Baltimore Album quilt revival - onto the fourth decade

I am a proud member of the Baltimore Applique Society.  I know I've mentioned it before but last night's meeting was one of the best I have attended.  BAS is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2013 and the program chair is doing a terrific job of securing speakers that could turn even the biggest applique cynic into an applique lover.  Elly Sienkiewicz was the program speaker and she was fantastic.  She wove her own history working with album quilts into the history of quilting generally and the Baltimore Album genre specifically.  Along with that were musings on what draws us to these quilts and she finished up with members of the audience sharing what is so appealing about album quilts to them.  For me, it's difficult to pick a precise reason.  On some days, I see one of those quilts and just want to drink in the riot of color (and touch all the quilting).  Other days, I am enamored by the control of a red and green quilt.  Still others, I find peace in stitching my own blocks or relief that, with so many things out of control, I am master of my own needle and thread.

Above is a photo of Elly with seven current and past BAS presidents.  These women have been very brave taking on leadership of that organization.  I've been a member through at least four of their terms and each has her own style and ideas but all have done the job well.

If you ever took a Baltimore Album quilt class you likely used one or more of Elly's books as a text or source of designs.  I took my class with Mimi Dietrich in 2000 and I confess to not finishing my quilt.  But I learned many skills and acquired nearly all of Elly's books.  Yesterday, I took some time to browse through them and reveled in the history and eye candy they contain.  If you aren't familiar with them, visit your guild library and see if they have copies of Baltimore Beauties and Beyond: Studies in Classic Album Quilt Applique, Vol. 1 and 2, and Papercuts and Plenty (Baltimore Beauties and Beyond: Studies in Classic Album Quilt Applique, Vol. 3) for a place to start.  The photo at the top of this post is Elly with her quilt from Papercuts and Plenty.

 

This block, above, is from one of Elly's quilts.  It's the one I blame for me not completing my quilt started in the applique class I took.  Everyone has their favorites among the variety of blocks used in Baltimore Album quilts.  Mine turned out to be roses, eagles and ships.  Once I completed my own rose block I decided I wanted to pitch all the rest.

This block (above) has all those funky flower petals done in reverse applique.  Most of the time when I am with people who see something complicated done in reverse they will ooh and ahhh.  But, really that shape is a little easier done in that method.  Still, I think it looks cool.

This is Elly's copy of Dena Katzenberg's Baltimore Album Quilts which is the exhibit catalog from the Baltimore Album quilt exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1981.  I loved seeing her book which had post-its all through its pages and had been taped and re-taped to hold it together.  I can't tell you how gingerly I open my own copy because the book is so hard to find now and, if you do, the price is dear.  Oh, and under that book?  It is Elly's original Spoken Without a Word.  She has a new edition coming out in fall 2013.

Well, thanks for sharing my musings about BAS and the album quilt revival.  I've switched from doing a Baltimore Album reproduction to the Mary Mannakee (not Baltimore, but a Maryland quilt from the same county where I grew up).  Yes, I went straight home after the meeting and started appliqueing.  I should have a finished block to show by this weekend. 

Scrap Happy

I really enjoyed the comments on my last post.  It's good to know others have to work to tame the stash beast and some have been pretty successful at it.  Your suggestions were helpful and motivated me to tackle some of my piles this week.  Frances from Quilting Owl has a way to satisfy the urge to keep fabric lines together, at least for awhile.  She keeps the new fabric out for viewing until it is washed and partially used and then it goes into the color storage.  Thanks for that one Frances because I cut off some strips from my beautiful piles that were crowding me out of my sewing room and they are now put away.  Okay, I'm lying.  But, they are on the table in the basement now, sorted by color and waiting for me to put them away.  That's FIFTY fabrics out of the way in my sewing room!  I think that is an entire year's worth of collecting.  I cut 1-1/4" strips for my stars and 1-1/2" strips for my own version of the scrappy strip quilt Kathie (Inspired by Antique Quilts) showed us on March 5.  After chopping each 1-1/2" strip into pieces for the quilt I had some crumbs left over to make another one of my favorite tiny tiles quilts.  See it laid out above?

I couldn't resist putting some of the strips together into rails.  I am going to have fun with this one.  Question...if you start sewing a new project but don't buy any new fabric does that count as starting a new project?  My opinion is "no".  Since you already had all the fabrics it's like you had started that project already since you bought the fabric for it.  Get it?  I can rationalize pretty much anything.

My latest little tile quilt is the one with the brown border.  I've always used red so I thought I would try it in a different color.  Once I had all the cutting done all I needed to finish the top was the three hours I got while the hubby took a nap.

One last picture and of course it has something to do with the stars.  This is an idea I stole borrowed from Karen Styles' blog.  You know the "Friday Girls" star a day project that got me so excited to double down on my own star project?   Shirley is part of that group and she bought a diary to glue her fabrics and jot down a note about what was happening in her world that day.  Genius!  Let me clarify that I am definitely NOT sewing fast enough for a star a day but at least I've picked out my fabrics about a week out, cut them (well, sometimes) and packaged them up for when I am ready to sew.  It's fun and I love carrying my diary and checking out my fabrics whenever I want.  Thanks for the idea Shirley!

You show me yours and I'll show you mine

(piles of stars - about 70 - on some of the pieced blocks)

I was chatting with Linda at Quilts in the Barn because she's been going gangbusters turning UFO's into quilts lately and I am both impressed and humbled.  As I have mentioned dozens of times, I've been making stars.  By hand, mind, but still just stars, stars, stars.  My comment was that, yet again, my stash has crowded me out of the limited sewing space I have.  So, Linda jokingly told me to show her my stash and she would show me hers.  Well, below is not my stash - oh no, that is far more impressive - but it does depict recent fabric acquisitions all with the purpose of creating more "variety" in my stars.

 (Note the pile of fabrics on the chair that still need ironing)

My problem is I've run out of storage boxes for these new fabrics.  So I move them out of the way when I cut more star pieces and the put them right back while I take my prepared pieces away for hand sewing.

This white metal cart was purchased purely for temporary fabric storage.  It has some long lost 19th century repros and most all of my loud bright contemporary fabrics.  The top was to have been additional work surface but has been covered nearly since day 1 with an assortment of old blocks, old fabrics and new repros that haven't found a permanent home yet.  The laundry next to it?  Well, I always believe in pre-washing and I hate to see a load of laundry go through the cycle without at least a couple of fat quarters along for the ride.  In addition to some clothes and sheets in need of folding you can see some pieces of the new Indigo Crossing line from Moda.

How do you sort your fabric for storage?  When I see a gorgeous fat quarter pack of Judie Rothermel fabrics like this I hate to break up the party and store them by color.  But, long term, I cannot think of a better method for finding fabrics when you need them.  So, until I make the decision (or buy more plastic storage bins), they sit on my sewing table and get moved back and forth (and back and forth and...) each time I need the work surface.

Do you have stash management issues?  Limited work space?  I've shown you mine so you show me yours.  And, please, tell me how to organize the mess!

Little repro and more of the stars

A finish!  When I was last at Temecula Quilt Company I saw a little quilt made mostly from Andover Fabrics' IQSC Square in Square line of fabrics.  It is a reproduction of a little quilt that can be found in Sandy Fox's Small Endearments book.  It was the perfect size for a (relatively) quick project and, lately, I cannot get enough of poison greens, chrome yellows and Turkey reds.  So, this is my version - very much like Sheryl's - and I love it.  You can't really see the quilting on the front but it is hand quilted in a small Baptist Fan by Bellwether Dry Goods.  I'll try to remember to take a picture of the back so you can see the great quilting on it.  I always make sure to use a plain muslin backing fabric when hand quilting so the work doesn't disappear completely.

I stumbled upon Karen Styles' blog recently and boy am I glad I did!  She is the owner of Somerset Patchwork and Quilting (it's in Australia) and she had a group of ladies who made one Lemoyne star a day for the last year.  The big unveiling was on January 4 and the resulting quilt tops are stunning!  I've wanted to start another star quilt where I use the same background fabric for the stars as well as the setting squares.  BUT, I am very far into my original idea with the varied backgrounds and the brown setting squares.  After drooling over Karen's pictures for days, I realized that it's the scrappy stars that "star" in these quilts so I am happy with what I started and happily back to work on it.  

When I started my own project (back in July 2010) my goal was a star a day.  Well, you know where that road of good intentions leads...  I do have a decent stack of stars ready for some assembly so this weekend I hand pieced some of stars into nine patch blocks.  Sewing such long seams by hand took a little getting used to but I think I've got it now.  These few blocks I am finishing put a dent in my stack of stars so I am also piecing more stars; I've actually completed a star a day for the last few days but that won't last.  Enough about stars for today. 

Inspired by architecture

No quilt activity here but I was excited to see Kathie's post today about quilting and applique inspiration she got from architecture on a trip to Boston.  I took this photo of part of a building in the Mt. Vernon section of Baltimore, Maryland.  I saw it in December while volunteering at the Maryland Historical Society and right after seeing some awesome mid-19th century applique quilts.  Wouldn't this be wonderful as part of an applique border?

Giveaway winner and back to applique

The winner (at long last) of the little quilt giveaway is Judith (no blog) from the south end of Vancouver Island.  I have your address so I'll be sending it off to you when I go back to the post office later this week.

I promised myself I would make a challenging quilt in 2013 so I've chosen the Mary Mannakee quilt pattern which is a reproduction of a quilt in the DAR collection.  I visited "Mary" several times over the summer while she was on display and she's quite a looker.  Mary Mannakee lived in Rockville, Maryland back in the 1850s and I was born there a century later.  We're practically neighbors.  I intend for my version to be as true to the original as I can make it with just a few block substitutions.

My first block is pictured above.  I figure I can make some progress if I set the Baltimore Applique Society's monthly meetings as my goal to have a new block for show and tell each time.  A block a month, how original.  This first one was pretty easy but those tight inside curves on the center motif reminded me how much I hate appliqueing tight inside curves.  How exciting it is then that block number two has many more.
The blue lines aren't in my block; they are on the cloth behind it.  I'll have to keep the sheerness of my background in mind when getting ready to quilt the finished top (sometime in the next decade).

More Doll quilts

Wow!  I am overwhelmed by the response to the cheddar giveaway and the doll quilt show.  There were so many more responses than I expected - plus Thanksgiving and a few of those unexpected life situations that pop up - that I am way behind in posting the photos that were sent to me and sending out the cheddar fabric.  But, this is my week for getting my act back together.  Today I am posting the photos of the great quilts shared by those who don't have blogs.  I think I got them all but if you sent a photo and don't see it, please let me know.  I am constantly amazed at the creativity of quilters.

Tune back in tomorrow for the winner of the doll quilt giveaway.

Submitted by Beverly:  She is also an antique quilt lover and most of the quilts she makes (and finishes) are doll or wall quilt size.  This quilt is made of leftovers from a guild challenge and almost fits a doll bed her husband bought for her this summer.

Submitted by Louise:  This little red and white quilt is 11-1/2" x 11-1/2" and was inspired by one of the same pattern at Temecula Quilt Company.

The trio of quilts above was submitted by Tammy.

Submitted by Jeanneke: "Lucky in Love" is Jeanneke's (the creator of Little Houses from Scraps) latest little quilt creation.

"Klosjes" submitted by Linda

Judith from Canada submitted the two doll quilts made from reproduction fabrics above.  Like me, she doesn't have access to much repro fabric where she lives so she frequents the same online shops as me.  She likes to play with the fabrics and patterns and see what she comes up with.

Salley is from Australia and this small applique quilt is her own design.  See how she managed to add dimension to her flowers, leaves and border just using solids?

This little quilt made from bright repros was submitted by Kim.

Susan's little basket quilt is from a Kathleen Tracy patterns. I love her colors!

Submitted by Cyndi: a little fall wall hanging.

Dianne calls this one "Brass Buttons."  I am tempted to try this pattern myself because I have lots of little squares just asking to become four patches.

Submitted by Sue B: gorgeous fall colored hexis.  The leaf props in this photo are so pretty I almost can't believe they are real leaves.

Submitted by Mary in Missouri:  the top quilt is a framed mini and the one below is from the Temecula Quilt Co. 12 Days of Christmas mystery pattern.

Submitted by Marca: a little quilt from a Jo Morton pattern.