Quilts on Tuesday-Learning a Little

Anyone out there getting tired of this quilt series? If you are fear not, this is the last one for a while. I've showed you a lot of my mom's work that was done for me. I've shown you work by other family members and friends. I've told you how I grew up playing under quilt frames and how my mom has been willing to make the types of quilts I love even though it involves a lot of piecing which she is not overly fond of. This week I'll finish up with a little of my own work (and still more of my mom's).

This first piece is just a four block table runner. The friend who made the batik wall hanging ran a workshop to teach the log cabin technique. I was eager to give it a try. The idea of doing an entire quilt was more than a bit daunting. Doing four blocks and putting them together under the supervision of someone experienced was doable. You might ask why I didn't learn from my mom. Well, she had taught me to hand quilt and I was halfway proficient at that. I like the piecing of traditional patterns though and that has never been her thing. Here is my finished project. I don't use it on a daily basis but I do use it when I have a big meal with guests because the quilting of the runner makes it like a nice thick hot pad.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks so you can see some of the fabrics a little better. I did the quilting on this "in the ditch." That means the hand quilting goes right into the seams joining the strips of fabric so it it only enhances the piecing design as opposed to drawing attention to the design of the stitching itself. It was a fun little project and when I explained the technique to my mother she was interested in learning it herself. It was kind of amazing to me to be able to teach my mother something about quilting since I am only a beginner and she's been doing it her entire adult life.

Finally, we have the quilt mom made to replace the tattered log cabin quilt she made me 20 years ago. Once again, she told me I could choose any pattern I wanted. Once again I asked for a heavily pieced quilt. This time I found a pattern in the Amish style which means it is done in all solid. You'll notice the table runner is made of prints like calicoes and such. This quilt has only solid colored fabrics. If you know anything about me you know I like bold color. As I looked through different books this one just grabbed my eye immediately.

Mom, in her great love heaved a sigh and agreed to make it for me. She also suggested it might be fun to work on together. She agreed to do all the large and complicated blocks that you see running up the sides. I agreed to do the pinwheel patterns that go up the middle as well as the flying geese strips on the other sides of the large single blocks. I realized this picture doesn't show the flying gees so here is a picture to let you see what that pattern would look like. Pinwheels and flying geese were reasonably uncomplicated blocks for a beginner like me and if I did them it would free Mom to figure out how to do some of the crazier ones that she'd never done herself. It also makes it special to me that we worked on this quilt together.

Once all the blocks were done she assembled the entire top and did the quilting and binding. Since her arthritis has made hand quilting too painful she machine quilted the blocks in the ditch and then added some other patterns within the black strips. I didn't want the quilting to detract from the patterns of the blocks so the patterns in the strips are just parallel lines with the occasional, random mirror of either a flying geese or pinwheel pattern. The top came out beautifully with the traditional look I really wanted. The totally non-traditional part is the backing, which was as close to tie dyed as we could find. I love this quilt for so many reasons. The love Mom showed again in being willing to make it, the time we spent working on it together, the traditional top, the crazy back are all things that make this MY quilt in ways that no commercially produced quilt could ever be. Oh, and one more thing...Mom has her own tradition. She says a quilt is not complete until a drop of blood has been spilled on it. Some people think that's a bit gruesome. We're not talking crime scene spatters here, just the natural occurrence of pricking your finger at some point during the process of handling needles and such. When the minor accident happens the quilt is christened with that little drop of blood. Yes, Mom and I both "completed" this quilt in her traditional fashion.