The KEY Composite!

We’ve lived through four major holidays since the last Reveal.   We’ve had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the celebrations of the New Year, and then we zipped right into the next decade.  It was suddenly time for the KEY reveal. Hang on, more excitement to come in the following months.

As I studied the 7 quilts, trying to decide a layout for the composite, I still had a grin [read that as licking my lips] over Andrea’s unique idea. Rita and I recently visited a local restaurant famous for their Key Lime pie, only to be told, “It’s a summer treat!” What! Had to settle for Deep Dish Dutch Apple with a scoop of homemade vanilla – Weight Watchers can wait a week. Andrea, your quilt started front and center, Karen slipped in nicely next. The three reds, theme and color, attractively dominate the top row. Judy, I carry a map of the backroads of Texas on my motorcycle and depend, heavily, on the map key – clever idea for the theme.   Nedra’s lime green and Andrea’s key lime green complement each other to balance the lower corner.   

Yet again – job well done all,

Randy

2018: Mavens in Houston!

No, this isn't a post of a quilt but rather a great photo from over a year ago of the Material Mavens who were in Houston for the IQA Quilt Festival!  I ran across this on my desktop and felt that it needed sharing! 

From left to right are Teresa, Gail, Jane Carolyn, Alice, and Sara!  Not all the Mavens, but a good many and these very same members got together for dinner last fall.  Just seeing these smiling faces made me happy this morning!

Judy's Map Key

Key

What was I going to do for key? I love old fashioned romantic looking keys and that would make a pretty quilt. Then there is the key to my heart which has lots of compartments filled and filling more each day. Plus, Valentines Day is coming up.

Then I remembered the key on a map. It’s also called a Legend. Geography was my favorite subject because I wanted to travel everywhere and see the world. When we would travel I wanted to be in charge of the map to keep track of where we were and how much further we had to go. What city would be the next one? Where were the rest stops? Were there mountains to climb or rivers to cross? Was there a state or national park with trails to hike? The Key held the secrets of what the symbols meant and what fun it was to find them.

Kathy's "KEY TO MY HEART"

                            THE  KEY  TO  MY  HEART 

   [  Please excuse the rather "faded" colors.    In "real life" the reds, and dark browns are saturated color(s) and are lovely !]
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Before I start any of our "MM Quilts"  I always go through the personal "trauma" of "What Am I Gonna Do With This Word ?"

"KEY".....Its the middle of January.....Next month is February..... February.....Valentine's Day.....A Very Special Day for anyone with the last name of  "HARTE!"

       This Quilt just had to be  "The Key to my Heart" 💟

Actual construction of this quilt was relatively easy although it took me a while to assemble all the "pieces-parts!"
  
*All of the Heart motifs started off as "Vintage Hearts" from the "Shabby Shapes" Laser Cut Applique collections offered by Shabby Fabrics.    
*All of the hearts were machine appliqued with Monofilament thread.  A small "Buttonhole" stitch was used for this applique.
* I describe the heart that frames the Key as an "Open Heart."      
* In my imagination  I saw these "Hearts" being mounted onto a simple wooden board, thus the background fabric for this quilt has a distinct wood-grain texture to it.
* For the back of the quilt, I "recycled" some fabric that was once-upon-a-time an awesome "Scrub Top" my Sister wore when she worked at the hospital !

Aside from the technical aspect of getting my pictures taken and then uploaded to the computer (ARGHHH!),  I really had a great time with this challenge !
           HAPPY   VALENTINE'S  DAY  TO  ALL ! 

Carolyn: Jerry Holds My Heart's Key

I must confess that at the Houston Quilt Festival Alice and I had the same thoughts about this theme, "KEY."  My quilt is a Valentine Quilt for the love of my life for 62+years, and for all of the blessings my life with him has bestowed on me.  We are the proud parents of two awesome women, three remarkable grandchildren and two young great-grandchildren.  So, I decided to make a quilt based on an old-fashioned message of love not only for Jerry, but for my collective family.

Several years ago, I took a class from Cindy Needham.  I was intrigued with her use of old linens and lace.  I thought this might be the time to utilize what I had learned in her class.  I dove through my small stash of lace and found a piece that was "almost" a heart-shape.  I then proceeded to cut it out of the larger piece of lace, including cutting out the center of the heart.  Then I found some flowers on another piece that were similar to the ones in the cut-out piece.  I decided they would look lovely added to my design, and went to work on them.

I glued and machine stitched the heart pieces onto a hand-dyed background cotton that fades from red to a hint of fuchsia using shiny white Rayon thread.  These two colors together are among my favorite colors.  As an experiment, I made a "sandwich" using wool batting (Cindy loves wool) and a leftover Kaffe print as the backing.  Then I made a diamond shape using special stitches on my Bernina machine with shiny Rayon thread.  I machine-stitched the added hearts in each corner with the Rayon and then used an overlay of white Prismacolor pencil to fade the thread and to add some pinkish shading to each of the four hearts.  The key is a special one taken from a jewelry box that my husband made for me.  I added it to the quilt before the binding with a tiny piece of fabric that swings freely.  The binding in the same fabric as the background.

This was a challenging little quilt, and I almost threw it out and started all over again.  But, remembering Cindy Needham's wise words, "Using an old piece of lace or a linen is not destroying it, but honoring the maker and giving it new life," I persisted!

Andrea's Key Quilt

Key Lime Pie

11 x 14 

cotton, fabric paint

I was going to design a quilt using antique keys as a motif, but around the holidays when looking through my recipes, I came across one for Key Lime pie.  Ahhhh...KEY Lime Pie, light bulb moment!  That was much more interesting than my original idea.

For emphasis, I decided the only color would be the slice of pie itself.  All the elements were first stitched on white fabric, cut out and then stitched on to the background.  I used fabric paint on the pie slice using stencils that I made.

Nedra's Key - Key Lime Cottage

After much thought about fancy skeleton keys, piano keys and other more obvious choices,  I opted  for the Florida Keys and the key lime pie color.  Going out of my box, I chose a basically abstract rendition of the theme.  My goal was to evoke the architecture and colors of the homes (and pie) and tropical vegetation of Key West.


The background, house lines  and orange brush strokes are hand painted, the curlicues and fencing are stenciled. I used rayon thread to thread paint the leaves and inktense pencils for shading.  The background is free motion quilted.  A traditional binding is used to finish.   Fun theme Andrea!!!

Alice's Quilt: Bob Holds the Key to my Heart!

Bob and I celebrated our 60^th anniversary in Michigan this summer with three of our four grandchildren, our daughter, and two sons–in-law.  We went to a lovely, quiet restaurant with scenic views for a delicious dinner. Then we came home to cut our anniversary cake.

 I decided that this KEY theme was a perfect way to honor my husband and our many years together!  The photo of us cutting our cake at the wedding reception in 1959 is superimposed on a heart, and then a smaller picture of the cake cutting at the 60^th celebration is superimposed on it.  Tied atop the photos is what else but a key!  I added two additional hearts with two other recent pictures of Bob that I particularly like.

Further carrying out the KEY theme are the four small background blocks.  These are pieced in batiks using a log cabin variation called the Greek Key.  This is an ancient design that dates back centuries and can be found in floor tiles, rugs, ribbons, other decorative trim, and jewelry just to name a few.  By a stroke of good luck, I found directions for making the Greek Key block in one of my quilting books, Judy Martin’s Log Cabin Quilt Book.  One of Martin’s quilts in this book has a medallion center that contains four Greek Key Blocks, and the border repeats these blocks.

After constructing the quilt, I machine quilted with a meandering stitch in the light areas of the Greek Key blocks.  I fused the hearts and the photos onto the background with Wonder Under.  Then I stitched around these in a tiny zigzag stitch using red thread.  I echoed the red in the binding.

And so my quilt:  Bob Holds the Key to My Heart!

Karen's Key..To My Happiness

Key...To My Happiness

The beach is the best! No matter what the weather the beach brings me happiness! 

In the era of recycle/reuse, the landscape is one of a triptych I did for a show a few years ago. 

The landscape is constructed with multiple layers of batik blues for the ocean. 

One pretty batik was all it took for the sky. I quilted clouds with smoke monofilament thread. 

The key hole fabric was cut out and laid over the landscape and used as a pattern to cut the landscape. I used a tiny blanket stitch all around the key hole opening and that quilted the top layer to the quilted landscape.

I cut another to use as the backing, stitched all around, slit the back and pulled through.  

The key is appliqued on top. 

I could use the beach right now!!!!