Inspirations

These are sad times. The past few months we've had disasters in Australia and New Zealand and now the incomprehensible devastation of Japan.  I've adopted my Nana's philosophy and now pray while I work and particularly while I sew.

As I take up my needle and thread again, I've also been thinking of all the people that make me so grateful.  It's true, I'm trying to balance all the bad with positive energy.  Today, I've been thinking of Martha and Mary Kerr.  who have taught me that I am never too old to learn. 

I like their philosophies.  As an antique quilt collector,  I've tended to treat everything that has come my way doorway as fragile pieces of the past that must be respected and babied.  For the most part of my collection, this is a practical philosophy...but what about the unfinished pieces, the blocks, the linens, and the tops that are less than stellar?

Mary and Martha incorporate these vintage pieces in their work. Be it reusing vintage fabric or recycling old blocks and unfinished pieces, they make beauty out of things that are often overlooked or worse, discarded.  I love their philosophies and these days, I've been going through some of these old things with new eyes, such as this piece:

When people hear I have a blog, they sometimes look at me oddly as if I am trying to be hip or something.  The truth is, I've found lots of valuable things to learn from the web and been blessed to have established so many relationships with quilters I've met while surfing. 

So thanks to Martha and Mary for teaching this old pup some new tricks and tips.  I've appreciated it so much!

Back to Japan now and praying while I sew....

Vintage Revisited...

Remember when I talked about Mary Kerr's book, Vintage Revisited?   On Wednesday, our minigroup met and shared the quilts we had made.  If you recall, we started with this bow tie block, circa 1900:

It was wonderful to see my friends again (I've been so busy with my mother's health issues) and share our creative processes: 
Pam is a gardener and she used buttons to make these funky flowers.  Some of them are buttons on buttons!  What a great idea!  She loves black and white and red quilts and this one will go with a bed sized quilt she has been making.  I love the border print she used as well which ties it all together:

Both Kim and Pam used some reproduction fabrics in their quilts and I love the result Kim got with her bowtie quilt.  Her quilt has a really crisp feel to it!  I think the plaid fabric in the border adds a really fantastic dimension to the quilt.  She worked on hers while recovering from illness.  Look at the cool fabrics she used:

Julie went a different route using embroidery to embellish hers.  The strawberry fabric makes it sing!   She is going to hang hers in a room in her house.  I love the greens  and the gingham she used.  She still needs to bind hers (and she has an awesome binding too!) and will have done it by our December guild meeting:

Close up of one of the embrodiery sections:

Then there is mine,  I went through various ideas before I settled on "Peter's Merry Little Christmas" celebrating the special relationship my son had with my Dad and the various Christmas traditions we have in our family--like Danish Ribbons, St. Nicholas Day, my Dad's tradition of nerf guns or sword for the boys (and Dad which made Christmas particularly raucous) and the annual gifts of slinkys and yo-yos:

PS--the black and white plaid fabric is the train rails and the reindeer antlers.

I emailed Mary Kerr today and hope she will check out our blocks...and if she did one, we will post her photos too!  

Next challenge?  A dresden plate block that Pam supplied us.  Our new challenge quilts are due in March and we are all probably going to start ours in January, but the ideas are coming already!!!!! 

Vintage Revisited

It's been a long tough summer with losing my Nana, losing my baby Paddie (the dog), and now my mother is in the hospital with some other problems.  It's why I sew so much (therapy) these days.  Anyway, I am now working on a mini-quilting group challenge with some friends.  We love Mary Kerr's book,

Vintage Revisited, and decided we wanted to do a Vintage Revisited challenge ourselves.  When we emailed Mary to tell her that we wanted to do this, she said..."I'll play with you too!"  So we have all been given one block:

This block is from the early part of the 20th century and we were each given one.  We can do anything we want with the block or the fabric from the block but it has to be incorporated into a 24 x 24 inch wall hanging.  I know for some people it may sound tough, but I have found this challenge very stimulating--perhaps because it was a good escape.  I actually designed THREE different wall hangings that could incorporate this block.  At 5 a.m. this morning, the third idea came to me and I am now off to the races because I love the idea of it and I always wanted to do something like this.   I'm off to work on it now......I've had months to do this and it is due the first week of November so I've got to get cracking!