A while back I was with quilting buddies in Holdrege and there was a garage sale at the senior citizen’s center. I spied a beat-up brown grocery sack with “50¢” scrawled on the side.
The sack was full of old fabric scraps, and a quick look told me they were mostly small pieces. But for a price like that, I wasn’t about to leave them behind.
One of the sweetest quilts I ever came across is a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt from the 30’s or 40’s. I’m not usually a fan of silly Sue, but this one was so charming that I couldn’t leave it behind.
I love the rectangular blocks. They’re more interesting than square blocks. And notice that Sue has a friend. Or maybe she’s a twin. There are two Sues on each block. I love the solid colors used for each little girl. They’re so cheerful.
Over the weekend I saw a lot of machine quilting that challenged me to improve my skills and start working on the tops I have finished. You know how that is? You love to piece them, but your machine quilting is less than perfect and it’s hard to figure out what to quilt on them. So the pile of unquilted tops grows.
Here are some of the quilts that inspired me. They were done by Handi Quilter educators on longarm machines, which I do not have, but that doesn’t matter. It’s entirely possible to quilt beautifully on a home sewing machine. My quilting doesn’t have to be of show quality to be just fine.
One of the first programs I developed for quilt guilds is called One Hundred Small Quilts. I’m presenting these quilts in a series of short posts on Stash Bandit.
Luminous Lines by Diane Harris, 2009
Luminous Lines was created for an assignment in an advanced design class I took with Heather Thomas when I lived in Colorado. We were covering different elements of design, one of which is “line.”
Our assignment was to use line (and not much else) to create our design. I had these hand-dyed fabrics from Cherrywood which were all similar in value, so I used those for the background. I had ombré fabrics in similar colors with a splash of yellow, which I used for the appliqued bars.
I enjoyed playing with variegated thread for the quilting. My Bernina has a straight stitch that goes over itself a second time for a stronger line, which is what you see on the left above and on the right below.
For me, it’s often about experimenting to see what works. I do end up taking things out or taking them apart when they don’t work. But if I was never willing to play around to see what would happen, I’d never make any great discoveries.
I finished the edges with a facing instead of a binding. It’s pretty easy to do and it’s a good skill to have in your bag of tricks. I wrote instructions for facing a quilt when I worked for Quiltmaker. They’re useful and they’re free!
I’d love to bring One Hundred Small Quilts to your quilt group. Give me a call or shoot me an email.
I taught a class in Shenandoah, Iowa last week, and my hostess treated me to the progress on her guild challenge quilt. It’s remarkable so I wanted to share it with you. She started by drawing these four fabrics randomly, and at first glance, you might think that was disheartening.
Carolyn began with these four seemingly unrelated fabrics.
But Carolyn is nothing if not an adventurer, and she soon found the common element. What do you think it was?
My friends, the commonality among the fabrics was orange.
And with that, Carolyn went to town.
She made a medallion for the quilt’s center, repeating the fabrics several times to create cohesion.
She made Pinwheels and framed them with triangle-squares.
She added a little of this and a little of that, continuing to repeat the oranges and adding in some deep chocolate brown.
Can you imagine how exciting it was to sew this? It’s the kind of quilt where you make decisions as you go. You don’t worry about the end result while you’re doing it. You just make one decision at a time. The quilt pulls you along.
This is how the quilt looked when I visited at the beginning of April, but she’s not finished yet. More blocks will be added to the top and bottom, but knowing Carolyn, that plan could still change.
It was great fun to hear about her process and to see how well this project is shaping up. I love it. I don’t know if I could have made those four fabrics work this well!
My trunk show called “One Hundred Small Quilts” contains three Hanky Panky quilts. This idea originated (as far as I know) with Cindy Brick from Castle Rock, Colorado. She visited Nebraska a few years back to teach her hanky quilt techniques.
Hanky Panky quilt by Diane Harris. Photo by Mellisa Karlin Mahoney. Used with permission.
I’d always loved vintage handkerchiefs, and my mom loved and collected them, too. So I come by it honestly, as they say. And when I learned how to combine them by layering and embellishing, I never looked back.
These three little quilts get the warmest welcome when I share them with quilt groups. It makes me so happy.
Hanky Panky quilt by Diane Harris. Photo by Mellisa Karlin Mahoney. Used with permission.
With Cindy’s permission, I wrote about the process for Quiltmaker, and now (with Cindy’s blessing) I teach others how to make these little treasures.
I think it’s good to get vintage hankies out of the drawers and closets and storage areas and put them into something beautiful where they can be enjoyed every day. If your hankies are very special, e.g. they belonged to an ancestor, or very valuable, then you might wish to pick others for your first project. There are some hankies that shouldn’t be cut up.
But there are millions, yes, millions, of hankies that are perfect for this kind of project. I’d love to share this class with your quilt group, so give me a call and we’ll set it up. Let’s Play Hanky Panky!
I always pull out Everybunny this time of year—it’s one of my favorite finishes. There was a lot to learn about scrap quilts when I made it. Let’s pull some lessons from it. Today will be #1 and I’ll do a little series on making better scrap quilts.
Everybunny, designed and made by Diane Harris for Quiltmaker March/April ’16
I’ve discovered that creativity needs to be fed. Creativity has an appetite. It can be more voracious at some times than others, but we shouldn’t ignore its need to be nurtured.
Show and Tell can feed your creativity. This is Karen with her 365 finish at my retreat last fall.
Here’s an example: You attend a quilt show or a guild meeting with show and tell. You see some quilts you love and you snap photos to help you remember. You’re inspired to start on something new or get back to something you put aside—all because you gave your creativity a hearty meal. Sound familiar?
I recently discovered a new source of quilty “nourishment” I want to share with you. It’s a website called Issuu where magazines and books on assorted topics are published. You can look at them for nothing. It’s totally free. Here’s one example (click near the center to make it full screen, click escape to return to normal view):
When you put “quilt” into the search field, interesting things pop up. Take a peek at the British magazine Quilt Now.
Search “quilts” and you get a completely different set of publications. “Quilting” yields yet another batch. I love being able to peruse the pages with no commitment. I don’t have to buy or subscribe or give out my email. I just get to enjoy!
Some of the fabric companies publish their lookbooks on Issuu. It’s a way to see what’s coming soon to local quilt shops. I’ve been enjoying catalogs from Riley Blake. There is so much variety.
At the back of the lookbook are quilt pattern ideas from the designers, which are intended to show how the fabrics can be used effectively. There’s a lot to learn about color and value in those pages.
Pop over to issuu.com when you want to browse something quilty.
St. Patrick’s Day is nearly upon us, and that put me in the mood to sew something green last week. This is a free quilt pattern for a four-leaf clover design I named Lucky.
Around Christmas last year, I started piecing a simple chevron quilt made from triangle-squares. I sewed from my stash and was pretty excited with how it started coming together.
