Debra: Pink 9 Patch Quilt

Honoring my resolution to use the weekends for my personal projects, I quilted my 9 patch quilt.  I pieced it sometime last year.   I'll be keeping it for myself.  It's filled with fun fabrics from a variety of other quilts and some of my own clothes.  Besides, I love pink.  This is the tail end of some of these fabrics and I like the memories connected to them.

I really didn't think I had so many UFOs . . . . what do I know?

Debra: 2 Wallhangings

It's been a rough week. One of my sons' friends took his life and that sent all of us into a tailspin. My son was particularly upset since he lost his own brother (accidental death) and felt like this young man was a brother too. In my own grief recovery, I learned that one death will trigger past deaths so I could see clearly that the group of young men gathered at the church this weekend were all struggling with multiple layers of grief.

Later when I walked into my studio, this piece immediately told me how to finish it.  The fading leaf represented those who have died. The chaos surrounded by the upright squares spoke to me of the group of friends.  Intertwining quilting lines suggest the bond we all share with each other.

I'll keep Passing Through in my personal collection as a memorial piece for my friend, Jason.

Passing Through

38 x 49 inches

Mixed Fabrics and Techniques

Cottons, Rayon, Silks

Painted, Stamped, Machine embroidered, Machine quilted

Dedicated to Jason Pisio

(1981-2014)

One final tweaking of the blocks and I was ready to quilt this wallhanging (below).  Binding later today.

 I am thrilled! 

Waiting on Spring

I wanted the vertical lines of quilting to subtly represent the shoots of plants waiting to erupt out of the dark ground in spring.  I love all the stitching on the various fabrics.  It's always exciting to see how fabrics will respond to thread & stitching.

Debra: 2 Wall Hangings

I am very slowly giving this wall hanging some attention.  I've rearranged the blocks so they make more sense.  I liked Susan's suggestion to sew them together with the greens acting as a block border.  I am also using Barbara's suggestion of no outer border.  

The idea I thought would be the above piece's border has now morphed into its own wall hanging. That was not my intent when I decided to finish some UFOs this winter but I have been storing the fabrics in this piece a long time so they feel like UFOs in their own right.

I like the little rectangles.  I'm not sure at this point if I will further embellish them or not.  I would also like to add some red or orange or hot color to the whole composition.  One idea is to hand stitch a long basting (kantha) stitch through the background.

Yesterday I machine stitched the raw edged green fabrics (mainly from the very early '90s--designer sample books) to a base fabric.  I'll slice through the middle and turn this length into the 2 side borders.

Lots of yellow and blue greens; interesting how the texture shows differently on the various fabrics.

Debra: Reevaluating another Wall Hanging UFO

With my continued effort to finish some wall hanging UFOs, I took a critical look at another long-standing project.  When I first sewed it, I was trying to combine painted/stamped/manipulated fabric with a crazy quilt block border.  In the past few years every time I took the pieces out to look at them, I knew the idea was not working.  I just didn't have the enthusiasm to fix it.  Sunday I took the middle section and added a bright blue border.  I separated the crazy quilt blocks out for a new idea.

On its own without the crazy quilt blocks, I like this wall hanging.  I'll quilt it soon.  At the time I was sewing it, I was also exploring some ideas for stitching texture with the embroidery machine.  It's stitch play I hope I can return to in 2014.

The crazy quilt blocks are beautiful, lively and use colors I love.  

I think I would like to combine them with white.  Monday I started stitching raw edge yardage.  Not sure yet how I will combine them; or, if I will; but I like the new direction for these blocks already.

I'm happy to hear your suggestions for combing the white with the crazy quilt blocks.  I'll probably do all machine quilting with a bit of beading; don't plan to hand embroider anything (at least not now).