Yellow & Black Baby Quilt

A Baby Quilt to Donate

My scraps are like rabbits. They have had offspring, and are on at least a third litter by the looks of it. I decided to squeeze one baby quilt for charity out of the lot of them before sorting. 

As the Trip Around the World Turns

Scrappy Trip Around the World 

This class surprised me by all bringing in their quilt tops from the month before. I have a few proud quilters to show you. All tops were close, a few were together, and this one was even quilted! Big, bright, and beautiful!

Hurricane Stars on the Long Arm

New Name to Be Announced Soon!

While summer officially blows in today with cooler air, I am still trying to beat the heat while working in my second story studio. The pale, blue setting triangles above are getting some free-handed, ferny feathers.

Blogging Zen. Not.

 Quilt Art: A Zen Hangout

It was time to hang something significant at the top of the long stairway to my studio. I think this star is so enticing. Does it say, "Good things lie beyond this step?

Is Blogging Zen?

Those who fantasize about writing a blog may be erroneously led to believe the blogging process is a zen moment in the blogger's day. Said blogger sits in the early dawn with coffee, sleeping babies or dogs, and pours out accumulated wisdom to readers that await every post. (Insert sinister laughter.) Perhaps it is not so, say I. 

Vintage Drunkard's Path Finish

Combining the Old with New

Summer has been quick ins and outs at the studio with many little changes that mean more space for opportunities to come. Hours have been spent sifting, reorganizing, and happily rediscovering lost items. I am still sticking to working through the Pile of Unloved Projects, and it's getting sooooo small that I nearly lost it the other day. Okay, not really, but it's no longer as big as a piece of furniture, and easy to misplace. That's pretty amazing to me! There is officially light at the end of the tunnel.

So how about this quilt story now?

Half Hexie Flimsy & Backing

Whirligig Half Hexies

Such an interesting perspective of hexies taken at an angle. You can see it's a flimsy already. This is a quick quilt.

Whirligig Half Hexie Quilt

Half Hexie Whirligig

In the last post, Stolen Moments for Stitch & Play, I was playing with my scraps. Play is good. I traded the scraps for more moderate fabrics, and in a short afternoon put together the lower half of this sweet quilt. It's slightly under 45" from edge to edge here, and with a border/background will flesh out to a nice baby or toddler quilt a little larger.

Stolen Moments for Stitch & Play

Vintage Log Cabin...Again

I am still plugging away at this quilt. I have to be in a special frame of mind to work for long periods, but I've determined to finish it this summer. A little bit each day brings good progress, and maybe I'll have it done before I've had it a whole year.

When my husband needed to do some work far out in the country, I grabbed my project gear, and off we went. Cell phone service is good in town, but once you get into the hills around here it's hit or miss--mostly miss. I was the safety in case there was an accident. Poor me! I had to just sit there and quilt.

Kaleidoscope: Quilts at the Kentucky Museum

The Kentucky Sun Quilt

My husband and I made a whirlwind trip to the Kentucky Museum last weekend on the Western Kentucky University campus in Bowling Green, KY.  The Kaleidoscope exhibition opened earlier this year featuring 30 Kentucky quilts, and the first public viewing of the spectacular Kentucky Sun quilt. I had seen pictures of it before, but nothing could take the place of standing there in front of it. I was overwhelmed. This quilt was made nearly 140 years ago, and it was old yet so amazingly modern, and I couldn't stop staring. To put in in a chronological perspective, it was made 15 years after the Civil War ended in the time of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and the O.K. Corral. It's funny how it puts me in the mind of the western frontier, and I wonder if that had any influence.

The Kentucky Sun Quilt has a fascinating story behind it, and was on the cover of the Kentucky Quilt Project's publication. Read more about it through the link. The Kentucky Quilt Project was the first of all the quilt documentation projects in the U.S., and organized in 1981. 

Mermaid Baby One Patch Finish

Mermaid's Song

Song

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil’s foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

~John Donne, 1613

Check out the rest of the poem, and a brief analysis at Interesting Literature. If you've heard bits of this without knowing the rest, it will make much more sense.