My favorite type of quilts!

My girlfriend Sandy passed away from breast cancer in 1993, her daughter Vicky was 13. Vicky had learned to quilt with her mom when she was 5. Vicky has now grown into a beautiful women, graduated from college and I believe has 2 master degrees. She has a great job and now is buying her own home. She's done all of this on her own. Well now she has some free time and has begun finishing up her moms quilts. This first one were friendship Christmas blocks made and exchanged between Vicky, my daughter, her mom and me when the girls were around 7 years old. They were never put together, I was so impressed how well Vicky pieced this quilt, (with the little girls piecing blocks every block was a different size). The only instruction Vicky received was talking to me over the phone. She still has two boarders to put on and quilt it.

Her mothers very first quilt she made was also unfinished, it was pieced but needed to be quilted. Vicky took it apart and divided up the blocks, bought new lattice and boarder fabric and proceeded to make two lap quilts for her two brothers for Christmas. How wonderful is that? This is one of them. (I had separate pictures of the two but accidentally deleted one of them).

This is the two together, they just need to be quilted. What a family treasure.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm getting ready for our Thanksgiving guests, we'll be having around 20. This little turkey and quilted mat will be part of our centerpiece, my vintage linen table cloth will be underneath and the candles will be glowing.

This mat was our leaf pounded fabric we made while on our color tour. I trimmed up the sides, added batik boarders, layered it and machine quilted in the leaf veins, a few winter green berries and a acorn. The grand kids signed the back and wrote cute messages to their mom and surprised her with it for her birthday.
I hope you have a wonderful Thansgiving and eat to much!

Northern Mi. Quilt Retreat

Last week was my bee's annual quilt retreat, we are so blessed to be able to get away for a week to a beautiful log home over looking Lake Michigan. Our views from the sewing area are perfect, the colors of the sky and lake continuously change.

We had some stormy weather which makes staying in quilting all the more wonderful.
The following are just a "few" of the projects that were made.

Over achiever Mary pieced this spectacular Christmas tree skirt.

Kay made a tee-shirt quilt for her grandson with his out grown tennis shirts. Her blocks were so nice and crisp, not tee-shirty looking at all.

My daughter came up for the day (then ended spending the night when a storm came up, which was wonderful). She finished piecing a wool quilt she started several years ago. She's going to add black wool boarders.
(Thank you Sandy for all the beautiful wool!)

Martha pieced this summery piece, it would look wonderful on a wicker chair in a sun room.

Our bee challenge this year was using the left over pieces of fabric from the quilt we made Lillian last year. These were made in memory of Lillian.
Martha made the pillow, Lillian had one in this pattern in her sun porch where we quilted. The buttons were from Lillian's button box.
Kay made the wall hanging on the left (she still had to put on the binding), the block pattern was the pattern we used in Lillian's quilt. She added the hearts and hand-quilted it.
Mine is the middle one, it's called "Gracie". Lillian never had any children and loved her cat Gracie. Gracie passed away a few months before Lillian.
Mary made the next one. Lillian had named our group the Log Cabin quilters years ago, Mary made a Log Cabin Friendship Star, actually a Friendship Star in a Friendship Star.

Some of us made this style purse with purchased handles. Mine is made with flower printed wool I dyed for the main body. I love how the clasp are off to the side.

Kay's with hand-dyed wool.

Martha was this great "black butterfly" cotton.

Kay also did a batik bag. The purse easily come off the handles so you can change the bag out.

We had some visitors peak in our windows.

And stay for breakfast.

Mary, who made the intricately pieced tree skirt also made this apron from a Debbie Mumm panel.

She finished piecing this wall hanging.

I was hunched over machine quilting the whole time I was there, except for the small break to make the purse. My neck and shoulders were sore but I finished quilting my grandson's Christmas quilts (I had them pieced before I came). This one is for the youngest, the center is a cute panel with reindeer hanging out the windows stringing Christmas lights on the tree. I pieced the pinwheel blocks around it. The striping along the edge is the binding waiting to be turn back and hand sewn.

I quilted this for one of the twins, binding still needs the hand sewing.

This one I finished before but I brought it along to put the binding on.
I'm going to secretly put them on their beds Thanksgiving night to start the holiday season, they have no idea I made them.

Mary made this very time consuming purse. It's still was not finished, the pocket flaps need big buttons,

the binding needs hand sewing and the strap needs to be put into the side hooks.
It looked like a designer bag, I don't think anyone could do a nicer job making it.

Kay made this great scrap quilt with lots of different batiks. I love it.

A neighbor Eileen Bien who lives near the cottage (Mary met her at a quilting class back home and became friends with her) invited us over for lunch and show and tell. I love this quilt she designed of different "Suns". The workmanship is beautiful!

Living on Lake Michigan you have a lot of inspiration.

And speaking of inspiration I captured this sunset when the sun was just going below the horizon. They say you see a green flash when it does, did I capture that flash?

Textiles of Frank Connet

Our local Art Museum has a wonderful textile collection on exhibit. The work combines all of my favorite things, hand-woven wool fabric with shibori techniques, and natural dyes. Who could ask for more!
Frank Connet is the artist who blends all these techniques beautifully. He is a textile conservator who has worked with antique textiles for the past 25 years.
The dyes he used on these large pieces are natural indigo and black walnut. The indigo was a deep warm blue, he dipped the fabric into the dye vat 25-30 times.
He has other pieces he dyed with assorted natural dyes and hand quilted but they weren't on exhibit with this collection, (I wish they were).
The collection is at the Art museum until Jan. 15, all my local friends. Try to see it, it's much more wonderful in person, and we need to support the museum so they bring in many more textile collections.

Double click on the pictures for a closer look.

Close up.

This one was titled Blue Pearl II

Limestone II


Tomorrow I'm off to my bee's annual week long quilting retreat in Northern Michigan. I'm going to finish my grandson's Christmas quilts. Their all pieced and layered, I just have to machine quilt them and sew on the bindings. I also packed some of my natural dyed wool to make myself a purse and we'll see what other projects I can't resist making.
I'll see you next week with "show and tell" from all the projects of the week.