Quilting & Cruising 2014

 

This beautiful “Androsia Star” quilt by Irene Knowles is just one of the many entries in the Stepping Stone Quilter’s annual quilt show in Nassau, The Bahamas. I was one of 8 quilters who boarded the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas ship in Port Canaveral at the end of January for a five-day cruise to The Bahamas. And this show was a highlight of our adventure. We were blessed with lovely weather and calm seas during the trip, and of course everything people say about the food on a cruise ship is true- it’s wonderful! Here’s the ship below, at anchor off the private island of Coco Cay. Tender boats run cruise passengers back and forth from the island. The sky and water are such a spectacular blue.

The Stepping Stone Quilters never fail to deliver on a creative and fun-filled show. This year, each member created a nearly life-size rendition of herself in fiber or mixed media. It wasn’t hard to match up the members with their fiber selves. Real clothing, teeth made from a shell, glitzy yarn hair… the project was a study in personal flair.

 

“Junkanoo Man” is an applique image representative of the annual Junkanoo Cultural Festival which is a musical street parade held after Christmas. Groups don colorful and intricate costumes, dance and play music while parading.

 

Guild leader Maria Chisnall filled her year in 2013 by making a 6” quilt a day, each incorporating new or special techniques. The small pieces were grouped together, and made an impressive display which was fun to study. One of our group commented to Maria about her creativity, saying, “I’d love to see inside your head!” Indeed… Maria also came up with the life-size representations of members to include in this year’s show. She loves to explore new avenues in fiber arts and quilting.

This detail shot, and the one below show a couple of my favorite quilt pieces she included in the 365- not that you could really pick a favorite. We’re already talking about another cruise, perhaps in 2015.

We also took a short history tour of Nassau, and stopped at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort where I was stopped in my tracks by this gorgeous Chihuly glass sculpture in the casino. We also visited The Queen’s Staircase, which we wisely walked down rather than up. All in all, it was a memorable week, and it bears repeating!

Call Me …

 
I’m back to working with paper and enrolled in an online class called Takin’ Care of Business taught by Gaye Medbury at Creative Workshops. Gaye’s videos covered all of the skills needed to make a soft-cover book using folded pages and an easy method for inserting and sewing the signatures in the book so that the book lays flat when open. Mine is a phone and address book.

The pages are staggered and a few pockets are placed throughout the book. It’s intended to store all of those business cards that seem to pile up in one place. I adhered the ones I’ve collected, but also printed out all of the passwords for various online sites on adhesive address labels and included them in my book. I’ve still got lots of empty pages, so I can keep accumulating. I plan to use one section to keep all of the quilt show reminders for the coming year, too.


This is page one and the inside front cover. We used plain copy paper for the pages, but in another book, I might want to use colored papers. I can dress these up with tapes and cutouts though.

I collaged the front and back cover using scrapbook paper, text paper, and stamps. The book didn’t take long to make, and I really like the heft and weight of it. Lay-flat books are so handy, too, so I know I’ll refer to this one often. Now that I’ve mastered the methods, I’ve got ideas for at least two more books I’d like to make.

Orphan Block Finds a New Home...

This one-of--a-kind wall hanging began with just one leftover applique block. Our quilt guild held an "orphan block adoption" some months ago. Everyone brought in blocks, pieces, and parts from quilt projects they'd started but knew they would not finish. We had three or four tables full! Then the members "shopped" the tables to select one or more items to adopt and turn into a quilt project of their own design. Our block party was held this week, and there were more than a dozen completed projects, along with some quilt still in progress. It was great fun to see how creative members got using other people's work. Blogger is fighting me tooth and nail, and will not allow me to add any more pictures, so this is the only quilt I can show you. The Cotton Boll block was an extra one from quiltmaker Jill Allen's Best of Show prizewinning quilt at the Quilt Fest Jacksonville, 2013. I could not let that lone block languish, and brought it home to work on. The quilt almost invented itself, and used up the final few Christmas fabrics I had- which is a good thing. One guild member described the quilt as "out of the box"-which I think is a good thing!

Fabric or Paper... Paper or Fabric?

Which one will I choose? How about both? That's a satisfying answer, and yet it is the crux of my dilemma! I love both quilting and paper crafts, but each one has its own set of 'stash', specialty tools and supplies. And both need plenty of space to store all that. So I've been sorting through the sewing room, trying (yet again) to manage all the stuff. Note to self: you don't need to buy any more fabric or paper for a long, long time. I put all the notecards and postcards that are "quilty paper" together. These small pieces of art are like a magnet to me. These notecards are from BBD Creations in Vero Beach and I found them at a quilt show some years back.

It's not enough that I purchase fabrics when I visit quilt shows and shops, but the paper arts hold great appeal, too. I purchased the two cards at left, above, when visiting The Stepping Stone Quilters show in Nassau, Bahamas in 2012. They are the work of quilt artist Vee Jenkins. We're going to visit the quilt show again when on a cruise at the end of this month. So more of Vee's beautiful notecards may join the collection. The paper collage card on the right is from The Quilt Shop of Sedona in Arizona, but I don't have the artist's name. Imagine that design in fabric- nice! 

A quilting friend gave  me these notecards from the Heartstring Quilters near Philadelphia. They made a "Forever Yours" quilt commemorating loved ones who passed away after having cancer. They created portrait blocks and assembled the quilt, which was donated to the Breast Imaging Center in their area. But they also had a set of notecards made featuring the entire quilt, and then sections of it. A lovely project.

But look- there's more! The postcards in opposite corners, top left and lower right,  are part of the Amish Seasons collection. I bought them by the handful when in the Lancaster, PA, area. Such inviting images. And at the lower left is a card from one of Susie Riehl's watercolor Amish Quilts paintings. The upper right is a card that features "Star of Bethlehem", ca. 1850, from the Chester County Historical Society in Pennsylvania. So it appears hopeless- I'm an inveterate collector of both paper and fabric. I guess my motto is "anything quilty". Quilty as charged!

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree...

These imaginative stuffed monsters and animals are just a sampling of the items made by the women in a local prison crafting program. I brought them out of the prison in time to get them to local charitable agencies for Christmas distribution.

The program is part of a faith and character initiative, and the women who participate have to meet certain positive behavior standards. They love coming to the workroom to sew and craft, so they protect the integrity of the program very carefully. Here are a few of the dolls they've made.

The quilts they make are simple, tied, lap-size ones. These go to veteran's and children's agencies. The women rely on donated materials, and they make very creative use of all of it, with plenty of flair. Quilters and other supporters have been very generous with donations of batting, fabrics, fiber fill, yarn and more.



The ladies crochet a variety of hats for chemotherapy patients and homeless shelters. And the tote beneath the hats is an example of another project. They make dozens of these roomy bags for domestic crisis programs. Everything the women make is donated to the community. They love the opportunity to give back and to develop hand-crafting and sewing skills. I've enjoyed my association as a volunteer with the program, and see many benefits and blessings, both to the women and those they serve... and to their volunteers! Thought I'd take this opportunity to share the good work they do.

Funky Quilt Top and a Gator Stroll...

This is only a quilt top presently. The randomly pieced, sort-of Log Cabin blocks are ones our donation quilt chairperson offered a couple of months ago. Taking a set of blocks is a commitment to incorporate them into a donation quilt. I knew I wanted to work with these colorful blocks, but what to do with them?

I began by joining them into a very large 9-Patch, using polka dot sashing. And then I made another.

Then I re-cut the 9-Patches into quarters, Patience Corner style. It was just a matter of rearranging the quarters to make the quilt top. With a few blocks still leftover, I decided to increase the quilt size by piecing cut up sections of the blocks and adding them along each side of the quilt top. It turned out so lively and disorderly, that I find it quite appealing! Our guild donates many quilts to local agencies each year, and most of them are made from donated blocks and fabrics, plus they're worked on collaboratively. It's a nice opportunity to experiment a little and try some new design adventures.

And I'll add a little touch of nature here. Can you see the alligators in the photo? Our daughter visited last week and we took her for a stroll out onto Paines Prairie to see them. They are so pre-historic looking and HUGE! You can actually get uncomfortably close to the gators here, and there are signs warning hikers to remember you are not in a theme park or behind protective glass. The word is that these creatures can move very, very fast. Happily we were there mid-day when the gators are resting and sunning themselves to store up body heat. Feeding time is early AM and later toward evening. But I don't want to push it in case any of them missed a meal, so I kept a respectful distance!

Christmas Quilt is a Stash-buster!

Here's a Christmas quilt that became home for all the Christmas fabric scraps leftover from other projects. The pattern is from City Quilts by Cherri House. In her pattern, the pinwheels were made using a folded dimensional method. But I stuck with standard flat Flying Geese units. This quilt was just the right size to complete with hand quilting worked in the Big Stitch style with Perle cotton thread. I really do love to hand quilt, and would do more but I'm in a hurry to get on with the next quilt. While it's a simple one, it was fun to quilt.

Even the backing used up the last of the holiday fabrics. I'm happy to say I have no Christmas fabrics left after making this stash-buster! I do, however, have a large Princess Feather block made in an applique class that will someday require more red and green to go with it. And there is one other quilt-in-progress with a Christmas feel. But all of its fabrics are set aside with the project, and there won't be much left at all. Now that's a good feeling, to have used up all of something. It doesn't happen very often. I'm happy with this toasty small quilt- just right for a winter's nap!