Tag: QuiltCon

Dear Orcas

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I made this quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild’s fabric challenge for QuiltCon 2024. The fabric is Windham Artisan Cotton. I used Turquoise-Copper, White-Aqua, Apple Green-Chartreuse, and Grape-Dark Pink.

Dear Orcas, 50.5″ x 50.5″

I used artisan cotton previously, and I liked the feel of it. It does fray and it’s hard to fix mistakes because it thins almost to the point where you lose your seam allowance. Making curves felt easier though. This type of quarter circle requires precision and I didn’t fix some of them because of the fraying (or at least that’s what I’m telling myself).

I used Latifah Saafir’s Clammy 10” template. It took some guidance from her and quilty friends to understand how to cut the pieces correctly.

I used variegated thread (4655 color), 12 weight, from Aurifil because I wanted it to have the feeling of water. I also quilted one large quarter circle. Do you see it?

At one point of making the quarter circles, I saw a ship, followed by a whalelike creature.  I called it Dear Orcas because they were in the news for attacking boats.  We do not know why they are doing this, so I wrote them this letter.

The Boulevard

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The Boulevard is the main thoroughfare through my small city in Virginia.  It’s a four-lane route with restaurants and businesses flanking each side along with strip malls. I live a block off The Boulevard.  At night I see the lights of the businesses and the red lights from my living room.  In the early morning, it is quiet and I hear the trains flying by parallel to The Boulevard.   In this piece, I explored different ways of making a log cabin block to give the feel of The Boulevard.  My starting point was elongated log cabins, then playing with the width of the strips.  I added a traditional log cabin block to represent my home on The Boulevard.

It measures 38” x 38”.

I entered this quilt in the Modern Quilt Guild’s Log Cabin Challenge, sponsored by American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. It will be on display this week at QuiltCon in Atlanta, Georgia. I won’t be there, but I’m excited it will hang alongside so many amazing modern log cabin quilts.

I used 28 weight thread, mostly stitching in the ditch. I hoped it would give a feeling of driving lanes.

Light Coming Home

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I started this quilt the week of the Eastern Kentucky floods. I grew up across the border in Southwest Virginia. The images of the debris entangled against the bridges and houses. The lives lost. I processed this through making this quilt. Lots of curves and sharp lines.

When I began, I thought I would use more of the rust fabric, but it felt important to use the vanilla fabric as a dominant background with the black fabric and thread outlining each piece. Mildred Haun’s short story, Darkness Coming Deep, inspired the name of this quilt. It is the story of the death of a child. I wanted to express the opposite of that pain, Light Coming Home. This quilt represents lightness coming to me through the making of this piece.

This quilt will be exhibited at QuiltCon Atlanta 2023 as part of the Windham Fabric Ruby & Bee Challenge.  These are the colors:

  • Russet 51583-40
  • Mandarin 51583-31
  • Vanilla Custard 51583-53
  • Pool 51583-45
  • Cornflower 51583-46
  • Stormy 51583-44

It measures 52.25″ x 52.25″.

I took some risks with the quilting. I used 30 weight Aurifil in black to define all of the seams and to add the illusion of piecing growing from each section. In some places I stitched in the ditch more than once. In other places, I used Sulky 28 weight in white. along with blues and rusts I had from my mother’s stash; some are probably 50 years old, but they worked great.