Quilters' Meet and Greet: my quilting journey

Benita at  Victoriana Quilt Designs invited me to participate in Quilters' Meet and Greet which begins today, September 4.   This may be your first visit to my blog or you may have read previous posts. They are usually posted on Mondays and included in a number of link ups.  My blog is a chronicle of my quilts as well as other events I'd like to record -- traveling, book reviews, and some social commentary.

Click HERE  to link to the Meet & Greet page.
(At the end of this post find the link to the contest page.)

As my business card says, I am a librarian, quiltmaker, and volunteer. I retired in 2014 after 39 years as the administrator of public libraries in Texas, Kansas, Maine, North Dakota, and Illinois.   I retired from the job, not from the profession. I continue my participation in the American  Library Association and attend the Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference every year. (Since 1984 I've gone to all but two Annuals and all but two Midwinters.) 

My volunteer work keeps me connected locally, at the state level, and beyond:  AAUW, Rotary, P.E.O., GFWC-Zion Woman's Club, Coalition for Healthy Communities, church, and quilt guild. If I take notes I pay attention during meetings, so I volunteer to be secretary (six organizations right now).  I read Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone when it was a scholarly article (before the book became a best seller). I believe that each of us should do our part to invest in and build social capital.
Links to the organizations are on the blog side bar if you want to learn more about any of them.



My quilting journey began when I was a child. My mother enjoyed sewing and needlework. (She didn't knit or crochet, though, and neither do I.)
She used a kit to make an appliqued pansy quilt for my 11th birthday. I  have the quilt but right now I can't find a photo.

I made my first quilt in 1973-74 when I was in graduate school.. It's a Bucilla cross-stitch kit, double-bed sized. I did the cross stitch first semester and the hand quilting the second semester.   I used it as a bedspread until I got married (and moved to a king-sized bed).  Both the quilt and the degree have served me well.

This 1997 photo shows my parents with my second quilt. My mother and her brother learned to hand sew by making these sixteen-patch blocks.  Mother said that because Bob was a year older his stitches were better than hers. Someone used a blue sheet for the alternate blocks. I took the top back to school (summer, 1974) and hand quilted it. I also embellished it with feather stitching in pastel DMC floss -- totally out of character for those genuine 30's prints, but I didn't know any better. (Mother displayed the quilt in their guest room. After her death I sent the quilt to Bob.  One of my cousins has it.  I don't need it back.)

Through the 1970's and 80's I appreciated quilts but I didn't make them. In the small Texas city (my first library) a blue-ribbon-winning local quilt maker set up a class.  I chose a pattern from Family Circle magazine -- mariner's compass in red and green.  I did not get farther than purchasing the fabric and cutting cardboard templates.   I abandoned the class.  During those years I made most of my clothing.  That was the heyday of needlepoint and I did a lot of it, mostly pillows.   As cross stitch came into vogue I dabbled in that.

(Photo: my  blue ribbon winners  from the Washington County (TX) fair, 1977.  The top two are from "Needlepoint from America's Great Quilt Designs." The bottom right is by Maggie Lane. I think the bottom left is Elsa Williams.  They are copied from patterns in books, no made from kits.)

 About 1991 I checked out a quilt book from the library and learned that machine piecing was not only possible, but it was also acceptable. The rotary cutter had been invented. Template-free quiltmaking!  I was hooked.

This pink and green Card Trick is likely the first quilt I made with rotary cutter and machine piecing. It looks so bland!  VIP still makes this paisley print. I detest it. :)    My notes on the snapshot are that I tore, rather than cut, the sateen-weave fabric for the sashes and borders so there were lots of ravels. I machine quilted it.  I gave it away or sold it long, long ago.




Storm at Sea with a heart was the cover quilt of the first issue of American Patchwork and Quilting in 1994. I didn't have a quilt fabric stash to speak of so I bought all the fabric at a quilt shop in Windham, Maine. I didn't know this is supposed to be a hard block. I just plugged away!

My quiltmaking really took off in the mid-1990's.  The first email service my library used (I was at Fargo PL then) included Usenet Nnewsgroups, among them rec.crafts.textiles.quilting.   My dear Magpie friends are RCTQ alumnae.  There's an RCTQ FB group, too, and many of us go back to the Usenet days.

Since those early years I've made dozens of quilts and patchwork things (jackets, place mats, wall hangings, etc., etc.).  I've amassed a huge stash.  (I document acquisition and use in the Annual Reckoning every January 1.)

Here are a few of my recent favorite quilts.  Click on the link to read more about them.


Initial Colors
 Guild challenge, 2018:  the block and two colors are the maker's initials. (Mine: New York Beauty in Eggplant and Blue.) 

This is the same block as the Stars in Her Crown, below, but I split the backgrounds for more interest.












Stars in Her Crown

2016, in honor of Lulu Corkhill Williams, an
early member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood.  The P.E.O. badge is a gold star. In 1870 she was photographed wearing her badge on a hair ribbon -- hence "Stars in Her Crown."














Forecast: Scrappy With a Chance of Nine Patches
The second of three orphan blocks quilts. (Well, three to date . . .)














Railroad Ties

I used my father's railroad-themed neckties to make this quilt in his memory. The tin railroad logos were Post Sugar Crisp premiums in the 1950's.  (I have not had Sugar Crisp since those days.)















Thanks for visiting! I hope you'll add my blog to your blogroll.

HERE  is the link to enter the Grand Prize contest.