Bohemian Fabric Artist
Sunday, June 12, 2022
T-Shirt quilt - University of Maryland Theme
T-Shirt quilt I made for my daughter with her University of Maryland era T-shirts. I loved doing machine quilting on this and had fun going every which way with the rows of machine quilting. Other than the t-shirts belonging to my daughter, and a large neck scarf she had with the Maryland flag design, the best state flag in the nation, I must say, rivaled only by Arizona's, in my opinion, I used fabrics and supplies that I already had. The Maryland state flag scarf was used as a border all the way around the T-shirt squares, in the black. Many of our daughter's University of Maryland rowing t-shirts are evident. She was on the women's rowing team which is really just a "club" at the University of Maryland, even though they compete.
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Sunbonnet Sue Quilts
These two baby quilts were made for the little girls born to our nephew and his wife in New Hampshire.
And here's the back, below.Below are a couple pictures taken when I was still laying them out and piecing.
Pandemic Grandson's Quilt
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Recovered Porch and Deck Furniture
We bought rattan thrift shop furniture for our front porch and back deck and I recovered all of it with various shades of denim scraps and an old green patterned table cloth that I had on hand.
On the back deck I repurposed, yet again, old scraps of denim that had had another life as covers on our furniture in our fifth wheel trailer.Below is the "before" of the front porch furniture.
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Tree Huggers Quilt
And my little grand-niece enjoying her quilt.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
New Wall Art - "Dancing Colors"
I am transitioning from more traditional quilting to fabric arts more generally. I just finished this one yesterday and mounted it on polystyrene. I put a black cloth "frame" around it.
I used my stash on this, which included ric-rac and bric-a-brac. I had many colors and sizes of ribbons and hem binders and blanket bindings that I'd picked up in thrift stores over the years. I also did free-motion machine quilting, pebble style in a couple areas, and added some Kantha-style large stitching and French knots. A little international flavor, wouldn't you say? A friend of mine who is one of the original team that sequenced DNA, our wicked smart friend, we call him, looked at this before I'd framed it out and started waxing elegantly in physics lingo about the prism and color spectrum and all. We'd been imbibing over dinner and I want to just blame my failure to fully comprehend on drink and not lack of smarts on my part. It was fun though. I wish I'd captured his words for fun to add in here.Mom's Quilt
Here is Mom's quilt that I completed in 2020 but had stopped blogging for a while.
Like the one I did for my dad, I wanted it to keep my mom warm while she spent her days in a nursing home with remnants from strokes and Lewy Body Dementia. I used old lace doilies I'd found in thrift shops or that were given to me by friends. I also used some piece work some unknown woman had done but never made into a quilt. I found those in a thrift store too. I also added my own applique of a Carolina Wren since I was living in the Southern Appalachians when I made this quilt and the little fatty wrens were always serenading me and visiting me just outside my windows and on the porches and deck.
The browns I used in this quilt were done partly because they were already in the pieces I found at a thrift shop and wanted to use but also because I remember Mom and Dad's bedroom out on the farm in Iowa was done in brown shades and I had always liked it. It was part of the story of their life.
I wanted this quilt for my mom to also be feminine and it did have the pink with the brown in the applique pieces, but I used a touch of turquoise in the trim around the edges to give it a little pop, and then I used printed flowered brown squares at the intersection of each larger square, and I hand-quilted free-hand flowers in all the brown strips between the squares.
As with the quilt for my dad, this one for my mom is destined for a sister of mine after my mom is gone. The one for my dad went to my sister, Karen. This one will go to my sister, Barb.
Below is a picture of the layers, the topper, batting and backing, taped with painters tape to the clean wooden floor in preparation for hand basting. Note one of the knee pads in the left foreground of the picture. It's careful, grueling work crawling around on top of this to baste it starting from the center and going out to all the edges.
And below is a picture of when I was still piecing and before I hand stitched in all the vintage lace doilies.T-Shirt quilt - University of Maryland Theme
T-Shirt quilt I made for my daughter with her University of Maryland era T-shirts. I loved doing machine quilting on this and had fun going...
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Recovering cushions is pretty easy. I literally deconstructed the old ones and used them as patterns to sew the new ones. I even reused t...
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My on-going quilt projects. Teddy Bear Baby Quilt. This is a multi-color Teddy Bear baby quilt, as you can see. I was inspired to ...
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I made these denim frames for prints I'd bought in Alaska. The prints were inspired by a marathon there and seem to have Klimt's ...