Shhhh! It's a Secret!

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

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!

Sue Garman
(c)2009 Susan H. Garman
All rights reserved

Going to Baltimore... Continued

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

(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

I'm on the Way to Baltimore!!!

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

(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

It's Been a While...

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

(c)2009 Susan H. Garman

Feathered Stars, Hearts, and Quilting

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!

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

(c)2009 Susan H. Garman