Since I last wrote I have made at least six quilts, two and a half queen size ones and the others of smaller sizes. Working almost entirely by hand that must mean that my life is too focused on quilts but I do get other work accomplished. My husband and I travel, mostly to western Europe, around twice a year. I continue to mentor high school students to help them achieve their college goals. There are the usual daily chores of household life and I have two dogs and three cats who all think I am the den mother. Their own pecking order is strange with the dogs interwoven in the middle. Barney, the big stray cat, is the sheriff of everything and everyone chases Tom, the lover cat.
I can't get used to "modern" quilts so I stick to recreating antique quilts or making new quilts based on antique themes and blocks. Last year I even dreamed about making a quilt, Mariner's Compass Rose, which is pretty much what it sounds like--four Mariner's Compass blocks and five appliqued blocks set in a square with four of the applique blocks being rose wreaths or bouquets and the center block being a full blown clipper ship. The Baltimore Album books of Ellie Sienkiewicz provided the patterns for the applique blocks and the clipper ship block, but as in my dream, all the applique is white on white with trapunto accents and white on white embroidery. Strictly speaking it is cream on cream but the only color in the center section is in the Mariner's compass blocks. The outside borders repeat some of those colors in an undulating wave pattern with froth on the waves provided by the quilting pattern. I never dreamed a quilt before, or since.
Right now I am layering a bowtie quilt with a floral border. It started off as a pattern put out by Quilters Newsletter magazine (March 2000 #320, designed by Kathy Munkelwitz) but I changed a couple of details on the pieced inner section including the size and designed my own floral border using morning glories and fuchsias that I adapted from a design called Garden Glories by Binky Brown Takahashi, along with other flowers and assorted flying or crawling insects. It is so bright and cheerful it will make any bedroom happy. The Hobbs silk batting is a dream to baste and having used it before I know it will be easy to quilt as well. The picture above is on my bed when I finished the applique but before I embroidered details or started layering. My fabric stash has more than 1200 fabrics and this top includes fabrics from the 1930's up to the 21st century, everything from calicoes to batiks. This one I am calling The Ties That Bind.
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