Sunset Star for 2020

Finished on December 31st, 2020

As a goodbye to the year. I hadn’t originally planned anything symbolic about this quilt but as I was making the binding in the last week of 2020, I knew I wanted to finish it before the New Year. Sure enough, I was sitting in the couch around 6pm on the 31st putting the last stitches into the binding before sending in through its crinkle-giving wash.

Most of the colors on this were hand dyed save for the bright yellow, orange, and darker brown; all Kona cotton solids. Everything else was onion skin, madder, and indigo. I hand embroidered the Celtic star in the center.

I love this quilt. It was such a job to make it and watch it come together. I changed the pattern maybe 6 times while sewing it, first with a plain edge, another with more star shapes, one version that was longer, but settled on a 60x60” square design with the dark indigo sawtooth edge. All the colors and shapes reminded me of sunsets we’d have in early winter growing up in Montana.

This was machine pieced, mostly machine quilted, but hand quilting was done on the blue star in wool yarn. The back also features an original print of peaches I drew for this quilt.

This quilt is sold.

Duck Parade

I mean, who doesn’t love ducks?

I had spent part of the winter particularly interested in large-scale appliqué work. I had seen a wonderful children’s quilt featuring ducks and I wanted to draft off that. I hand dyed and painted all the ducks myself, cut them out, and needle-turned each shape.

The quilting is mostly free-motioned on on a machine (was really my first larger scale attempt at doing so) and I think it turned out really fun and does a great job of letting the ducks be the focus.

The back was almost equally as fun! I love using quilt backs as an opportunity to use up some of my smaller remnant bits. It came together really quickly and I love the bright and fun movement; I think it fits really well with the ducks.

This quilt is sold.

Amber Waves

Onion skins, indigo, and signs of spring.

Towards the end of winter I ordered a back-dated copy of Issue 40 of Taproot magazine, knowing it had a quilt pattern in it from Jessica Stevens I wanted to try. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to alter the pattern a little, as what was intended to be little stylized blossoms, I was seeing as the sheafs of wheat. With the addition of the some vertical strips, the blocks were connected and the right color palette brought it all to life.

This was also one of the first projects that I dyed fabric with a specific goal in mind. As much as I’ve enjoyed all my natural dye experiments, most of them have not had an end project in mind. I got to work dyeing the yellow before my issue of Taproot even arrived, estimated how much I’d need and setting aside a strip to later turn olive green with an iron assist on the binding. I’ve never gotten so close to running out of fabric before than with this; I literally used every inch of what I dyed, even down to the cotton thread I solar-dyed for the embroidered lines.

This was all machine pieces and entirely hand quilted. I’m thrilled this one found a home with a good friend in Vermont.

This quilt is sold.

Moody Blues

An accidental and improvisational quilt.

I have a large and wonderful piece of textile art I brought back from China in 2008. It’s all hand quilted and appliqué squares, but it’s only a top with raw edges. It’s been tucked away in a box since I brought it home, waiting to find a more permanent place between moving apartments every year or so.

I finally started looking to create a back for the Chinese quilt and sewing in a way to hang in, thus the center portion of this indigo quilt was made. Lo and behold, as I worked on it and began to move the colors and textures, I realized it would be silly to have this be a quilt back that would only ever live facing a wall.

So this back become a front and I added wider boarders and set about a freehand baptist fan stitching. It is machine pieced and hand quilted.

This quilt is sold.