Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hand Quilting and Even More Paducah Pictures

I have been working on my whole-cloth quilt for the last few days. At last count, I had approximately 291 hours in it. It will take lots more hours before it is finished. In the last few months I hadn't done much hand quilting; I do find that I have missed the direct connection to the cloth that hand quilting brings to a project. Hand quilting is a great investment in time and love.

Now, for more Paducach quilts...Judith Larzelere from Westerly, RI, created "August" on a 50-year-old machine. The quilt is strip-pieced and strip-quilted. It is an original piece made from hand-dyed cotton by Heide Stoll-Weber. The colors were SO vibrant they truly made me feel the August heat.
On the other side of the coin is this quilt made by Akiko Torii from Tokushima, Japan. The way "August" could convey the heat of the summer, this quilt (called "Blue Water") conveys the coolness of water. Shining waves appear to reflect the sunshine in Akiko's pieced original design, inspired by a Kyoko Oguri workshop. The quilt was quilted on a home sewing machine.
"Feathered Geese in Autumn Splendor" by Joanie Wyatt and Helen Rode from Fredricksburg, TX, is a striking quilt. I think I was really attracted to the colors. I LOVE autumn colors. (I painted my kitchen orange, my living room red, and my dining room yellow!) Joanie paper pieced Judy Niemeyer's Autumn Splendor design and gave artistic freedom to Helen to longarm quilt with microfeathering, meandering, and pebbles.

The next quilt is a miniature. You wouldn't believe how tiny the pieces of this quilt are. Each tiny piece is machine button-hole appliqued to the quilt using thread to match the color of the piece. The workmanship on this quilt is awesome. The quilt is called "Himalayan Garden" and was made by Pat Holly from Ann Arbor, MI. An old embroidery from India inspired Pat to design this completely machine-appliqued and quilted miniature to honor amazing textiles from around the world. The quilt won Benartex's Best Miniature Quilt Award. All I can say is WOW!

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