Sara's Blue Quilt

Even though blue ia my favorite color, this was a tricky theme for me as my brain kept going into the imagery of a spiral of a dark blue depression. I didn't want to go there in my mind or on my quilt! I even thought of making an all orange quilt and titling it stare and look at a white wall but decided that would be pushing things. My husband and I were chatting over his plans for building out new office space and we were both excited about BLUEprints. I have tried to vary what techniques I use for the quilts I've made in these challenges. Since my first Material Mavens quilt was created with thread painting, I decide to revisit thread as a way to create imagery for the last quilt in the series.

My husband printed our blue print in reverse onto newsprint. (Here is the right-side up image)

I spray basted it to the back of a piece of blue fabric and transferred the design by stitching through the newsprint using white bobbin thread. I then  removed the paper and placed the fabric on a layer of batting and thickened the lines using free motion stitching on top of the previously stitched bobbin thread.I found out pretty quickly that the batting was not enough stabilization to keep the fabric from distorting so I  placed the fabric and batting into an embroidery hoop. After my stitching was done I added another piece of batting and a backing and stitched diagonal lines through the whole quilt using monofilament thread. The edges are finished with a facing.

Judy Steward- Fence Boundaries

 When I heard the theme was Boundaries I immediately thought of barb wire fences. What makes me happy about this quilt is that it also shows a road and tree lines that are boundaries.

Growing up I tangled with a few barb wire fences. The fence in this quilt is what most of ours were like. Many a baseball, badminton birdie, or kick ball was sent over one in our front  yard. Dad put some boards between two of the posts so that we could climb over it easily and the fence would not be damaged.

With 5 kids in the family we all would walk down the road to the woods by ourselves to get some alone time. The fences always gave me a sense of security and by the time I stomped down the gravel road (if I was angry) to the gate I felt better. I have so many wonderful memories of walking along fences, seeing the tree lines and feeling the sense of joy as I walked into the shade of the trees. Some of those walks were with family members and others with friends.

One road we would walk down had our forty acres were on the right and my friends land was on the left. At the end of the road was another neighbors land and they had a little house on it. The man who owned the land was named Jess and he used that little house as his workshop to make corn brooms. We loved going to visit him as he created these useful pieces of art.

I can feel the roughness of the posts, the thinness of the wire, see the staples holding the wire to the posts, smell the dampness of the woods, the coolness of the shade, the creek to cross, the road to travel. “Boundaries” good feelings and good memories.

 The designing of this quilt was easy. I painted some fabric using Jacquare Dye-na-flo and Setacolor. I pieced the sky to the grass area and cut a few pieces to give the effect of tree lines.

I added the road (not in this photo). Placing the posts was the hard part. I put 3 fabric posts on and added the other 2 by thread work. All the rest was done with quilting.

Judy S.- Reflections of Lancaster, PA

Reflection: 

1. A time of meditation looking at my life. 2.The light reflecting images in the items around me.

This is from a photo I took when I was working the AQS show in Lancaster, PA one year. Every morning I enjoyed a walk down to a cafe for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before the show opened. 

It was a time of reflection as I watched people hurry off to work and school. How lucky I was to have this opportunity to be at this table every morning. 

I have always admired artwork with reflections in glassware and I really wanted to create this quilt with that effect. I set this at morning sunrise with a piece of fabric I hand painted so that this could be for anyone anywhere.

I used Cherrywood fabrics for all of the items on the table. They have wonderful gradations that made this possible.

I did add a little paint, but mostly the fabric and thread were my media to make the color happen.