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!
I'm glad that you persevered as this is quite stunning!! Color and texture contrast is dramatic and the use of the old lace is just beautiful. Placement of the key is the perfect finishing touch. One of my favorites of your
ReplyDeleteThis is simply beautiful Carolyn! Stunning in fact. And yes you and I took the same route!
ReplyDeleteCarolyn ... Your quilt is absolutely beautiful, and your narrative brought tears to my eyes.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your lovely work, and your love story with all of us.
Such a sweet, beautiful quilt. As with Alice's quilt it is such a warm and loving tribute to your life with Gerry. I adore hearts and I particularly love that you have given new life to an old piece of lace. I'm glad you finally had the opportunity to use what you learned in a the class you took years ago!
ReplyDeleteI always love your artwork! This has an elegant and romantic feel that really tells your story well. The color, contrast, techniques, and composition are perfect and the struggle to make it turn out this beautiful was worth it!
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