Black floral tablecloth

An old blog friend, who is also a Facebook friend, asked me to make a holiday tablecloth for her long narrow table. She and her husband have 5 6 kids. As I was playing, two designs emerged, and she decided to order both.

Both designs are based on Jane Brocket quilts in her book The Gentle Art of Quilt-making. I love Jane's quilts, which are full of florals and bright, saturated fabrics.

This one is based on Jane's Russian Shawl quilt. Margaret thought it would be wonderful for Easter, so I wanted to get it done first. I even found one of the fabrics Jane used—the mums. The other fabrics I found either online or at our local quilt fabric shop and are similar to ones Jane used. I had pretty much given up on that local shop, which feels like an old lady quilt store, pardon my ageism. But happily they seem to have expanded their offerings from the dated fabrics of traditional quilts I learned to make in the 1970s and 1980s. I purchased the black and white stripe there, the black and white graph check in the edge, as well as the gorgeous rose floral in the drop.

If I didn't tell you, maybe you would not imagine the amount of time and work it takes to shop for and choose fabrics for a project commissioned by a customer. This can take weeks of online browsing, local store shopping, and elimination. Also, when buying fabrics online, there is no way to be certain that fabrics will go well together until receiving them and playing with them. It's always nice to add fabrics to the stash though, even if I don't use them for the intended project.

The tablecloth on our little kitchen table.
On Margaret's, it will drop the same distance on the ends as it does here on the sides.

I lined the tablecloth with very thin black muslin. I learned the hard way not to sew this like an envelope—sewing edge seams, then turning inside out—which I did first. I had hoped to avoid adding a binding. But it is impossible to make a pieced top lie flat, so when topstitching the seams, I got puffiness here and there. I pressed the bejeezers out of it, but it still poofs a bit, though not enough to ruin it (in my opinion). Then I did add a binding in the same black and white graph check as the outer border.

So next tablecloth I will simply baste the top with the lining, topstitch, and bind it. This method does not pucker, because you are flattening the top from center out as you baste, and the edges are not secured before topstitching. Make sense? I will be using Jane's design that also inspired the second quilt in my blog header—on point squares, which she calls Hydrangea.

Finished tablecloth is 50" x 99"

Bright log cabin baby quilt

A former colleague commissioned a quilt for her fourth baby, due in early January. I made eight placemats for her a couple of years ago, and those were bright too. She loves wonky quilts, and her whole house is painted in bright, vivid, tasteful colors.

Baby #4 will share a room with his big brother, which is painted in lovely shades of orange and blue.

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I sent a photo of the first log cabin block I finished for this project to Heidi for approval. She said "I think it is lovely. Brighter the better. :)" I got the message and set that one aside! I did not have many bright fabrics in my stash, so I stopped at Joann's and picked up several fat quarters in brights. The next try was a winner.

Then I had to get even more brights, solids this time, for the back, which is one big log cabin block.

back

There is a little black and white center of each block that you'll see if you look closely. I decided to bind the quilt in this black and white dot from Joann's.

Besides the new brights from Joann's, I had a few other new fabrics on hand
as well as scraps from friends and my own projects.
There are a few thrift shirts also.

I couldn't be happier with the result. The mama says she is in love with it.

Finished quilt measures 44" x 59"
Machine pieced and quilted every 2 1/2"

A scrappy baby girl quilt

Well this is probably my favorite quilt yet. The process from beginning to end was blissful.

A friend commissioned this quilt for her brother's first baby. She is the same friend who commissioned wonky Mother Goose log cabin baby quilt for her friend's baby, below:

Quilt for Adelaide, made about a year ago

I kick myself that I didn't take photos on the weekend, before washing the quilt, because I ended up having to take pictures in artificial light. Except for this first one below, of the binding, made with Alisse Courter fabric.

In this closeup you can see the Sujata Shah wonky flying geese;
also, the half square triangle blocks were pieced by stash sister Nancy's former daughter-in-law

The parents like owls ... apparently ..

There are scraps from every which source ...

.. scraps from thrift clothes, from a special friend's stash,
from Nancy, from a quilter who sold me her stash before moving to Switzerland ...

scraps from my dear friend Susie .. 

.. scraps from my old vintage stash ..

I just had to document every square inch. As I quilted over each inch of this I enjoyed it more than I can express. I wish I could have kept it. I hope Eveyln and her parents will love it.

kimono scraps art quilt

This was the most interesting commission I have had yet.

At the study abroad fair a couple weeks ago, I was chatting with a long-time colleague about her upcoming retirement. She told me she plans to learn to quilt. Well that was a fun conversation!

Sitting next to me was a professor who is taking a program to London summer 2016, and he was listening to us with growing excitement. Understand, "excitement" is very measured in professors, generally. He said, "I have a commission to tell you about when you're finished!" And then Cindy and I chatted a bit longer.

I have tried to upload a better photo of three gold slivers, but I'm having technical problems.
You can see one here. A wonderful friend suggested doing something
with the Japanese tradition called Kintsugi of filling cracks of broken crockery with lacquer dusted with gold.
What a beautiful concept.

He proceeded to tell me that when he lived in Japan, he would go to the Chion-ji temple market regularly and pick up silk kimono scraps. (How fun is that!) He collected them week after week, not knowing what they would become but loving them all the same.

For years he has been looking for someone to sew them into some sort of small quilt. He asked if I would do it, and I could barely hold in my excitement. On my laptop I proceeded to show him the art quilts of Debra Smith I had recently discovered, all made with kimono silk, and I told him I had recently made an art quilt of Indian silks. Never had I dreamt of using silk in sewing quilts before. The fact that I was somewhat prepared for his request is just very serendipitous.

Here is an image of the scraps after I photographed them with my iPhone and saved them in a Pantone app, to match the colors for buying silk. This is actually one group of scraps. There is a second one with a decidedly different palette, so I separated them.

I stopped at the VOA thrift store a couple of days later to find silk blouses to fill out the design. I used three: taupe, lilac, and gold.

I struggled with the challenge of arranging these scraps in any satisfying way.

Below is one start.

No.

But at last, after several arrangements on the design board, I started improvising in a way that felt right. I used one of the eight silk blouses I found thrifting for the background, first affixing it to featherweight interfacing. The interfacing took time to iron on, but it was worth it for ease of sewing and quilting.

I ran out of taupe silk for binding,
so I used this cotton Hawthorne house fabric
called "fronds" in golden canyon.

I also used pieces of the lilac and gold silk blouses I found.

I wanted a medallion on the side, like in ancient Japanese art.
This grew larger all on its own.

I plan to give him his art quilt tomorrow. Of course he is paying me, though we have not set a price. He seemed to think money was no object. Maybe I should charge $5000. :D

Let's see if he wants a second one with the other group of scraps.

This art quilt measures 24" x 27"

silk, with cotton binding