Quilt – Page 2 – Wanda's Life Sampler

In January 2021 we were hopeful about COVID-19 vaccines and excitedly awaiting for our appointments. At that time I joined a mystery quilt along called Parallel Universe, created and led by GEL Design. GEL is Gyleen Fitzgerald, Ebony Love and Latifah Saafir.

Several members of the Central Virginia Modern Quilt Guild joined and we agreed to meet via Zoom each Sunday to make the blocks. We didn’t know until the end of the series what the quilt would look like. It was built in sections with great names: Section Six was Outer Space; section five— Milky Way; section four— Star Cluster; section three— Magnetism; section two— dark matter; section one was Big Bang.

The quilt called for 10 different colors. I chose a spring color palette.

I enjoyed creating with Maria, Phyllis, Ann, Kathy, Cheryl, and Candy (sometimes). We learned new techniques and complained a lot. It was a parallel universe because today it feels like it didn’t happen or happened in some other time and place.

I finished the quilt this year and gave it to my brother and his wife.

It is hand quilted and measures 60” x 72”.

I wish Phyllis was here to celebrate with me.

In her memory,

love Wanda

The fifth chapter in Carolyn Friedlander’s book, Savor Each Stitch, is EMPHASIS. She says, “Emphasis is all about making a thoughtful decision about how to bring your design to life. Through fabric placement, quilting intention, and all of the other tools explored in this book, you can create emphasis by highlighting different parts of a design.”

I’m a part of a Savor Each Stitch Book Bee, and we’ve studied line, contrast, scale and color.

Emphasis seemed like an easy concept. For example, Susan posted this wonderful diagram worksheet from a site by Claudia Jacques and emphasis stands out as merely focusing one’s attention on a particular item. That “red” person stands out, right? From this worksheet, line and color are the tools, and contrast, emphasis and scale are ways to take those tools and make art.

The project from Carolyn’s book involved a block with 10 pieces, and by changing the color or emphasis of each piece she changed which part of the block stood out:

I wanted something less paper-piecing intensive. I had observed a quilting friend’s traditional block sampler and mused about how the Drunkard’s Path stood out and I liked it a lot. Two pieces — I could do that.

With my new acrylic template in hand, I started making quarter circles and experimented with changing the emphasis in this traditional block to make something unique.

I love it. It’s very me.

The size is 57″ by 71″. Each block was 4″ unfinished and each Drunkard’s Path was 14.5″ unfinished. You will notice I turned some of the quarter circles to make a few half circles and one three-quarter circle. I also used a grey geometric print as the background and in some places I didn’t make any quarter circles. There are four rows by five rows of Drunkard’s Paths.