Rebel Northern Star

This week Barbara Brackman posted a very graphic block on her blog. I wasn't sure I could make the red and white stripes she suggested fit into the scheme of my quilt. So I changed their color to tone down the contrast. But what to do about that big 5" star? Maybe I would just put it on the back. Maybe it could be the label! I used Word to print the star, made a template and traced it onto bleached pimatex cotton. After several experiments with my Pigma and Fabrico pens, I realized the best way to get the "period" effect of perfect handwriting would be to print the text directly on the fabric. I chose EQ's lawn. 

Here in NYC the temperature had climbed into the triple digits. 

I packed my sewing supplies and headed out to the beach.  Sitting under my umbrella, I happily needle turned my star, taking breaks now and then to dive into the ocean and cool off. 

Sea Star

I was glad I had starched the heck out of the fabric because it was easy to crease and even near the shore stayed crisp all day.  As I sewed, I continued to think this block would become the label. 

But now that it is done and on the design wall, I rather like how it fits in with the other blocks.  I guess I was successful.

CWQ30 - Peterson's Stars and Stripes

Penpals and Next Door Neighbors

Sitting around the table with friends and their twenty-something off-spring, we found ourselves explaining just how far away you felt when travelling abroad that long ago, back in the sixties.  We reminisced about the aerogramme as a vehicle for communication. How convenient those gummed sheets of paper that folded into their own pre-stamped envelope were in the days before cell phones and e-mail. 

The 1964 Worlds Fair was organized around the theme of "Peace through Understanding". 

Parker Pens had a pavilion, its mission was to promote peace through writing.  

Visitors to the Pavilion had the opportunity to participate in a computer survey!  It was such a new concept and I remember how excited I was to sign up.  I was matched with a boy named Henk Koster in Holland. We corresponded for years afterward and even swapped relics.  It opened up a whole new world to me. Funny, how some things never change. 



This summer has been busier than any I remember.  Fortunately I have discovered that participating in sewing groups encourages sewing!   If I didn't these groups, I know I wouldn't set aside ME time for doing what I really enjoy. Even though I soon got tired of making nine-patches for my group exchange, the year is over and I have the foundation for another project someday.  I am still in love with making a block a week for my  Civil War Quilt .  I can't wait til the morning to see what block Barbara will post and how my friends around the world will make it their own.

Blocks This Morning

Helping Hands

Ladies' Aid Album - Week 24

One of the projects I am currently working on is the Civil War Commemorative Album quilt I'm doing with an online group.   I've been learning so much.  Our block this week honored the first Sanitary Commission, an organization that grew from the work of an association of New York women influenced by Florence Nightingale's efforts.  It is astounding to realize that as recently as 150 years ago, governments didn't take responsibility for the care of those wounded in war. So, women volunteered as officers and nurses.  They collected supplies for the hospitalized and sewed blankets and clothing.  They formed commissions that were the forerunners of the Red Cross. Barbara Brackman cleverly alludes to this in the block design.   


Can you see the clamp holding my block? These sewing birds were like a third hand and assisted the seamstress in holding the fabric taut with one hand so the other could stitch. Some were more elaborate than others and also held pincushions, emery balls or thimble and spool holders. Bird clamps date back to the early 18th century. At about the time of the Civil War, they were considered luxury items and young men presented them as gifts to their intended in the months before their wedding. 


One of the largest collections of sewing birds in North America is at the Monmouth Museum in New Jersey.  I think a field trip may be in order this summer.

New York City and Reproduction Fabric

Marcus Fabrics was founded 100 years ago, on Franklin Street in downtown New York. In 1987, in collaboration with Judie Rothermel, they became the first fabric company to create reproduction fabrics for quilters. Judie's name is printed on the selvedge of many fabrics in my stash. 

Just across the river, in Jersey City, Baum Textile's division, Windham Fabric division has also been producing lovely reproductions of historic fabrics.


I love my hometown but I have to tell you if you are looking for reproduction fabrics, New York City isn't the place to find them.  So, I buy them at quilt shows, when I travel, and I order them online. 


I love Barbara Brackman's collections best.

 Brooklyn Botanic Garden  2003

My Beautiful New York was made after 9-11 using Barbara Brackman's collection, Remember the Ladies. The quilt was made in tribute to the inner resilience, spirit and strength of the people of New York City.

William Morris Stars 2010

lately I've been sewing with the William Morris reproductions Barbara has produced for Moda. These prints are composed of densely layered designs, drawn from nature. Birds, flowers, and fruit are intertwined and rendered in soft vegetal colors and rich indigo. 






When I sew with reproduction fabrics, I feel a connection with the past. Participating in the Civil War Quilts Block of the Week this year has given me an even stronger sense of continuity, as I experience something akin to what quilters must have felt as they followed the weekly newspaper columns that provided patterns and advice.

Getting Started

As I child I loved the mindless hours I spent cutting out clothes for my paper dolls.  I wondered if I would recapture that feeling as I traced and cut the petals for the Joseph's Coat. I was looking forward to finding zen in the art of applique.

I was able to cut 368 petals from the 10 yard roll of fusible. There was something meditative about tracing and cutting the same shape over and over. And now I have 30 blocks worth! The quilt takes 637 but I think this is a good stopping spot. The next step was to fuse the shapes to the fabric, trim the seam allowance and turn it down. I made 89 before I was compelled to count again. I have an idea about how I am going to arrange the colors and can't be certain until I see it up on the design wall.  

So, I bought 8 yards of  Kaffe Fassett's shot cotton in Blueberry. Starched it. And have begun to applique. 

Where was I?

When I put more food on my plate than I could possibly eat, my mom would say, "your eyes are bigger than your belly".  I haven't changed much - I pack for quilt retreats that way.  Project after project goes into the suitcase, just in case something changes and there are more than 24 hours in a day.

Once I arrived at the hotel, I took off for the nearest quilt store because I had learned that they carried Floriani stabilizers.  Eureka!  The Yankee Quilter, had the elusive water soluble fusible I needed for the Joseph's Coat. Now I could relax and settle in at my worktable and start sewing. Something else.

Something Else was finishing the graduation present for MB before another year passed. I needed to fill in the blanks by cutting the setting and corner triangles so I could sew the diagonal rows of alternating nine-patches and rail fence blocks together.

My friend Micki's Quilt is Missing Pieces too.

My constant companion, the incredible SmartPhone has a handy ap because now I don't have to bring quilting books on retreat too. Which leaves valuable real estate for packing still more projects.

If you don't own a smartphone, another trick is to take a photo with your digital camera of pages from books you own and keep them on the memory card. You can zoom in to read the fine print.

I sewed and sewed and ripped and gabbed and took a hike and photos and gabbed and sewed and finished

the Top!

And Nothing Else.

Back to Applique Redux

I figured if I was committing to this project, I was going to be deliberate about the process.  The stabilizer arrived in advance of the quilt retreat weekend and I had a few hours to myself after work.  I used rubber cement to glue a sheet of sandpaper to the inside back cover of a half used graph paper pad and made a portable work table for tracing the template.  I sat down with a glass of wine and my mechanical pencil and opened the shrink wrapped roll of stabilizer. As we said in grammar school, " Sugar-Honey-Iced.......T."  I had ordered the regular tear away instead of the  fusible wash away stabilizer. It's a dilemma.  There's no chance that the right roll will come before I leave for my quilt retreat. Do I resort to the tried and true methods of needle-turn or templar and starch?  I think I'll pack it all and see.  Good thing there is the UFO that is the William Morris nine-patch to work on.