Journey of 2,352 squares

A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and my Japanese quilt begins with little squares.  It’s a postage stamp quilt from Japanese indigo fabrics. It takes 49 of them to make a 10.5” block, and I want to make a quilt with 48 blocks. That’s 2,352 squares.

Years ago I made a quilt using these fabrics in blocks that were about 8”x4”. The fabric store where I bought the fabrics wanted to promote the fabric line (Seven Islands) and so they hung my quilt in the store for awhile and gave me a big bag of the fabric. It’s been in a bin at the bottom of my closet for years. Somewhere along the line I cut the scraps into tiny squares.
Deciding that it was time to use it or get rid of it I began the journey. Eight blocks done, forty to go.

Finished Owl and Butterfly quilts

After watching Angela Waters presentation on quilting at Quiltcon  I quilted the butterfly scrap quilt. In her lecture she said, “you can never have too much quilting”. In her opinion baby quilts needed to be “quilted to death”. All of the lectures from last weeks modern quilt convention in Austin are available free on Craftsy.

details, details, details. I had a great time trying some new motifs.

I did stitch in ditch quilting on the owl quilt. For me, this style of quilting is tedious, but I was pleased with the final result.
I’m experimenting with machine stitched bindings, but that topic is for another day.

Sanctuary Quilts

Our congregation received a grant from the Lilly Foundation, and part of the grant was set aside to make a banner for the sanctuary.
We have a Spanish mission style church, and we chose to replicate the carved cross in the chancel. The congregation contributed fabric that had personal meaning, and we received fabrics such as  a traffic vest, a baby bib, a high school letter jacket, military symbols, a wedding dress, and lots of tee-shirts. For our congregation, this quilt has become a symbol of who we are. We are the Body of Christ, as represented by the seemingly incongruent fabrics, tied together by the love of God.

I just happen to have a picture of the sanctuary taken at a wedding 42 years ago. You can see the motif the designer selected to replicate.

The quilt was designed by Eleanor Frye and pieced by a group of us, but I had the privilege of quilting it.
This past year I was asked to coordinate a quilting project to make a pall or casket cover for use in funerals. As many services this day do not have a casket, the pall was designed to either be placed on a casket or to hang from a loft at the side of the chancel. Again, the congregation submitted fabrics and we received as much variety as for the sanctuary quilt. Our Wednesday morning quilting group pieced it and we counted over 3,000 pieces of fabric in the pall. It measures 72”x78”. I quilted it with Superior variegated gold metallic thread and YLI silk 100wt thread.

The pall has several liturgical symbols throughout that were appliquéd to satin fabric left from making bridesmaid dresses.

Both pieces have been entered in the biannual Sacred Thread quilt show which will be in the Washington DC area this summer. It’s a jurried show, so I won’t know if either piece has been accepted until late April.