Beauty From Ashes

I had the honor of selecting the challenge topic for my "Challenging Ourselves" Quilt Group.  We have 2-3 months to create a piece of fiber art/quilt based on a theme selected by one of our members.  It was my turn.  The phrase I selected was:  "Beauty From Ashes".  The story behind my quilt follows.  

I have fallen in love with dying fabric.  Yes, it takes a lot of time and energy.  Yes, it is hard to actually cut that fabric after all you've invested in it.  This fall I found what I believed to be the PERFECT project for my hand-dyed fabrics.  It was a mystery quilt for the Carol Doak Yahoo! Group.  Here is the quilt (only a top to date) that I created following her mystery:

This quilt top is 42" square.  It is my own hand-dyed fabrics combined with Kona black.  

When I was foundation piecing, I cut away a lot of pieces of fabric.  I just couldn't bear to toss out even a tiny piece that had been trimmed off.  So I saved all those pieces, large and small, in a gallon ziplock bag.  This was my challenge.  What could I do with these "ashes" from the above mystery project?

I played and played and thought.  I pieced, or crumbed, together the four small blocks.  I liked them, but they just didn't speak to me.  Then I remembered that I had made all of the blocks per Carol Doak's instructions, but decided I wanted to change the color in one patch on the four corner blocks.  So I remade them, swapping the orange out for a pink.  So technically, my original four blocks would be considered more "ashes" from the first project.  Here they are:

These four corner blocks became the center of my "Beauty From Ashes" quilt.  I set it on point, placed my four crumb blocks in the corners.  I then filled in again from my precious ashes to create setting triangles between the 4 crumb blocks and the center star.   For the border and binding, I went to a small yardage "ash" from the mystery quilt.  The backing is the only thing not related to the original quilt.

This quilt is about 19.5" square.  It will join my rotating "welcome" quilts on my front door.

I am happy that I accepted the challenge to make something from my precious scraps, which are now meager, but not exhausted.

Guild's Show and Tell

This weekend was my local guild had their bi-annual Show and Tell. It is a quilt show where you actually get to hear the stories behind the quilts as they are being shown one at a time. Quilts are beautiful, but knowing the stories behind the quilts add so much to the appreciation of them.

The first quilt I showed was a Queen-Sized quilt. I started making the blocks seven years ago as a block of the month at Hancock Fabric. So to make the 12 large blocks took the first 12 months. The top was completed by the end of 36 months. I worked on hand-quilting the quilt for 4 years. So this is my 7-year quilt.

The interesting thing about working on a quilt for that length of time (with several projects during that time), is that it points out visibly how much I've learned. As I look at the finished quilt, there are things that I definitely would have changed, but I'm not going back and remaking the quilt.

This photo was taken at the quilt show as it was being walked across stage so it was difficult to get a straight picture. The red and blue border does go completely around the quilt. This quilt was finished in June 2009.

The second quilt I showed is a favorite of mine. It is a large queen sized quilt, titled: "Oh! My Stars!" This is a controlled scrappy original design utilizing the friendship star blocks. It is about 96" square. I pieced it over 3 years and it was hand-quilted by my mom in 2.5 months.  Stars are also the quilting theme.  There are over 563 stars in this quilt.  This quilt was completed   March 2008.

Finally, there was a "Go Green" Challenge.  The challenge was to create a quilt 24" with the theme of "Go Green".  We were able to interpret that anyway we wanted.  This quilt was finished September 2009.  Here is my submission:

“Useitup” 

“Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or do without”

I wanted to incorporate both the color green and the re-usuable/repurposing aspect of “going green”.

Background is green fabric from my stash

Basic Quilt

• selvedge edges of my stash fabrics that included the color green
• letters cut  out of old t-shirts, toys, and fabric to write the message.

Flowers

• wool sweaters with a sewing machine bobbin that was found “as is” in the Burkholder’s Fabrics parking lot
• old blue jeans
• plastic milk jugs (clear and white), green soda bottle plastic and the green plastic top of a floral water tube
• Capri Sun pouches with a button purchase at a re-use-it shop (the only thing purchased for this project).

Cord

• sock yarn
• fuzzy yarn
• white plastic Wal-Mart shopping bag
• yellow plastic shopping bag
•  clear and green plastic bread bag.

Backing of the quilt utilized a friend’s shirt – the sleeve of the shirt has been modified to become the hanging sleeve.