Give Me Books and Quilts: Mary Marks' New Mystery

Love books? Here's a quiltlet that I made a couple of years ago. It's 7" long and illustrates a famous John Keats quotation: "Give me books, fruit, French wine, fine weather, and a little music out of doors played by somebody I do not know." 

It's a wall hanging, a coaster, a bookmark, or even a cuff bracelet. I call these concoctions quiltlets. (Find more in the word cloud on the lower right.)

And speaking of books and the people one knows - I don't read a lot of quilting fiction, but I make an exception for my friend Mary Marks' quilty mystery series. First, they are fast-paced page turners, Second, they are hilarious. And third, her heroine is a quilty, clever, reckless, zaftig, 55-year-old heroine, Martha Rose.

There is one drawback; this third book, Gone But Not Forgotten, features luscious descriptions of a broad range of Los Angeles cuisine, from In-and-Out's secret menu to a Salvadoran restaurant; plus chocolate babka, pastrami, Italian roast coffee, and raisin challah, applesauce cake - you get the idea. I was torn between not wanting to stop reading, and needing to leap up and drive to the nearest bakery or ethnic restaurant.

You also gotta love that her heroine, Martha, is a hot mama who is the object of various character's romantic desires. She's a not-always-nice Jewish girl, living the dream, with plot twists aplenty, and quilting tips at the end.

If you haven't read one of Mary's books yet, I suggest starting with the first, Forget Me Knot, and second, Knot in My Backyard, since the characters develop in interesting ways. Read them outdoors with a glass of fine wine - you will enjoy them, I guarantee!

(No financial affiliation with Amazon or Mary. I did receive a review copy of her book from the publisher.)

Say 'Yes' to the Wedding Quilt, Part II: Blood, Fonts, and Tears

(In  Part I, we embarked on a  quilt-making adventure that morphed into an episode of reality TV's 'Say Yes to the Dress.' Here we find more eerie parallels.)

4. Count on the bride's taste being different from  yours. On The Show, the salesperson quickly learns to subsume her or his tastes to the bride's. Similarly, for quilters, taste in fonts. The Hebrew quotation that the couple wanted, from the Song of Songs, means ' This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.' I have dozens of Hebrew fonts, many of which came installed with my computer, some of which I bought from a font company (Davka.com). I sent my bride four typeface alternatives, two curvy and traditional #1 and #4), two cleaner, and more linear (#2 and #3). I chose only chunky fonts, with no skinny bits, since I was planning to machine applique each letter.



Personally, I like #1 and #4 best – I’m showing my age! But, hands down, The Bride and Groom liked #3. I was very glad that I asked! (Hebrew students: Line 4 is nonsense Hebrew. I hope.)

5. Let her wear cowboy boots. Some brides on The Show are quirky. At their weddings, they plan to wear a red petticoat, a turtleneck collar, or in several cases, cowboy boots. The sales associate might raise an eyebrow, but she keeps her mouth shut.

My bride was actually not asking for anything wacky. But I wanted her to, in the sense that I wanted her to be personally invested in this chuppah. She had asked for collaboration, and that’s what I hoped to achieve. She’s an architect, so I asked her if she would be willing to design the central Jerusalem scene. In fact, I hired her to do it - I told her I’d reduce the price if she designed it. Urban landscapes aren’t my forte, and heck, as an architect, I knew she had to be a lot more building-sensitive than me. She accepted the challenge, and did a beautiful job, as I had suspected she would.

6. Jack things up. On The Show, when the bride likes a dress a lot, but isn’t quite ready to seal the deal, the sales associate will “jack her up” (!) with a jeweled belt, “hair jewelry”(never heard that term before), chandelier earrings, and, of course, a tiara and veil. Everyone is blown away, waterworks ensue, and the dress is sold! Similarly, I decided to jack up the Jerusalem scene. I added a ray of light, with lighter-value fabrics in a swath that goes diagonally across the medallion, to correspond with the ray of light going through two corners of the quilt. It gave the scene a lot more drama.

7.  If there are no blood spots and everyone cries (with happiness), you've done your job. This quilt took four months of hard work, and I loved nearly every single minute of it. My bride was a joy - encouraging, helpful, and appreciative at every turn. She was truly a dream client, and I felt honored to work with her. 

The only thing I didn’t love was my ever-mounting terror that I might somehow stain the bright white expanses. I became afraid to bring coffee or chocolate into the same room as it – quel sacrifice! While hand-sewing the binding, I actually did poke myself with a pin and shed a drop of blood on it, but managed to wash it out immediately. (And guess what? The same exact thing once happened in The Show, except worse, when the alterations lady poked the poor bride’s ribcage with pins, leaving several bloodspots down the sides of the dress. They got ‘em out, though, regrettably, they didn’t show us how…. did they hold the dress under a bathroom faucet, like I did with the quilt? But I digress.)

When it was done, I took a picture. 

Next, I brought the quilt to the mailing center, and watched with mixed emotions as the clerk carefully packed it up. I wanted to cry. It was like sending a puppy to a shelter. On the upside, I wouldn’t have to worry about drinking coffee or eating dark chocolate in my sewing room, anymore.

When the bride’s family received it, she, her groom, and her family, opened the box together. And, they told me later, they were overjoyed, and tears were shed. In a good  way. I was ecstatic.  I was even happier when they sent me pictures of the chuppah in action, during the wedding ceremony. 

I had had no idea that they'd be standing in front of a stained glass window with similar colors - and, what's really eerie, a ray of light coming from the upper right, just like my chuppah's central design. 

Hang on a second! I’m hearing a voice! Who’s talking?

CONFIDENT-AND HAPPY-SOUNDING MALE VOICE:  “When a bride gets the dream wedding quilt that she helped design, the bride, groom, and quiltmaker will all feel fine.”   

(Or “will walk in the sunshine,  Or, “will have no reason to whine.”)

Or something like that. 

(Note: If you missed Part I, it's here: http://gefiltequilt.blogspot.com/2012/10/say-yes-to-wedding-quilt-part-i.html

(For a discussion of the feather quilting on this quilt, go here: http://gefiltequilt.blogspot.com/search/label/feathers.)

Circular Quilts, New and Old

As a quilter for nearly 20 years (!), I have a particular passion for quilted circles, medallions, mandalas, Mariner’s Compasses, radiating stars, kaleidoscopes, and such. Circles make some of the most fascinating quilts, not to mention quilt books and tools  –  so, of course,  I collect ‘em all! Some of my favorite approaches to circular quilts:  

•  I’ve probably made a half-dozen quilts using Marilyn Doheney’s 9-degree circle wedge rulers, including the quilt at the top of this story. With this system, you strip-piece fabrics into sets, then place a wedge-shaped ruler in different positions on the set, and cut out wedges. The design possibilities are so infinite that a quilter named Sheila Finklestein wrote an amazing book called “Magic Quilted Mandalas,” showing a multitude of results that can be achieved by placing wedge rulers like Doheney’s onto striped fabrics – exclusively. If Finklestein had gotten into using multiple fabrics, not just one or two with stripes, the book would have turned into Wikipedia. Using Finklestein's approach, here's the center of a baby quilt I made using a single striped fabric for the central circle:
  

  

• Similarly, Cheryl Phillips’ “WedgeWorks” books use a 15 degree ruler, strip piecing and wedge-cutting at different angles to create satisfying circular stars.
  
• Bethany Reynolds’ bestselling and user-friendly“Stack’n’Whack” approach has quilters using the lines on their clear acrylic rulers to cut wedges. (This is a chuppah/wedding canopy I made using her techniques):

• Gail Garber’s spectacular “Stellar Journeys” book uses wedges which can be created by  paper-foundation piecing, or piecing from templates.
• Ricky Tims’ ‘Kool Kaleidoscope’ approach has quilters strip-piece fabric sets, cut them out with templates, then join sets, to make complex repeating wedges.

• At the top of the complexity and technical challenge scale, there’s Paula Nadelstern, queen of the kaleidoscope, with her incredibly intricate, plastic template-based construction.

• Far at the other end of the precision spectrum, I’ve enjoyed Dianne S. Hire’s book, “QuiltersPlaytime,”  which includes directions for  creating funky imprecise medallions, made with the wedge shapes that are strip-pieced and cut by eye.  

• (I have not yet read, but high on my wishlist are RaNae Merrill’s two books about spiral mandala quilts).

So, speaking as a circular quilt geek, I was pretty darn excited when I received a review copy of C& T’s book “Circle Quilts;Create Dramatic Medallions from Strip-Pieced Rings,” by Colleen Granger.

Like all the quilters named above, Granger is an innovator. She’s come up with a new way to subdivide a circle: Rather than creating wedges that start in the middle and extends to the circle or star’s outer edge, many of her circles are constructed in concentric rings. Each ring consists of repeated paper-pieced arcs. Completed arcs are sewn together to form the entire ring; and consecutive rings are topstitched together, using invisible thread and a small zigzag stitch, to form the medallion.

When rings are laid together, the colors line up to form unique designs. Like the image on the cover, many are angular, high-energy, and very striking, reflected in names like ‘Tornado Alley,’  and ‘Shazam!’ All three have unusual asymmetric lightening-like jagged shapes emanating from the center, some in a spiral. If I’d first come across these quilts at a quilt show, I would probably have stared at them for a long time before finally giving up hope of figuring out how they were done!

The book provides black-and-white drawings of each quilt, which you can color in, with spaces to glue fabric swatches.  The drawings, with their unusual subdivisions, are also works of art in and of themselves; it’s fascinating to look at the drawings and figure out how the color and shape placement in each individual ring relates to the next ring to create new shapes.  

There are also a couple of floral-feeling circle projects, including “Blooming Garden” and “Flower Dance,” which create the illusion of curves, when in fact all the piecing is straight lines.

Another interesting touch is that some the centers are constructed from many pieces. (Rather than just appliquéing one circle in the middle.) There are helpful tips for getting multiple seams to meet neatly at the center.

And there are directions for what Granger calls “power piecing”. The technique is copiously illustrated with photographs, which is a very good thing, because foundation paper piecing can be very confusing!

I’m wild about her ‘Labyrinth’ quilt;  it’s made up of tiny squares, but they’re not cut individually; for this pattern, the quilter makes strip sets, and those are pieced into arcs. She describes the (fun)‘brown bag’ method for randomly choosing strips for this project.

There are plenty of extras. Granger provides directions for finishing a round quilt; or, for setting the circles into a square or rectangular setting. There are also directions for mitering borders, and for four different pieced zig-zaggy borders that reflect the “lightening bolt” feel of the circles.  There’s a ‘Shazam’ pillow project, with instructions for adding piped cording, and installing a zipper (something quilters don’t practice much, so explanations are appreciated.)  There are directions for creating bias and straight cut binding; for making labels, and for creating hanging sleeves for circular and rectangular quilts.

An interesting detail: Granger says that, with her round quilts, “I insert stainless spring steel in my bindings to help hold the quilts round and taut.” I never heard of that before, but she refers the reader to her website www.sewlittletimequilting.com.  There, I found a product called “Quilt Shaper Light," stainless steel that is threaded into the binding to hold the quilt stiff – Pretty interesting!?   

I hope she writes a new book, soon, because I want more! More about how she develops designs, and more quilt patterns too!  

In sum, this book is fun, clear, brilliant and innovative - a worthy addition to the best circular/kaleidoscopic/medallion quilting literature, with excellent, clear directions that confident beginners and advanced quilters can use and enjoy.

Shouldn't Your Bouquet Match Your Quilts?

Karla Alexander is a well- known quilt teacher and book author, who developed the 'Stack the Deck' book series. Her method/game nicely combines planning with serendipity. The basic idea is to cut a stack of square blocks; subcut blocks  into different pieces; shuffle each pile of pieces differently; and stitch the pieces back into blocks.

You do have to read through the directions a couple of times, but once you grok it, it’s a lot of fun – perfect for when you don’t want to design too much, and just want to get to the sewing.  From her book 'New Cuts for New Quilts, More Ways to Stack the Deck,' I made this quilt, which she calls 'Razzle Dazzle.' Her model quilt was made from multicolored batiks, with sashing in black-and-white checked fabric. I used print fabrics, and a black-and-white square sashing.

A little loud, no? I don’t know why I like purple and yellow so much. I keep coming back to it. Or maybe I cured myself with this project.... 

In any case, once I was done, I liked the quilt, but I liked the pile of scraps generated from trimming up the blocks to size, even better. I mean, this was one heckuva great-looking scrap pile, consisting of slivers from ½” to about 2” wide, each sliver made up of several fabrics.

They were a little too narrow for a scrap quilt…So I decided to turn them into flowers. I cut out backing circles from felt, using my pinking shears. 

The felt circle is a couple of inches shorter than the slivers. Flipped to the front, I piled  a bunch of slivers on each backing, setting each strip at a different angle, like an asterisk. Added a couple of strips cut from the black-and- white sashing to fill things out. 

Stitched them together in the center, added a coordinating button. Then I drenched each flower  in “Stiffy”, and laid it to dry on waxed paper. Stiffy keeps the slivers more or less pointing outward. The final step is to hand-stitch on the extra-long pipe cleaners (aka chenille stems). I wound a couple of the stems together to make them stronger. 

And voila! A raggedy bouquet that matches my quilt! (Just what my house needs: MORE crazy yellow and purple explosions everywhere!)

Karla’s latest book, 'Dynamic Quilts with Easy Curves,' uses her shuffle approach to cut curved shapes. One of the great things about her books is that you don’t have to buy the first one to understand the system – she re-explains it in every book. 

On Feathers

I recently finished a commissioned chuppah, (a wedding canopy). For this project, a medallion quilt surrounded by a large expanse of white,  I envisioned lots of spectacular quilting. And to me, the ultimate in spectacular quilting is feathers. You know, those long vines with leaves coming off them, which nest against each other, and gloriously twist and turn. (Sometimes I call them feathers, sometimes vines, excuse my inconsistency). 

I knew this leafy vision would be a challenge: In my many years of quilting, I've made wonky, fun, and weird vines, like on the left side of the drawing above, and the corner of a 2010 scrap quilt below (can you see the uneven vine, diagonally crossing the blue and white squares?). (More of this quilt in an earlier post). 

But nothing I sewed looked anything like the lush quilter's feathers I wanted for the formal  chuppah.

Somewhere in my house, there was a 15-year-old magazine with an article about drawing feathers using quarters (25 cent coins, that is, not fat quarters); but I couldn’t find the magazine, plus I wanted feathers  larger than a coin.

I looked through my box of quilting stencils, and found one sad foot-long plastic vine stencil. All feathers were identical and the effect was totally blah.

Fortunately, my quest coincided with a big local quilt show. I hustled from booth to booth, asking the proprietors whether they had a feather stencil, template or book. One offered a unique acrylic template, but when they tried to explain how to angle and trace it, it seemed even trickier than the spare change method! Plus, it  too, could only make feathers in one size.   

Finally, in a book booth, I found a new AQS book called Create Your Own Dream Feathers, by Peggy Holt.  (You can peek inside it at the AQS site.)  Along with plentiful illustrations, there are doable  exercises and lots of explanations and arrows to show stitching order. So I bought it. Wow, was that a good move! Living up to its name, it turned out to be the feather method of my dreams.

Freemotion quilting of feathers on a sewing machine (or longarm) is all about muscle memory, hand-eye coordination, and, especially, backtracking. For most designs, the lines must be travelled more than once. I had been stuck in one particular backtracking route, but this book offered several more.  

I did the exercises, studied the examples, and before long, I started drawing well-fed feathers...everywhere.  Surrounding to-do lists, in corners of newspapers and magazines, backs of envelopes, restaurant placemats, and any other papers that crossed my path. It's a fun and satisfying way to doodle. (There are also sketching apps for tablets, if you’ve moved beyond pencil and paper in your techno-life! I haven’t.)

Here's how my vines came out on the wedding quilt:  (just above the brown triangle points)

And here's where I improvised some feathery pomegranates on the side edges:

OK, so the pomegranates are a little lopsided, but the feathers are plump and juicy! Bethany Pease's book gave me the inspiration to use a little spiral as the smallest feather.

Like everything in freemotion quilting, doing feathers well is a matter of practice, practice, practice.

BTW, here's a picture of the overall wedding quilt. You'll be seeing more pictures of it shortly - it was a learning experience in many ways!