Janet's Quilts

Janet's Harmony

Janet decided, after we invited to join our group, that she would love to go back and make quilts for all of the past themes!  Of course, I was delighted.  She asked me recently if I would mind posting her photos and her brief explanations of the quilts, since she is just learning the ins and outs of posting and blogging.  I told her I would be happy to do this.  You are going to love not only seeing her wonderfully creative and beautifully constructed quilts, but her sense of humor comes through loud and clear!

So above is Jane't Harmony.  Since her "narratives" are so brief, I will be posting all the quilts and all the explanations of them in this one post.  Here is what Janet has to say about her Harmony quilt:


While researching pain control I came upon a site for cancer patients who color mandalas while receiving chemo.    I had never heard of a mandala so I went into research mode more than a little skeptical.   Mandalas have been around for centuries and show up in nearly every culture.  I downloaded a few from a free site and on an especially bad pain day I gave it a try.   When I finished coloring it I was surprised to see how many hours had gone by.  Not only had I not felt any pain but a sense of calm and peace came over me.  For the Harmony quilt I chose my favorite mandala to color and then had to figure out how to convert that to fabric.  I had to do it in layers with heat and bond, making it too difficult to sew through so I placed tulle over the front.

Janet's South

South did not make me think of a direction or region but what it was like growing up in the south.  I made notes for weeks and edited and re-edited.  Some things cannot be explained unless you grew up deep in the Bible belt in the fifties.  My husband is from Texas and considers me a Yankee and I'm from Oklahoma.  This is only my second time to quilt something and first time to color with pigment pens.  I lightly glued the pattern onto the quilt to sew the flowers and forgot about the lettering done with transparency paper.  I ironed it so set the glue and ruined the print which I did not know till I went to pull off the paper.  So it is patched here and there.  This quilt was many new lessons learned, the hard way.

Janet' Daydream

This one was especially hard for me.  I really don't have daydreams, I have to live with the reality of my situation and to sit and dream of something different would be futile.  So this quilt is a representation of what I wish my life was like.  Bright, orderly, structured, balanced. Ok, so I do daydream just a little about George Clooney and chocolate.  Geroge Clooney in chocolate, me with George Clooney in the chocolate......sigh.

Janet's Mystery

the back of Janet's Mystery quilt

This one was easy.  I have loved all the reincarnations of Sherlock Holmes over the past 112 years but my all time absolute favorite was Basil Rathbone.  We did not have a television in our home growing up for religious reasons so I loved going to slumber parties so I could watch the late night movies.  While the rest of them were making prank calls (Is your refrigerator running? Do you have Prince Albert in a can?) and rolling each others hair  I just wanted to watch movies. On the back you can read a listing of all of  his movies and the year they were released.

Janet's Elements

Several years ago on a trip to Austin to take our son to the airport we stopped behind a man driving a Honda Element.  I said, “Look, there's a man in his element.”  From the front seat I get silence.  So I said it louder just in case they did not hear me.  Nothing.  We have levels of puns in our family, good ones, groaners, and not worth acknowledging.   So this quilt is for my husband David and my son Justin who I have been torturing for years with this pun.  Until they at least acknowledge it I will not surrender even though they have both asked me to give the car pun a brake.

Below, one I almost left off, Janet's Surprise quilt.  

Janet's Surprise

For a long time all I could think of for surprise was Gomer Pyle, surprise, surprise, surprise.  I did not want to look at that on my wall every day.  On a trip to Tyler to see husband David's family, his sister gave him some baby clothes and items she had found in their mother's cedar chest.  Among the items were two shirts for her baby shower, hand embroidered with names of her friends.  One was baby blue and the other was pink.  I started thinking about what, if anything, is a surprise anymore.  With the technology we now have and the ability to tell everyone everything, the moment you hear it, this surprise no longer exists.  I think my son's generation is the last one where parents didn't know what you were going to have.  I know everyone wants to have their color-coordinated baby "suites", as they now call them, ready, but there is nothing like the joy of the doctor telling you it's a boy or it's a girl.  I was asleep at the time and so groggy afterward, when I did see our son, it didn't sink in.  Everyone who came by the first day said I asked them over and over what I had.  They could have stuck me with someone else's baby.  No, I know he is mine, because we laugh at the same time in movies when nobody else laughs!