Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 36-39: Airplanes, Civil War, Play Castle, Flower Power

Day 36: Airplane Blanket This family favorite was made for my kids, in the late 90s, from a delightful print of animals flying airplanes.

The border features consecutive yellow triangles, called "flying geese," made into giant arrows with the help of a multi-colored stripe serving as each arrow's shaft.  

Day 37: A Very Civil War

Our country survived the Civil War, and I hung this war-era quilt on November 3, just before the election, as a reminder to vote!

I found these blocks in a rural antique shop in upstate NY in the early 90s - there was a big stack, priced at $5 per block. To save money, I only bought 8, which of course, I later regretted - I should have bought the entire stack! I sewed them into this 26" x 50" wall hanging and quilted it.

These are the most traditional of what quilters call "log cabin" blocks, each with a red square in the center, representing hearth and home. In today's pandemic, I feel a little bit too stuck in my hearth and home - but with full knowledge that home is safer than the alternative, and grateful to the essential workers who are putting their lives on the line by leaving home every day.

The prints are fascinating. Even though it's a small quilt, you can look at the different fabrics for a long time.

Day 38: Interactive Castle Quilt I made this one for my kids also in the late 90s.

The animals dressed as royalty were fairly large, so I stuffed them as dolls, and made a pockets for each, with the same figure appliqued to the top of the pocket.

There's a castle on the back, plus one more pocket (red, on bottom) for the jester. The gold-trimmed piece on the very bottom can be buttoned off when the rest of the quilt needs laundering!

Day 39: "Flower Power." My newest large finished quilt. Yes, it's flower shaped!

A little closer: 

A lot closer: 

All of the blocks are equilateral triangles, most containing an upright "v". I learned from quilter Barbara Cline that when "v" triangles are organized by value, they can create the illusion of floating, gift-wrapped cubes. You can see the cubes flashing in and out of view in the center of the quilt, and also in the side hexagons, if you sit back and squint! My methods (but not this pattern) are in my book Modern Paper Pieced Log Cabin Triangle Quilts, in my etsy shop, CathyPStudio.  

The show will continue soon!

Porch Quilt Show, Day 21: Magic Door

 Day 21: Magic Door

This may be my first scrap quilt, started in the mid 90s.  I owned very few prints at this point, so it's mostly solids. 

For years, it remained a top, and because of the lack of prints, I considered it very old-fashioned. Then, along came the Modern quilt movement. I realized - as did so many other quilters - that I was ahead of my time! So I decided to finish it, adding the log cabin borders (their edges are inexpertly satin stitched). I quilted it, with walking foot quilting. I liked the results enough to promote it to a prestigious position in my home, as a filing cabinet cover!

See more photos and details of this quilt in a 2013 blog post, here. 

Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 14 - 19: Altered Cowboys and Beyond

My show is going strong! Here's the third batch. 

Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Day #14: Cowboy Quilt

This quilt was made circa 1998, when my adorable little boy wanted to be a cowboy.

At the time, I was not only enchanted with my growing baby humans, but also my growing baby fabric stash, especially this brown border print:

As a new quilter, I did some reckless things. In this case, I cut the outer edges, on the sides and bottom, into hanging diamonds. What's worse, I chose a relatively thick red denim bandana print to bind them. (On the far left).

Binding and mitering up and down those sharp angles, with heavy fabric, took approximately 7000% more time than binding a straight edge. By the second diamond, I regretted it, but didn't want to rip, so I plodded onward.

The quilt has randomly strewn fussy-cut rodeo scenes, to break up some of the squares - broderie perse with a satin stitch.

I also stitched buttons, in assorted tans, browns and greys, on many squares.

Hot peppers count as cowboy fabric, right?

On the back, I placed all the bandanas I could find in my house, including this very unusual orange-and-turquoise one that my husband's had since high school, at least.

Today, my little boy no longer wants to be a cowboy. He's happy as a 26-year-old scientist in a big city - no horse, no car - but he does have a bike and a dog.

Day 15: Altered Squares

This quilt hung at Quiltcon 2018 in Pasadena, CA - the town next to mine - on my friggen' birthday! Friends overcame many obstacles to attend the show, and line up obediently in front of it when I forced them to. (I'm in the middle back). That may have been the best birthday of my life.

Day 16: She Exclaimed!

This is my exclamation-point shaped quilt, made this year. It's improv paper pieced. Instructions are in my new pattern booklet, "Modern Paper Pieced Log Cabin Triangles," here. Below, it's photographed against a grey background.

Detail:

To my happy shock, this quilt was awarded a second place prize in the Midcentury Modern category, in Mancuso's online Visuals #1 international show. (Find all the winners here.)

Day 17: Counterclockwise

This 32" x 44" quilt, made in 2015, started with an improv circles game in Diane Hires' fabulous book, "Vivacious Curvy Quilts." For the arrows in two borders, I made up my own game - my tutorial is in a couple of blog posts that begin here.

Detail:

At some intersection, I tucked dimensional folded points, to make a whirligig:

Day 18: Dresden Variation

This quilt is an oldie, maybe from the early 2000s, when I was entranced by even older, 1930s-era quilts, particularly one with this unusual color scheme - a hard teal, plus lots of soft pastels. My pastels are reproduction 1930s fabrics. The motif is called a Dresden Plate. The quilt's gently ridged outer edge wasn't nearly as challenging to bind as on my earlier, sharp-angled cowboy quilt.

I do kinda regret the salmon colored fabric between the fans. (I happened to have a lot of that fabric, which, all too often, isn't the best reason to use a color!)

Day #19: That's a Lot of Yellow

I made this quilt in 2012, by playing a game in one of Karla Alexander's "Stack the Deck" books. The basic idea: Stack squares; use a rotary cutter to cut all layers, creating multiple stacks; shuffle each stack; stitch the pieces into multi-fabric blocks. It's perfect for when you don’t want to think much, and just want to sew.

The game that produced this particular quilt is "Razzle Dazzle," from Karla's book New Cuts for New Quilts, More Ways to Stack the Deck. I took my fabric choices not from book's sample (unfortunately), but from the fireworks print in the borders. But I amplified their intensity to a degree that might have been un peu trop.

When finished, I had a fascinating mound of scraps - so I glued them to a felt circle, attached those to extra-large pipe cleaners, smacked orange buttons in the middle, and,- voila! - hyper-daisies!

Need a Project? Take a New Look at an Old Quilt

Are you a loss for new projects? Quarantine is the ideal time to look at your finished quilts and ask yourself a melancholy yet potentially engaging question: Is this quilt really finished?

When I finish a quilt, I usually don't love it - I mainly see flaws. It takes a while to figure out whether it needs more. But this improv-pieced quilt was an exception. I just loved it when I finished it in 2017.

Then, the people I showed it to went "Very nice, meh, next."

Then QuiltCon rejected it. Dang, I was soooo not-understood.

I held my artistic ground, and defiantly placed it into my finished quilt pile (which happens to be the same as my unfinished quilt pile), where it sat until early February. I had just attended Road to California, and one of the costs/benefits of attending a show is that it makes you want to up your game. Could I add pizzazz?

What the heck, I went for it, quilting light diagonal lines between blocks. Then I appliqued puffy circles at the intersections. Now it looks like this:

I feel like I took an opera and turned it into a jingle. But that's not always bad - Bohemian Rhapsody, right?

The great thing about digital cameras is that you can take lots of pictures of every stage of your quilt's childhood. So, even though I destroyed the first version, I will always have Paris in the form of zillions of "before" pictures.

I originally called it "Eyeshadows," because the blocks look like eyes wide open, with rainbow mascara, Now, it might need a new name: "Round Pegs, Square Holes." The circles have batting inside, and the ones that hang over the edge have a finished back.  Each was quilted with a different design before being hand-stitched in place.

I'm not entirely sure if I ruined it or improved it, but it's definitely more fun than the original! And now, I sincerely hope it's finished!