THE BUGS AND FLOWERS QUILT

I'm a big fan of Marilyn Doheny's work.  In fact, I'm so much a fan that I have arranged for her to come to my guild in September for a trunk show one day and a class the next.  Marilyn works with free form art to make leaves and stems, but she also is the inventor of the 9 degree ruler, with which she has created many wonderful masterpieces.

This is my favorite of her quilts.  The wedges created by making strata of very different fabrics and then cutting them in different ways are well demonstrated in this quilt.  You may remember that Mary and I went to Tryon, NC last September for a week long quilting retreat at Marilyn's newly refurbished Melrose Inn.  That's where I started this quilt:

I haven't finished the antennae or the butterfly bodies just yet, but I'm working on them.  I hope to complete at least the applique on this quilt before Marilyn comes to our guild.

Of course, Mary, being the over achiever she is (and I like that about her!), has not only finished her applique but has quilted her quilt and bound it!  She is coming in September at the same time as Marilyn, and I will be hosting these two creative ladies in my home.  Can't wait!

I'm having a ball...or two, three, four...

At some point in the cuttings and sewings and designings during the Melrose Inn retreat, I had some scraps to deal with.  So I made little balls, about an inch across.  It turned out that later on I had other scraps, so I sewed those together to create little three dimensional flowers and gave one to each class participant.  I still had some scraps left over, so I made some for myself as well.

The pattern is from the split fingers design.  They are so cute!  I might find a place to put one or two of them in my quilt.

I guess it's time to give you a little peek at what I'm doing with my quilt.  This is the right lower corner, where I have made leaves and grasses.  These leaves will eventually be part of a stem system that goes to some interesting drooping flowers in the right upper corner.  But that's all the peek you get this time around.

These wonderful hot air balloons were created by Phyllis.  She used the spiral, the split fingers, the blaze, the chevron and the flip flop patterns to create these colorful floaters above a background that included the NYC skyline, prior to 9-11-01, and graduated shadings of skies, mimicking a sunrise coming over the city.

Lest you think that all I do is play all day, I did finally finish doing the quilting for the second QOV quilt that showed up on my doorstep some weeks ago, and I even mailed them off to their patiently waiting owner, Karen.  Sometimes these quilts are done with simple pantographs, as this one was.  Others are quite complex and take alot of custom quilting to do them justice.  But each one is made with a spirit of gratitude for our armed forces personnel. 

Take a moment to remember that freedom isn't free, and thank the men and women who have heeded the call and sometimes paid the ultimate price for our country. 

And while I'm at it, remember not to take things for granted.  Our country won't go on being the land of the free and the home of the brave unless we start boning up on what's going on in Washington.  Start paying attention now so you can vote wisely in November -- this year, next year, and especially in 2012.

One step at a time

The first technique we all learned at Marilyn's Melrose Inn Quilting retreat was called split fingers.  In most cases, we chose two strong colors and two complementary ones, sewed one strong to one complementary in a long strip on both sides of the strip and then cut out our wedges.  In my case, I used a strong teal and a light fabric with light teal and fuschia on it, plus a strong fuschia with a light pink. That made two sets of split fingers for me, which I could use as wings for butterflies or flowers.  The quilt above is one of Marilyn's critters, and down below is another example of how that technique can be used.

In this picture, it is the circle made with the pinks on the far right, lower section that uses the split fingers.  Some other techniques you see in this picture are the spiral (lower center, left), the chevron (blue, above center) and the blaze (far left). 

This is one of Marilyn's sample quilts that shows the flip flop method of cutting the strata.  It looks so pretty -- like stained glass.

And lastly, here's a teaser using several of the techniques to make flowers and bugs.  The leaves were another part of the class and will come later.

Melrose Inn and Artist Retreat Center

 Last Saturday my quilting buddy, Mary, and I embarked on an adventure.  We traveled to the quaint little town of Tryon, NC in order to take a week long course in design using the 9 degree ruler developed by Marilyn Doheny.  The trip was going to take us several hours, some of which were planned to be spent shopping at quilt shops along the way.  But first, in Greensboro, NC, we came upon the Gingher factory sale!  Mats, rulers and scissors for $1 or so.  We loaded up, and so did many other individuals as well as shop owners.

It was like Christmas!  We also took in Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC, which, if you have never been there, is worth a day trip at some point in your life.  After these two shopping sprees, I was feeling overwhelmed.  Eventually we found a darling little tea shop in Gastonia and had  a delicious lunch at Chantilly's Tea Room and Restaurant. 

Finally, we arrived in Tryon, NC and cautiously drove up the hilly and winding streets until we came upon the lovely old Melrose Inn.  Presently, Marilyn Doheny is refurbishing it, but in the midst of decorating the rooms, the plumbing failed, and she had to attend to more basic needs before she could continue.  However, eight of the nineteen guest rooms are prepared for guests, each with a unique theme.  My room was call Floral Abundance.  Mary's was the Egyptian Room.  There are other motifs in play, such as the Equestrian Room and the Angel Room, but you really have to see it for yourself.

The Inn presents as a bed and breakfast, complete with downhome welcome and resplendent with European old world charm.  Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Marilyn is developing it as an artist retreat and offers week long classes in her signature style of art quilting as well as acting as its gourmet chef.  No French fries and hotdogs here -- you will dine on intriguing dishes like braised chicken with blueberry chipotle sauce and butternut squash sprinkled with olive oil and baked until meltingly smooth on the palate. 

As finances and planning permit, the 112 year old Inn will be brought back to its original glory, but this will be many years in the doing since Marilyn is also a well known quilting teacher and author, traveling to Europe and Australia as well as across the United States in order to educate those who wish to challenge themselves with quilts that are truly unusual.

You will see some of those quilts as I show you my progress in my own development along these lines, but for now, here is my background quilt, on which each lesson was auditioned, pinned and will be appliqued at some point.

Racing to the finish ... or should I say, Start?!

Here we go!  The countdown is on!  And Mary and I are racing towards the finish!  Or should I say the start?  We are going on an adventure to Marilyn Doheny's Melrose Inn and will be working with the 9 degree ruler to make a garden, complete with flowers and critters!  But first, we have work to do.  At least, I did.  Do.  This lovely quilt above is Dot F's granddaughter, Danielle's first quilt.  Pretty neat, isn't it?  The colors are lovely, and the log cabin design is very pleasing.

Here's a closer look at the junction of four of the log cabins.  I used feathers in the lighter half and bars in the darker one.

Danielle loves hearts, so I put them in wherever I could.  This is one of the small borders.

And here's the outer border.  The hearts here are upside down.

I also needed to finish Jane R's quilt before I left.  Don't forget that you can click directly on a picture, and it will enlarge for you so you can see the detail better.

But, just in case you want me to do it for you, here's a closeup of the pantograph.  It's called Sweetheart Garden and is one of my favorites.

Last, but not least (well, maybe least...) I finally quilted this one called Cubic Ribbons, made from one of Marilyn Doheny's classes on the 9 degree ruler.  I like the play on perspective, don't you?  And the Escher-like winding of the ribbons across and down each other.

And now, off to my lurkim.  (Who can tell me where I got that word?)  I still have all my strata to cut and sew.  Mary is way ahead of me on this one. 

Well, looky here!  Armed with new timing, a non-copper gasket and a new carburetor, DH once again took to the dirt track in his go cart AND WON FIRST PLACE!!!  Atta boy!  I think I am more proud of him for patiently, time consumingly, tirelessly and systematically going through each "organ system" of his engine and finding out the (multiple!) causes of its failure to perform than I am of his actually running the race and winning!  Talk about sticktoitiveness!

I'm taking a page from his book to finish this week's customer quilts.  I have two more to do, and hopefully one of my own as show and tell,  before I can jump in the car with best bud Mary and head for the Melrose Inn, Marilyn Doheny, and Tryon, NC.  On the way, we're going to stop at the Gingher factory's closeout sale in Greensboro, NC, then to Ye Olde Forest Quilters, also in Greensboro, to Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC, and then finally to Tryon and our week long quilt retreat!  O frabjous day!  Calloo! Callay!  ( Does anyone know where I got that phrase?)

Quilt Retreat

My birthday present this year is going to a new quilting retreat in Tryon, which is in western North Carolina, where the wild and wonderful Marilyn Doheny, quilt designer extraordinaire, is the new owner of the old Melrose Inn, freshly refurbished in her inimitable way.  Here she will teach her inspired techniques using the 9 degree ruler in a week long class called Instant Garden --  Just Add Fabric!  She promises that our flowers and critters will be completed by the end of the retreat and ready to applique onto our background quilt!  I hope so.  I am not known for getting my quilts finished in a timely manner....

Experimenting with colors in bright strata, Marilyn has brought a fresh and exciting perspective to the quilting industry, and has been instrumental in developing the tools, such as the 9 degree ruler, to do this.  That's Marilyn, there, on the right.   She's just a wisp of a thing, but she has the energy of the Eveready Bunny! 

So, she has given us a list of supplies, including about 17 different fabrics, more or less.  We are to start with a baseline quilt, already made up and consisting of a fabric of our choice as the center and three borders around it.  Here are my choices for the borders.  The central fabric for the body of the quilt hasn't arrived yet. (Don't forget, I live in Outer Slobovia or its equivalent down here in deepest darkest southern Virginia, and we don't have fabric shops within reach.  We have to travel hours in any direction to get to one, so I ordered mine online.)

The widest, outer border will be the black fabric with bright flowers on it.  Then there will be a narrow turquoise blue one and then a medium sized, checked one for the innermost border.  I'm thinking of using a muted peach for the center, but we'll see.

On this background quilt, we will place our "garden flowers and critters" that we create from our strata.  Some of my selections for the colors for my strata are below.

I guess you can see that I haven't really settled on any particular palette yet.  But the whole idea is to mix and match, choosing the colors for each strata not so much to match the others as to balance them -- light and dark, opposites on the color wheel, striking saturation vs pale.    And then we're also supposed to choose at least three "zingers" that are bold enough to "pop" the design in small quantities.  Here are mine:

Lastly, we're supposed to experiment a little with plaids or stripes.  Here are a few that I'm auditioning for my strata:

What to choose...what to choose!  Maybe all of them.  Won't that be a wild garden!  Tomorrow I need to bite the bullet and start creating some strata to take with me to the class.