Archive

I decided to use an old baby knit and crochet pattern book for the trim around Lib’s quilt. When thinking about Lib I always remember her working on a quilt and to me she always seemed to be carrying around the absence of her daughter. I was a bit of a sickly child so I […]

Had a wonderful week of printmaking. Since I knew I wanted two sets of 7” x 7” of monoprints I decided to use an 8” x 8” inch aluminum plate that I had to make things a little simpler for me. (Aside about printing plates: In traditional printmaking a plate is the matrix, often metal, […]

I did a little printmaking and a lot of mulling (without the wine – though that sounds like a great idea!) working through ideas for Elizabeth’s quilt. I didn’t come up with any workable prints, though I did have a lot of fun printing (haven’t done that for a while).   More importantly I figured out […]

I’m finally over the head cold from hell! I finished the whipstitching around the edge of Nan’s quilt this week. Done and Done. This part is always slow going. I fold the interfacing under and whipstitch it down by hand. It is a very slow, meditative process. I rather like it, it allows me the […]

Got another row of circles done and faced the daunting task of lining them up and sewing them together. This part is always slow going and tricky but is usually made a bit easier by the fact that I can mix and match the squares till I find one that fits. I can’t do that […]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to sew the squares together. With the quilts I’ve done to date I’ve sewn the pieces together on a pellon (interfacing) backing and then lined the squares up, overlapped the pellon backing and sewn the squares together. I’ve used heavy black thread with a zigzag overstitching technique and […]

And there is more than one way to do trapunto quilting.   In the hand-quilting method you hand-sew a piece of cloth (generally muslin) onto the back of the quilt face, following the pattern of the trapunto quilting you wish to achieve, leaving a small opening. You then stuff cotton or wool quilt batting (the kind […]

This week has been more printing and reading about and practicing trapunto techniques. All in all a very enjoyable couple of days. I decided on the double wedding ring pattern for the quilt for my great grandmother Cassie. Here is an example of the pattern from the Brooklyn Museum by an unknown maker circa 1930: […]

The good thing about feeling poorly the last week or so is it has given me a chance to reassess the project and do some planning. I had planned from the start to make a total of nine memorial quilts. This is largely because I am making an extra square for each to join together […]

Aside from it actually snowing this week (which oddly has been rare this winter here in Maine (and yes I know it’s technically spring but that normally doesn’t start till much later here)) I had a package from McClain’s Printmaking Supplies waiting for me when I came back home from Veazie. I get so excited […]