Molly's Bat Mitzvah Quilt

Molly and I planned her quilt via traded emails - she wanted something with an optical illusion, modern, green.   We settled on this pattern, and I did some fabric shopping  (Molly lives in Cleveland, so shopping together was not possible,  but would have been very fun!) 

Here she is when I gave it to her during the Friday night dinner before her big day

(I'm writing this post 5 years after the fact, and Molly looks so much older!) 

Here is another view of Molly enjoying her new quilt: 

And here is the special label

We love Molly !
Peace

for Anna: Love and Warm Like Crazy

Anna wanted a crazy quilt, but she wanted it to LOOK like something made in the 1970's -  with giant pieces, and vintage 1950's fabric.  We found some fabric in a vintage shop, I found a bag of hand crochet doilies in an antique mall, and we filled in with contemporary quilting and other fabric (including velvet and corduroy.  I think this is about 80"x80"  - completed in 2011

Here are some closeups of some blocks: 

This has a large bit of doily inserted, the way it was done in the 1970's, and done here so i could cut off some damaged bits

 

This next one also has some added colored embroidery:

 

This one includes a small embroidered bit from my collection, on black velvet.  I would have used more 'crazy' embroidery between the patches, but Anna wanted this sparse style:

 

This next one highlights this vintage fabric

 

Here's the label on the back: 

 and Neil peeking out from behind the quilt:

 

And here it is, on her bed in her Missouri attic apartment

(although it has moved many times since then!) 

Keeping Anna warm, wherever she may roam.

Peace.

Shakespeare Canon

This quilt includes references to all 37 Shakespeare plays plus some sonnets.   I made two of the same quilt, one for Stephen Whelan, the theater teacher at Valencia High School, who brought Shakespeare into our lives,  and one lives with me or Emily.   Its a cathedral window pattern, and includes a little book of all the Shakespeare lines referenced. 

I created this by finding a line from each play that I though I could represent with an image.  For  example, in the lower left corner of the quilt, is an image of strawberries.  That is for the strawberries on Desdemona's handkerchief, in Othello.   There are pies for Tamora's evil deeds in Titus Andronicus,  and colorful tents from Loves Labor's Lost.   There is a pirate from Pericles, and "all the pretty little babes" from Macbeth.
 

 

Finding the images took a very long time, and my quilting friends were quite generous to let me look through their novelty print stash looking for a horse, or a glove.  Finally my friend Barbara machine embroidered a few images for me. Thanks Barb!! 

This I-Spy quilt was truly a labor of love. 

Peace