Since agreeing to give a short demonstration on Chinese Coins that date looms ever larger in my mind. Several of my Coin quilts were gifted away while others are tops at best {and some are just ideas in my brain.} It didn't seem right to have only photos to show; I need to finish {and keep} some. And I need to create a simple-yet-interesting Coin top to start them off.
How to best explain this process to new quilters is another issue. What process? As my sister aptly noted, I just pull everything from my stash and scrap bag and throw it together. Finally I wrote what I think I do. Now I will follow those directions {guidelines? suggestions?} to verify that's a workable plan.
How to best explain this process to new quilters is another issue. What process? As my sister aptly noted, I just pull everything from my stash and scrap bag and throw it together. Finally I wrote what I think I do. Now I will follow those directions {guidelines? suggestions?} to verify that's a workable plan.
Dovetailing my efforts, I cut strips with a certain person in mind. This woman likes yellow. "Yellow and what?" you ask. Unspecified. Last time I made her a string quilt that avoided resolving that question. This time I'm adding green. Yellow, black, white, and green. Easy peasy.
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| Chinese Coin fabrics in yellow, green, black and white |
The yellow and green look great together. Probably a bit louder than she wants but, hey.
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| Yellow and green Chinese Coin columns |
Adding the white columns made the green unworkable. Now the green is too bright, too loud. It makes the other columns look faded and dirty.
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| Yellow, white, and green columns of Chinese Coins |
After a day's reflection, I sewed only yellow and white columns together. A soft, lovely quilt I think she will enjoy. Well, there are some wild fabrics in there but it does come from me and I like the buffalo plaid, the black and cream triangles, and the white daisies {which I bought for Freddy Moran's class when we took her shopping... or more truthfully, we drove while she took us shopping. Good memory there.} I bought a yard but only used one arc's worth in the Polka Dot quilt, so it became the back of the Racetrack quilt. One strip surfaced in the scrap bag.
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| Yellow and white Chinese Coin quilt top |
Chinese Coins VI contains most of my talking points with no extraneous techniques to muddy the presentation. Mixing prints, using solid white, adding a strip square, changing column widths, and ruler cutting the sides. The only thing missing is using a third color. Much as I and FO (future owner) like this quilt, it might confuse new quilters into thinking they should only make two color Coins.
Sigh. I'll have to try again. Another sigh because there are still many green coins to use up. I do wish I could learn to cut what is needed rather than creating a small mountain of pieces each time.
Quilt Trunk Show in Berkeley
A special treat yesterday: Julie Silber presented a trunk show of some of her quilts dating from 1828-1948. Here's my favorite of the night. All she needed to add is, "Make up your bed."
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| Red and green quilt in Julie Silber's collection |
Our friend, Rod Kiracofe helped her display the quilt and showed one of his Wheel quilts.
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| Julie Silber holds a Wheel quilt from Rod Kiracofe's collection |
Rod and Julie are selling quilts from their collections February 10 and 11. They are sure to be swamped with buyers.
Enjoy the day, Ann