Nothing But Blue Skies for Sarah

This quilt was conceived and started for my niece Sarah when she started college at UK. The colors, blue and white, were picked because they are UK's colors. However, it was put on hold for a while as was Sarah's college education, when Sarah became pregnant with our beautiful great niece, Grace, and subsequently married Jeremiah. So, instead of a college graduation present, it became a Christmas present in 2007, when I drew Sarah's name.

The quilt was made with 9-patches, each containing nine different fabrics. Several of the fabrics appear in each block, but there is also a number of fabrics which are used much less frequently. I hand quilted it with perle cotton.

Christmas Tree Skirt

I had a bunch of Christmas fabrics and in the fall of 2007, I made Michelle join me in making tree skirts to use some of them. I had bought the pattern previously, and though neither of us was very enthusiastic about the project, we had fun making them and both really like the finished project.

I gave mine, which is seen above with my dog Jesse posing by it, to Vibeke, because I never have a tree of my own. At least not one big enough for this treeskirt.

Charlotta's Cross of Many Colors

The Open Door Community is a Protestant Catholic Worker House in Atlanta. I have known the folks there since they opened the place 25+ years ago and for eight years I was privileged to be involved in their work as a volunteer. I made this quilt - which from time to time hangs in the room used for dining, meetings, soup-kitchen and worship. I started making the individual crosses to experiment with stack and whack and my best friend and quilting buddy Michelle gave me the idea for the design and layout of the final quilt. I gave it to the Open Door in December 2007.

Crazy or Liberated Nine Patches

The term "liberated quilting or piecing" is used - by me at least! - to describe methods of making quilts which doesn't use traditional blocks and settings but are more free-form, less rigorous and linear. I have several books with inspirations and/or directions for that type of quilting, and I have long admired my friend Helen Thompson's quilts, which are spontaneous and beautiful.

While it really is a contradiction in terms to use patterns to make "liberated quilts," I used one from a book, The Casual Quilter, by Robin Strobel, to make this quilt of crazy or tipsy 9-patches. I used bright fabrics bought some years back following inspiration from Taffy who made lots of amazing very bright quilts.

I gave the quilt, which was machine quilted by Regina Carter, to Hannah when she graduated from nursing school. In this picture Hannah and her mother, Murphy, hold the quilt.

Halloween for Julia

After making Sara's quilt, naturally I had lots of Halloween fabrics left. And who better to make a Halloween quilt for than Julia Hicks, my long time friend and colleague at the Southern Center. Julia keeps the Southern Center running with her quiet and gentle firmness, her devotion to the Center and our work, and her incredible and conscientious attention to detail.

And, Julia's birthday is on Halloween.

Charity Quilts

I made these two little easy quilts and hand quilted them for charity. The one on the left went to a project started by my doctor's partner, Dr. Jim Braude. The project collects furniture, bedding, kitchen supplies, and other basic things for battered women who are trying to transition back into society from Battered Women's shelters with their children. Check out information abot the project at: www.yourhomeinatlanta.org

The one on the right went to Project Linus - a national organization with many local chapters which collects and distributes quilts and other blankets to children who have been victims of various forms of trauma.

Pink top for Sarah

I made this pink top - hand pieced all but the borders of it - for my friend and colleague, Sarah Geraghty. When Sarah came to the Southern Center as a student, she learned that I was a quilter and we talked about it and her interest in it as well. A while later, she was kind enough to pick up and send me some Liberty fabrics while she worked in London for a spell.

Later, Sarah came to work at the Center as an attorney, and we tried to do some quilting together. Sarah LOVES pink, so for her 30th birthday I pulled almost all of my pink fabrics, and gave them to her hoping it would encourage her to make a pink quilt for herself. She started cutting a few pieces but never really found the time to become serious about it. She works so hard and diligently - doing wonderfully creative and effective work for poor people in prisons and jails in Georgia and Alabama - and takes very little time for herself or anything else besides work.

So, a couple of years later, seeing that she was getting nowhere, I asked if I could have the pinks back and make a top for her. She agreed and I made this. It was constructed with 9-patches - as are all of the monochromatic quilts I have made so far. Each block has nine 3" squares of different fabrics. I am not sure how many different fabrics are in the quilt in all, but I would guess it is well over 30. Parts of the Liberty fabrics Sarah originally gave me are in it.

After I finished the top and gave it to her - it is shown here at the Southern Center held by Mica and Anne - Sarah had it machine quilted by Regina Carter. Last I knew, she still had not put a binding on it but was using it on her bed.

Bright Baby Quilt

There are so many baby Lucases in my life right now that it is almost hard to keep track. This very bright quilt - which I hand quilted - was made for Lucas Velez Ruffin, the son of Melanie Velez, my colleague at the Southern Center, and her partner Jonathan Ruffin.

Here is a wonderful picture of Lucas on the quilt when he was still a tiny one. As I have mentioned before, there is no better thanks for a baby quilt than a picture of the baby on the quilt.

Vibeke's Throw

As I was continually making quilts for her children, I thought it about time to make one for Vibeke as well. She and her husband are agronomers so the fruit and veggie fabrics left over from a previous quilt seemed like a good fit. I also used batiks and stacked and wacked them. I hand pieced most of the blocks, not a good idea with batiks, so it was slow going. It was machine quilted by Regina Carter. I put a few of the blocks on the back because I wanted to experiment with a couple of other things and had to add some batik zebras which are not really visible in this picture.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I had already given it to her that the quilt was actually not big enough to serve the purpose I had imagined. So I will have to make her another one before too long.

Milan's Quilt

I made this quilt, using Save the Children fabric, for the grand daughter of a very dear friend. Julia Hicks has been the heart of the Southern Center for over 15 years. She keeps everybody in line and she keeps us going. When he was younger, Julia's son Kima, worked for us in the summers and on other occasions as needed. After he went away to college he would still stop by on his visits home to see how we were doing.

So when his girlfriend became pregnant, it was as if we were all expecting a new family member - and of course, I had to make a quilt for the new baby in our Southern Center family. I particularly liked this fabric because it shows children of all races and colors, something which is far from true with most novelty fabrics.