Tag: Quilts & Wall Hangings

In 1991, I designed and made this quilted wallhanging for a challenge in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A “challenge” is kind of competition.  Usually it includes a rule that all participants must follow.  That rule is designed to make the competition more interesting… or difficult.  In many cases, the challenge element is a particular fabric, batting, or other major element.

In this challenge, I had to use a certain fabric, and it had to appear in at least 20% of the finished quilt.

The challenge fabric was the floral that appears in the Baby’s Blocks section, as well as bordering the top and bottom sections (not the actual border, which is black).

I rarely use muted, tasteful florals in my work.  I struggled to find a way to use the challenge fabric.

Weeks passed and the deadline loomed, and nothing about that fabric inspired me.

Then I realized that I could work in contrasts–meek with wild, traditional with jazzy.

The finished wall hanging is 32″x52″, and at the time I called it, “Threads of the Past, Visions of the Future.” It is pieced and appliqued, with some stenciling (the small yellow dots) as a surface treatment.

This quilt took top marks, winning an award for originality and design.

Today I call it, “Baby’s Blocks, Gone Wild” and I’m eager to do more with contemporary twists and traditional designs.

This is a baby quilt that I made in 2003. It’s made with over a dozen fabrics, each 100% cotton.

Each square in the quilt is about 1″ x 1″.

It could be very tedious to make a quilt like this, but the top created with strip piecing.

This is a faster technique that works with strips of fabric, cut after they’re sewn together.

Cutting, sewing, and ironing the top took about six hours, total.

The technique comes from a fabulous book, Strip-Pieced Watercolor Magic: A Faster, New Approach to Creating 30 Watercolor Quilts. The book gives precise directions for selecting fabrics, and how much of each for the 30 projects in the book.

I selected the fabrics using a piece of clear red plastic.

(I bought it years ago. It was designed to help determine light and dark shades without the distraction of colors. I’ve never seen another one of these, but any sheet of clear red plastic or acetate should work fine.)

I modified the design from a pattern for a full-sized bed quilt, to create this small baby quilt for a newborn.

I use blanket-style, needle-punched quilt bats for quilts. They cost a little more, but hold up better in the laundry.

Generally, I tie baby quilts rather than quilting them. Baby quilts are laundered often and the batting starts to fall apart.

With a tied quilt, you can simply undo the yarn or embroidery floss (used to tie it), discard the quilt batting, replace it with a fresh layer, and retie the quilt.

(All of my three children loved my handmade quilts when they were little, and I learned to be practical about this.)

This rocking chair is called a Lincoln rocker by some, and a Kennedy rocker by others. It’s the same design that Jack Kennedy had in the White House. He felt that it helped his back.

The restored chair is shown at right.

This particular chair came from a yard sale on Boston’s North Shore (an area by the ocean, north of Boston) and it cost $60 many years ago when my younger daughter and I found it. She could “see” me rocking in it, and so we brought it home, propped in the trunk of my car, and held in place with nylon camping rope.

The chair was well-used and well-loved for several years, until — as shown at left — the dry woven seat finally began to sag and then collapse.

I was dismayed, and knew that I wanted to do something wonderful with the chair, and make a present of it to my older daughter. It seemed naturally to belong to her, after awhile. I don’t know why, but certain things are very organic and clearly “belong” to certain people.

When we were in a bookstore in Stratford-upon-Avon (England) in 1996, I saw an inspiring book, Country Rag Crafts, which I bought and shipped back to the States.

The book included instructions for a woven footstool. As soon as I saw the color photos, I knew that was what I wanted to do with the rocking chair… with different colors, of course.

First, I wrapped fabric strips around (and around, and around) 3/8″ sisal rope (“seagrass” in the UK). As I wrapped, I secured the fabric with hot glue.

Then I wove the seat, in a fairly intricate design that gives maximum coverage with minimal bulk. The design starts at the corners and works in.

The entire project took about three days, working about three hours a day. I worked on it while watching favorite old movies.

The fabrics include glittery pieces and plush black velvets, but mostly cottons. One of the fabrics is a blue calico that I used in the first quilt that I made for my older daughter when she was born.

Some of the fabric is part of a seat covering fabric collage, which used to be on the back seat of our art car, called the “Glittermobile.”

There is also a Disney fabric woven in, with a yellow background and Mickey Mouse faces here and there.

These are the things that are a personal “signature” in fabric art, and while I know what they mean (and my family does), they’re our secret when we look at what I have woven.

The rocker is comfortable, and it’s in my older daughter’s home. I’m very pleased with the results. And I hope this chair lasts a long, long time before it needs a new seat again.

Before rushing out to buy supplies for your fabric art projects, consider a these important points.

Many fabric artists (including me) prefer 100% cotton for most
projects. The benefits are clear:

Cottons are durable. They don’t “pill” or develop small little fiber balls on the surface.Cottons tear on a straight line. This saves tedious cutting. Clip at the start of where you’d like to tear the fabric, and then start ripping it. 100% cottons tear straight across the fabric. The better the grade of cotton, the cleaner the line.

Stains are easier to remove from cottons, partly because of the fiber, but also because you can safely launder cotton in very hot water. And, you can bleach white cottons; you should not use chlorine bleach on most polyester fabrics.

Colors are richer in many cottons, compared with their polyester counterparts.

Cotton is cooler in summer and warmer in winter, than polyester fabrics.

But, there are compelling reasons not to use 100% cotton in some cases, too:

You must preshrink cottons, even if the bolt says that the fabric was preshrunk.Cotton wrinkles. If your wearable art is intricate and difficult to iron, this can be a problem. In fact, if you don’t like ironing or don’t have time for it, your favorite wearables may end up being worn infrequently.

Cotton can fade. If you accidentally add bleach to a laundry load that included colors, the results can be disastrous. Likewise, if you leave a dark cotton in the sun, it will fade. Finally,
if you work with black or very dark cottons, use detergents designed for dark fabrics, to prevent fading.

Some image transfer processes work best on polyester blend fabrics.

In general, I use cottons unless there are compelling reasons to use polyesters.  In practical use, I’d guess that I use polyester fabrics less than 1/10 as often as I use 100% cottons.

On my fabric art shelves, I store the cottons separately from blends and polyster fabrics.   It’s important never to confuse the two.

Choose the best fabric for each project, individually.  The purpose of each project will help you decide whether to use cotton or another fabric for your art.