Our Best of Show was a worthy winner – a lovely version of Edyta Sitarâs Patchwork Barn pattern with beautiful machine quilting:
There were 3 Viewerâs choice awards:
This was an especially wonderful Viewerâs Choice because of the meaning of the quilt to the maker and her daughter:
Viewers loved this version of the Raven pattern:
This quilt was one of the Judgeâs Choice winners:
The edging design around the center is âprairie point â style:
The entries to my guildâs Challenge contest – which I talked about in my 8/31/22 post – were all displayed and here are the 3 winners (including my own âWhirlwindâ!).
And mine:
Our guild president gets to give a ribbon to her favorite quilt, so hereâs this yearâs Presidentâs Choice:
I have several more quilts to share, but want to get the above posted now as it has taken me far too long to get these up! I will save the rest for the next few posts and close out this one with a few more autumn photos:
I love this âredâ tree standing out at the pond:
I have a Japanese Maple tree that is late to turn red, but when it does, the color is brilliant and lasts for about a week:
Iâll be back in 3 days with my October mini – hope to get it done just under the wire this weekend!đ
Greetings dear readers! I am gearing up for an intense week of quilting duties and activities starting tomorrow as my guild gets ready for and has our annual show this coming weekend. Iâm helping out with quilt drop-offs, 2 days of judging (weâve hired 3), a day of setup, and 2 days of the show itself! Meanwhile, the only things Iâve had time to work on myself are my October mini and hand quilting on Sweet Journeys:
Iâm actually close to completing all the outlining and will soon need to make decisions about the background quilting. The easiest choice for me would be cross hatching. Whether I want to try for anything more elaborate will likely depend on the stress level in my life. Makings quilts can be a challenge and/or a comfort and the makerâs life influences the results – something I like to think about when viewing other work. For todayâs post, Iâm sharing more autumn photos – peak color was this past week and now I think we are slightly past đ – and a fabulous textile sculpture I saw at NEQM last time I was there.
Look at this beautiful path I recently walked with a friend:
Itâs an old rail-trail and goes for miles. Along the way there was a marsh:
And lots of lovely foliage:
On another walk close to home I captured these images:
Weâve gotten some rain and the bog is looking good:
I love how the sunlight makes the leaves look lit from within! Some oak leaves simply turn brown, but others become an orangy red:
It doesnât happen often, but I love it when I see pink leaves:
Earlier this year the New England Quilt Museum had an exhibit of âsculpturalâ work by Dominique Ehrmann. Unfortunately, I wasnât able to get to the museum for the exhibit. However, the artist left one of her pieces at the museum, on loan for 2 years and itâs currently set up for viewing in their lobby. Itâs incredible and really makes me sorry I missed the exhibit. Please enjoy these photos of the piece!! (Click to enlarge.). I should have taken a panoramic view, but didnât think of it, so the first two photos together try to capture the scope of the piece and those are followed by closeups.
The clock works!!
Please try to get to the museum to see this amazing work and also to see the excellent exhibits they have! Next time I post will likely be next week after the Cocheco Quilters Guild show and I should have some good photos to share! If you live anywhere nearby, the show is at the Rochester (NH) Community Center, October 22 and 23, 10-4 both days. Itâs always good!đ
Greetings dear readers! Last Thursday Al and I drove north into the White Mountains of NH where peak foliage color was predicted. Oh my goodness, it was glorious!! It was an absolutely perfect day for the drive. For mile after mile, hour after hour, we were steeped in a golden glow of reds, oranges, peaches, corals, golden yellows, and greens topped with a deep blue sky. For many of the beautiful vistas and striking individual trees, there was no ability to pull over and stop for photos, but I did my best to grab a few to share with you:
And then the very next day I snapped the following photos on my walk within a mile of our house:
The beauty of autumn comes and goes so quickly. It is ephemeral, like so much in life, and I am trying to be mindful of its wonders every day while it lasts.
Many thanks to reader, Debbie, who, after reading my last post, identified the source of the paper patterns I used for some of the blocks in âSweeet Journeys.â I was able to find used copies available on Amazon if anyone is interested! Iâm tempted to get one myself, but Iâm trying so hard not to buy new books!
Speaking of books, I have been doing some significant time-traveling in my recent reading. Well written, well plotted historical novels with nuanced characters are a favorite genre of mine. Iâm currently on the last of these 4:
Great Circle is mostly the very complicated story of Marion who falls in love with airplanes as a girl in Montana in the 1920âs and ultimately circumnavigates the globe as a pilot, alternating with a story about Hadley, a Hollywood actress who plays Marion in a movie in current times. The Pull of the Stars is about a nurse midwife working in Dublin during the Flu pandemic and WW1 in 1918. The Invention of Wings is about a slave and her owner in the early 1800âs. The Wolves of Andover (currently retitled as The Traitorâs Wife) takes place in Massachusetts in 1673 and is based on the possibly true story of the escape of the man who beheaded Charles 1st during Oliver Cromwellâs time, though is just as much about the woman he meets and falls in love with here. Itâs actually a prequel to Kentâs book â The Hereticâs Daughterâ involving the Salem witch trials. My book group read the latter several years ago and loved it. If you enjoy high quality historical fiction, I recommend all of these!
Itâs 50.5 inches square and could be gifted or used as a baby or lap quilt. I hope it fetches a decent amount of money for the library! Because Iâm so busy this month, Iâm having it quilted by one of my favorite long- armers. I did manage to make some progress hand quilting Sweet Journeys, too.
Hope you are getting/taking the time to enjoy the wonder of autumn along with the joys and comforts of sewing đ.
Greetings dear readers! This week the hats and gloves came out for those early morning walks with temps in the 40âs. All too soon, it will be long underwear and boots toođ! Last week I showed some hand quilting Iâm doing on âSweet Journeysâ and some readers asked about the pattern for it. There is no one âpurchasableâ pattern, per se. The overall design/layout is by me and is a compilation of block patterns from various sources, several âtweakedâ by me by adding birds.
The initial spark came from 2 fabrics. The background:
Sorry the photo is a bit blurry. Itâs from Brackman and Thompsonâs âMaterial Pleasuresâ line and I bought several yards of it when it came out in 1999. It waited years for the right project! After several more years, I found the perfect fabric for a border:
At that point I knew I wanted to make a Baltimore Album style quilt and started putting red, green,and black fabrics aside in a box with the background and border fabrics and thinking about designs, the border fabric dictating the color scheme. I had a stack of about 12 paper copies of various album style block patterns and I have no recollection at all of where they came from, though pretty sure someone gave them to me. I do not remember copying them myself.
If anyone recognizes the original source for these, let me know!! I âtweakedâ some to allow me to add birds:
And I also used some of Ellie Sienkiewiczâs patterns from her books, e.g. this basket:
As for the center block, I saw this antique quilt at the Vermont Quilt Show in 2014 or 2015 (sorry for the poor photo) and LOVED it! I wanted to make it some day, but drafting the pattern would be daunting! Plus, I think there are nearly two thousand berries!!!
Amazingly, not long after that, I bought this book, published almost 30 years ago, at my guildâs library book sale:
And look what was in it:
I enlarged the pattern, as recommended, and decided to use it for the center of this quilt. Much less daunting than doing a whole quilt of these blocks!đ From my blog archives, Iâve determined that I likely started the quilt around 7 1/2 years ago so itâs definitely one of those âlong journeyâ quilts. Thereâs a song I play on the accordion called âSweet Journeysâ and thatâs where the title came from. Making this quilt may be a âlongâ journey, but itâs been a âsweetâ one. đ
Now that itâs cooler, Iâm trying to get some hand quilting in every day. My goal is to finish SJ in a year for the 2023 Cocheco show. Meanwhile, Iâve been on a sleeve and label making binge getting ready for THIS yearâs show, later this month!
Iâve also been working on finishing the top for my Library Donation quilt. Hereâs what my design wall looks like at the moment. The circle blocks are done and ready to sew together and the sashing is just pinned up to give a sense of what this might look like completed:
Here are some closeup examples of the circle blocks:
The circles are fused using âSteam A Seam 2â fusible and then I use the blanket stitch on the sewing machine to secure the edges. This quilt is a main focus right now because I have to submit it by the end of the month.
My quilt âGolden Glowâ is back from the museum! What an honor to have had it there. At the same time âHospital Sketchesâ was up, a wonderful exhibit of quilts by Caro Breyer Fallert Gentry was on display. Sheâs an amazing quilt artist who has been at the top of her game and innovating for 40+ years!! Here are a few of her pieces:
I forgot to get the label on this one, but here are a couple of closeups:
And finally:
More of her incredible machine quilting – not my thing, but I admire the mastersđ:
Each day a bit more color emerges in the landscape here and Iâm trying to savor it while I can! Such gorgeous leaves!:
Greetings dear readers. The last day of September is here and so is fall weather! Jackets and scarves are out and 2 quilts are on the bedđ. Nights are brisk, which is what it takes to bring out the fall colors. After making a very modern looking mini for August, I chose to make something more traditional for September and I wanted it to reflect the season. Here is âFalling Leavesâ:
It measures about 15 X 19 inches. I used one of the traditional maple leaf block patterns and set the rows going in opposite directions. I chose a rich dark brown for the background and red, orange, yellow, and green for the leaves. The blocks finish at 3 3/4 inches.
I machine quilted around the blocks and in the borders, but hand quilted veins in the leaves:
I added a little extra interest by embroidering a gold line just inside the binding:
An old Kansas Troubles fat quarter was a good choice for the back:
I love autumn colors and am happy to add this mini to my collection of autumn quilts!
It is going to be a week or two before peak color arrives here in NH, but Iâm delighting in the bits of color spotted so far about the landscape:
Greetings dear readers! I have reached the finish line with âDutch HST Medallionâ!
The sleeve is made and ready to be sewn on and the label will quickly follow.
The machine quilting is an overall design of floral shapes, chosen so it doesnât distract from the piecing and the medallion.
I started the quilt 4-5 years ago as a way to be able to use and play with these lovely fabrics. At first the entire top was going to be just HSTâs and I sewed a bunch of 16 patch blocks of them. Then, as often happens, they got put away as I worked on other projects. Then about 2 years ago, I unearthed the Dutch Medallion hiding in my stash and decided to use the HSTâs with it. Adding the fussy cut hexagon medallion border and several more starts and stops as I worked on other projects finally got me to the finish line! Just in time for my guildâs show next month!
Here is just a quarter of the center to remind you what it looks like and above is the pattern, showing that all I have left to make are the 4 corner stars. Then I need to trim and iron the borders, add the stars and sew it all together! My plan is to have it long arm quilted because itâs huge and there would be 2 large quilts ahead of it in the hand quilting queue! I really donât want to wait that long for it to be finished!
Speaking of hand quilting, now that the weather has cooled off, I am back to hand quilting âSweet Journeysâ. Another âlong journeyâ project – Iâm guessing at least 7 years now đ”âđ«. Iâm still outlining all the pieces and then will fill in the background – a long way to go! Iâd like to focus on it this winter and have it ready for the 2023 Cocheco (my guild) Show, a year from now. (This yearâs show happens 10/22 and 10/23 and Iâm involved in a lot! – judging, demo, set-up, etc! – will be busy next month!)
I have all 36 blocks for the center of my library donation quilt made and sewn together. I think itâs the definition of âcolorfulâ!
Finally, project #5 – Ursulaâs Spring Baskets! I have 8 baskets I havenât shared yet:
I now have 68 basket blocks with 30 to go, but I might be slowing down with this project for a while as thereâs no hurry. The older 2 grandkids didnât get their âbig bedâ quilts till they were 7 and Ursula is only 3 1/2! Speaking of the older grandkids: Dmitri was 18 yesterday and Svetlana turns 15 tomorrow. I am deeply feeling the inexorable and too quick passage of time. Werenât my own 2 children just those ages a very short time ago?! Wasnât I a teenager not that long ago?đ”âđ« All we can do is âcherish each day.â
Iâm grateful to be experiencing another autumn. A final burst of color before muted winter settles in.
Iâll be back later this week with Septemberâs mini and some more fall photos. Have a great week!
Greetings dear readers! I donât have progress on projects to share in this post for a couple reasons. I traveled last week for my trunk show, which Iâm happy to say was a resounding success! The members of the âCrazy Quilters of Cape Codâ were so friendly and welcoming that it was a real joy to share my quilts with them. The other reason is that I finally got started on a September mini and will wait to share it at the end of the month. SoâŠthis is a good opportunity to share some more of the excellent quilts from New England Quiltfest. You can enlarge any photo by clicking on it. Take the time to enjoy the details of these wonderful pieces!!
I love how this artist used these special fabrics, which I think are of South African origin – and all hand pieced, embroidered, and appliqued!
The craftsmanship on this next quilt was incredible, but hard to convey in photos – lots of intricate hand work, best seen up close:
A glimpse of the back:
The original spelling of my name was âGladyâ until I changed the âyâ to âiâ in my early 20âs to stop people from automatically adding an âsâ. Iâve only seen the name a handful of times so I had to photograph this quilt!đ:
I loved the composition, colors, – well, actually everything! – about this next quilt:
There was an exhibit of âmid century modernâ style quilts which I found interesting and here are a couple of them. I especially like the inter-play of the triangular and rectangular shapes in Sidewalk Shuffle:
Iâm loving the fact that I still have many more quilts from this show and from the museum to share and in one month my guild is having their annual show, so even more to come!
Thereâs definitely a nip in the air when I walk in the early morning and the sweaters and jackets are out! Leaves on bushes and very young trees are turning:
We are in a drought and the river is running very low. None of the solid objects in the river in this photo should be above water:
Last year at this time, because of abundant rain, there was a profusion of fungi and mushrooms of all colors. This year there are almost none đ. Thank goodness for several hours of steady rain last evening and through the night! On a recent walk I saw a ârafterâ (flock) of wild turkeys:
And then a few minutes later saw these guys wandering about:
I generally enjoy these kinds of surprises on my walks, but hoping not to see bears! Iâll be back soon with project updates and more quilt photos!
Greetings dear readers! I went to the New England Quilt Museum Saturday and met Barbara Brackman!!
She, of course, ran the Hospital Sketches sew-along and came to the museum from her home in Kansas to give a talk about her design inspirations for the blocks. What a thrill! I also got to meet 2 other quilters who had quilts in the exhibit:
Here we are standing in front of Barbaraâs quilt. The person second from the left, between Barbara and me, is Roseann Smith. I showed her quilt in a previous post – the one with the lovely sashing with 9 patch cornerstones. The person on the far right had made a top but didnât finish the quilt in time for the exhibit and Iâm sorry I didnât get her name. The person second from the right is Denniele Bohannon, who I was meeting for the first time, and here is her beautiful quilt:
My friend, Liz, and I had the great good fortune to be able to have lunch with Denniele and her friend Beth after the talk and it was so much fun!! The experience once again reminded me how wonderful it is to be a part of the quilting community!â€ïž Our shared passion makes it easy to make new friends!
Barbara was an excellent speaker and I enjoyed her talk. Hereâs a photo of her quilt, which I hadnât previously shown in full yet:
And here is the last of the quilts from the exhibit – the only male exhibitor – and itâs a wild one, but quite appealing:
Some time soon Iâll be sharing with you some quilts from the Carol Breyer Fallert Gentry exhibit which is running at the museum simultaneously with Hospital Sketches.
Iâve spent the past week working on 2 projects. For the Chevron Quarter Log Cabin project, I made and appliqued down all the border vines and I made all the leaves with the prepared edge technique and basted them all down:
The other project Iâm focusing on right now is a donation to my local libraryâs annual silent auction fund raiser, due in early November. I chose a pattern from this book that Iâve used many times before to make baby quilts:
This is the picture inside the cover:
And hereâs the quilt in the book:
There are 2 different blocks with points going in different directions. Blocks finish at 6 inches:
Hereâs mine so far:
I plan to make the quilt center 6 blocks x 6; right now itâs 5×5. Itâs been a lot of fun choosing fabrics for the blocks!
I havenât posted anything from my walks recently because Iâve had so many quilts to share (still do!), but Iâm still walking almost daily and enjoying the hint of fall in the air. Here are some delights I saw at the pond recently:
I go to Cape Cod on Thursday to do a trunk show for the guild in Falmouth. Hope to see some of you there!
Greetings dear readers! Itâs September already! Iâm thinking of those old movies in which monthly pages, one after another, would quickly fly off the calendar to signify the passage of time – thatâs what it feels like around here. The quarter log cabin âchevronâ quilt has progressed significantly since I last posted about it. First, I decided I was done making blocks at 50 and that this would be a crib or wall quilt size. Then I decided on the black print for the setting triangles, arranged the blocks so there was good color distribution, and sewed the center together:
After studying the quilt center for a while, I decided to see what a border would look like, even though that is unconventional for log cabin quilts. Hereâs a âmock upâ of my trial:
I love it and Iâve decided to go with this! Itâs basically a repeat of the border I put on my Red and White Crib quilt last year, but in reverse values. I think Iâll embroider gold/cheddar veins on the dark value leaves.
Meanwhile, Dutch HST Medallion is back from the long arm quilter, Linda Bevins, who did a lovely floral curvy edge to edge overall design that suits the quilt top very well:
The pictures make the stitches look dark, which is not the case. They hardly show at all, which is what I wanted.
Iâm using a lovely Edyta Sitar fabric for the binding and have the strips cut and ready to go:
Iâll show the whole thing again once I have the binding on. Iâve been also busy putting sleeves on quilts that are going into the Cocheco annual show next month and have labels to do as well. And Iâve started making my donation quilt for this yearâs local library silent auction and will share that next post.
Today Iâm sharing more quilts from the Hospital Sketches exhibit. These are wonderful, so take a few minutes to enlarge and savor them!!
Great hand quilting on this one!!!!Love the embroidery embellishment on the pineapples!
I think there are just 3 left for another post, but do try to get to the museum if you can! These are worth seeing in person!
Iâll close out todayâs post with 2 pieces from the New England Quiltfest show (still many more of those to come!). There was a small exhibit of quilts in triptych form. I was really intrigued and would like to consider making a triptych. Iâll show a few of these in another post, but there was a triptych in the show that blew me away!
I loved the stitching on another piece in the Nature Shapes exhibit as well and the colors are my favorites:
Fall is definitely in the air here in northern New England! I wore a jacket on my walk yesterday AM – 60 degrees. And it dropped into the upper 40’s overnight! My heart goes out to those enduring the heatwave out west.
Greetings dear readers! Every year my quilt guild has a âChallengeâ contest. The âchallengeâ is issued in January and our August meeting is devoted to displaying the quilts anonymously. Members vote for their favorites and prizes are awarded. This yearâs challenge was âThe Magic of Geometryâ and we were to choose a geometric shape and make a quilt featuring that shape with a perimeter no larger than 104 inches. Any fabrics, techniques, and styles could be used. I knew whatever I chose to do could double as my August mini. Without further ado, here is my entry:
My shape was, of course, a triangle- every piece in the quilt is a triangle except for the center square of each block.
I struggled for a while figuring out what to do, but finally was inspired by one of the blocks in this book:
My chosen block design is a foundation paper pieced log cabin variation made with triangles. The blocks are 7 inches and the quilt is 21 inches square. Since the block had a modern feel to it, I decided to challenge myself to make the whole quilt with a modern vibe.
All fabrics came from my stash and I had a grand time choosing the colors for each block and gradations from dark to light from the center outward. When I had trouble choosing a color for the center, I decided to use all the colors of the rainbow and I liked a little extra focus on the center with the black background there instead of the gray:
I found the perfect backing on my trip to Maine last month at Fiddlehead Artisan Supply in Belfast – see those triangles!đ:
The quilting is a combination of machine (with the walking foot) in all the gray areas and hand quilting in all the colored areas:
Because of the way the blocks seem to âspinâ and because the âspinâ doesnât orient from the same place in each block the way they are placed, thereâs a lot of âmovementâ in the quilt, thus the name, âWhirlwind.â Guess what – My quilt was one of the winners!! I won a $50.00 gift certificate to one of my favorite shops, Quilted Threads!! I didnât have an opportunity to photograph the other entries, but these will all be displayed at our quilt show in October so Iâll share them with you then.
Nann, at the blog âWith Strings Attachedâ is a retired librarian and recently recommended this book and I second that recommendation – I loved it!
The story of 2 eighty year old women who have been lifelong friends is captivating and beautifully written. What a pleasure! I am also perusing my bookcases and making myself either read or get rid of books that have been there unread for years đ. This one came out 20 years ago and I finally read it and enjoyed it!:
The insight into some of Chinese culture and the flashbacks to what was going on in China a hundred years ago were interesting and the storytelling is very good. I recommend it!
And look at these books that Iâm starting to study:
Yes! Al and I are starting to plan our first international trip since Covid! Itâs happening next spring (May) so plenty of time to plan and weâre going with our dear Canadian friends, Paul and Lee. So exciting! The anticipation is something that will help get me through the coming winter đ.
Be sure to check out Wendyâs blog, The Constant Quilter, (link in right column of this blog), for all the August minis!
gladiquilts 