Monday, May 26, 2008

String Star

I received a great email the other day from Nancy Ray. Her name was instantly familiar to me since a whole bunch of her gorgeous quilts appear in Gwen Marston's book Liberated String Quilts, which I highly recommend. I've previously posted pics of some of Nancy's quilts, which is how she found me.

It was wonderful to exchange emails with Nancy and she gave me permission to show you this Lone Star:

Nancy explains: "I'm attaching a photo of another old string quilt for you (1940's, I estimate). ... It came from east Texas--but that's all I know of its background. Well, except that the quilting on it, and the care with which it was made, show us that this quilter could have made anything she wanted to. String quilts like this one are important, because they demonstrate that strings weren't used just for the most humble economy quilts. Unfortunately, that's a fairly well-entrenched misconception. "

She's right. Isn't the quilting incredible? I love the spider webs.

Nancy has joined the Lazy Gal Summer 2008 class and I'm looking forward to seeing her work. The class members have already made some great quilts, have you checked them out?

I mentioned Gwen Marston earlier. Two quilts made with solid fabric have recently been posted on her homepage - oooh, they're gorgeous. Fingers crossed we get pictures of them in the new book.

Nothing much interesting going on. I've been doing lots of hand quilting and washing and ironing fabric. No sewing, but I'll get back to that soon. Yup, rather boring here.

16 comments:

Lynda said...

This quilt is really gorgeous. I suppose string and scrap quilts were made for the same reasons, either necessity, or (like me) because you like working with lots of different fabrics, and this quilt falls into the latter category, beautifully.

Unknown said...

Very inspirational.

jovaliquilts said...

The spider webs are great, and I love Gwen Marston's solid quilts. Do you know what her next book is? If she mentioned it on her home page, I missed it.

floribunda said...

I keep thinking I need to go back and read "Liberated Quiltmaking" again... thanks for the reminder!

YankeeQuilter said...

What a great quilt! I have to find some photos of my other string quilts for the blog...

loulee said...

The quilting is amazing. Thanks for sharing

Diane said...

How nice to see Nancy Ray mentioned in your post. We met at several of Gwen's Beaver Island retreats. She is a consumate quilt collector, focusing almost exclusively on string/scrap quilts. And what a character ~ I could listen to her talk for hours.

True Debreuil said...

I'm not much of a pastel person but I could easily change my mind looking at this gorgeous quilt. The quilting is exquisite.

Brenda said...

ditto on the above. I love it love it love it. isn't this why anyone quilts -- to make something beautiful out of scraps and bits? How is your string star coming? can we have another look soon?

jude said...

the spiderweb quilting is just amazing!

Cher said...

great quilt-how wonderful Nancy is joining in the fun-thanks for the heads up on Gwen's new quilt photos.

~Niki~ said...

I'd love to have you join us quilters on my new quilt blog. Get listed! http://justusquilters.blogspot.com/
Hope to see you over there. And spread the word, our goal is 200 by the end of 2008! hugs!
niki xoxo

Sharon said...

I loved all of Nancy's string quilts featured in Gwen's book. How great that she's mentioned on your blog, and she's even participating in your class! Can't wait to see what she does!
I love those string quilts! That spiderweb quilting is amazing.

Magpie Sue said...

Oh yes, LOVE those spider webs!

Holly said...

Pretty quilt and ooooh I do love that quilting, too.

Bonnie K. Hunter said...

I love the spiderwebs on this one! I am dying to quilt spiderwebs on something!

bon