Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Two years ago, when I was the program chair for our Little Balkan's Quilt Guild I was excited to discover a quilter named Carlene Buck who made such intriguing and imaginative quilts.  I booked her for a trunk show in August 2009. Unfortunately Carlene got sick and had to cancel.  And since programs are pretty much booked a year in advance it wasn't until this month that we were able to reschedule Carlene.

But, WOW!  I knew I'd love her quilts and the stories behind them, but they surpassed my expectations.  What a wonderful night we had. You can visit Carlene on her website, Quiltbabble to learn more of the stories behind some of her quilts. 

Two quilts in paricular were the reason I first became interested in meeting Carlene.

Armistice..Mom I'm Home


The back..mom with open arms


This is Carlene's quilt representing the soldiers returning from the Vietnam war.  Some returned whole..others were missing pieces of themselves...and some didn't return at all.  Mothers welcomed their sons home with prayers that this would never happen again  (and unfortunately of course it has).

Another of Carlene's quilts is truly a masterpiece.
Holocaust: A Hate Movement

This is the explanation sheet Carlene passed out as she talked about her quilt

Holocaust:  A Hate Movement 

Carlene Buck visited Israel in 1992 with her church group from the Des Plaines First United Methodist Church,

Des Plaines, Illinois.    

At the encouragement of a Jewish friend,

she requested the guide take them to Yad Vashem,

Israel’s Holocaust Museum located near Jerusalem.

Carlene was very touched by the sculptures,

photos, documents and exhibits. 

She knew God wanted her to make a quilt about the Holocaust and later visited the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C.

All details (blocks titles, layout, colors, fabrics, quilting design, wording on blocks, etc.) were inspired by God.

She chose the block names from Barbara Brachman’s

Encyclopedia of Pieced Blocks.   

The top border fabric represents ashes blowing in the sky. 

The bottom border represents ashes in the furnaces. 

The right border represents small tendrils of life growing from the ashes.

The hand quilting reflects the barbed wire fences in the camps. 

The bright pastel print fabrics of the 1920’s and 1930’s

(on the left side of the quilt)

 suggest life before the Nazi Party took control. 

The solid colored fabrics depict the loss of joy

and the struggle to survive. 

Black represents hate, red represents loss of life, orange fear, and brown the Nazi uniforms. 

 

Blocks which have been pieced backwards

(with seam allowances on the surface of the quilt)

have the opposite meaning of the historical block name. 

[Like Peaceful Hours and  Peace and Plenty]

You can view a slideshow of the photos I took that night on my photobucket site
click here

Please don't miss the opportunity to see Carlene's quilts in person if you get the chance! 

Quilting Progress

The first four rows are quilted. 

It's laying on top of another project I've been working on.

Trying to get quilting to show is always difficult.

I've received several siggies in the last couple of weeks.

Adrianne from the Netherlands

Marieke from the Netherlands

And sisters, Angela

and Deborah from South Australia

Receiving siggies makes me smile!

Buttons and Blooms & Butterflies Too!

There are lots of terrific quilts in the weekly contest at Quilting Gallery.  One of them is mine. 

Buttons and Blooms and Butterflies Too!  was a BOM by Appleblossom Quilts in 2006  I believe.  Connie has wonderful applique patterns and has a yearly BOM for those who sign up to receive her free newsletter. 

I added the three dimensional butterflies  as my own touch.

I love the texture of this quilt

 If you like it too, please hop over to Quilting Gallery and vote.  Thanks!

Redwork Opportunity Quilt

This quilt has won half a dozen or more blue ribbons and has  been appraised at over $2,000.  It could be yours! Made by members of the Little Balkan's Quilt Guild in Pittsburg, KS,  it is a redwork quilt (see inset) which means a Christmas-themed picture is embroidered in red in each block. It is hand quilted. A $1 donation to the Little Balkans Quilt Guild gives you one chance to win the quilt. You can donate as much as you like, increasing your chances to win. What a deal! Let me know how many tickets you'd like to donate. The drawing will be held at the LBQG show over this Labor Day weekend.  Send me an email if you'd like my snail mail address.

Waste Not

The quilting on Dutch Treat #3 (aka Dutch Trade) may be going slow, but I finished another quilt made from the SCRAPS of DT3.  Remember a few months ago I showed what I was doing with the skinny little strips left over from trimming these blocks

Here's where I talked about it

I'm so glad I decided to sew these as I trimmed, because I now have a completed quilt instead of the boxes of trimmings that I have left from DT #1 and #2.  Sitting down and sewing all of them together is going to be a long boring task that may or may not ever happen.

But since I worked on these a few at a time, I now have this

I machine quilted it Thursday and Friday.  Yesterday I decided to add some Broderie Perse applique to three of the corners

It has a wild orange back with some gold detail that doesn't show well in this picture.

None of these are very good pictures and I apologize for that.  This was another quilt on which I used Superior Thread's King Tut "Old Giza".  I absolutely love this color of variegated KT thread and it ends up working well on many of my quilts lately.  Who would think that looking at it on the spool

I had a terrible time thinking of a name for this quilt, until a friend on Facebook suggested "Waste Not".  I think that will be it unless some of you have better suggestion?  Thinking of names may be the hardest part of making quilts. Do you name yours?

Slow Progress

Evenings are now spent quilting Dutch Treat #3 but I don't feel like it is going very quickly.When I did the first two I was able to average a row a week if not more, quilting the whole quilt (plus stopping to applique the borders) in 3 months.  I started quilting this one July 25 and I'm not quite finished with two rows, so we'll see if I can catch up and maintain the pace. 

It's really hard with my camera to get good shots that actually show the quilting.  I'm still not the best hand quilter, but I'm no longer ashamed to show my stitches.  That's improvement!

We've had a dramatic cool down in our temperatures.  Almost feels like fall is in the air.  With schools starting soon I suppose it really is. 

Happy quilting.

I Love The Fair!

(The blue and white on the right are Tom's)
The Grand Champion Quilt ribbon is the purple one..smaller than the Reserve Champion for some reason.

Raggedy and Friends

With temps remaining over 100º over the weekend, it was good to stay inside and get my Raggedy and Friends top quilted.  It feels good to cross another UFO off the list.

This was a free BOM from the Painted Quilt last year.  Thank you Kaaren! 

I didn't do the fancy quilting she did on hers.  Just an overall stipple and a little quilting to add dimension in the embroidered blocks.

This may well be the homliest quilt I've made to date!  LOL.  That isn't a reflection on the pattern..it's cute as can be.  I just don't like my fabric choices for once.


Stay cool everyone.  No end to the heat for us.