Shadow Star

DH took me to Paradise Square this weekend, a musical about the free Black and Irish immigrants who lived in the Five Points slum around the Civil War. The show highlighted a forgotten era of early interracial neighbors and friends torn apart by the draft which forced Irish immigrants to fight for the Union while denying American-born Blacks that same choice.

The next day I had time to view Freddy Moran's Face the Year at Hello Stitch. Freddy wrote that she became dissatisfied with quilting and considered giving it up until she started making a quilt a day. Fifty-four days later she had a collection of faces, a sampling of which made this exhibit.

Pride of place was her original self-portrait: her red glasses, white hair, and bright clothes on a signature background of neutral red.

Freddy Moran's Self Portrait quilt

Her new collaged works are much smaller but encompassed unique fabrics for hair as well as frequent additions of flowers and fish. Seeing them together allowed easy comparison of facial features and construction techniques from one strip-pieced face to a minimalistic light- and dark-sided face.

Face the Year, collaged quilt portraits by Freddy Moran

Although I should be quilting more of the finished tops, there are only so many I can force myself to power through. I simply had to start a new quilt. I'd taken a break to clean up some photos on my computer and saw this antique quilt I'd saved from eBay. Years ago. Before Pinterest.

At first glance it looked like an eight-pointed star on a circle. Then I saw the appliqued flowers that make up the design. Not pieced at all. However, it reminded me of a quilt from my childhood. I only saw it once so I have the haziest memory. All I recall now is that the pieced stars faded into muslin at the endpoints. Similar to this one.

Searching through my block references, I found Shadow Star. Practically perfect. This is a compass design based on the eight-pointed star grid. After a few changes, this is what I've come up with.

Shadow Star block laid out

Loads of y-seams. Not for the faint of heart. I can't wait to get started.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Celebrating Baseball and Cherries

Baseball

Starting the final Great Debater quilt. The future owner (FO) and I share a love of baseball although we root for separate teams. {Hmm. That's a line from I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair in South Pacific. About halfway through the song.} Instead of riding him off my range, I decided to make a baseball quilt highlighting his beloved Phillies.

After quite a few sketches of baseball diamonds and backdrops, I remembered Farmer Fill by Freddy Moran. There are several versions in her book, Collaborative Quilting. Pages 82-84. Freddy spoke at our guild meeting last year and this is the Parts Department quilt she showed with a few of those guys.

Parts Department 2 by Freddy Moran. Shown at SCVQA meeting

I asked Freddy and she enthusiastically told to me to go for it... and send her a photo when it's done. How sweet is that?

My first pattern centered the ballplayer along the vertical axis. Looks okay except the glove fits almost to his elbow. I need to redraft this; it's bothering me more and more.

The Phillies colors are red, white, and blue. They usually play in red and white pinstripe uniforms. Lucky me. I had some in my stash - both a pinstripe and a loud red and white stripe. Loud looks better to me currently. The next job is to locate skin tones, glove tones, and green grass for them to play on. Here's what came out of my stash. My current guideline is, "No shopping until I'm absolutely sure there's nothing on hand."

Fabric pull from stash for Phillies baseball quilt

Not nearly enough greens or tans in house so I shopped QS' stash while I was there. That's my favorite first stop! After that I checked out a couple of stores in Colorado, including Alamosa Quilt Company. This small store has a broad selection of fabrics and some of the friendliest staff anywhere, including my dear friend, Peg Collins.

For a millisecond I considered using a single green for all the backgrounds. Ha! The uniforms will be consistent and that's enough. Once home, I paired skin colors with greens, trying for some contrast.

Pairing fabrics for baseball

Next I pieced my first ballplayer. I thought it would be easy to switch from lefties to righties but made several cutting errors. And I don't have extra of the pinstripe. Notice I switched from the broader red-and-white stripe to this true pinstripe shirting.

Left-handed Phillies baseball player

After all these fiascos I'm going to make a new set of templates strictly for lefties! I'm also wondering if I should make a cut-out template for the baseball glove to make fussy cutting more successful.


Cherries

We're nearing the end of bing cherry season so I was determined to make at least one batch of Cherry Almond Scones. This recipe comes from Paige at For Love of the Table where I find many favorites.

My first step is to curdle some milk with lemon since I don't keep buttermilk around. Then set the eggs out until they are at room temperature while pitting and cutting the cherries.

Cutting cherries

Once the dough is prepared, I scooped sixteen small scones on parchment paper. Then they go in the freezer for a couple of hours. The final prep step is to cut the parchment and transfer the scones to freezer bags. It's easy to pull them out when needed.

Of course, I baked one for breakfast the next morning.

Cherry Almond Scone, recipe from For Love of the Table

Enjoy the day, Ann

On to the Borders

My quilt had too much background when the center was finished so I decided to add colorful borders.
By cutting both remaining white-on-black prints I made the inner border. Can you even tell there are two different prints?

Next I added the piano keys outer border. Being really tired of using the rotary tools by now, I used scissors to freehand cut 7" slices from only mediums. Next I stacked sets of four and cut four sets of keys from each stack, then rotated the cut pieces. I sewed four sets of four together. These sets were combined randomly to create the four sides in the photo below. The variations in width and seam line are especially effective to me. And now, instead of looking washed out, the light background shines.

The random widths and organic piecing liven the quilt up. But it still needs something more.

Locating the side of one of the quarter circles, I folded the border and used the acrylic template to cut half circles.

Then I inserted two quarter circles and arcs. To change things up a bit, the arc is medium lights and the center circles are lights.

On to the other sides.

Remember the next Ad Hoc Improv Quilter linkup is next Tuesday, April 26. We look forward to more interesting posts and hope you'll join in.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Beginning Freddy Dot Com Quilt

This is what I finished by the end of the class.

Sixteen blocks from Freddy Dot Com class

And this is what I finished by the end of the week. Forty-two nine-inch blocks set 6 by 7.

Blocks for center of Polka Dot quilt

Because I didn't use Freddy template (I had a similar set for a similar design), my quilt has more background than Freddy's. My arcs are narrower, too. I think her design is more colorful. If I make it again, I'll incorporate those differences.

Here's a good photo of one of Freddy's quilts.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Preparing for Freddy Dot Com Class

Last month, LeeAnn of Nifty Quilts came to the Bay Area for work. We met for a delightful afternoon lunching and visiting the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. The current exhibit, Blanket Statements, pairs quilts from the Kaffe Fassett Studio with their historical inspirations from the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York, England.

The next week, Freddy Moran was the featured speaker at our guild, SCVQA. What a quilting treasure! After her lecture, we took her to the museum, too. Of course, she wanted her photo in front of a "dotty" quilt.

To meet most of the demand in our group, Freddy gave two workshops of one of her most popular classes - Freddy Dot Com.

I didn't think I had many dotted fabrics but decided to pull all of them from my stash before shopping. And here they are. {See why I can't have too large a stash? I can't even keep track of my small amount.}

Black-and-white fabrics are not big features of my stash. They never looked good with most of my fabrics. After dining with Freddy I figured out why. Freddy likes "pure" colors - those that are not shades or tints. Except for the reds, most of my fabrics have some grey or brown leanings. While I think they are bright at times, they are nowhere near as vivid and clear as Freddy's fabrics.

Even though I didn't have many fabrics that went well with the black-and-white, there were still many more than needed. I used the two fabrics on the left below (the  stripe and the black-and-white) to choose a more limited set, culling them to ones that blended. The three on the right made the cut. Most of the pinks did not.

Enjoy the day, Ann