I had a nice surprise in the mail last night: a box from the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society with my quilt inside! Paisley Pavane has been on tour or at the Museum since late 2005, so it’s good to have it home again.

(Click on the photo for a larger pic and detail shots.)

I made this quilt for the MAQS New Quilts from an Old Favorites Contest at MAQS; the block theme for the 2006 contest was Dresden Plate. The purpose of the contest is to showcase innovative interpretations of traditional blocks. I’d had two other quilts accepted to the contest in prior years and I really wanted to enter, but couldn’t come up with a design I was happy with until really late in the game.

I’d really sort of given up on entering, and then I was digging through my stacks of in progress work looking for something else entirely, and I came across the pieces for the medallions that were made using a 9° wedge ruler. The idea took shape and I managed to complete the quilt in time for the contest, and the quilt was awarded a Third Place ribbon. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Consider the inspirational value of a piece with lovingly hand carved details. While I was at the new antiques shop, I spied this beautiful piece, and had to go back with my camera to capture the feathery flourishes and interesting designs.

I looked at this piece in the shop, and all I saw were the designs. In my mind I could see these designs on The Misery Quilt, translated into quilting. I’ve been getting closer and closer to the machine quilting on that project while I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to do with quilting, and now I know.

The more I look at these pictures now as I’m loading them up, the more I love this piece of furniture. It’s not likely that it will make it’s way home though, for a number of reasons. For one, it’s bigger than a bread box, so there’s no room in the house for it. Two, ITMan doesn’t like it (he said so when we looked at it together) because it has too much carving.

“Too much” was my initial reaction as well, even though I love the designs and they are inspiring my own quilt art. But the more I look at the pictures and think about it, the more I can appreciate it. This thing would completely dominate a room, and you’d just have to plan for that and let it have it’s way. To be honest, I’ve realized that I don’t even know what it was, really. Was it a sideboard, a dresser, or what? I obviously had eyes only for the details!

I can’t wait to start drawing quilting designs!

Share This

For the last two (or maybe more) weeks, I’ve been trying to design the outer borders for the bird quilt (a.k.a. “The Misery Quilt“). I really thought it needed some curves in the outer border(s), and maybe some more embroidery of some sort as well. I did test stitch-outs of a couple of embroidery options, and just didn’t have that “this is it” feeling about any of it. I played around with a diagram of the quilt, drawing curved appliquéd borders, viewing with mirrors, and just wasn’t terribly happy with any of it. I tried designing an appliquéd border without planning any embroidery to go with it, and still wasn’t happy with it.

Soft-Edge Piecing,
by Jinny Beyer

After a few really grouchy days (I get like that when I’m creatively stumped), I finally threw in the pencil, and headed to the bookshelf for inspiration. As I’d already been through all my books on borders and design, as well as all the books like the MAQS Founder’s Collection with all its prizewinning beauties, I pulled out Jinny Beyer’s Soft Edge Piecing for starters. I’m working with a border print and the soft edge piecing technique was in the original plan for the quilt way back when, maybe ten plans ago now. I really didn’t expect to have a flash of inspiration at that point, but desperation had set in.

Maybe the quilting goddess is smiling on this quilt (finally!), because I did see something in the Soft Edge Piecing book that had me grabbing for my fabrics to try it out. Here’s the result (click for a larger view):

I really, really like it! I had that “this is it” feeling immediately. The border print looks prefect between the light and dark borders, and I already know exactly how I’ll quilt parts of it, too. (Oh, and you see that tiny little satin stitching? I used the same technique on another part of the borders for this quilt and I used my Pfaff machine. I tried it on the Bernina this time, Read the rest of this entry »

Share This