Mini-neighborhood of Love

 

"Mini-neighborhood of Love for Paula"  2021,  47" x 58"

Made for me by:  Kimberly Rolzhausen, Adva Price, Sam Hunter, Jean Necheles, Mary Beth Shimkus, Melissa Kirk, Megan Null, Barbara Montejo, Alice Ridge,
Kim Lapacek, Flaun Cline, Chelley Black

My friends secretly banded together and made this wonderful sampler of houses for me.  I love looking at the detail in each block, and I can feel the love from each person involved.   

Here are some close-up pictures:

I can tell just by looking at them who made these!

 

This group of quilting friends came together about 10 years ago, and we have made many quilts together to support each other.  However we have not been very active in a while, and honestly, I didn't think they would come together for me. 

I enjoy very small paper piecing,  so my friends were told to make small houses. 

The variety is inspiring! 

Then Adva picked some background fabric and 'improv-style' pieced the top together. 

Kimberly quilted it with some very colorful variegated thread. 

That pieced binding by Flaun is just perfect! 

I'm so overwhelmed by this gift. 

Here it is in its new home: 

I moved to a new apartment in March 2021 because I found out my husband is in a relationship with another woman.  35 years and he choses not to 'work it out'.  I've been vague about this on social media until this post.   This is not a happy time for me, in fact I'm devastated,  but I'm putting one foot in front of another and have managed to land in a lovely apartment with a balcony.  I have the incredible support of my children and so many cousins and friends.  

This quilt encourages me to see how much love I can have in my new home. 

Thank you friends 

Damnit Janet

Pieced bargello-style rainbow wings, machine quilted. Completed February 9, 2019.  Size 14" x 16".  Made for Project Quilting challenge 10.3.  Click on that link to vote for your 10 favorite quilts this week 


This week we lost our amazing friend, Janet Mease  (center in this photo)  She was funny, honest, snarky, foul mouthed, loving, kind, and generous.  We met in an online group in February 2013.  

Adva and I went to visit her in San Luis Obispo a few times, and made a small quilt for her when she opened her quilt shop.  Here is a post about that quilt.

The night she passed (Feb 8th) I dreamt I saw her with wings.  Yes.  wings.  I'm not really spiritual in that way, so my response to that vision was: WHAT THE F*CK.  I have a feeling Janet would have said the same thing. 

I created this image of her for our FB group.  

Janet was colorful, in every meaning of that word.  She loved ALL the colors, especially yellow, which she used in her quilts as a neutral. (most people use white/gray/light colors as 'neutral'). 
  
I cut thin strips in a full rainbow,  sewed them into a strata fabric,  added a bright yellow to the top and bottom as my background,  then cut that up to create the bargello 'wings'  (I'm sorry I don't have process photos, this actually went together very quickly) 

On the back, I included a left over strip of Frond Tree of Life panel, which I used on the back of a 'get well' quilt we made for Janet this past summer.  

The quilting on this small quilt includes wings,  the words 'snowflake sister', which is the hashtag that original FB group uses on other social media, and a row of naughty bits, which I first used on Janet's quilt, and reminds me of her ribald humor. 





Godspeed Janet Mease.  
I'm going to miss that wild woman. 

Peace.

Megan's Octopus

My online community of quilters gathered (virtually) in 2014 to make a quilt for Megan D, who was really struggling with a big loss.  We asked for 12.5" blocks in her favorite colors, purple and orange, with a gray background.  Since Megan loves octopi,  I used this bit of clip art:

        I decided to make this massive octopus embracing all the blocks. 

The resulting quilt is BIG - about 90"x100"

Once this was put together, it was sent off to a long arm quilter.  We thought it was lost for 2 years (a very long and frustrating story.)  Finally it was recovered and quilted by Janet, then bound and delivered to Megan, who loves it.

Blocks were made by: Paula, Janet, Sam, Kimberly, Adva, Linda, Melissa, Melissa, Maddie, Flaun, Jean, Megan, Kim, Trish, Alice, Chelley, Barbara, Deborah and Tama.

We are so glad this quilt is home with Megan D.

Peace

 

Toe Away Quilt

Toe Away Quilt

I'm part of an online community of quilters who celebrate each other's joys and support each other in times of need.  One such need happened in the Spring of 2015, when Melissa's husband, Tyler, was involved in a gruesome workplace accident, resulting in the impending loss of a toe.  They had a good sense of humor about it, and even posted about having a "toe away party."  A quilt idea was born!

  Kimberly reached out to a few of us about this idea and we quickly came up with some block submission ideas:   Using bruised colors, Black , Blue, Green, Purple, create a 10" block that is toe or foot themed.   We also asked for 9-patch blocks to be used as setting squares, since Tyler would have only 9 toes.

In typical 'snowflake' fashion, the FB messenger chat was very active with folks posting photos of their quickly done blocks and all-in-good-fun insults about our different sewing styles and preferences  (hand done, fussy cut, funny puns).  Kimberly, the queen of memes, create this gem, 

and then the blocks started arriving in the mail.

Toe Jam

Foot Print, missing toes

  

Twinkle Toes

Toe Truck

Big Foot crossing

Bear paw, missing a toe

Bruised, bloody foot Print

foot print truck

 

Kimberly came to Brooklyn to sew these amazing blocks together, with more 'bruise' colored fabric:

At some point, we learned that Tyler would lose half of another toe, so he would have only 8 1/2 toes,  so every 9-patch block was 'edited' to be 8 1/2 blocks: 

And Kimberly created this very special block: 

Here is the pieced top, which we then mailed out to Janet in CA for quilting.

  

Megan's block arrived a little late to be included in the top, but I used it for the label:

Little Foot

The quilt then went to Flaun for binding,  and sewing on the label, then finally was shipped to Melissa and Tyler in September 2015.

Lots of love there!

Peace

Kumba*ya

Our friend Janet opened a new quilting / creating space in San Luis Obispo in September 2014.  Adva and I made a little quilt for her, to celebrate the grand opening.   We are part of a group that calls itself "snowflakes", and the Kumbaya greeting is one of the ways we say how much we care about each other.  Of course, the asterisk, stands for a bit of foul language, which the Snowflakes sprinkle through speech quite liberally.

Here are the paper pieced letters, with the tiny asterisk :

  Here is the label on the back

Adva and Janet at her new, not quite opened, space:  SLO Creative Studio.

Peace.