Out of the cupboard

 

On one of those cold windy days last week I folded the last of the Christmas quilts to put away for the year and pulled out this summery quilt and took a short mental vacation to a warmer sunnier greener spot.  I made this  well over 20 years ago with mostly William Morris fabrics.  The quilt guild I was a member of would get  bales and squares of fabrics from a company called Merryvale they had the complete line of all the newest fabrics and since the town I was living in did not have a quilt shop at that time it was great way to get new fabrics.  The squares were 6 x6 and the bales were 6 x 18 inches.  The only fabrics that were not from a Merryvale bundle were the flowers and foliage.  The flowers were all hand appliqué either blind stitch or buttonhole with embroidery floss.  I had so much fun with the bees and butterflies.  The wings of the dragonfly were from a frosted tree print perfect for the veins in the wings.  The bees are all yellow plaids.  Then I sewed a few bug buttons on because I had them and daughter was too old for cute bug buttons on her clothes.  I also stuck a few broaches on just for fun the blue dragonfly was my grandmas.

The Monarch butterfly is leather and a birthday gift from my mother when I was still a teenager.  I used to pin it to the back of my sweater.  I can't remember where the other pins came from.  The one below looks like abalone shell.  The white one on the yellow flower in the top picture is fimo clay.  No garden is complete without a spider,  I hand quilted the web with metalic thread.  A little bit of summer in my sewing room.  

--Ann--

The Colors of Early Summer

Another quilt out of the cupboard and on the wall for summer.  I love pastels did you know that about me?  I love working with pastels, brights are fun, plaids are cozy, earthy colors are comforting,  RWB are patriotic, but pastels just make me sigh......long sigh.....they do that to me in the store when I'm choosing them and when the lady is cutting them and when I take them out of the bag, why............ because they are the colors of so many of my favorite flowers and my favorite flowers are usually what is blooming at the time.  The pattern was in a book Mullbery Lane by Teri Christopherson published in 2000,  so this is another quilt that is close to 20 years old.  Its just half square triangles I had enough fabric for a wide border so I added the appliqué.   --Ann--

Out of the cupboard

 I made this  Bear Paw quilt in 2006 and I can't believe I haven't posted about it.  Anyway I call it Dancing Bears because the bear paws are in rows rather than squares like they are line dancing.  The majority of the dark prints are from Merryvale bundles.  The quilt guild which I was a member of back then would order samples from a company called Merryvale, they would buy the entire line of fabrics and sell them in 6 inch packets, 6 x 18 inch bales or by the yard. So each month the guild would get a new packet that we could order for the next month.  We did not have a LQS.  It was a great way to get the latest and greatest. It was also easy to stock pile the packets and bales but the best way to make them useable was to separate them by color and regroup.  I machine quilted this on my domestic machine, it took hours to manipulate all that fabric and my arms would get tired.  I could empty a bobbin of thread in 20-30 minutes if the thread tension was just right.  But it is so much easier on my sweet 16 machine. --Ann--

Out of the Cupboard

Scrappy Stars and hand appliqué   I made this quilt the late 1990's  it was a little project I started early in the summer with the intention of hand appliquéing one star a day.   That was a very manageable goal, I didn't do one every day but I did get them all sewn by the time kids were back in school and I mastered appliquéing peaks and valleys.  The stars, backgrounds and some of the sashing is from Merryvale packets that the local quilt guild was selling because at the time we did not have a quilt shop in the area.  I used a lot of scraps in the borders and around each star.  The sashing fabric is still a favorite of mine and I wish I had bought 6 yards of it instead of three.  It was such a great fabric to tie all the scraps together.  The continuity of it gives the eye a place to rest after viewing the variety of fabrics because no two stars or backgrounds are the same.  I free motion quilted on my domestic machine.  Pulling this out of the cupboard is like seeing an old friend.  --Ann--

Blogger's Quilt Fest

I do love puzzles, word puzzles, number puzzles and tessellating star puzzles, I call this quilt Dragonfly Dance.  The stars are cut from two bales of Merryvale fabrics. (click for and explanation of Merryvale) The entire quilt was arranged on my design wall before any parts were sewn together then kept in order. (click for sewing tutorial or click on tessellating star in the label section)  The yellow and lavender swirl through the center of the quilt like a well choreographed dance to direct the viewers eye. There are only a couple blocks that could be switched in the quilt and not change the stars. I free motion quilted it on my Bernina with loops, dragonflies and echo quilting. I practiced the dragonflies on paper with pen then on the machine with paper and no thread until  my eyes, hands and brain memorized how to sew a dragonfly then practiced on scraps before working on the quilt. I hand dyed the back of the quilt. Enjoy all the beautiful quilts at Amy's Creativeside Bloggers quilt Festival. Be inspired!  Ann

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Off the couch

This is a quilt I gave my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary 10 years ago. It has been displayed on their couch ever since. I have it again. It is the Northwind block also called Corn and Beans it is just big triangles with little triangles in between. Inspired by Sharyn Squier Craig's book Design Challenge: Northwind.  The fabrics were all from Merryvale bales. Each 6 inch by 18 inch strip yielded 2 blocks with a few small triangles leftover. I arranged the blocks by color and value, the darker blocks seemed to gravitate to the outside with a row of half square triangles for a border. I machine quilted by swinging an arc from point to point of each triangle. click for another quilt of the same block   --Ann--