Saturday, July 31, 2010

Friday, July 23, 2010

In the garden

Swallowtail on echinacea purpurea (coneflower) in our front flower bed.

Winterthur quilts in Milwaukee

The day began cloudy and rainy, and the forecast was for hot and muggy, so DH and I  went to the Milwaukee Art Museum today to see "American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection."

The quilts were beautiful, of course, and varied. There were elegant wholecloth pieces with stitching smaller than what a sewing machine produces. Other wholecloth pieces with elaborate toiles, but just fabric pieced together (technically very utilitarian).
My favorite was this paper-pieced medallion quilt.  It was made in Pennsylvania between 1825 and 1846.

The gift shop had several beautiful OBWs (one-block wonder) by a Milwaukee-area quiltmaker (about $1200 each). There were also throw-sized mass-market quilts from India: cheap fabric, toe-catcher stitches. The OBWs were a compliment/complement to the exhibit. The Indian ones were good as a contrast to what good quilts can be! I bought a magnet of the medallion quilt, and some postcards, and a scrap quilt book (the gift shop had current quilt books for sale, all at $10.00). I'll order the exhibit catalog through the library.

We had lunch at a microbrewery in the Third Ward (http://www.historicthirdward.org/).
On the way home DH observed that it takes less time to get to downtown Milwaukee than to downtown Chicago. (Same distance from our house, though.)  We ought to go more often!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

A little bit liberated

I'm not quite as free-form as others on the Liberated Quilters list are, but every so often my projects go in that direction.   The scrappy patches were leaders-and-enders over several months.  I emptied the shoebox of 2" squares!  I wasn't going to add a border, but with so many seams at the edges of the blocks I needed something to stabilize the perimeter. The yellow fabric (with red apples) adds a nice contrast, I think.  Blocks are 9" and the top is 66 x 66.

(Sorry about the crooked picture!)

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Finally, a flimsy

I feel as though June was an unproductive month in terms of quilting. It was quite busy otherwise: getting going on my new AAUW assignment (state program v.p., which entails planning the fall conference and the spring convention); the library budget and fiscal year-end; and the ALA Annual Conference for which I had three presentations to prepare. 

Now that it's July I can report that I am behind on AAUW work. The budget was approved and the new fiscal year begun.  ALA, which was in Washington, DC, went very well: the three presentations were well-received; I saw many long-time friends; and I had time to be a tourist.

Here's my latest flimsy, finished this weekend.  It's one of two commissioned quilts that a colleague will give to her niece and nephew for Christmas. Obviously this is the niece's.  The request was for pink and green. I included some purple and yellow for variety. 




Here is the nephew's quilt. The request was for "red, blue, and sports." Each star has a different sports-themed fabric in the center.
Both quilts measure approximately 60 x 60.