the quilt is finished, including the quilting, so the pattern availability is still a couple months or more off into the future. In the meantime, take a peek, below. Except for the corner ribbons, I love the look of this quilt - and the feathered swag border was amazingly simple to make! It is made in rectangular sections; the sections are sewn together into border strips - and then the ribbons and tassels are added. Getting all of those swags to line up may seem like a tough trick... but I'll show you how I did it in the next photos.

The swag border is made of three 12 by 22-1/2 inch rectangles (unfinished size). I always applique on a piece of background fabric that is larger than necessary and then I trim it down to size. But how do I trim that rectangle so that the swags line up and meet in the right place? Here's how...

Trace the outline of the swag onto a piece of plastic (I happened to use Sharpie markers on old ziplock bags that I taped together).

Tape together a bunch of rulers so that the set measure 22-1/2 inches wide -- and more than 12 inches deep. Note, in the photo, that I used the painter's blue tape because it is easy to remove when I'm done.

Tape the plastic with the design on it across the rulers, placing it so that the top and the left and right sides of the pattern match the top, left, and right sides of the ruler set.

Lay the ruler set across the appliqued swag... matching the applique to the pattern outlined on the plastic...

Now you are ready to cut the top, left, and right sides of the swag rectangle.

Once you're cut those three sides, turn the ruler set around and cut the bottom side of the rectangle, such that the rectangle measures 12 by 22-1/2 inches.

This works like magic! The last half-inch or so of each swag is left un-appliqued. In this way, the swag fabric can be folded back out of the way when the rectangles are sewn together into border strips. If there is any gap, don't worry; it will be covered up by the ribbon when it is appliqued across the intersection of the swags.

Honestly, I love this swag so much that you'll probably see it again in another quilt some day -- but my vision for the next swag is something done in color gradations, with the "feathers" each getting darker as they splay out away from the center feather.

Another quilt I'm obviously still working on is my Friends of Baltimore -- here it is, in its current state, with 9 of the blocks quilted. All these other projects got in the way this month or more would be done!

This block has a little fleur-de-lis kind of design in the open area of the bottom corners; I like little oddities in quilting.

And here is the 9th block, not quite finished -- the cross-hatching is all done, but not quilting in the ditch around all of the fruit. That will be done in the next couple of days.

The next quilt that I worked on this past weekend was an assembly job -- I had already finished all of the stars and chain blocks; my friend Cynthia and I have been exchanging sets of star blocks for the past couple of years. Each block uses a civil war fabric and an assortment of shirtings. Did I mention that these blocks are 4-1/2 inches (FINISHED size)? Oh yes! That's so that they would "fit" with the nine-patch blocks that I made to go with them.

So here is what the stars and double 9-patch blocks look like together. I love using varieties of shirtings with civil war fabrics. They remind me of my grandpa's old pajamas.

And then... when you get enough of them made, the stars and chains begin to take on a life of their own. I like how those litlte HALF-INCH SQUARES just sparkle like blinking lights in a quilt like this. Did I tell you how many star blocks and Irish chain blocks there are in this quilt? Well... Take a look! This quilt has 374 blocks in it -- that's 188 star blocks and 187 chain blocks. I paper pieced all of the stars so that I could make them 4-1/2" finished size. The Irish chain blocks were time-hogs -- they seemed to take forever, even though they were strip-pieced, because there are a LOT of pieces in each block! But the result was worth the time. The quilt measures 76-1/2 by 99 inches -- perfect for a twin bed.

The final project that I worked on at the retreat was a quilt top made using triple four-patch blocks. These blocks were from various exchanges I was involved in over the last several years. I just never got around to sewing them together until this weekend. The photo below shows only the bottom half of the quilt... the top is hanging on my sewing machine, ready to stitch onto this set. Aaahhh.... we'll just wait and see if it takes another retreat next year to get around to putting that last line of stitching in place!

I hope you are finding some great sewing time... and finishing up some things here and there. Until next month's posting...

Happy sewing!

Sue Garman

Finishing Up!

2011-02-28T20:22:00.004-06:00

This month has been a month of “finishing” – I’ve been working on finishing various projects. Of course, make no mistake… I have made progress… but I still haven’t finished a quilt this month!
The first one, below, shows the progress I have made on my new “Borrowed Roses” quilt. The block is based on a traditional block called Prairie Flower, Missouri Rose, or Rose Tree. The border and use of the blocks is based on an old late 1920s Rose Kretsinger quilt called “New Rose Tree.” So far, I have finished four of the planned nine blocks and five of twelve border units. There will eventually be ribbons and tassels between all of the border units. The unfinished blocks are all basted, so they are easy to take along and work on at bees, meetings, doctor appointments, etc. – so hopefully, next month you will see the quilt top assembled… but don’t hold your breath!

The next photos, below, shows another old project that I started on well over a year ago. My friend Cynthia and I exchanged 4-1/2 inch (finished size) star blocks which used civil war reproduction fabrics and shirtings – a favorite combination of mine. Together, we both have quite a stack of little star blocks – and I really love Sawtooth Stars.

I’m going to use those star blocks in combination with some 4-1/2 inch (finished size) double nine-patch blocks that I finished making this month – all 175 of them! The little squares in the nine-patches are each 1/2 inch in size, so it took a while to get them all sewn.

Now that those blocks are all finished, I’m ready to assemble the quilt top. In the photo below, you can get an idea of how the blocks will be set together. When it is finished, this quilt will be twin-sized, with the blocks extending edge-to-edge – and no border. Naturally, an antique quilt that I saw at the Houston quilt show many years ago inspired this quilt. Doing block exchanges with a friend is a great way to keep me on schedule – Cynthia and I set deadlines for swapping blocks every two weeks, and we met nearly all the deadlines! I can’t wait to sew these blocks together – hopefully you’ll see the quilt top when I post an update at the beginning of April.

In between other projects, I have also been working on doing the last bit of touch-up quilting on a project that my friend Denise Green and I started ages ago. It was interrupted with a family illness, and I am just now getting back to working on this quilt. Denise and I collaborated on this quilt from start to finish – I did most of the applique, she did a ton of machine quilting, and I did a bunch of hand-quilting. We both helped each other a ton, along the way. This quilt is based on my “Lily Rosenberry” pattern and, finally, I will have my very own Lily Rosenberry quilt – I’m excited about that! Many thanks go to Denise –for her friendship and our teamwork on this quilt!

Last but certainly not least, I have been doing more hand quilting on my Friends of Baltimore quilt. So far, 7 blocks have been quilted. These are 15 inch blocks, and I am quilting in the ditch around every appliqued piece, and cross-hatch quilting the background in each block. My goal is to finish the quilting in June (of this year). This is another quilt that excites me every time I work on it – I can’t wait to finish it! Below are pictures of two of the blocks, so you can see how the quilting is turning out on them.

Finally, since spring is on its way, I’ll give you a peak at another project that I’m working on. It’s the center block of a medallion quilt; I haven’t figured out what sort of borders I am going to add to the medallion – but I want to finish the quilt by April. Ha! That will be a trick, but setting a goal is a way for me to finish projects.

Until next month, enjoy the Spring! Check out my Yahoo group if you get a chance (see last month's posting for the link) – folks are starting to work on their own Friends of Baltimore (and other quilts) and one gal has already posted two finished blocks. Go Marian! You'll also find plenty of tips in that group - hopefully, they will help all of us finish more quilts!

Happy sewing --

Sue Garman
(c)2010 Susan H. Garman

Stay Warm...

2011-02-01T21:55:00.004-06:00

With the icy waves of cold that are racing across the Nation, I want to start with the premise that we should all be making more quilts in order to stay warm! My outdoor thermometer shows that it is a chilly 32 degrees at 10 pm tonight... which is balmy compared to elsewhere.

This month there is not much to show, because I've been too busy to make much progress on anything. First of all, my "Friends of Baltimore" quilt is now on the market. I basted it right before Christmas and have already been quilting away like crazy on it -- check it out in the picture below; I have finished quilting 5 blocks. Yes, I'm a slowpoke, but this quilt is being heavily quilted!

Next, I have been working on my "Borrowed Roses" quilt. I have basted all of the blocks and have finished appliquing one block and one border unit. I love working on quilts that I can't wait to finish -- imagining what it will look like after it is quilted helps me keep my nose to the grindstone. The inspiration for this quilt was a quilt made by Rose Kretsinger -- if you check out my January post, you will see a draft of the pattern. Below is a picture of one block and one border unit-- I'm making progress!

Back on August 31, 2010, I posted several pictures of old cheddar quilt tops that I've collected. I found another one late last year and I'll share it below -- I just love all those bright 9-patches with cheddar setting squares and triangles. This is definitely on my list of quilts to "re-make" in the future. I've already purchased my cheddar fabric.

I have been asked by Emmy in Bemidji, Minnesota, to comment on how to select, prepare, and choose a non-bleeding red fabric good for applique - as well as other strong colors like green and purple - and whatever else I want to say about shades, brands, solids, etc. First of all, I like a very rich, rich red. Those are difficult to find -- there are lots of pinky, purplish, bluish, blackish, and gray reds... but a really good, strong, rich red is hard to find. So... the first rule of thumb is: when you find a good red, BUY it! Buy LOTS of it! Look at it against other reds and other colors (e.g., gold, green) to make sure that it is a true red. Sometimes when you place a red print against other colors, you'll find that it is a different shade than you thought.
I prepare my red fabrics just like I do all my other fabrics: it walks in the door and goes for a swim in warm water, then gets dried. It is not allowed to enter my sewing room until it has bathed -- therefore, I am always certain that all the fabric in my sewing room has been washed. I do not ever use washout markers, disappearing ink markers, starch, or fabric finish (sizing) on my fabrics, and particularly not on reds, navies, or blacks -- those items may cause your fabric to bleed, despite having been washed. Ask me how I know... and being the compulsive person that I am, I even tested these products on a variety of fabrics to prove that they may cause fabrics to bleed. If you do use these products, make sure that you thoroughly wash them out at some point.
As for brands... I have an inherent trust in all the major fabric manufacturers; they are in the business of satisfying their customers, and they work hard at putting out fabrics that make us happy. All of that is to say that you are probably safe with fabrics you find in your local quilt shop. As for shades of colors... there are tons of beautiful shades of reds, greens, purples, blues, golds, and so on. Which ones do you use? Choose your fabrics by laying them out to see if they work well together. While a pinky red may not go well with one green, it might go beautifully with another. It's a matter of trial and error -- just do not expect to be able to choose fabrics in 5 minutes. I have always believed that it takes 3 times as long to choose fabric as you think it should.

Finally, I have been asked to start a Yahoo Group for people working on my Friends of Baltimore quilt. I was reluctant to do so, as there is a certain amount of overhead attached to moderating a Yahoo Group, and there are plenty of other Yahoo groups on the web where discussions might occur. However, I have succumbed to the wishes of those of you whose persuasive powers overwhelmed my ability to say no... so I have now started a new Yahoo Group called SueGarmanQuilts. You can find it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/suegarmanquilts/ -- don't be in a huge rush to check it out... I haven't posted anything there yet! Eventually I will post pictures of my Baltimore quilt so that those of you who want to see closeups of the blocks can easily do so. If there are other things you want me to include there, holler at me!

Okay - that's enough for tonight. It's 10:30... and now it's 30 degrees outside. I need to make more quilts!

Happy sewing -

Sue

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T01:51:00.012-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone -- let's all hope that this year brings a treasure trove of good health, good fortune, good friendship... and lots of quiltmaking for all of us. Let's see... shall I also hope that the price of cotton falls sometime soon? I may not always be optimistic, but I am never without hope!

So what am I working on now? Several things... but here's one. I agreed to create a new design for my quilt guild's annual raffle quilt. After talking to Jerrianne and Georgann -- two of my quilt buddies who are always offering a ton of both ideas and inspiration -- we decided it would be wonderful to use Rose Kretsinger's 1929 red and green "New Rose Tree Quilt" as an inspiration. It's a wonderful structured rose tree design with a swag border that has red and gold feathers appliqued along its length. I love red and green quilts, and this one is breath-taking. My version will be an 86 by 86 inch quilt, so the blocks are very large: 22 inches square, with a 10-inch wide border. After drafting the design (see my first drafts, below), I got so excited that I've already scavenged through my stash and decided I need to break my New Year's resolution to not buy more fabric for at least three months as I don't have what I want to use for this quilt. So much for a resolution! It must not have been a good one if I'm already backing down on it. You will likely be seeing updates on this quilt over the next few months.

Partial pattern for "Borrowed Roses" - a remake of an old Rose Kretsinger quilt

Another project I've been working on is a Tulip Challenge Quilt. A group of my quilt friends all agreed to choose an antique quilt, use a block from it, and update it in whatever way we see fit -- a challenge -- that we each hope to finish and enter in our guild's quilt show in 2012. We chose a mid-1800s red and green quilt that had a block with tulips in a vase. I drafted the pattern as a 12" block... and the gang is all working on their versions of the block... and how it will be set into a quilt. Two of the group are enlarging and setting the block on point - one with reproduction fabrics, another with batiks. One of the group is making the block smaller -- a set of 6" blocks using reproduction fabrics. Some of the group have revised the vase - making it more complex. I've enlarged the block and am making a 4-block quilt; my blocks are each 36" square! Check out the block, below -- and check out the colors I'm using to make my challenge quilt. If you've read my blog, you know that I love cheddar!

The Tulip Challenge Quilt

Another project I've been working on is my Baltimore quilt. I finished adding the final border of 1-inch half-square triangles, and nearly threw my back out of joint by getting on my hands and basting the quilt. So here's a close-up of the outer border...

And here's a picture of the whole quilt with the final half-square triangle border on it... And finally... here's a picture of the first block I've quilted on it. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy hand-quilting. I do my share of machine quilting, but there is no comparison between longarm and hand-quilting: hand quilting is so relaxing to me. I just love sitting down and quilting for a few hours at a time once or twice a day. With any luck, I will have this quilt finished in 3-4 months. Whee!!! Did you know that I do all of my hand-quilting using a stab-stitch? I can quilt as fast as anyone else - and can "quilt through concrete" with the stab-stitch method! Several people have asked me when the patterns for my Baltimore quilt will be available. Quakertown Quilts should begin offering them for sale in mid-January -- check with them (www.quakertownquilts.com), or with your local quilt shop and see if they are ordering the patterns if you wish to get them. Now for a little visual treat. A friend of mine was given permission to take photos of the Baltimore album quilts on display at the International Quilt Association display in November in Houston (aka "the Houston Festival" or "the Houston Quilt Show"). What follows is a small selection of some of those quilts. My apologies to those whose quilts are not included in the selection - it does not mean I didn't like yours! To begin with, the venue for this Baltimore extravaganza could not have been more wonderful -- lots of room, great lighting, plenty of white-glove folks to help show the backs of the quilts or answer questions - and plenty of quilts!

George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston - Nov. 2010

The first quilt is "Friendship's Offering" by Fabric Cottage class members and others, spectacularly hand-quilted by Diane Kirkhart (Vienna, Virginia). For a complete list of the needle artists who worked on this quilt, please purchase a copy of Elly Sienkiewicz's 2010 Beloved Baltimore Album Quilts. It's a lovely retrospective of new and old Baltimore quilts.

The quilt below is called "Miss Refrigeradorable's Album Quilt" and was made by Judy Laval Morton (Newburgh, Indiana). The design source includes Elly's books and patterns, Nadine Thompson, and the crowning of the 1956 Miss Refrigeradorble.

This next quilt, by Marjorie A. Nelson (Frankfort, MI), is called "Baltimore Album on the Shores of Lake Michigan." Marjorie's borders are her own design and contain an eagle, 13 stars, and piping set by the binding. The richness of color in this quilt make it exquisite!

Meg Zimmerman's (Winchester, TN) "The Time Traveler," below, is based on an 1847 quilt by Mary West -- but the borders, quilting, and two blocks are Meg's original designs. It took Meg 8 years to applique the quilt and 8 months to hand-quilt it, making it a "true time traveler" as it accompanied Meg through retreats, bees, and family trips. As with many of us, our quilts carry our history within them. If only they could talk - what stories they could tell us...

Connie Teplitsky (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada) made "Threads of Inspiration." While inspired by Elly's books, several blocks and the setting for her quilt are original. I love that each of these Baltimore quilts, while inspired by the quilts of yesteryear -- and Elly -- are examples of how all quiltmakers interpret designs to suit their own sense of beauty.

I love Karen Pessia's (Medford, MA) "My Baltimore Journey." Karen's quilt speaks of the inspiration from her teachers, history, and the discovery of untapped skills. Karen's scrappy-leafed border is lovely -- as well as her choice of outer borders and the intricate sashing. Below the quilt show is a close-up of one of the quilt blocks and the phenomenal quilting.

"Vases, Birds and Other Things" by Kim McLean (Lindfield, New South Wales, Australia) takes advantage of some bright, colorful Kaffe Fassett fabrics -- Kim says this "is a happy quilt." And it is, indeed.

Rita Verroca's (Westlake Village, CA) "Big Parade" is built around a center block picturing two horses pulling a carriage called the "Big Parade," a vision to the quilter's world -- a land of imagination and inspiration. Rita has done a wonderful job of blending traditional blocks into her Baltimore Album blocks to create her own style of album quilt. Her sashing is incredible!

This next quilt is in the grand style of exuberant applique found in some of the old Baltimore Album quilts. Hong Sook Ro, its' maker, worked on this quilt for 5 years; her loving husband helped her by doing all of the household chores so she could work on the quilt. On a sad note, he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009 but asked Hong Sook to finish the quilt before he died. She finished the quilt for him, and dedicated it to him after he died. This is the first quilt she ever entered in a show. The complexity of the blocks is stunning -- there is a closeup of the center block below the photo of the whole quilt.

Here is yet another quilt by Marjorie Nelson - "Marjorie's Album - The Beauty of One Common Thread." One cannot help but be inspired by the beauty found in all of these album quilts. A closeup of one block is also shown below.

In "Let us Be Friends," many of Elly's former students worked together to make this quilt, quilted by Sue Nickels. A complete list of needle artists can again be found in Elly Sienkiewicz's Beloved Baltimore Album Quilts (2010). I love how the blocks in this quilt are set on point with some wonderful sashing.

That's all for this month - I hope that seeing a few of the Baltimore Album quilts on display have provided you with some inspiration -- to tackle a new project, to design your own block, to create a unique border, to pick up where you left off on an old project. I find that seeing groups of quilts that have a common inspiration but end up being so unique when finished, reminds me of why I love quilting. We each have the opportunity to express ourselves in the beauty of our creativity -- take that gift, now, and go finish a quilt!

See you next month...

Sue

Unveilings - At Last!

2010-11-30T18:10:00.016-06:00

Where in the world has Sue Garman been for the past two months? After promising that I would post on the first of each month, like clockwork, just a short while back... I disappeared. The truth is that I have been very, very busy! Much of what I was working on were things I could not show anyone yet... plus I had a lot of work to do before Quilt Market came to Houston before the Quilt Show. At some point, I will post photos of quilt market, for those who have never been to "market" - the show that is held for wholesale buyers. I will also post photos of some of the fabulous quilts that hung in the Houston quilt show -- though I must confess that being the technical guru that I am, half of my photos (including the top winners!) seem to have disappeared.

Moving on, now... can you guess that this picture is? Other than a stack of papers and file folders?
If you guessed that it is the pattern for Friends of Baltimore, you would be right! It is a huge pattern. As always, I have included lots of tips, pointers, how-tos, and instructions in each month's write-up. Hopefully, all that work will pay off with some quiltmakers who learn and some quiltmakers who have far less frustration. Once again... here is the quilt (and no, I have not added that last 1" border of half-square triangles yet; that comes next week and then I will start quilting. I am still debating silk batting versus other options.

The next quilt is Ruffled Roses - finally I can show it in all of its glory. I wanted The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims to have the honor of showing the quilt before I posted a photo... so now everyone else can see it here, too. It was a fun quilt to work on -- I loved making the pieced swag border, which echoes the inner appliqued swag border. It's always fun to think of new (to me, at least) concepts and figure out how to put them in a quilt.

This pattern took a long time to prepare -- writing instructions for piecing always takes longer than writing instructions for applique because there is a lot of math involved, and all of it takes time to proof. Those who have done The Quilt Show block-of-the-month patterns in the past will be happy to learn that this pattern includes more detailed instructions on how I quilted my quilt - here's a sample photo...

And so what else have I been working on? Aaaahhh... there were the 25 guests that I invited to come to my house for dinner and a quilt showing in the middle of the Houston quilt show. Gail Chalker, from Australia, brought three vanloads of them, and there were many others from elsewhere, including the talented and extremely organized Tresa Jones who runs the wonderful Baltimore on the Prairie conference/retreat each year. Tresa has gathered an awesome set of teachers -- check out the website at http://baltimoreontheprairie.tresajones.com/. I so enjoyed seeing everyone! My quilting friends went overboard helping serve a true Texas dinner: frito pie, ambrosia salad, and peach cobbler with Blue Bell ice cream. Here is the serving team of six...

and here are all the lovely quilters...

So... that's not all that has kept me busy. Over the past year, I have been part of a round robin group. There were five of us who each passed a center block to another, along with fabric and a list of "desires" (like: "please, no broderie perse" - or "just have fun!"). I love round robin quilts because they force me to work in venues I might not otherwise consider. We had our grand unveiling in front of our quilt guild this month -- what a great set of surprises. Below are the quilt tops along with one or two close-ups of each quilt.

First, there is Jean's quilt - she was the only one to start with a rectangular quilt center -- and one of only two quilts that did not end up with the center block set on point!

I added the pinwheel border -- with light inner and darker outer setting triangles; I like doing that because it adds depth to a quilt. Notice that the last border echoes that same light/dark set of setting triangles.

I was amazed at how much time all of the gals put into adding borders -- look at the blocks in the outer border, here. That's power sewing!

Second, here is Georgann's quilt. She started with a star block that was set on point - then a border of blocks was added, followed by a wonderful dogtooth border - and finally, a ruffled swag border. I love the lightness of this quilt -- it has dark fabrics that keep pulling your eye in, but most of the fabrics are very soft in color. It's lovely!

Notice how the appliqued flowers were all outlined with embroidery floss. That is a wonderful touch for this quilt.

Third is Marsha's quilt. She started off with a beautiful mariner's compass. It offered so much opportunity for the next set of borders, with its full spectrum of colors.

Take a look at the detail in the first set of borders -- the flower in the center of the compass is echoed with an appliqued duplicate in the corner of the chain border.

And all of those circles in the center are echoed again in the red scallop border. I made that one - I've never done one like it before, but after pondering what to add to Marsha's quilt, I dreamed up this design and added the circles to echo what was in the center of the quilt. Touches like that give a quilt a cohesive look.

Fourth is my quilt top. I started with the coxcomb in the center and asked that my quilt be red/green... but not Christmas-y. No snowmen, Santas, or reindeer, please!

I love what my friends did - they are SO talented! And they know that I like lots of open areas for quilting, so they gave them to me. I could not be happier with the results - and I can't wait to quilt it!

Here is Cynthia's quilt -- she started with a double-feathered star, which I love seeing in quilts. The fabric she passed along in her traveling box was all blue, white, and cream -- giving us a wonderful pallette to work with.

Look at the details in what was added -- there is so much to see in this quilt.

The details just go on and on. What a spectacular set of quilts!

I think that all of us would do a robin again in a heartbeat, but we are postponing such thoughts until at least Springtime. Our new challenge was thrown at us when we all started reading Pat Sloan's blog (http://patsloan.typepad.com/). She began posting a set of UFO (Unfinished Object) tips on Tuesdays and Thursdays from early October up until Thanksgiving... and we all started pulling out our UFOs and making confessions about how many we had. I lost count at 41 and that didn't even include the finished quilt tops that just need quilting! So we have now challenged each other to identify a UFO and finish it my March 2011. I have already almost finished the one I put at the top of my list. What was most amazing to me was Pat's disclosure, which I found was not unique to her, that ALL of her UFOs were projects that she was doing for herself - not for anyone else. What does that say about us?? So I have resolved to change that in the future and give myself some time to work on UFOs and other projects. Our UFO group started off by gathering for three days of doing nothing but power sewing -- sort of a day retreat without the interruptions of home or the sleeplessness of a retreat center. We worked hard... and maybe next month I will be able to show you progress on another new quilt!

Until next month... happy sewing, everyone! And most definitely, may the Yuletide season bring all of you smiles, joy, and surprises!

Sue

"Festival" is coming!

2010-10-10T17:02:00.014-05:00

Houstonians refer to the big International Quilting Association's quilt show as "Festival" - a byproduct of its name in earlier years. Festival is coming soon - it is held in the late October/early November timeframe every year. The past couple of months have been busy for me, as I'm preparing two quilts that need to be ready for the show. The first one will be the (shhhh!) new block-of-the-month for Alex Anderson and Ricky Timm's online community, "The Quilt Show" (www.thequiltshow.com) - or "TQS." The quilt below, "Ruffled Roses," will be the fourth block of the month that I've made for TQS - Alex and Ricky have given me such an honor to design this quilt just for TQS. Check out their booth at Festival this year!
"Ruffled Roses"

The second quilt that I've been working has truly been a labor of love (though when I'm pulling my hair out to get it done on time, it's sometimes hard to remember that!). I designed all of the blocks, with some of them based loosely on antique Baltimore blocks. It still needs a final border of 1" half-square triangles on the outer edge of the quilt -- that will get done after Festival is over.

The borders are all unique -- each border has a different vase and bouquet in the center and each corner also has a different vase and bouquet. I don't think I've had so much fun designing a quilt in a long, long time! Here's one of the borders...

And here are three of the corner vases. When they are stitched onto the long borders, the joining seams will be invisible, as will the vines and flowers that flow across the seams.

In September, some friends of mine chartered a bus and 57 of us rode over to Austin, Texas (about a 3.5 hour drive) to go to the Austin Area Quilt Guild's show. The Austin guild has almost 600 members and they hang 400 quilts in their show. It was a lovely field trip for me! Here are a few pictures of quilts that hung in their show.

The first one was the Grand winner at the show -- "Star Medallion (or 96 Baskets)" was made by Kathleen McCrady. It is based on an original quilt made in 1890 that was featured in three issues of Quilt Mania in 2009. Kathleen's quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted. I love seeing her work; she is an amazing quilter!

This next quilt caught my eye because the quilter (Mary Laminack) used one of my TQS block-of-the-month patterns - and she won First Place in her category - go Mary! What amazed me was the write-up about the quilt: "I had gone to the Houston International Quilt Show and saw a group of my friends with stars in their eyes and grins on their faces. Not wanting to be left out, I rounded the corner and saw the most beautiful quilt that I had ever seen. Being a new quilter, I immediately started crying because I thought that it was much too advanced for me to accomplish. Now, one year later, I have finished my quilt and I am entering it in the AAQG Quilt Show." Mary offers us a tremendous lesson in commitment, dedication, and perseverance: if you really want to do something, you probably can. So for all of us who have thought "that's too difficult"... think again!

This next quilt tickled me: "Mother's Yellow Quilt" was made by Lynette Morgan Dundee, Michelle Mears, Terese Morgan, and Cecile Morgan. For their mother's 80th birthday, they decided to make a quilt with four quadrants - and each quadrant would represent one of their interests and personality. They worked individually for almost a year, hand piecing their quadrants. Two of the women had never made a quilt before. They finished this 77 x 78" quilt and presented it to their mother, who is a quilter and had made quilts for each of the daughters. What a gift! So if you decided to make a set of blocks that represented you and your interests, hobbies, personality, and pastimes, what blocks and fabrics would you choose? What a wonderful, intriguing idea!

Quilter Elaine Rich made the quilt below, "America" (86 x 68"). She views America as "a nation of people from across the globe, living in communities organized into states, with a shared vision but a set of individual personalities.... This quilt celebrates our history and the role we can play in forming a future for our planet." I love how Elaine has made the color wash across the quilt from light to dark, in rainbow fashion. What you cannot see in the photo below is that each of the little squares captures a piece of our Nation; check out the close-up below and you can begin to see how Elaine's creativity played a huge role in the making of this quilt.

The quilt below is one of the many small wall hangings that hung in the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) traveling exhibit. The Austin area is replete with art quilters - and their work is wonderful!

Here's an art quilt ("My Nesting Place," 20 x 28") made by Sara Sharp -- the sky is full of feathers, trees and grasses are made of her hand-dyed fabrics and commercial batiks and prints, and the thread-painted warbler sits on a nest that was built stick by stick. Sara says that "the joyous freedom I feel as an artist is represented in the quote: 'a bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.'"
Close-up of the warbler in "My Nesting Place"

This quilt was also made by Sara Sharp; "Cape Cod Dreams" (25 x 33") is based on a photo she took out of a house overlooking Cape Cod Bay. I like how Sara's work immediately brings memories to mind.

Close-up of fruit in "Cape Cod Dreams"

Here's yet another art quilt; "Eagle" (11 x 11") was done by Tresha Barger. Her quilt was based on a photo by Jack Marshall of Austin, who consented to her use of the photo. She used only four thread colors: white, black, and two shades of orange. What a talent she has for embroidery, right? Below this picture is a close-up so you can see the incredible job of embroidering that she has done.

One of the treats of the Austin quilt show as a "bed turning" that happened several times over the weekend. Marcia Kaylakie, a quilt collector, teacher, judge and AQS Certified appraiser from Austin, specializes in American quilts history. She generously offered a set of her antique quilts for a bed turning. What, exactly, is a bed turning? In a bed turning, a bed is brought in to a guild or quilt show and quilts are placed on it. One by one, each quilt is turned and held up for the audience, and its history and story are told. It was a joy to see a real bed turning -and Marcia's quilts were inspiring to see! Below is only a small sample of the quilts everyone got to view - wow!

That's all for this month. The rest of October will be taken up with preparations for Festival - and then I will rest a teeny bit before I finish a round-robin quilt I'm working on, applique a tulip challenge quilt, tackle hand-quilting my Baltimore (and finish writing up the patterns!), and... oh yes, start designing the next block-of-the-month!

Happy quilting, everyone!
Sue(c)2010 Susan H. Garman

Here's a close-up of her hand piecing and hand quilting - note that, ever the Texan, she put 5-pointed Texas stars between all of the baskets.

Say Cheese, Please!

2010-08-31T23:11:00.009-05:00

I love old quilts that use cheddar-colored fabrics. A quilt made today in orange would not excite me... but for some reason the old ones do. I'll show you a few in a bit. Note: after I received a comment on this posting, I realized I should have said that I am not drawn to orange as a color -- unless it is in a quilt that mimics the old cheddar. I am actually in the midst of making a very large cheddar and teal 4-block quilt, myself, and cannot wait to finish it!

This month I have a few things to share - including the fact that I am pedaling as fast as I can to finish my Baltimore qiult. Next month you should see the quilt top. The hand-quilting that follows will take a bit longer. Before I show you what else I have been working on, I wanted to share a link to P and B Textile's website -- their blog has my fabric design on it, full of childhood sing-songs like Row, Row, Row your Boat and A Tisket, A Tasket. It excites me to see this fabric! You can see it too at: http://www.pbtex.com/html/pblog.html. Check it out... and then come back here and take a look at what's below.

First of all, here is a quick look at a new quilt I'm working on. It will be a large medallion quilt filled with baskets and surrounded by a very unusual border on the outside. The rich, soft pastels are all from a new line that P and B Textiles has produced, called "Bear Essentials." I love the new line -- the fabrics are all wonderful tone-on-tone prints that go across the entire color spectrum! You'll be seeing more of this quilt later... so keep on coming back here.

Before I show some cheddar quilts, I have to say: I am not an authentic quilt collector. I do not search out the best antique quilts and spend a fortune buying them and putting them somewhere in my house. Nope - I am more like the garage sale and eBay scavenger who finds a relative bargain and snatches it up, usually because a) the price is right, b) the pattern is very unique, and/or c) the fabrics in the quilt interest me. A quilt with 2 out of those 3 criteria is great -- if it hits all three, I'm in heaven! So here are a few old quilts that I've picked up here and there... and why I bought them.

The green and yellow quilt above excited me because I love yellow in a quilt - my grandmother used to tell me that "every garden must have yellow flowers somewhere in it." This quilt was beautifully hand-quilted -- but what I loved about it was that the blocks -- look at them carefully -- are nothing but churn dash blocks with the corner half-square triangles turned inside out. And then, using a half-square triangle as a sashing cornerstone -- how often do you see that in a quilt? So this beauty called to me and I answered... it lays on one of the beds in my home down on Galveston Island.

This next quilt was just quirky enough to get my attention! It is not particularly well-made, and will take some real work to get it to lay flat when I eventually quilt it. But the design, alone, trumped any common sense and made me buy it.

Below is a closeup of one of the blocks in the above quilt. This was a quilt that said to me, "design one just like me, please!" Someday... I probably will!

The next quilt is a good old-fashioned, common wedding ring quilt from the thirties. I've nearly finished hand-quilting it -- I like buying quilt tops because they are at least half the price of finished quilts and they are often in better shape than finished quilts because nobody ever used them! This particular wedding ring quilt called to me because it had an abundance of cheddar pieces in each of the arcs, and I do like that old cheddar fabric.

Below is another cheddar quilt -- it uses a Dresden plate design, with the background of cheddar, rather than the more common white or off-white.And below is a closeup of the cheddar Dresden plate blocks. Awesome!

And once again... another cheddar quilt top. The Ohio Stars in this quilt are unusual; they are definitely made of scavenged scraps, with no block using a consistent set of fabrics in the block.

In fact, if you take a close look at the blocks, you will see that the maker often used background fabric as part of the star points in the block, thus losing the sense of the "Ohio Star" in it. Quirky, yes? It may be part of why the maker never finished the quilt... she may have looked at it and said, "What was I thinking???"

Now here is a lovely cheddar quilt! With 4" Ohio Stars, it just sings to my heart! I'm going to have to look around and find a strip of cheddar to finish the unfinished top border... but otherwise, this quilt is in great shape!

The maker used quite a few black and white or black and madder striped fabrics in her blocks -- they add to the movement across the face of the quilt. What a creative quiltmaker this person was!

Okay, that's all for this month... Next month, I hope to have a whole new set of photos of quilts to show. I'm planning on attending a large quilt show in Austin, Texas in a couple of weeks... and I'm crossing my fingers that my Baltimore will be finished in a month!
Until then... happy sewing to all of you!

Sue

Baltimore... Continued!

2010-08-03T23:43:00.004-05:00

Somehow I managed to post zero, zip, nada, nothing last month... and I'm late in posting this month, after promising myself that I would regularly post something new by the first of each month. Darn, but time flies! I was going to post the remaining 6 blocks of my Baltimore, after posting the first ten. Somehow I managed to take pictures of only 5 of the 6 blocks, so you're going to have to do a little searching... the 16th block is buried within the picture of the overall quilt, as it now stands (which means it's still not finished!). So let's get started on the block update.

Before you look, I'd like to mention something. A friend sent me a link to another person's blog - she copied one of my block pictures from last month and posted it on her blog with no reference to me or my designs. That's a no-no, folks! These are my original, copyrighted designs. I will likely say yes to anyone who ASKS if they can post a copy of the photos shown my blog - as long as there is a link back here to my blog, and as long as they are not using them to make money. That seems like a pretty fair deal to me.

So here are the new blocks...

And last, but certainly not least, here is the latest picture of where these blocks are going. I have sewn all of the inner sashings - and laid them on the floor to see how they look, along with two partial borders.

It's coming along nicely, though I still have a long way to go to get this quilt finished. First, I need to finish appliqueing all of the borders and all of the corner blocks -- the corner blocks will be uninterrupted continuations of the side borders, with a unique vase in each corner. Then there is a LOT of embroidery and embellishment that needs to happen on each border. And finally, there is a final border of 1" half-square triangles on the outside edge of the assembled quilt. Be still my heart - I am really enjoying how this quilt looks!

So until next month... hopefully by the first of the month... you'll see a completed top. Or at least a top with 3 of the 4 borders done! Until then...

Happy sewing!
Sue

(c)2010 Susan H. Garman, All Rights Reserved

And Finally... What is New???

2010-06-08T20:21:00.011-05:00

Finally, I get to show you some new things that I have been working on. First of all, you have seen my latest block of the month in an earlier posting – but I’ll show it again. I love medallion quilts. They have a lot of complexity which, for me, translates into a lot of visual interest. This quilt, the “Coxcomb Medallion,” is a little different – I inserted a ruffled swag into the interior of the quilt, instead of adding it where it usually ends up: the final border. And the center block is appliqued – so this quilt is a combination of piecing and applique, which keeps it interesting.

Next, my new fabric line for P and B Textiles will be shipped in July to shops that order it. It is called “Sing a Song” and illustrates eight favorite childhood songs. I love the border fabric for this quilt – it is soft and bright; it sings “happy” to me! The four leading colors (blue, yellow, green, and pink) are very rich, but they also have a complementary soothingly pale partner. Beneath the fabric swatches, you will see a quilt made using this fabric. I am so thankful for friends Debbie S, who did a fantastic job making the quilt based on a pattern I designed, and Cynthia C who did an extraordinary job of quilting it for me. Caring for an ill family member has filled the past six months for me, so their generous gift of time and energy are much appreciated.

Sing a Song fabric by P&B Textiles

The Sing a Song Quilt (50 x 50")
Third… I have been working on my own Baltimore designs. I have always wanted to make a Baltimore album quilt and I am now putting the pedal to the metal and sewing like crazy! The designs are all complete – sixteen brand new, original 15-inch blocks based on classic vintage Baltimore album quilt blocks; and four wildly elegant borders with exquisite vases full of blooming flowers, buds, and berries. I had so much fun designing these blocks and borders – I am ready to tackle another set of similar blocks as soon as I finish making this quilt. The current debate (in my head and among friends) is: hand quilt or machine quilt? My gut says I need to hand quilt this quilt once I finish the top; hand quilting would be in keeping with the era in which Baltimore album quilts were birthed. But my head says I should give myself a tiny little bit of breathing room and spend only a week or two machine quilting the quilt instead of spending innumerable sleepless weeks pricking holes in my fingers (no, I don’t use a thimble to applique or quilt – they bother me!). Time will give me the right answer, one way or another. So here are the blocks and the borders – ten blocks and one border are finished. My deadline to complete the quilt (including the quilting) is mid-September. I feel like the little “I think I can! I think I can!” train, chugging along with every ounce of energy I have! So here are the blocks -- you have seen a couple of them in an earlier posting - but I am putting them all together here. The first picture is one of the borders -- they are each different, with different vases in the center, and different vases in each corner of the quilt. Below the first picture are ten of the blocks - I still have a bit of embroidery to do on some of them. Time seems to be escaping me!

I still have 6 blocks that need to be appliqued - and three more borders. Wish me well… and I hope that you each enjoy some lazy days of quilting as we enter a long, sweet summer!

Sue©2010 Susan H. Garman

And Even More Antique Quilts!

2010-05-02T10:56:00.007-05:00

Hello again -- it's amazing how quickly a month can fly by. Last month I said that I would show you some of the things that I'm working on. I will... but only one quilt this month; hopefully next month you will see a lot of Baltimore album blocks that I have been working on. They're not quite ready for prime time yet, though! Instead... I'll start with a bunch of antique quilts and comments - and then you can take a look at my latest medallion quilt, "Coxcomb Medallion."

First, here is a lovely Carolina Lily quilt. In viewing many antique quilts, I am continually astonished by the creativity of yesteryear's quilters. Look at the borders on this quilt: opposite sides match; adjacent sides do not. And why do you think this quilter chose to put a little block motif (other than the Carolina Lilies) in the top and bottom left corners? Would you have imagined doing something like that? Not me - but then I really like absolute symmetry in quilts like this. do you think she "owed" putting these blocks into this quilt? Who knows?!

Carolina Lily, 19th century with vine border (89 x 94")

At first glance, this next quilt is a four-block quilt. It's actually a 16-block quilt - set to look like a four-block quilt. Setting blocks like this makes for interesting secondary patterns. Think about that, the next time you are making sets of blocks: can you build another pattern out of the way you set the blocks?

Tulip Quilt, 19th century (77 x 77")

This next quilt is definitely a four-block quilt -- what a delightful motif each block uses! The trailing vine is very primitive and not nearly as complex as the center blocks. Do you think that the quilter was just tired of all that detail and wanted to get the quilt done? I know there are times when I've opted for a simple, plain border just so I could move on to the next new quilt project.

Floral Spray quilt with Trailing Vine, 19th century (78 x 79")

This 9-block quilt looks like it started out as a set of Rose of Sharon blocks but the quilter turned them into peppermint tulips. Don't you just love this kind of creative spirit? It teaches me not to be afraid to try something different.

Decorative tulip quilt, 19th century (95 x 99")

Here is another quilt where the quilter went a little wild with her desire to be creative -- look at the different borders she used on each side of the quilt. Interesting, to say the least!

Rose quilt, 19th century (98 x 96")

This Baltimore album quilt was probably a treasured gift for a minister or a bride and groom. Made in 1873, it represented the highest form of quilt art at the time. This quilt sold a year or two ago for around $25,000.

Baltimore Album, 1873 (104 x 101")

I love berries, so I could not resist including this quilt in this set of old quilts. Somebody had a lot of patience -- this quilt was made well before the advent of mylar templates, which have revolutionized berry-making.

Berry Wreaths, 19th century (89 x 94")

Here is an old log cabin quilt -- I love log cabin quilts that are a bit whimsical -- and this one is, with its use of high-contrast fabrics in the border and in the "light" logs.

Courthouse Steps log cabin quilt, circa 1900 (77 x 77")

And now here is another log cabin quilt -- it's a bit different because it was done in silk fabrics and includes a ruffled border. It was made for a youth -- what a delight!

Youth log cabin quilt, 1893 (65 x 54")

This next quilt is one that I have always wanted to reproduce -- a simple alphabet quilt. It was made in Pennsylvania in 1917 by Addie Heipler Allen. This era saw quite a few alphabet quilts - I particularly love the use of cheddar in these quilts.

Alphabet Quilt, 1917 (90 x 78")

The next two quilts are whimsical folk art renditions. I liked putting them together because they both contain animal motifs -- the first one has roosters and cats, and the second one has cats. Cute, aren't they?

Crib quilt, 1900 (32.5 x 34")
Trapunto quilt, 19th century (90 x 90")

Last but not least, here is my "Coxcomb Medallion" quilt. I decided early on in the design process that I wanted to have a double swag border -- but I wanted to put it in the interior of the quilt, rather than as an outer border. I like how it breaks the path of the eye and highlights the central portion of the quilt. This is a block-of-the-month that will be sold (retail and wholesale) through Quakertown Quilts in my hometown of Friendswood, Texas.

Coxcomb Medallion, 2010 (94 x 94")

That's all for this month -- I hope to see you again in another month. Until then, happy sewing!

Sue
(c)2010 Susan H. Garman

Lessons from Early Quilts...

2010-03-31T20:40:00.005-05:00

This month, I thought I would just show a few of my very early quilts -- quilts from 20 to 50 years ago! We sometimes forget that those early quilts, while not necessarily stunning, taught us much that we can carry into today's quiltmaking.

Lesson One: Use your scraps. This quilt was made over 50 years ago; it is a utility quilt made entirely from scraps sewn to squares of muslin. Try making these blocks in color sets (e.g., red/green, blue/peach, or purple/yellow scraps) - or make them totally scrappy. Before you know it, you'll have enough squares for a full-sized bed quilt.

Lesson Two: Don't expect to make a perfect quilt the first time you make one... or every time. When I do lectures for quilt guilds, I always bring along one of my earliest quilts. The point I make with it is that we all have to start somewhere. And that first quilt is not always going to be a blue ribbon prize-winning quilt. Don't be too hard on yourself; learn as you go - and remember that experience is the best teacher of all, so keep on sewing. One of my earliest (remaining in my possession) quilts was inspired by a 1972 Family Circle magazine -- when I saw the cover photo, I wanted to make that quilt!

Of course, little did I know that the "instructions included" were limited to one page of thumbnail-sized drawings - and a lot of imagination. Quilt books were in short supply in 1972... along with instructions.

I had to use the teachings of my grandmother, plus what my Mom had taught me about hemming skirts, to make and design my quilt. You can get pretty ingenious with that kind of experience. But the resulting twin-sized quilt was not so bad.

Lesson Three: Don't forget to use solid-colored fabrics. I continued quilt-making -- including some classic patterns such as the Amish bars quilt. Today, many quilt shops are just beginning to return to carrying solid-colored bolts; I nearly always try and use at least one solid fabric in my quilts -- they can add zip to a quilt that otherwise is "busy" with prints.

Lesson Four: Scrappy quilts delight the eye -- and block exchanges are delightful ways to make scrappy quilts. The quilt below was done as a scrappy block exchange between Cynthia England and me back in the early 90s. We were neighbors and decided to make a bunch of 8" blocks of red and white/off-white fabrics and then swap sets with each other. Using a ton of different fabrics makes your eye dance across the face of a quilt. And to get variety in the scraps, it's easier if you find one or more friends to exchange blocks with. Just make sure that everyone agrees on the rules of the exchange so that nobody's expectations are dashed.

Lesson Five: Establish resource files. I have a bookshelf full of books that I peruse when looking for patterns - as well as plenty of patterns, photos, etc. I can skim through these and find endless sources of inspiration. Go to your local bookstore and look through the Dover Press art books -- they have lots of lots of drawings and pictures that can be converted into quilt designs - and many of them are copyright free. This cartouche book (below) served as the inspiration for...

this quilt (below) -- I enlarged a cartouche, refined it as a quilt design, and then inserted drawings I found from other sources. Had I not maintained files full of inspiration pictures and drawings and patterns, I would never have made this 1992 quilt, celebrating Columbus' journey across the Atlantic.

Lesson Six: If you don't try, you won't learn. In the early 90s, I decided to try my hand at hand-quilting. I started with a full-sized quilt. Two months later, I had fully hand-quilted this quilt - which was made in a mystery class.

Here's a close-up that shows the quilting. I learned a lot... just by practicing, stitch by stitch. After a while, what is a struggle in the beginning becomes therapeutic, mindless, and relaxing!

Now... here's a lesson within a lesson. Each one of those stars had a feathered rosette in the middle of it that took 45 minutes to quilt. Guess what? You can't see all that work. Put your time into what really counts.

Before closing, I thought I would share a little bit of humor. My grand daughter, when she was around 2-1/2, was being potty-trained. She came running into my sewing room saying she needed to use the bathroom. I pointed to the bathroom door and said, "Hurry! Go!" She ran to the door... and came to a screeching halt. She had glanced in and seen a bath tub that was being temporarily used to hold three large bolts of batting for my longarm machine.

She stared at them and gingerly turned, saying, "Grandma -- you sure do have BIG toilet paper!"

Next month, I hope to show you some of the projects that I've been working on since the beginning of the year. In particular, you will see a new block-of-the-month and several new Baltimore album blocks. Family matters have kept me tied down for a while, but work has continued.

Until we meet again, happy sewing!

Sue

More Antique Quilts

2010-02-10T08:50:00.005-06:00

Help! Where did January go and when did February sneak in the door? This month I am posting more photos of old quilts; they remain my primary inspiration for new designs. If I see an old quilt that I really love, there is a good chance that I'll snap a picture of it, which will go into one of my files. Later, when I'm ready to start designing a new quilt, I look through my files and see what strikes my fancy. So here are some photos from my files -- I hope you they inspire YOU!

The quilt below (and the following close-up of a block in it) is a quirky looking Princess Feather quilt. Its chunky design is unusual -- along with the flying geese (or is it a squatty dogtooth?) border on only two sides of the quilt. Another unusual aspect of this quilt is that it was done in navy and off-white -- most princess feather quilts are done in red and green. I've been working on my own Princess Feather quilt, but it has tons of little "fingers" on each plume, so the perimeter of the quilt seems inifinite as I applique.

Below is another unusual antique quilt. Log cabin quilts are not unusual in and of themselves, but this one was done in the mid-thirties with fabric from that era. Have you ever seen an Aunt Grace log cabin? And what makes it equally unusual is the use of the black Thirties fabric.

I saw the quilt below at a Christmas tour of the homes in Sam Houston Park (in downtown Houston, along Buffalo Bayou). I liked the unusual block in it -- as well as the use of cheddar fabrics.

Another quilt in the Sam Houston Park display was the basket of roses quilt, below. I love red and green quilts -- and this shade of green, especially, is a favorite of mine. The basket design this quilter used must have been original; I've not seen other quilts with this pattern.

Again, here is another Sam Houston Park quilt. The Princess Feather design is a classic one, although each motif in the quilt below lacks the traditional "star" in the center of the princess feather design. Another unusual aspect of this quilt is the leafy border. Early Texas quilters were certainly original!

The quilt below, in the same park display, uses several traditional Coxcomb and Currants blocks. That's a favorite block of mine, and has inspired several of my designs. And, again, I LOVE the use of red and green fabrics. What is it about red and green that makes them such popular colors in quilts? Perhaps it's the sense of cheer that the colors often bring to mind.

This next photo is not a picture of a quilt, but a crocheted bedcover from the Sam Houston Park collection. I include it here just because it is another breathtaking example of how women in the mid- to late 1800s (and still today!) created incredibly complex and wonderful works of art that welcome people into their homes and their lives. Wouldn't you just love to have this on a guest bed in your home?

That's all for this month -- until March, happy sewing!

Sue Garman

The New Year Has Begun!

2010-01-10T16:16:00.006-06:00

Many of you are aware of the fact that family issues have caused me to step back from most of my commitments during the coming year. The one thing that I can still manage to do, in the evenings, is design work - so those efforts will continue to the extent possible. Because time is at a premium in my life right now, I have no new quilts to show. Still, there are some old quilts that I am pleased to post on my blog this month. These quilts are antique quilts that hung in a special exhibition at the International Quilt Associations's 2009 Show in Houston. Every year, the IQA quilt show has inspired me to create several new designs. This past year was no exception - and once my calendar is more flexible, you'll be seeing several old quilts made new. For now, however, below are a few of the quilts that I dearly loved seeing. Thank you to IQA for giving us such wonderful exhibitions!
The exception to the antique quilts is the very first one; Winnie F is the proud owner of this quilt, which she started as part of a round robin. It has inspired me tremendously and is truly a fresh and innovative medallion quilt. Winnie is well-known in the Houston area for her medallion quilts; they are all exquisite.

With best wishes to everyone for a grand New Year -- happy sewing!

Sue Garman

Winnie Fleming's round robin quilt

The remainder of this quilts are, I'm sorry to say, not identified as to the maker or year. My first New Year's resolution should have been "take better notes!"

The above photo is a close-up of the quilt below.

Don't you just love the bright colors and the whimsical play of the half-square triangles in the above quilt? It is so delightful!

Happy quilting in 2010!

More Quilts!

2009-11-29T19:26:00.012-06:00

I wish to thank everyone who commented on what you would like to see in a blog. I heard you loud and clear: pictures, techniques, and tips! With that in mind, I am sharing several things I have been working on and have completed in the last few weeks. November has been a wonderful month for quiltmaking -- and I have been working on being focused on completing things. I have way too many unfinished projects.

First of all, I am nearly finished with a quilt for a dear friend who has hosted a dinner for our book club for the past 5 years. In appreciation for her generosity, we are surprising her with a quilt that has 1) a favorite quote of each club member inked in the tiny outer border, 2) a list of each book we've read since our inception in 2004, and 3) quotes from The Thought Gang, which was the first book we read as a group -- it was painful to read but had some of the funniest quotes in it -- the story involves a professor and a one-armed crook who team up to rob banks. The recipient is not a quilter, but three of us teamed to make the quilt; here is the front of "The Thought Gang" quilt.

"The Thought Gang Quilt"67 by 67"

Here are several close-ups of the quilt - first the border. I am tickled at how it turned out - I quilted a piano key border (1" parallel lines), but inserted a feathered vine in each corner. It adds a softness, which I like, to an otherwise very geometrical quilt. Here is a closeup of the quilting in the interior of the quilt. Notice that in the 2" wide border, I did "ribbon candy" quilting. Sometimes it is hard to design something to fit into those narrow little borders, but this works well and is fairly easy to do. The double feathered wreaths in the "open" block areas also soften the look of this quilt. I love double feathered wreaths and do them quite often when I quilt open areas. Note that I ran the geometric echoing lines around those wreaths -- I've seen too many wreaths where the "triangles" at each corner are left unquilted and bubble up. I like filling that area with something.

And here is the back of this quilt. The quilting shows through very clearly. I pieced the back from leftover fabrics from the front. My friend Jerrianne E made the blocks for the front, and when she gave them to me for the quilt, she also gave me a lot of leftover fabrics. Interspersed inbetween all of the rectangles are some "open" rectangles, where I inked a list of all the books we have read -- along with some of the funniest quotes in the world from The Thought Gang book. This quilt will certainly carry memories for Dot, our glorious dinner hostess.

And here is a close-up of one of those rectangles on the back of the quilt. There are a lot of great things about being in a book club: seeing friends every month, having very interesting exchanges about the book we've read, and "upgrading" the level of reading that I would otherwise do. Without a push, I tend to read nothing but thriller detective novels.

Next: I am a strong believer in supporting community events and activities. And so when a friend called me and asked if I would mind "hemming up some sort of puzzle piece" that would then fly on the next NASA Space Shuttle mission, I jumped and said yes. You see, their son was diagnosed with autism, and they have struggled with appropriate therapies that give him the best chances for an improved quality of life. Autism is a mysterious disorder, and as with so many disorders, research funding is critical. Funding for the Autism Research Institute is being aided through "The Million Dollar Puzzle" initiative. By selling puzzle pieces, researchers can continue their work in solving the puzzle of autism. While I was only asked to "sew something that looks like a puzzle piece," I replicated the logo of the Autism Research Institute; after it flies on the Space Shuttle, it will be gifted to the institute.

Autism Research Institute logo(www.autismwebsite.com/autismpuzzlepieces/)

Next are two quilts that I made for Ricky Tims' and Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show. They are the featured block-of-the-month quilts that are being offered online, at no cost other than "joining" The Quilt Show (www.thequiltshow.com). It's a bargain -- a $42.95 one-year membership brings you featured artist videos every 2 weeks, two block-of-the-month projects, free classes, an online quilt guild with blogs and forums, and lots of additional show-and-tell, articles, and information. And the very best part of all of this is... you can do it all in your jammies! So here are the quilts. The first one is an applique quilt called "Hugs and Kisses." I named it that because of the X's and O's that traditionally represent hugs and kisses.

"Hugs and Kisses"71 by 87"

Here is a close-up photo of the quilting on this quilt -- each of the "X" leaf sprays have a feathered wreath quilted behind them. The "O" shaped wreaths are quilted with diagonal cross-hatching. There is also a 4-inch sashing strip between all of the blocks; you can see it in the above photo. It is quilted with a meandering feathered vine. The ruffled swag border is quilted with feathers, while the background behind it is quilted with "bead-board" slats (Yes... I listened to all of you when you said you wanted more information on techniques, quilting, etcetera. Let me know if you want more (or less or different) information!).
The next Quilt Show block-of-the-month is called "Star Crazy" - because it is filled with stars. This quilt is a fairly simple one to make -- with the exception of only a few star-interiors, all of the blocks use either 1-1/2" or 2" (finished size) units. I wanted to give everyone a break from making my usual 1" (finished size) units. Or maybe I was just giving myself a break from the complaints (just kidding!). I have long believed that you don't improve if you don't push yourself to do more difficult things. I wear a bracelet that my friend Cynthia gave me that says "Always do the hardest thing." It's become my mantra - it keeps me focused on learning and growing.

"Star Crazy"84 by 84"

And here is a picture of the quilting in this quilt -- again, I used double feathered wreaths in the border, and inserted a feathered wreath "behind" each of the star blocks in the central part of the quilt. The area around the border of smaller stars is quilted with just fill-feathers, while the outer border has a meandering feathered vine.

I hope you're still with me - I still have more quilt photos to post. My latest quilt is a Coxcomb and Currants quilt. Below is a photo of my rendition of the traditional coxcomb and currants block. Many of the older versions of the block are a bit too "chunky" for my likes. My version strikes me as being almost being "lacy."

And here is the quilt; it still needs to be quilted. My friend Margo has suggested that I "echo" the coxcomb design in the open areas through quilting. I'm not sure that I am skilled enough to tackle that, but wouldn't it be wonderful? I'll give it some thought. I am using this quilt to teach applique at a retreat in Utah in January 2010. Yes, I do quite a few lectures and workshops across the country. If I ever get my act together, I'll rebuild my website (which currently just points to this blog) and list all of the workshops that I teach, along with dates and sites. Teaching is FUN for me! But I digress... here's the quilt:

Phew -- I'm worn out! I hope you all still have plenty of energy to quilt some more today and all of your tomorrows. Until we meet again...

Happy sewing -
Sue
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman
All Rights Reserved

"Coxcomb and Currants"56 by 56"

Last, but certainly not least, is a Princess Feather block from an antique quilt I saw last month. This really is a chunky version of the block -- but that's what makes it so delightful! I have had a red and green Princess Feather quilt in process for over two years -- it has all the ins and outs in each feathery plume - which means that it has a lot of perimeter that needs to be appliqued. I have only about an eighth of a final feather to be appliqued, so there is a chance that you will be seeing my own version of a Princess Feather quilt in the near future (I can only hope!). In the meantime, I plan on drafting this chunky princess feather design into a new pattern - I just love how chunky it is -- and that it is done in an unusual color; I've never seen a navy princess feather!

Old Quilts and New Blocks!

2009-11-09T20:58:00.011-06:00

Keep on reading.... I'll tell you about this block in a minute. First of all, though...

I love seeing what other people have done with my patterns - I marvel at their creativity and often wonder, "why didn't I think of that?!" Several years ago, I designed a "monster" quilt -- it has nine not-too-scary monsters on the face of it, and a poem is hand-stitched in the border. The poem says that monsters love to eat fabric... and unless you want to be their dinner... keep buying more fabric! It's a fun, whimsical quilt; here it is:

The Monster Quilt
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

Close-up of block from The Monster Quilt

And now back to the first picture of today's blog. I was invited to design an original block for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from Today's Top Designers -- a collector's edition magazine hitting store shelves now. While I am the least among the 100, I am still tickled to have been asked to create a block. Ta-dum! Here is "Star Checks."

You can check out Quiltmaker and follow the 100 Blocks Blog Tour daily, November 9-13 at http://www.quiltmaker.com/quiltypleasures for inspiration, ideas, and giveaways galore! Look for 100 Blocks from Today's Top Designers in your local quilt shop, or purchase it at www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks. Each day, a different set of quiltmakers in 100 Blocks will be featured. Check out Quiltmaker's website and blog -- you can find some awesome things there!

Now here is a SPECIAL BONUS. I welcome feedback; it helps me understand what you do and don't like. So... feel free to comment on my blog by November 11 -- share what you'd like to see more of, anything you'd like me to address, etcetera. ONE person will be chosen, via lottery, from those who comment -- and that person will receive a free copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. Please don't post your address -- I will email the winner and ask for it later this week.

Until then...

Happy sewing!

Sue

UPDATE: Billie K. won the copy of "Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks." Congratulations, Billie! And thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful inputs. I appreciate your time!

Sue

I recently received an email from Carolanne B, who shared her experience in making The Monster Quilt. Each month, as a volunteer story-teller in the local elementary school, she took a block with her and showed it to the students. After the first couple of months, she began taking only partially appliqued blocks with her to story-telling time, and she asked the students to choose the fabric for various elements. In the following month, the students got to see the results of their choices. For Carolanne, it was a lot of fun -- who else would have chosen orange lips with a lime green mouth on a purple monster? The additional note of amazement for me was that Carolanne did all of this while fighting breast cancer. Women are amazing: we can be incredibly strong, resilient, generous... you name it! Below is her quilt -- it won a ribbon in the Larimer County Fair in July of this year -- and there is also a close-up of two of the blocks that the students of Putnam Elementary School helped her choose fabric for.

Old Quilts

2009-10-31T20:13:00.006-05:00

At the recent big International Quilting Association quilt show in Houston, I saw many antique quilts. I even bought one; it has crossed sprays of red and green laurel leaves and was made in Annapolis, Maryland, in the last quarter of the 1800s. Old quilts are often the inspiration of my "new" quilts. Right now, I'm working on several reproduction quilts -- but rather than post pictures of half-finished quilts, I decided to begin by posting pictures of what has inspired me lately. You'll eventually see these quilts, "made new again" by me. The first one is a quilt in the Sturbridge Village collection. I have always loved the main block in this quilt -- it is complex and elegant at the same time.

While the Sturbridge Village quilt inspires me... so does a similar one from the Winedale Collection housed at the University of Texas in Austin. This particular quilt uses nearly the same design - who knows which one came first? This quilt has a beautiful quilted feathered vine in the border, rather than appliqued sprays of flowers and berries. And notice: the bouquets do not include any small birds roosting on the flowers. Aren't all these old quilts just grand?In the same collection of quilts, there is a magnificent quilt that includes several different blocks in it -- one of them is a coxcomb and currants block. I love this block and am currently designing a quilt that uses a set of them; I am making the quilt for a workshop that I will be teaching in Utah in January, 2010. Look at how closely these quilts are all quilted -- today's quilters do not always have the patience (or time) to apply themselves so diligently to their work.

Last, but not least, I am reviving several old UFOs. I have way, way too many. This one has been sitting in a trunk in my sewing room for over ten years. I have not finished it - aside from the fact that I lost interest in it, I could not decide if I wanted to stop at nine blocks or make twelve. And then I could not decide what sort of border it needed. I have now solved the second question of a border... so now it's just a matter of squeezing it into the queue.

I am still under a limitation on several quilts that have not been "published" by others yet, so I can't show them. Hopefully that limitation will be lifted and you'll see more of what I've been working on lately. In the meantime, I'm still sewing like crazy and criss-crossing the highways and airways doing lectures and workshops.

Happy sewing, everyone!
Sue Garman
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

Shhhh! It's a Secret!

2009-10-01T01:34:00.005-05:00

It seems as though there are never enough hours in the day. This past month I spent an incredible amount of time working on quilts and quilt blocks and I have almost nothing to show for those hours. That does not mean that I failed to make progress. It just means that I cannot SHOW you what I've been working on... yet! Okay, okay - so I'm terrible at keeping these kinds of secrets. Tonight, I tip-toed into my sewing room (shhhhh!!!) and took the picture (below) of a quilt I'm in the process of quilting. There are more photos to come in a couple of weeks, but this is a sneak-peak of one of two quilts that will debut at the big quilt International Quilting Association (IQA) show in Houston this month. Please don't tell anybody, okay?!!! It's supposed to be a surprise!

Sneak-peak picture of "Hugs and Kisses"

Stay tuned - I'll post more photos soon.
Happy sewing, everyone!

Sue Garman
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

On the Road Again

2009-08-31T14:42:00.007-05:00

Hi there - it's me again... back with more quilts to show!

"Heart and Lyre" block

I'm still "on the road" to Baltimore. Here is the finished heart and lyre block -- and the fourth block of my new Baltimore pattern, the glorious eagle. While I have always loved Baltimore quilts, I have not been a huge fan of bulky beaked, thick-tongued eagles, which are often found in old Baltimore album quilts and the replica patterns. Part of what drove me to design my own patterns - albeit, my designs are inspired by the old Baltimore quilts - was creating reproduction blocks that are more "my" style. Don't get me wrong: I absolutely love the old quilts - but I like to move the designs beyond the mid-1800s.

The Eagle block

Last month I said I was too busy to photo and post everything I have been working on. But here are two of the quilts that I did earlier this year. The first one, "Autumn Dreams," was made when Quiltmaker magazine invited me to design a Fall-oriented pattern for their August issue. I love Quiltmaker -- their quilts are never the overdone slash-and-slap-together quilts. I finished the quilt for Quiltmaker earlier this year - but could not post pictures of it until after the magazine issue was published. Now that the magazine is out on the stands... here is my quilt!

"Autumn Dreams"

The next quilt is "Dream." A story goes with this quilt. Carol Schillios is an energetic woman who develops projects aimed at improving the quality of life for women and their families around the world. Her self-help programs take incredibly destitute women and teach them life skills that build self-esteem and independence. For example, the Here Je Cooperative Center in Mali, West Africa, teaches women to earn a living by working with textiles and making jewelry. These programs are life-saving in scope.

Alex Anderson, Carol Schillios, Sue Garman, and Ricky Tims

So what does that have to do with my wall hanging? I was invited by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims of The Quilt Show to be part of a challenge group; we were all given two fat quarters of the Fabric for Life textiles designed by the young women of Mali. The challenge was to make a wall-hanging with a perimeter no larger than 100 inches and a theme of "helping hands." Here was my challenge quilt:

Dream: Side A
(24" square)

My wall hanging started with a compass: you can't help someone if you don't know where you're headed. And the center of the compass has a heart: you can't succeed if you aren't led by your own heart, your own passion. "Helping hands" that address systemic problems such as hunger and poverty involves crossing many boundaries: geographic, political, educational, etc. And so my quilt has many borders in it. I believe that helping requires me to reach as far as I can, so my outer border is a border of stars: I believe in reaching for them. And finally, it is too easy to throw simple solutions at complex problems and think that will solve them: send money, feed people, provide education, send soldiers... but complex problems have a thousand dimensions. And so my little 24" square quilt has over a thousand pieces in it. Okay - so you thought that was all I had to say about this quilt? Actually... no! The front of the quilt addresses the complexity of helping others. But it fails to capture the imagination, the dreams, the creativity that the girls in Mali need.

The Here Je bead doll

When I received my challenge fabric, it was accompanied by a tiny little bead doll that one of the Mali girls had made; it represented the "spirit" of success that the girls felt. You have to understand: these young women are so poor that they do not sense that they can even dream. And so the back of my quilt is a totally separate quilt -- which captures the doll in pictoral fashion and represents the girls dancing on their dreams.

Dream - Side B

The front and the back of the quilt were separately made and separately hand-quilted; the front is outline quilted, while the back is quilted, appropriately, with the "dinner plate" pattern. The two quilts were invisibly tacked and bound as a single quilt. Nifty, eh?! If you want to see more about these challenge quilts, you will have to join Alex and Ricky's "The Quilt Show" (www.thequiltshow.com). The Quilt Show is an online web community with thousands of members. It is literally an online quilt guild - and it's a bargain. Joining gets you a lot of topnotch quilters demonstrating their techniques and processes, regular information on what's new in the quilting world, a world of quilting tips, online quilt shows, a helpful forum, a gallery of thousands of quilts, and plenty of inspiration from Alex and Ricky. You can't beat it!

Last but not least, below is a quilt that I just loved when I saw it. I bought the quilt top on eBay for a song - and then quilted it and donated it to my guild's annual auction. For me, giving brings a thousand-fold return - and although keeping the guild finances healthy is one of my missions, it's totally selfish: I want to be inspired by great speakers each month! Take a look at the quilt: don't you just love the sashing in it? Who, today, would take the time to make 1-inch double half-square triangle sashings on a 100" square quilt?! Gotta love it!

I need to answer a few questions that have come to me via comments on this blog. Here are some short answers:

How do I hand applique on Kona? I needle turn all of my applique - practice, practice, practice makes all the difference when it comes to applique.
Do I prewash fabrics or use fabric softener? I ALWAYS prewash - to remove excess dyes and processing chemicals, and to preshrink my fabrics. I NEVER use fabric softener, starch, fabric finish, washout markers, or disappearing ink markers on my fabric; they can be quick recipes for disaster if not handled right - so I choose to avoid the issue.
Did I jump into applique or start by practicing something? I learned to applique back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But seriously... when I decided to really "learn" applique, I started by making 23 of 25 Baltimore Album Quilt blocks from Elly Sienkiewicz's "Baltimore Beauties and Beyond" book (1989). The book is out of print but it can be found on Amazon for $40-50, and is well worth the money -- it contains a set of lessons that taught me, step-by-step, the ins and outs of applique. What ever happened to those 23 blocks? They were for learning - and so when I was done with them, I put them in my guild's annual auction and I no longer own them.
Do I prep my applique? I assume that means: do I pre-turn the seam allowances under on the individual pieces (using glue, freezer paper, starch, stitching, back-stitching, or whatever...). And the answer is... I don't have time to do double duty. I am a hard core needle-turn fan; I can dive right into any project and start appliqueing pieces down in short order if I don't have to do all the mish-mash of gluing, pressing, turning, etc. involved in pre-basting applique. Once you learn to do needle turn, it's hard to leave it! Having said that... not everyone finds needle turn to be easy. Ah... but I never said it was all easy... it's just more efficient once the technique is mastered!

Okay - it's time for me to get back to sewing. Time is flying and my Baltimore border awaits!

Going to Baltimore... Continued

2009-08-02T20:37:00.004-05:00

I am trying to faithfully post at least once a month - usually by the first of the month. I'm a little late in August because I've been so BUSY! I have not even had time to take pictures of the things I've been working on -- but here are a couple to look at. First, I designed another block for my Baltimore quilt: a lyre with a rose intertwined in it, surrounded by a heart-shaped wreath. I still have a little left to do on this block -- the centers of a couple flowers are missing, and there is a bit of embroidery that remains to be done.

Heart and Lyre Block

I have also made a Flag and Eagle block; I'll post a picture of that block as soon as I take one. As I make this Baltimore quilt, I am designing a set of killer borders reminiscent of my Ladies of the Sea quilt's borders. These Baltimore borders will be ten inches wide and 85 inches long. Each border will have a center vase with flowers issuing forth, as well as corner vases with vines and flowers. I have half of the first border basted; below is a drawing of the finished product. Yes, I think I'm nuts when it comes to quilting, but sometimes a quilt just whispers in my ear that it wants to be special. This one has been screaming at me.

A quilt I made earlier this year, Autumn Dreams, was just published in the latest issue of Quiltmaker magazine. I will post a photo of it, too - as soon as I find a hole in my schedule so that I can take pictures. Until then...

Happy quilting!

Sue

I'm on the Way to Baltimore!!!

2009-06-21T01:09:00.008-05:00

Actually, I'm not really going to Baltimore, although I would certainly love to go back. The last time I was there, I was privileged to view several old Baltimore Album quilts. I particularly love those that are almost obsessively filled with flowers, cornucopias, eagles, baskets, epergnes, and so on. I am designing my own "Beyond Baltimore" quilt, filled with flowers and a border reminiscent of that found in my Ladies of the Sea quilt. For now... here's a sneak peek at two of the blocks in the quilt. I will be teaching a workshop with these blocks at Elly Sienkiewicz's Applique Academy in Williamsburg next February (http://www.ellysienkiewicz.com/).

This block showcases an ornate floral basket block like those found in many of the Baltimore Album quilts made in the 1840s and 1850s; the choice of flowers in that era was symbolic -- to the extent that the Baltimore ladies read dictionaries of flowers to ensure that their bouquets communicated the appropriate message. My, how times have changed!

And every Baltimore Album quilt needs to have a Baltimore Clipper ship on it, right?! Baltimore was a thriving seaport during the era of album quilts - which allowed for the newest textiles to be delivered to the women who needed them for their quilts. More blocks and more history are to come... along with more quilts.

Until then, happy sewing!

Sue Garman

It's Been a While...

2009-06-14T18:29:00.020-05:00

Most of the projects that I have been working on lately have been made under the condition that they not be shown anywhere until after they are published. So... Look for a challenge quilt in late summer. Look for an autumn wall hanging in Quiltmaker in the Fall. Look for two new quilts on The Quilt Show in the Fall. I will post pictures of each of them when the restrictions are removed! In the meantime, I have been working steadily on a new quilt. It will be an old-style Baltimore Album quilt, full of elegant floral arrangements. I cannot begin to express how excited I am about this quilt! The design work is more difficult than I imagined: there are a lot of challenges involved in balancing flowers amidst harps, clipper ships, baskets, vases, epergnes, fruit, while keeping the colors, symbolism, fabrics, and sizes in harmony. I will post photos of the first two blocks soon -- and then stay tuned for another border like that on Ladies of the Sea: it will be an eye-catcher in terms of fullness, color, and density of applique!

In the meantime, someone asked me about quilting - and how to decide what type of quilt design to use on a quilt top. I don't have all the answers, but here are some photos and some thoughts about quilt designs.

Echo quilting -- following the border of each appliqued unit -- is an easy way to "fill" a block. I like it when I want the applique to stand out but don't want to have a lot of "starts and stops" in the quilting line.

The quilt design with the most stops and starts in it is cross-hatching. Cross hatching can be very attractive in a quilt where you want a "formal" look. The photo to the right has cross-hatching behind all of the flowers. Half of the blocks incorporate horizontal/vertical cross-hatching, while the other half of the blocks use diagonal cross-hatching in the blocks. This adds dimension to the quilt without making it look busy.

What about those instances where you want some quilting "filler" in your quilt but are tired of the tried and true (or, as some might say, the "tired and true") stippling? I like using geometric shapes -- chevrons in triangles -- or feathered wreaths or vines across geometric blocks or borders. In this photo, both of these techniques are used: there are geometric chevrons across the setting triangles; these emphasize the geometric shape over the floral fabric on this quilt, while the feathered wreath across the star block softens the geometric shape of the block.

Another great quilting design is the classic "baptist fan" or "dinner plate" pattern. It is a wonderful overall edge-to-edge pattern, and I believe it looks best on multi-pieced traditional block or sampler block quilts. The dinner plate motifs can be cropped such that they can sit inside of borders, if one wants to use a different quilting design within a border.

My favorite quilting design involves the use of feathers. They can be in a shape such as a feathered wreath or a feathered vine -- or they can randomly flow across a quilt top or an open portion of a quilt top. The first photo shows feathers used as fill around a "French Braid Quilt" strip. Feathers are flexible -- they can be adjusted to fill almost any size or shape.

This picture shows a feathered vine with a double spine that sits within a 4" sashing strip -- I love making wide sashing strips if only so that I can insert quilting in the sashing.

This picture shows feathered wreaths sitting in the alternate "empty" or "open" blocks of a basket quilt. What I like about the quilting in this quilt is that the feathers are repeated in "half-wreaths" within the baskets. The baskets are each quilted with a few geometric lines, and the half-wreath sits under the basket handle. Repeating a motif (the feathered wreath in the open blocks) is always a good option to consider when quilting a top; motifs can be repeated in borders, blocks, or parts of blocks.

Because I love feathers, taking a "plain" quilt top and covering it with random feathers, for me, is absolutely a heavenly way to spend an afternoon or two. Lately, I have been filling such quilt tops, which are given to me to quilt for my guild's community service quilt projects, with feathers, strings of pearls, and puddles of pearls. These motifs, when combined with spirals, can turn a simple quilt top into an elegant quilt. Take a look - and think about how your quilting choices can change the look of your quilts.

Until we meet again (Baltimore blocks in hand, on my part!), happy sewing --

Sue Garman

Feathered Stars, Hearts, and Quilting

2009-04-11T21:09:00.011-05:00

Finally, I found my camera. It was hiding on top of the freezer; I can't imagine how it climbed up there all by itself! I have been a quilting fool for the past two months. I've finished several quilts; here are photos of the two latest ones.

My Green Feathered Star

I am going to teach this Feathered Star quilt at the Colorado Quilt Council in a couple of weeks; I love lecturing and teaching, and this will be a fun workshop.

Hearts in Bloom

This quilt is a new Saturday Sampler/block-of-the-month quilt that I designed for Quakertown Quilts. To me, it is one of the "happiest" quilts I've done in a while; it just sings of joy to me. Is that what hearts do to a quilt? or is it just the rich reds and greens?

Take a look at the quilting on Hearts in Bloom. When I designed this quilt, I intentionally put in large sashing strips and left a lot of "open" areas on the quilt for machine quilting. Sometimes we forget to "plan" for the quilting designs when we make quilts. My advice: consider the quilting, just as you consider color, contrast, etc. - quilting is like adding a fine Easter hat to an outfit; it really dresses it up (not that I ever wear Easter hats, of course!).

Below is another example of how "quilting makes the quilt." My Green Feathered Star quilt benefitted from an ample addition of feathers - surrounded by calming "piano key" quilting in the outer border. Until next time... happy quilting!

Sue
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

Have a Heart!

2009-03-26T20:36:00.007-05:00

Becky's Relay for Life Quilt

I know many generous quilters. Quilting is one way that many of us support people and organizations -- whether it's giving a baby quilt to a friend or making a quilt for a community service project, or making a quilt for a fund raiser. A friend of mine, Becky S., recently was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is not a stranger to cancer -- her husband had cancer and her brother, two aunts, and mother all died of cancer. One in three persons in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. So, for Becky, helping the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life" organization by making a quilt for a local fundraising auction was only natural.

I want to share this quilt with you because you may find Becky's process helpful if you are moved to help your local cancer society or another charitable organization. Becky's quilt has 124 blocks in it. She gave people the opportunity to honor cancer victims and cancer survivors by donating $10 to have a loved one's name added to the quilt -- each block has the hand-inked name of an individual with the words "in honor of" or "in memory of" before the name. The block pattern, "Remember Me," is from the 1800s. And now Becky is giving the quilt to the local Relay for Life organization for their auction and fund raising gala in May. Her creative fund raising efforts will help others through Relay for Life. Think about how you might follow in Becky's path -- selling name opportunities on blocks, and then providing the funds raised, as well as the finished quilt, to a charitable organization's fund raiser. I quilted this quilt for Becky -- it took 45 hours, but it was a labor of love: my sister died of breast cancer eight years ago.

These quilt photographs were taken by Jim Evans. If you want to learn how to take great quilt photos, check out Jim's lesson at http://www.factsfacts.com/quilts/Photographing_Quilts/. Jim offers free photo-editing lessons too (http://factsfacts.com/photolessons/index.htm) -- but you have to be serious about learning from him!

What else have I been working on lately? I've been very busy -- I've finished several new quilts in the past month. And as soon as my camera decides to stop playing hide-and-seek with me, I'll take some photos and share some new quilts with you.

I'm off to hunt for my camera again - until I find it, happy sewing!

Sue Garman

Smile!

2009-02-22T22:16:00.006-06:00

Once in a while, someone actually sends me a photo of a quilt they have made using one of my patterns. I really enjoy seeing how creative other people are -- quilters are amazing! I believe that I'm fairly creative, yet when I see how someone has taken one of my patterns and added their own unique touch... I'm blown away. Last week Pat Dicker from California sent me a photo of a quilt she made from a pattern that I had done several years ago. Here's my version of "All Around the Town," a quilt that celebrates the joys of living in a small village.

"All Around the Town"
(c)2000 Susan H. Garman

As you can see, the quilt was done in muted brights (oops... is that a contradiction in terms?). So when Pat sent me a picture of her quilt... it was all I could do to keep myself from laughing out loud. Talk about a quilt that would make anyone smile!

Pat said her "dot drawer" was overflowing, and so she chose to make her quilt out of lots of dots. Her creative use of fabric is amazing - wouldn't you agree? If you "spot" Pat in the future, thank her for sharing. And for all the quilters out there who have doubts, who can't find a niche because their fabrics and tastes don't agree with those you so often see elsewhere... take a lesson from Pat. Use whatever you like. Pat made me smile and my guess is that you smiled, too!

Until next time, happy sewing!

Sue
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

My, How Time Flies!

2009-01-24T20:16:00.003-06:00

It's hard to imagine that we are well into 2009 already, and closing in on the end of the month. Has it really been almost two months since I posted something here? So much for being productive, eh?!

That's not to say that I have not been busy. I have been learning how to create videos to insert into blogs (stay tuned!); I have been designing new quilts (they'll show up soon!); and I have moved to a new house. So how do you design a new sewing room? I found that it helps to move a few boxes at a time -- if the movers had moved all of the boxes for me, it would have overwhelmed me. It was plenty of work to move the fabric over a few days... then the shelves with their myriad of tools, books, and notions... then the works-in-progress (doesn't that sound better than UFO?)... then the piles of quilts, desks, files, chests, and assorted machines. I found things I forgot I had made. I found tools I forgot I had purchased. I found fabric I haven't seen in ages. I found quilt tops that had been lost for years. I found a lot of things -- so many, in fact, that I wish I would start losing a few things! And that brings me to the message of this short blog entry: how do you get things done? Especially when there is chaos all around you?

For me, the answer is simple. I don't work well in clutter; it causes me to procrastinate; I prefer to look at piles instead of working around them, so cleaning up my work area is a must before I start a project. Having goals and staying focused is also key to getting things done. Every day I write up my "to do" list for the day. It helps me plan the day so that I don't end up running around in circles; I can dovetail some tasks, and I can focus on those that need to be done first. I usually make longer-term to-do lists so that I can look ahead and plan the week or the month, too - I review these on a weekly basis so that I'm continually aware of what I need to tackle and complete over the next few weeks or months. These longer-term lists also help keep me from saying "yes" to things that compete with existing project deadlines; overcommitting to projects or events can be very stressful.

Despite all the planning, there are times when life interferes and stress rises -- there are not always enough hours in the day. What do you do about that? Re-set your priorities and work on those things that have a short fuse. Occasionally, take a break and have a little fun - it will re-energize you. Get plenty of sleep; it keeps you fresh and creative. Eat well; it's healthy! And so is quilting. So... keep on sewing!

I'll write more soon - and share what I've been working on.
Sue Garman