This Is Not Your Year

That's the title of a song by the Weepies, one of my absolute favorite bands, and it kind of sums up my feelings today as one of my dearest friends died early this morning after a short but mean battle with cancer. I was going to post images of the quilt shown in sandwich form below--now finished--since I really like the quilting I did in the border (linked leafy vines), but the pictures all came out blurry. I have no idea why. This weekend, I had to finish one feature for a chapter in my book and write a grant on a topic I know very little about and worry about my friend. So, I, of course, finished a quilt and completely organized and cleaned my quilt room. Then, plowed through my writing. And, then, tonight, worked through my grief by beginning a new quilt for the holidays--a modification of the cover quilt from the Dec BHGAPQ. It's amazing how soothing the clean light from a tracing box can be, and how comforting it is to simply trace shapes over and over.

Post-Turkey Day

One of the quilts I put in the gallery show came from my office, which has left a blank space on my wall at a time in my life when I don't need any more open spaces. So, I found this stack of blocks in my quilt room and decided to pull them together into a basic 3x3 wall quilt. I don't know when I made these or why; my seams in a few were atrocious, which I deftly covered with some sashing. I actually had ten of the blocks but left one out to make this work. I'm going to try to get it quilted this evening so that I can hang it Sunday when I run in to clean off my desk so that I can start back after the holiday with a sense of purpose. I'm thinking of calling the quilt "The End of the Smithsonian" since it has some fabrics in it from the very first Smithsonian repro line. I like the off-block in the middle; it adds something to the mix.

Quilt Show

I was invited to show three quilts in a gallery show at work. What's nice is that my quilts were considered strong enough to hang next to those by our local quilt artist of some renown. I had to write an "artist's statement," which was surprisingly difficult. I didn't realize it would be mounted next to one of the quilts, so it's been interesting to get comments on both the quilts and the statement. Only two of us are not selling our quilts. I've never sold a quilt. I'm always befuddled about pricing them; it was difficult enough to value these three for the exhibit insurance. I once traded two for advertising for one of my husband's bands; they were fun baby quilts for the publisher's nephews. I prefer to just give them away to people who would appreciate them.

Here are the three I selected.

This quilt is new to the blog. I made it years ago as a mystery quilt. I was stumped when it came to a border and went with the checkerboard to pick up the purple and gold of the tulips. I used lots of different shirtings for background. It's quilted in a repeating diamond echo every two inches out into the checkerboard to reinforce the lines of the leaves, with a swirling pattern in the border that reflects the fabric. It's 48 inches square.



This is a small quilt that usually hangs in my office. I needed a small one for the show and it's 24 inches square. I've written about it previously. As you can tell, I like checkboards!



I've blogged about this one before. It's a nice wall hanging size, about 42 by 48. It's so bright. I don't know if I mentioned before that I changed thread colors for each piece to match the base color, which made for much joy when doing the border (quilted with one spiral circle per square).

Back(ing)

It's been a while since I posted. Life has been intervening in all sorts of ways. I wanted to post a picture of the quilt I made for my friend who has been ill. She went into the hospital a little over a week ago and took it with her for comfort. When I visit her now, it's either wrapped around her or draped on her chair. I wanted it to warm her through a winter she will now not see, but it is likely serving a more important purpose where it is. Nurses and other visitors compliment me on it, and I'm never certain how to respond. There are lots of things I could say, but I usually just say "thank you."