An Amazing Day

Today we went to the Heinz History Center for their Quilter's Weekend.

This years theme was "Quilts During Wartime".  

The marine memory/signature quilt I made for Paul-Michael was in the exhibit.

and a few of my quilts made with CW reprod. fabrics were displayed as well.

this picture is from home because every time I tried to get a picture someone was standing in the way....and then I got to talking and forgot....

Paul and I arrived and were able to catch the last half of Sue Reich's lecture on WW2  quilts.  It was so incredibly interesting and  moving; if you ever have an opportunity to hear her speak, don't miss it.  

She brought several of her quilts with her and to see them up close and personal, was almost too much for me.  To see how quilter's in that time dealt with their worry, grief etc in the same way that I did.  

The first three or four times I told the story of the making of my quilt was difficult, The first time my husband was standing by listening and he got choked up too and had to walk away.  But after a few times I was able to move through the emotions that I feel whenever I see this quilt (the memories are visceral, and come back in waves) and I was able to enjoy sharing this with others.  One couple came up to us and I asked the man if he was in the military. 

He was in the army. I smiled and said I could tell by his haircut! He has been deployed 3 times. He and his wife were very interested in my quilt story.  A little later I saw them walking away from it and could see in his face he was moved   Several members of my family came to see the quilts, not only mine but the many others as well. 

It was an amazing day.  

Life is Good.

Getting things done

Snow Bound is bound and labeled-it's my UFO for February.
 I really liked making this quilt, I've been sorry almost from the beginning on my fabric choices. I kept thinking "it's good to get out of my comfort zone" and many have told me how they "love" this quilt.

All well and good.  But it's been another reminder. I don't quilt to make others happy. 

Also, when I loaded this I dithered around deciding on an over-all or custom.  Instead of going with my gut and doing an over-all and finishing it. I started doing a loopy design in the chain blocks--to give me time to decide what to do in the appl. blocks.  I do like the chain blocks, you can't probably tell from the photo but I didn't quilt in the dark red chain so it puffs up and I like that effect.

So this quilt has taught (re-taught) me a few things.

*every quilt this year is NOT going to be a learning experience in improving my quilting (custom-type) in the way I think it will be-(my main goal for this year)

--if it calls for an over-all: answer the call!

*if the fabrics aren't making me happy- Change them.

*Comfort zone, shmumfort zone

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A little quilt just for me!

17"x18"



Design Wall Monday (week 21)

My wall has been getting a work out!  I've been playing with the block-a-days blocks. 

Here is what is on the wall now. They are all 12" blocks that I used the same fabrics for.  I think I'm going to let it stay up and think about sashing and borders while I work on other stuff. The smaller block to the right will be a label for the back.  I played with EQ6 last night and made a sample quilt with 3 borders, if I knew how I could import a picture of it, but I haven't gotten that far in the lesson book. 

Honestly, I'm on lesson 6 and that got me to the point where I can put quilts together and make labels and I stopped moving forward in the workbook.  I need to re-focus on that.

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Here are a few pictures of other blocks that were on the wall this weekend too.

Not too sure about some of these blocks.  I wish now I would have been more aware of fabric and block size during the first few months of the bl-a-days.  Some of the blocks, that didn't make it on to the wall will most likely become incorporated into backings I'm sure!

16" + 8+

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And this is the 30 Civil War Repro 12" blocks that I have so far.  I thought I had 32, which is what I need for the on point layout I am thinking of using. It will be queen size and for my bed! I forget the final size something like 86x102. Obviously I've miscounted and still need to make 2 more.  I'm planning on a 1" sashing between the blocks and these are just randomly put up not a finally layout by any means:

I'm pretty happy with it and was bummed to have to take it down for now.

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And since I didn't get to post separately this week (I got side tracked) here are my block-a-days from May 31st through June 7.

Enjoy the other design wall at Judy's.