background

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Wall Projects

When I started this project, I had nothing but a picture I'd taken of a friend's antique quilt that I had completely fallen for. After years of wishing I had that quilt, I decided to make one. (Now that I want to do a post about this, of course, I can't find any of the pictures I took.) So I started to cut up little strips of fabric, ties and my husband's shirts (old, of course). I think Bonnie Hunter would be very proud of me LOL!!
Well, all that cutting resulted in this. It's wonderful log cabin wall hanging and it hangs in my son's room. I guess my camera wasn't set right because this picture does not capture the color of the quilt.
This second picture shows the quilt exactly how it looks. It has a very warm feel to it with the gold center blocks. My father made the frame on one of their visits from High Point, NC. as I knew I'd never find one to fit.
The tinier I cut the strips, the better I liked it. I didn't really care about straight grain, color placement, etc. This is kind of like liberated quiltmaking Gwen Marston style. And I loved it!!
Since I had no pattern and no directions (I seem to do that alot I guess) there were no rules. So I ironed very stiff, fusible interfacing to the back and that was it. There is no quilting in this at all. When I look up close at the individual blocks, I think there's no way this could look good, but from a distance, it works. At least it works for me.
This is the second wall project in this room. Our Guild has a program called "At Home in the Guild". A member teaches a technique for any where from 6 to 10 people and we pay a very nominal fee that goes to the Guild. This was a technique where you took 1 piece of fabric and cut it up into little squares. You sorted by light, medium and dark and then started to make a picture.
This fabric started out as men riding horses, dressed in riding habits with hunting dogs all around. Of course, I don't have a picture of this one either. My idea was to create a scene from the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina, a place my husband and I love very much. I was hoping it would look like a sunset over the mountains. I made this for my DH one year for Father's Day.
It's not very good, but I'm just proud I finished it LOL!! It actually took a guild challenge for me to finish it and it was the second thing I ever machine quilted. Sometimes it's good to remind ourselves that as Diane Gaudynski says, our quilting gets better every day. At least I hope that's true.
So until next time,

Karen

12 comments:

Terry said...

Love the log cabin quilt! It's just stunning! :0)

Valentina said...

Dear Karen, truly lovely quilts, both of them, But the Logcabin sparkles!!!
I love everything about it... wow.

em's scrapbag said...

I love your log cabin quilt it is very striking. What a fun technique you learned. Gives me an idea for my guild.

Karen said...

The log cabin wall hanging is excellent! And, the frame is perfect for it.

QuiltSue said...

The log cabin is great, but the other one is brilliant, so clever.

Janet said...

I love the log cabin too, it looks fantastic in the frame. The second piece looks like it was fun to do, really clever idea.

Jan said...

What a great idea to use interfacing! So many older log cabins weren't quilted, and I like this idea better than tying. Smart girl!

Kim Brackett said...

I had forgotten about the log cabin quilt! How long ago was that?!! I'm really enjoying seeing all these quilts that I haven't seen in so long. They're all gorgeous!

Vivian said...

I totally agree with a word Valentina used. The log cabin quilt sparkles. What a great quilt!

Thanks for the explanation about the quilt with the squares. Such an interesting process.

julieQ said...

How gorgeous is that log cabin! I truly love the strips to be tiny too...both quilts just sparkle.

Rose Marie said...

It is amazing what one can do when you just 'let go'. Love your log cabin and how you have it framed .... very nice indeed!

Your colour wash quilt is great and I'm amazed what did with that fabric.

Unknown said...

I love both of your quilts. The log cabin looks great to me up close and far away. Sometimes we just have to do our own thing. It does look like an old quilt and I wouldn't have tried to quilt it either! The pictorial quilt is really wonderful! It really does look like you intended it to. It's great how magical only one fabric can be.