Friday, May 21, 2010

Spring quilt Festival

Ok I am going to get my post done now so I don't forget.Check out the side bar for more of the blogger quilt show.!  Here is one of my favorite quilts that I have made. I call it Susan's Vacations Interrupted.  I started out my quilting journey by buying a Rubbermaid tote of 2½" squares out of  all sorts of fabric at an Estate auction in a box of other fabrics. Some very thin and sheer, some poly cotton blends, but beautiful in their own way. I thought I want a Trip Around the World. Well not having a pattern in hand I just started after about 5 rounds I realized I was never going to have enough squares of one color to do what I wanted. Plan B had to start. Of course I had to get a plan B first. I had no quilting room (yet) and worked off a card table in the living room. I dug through the box of goodies I purchased at the auction and there was a stack of  9-patch blocks. OK now what oh oh I have a couple yards of this cream... now I spent days sorting out the little cut squares, putting all the like ones together and coordinating ones around them. I had to figure how many of each color, darks, light and such. This process went on for weeks maybe months all the while I started collecting quilting magazines researching quilting on the net. Graph paper became my friend and I started to draft out my new quilt, I made the mini trips connecting them all with the cream and interrupting them with the 9-patches.
I figure mini trips are my vacations and nothing I do goes off with out some sort of problem thus the interruptions. So the cream represents my path through life and all the mini trips are my journeys, with the 9-patches as all the obstacles I have endured along the way. This quilt has over 2200 pieces and I have to say one of my favorites. I gave this to my oldest son and sometimes wish I hadn't. I look at this and think of all the time and what it means to me and wish I still had it. but then reality hits and I realize every quilt I make has some sort of meaning to me and I can't keep them all so I let it go.  I do  borrow this one when I do trunk shows. I think how far have I really come from this first quilt (OK real close to being first) I still refuse to throw fabric away and will make a quilt out of anything. I still got to estate sales and buy up old fabric and blocks, no matter the condition or quality. (yes I do shop at my LQS too)  I do now have a dedicated room for sewing and I now cut with a rotary cutter. I own book after book but have never made a quilt from a pattern in them. I even have EQ6. Yes I have come a long way but when it comes down to it, I still love to draft out my patterns with my graph paper and stroke the fabric as I yay or nay it in the pattern process.

23 comments:

  1. What a great story of your first quilt. It is an amazing first quilt.

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  2. There is something so wonderful in just touching cloth and imagining what it could be. I loved your write-up but especially loved your quilt. It is another one of those "the more you look at it, the more you see." Great job, lucky son.

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  3. Wonderful shimmering quilt!

    I loved your story of this quilt...I too used graph paper for years and still return to it sometimes and one of the first quilts I made was from a guild charm square exchange and I credit it with teaching me all about fabric and color!

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  4. What a great story Susan...and the quilt is a beauty..:) rose

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  5. Just my style! Great Job and thank you for sharing.

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  6. So fun reading about your story of quilting. Mine started with a move and wanting to make quilts to get rid of the scraps! (Silly girl--there's never an end to them!)

    The movement of the pattern in your quilt is charming!

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  7. What a beautiful quilt made out of nine-patches! Thanks for sharing this!

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  8. What an interesting and meandering journey this quilt took you on! It's terrific how you made all those fabrics cohesive with the pattern you designed. Wonderful! Thank you for sharing your quilt's story :)

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  9. Beautiful! The colors are so pretty. Your son is very lucky and I bet he loves it!

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  10. You are an artist! That is one of the coolest quilts I've seen. What great color-play! It's like a puzzle with a surprise at every turn. So so so cool!

    On top of that, I love your story and the way you told it! Maybe I wasn't supposed to but I laughed my butt off while reading it. So much fun! Thank you for that.

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  11. Beautiful, so much work, great Job

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  12. What a truely unique quilt. The mini trip around the world blocks worked out really well.

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  13. Yes !!!! Graph paper ..... someone else besides myself still uses it :) Loved the story behind the quilt !!!

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  14. What a beautiful quilt! Great job!

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  15. What a success story! a really great quilt

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  16. It's just beautiful Susan. I love all those small pieces and the color is gorgeous - Hugs Nat

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  17. Holy moly! That's an intricate quilt! The amount of love and dedication to such a beautiful piece is extraordinary. You're pretty darn good, if I may say so myself :)

    Thank you for the wonderful comment on my blog. I'm almost done hand-stitching the binding on the back. I hope to have the applique and everything finished by friday!

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  18. Fantastic. As much time as it takes, there's something more satisfying about putting together individual blocks rather than strip piecing.

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  19. This is the quilt you STARTED WITH? Wow! It's amazing. It's so much more interesting than a traditional Trip Around the World would have been.

    I enjoyed reading about your process for designing quilts, too.

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  20. Thanks for sharing your beautiful quilt- it is a fascinating process that you had to create this amazing quilt. One of the things I love about it, is that you turned bits and pieces into a wonderful quilt. You preserved someone else's treasure and gave it a new life.
    It seems to me that you love creating your own quilts and drafting them feeds your creative spirit. That is a special gift that you have..
    Regards from a Western Canadian Quilter,
    Anna
    http://quiltmomsjourney.blogspot.com/

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  21. lovely quilt--really like the white moving through the quilt and out into the dark blue. thanks for sharing

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  22. What a stunning quilt. All that history sure makes for a rich quilt. I bet those fabrics wre happy the day you opened the conatiner and let then be free.

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