Housewarming Party for Bonnie

In honor of Bonnie moving Quiltville to a whole new house in North Carolina, let's throw her a housewarming party. I wish we could all be there in person but this will have to be the next best thing.

Do you want to come to the party? Please make Bonnie a house block from a pattern on Quiltville. That can be a Scrappy Happy House or a far more wonky free-pieced house. Use a red fabric for the house's background so that there is a bit of consistency, but other than that, knock yourself out.

Bonnie will use these blocks to make charity and/or class sample quilts. If you could also include a 4.5" block with your signature on it that would be great too.

Some other suggestions of items to throw in a package for Bonnie: any orphan blocks you might have leftover from making Quiltville patterns. Or heck, make some new ones just for fun. In particular, I bet Bonnie would appreciate crumb blocks -- I know she's teaching a class on that technique and could use some samples.

And as a bit of challenge, how about a scrap of the ugliest fabric you own? Good quality fabric but uuuugly. I love looking through Bonnie's scrap quilts and finding just repulsive fabric in there and yet she always makes it work.

Bonnie's address is there on her homepage, so just make up the blocks and send 'em right to her. And if you could help me spread the word so that everyone hears about the party, that would be great too. Hope to see you all there!

P.S. no, that block up at the top of this post isn't getting sent to Bonnie since it's already in a quilt (and no, you haven't ever seen a photo of the whole quilt). I just needed a pic since I haven't made my house for Bonnie yet. Now I have to hop to it.

Roman Squares

I'm making slow progress hand quilting Orphan Train. I'm completely loving every stitch. This is one of the first blocks I sewed way back in the late 80's when I got serious about quilts. I didn't take a very good picture of this, but these are Roman Squares. There are early Jinny Beyer fabrics in here, a Hoffman floral (the dark one with green, not the rose and paisley fabric) and a horrible pink shirt that I cut up because I couldn't bring myself to wear such an ugly thing anymore. That's the pink fabric with little floral things in the upper left corner.

I pretty much taught myself to quilt by using the book Quilt! Quilts!! Quilts!!! by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes (that was the first edition way back then). I loved the idea of this sampler quilt pictured in the book. A variety of blocks of different sizes, no sashing:

So for a long time I just tried making different blocks from the book. Of course by the time I made my sampler (many many years later) my tastes had changed even more. Way back then I'd never seen utility quilts with blocks all sewn together every which way. My quilt is actually quite classic in that regard.

I did like the Roman Squares blocks though and ended up making an entire quilt of them sometime in the early 1990's. The prairie points are all there, I just didn't notice when I was taking their picture that a couple of them were folded under. D'oh. This quilt is about 42" x 30" with 4" blocks:
And a detail of the quilting:

I ended up over in Montmartre yesterday - it's a lovely area and really lovely when it's not jam-packed with tourists. I've got sun again today. Another walk or should I actually do some sewing?

But first, a link or two. Ooh, I'm late posting this one. Sara of Sara's Scraps was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Gwen Marston and did a wonderful summary. Look at the absolutely gorgeous Whacky Basket quilt that her guild is making for a raffle - that is one raffle I would LOVE to win. Sara definitely has the benefit of living near Gwen there in Michigan, but I'm not sure that would be adequate compensation for the snowy weather. Maybe though.

Woolywoman is going to be taking a class with Gwen and Freddy Moran. I am jealous.

Simply Sewn Beth made a lovely baby quilt using the free-pieced letters for baby Matthew.

Okay, gotta get running. take care ya'all.

Another Visit to Pere Lachaise Cemetery

My husband and I visited Pere Lachaise Cemetery yesterday with sunshine and beautiful blue skies. It was marvelous. It looks very different at this time of year with the barren trees than it did when I went last August (posted here and here).

The next three photos are details from the tomb of Etienne-Gaspard Roberts. My new camera with the 10x zoom lens is a blast to use.

These stones are piled at the base of the angel. Parts of her wings?

And now for something completely different:

More blue skies for today. I'm not sure I'm going to get any chores or sewing done. I need to go on another photo safari. Where to visit?

Oh, yesterday I did do a summary over on the Lazy Gal Winter Class, so you might want to check that out, especially if you signed up for the class and haven't finished your project yet. I'd love to know how you're doing.

Saami and Ralli Quilts

Jude's lovely handquilting brought to mind the Saami quilts of Pakistan. I've never been lucky enough to see one in person, but I've done a lot of drooling on my books.

These pictures are from Patricia Stoddard's wonderful book Ralli Quilts: Traditional Textiles from Pakistan and India, which I highly recommend. "This Saami quilt has a black center field with a red border. The designs are made with various colors of thick thread that hold the layers of cloth together." Lower Sindh, mid-to late twentieth century.


"A Saami quilt with a burgundy field and a patchwork border. The characteristic right angle emboridered shapes at the corners going to the micdle are clearly visible." Lower Sindh, late twentieth century.

The book has loads of photos of lovely quilts as well as information on the makers' lives and design inspirations. I found another review of the book at Malka Dubrowsky's blog "A Stitch in Dye." She has included many lovely photos, so I figure I'll invite you over there rather than repeating them. Plus she mentioned this website, which has great photos and historical info on Rallis.

Another absolutely gorgeous book is Quilting, Patchwork & Applique: A World Guide by Caroline Crabtree and Christine Shaw. And holy cow, Amazon.com has it on sale for $13.86??? What the...? I paid a lot more than that last fall. It's on sale for 69% off. I don't know if that's a mistake, but go grab one right now, you will never regret it (even if you pay more than that).

This is a Saami quilt in their book:

And there is a Ralli on these pages:

A couple of kanthas:

The book has loads of photos in it and for the most part does a great job of covering quilted and appliqued textiles from all over the world, including Egyptian Tentmaker Applique, molas, sashiko, the Hmong's pa ndau and far more. I noticed there wasn't a single Australian wagga pictured unfortunately, and maybe there's an emphasis on the Indian subcontinent, but those are minor quibbles. Get the book. Here's another review of it.

Speaking of India, I've been enjoying Tiggy's travels in I'd Rather Be in India.

View From My Kitchen Window

Today I read Lynda's blog LuLu's Bay in which she recounts stories of her family's recent move to and life in Egypt. Brought back all sorts of memories for me. Anyway, she asked "What is the view out your kitchen window?" Here's mine: the back of a building. Sorry, no view of the Eiffel Tower ala Remy in Ratatouille.


While I'm reminded of Egypt, here's part of my living room. My Bastet statuette, a couple of charms to avert the evil eye and a punched tin frame holding a crusty I made while living there.

Oh, and a quilt too (I finally got all those Christmas quilts down). This is a Lone Star made by my mom many years ago. One of mom's friends hurt her feelings by saying that she couldn't stand to look at the quilt and had to sit facing away from it. Mean, mean, mean. Personally, I love it and was thrilled when my mom let me take it. The quilt is wonky (the right arm is about an inch lower than the left) and a bit loud, just like my mom. And me -- where did you think I got it from?

I reread my last post and realized I didn't actually say "thank you" to those who sent me wonderful gifts in the mail. D'oh, what an oversight. I was certainly thinking it! Big thank yous to them and to Marathon Quilter Cher who sent me this big S:

Trying to get caught up on links. Let's see... And Sew It Is Holly has almost finished her marvelous quilt Hangar Talk. Holly was one of the very first quilters to use my alphabet tutorial and did such an amazing job with the letters and figuring out a way to use them that really meant something to her.

Speaking of alphabets, the ever amazing Spiritcloth Jude has finished her alphabet sampler top (made for the first Lazy Gal Online Class) which is just amazing and so very Jude. Her work is so distinctive and if this is your first visit to her blog I highly recommend you go back to the very beginning and read her story chronologically.

Wheee, Taniwa Tanya has gotten the center of her class quilt together and it is totally wonderful. She made this quilt step by step, not knowing how it was going to turn out, but just having faith that it would. She started with the words, including one in Japanese (a touch that I LOVE), then went from there to make a quilt about home.

QuiltDiva Julie made a second quilt for the class (the first was her really fun vowel quilt), a lovely soft springtime violets quilt. While you're visiting her blog, take a look at the really bright Bargello quilt top she just made too - very fun.

and ooh ooh ooh, look at the photos Margaret took at the Ikat exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. yummy.

I'm out of time now, so I'll have to wrap this up. By the way, got only a tiny bit of handquilting done today and that was it. There was sun, glorious sun out so I escaped the apartment.