Baby Elijah

I made this quick little 36"x 47" quilt for the son of a former co-worker. Amanda's and Will's son, Elijah David Johnson, was born in late February and he is a winner!

Quilting With Rosie

There is an old fireplace in my sewing room. I am not sure what the status of it is; the previous owner used it a lot, but we haven't tried. It is a very shallow fireplace, originally built for burning coal, so it would be hard to use without making quite a mess, and given that it is in the sewing room, I am not much interested in using it. When we moved in, there was an ugly piece of black fabric in front of it.
I first saw Rosie the Quilter when Michelle and I were at Paducah in 2007. Some folks were selling T-shirts with her image and of course I had to have one. Unfortunately, the heavy plastic on the T-shirt made it too hot for me so I gave it to Michelle - who at least for now, isn't quite as hot blooded as I am! I later found this wonderful Rosie fabric which seemed to be just right for the sewing room. Doesn't the quilt look perfect behind Jesse, who clearly also likes my sewing room? The quilt is about 36" square. I machine pieced it at a January 2009, quilt retreat at Kanuga and hand quilted it.It is ironic that this quilt - which I made specifically to cover the fireplace - actually caught on fire while I was working on it! We had an awful ice storm here in late January and were without power for almost a week. When I finally moved back in, the house was, naturally very cold. So while it was heating up, I lit some candles. One of them was way too close to where I was hand quilting Rosie - something I didn't realize until it was too late. When I suddenly felt too hot and realized the quilt was on fire - there were literally flames in it! - I threw it to the floor and stamped on it. Fortunately, the damage was limited:
But I did have to chop off about 2 inches along one side. In order that it wouldn't look too lopsided, I also chopped some off the other side.

Charity Quilts III

I made these two tops for the Backpack Program in Lincoln County. Fortunately, one of the contributors to this program, loves to quilt or tack quilts. So I can get away with providing only the tops!

Peace by Piece I

Over the years, as people learned that I was a quilter, I would occasionally have friends ask me to teach them to quilt. I took a couple of beginner classes with friends who wanted to learn - one with Maggie and one with Tammy. Then, a couple of years before I left Atlanta, as several friends had expressed interest in learning how to quilt, I decided to start a new group or guild with the express purpose of teaching them to quilt. I invited six young women to join me and made it clear that the membership had to be closed and limited to just us. I wanted not to be overwhelmed by the number of folks I had to teach.

Thus, Ela, Sara, Mica, Kirsten, Shelby, Marie and I became the Peace by Piece Quilters. We met once a month, usually at my house but often in other places as well.

Kirsten and Marie had already done some quilting and sewing and had started projects of their own when the group was formed. But the other four had no experience with quilting.

I suggested to the beginners that they each make a quilt - preferably a throw size one - using a very simple pattern, like a nine-patch. They looked through a lot of my books and also perused photographs of the quilts I have made. Sara and Mica decided to go with the nine-patch design. Ela opted for a four patch and Shelby for a rail fence.

I went fabric shopping with Mica, Sara, Ela and Shelby - one at a time - at Intown Quilters. Each chose a set of fabrics and then I helped each one cut her fabrics and showed them all how to get started. It was a lot of fun for me to go with them, observe their very different tastes and their very different approaches to picking out fabric. We had a lot of help from the Intown staff. I feel pretty sure that each of them ended up quite satisfied with her choices and I think each quilt is going to be quite beautiful.
Marie looking through fabric at Sara's.
Ela in the process of cutting her fabric at Marie's.
Mica and Kirsten sewing and chatting at Sara's.
Kirsten, Sara and Ela.

Gees Marimekko

I am so glad to have this quilt finished. It was the bane of my existence for a while because it was too hot and cumbersome to spend very much time under it while I quilted it. I call it Gees Marimekko because it was inspired by the Gees Bend quilts. I wanted to try to make one which looked kind of like theirs, and then I remembered the Marimekko fabrics I had. Crate and Barrell use Marimekko fabrics for decoration of their stores and they also sell yardage as does Ikea - but it is rather pricy. For a while the Crate and Barrell outlet in North Georgia sold remnants of Marimekko fabric for $0.39 per pound! So whenever I was in the area, I bought a bunch of the stuff.
I hadn't been able to use any of it really, since it is much heavier than quilting fabrics and doesn't go well in combination with them. And I didn't have a lot of any one of the fabrics. But they were perfect for this project. I just pieced a bunch of the remnants (most of which turned out to be approximately the same size) in no particular pattern or order for the front and the back. In fact, I don't think this quilt has a back or a front. Both sides are about the same, just different combination of fabrics. I hand quilted it with perle cotton using lots of different colors. I thought the big hand quilted stitches would be most in keeping with the Gees Bend look.

Since I didn't have any Marimekko zebra fabric, I appliqued on this zebra I had from somewhere. The front on one side and the back on the other. The finished quilt measures 85" x 101" and is plenty big enough to go on top of the other quilt on our bed to help us stay warm during the winter.