The Red Room Quilts

In 2007 a network of about 25 women readers from the US, UK, Canada and Australia got together on a book cataloging and social site called LibraryThing. Although we were all active on the public forums (we do love to talk about books), we squirreled ourselves away at times in a private group where we could talk a bit freer and share on more personal topics. We called this private room "The Red Room" for the room which Jane Eyre was sent to when she was punished (we were making a more positive use of the name). Since that beginning in June 2007, many of us have met in person, and we have Skyped each other, exchanged gifts and cards, and generally been supportive of each other.

In October 2007 we got word that one of our members had had a sudden incident that involved spinal damage, the result of which was the loss of use of her legs. Computers reach all over the world, but they can't extend a human hand in a time of need. We all wanted to DO something, and felt frustrated and powerless to help. I thought we might make a friendship quilt and volunteered the labor and extra materials if others would donate a piece of fabric of their choice, or make some other creative contribution for the project. We used equilter.com as a central place for members to find a fabric and have it sent here. Wendy in Northern California sent a small cross stitch piece, Maggie in New York sent an embroidered piece, Caroline in London wrote a poem and we printed that out on fabric. On special fabric, we printed out photographs some of the members had taken, or photographs of a few of the members.

The fabrics arrived (and here I should note that we got extra fabric because other members wanted pieces so that they too could make their own Red Room quilt). But how to put all of these very, very different patterns together?

Kim's quilt. Started around January 2008 and based on the easy "Yellow Brick Road" pattern, this lap-sized quilt combines fabrics representing all of our members, plus other creative bits like those noted above. The blocks were bordered with a small strip of black and then a larger strip of scraps. This was machine quilted by me, free motion, in a random loopy pattern but also accommodated specific elements in the quilt. The quilt was sent to Kim in Australia in 2008. It was our hope that, although we could not be there physically to help her through her rehab, she would know that there were people all over the world thinking of her and cheering her on her uphill road.

The Second Quilt. Almost simultaneously, I worked on a second quilt for another of our members who had recently had back surgery. This quilt used the "Flying Geese" pattern and is bordered by rows of squares. The quilt was also machine quilted by me but—for the first time—I quilted a specific pattern instead of a random one. This was done by drawing a pattern onto Golden Threads Quilting paper, pinning the paper on to the quilt, and then stitching it free motion. I think it came out okay. The quilt was sent to the UK but the member virtually disappeared from the online group and apparently moved house. The quilt was eventually returned to me and we decided as a group to donate it to victims of the Australian bush fires in Victoria in early 2009.

The Third...Quilt. I still had some leftovers after finishing the first two quilts, so I began to mindlessly sew together black and printed squares to make half square triangles. I played with them until they made a nice pattern and the resulting unfinished quilt top is pictured below or as Quilt 2 on a previous blog post about unfinished projects.

**Maggie, a member from New York made a stunning tied crazy quilt with the same fabrics. She embellished it by embroidering enhancements around specific design elements in the fabrics or inventing her own. For example, she embroidered a rocket ship on a starry navy blue print, and clothing on the monkeys in the sock monkey print...etc. That woman needs a blog to showcase her work!

HAPPY 4TH ANNIVERSARY TO ALL MY RED ROOM PALS!

More Bama Bound Quilts

I had so much fun making and sending off the previous two quilts that I thought I'd make two more (well, I thought it would be one, but there were leftovers...).

I had this "jelly roll*" of hot pinks setting on one of my shelves. It was once meant as a gift to a pink-loving quilter, but as fate would have it, she gave up quilting and set me her pink and red stash (a delightful surprise!), before I had the opportunity to send the jelly roll to her. So, the roll just sat around here and I wondered what I would ever do with that many pinks.

When Michelle at Bama Bound Quilts announced that they had identified another 45 kids who could use quilts, I knew then how the jelly roll would be used!

I combined the strips from the jelly roll with other 2 1/2 inch strips from my scrap stash (say that 3 times fast!) and with some fresh cuts and away I went! This is a basic rail fence pattern. Each block is 6 1/2 inches.

But I had leftovers! About 24 rail fence blocks, and lots of end pieces (strips of 3 - 2 1/2 inch squares). Well, okay, if I make up a few more strips, I could put them together as 9-square blocks, but how to mate them with the rail fence blocks...

A friend happened to send an email right about that time with a picture of a Kaffe Fassett quilt she thought she might like to make. As best I could tell, he built the quilt from the middle out, using successively larger squares (based on the number 24, i think). That gave me the idea of building from the middle by putting all of the 9 square blocks there and surrounding them with the rail fence blocks. To make the quilt big enough, I added another ring of 6 1/2 squares with rail fence blocks on the corners. It's pretty wild, but some kid is going to love it.

*the link is to show a random example of jelly rolls. The one I bought had been cut and put together by one of my local quilt shops.

Scraptastic Days & Nights!

My grandparents, parents and relatives, who lived through the lean years of the 20th century, salvaged and saved everything for reuse or re-purposing at some later date. By example, I was taught to do the same. I grew up in the era where we made cute things out of toilet paper rolls, plastic dish soap bottles and tomato trays. We even made Christmas trees out of digest magazines. It seems that our culture has in the last few decades moved away from those lean-thinking times. No one wants to make things out of toilet paper rolls these days.

I've learned to not save everything, but when it comes to fabric, the old ways mostly still rule. I save all of the scraps I generate for reuse in other projects. OK, maybe not all...

In the last few years, I developed a more organized way to save my scraps bringing a bit of sanity into the process:

-- large pieces (fat quarter or larger) are folded and re-filed in my many boxes.

-- Smaller pieces are cut into squares depending on the size of the scrap (or the mood I'm in at the time),ranging from 6 inch to 2 inch (I no longer cut them smaller, but I used to!) They are sometimes cut into strips, mostly 2 1/2 inches, but they can be as small as an inch.

--An older fat quarter that has fallen out of favor may be completely cut into squares and strips.

--Any scraps of special occasion fabric go in my Victorian crazy quilt box. I sometimes save old denim and I have been known to salvage the fabric of 100% cotton men's shirts.

I keep the various size scraps together in an assortment of shelves and boxes for ready use. The 4 inch squares have been sorted into a. mostly white & off-white b. prints c. tiny prints d. novelty & brights e. solids & semi-solids f. Kaffe Fasset. The reason they are organized is, of course, for ease of use; however, sometimes I just like to play with them and this is the result.

I like making quilts with scraps or with a scrappy-look. There can be a certain zen to ironing and cutting scraps, whether it be one scrap at a time, or 6 bigger pieces cut all at once. And, while the old ways rule, they now also ROCK because baby, it is now cool to reuse, re-purpose, recycle, and be GREEN! (although I doubt anyone is making things out of toilet paper rolls again).

Helping the Tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri

We have seen the devastation in Joplin, Missouri after an E5 tornado destroyed have the city. Over 140 people lost their lives (and the count is still going up), and countless others lost everything they owned.

There are ways we can all help. To make contributions, Charity Navigator has a list of charities raising money for this disaster. They include local food bank, Habitat for Humanity, and The American Red Cross. This website (also a non-profit) has financial information on each charity and shows how much of monies collected gets to the needy.

If you are a quilter and want to help out other quilts, or help by using your quilting/knitting skills, here is what I have found:

1. Bittersweet Quilts, a shop in Joplin, is looking for homemade quilts. They are also hoping for donations of a matching sheet set to make it easier for the bedding to be given out. See the linked page for addresses and additional specifications.

2. The Ackfeld Manufacturing Co. is collecting quilts for Joplin, working through churches and local organizations. From their FaceBook page: "Rebuilding "One Patch At A Time" We are collecting Quilts for the victims of Joplin. If you have any that you would like to donate please send to Ackfeld Mfg @ 360 Emerson Rd Reeds Spring, Mo 65737. Let's show Joplin the love of Quilters."

3. There is some talk on the web that the Springfield, Missouri chapter of Project Linus has already sent blankets to Joplin, and will be sending more. I don't see anything on their website, but contact information is on the site. "...It is our mission to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, victims of natural disasters or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer 'blanketeers'." Specifications for knitted, crocheted and quilted blankets are on the site.

4. The Town and Country Quilters Guild of Joplin, which makes quilts for the needy (172 just last year), lost all of their quilting supplies when the house they were stored in was destroyed. All of their fabric, batting, rotary cutters, cutting boards..etc are gone. Donations of quilting supplies are being accepted by the guild representative and can be mailed to: Gloria Park, 2921 N. Hickory,Joplin, Missouri 64801. (btw, the only JoAnns fabric store in town was also destroyed). They will also take checks, gift cards ...etc See Susan Brubaker Knapp's website for more details.

My Unfinished Quilt Projects

Because I can't talk about my very latest project until after the recipient has received it (just in case she's listening), I thought I'd document some of my unfinished quilts, recently unearthed during my pizza box project.

Quilt 1. The Irish Chain Quilt.

Might have been started in 2007/08, the Irish Chain quilt is just a pattern I wanted to try. Since it had no specific place to go, I suppose I didn't feel the urgency to finish it.

Quilt 2. The 3rd Red Room Quilt (2008). I will document the "red room quilts" at another time, but after making 2 quilts with fabrics chosen/donated by online book friends, I was on a roll and in possession of scraps I didn't want to waste. Thus, this small quilt top came about. Just tooling around.

Quilt 3. The Batik Circle quilt (2007). My daughter was "house mom" to several middleschoolers for a year at the private middle school where she taught. They had a big blank wall in their common room over the couch, and that is where this "wall hanging" was destined for. Unfortunately, my daughter took a different teaching job half way across the country and that took the urgency out of finishing it. Currently it is the size of a small lap quilt and I have another 30+ quarter circle blocks made up that could be added to it. In this picture the blocks have just been arranged but I doubt this is how they ended up.

Quilt 4. The eye-searing kids' quilt (2006). This is another quilt top I made for the fun of it. It hung, folded over a cardboard tube, on my closet door for what seemed like ages. It disappeared from there and honestly, I thought I had finished it and given it away, but there it was buried under "stuff". This is a twin-sized top. I've forgotten where the pattern came from.

Quilt 5. The Divorce Quilt (2001?)

I started making this scrap quilt for my oldest daughter and her then husband back in 2001 (?), but they separated and divorced (they were so young...), and well, that killed my enthusiasm to finish it. When I pulled this out just now to take a picture of it, I realized that the top was much more finished than I remembered. The overall effect is nice, but I shudder to look at how badly all those little seams line up (I used to have a problem "eyeballing" a 1/4 inch seam.)

Quilt 6. The Pink Quilt (2010)

I have 30+ little 6 inch blocks for a pink quilt I was making for a friend. After I had completed the blocks I laid them out and thought the whole thing looked horrible, so I canned it then and there, and moved on to another quilt for her. There was just too much pink. I had some ideas around some bordering for each block to dilute the "pink effect", but set it aside to work on the new quilt.

Quilt 7. The Victorian Crazy Quilt

I can tell you now that this quilt will never be finished. The amount of work in this one 20-inch block is substantial. The block is machine-pieced of mostly special occasion fabrics (velvets, brocades, jacquards, silks, satins, taffetas ("Taffeta, Darling!"), and then embellished with different stitches of embroidery in various kinds and colors of floss, also lace, beads, charms...etc. I made a few projects during this period, and I loved experimenting and playing. Not sure my eyes are up to such work now. This block will become a pillow eventually, I think.

There. I have confessed all.

The Bama Bound Quilts

My most recent project, finished this morning, are two quilts for the Bama Bound Quilt project, which aims to provide a quilt, tote & small stuffed animal to children who were victims of the Alabama tornadoes.

One of the many benefits of not being able to resist cute, colorful or otherwise eye-catching fabrics is that you have lots on hand for "emergency" projects such as this.

I can't remember where this pattern came from, but it is a very easy one and would work up quickly. Essentially, one cuts 4 inch and 2 inch strips from various "fat quarters" and then sew one of each together. After pressing, you cut from the assembled piece, 4 inch and 2 inch pieces. Mix & match and sew one of each together. Assemble 4 in a block and alternate with 10 inch squares.

The quilts were layered with a light cotton batting, and backed with the same extra wide, blue/purple/teal batik that I backed my previous quilt in. I machine quilted it with wavy diagonal lines, roughly 5 inches apart.

Pictured is a "girl quilt" and a "boy quilt" with their totes and beanies. Also, two extra totes & animals I volunteered to donate to go with quilts they received without them. The tote bags are made out of denim and lined with whatever half yard piece I could find. I purchased the strapping. Again, an easy-peasy pattern.

Both the block pattern and the tote pattern can be scaled easily to any size.

As someone said elsewhere recently, "I can't build a house in Alabama, but I can make a quilt!" I hope someone will come forward to do the same for the victims of the Joplin, Missouri tornado.

All Mixed Up But Not Crazy quilt

I recently finished a quilt for a friend in her favorite colors (and many of mine). The pattern is from Batiks and Beyond by Laurie Shifrin. I liked the "mixed-up" look to this quilt, the pattern aptly named "all mixed up but not crazy." The quilt is made by assembling 2 different blocks, (very similar except that one block is an inch long than the other - thus one is a square and the other a rectangle) and a strip of 1 1/2 squares. Vertical rows are created using a variety of the blocks and strip, but each row adding up to the same length. The rows are then sewn together and the quilt is finished.

Here is where I tell you that I am not a perfectionist. There is always a bit of fudging in my quilts! Fudging is a fine art in and of itself. After I assembled the quilt, I realized that somewhere along the line, one end of the quilt had about 3/4 inch more than the other. A little fudge, a trim here and there, plus the distraction of a busy pattern—who would know? (quite obviously, you now, because I've told you).

I finished the quilt by machine stitching a random loopy pattern. I do this on my regular sewing machine while humming waltzes (it gives me a rhythm to move the fabric by). It's not easy—a sneeze or a moment of distraction can make a nice loop go in unwanted directions. Still, for me, it's not about perfection.

Just a bit about the colors. I was confident going into this project that the deeper purples, blues and teals would jive wonderful, but I was less confident about the lighter hues I added: the lavender, sea green...etc. I mixed batiks which, because they aren't a solid color, helps to move the eye from piece to piece, and other patterned fabrics that create movement in a different. Not every fabric ended up being a perfect fit, but the effect turned out as I wanted it to.

When you make a quilt for someone else, you think about them throughout the whole process. There is a lot of affection worked into the pieces, the layers and the threads.

Photos: 1. The quilt's vertical rows laid out. 2. Finished! (but not washed yet) 3. The batik backing. 4.Close-up of machine quilting 5. Crinkling effect after washing. This quilt is lap-quilt size, but made closer to a square shape.

(Clearly I need to spend some more time messing around with the html so I can get those pictures exactly where I want them!)