It's All About ANIMALS!!!

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; it is called Punda Milia and was designed and made by Pat Drennan of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was featured in Gail Garber's book Flying Colors (C&T Publishers, 2010).  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

(c) 2011 Susan H. Garman

Progress and Princess Feathers...

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'....

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

(c) 2011 Susan H. Garman