Monday, February 16, 2009

Quilts - My own designs

The quilt wall hanging was inspired by an African quilt I once saw in a book. That one was shades of brown and where I put the vintage buttons there were french knots. Often quilts had a mistake built into the quilt; so on this one I did just that. Can you see where the planned mistake is?
In the mid 1990's the church we were attending was getting ready to celebrate their centenniel year. They asked me to come to a meeting to discuss the possibility of doing a centenniel quilt. After much discussion I realized I would be taking all of their ideas and incorporating them into a quilt design unique to the celebration. The church had been located in two different locations over the 100 years; so I photographed both church buildings and the stain glass in both locations. Then turned the photographs into quilt sections to be appliqued and embroidered by members of the church. The center is the church logo, the embroidered hands are of the children of the church, the building at the top is where they are located now, the building at the bottom is their previous building, and all other pieces represent the stain glass. I chose the color combinations to best represent the windows, made little kits for each person to sew, then when they were completed I pieced the quilt. Members in the church hand quilted it. It was a real labor of love and one that now hangs in the church.
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Quilts can tell so many stories and it was great fun for me to be a part of each of these two quilts.

3 comments:

Linda Jennings said...

Beautiful! Quilting is an art I have never attempted, but I certainly do admire the work of others!

Annie Jeffries said...

I see that blob of red. Excellent excape route for bad spirits. The Navajo beleive that you always have to build a mistake in a rug. Only the Creator can create perfection and the mistake is the exist for bad spirits.

Anonymous said...

Oooh, love the quilts. I like crazy quilting, mostly because of getting to the fun embellishment part. Not so nuts about piecework.

I don't see the mistake! It all looks great to me. When I knit, I never have to plan in a mistake. They sort of organically happen. ;-D