If Vanna Ever Retires, I Have Found Her Replacement!

When my friend Carol Brum Gordhamer came over this week I remembered to take her picture in front of the quilt.
She sure takes great pictures. You can see she has the motions that would make her a great replacement for Vanna on Wheel Of Fortune.

Bordering On A New Millennium- Building A Quilt

Recently I shared photos of this quilt on Facebook.
The full view of the quilt does not show the colors accurately.
I am going to share some close-ups with you that will give a pretty good color match.

This is the very center of the quilt. The area you are seeing is less than 6 inches on the quilt itself.

This shows a center that is about 16-18 inches in diameter.

This is a close-up of one of the North, South, East, West points. They are cut from a border print and the reverse of the print to create this symmetrical design.

Here you see the other set of yellow points cut from the same fabric as the previous set. They are cut from a  different part of that same fabric.

This is the third and last set of points. There are 16 of them and each is identical, all cut from the same fabric.
I DID NOT build this quilt from the center out.
I started with the section I call the circle of lace which is what you see directly next to the background. I used 32 repeats of the image to create a circle and then designed the center to fit the circle.

If you look closely at this image you will see the words MILLENNIUM written over and over. It was one of a collection of fabrics Jinny Beyer designed for the Millennium.

The blue swag print is a border print she designed for the Millennium.
I added the other fabrics to make a border that set off the rest of the quilt.
This was an exciting quilt to make and never fails to evoke positive responses from those who see it

This picture shows the entire quilt. I was not able to get a photo of it in it’s entirety than shows accurate colors.

Happy Pi Day

Have a slice of my square Pi!

Scan of Calendar from Anderson Art Center 10th Anniversary

Last night after Shelley and I went out for dinner she spent some time in my studio.
When she left I gave her a copy of this calendar and also some magazines my quilts and I had been featured in.

She sent me this scan of the calendar and it is much better than what I have done with it so I wanted to share it with y'all.

I also thought this would make a good puzzle.

My Newest Arrival -- 2 weeks early

Isn't it great when things happen sooner than expected! The date I was given for the arrival of this book was July 28th. It arrived today, almost 2 weeks early.

It's the biggest and best yet of my blog books. I can't wait to share it with my friends and have more time to look at it myself.



I had a hard time photographing the pages as there was a reflection from the lighting in the room. It was so neat to be able to see all of this group of friends on the facing pages.



This shows several steps in the creation of Bordering On A New Millennium on facing pages. It's great to view them together.



Do you remember my blog posts about quilt cars? They were the most popular posts I ever featured on my blog.

If you have a blog I can't image not wanting to have a Blog to Print book made from your blog. We put a lot of time, thought and ourselves into doing this and it's great to be able to open a book and realize what we have accomplished.

I've made it easy for you to find the site to make your book.
Just look to your right and you'll see a link to the site where you can make you own blog books so that you can save your blog forever.

Bordering On A New Millennium - Part 6 - Finale

I had intended to simply finish the edge of this quilt with this border print.



I realized it needed more interest than the border print would give so I added a one inch strip of the purple print and another strip cut from the same fabric I used for the final 16 points.
The more substantial border complemented the quilt and yet did not take away from the focal point of the quilt which was the Mariners Compass.

I layered the quilt with backing and batting and then it was time to do the quilting.
I did free motion quilting around many of the motifs in the Mariners Compass and Lace portions of the quilt to emphasize the designs.
Because I used clear smoky thread I can not get a good enough photo to show you the actual quilting around the motifs. It blends in with the design to well.
By doing this type of quilting though, it adds dimension to the design areas.



The background needed some interesting quilting and yet something that I could do in a reasonable amount of time.
My sewing machine happened to have some programmed quilted feather designs which I scattered randomly around the background. I then filled in the remaining areas with free motion stipple quilting.
I know it is not particularly easy to see the quilting again because of the transparent thread but I tried to adjust the photo to make it more visible. The color is not accurate. You can click on this for a larger image.

I bound the quilt with a Jinny Beyer black on black print which created a sharp defined edge.

I added casings on the back at both the top and bottom to hang the quilt. The top casing is used to hang the quilt on the wall. I put another piece of flat aluminum in the lower casing to help the quilt hang straighter and weight the botom.

Bordering On A New Millennium

Bordering On A New Millennium -- Part 5

The next challenge was to decide how I was combine the lace edged circle with the Mariners Compass and the background.
I finally realized the best way to do it was to piece a background the size I needed and to applique the lace edge to it by HAND. (There's that word again!)
I took it with on a one week family vacation and finished it during that time period.
Since I was on vacation when I did it I don't count it as a part of the total time I devoted to making this quilt.

After I finished doing the applique I trimmed out the background under the Mariner's compass to reduce the bulk. (this large amount of fabric I trimmed out was eventually used for the back of "On The Wing of A New Millennium".
http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2009/01/time-has-flown-on-wing-of-new.html




I am quite sure it is not obvious to you what the background fabric is in this quilt.
Hopefully you can read it in the closeup. If you can't click on the image to enlarge it.
It is part of a collection of fabrics Jinny Beyer designed to mark and memorialize the Millennium. It says MILLENNIUM.

I work with a general idea in my head, but I think you can see I continually make choices and changes as a piece develops.

Bordering On A New Millennium - Part 4

After completing the yellow ring I needed to redraft the pattern pieces for the magenta ring.
It uses 16 segments - 8 identical and 8 mirror images. I was pleased with the way it looks and with how well the seams are hidden.
The gold motif in the center of the quilt was done with only 8 identical pieces. These were sewn together and hand appliqued on top of the previous round.
The only time I do hand stitching is when I find something I can not do as well by machine. There are only 4 places I have done hand stitching on this quilt.

It was now time to join the circular Mariners Compass and the lace border that I used as my starting point. It was an easy gentle curve seam to sew.

I spent some time thinking how I was going to attach this to the background fabric.
Tomorrow I will share the solution.

One of my favorite puzzle cuts for one of my favorite puzzles

Bordering On A New Millennium - Part 3

Duh!
I finally realized what was missing.
When you draft only part of a pattern who don't see the whole picture.

I was missing an entire set of points - the final round which consisted of 16 points.

I had a large collection of Jinny Beyer Border prints but did I have enough of any one fabric that would be perfect for these points?



Here you see two of those final 16 points. When I looked at the entire piece of fabric I didn't think it would work. When I carefully analyzed the fabric it was perfect if I chose this particular part of the fabric. I was so pleased I had enough of the fabric to do this. I don't think I could have cut 2 more pieces from the length of fabric I had.



I double checked to be sure I had 32 of these pieces to fill in between the points.
Yes, I only had 16 but had plenty of fabric to make 16 more. This gave me the required 32 background pieces between the points.

The next step was to decide what to use between the inner edge of the first round of the compass points.


From only 1/2 yard of this print I was able to carefully cut all 16 of these diamonds. They created a nice accent to the fabrics I had used in the points.



The next section I created is the yellow "wreath". I took the leftover fabric from the first 4 star points and hoped to cut 16 identical and 16 mirror images. I ran short on the last 3 points so I had to make them shorter to get 32.

Keep watching as I'm not done sharing how I created of this piece yet!

I love this section of the quilt and hope you'll enjoy putting it together as today's puzzle.

Bordering On A New Millennium - Part 2

The next decision was what fabric to use for the secondary points: NE, SE, SW and NW.
I chose another section from that same yard of fabric I used for the first points. They also have a seam down the middle and are a quieter print than the fabric used in the first 4 points.



I needed 8 identical points for the next round.
I chose the fabric that would eventually become the border for these 8 points. It had a fine gold line on one edge of the border print so I carefully used that at the edge of each point.



Thinking I had made all the points I made the sections with the purple print and the magenta leaf motif.
When I put this up on the wall something was wrong. It took me a while to figure out what I had done.
Stay tuned for the next installment of the quilt soap opera!

Bordering On A New Millennium - 10 years later

I don't think any quilt I have made gets as much attention as Bordering On A New Millennium.

You have seen it many times as I use it as a background for visitors photos. People stand in front of it and look at it and ask a lot of questions about how long it took, how I did it and say nice things! Many have no familiarity with quilts, but are still drawn to it.


It's hard to get a a shot of the entire quilt without moving the furniture so please excuse the objects in the way.

I'd like to share a little about how I created it with you.



I started with a Jinny Beyer border print that had a lacey effect. I had 35 repeats of the motif so I designed the quilt to use 32 of the motifs. That determined the size of the Mariners Compass.



If you look closely at this photo you can see the seams where I joined the motifs. If you can't see the seams that means I really did a good job. You can click on the photo to enlarge it and see the seams more clearly. You may even be able to double click to make it larger yet.

After sewing all the "lace" motif's together I measured the diameter and circumference of the circle and began to draft the Mariners Compass. I only had to draft 1/4 or 1/8 of it.



I chose the fabrics for the north, south, east and west points first. It was cut from a border print I only had 1 yard of. If you look closely you may be able to see how I created each point with a seam down the middle.

To be continued-

A time for reflection and anticipation

On this the last day of 2009 I like to reflect on the past year.
So many things have happened this year for which I am grateful.


Of course my solo show at the Anderson Arts Center in Kenosha was one of the highlights of my year. In this photo you see my siblings, their spouses, cousins and niece and nephew in law in front of The Colors Of My Life 20 - The Grand Finale in the series. This polymorphic quilt looks different depending on where you are standing when you look at it. There are 3 major views.

Once the show had opened it was time to head to Florida for a few months.

This quilt resides in Florida and it was the inspiration for my decorating scheme in the house.


When I am in Florida I have a mission! Ladies in Florida lunch and I put my efforts into this endeavor. Ladies in Florida also shop and I do my part there too!

March took me to Texas to a reception for Fiber Art for a Cause at Karey Bresenhan's Franch. A good time was had by all.

This was just the beginning of 2009 and there were many more adventures to come. If you'd like to see them you can just review my blog!

I am anticipating an even better year in 2010.

Thursday: Jinny Beyer workshops and Show and Tell

I took a class on making a doll pin from Andrea Perkins one year. I'm not a doll maker but Andrea's classes were too much fun so I took several from her. This is Violet. Of course Andrea also tells stories about the dolls.
This is Violet's story. Violet is from Wisconsin. Wisconsin's state flower is the violet so that is why she always wears that leather violet pin on her hat. Her hat is made from a piece of decorator fabric Kay purchased on one of her shopping expeditions earlier in the week and from a sample of Jinny Beyer fabric chosen to match her pin. She thinks the beaded feathers under her chin are so fashionable, even if they do tickle her when she moves the wrong way. She was so happy to be created in a class taught by Andrea as Andrea is originally from Wisconsin and Kay also lives in Wisconsin.

This large block is a work in progress started in one of the early Jinny Beyer seminars. My intentions are to add one or more borders to finish it. At one time I had planned on making it much larger. It certainly doesn't need to be much bigger than it is now.

I designed and made these blocks one year when the seminar theme was Medallion Quilts. I intended to make this a king size quilt to fit our bed. At the time I started this I thought all my quilts should be king size quilts! How many king size quilts does one family need? I have a basic layout sketched to make this. I will be scaling this back and making a generous size wall quilt with it. I still love the blocks as much as I did when I originally made them in one of the early seminars. The colors I chose were very unusual at the time. I have learned that these are colors that look good almost anywhere.

This very poor quality photo shows my quilt "Bordering On A New Millennium" being held up on stage for the Thursday evening show and tell of participants quilts. This was shown at the 2000 Seminar. You've seen this quilt on the Anderson Arts Center calendar in a previous post.

Robin Haller has sent me photos of 2 of her quilts. This one is called "Inner City, Outer Space". Robin attended about 10 of Jinny's seminars and you can see this is a wonderful example of things she learned. I'm so pleased to be able to share her quilts with you.

Cosmic Cube is another quilt by Robin. This quilt is a great example of how you can show the third dimension on a flat surface. I love both of her quilts so much. Robin has won a lot of contests with her gorgeous quilts. Robin and I last saw each other at Jinny's 25th Seminar.
Stay tuned as I will share two more posts with you as there are two more days left in Jinny's final Hilton Head Seminar.

December Star

Anderson Arts Center published a calendar for their 10th anniversary in 2003.
13 artists who had had solo shows there were invited to be a part of this.
My quilt was chosen for December - how appropriate since it featured a star (or a mariners compass) design using mostly border prints. The title is Bordering On A New Millenium. It was my entry into the Jinny Beyer Bordering on Brilliance competition and I am pleased to say I won first place large quilts.
This is a 94 inch square quilt and I finally have a wall to hang it on.
Yes, that is me in the picture but it is not one of my most recent photos!

This is the front of the calendar featuring the Anderson Arts Center. You can find out more about it by going to: http://www.andersonartscenter.com/

Tonight's puzzle is a stretched out version of this quilt.