My Quilt Diary

Last year I drew Kimie's name for Christmas and made her an advent calendar. This year Norie is my Christmas giftee and has asked for a calendar too. So far - so good. I don't have to worry about what to make her.
Now the problem gets a bit complicated ... living in a Japanese house, the wall space for hanging is limited. She gave me the size restrictions (and they were restricting) and I have drafted a pattern and begun the task of putting it in action. The little pockets have to each hold a decoration to place on the tree. If the pockets get too small, the decorations I will have to carve will be very small as well.
Since each pocket has a number, the size of the numbers was also quite limited and needle-turn applique was a bugger. I wanted to stop many times and begin over using paint or embroidery or anything else. Now I am quilting around each number and hoping they will be OK.

As soon as I get these little numbers taken care of, I will be able to sew those pockets on and then the tree and the border of one-inch Christmas fabrics.

Since this is an Advent calendar, it will have to be done by the end of November to be used. The little carved ornaments will take about a week so I guess it is time to stop blogging and get boogieing.

Here is a quilt worthy of any quilt festival but a good place to start is the Blogger's Quilt Festival 2010. amyscreativeside.com.

This quilt was created by a group of mothers from the American School In Japan as one of the prizes for a silent auction at the 2009 Spring Gala.

The Gala theme was "Going Green" I and two other planners pulled out a selection of green fabrics and arranged them into sections. I drew sketches of various seasonal flowers and we selected material for the aplique.

Some of the members of the group who had sewing experience helped aplique the blocks. Those who could do basic sewing joined the blocks or pieced the border.

When the top was assembled we met to quilt in the ditch. Between sessions I took the quilt home and worked the larger areas with Japanese style motifs. Our little group met somewhat weekly, with gaps for holidays, beginning in late November and finishing in early March.

Our first auction quilt was in '04 and with each year our plans have varied but we always start out with non-quilters and end up with great satisfaction and sense of comraderie. This quilt was 211.5cm x 226cm and brought a handsome sum.

If I am able to post this in the festival, it will be thanks to Liz at quilteriehttp://quilterie.blogspot.com who has coached me from afar.

August 26th Paul asked if I could make something to hang in the church entry where a large paper heart had been the year before. He wanted it done by that Saturday, the 29th or by the latest the 30th.
I told him no way could I get anything decent done in that length of time so he said I might take until the 5th as long as it was hanging by Rally Day. Thus I agreed to give it a shot and began on the 27th.

I was stuck with the logo that had been decided by the committee and their choice of colors but hanging a white banner in the entry for a whole year didn't seem practical so I reversed the colors putting white and yellow on blue rather than yellow and blue on white. Since time was short for applique letters, I went out to the local button store and bought yellow and white felt. Ignoring the demands to match the "font" I used stencils to mark the letters. I was pretty well stuck with what I had on hand.

To give the banner better proportions, I added an upper and lower border pieced of assorted yellow fabrics and the background blue. "Yes" and yellow beginning with "Y"...to me they represent the variety of ways one answers "yes".

I lined the hanging with fabric left over from Jon's tablecloth. I had planned to turn it to the front along the edge but instead added a narrow purchased binding.
Sleeve added to the top and bottom and hanging was finished on September 1. Delivered to the church September 2. Size is about 28inches by 38 inches.

Having drawn Jon's name for birthday giftee, I thought it might be fun to make him a quilted birthday tablecloth. I asked him for table size and color options and then sat down with a pencil and paper to draw up the plan. The idea was to have animals of the zodiac running around to represent the years as they fly by and having made several cloths of food prints and having them found good for hiding spills, I thought it might be fun to have food on the table. I guess the title might be "Food on the Table".

Starting with the center I got bogged down finding positions and fabrics for all the animals. In the end, it took me almost a month past Jon's birthday to complete. With twelve inches between the center and table edge, I was able to put the food fabric on point for a more interesting effect. All the quilting templates I had on hand were the wrong size so I ended up re-drafting them. It gave me work for the trip in the summer and I was able to put in the last stitches before leaving to the jamboree. It has already been spilled on but is yet to celebrate a birthday, having missed Jon's.

"Love in Bloom" table runner adapted from a pattern for a wall hanging in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of McCalls Quilting magazine. The pattern was written for machine piecing. I made the hearts scrappy and adjusted the plain border to fit the amount of fabric in my stash. Also changed the applique arrangement and bias color.

Since Julie asked for something really "Girly" I found a lovely batik at Kinkado. Unfortunately there was not enough left on the bolt to cut all the sashings. After looking all over online, I gave up and bought a floral. However, after sewing together a number of blocks I didn't like the results so I un-stitched the parts.

During the summer trip to Portland, Julie and I found this pink batik at a fabric shop. I also bought the black alphabet print which I ended up using instead of 4 1 inch block.


Since my stash of 1 inch prints is getting low after Leia's and Irene's quilts I could only come up with 3 inches of blocks for the border. I found some beautiful prints for the border. I found some beautiful prints for the back, but ended up going for something a bit cheaper.

After swearing off hexagons forever, here I am back going going crazy again. Norie liked the I Spy I had made for Julie's boys and I didn't have to do any fabric shopping thus an alphabet for the center. I thought it only fair to put the Hiragana around the edge.


The plans changed when Norie wanted the 1 inch pieces added because the border was now too small. Kato-san gave me some fabric out of her stash of a similar color and the 1-10 counting filled those areas along with name in the upper right and date of birth in the lower left.

Norie got the organic cotton backing. It is soft and shows off my crooked quilting. From a technical standpoint this is the worst quilt I ever made. I was ready to toss it at several points. I hope my darling granddaughter will look at the love and not the imperfections.

68" x 82.5" (173 cm x 210cm)

Again Kendra, Jacqueline and I sat down to plan the projet.  The theme of the "Blue Dragon" had been chosen by the Auction Committee.  We through we would try a free style and I sketched out a plan.  After piecing the small sections we met to arrange them using a large piece of pink paper marked with a two inch grid.

This process made more work for the three of us but we were able to keep the volunteers busy.  With spring break coming, we began to get concerned about completing the quilting in time to hang the quilt so Kendra called a few all day sessions.  We met again at her house to finish marking the border and a good turn-out made quilting and bias turning go quickly.

I quilted the dragon and background on off days.

Completed 4-9-07.  The lucky bidder was Montana Griffin ar 1,2000,000 yen!

Design planning in October '05 with Kendra Mortganaturn and Jaqueline Wein, we decided on a Japanese Blue & White theme.

We also decided to go for a queen sized quilt thinking it might go for a higher price.  Once the pattern was decided on we shopped for fabric.  The pictures were made mostly of fabric from mine or Kendra's stash.  By December the diamond blocks were pieced and we began the applique.


Once basting was done I brought the quilt home between sessions and quilted the diamonds with crest designs then the picture blocks and corner on the border and added a binding and a sleeve the last day, finishing February 28th.  The quilt was hung in the stairwell at the ELC for a few weeks.  It went to Yasuko Kent, one of the quilters and raised a whopping 700,000 Yen!