A Hex on Quilters

The hexagon is enjoying a big comeback with quilters. I have just designed a hexagon trim tool similar to my log cabin and pineapple trim tools (coming to a quilt shop near you soon). The inspiration for my new trim tool came from an antique quilt that was shared with the Kanuga quilters www.kanuga.org last January. This 3 day workshop over the Martin Luther King weekend is like a laboratory for my sister, Janet Houts, and I to test out new ideas while teaching a choice of 2 different projects to the quilters who come to sew the weekend away. It is definitely a mutually beneficial event.

Hexagons are popular in Alabama too. I photographed these two quilts featuring hexagons at the Birmingham show last weekend. The difference in the quilts show just how versatile hexagons can be, from sophisticated black and white to pretty pastels. Both quilts are blue ribbon winners. Way to go hexagons!

Elayne Bogmild made her Hexagon quilt using the book, One Block Wonders by Maxine Rosenthal. 

Baby Girl's Flower Garden by Nanny Dinavant. I really like this one because it combines strip piecing with hexagons. 

Birmingham Quilt Show - strip pieced quilts

Here are some of my favorite quilts from the Birmingham Quilt Show. I took just over a dozen photos and I am going to upload them over several days. I have put the quilts in categories to help show why they appealed to me. Today I am showing strip pieced quilts by Sally Brus because I have spent the past 2 years making log cabin, pineapple and jelly roll quilts so I am really into stripping! I think Sally and I may be soul stripping sisters.

#1 in A Series - what a teaser, I like this one so much with its asymetrical design that I can hardly wait to see #2, #3, etc. The bold dark colors are even more tantalizing set against the lime green background fabric.

Crazy Geese - Not all of Sally's strips are horizontal, in both right and left sides of the quilt she added a minimum of short, vertical strips. The flying geese panel is offset to the left, another great design element. The quilt would not have been nearly as interesting if the geese were flying smack dab up the center.

Birmingham Quilt

This weekend I am at the Birmingham quilt show. I have a vendor booth to demo and sell my books and rulers. This is a new activity for me -- my second show. The Pineapple Trim Tools are hot, they are almost sold out. Log Cabin Trim Tool sales are steady but not as hot as the Pineapple here in Birmingham.

So what do you see at a quilt show when you are tied to a vendor booth? Rosie! She was the most adorable visitor to our booth. We were so enthralled with Rosie we forgot to demo the rulers and lost a sale...but who cares.

Rosie rides! This is a dog stroller. Her mom says she got it on amazon and they have lots of colors but of course Rosie needed pink.

Rosie wore her pink dress to the quilt show. Rosie's grandmom sews all of her little outfits and makes matching hair pieces for them all. Apparently Rosie loves to dress up. It's a dog's life!

Oh yes, there are lots and lots of quilts at the show but none as captivating as Rosie.

Jelly Roll book in progress

Today I am off to Birmingham, Alabama to be a vendor selling my books and rulers at their quilt show. If you are anywhere nearby come to the show and stop by to say "hello".  www.bhamquilters.com

Using the scroll down menu, tap on Quilt Fest 2013 for directions to the show. See you there!

Here is what I am leaving behind!

I am almost finished sewing the quilt tops for the new Jelly Roll book. Two quilts have already been quilted. Want to see what a book in progress looks like? Here is the pile of quilts and quilt tops stacked up on my big reading chair in my sewing room. Guess what I will be doing next week? Longarming and machine quilting the quilts in this stack. What fun!

Jelly Roll quilts in progress.

On Tuesday I drove over to Clarkesville GA to present a program to their quilt guild. Clarkesville is in the North Georgia Mountains. They have a large, active guild. Much to my surprise one of the members made my Sweet Sixteen Hundred quilt in sections just like the one I shared on my blog a few weeks ago. It was such fun to see it! My quilt was all in strips of reds, oranges and purples. You can see that hers is multicolored. The instructions to make this quilt will be in my new Jelly Roll book which is scheduled to "roll out" in late fall this year.

Mountain Laurel quilter with her own version of the Sweet Sixteen Hundred quilt.

Rolling Log Cabin

I am sewing everyday making quilts for my new Jelly Roll book. It will be released in late fall. It is so much fun figuring out the math (did I really say that?) to use the strips to best advantage rather than just cutting them up to sew traditional quilt blocks. Here is one I just finished. It is a "wonky" log cabin. Wonky being a new word for crazy in quilt making. A hundred years ago this would have been called a Crazy Log Cabin Quilt. I am calling the quilt Tipsy Log Cabin. I used a Moda jelly roll called "Twirl" and a fabric called Ziggy Candy by Timeless Treasures for the borders. And, oops, I broke my rule not to ever do another mitered corner on borders.

Tipsy Log Cabin - to be quilted, this is only the quilt top. I love it, what do you think?

Nostalgia

I have been sorting through some old photos of quilts I have made in the past. This is the distant past as I made this one in Florida over 20 years ago. I had just learned about charm quilts and decided I wanted to make one too. In a charm quilt each fabric is used only one time, no fabric is repeated. At the time I made this quilt I had already amassed a large fabric stash to work from. Charm squares cut 5" square had just become very popular and quilters were trading these squares at guild meetings, quilt shows and wherever they happened to meet. Here is my charm quilt....

Quilt Name: Tree of Life...and So They Were Charmed

This quilt is entirely hand made, every stitch by hand even the binding. Except for the tree trunks in the center and the borders not one fabric is repeated. Notice the rounded corners on the outside edges. I didn't know how to do mitered corners in the binding...solution, round the corners. At the base of the large center tree Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Sam are leaning against the trunk back to back. Did you notice the snake slithering down the tree to tempt them with forbidden fruit? Sue is holding the apple, but like Eve, will she take a bite? There are seven stars and a quarter moon surrounding the top of the tree. Every leaf is hand cut in slightly different sizes. Appliqué is needle turn method only. Quilting also by hand with the baptist fan pattern at the bottom for the earth and wavy lines with little clouds at the top for the sky. The border is more or less echo quilted around the trees.