Fall Quilt Festival

Oh the fun - another quilt festival. I loved the spring one and now Park City Girl is hosting another quilt show. You must go over and look at all the listings, and all the fabulous quilts.

My quilt is actually two quilts - as I can't show one without the other. A few years back my cousin Linda, in Oregon, bought a new house and had a nice guest room, and wanted a quilt. She didn't have many guidelines - it must be blue, and it must have "ocean" things on it. The rest was up to me. I decided to make the quilt with things that my cousin and her husband loved, the bridge going into Newport, the lighthouse, their fishing boat from years gone by, shore birds, seagulls, puffins, whales - all those sea themed things. So I started making blocks - first I made a porthole with the lighthouse at Newport in it - it took me months to find the right fabric for the porthole. I wanted it to look like you were on the boat, looking out the porthole at the lighthouse.

Then I made more blocks . . .

Their fishing boat. . .

I had never seen their boat, so Linda's sister, Cat, sketched it for me,
and I made the block from the sketch.

The bridge going in to Newport . . .


Hand embroidered seagull in a Storm at Sea block . . .

Hand embroidered Puffins, nesting in the rain . . . the rain is quilted in . . .


Mariner's Compases for finding your way in the ocean . . .

Crabs - and Free Willie - who lived in the Newport Aquarium for a time . . .

And shorebirds scittering along the beach . . .

Everyone looking at Linda's quilt - Linda, Ray, Aunt Maxene (their mom) and Cat.

I was such fun designing the quilt, and making the blocks. Once I got the blocks made I started putting them together with sashings and borders, and everything fit perfectly.

When we got to their house to deliver the quilt I discovered a photo of their boat, and mine came out almost exactly the same.

Linda's completed quilt - hand pieced and hand quilted . . .

I used blue borders in the quilt on some of the blocks, and when we put the quilt on the bed we saw that Linda had two framed prints at the head of the bed - matching so well the colors and theme of the quilt, and with narrow blue borders in the matting - and neither of us knew what the other was doing.

While making Linda's quilt I decided that Cat must have one too - so I started planning another quilt. Cat and Dave live in the woods, near Newport, and almost at the beach, so those ideas went into the quilt. They have a funky house and it was hard for me to remember the details so I called Linda and asked her to go take a photo of Cat's house - but I told Linda I was going to make a wall hanging for Cat - didn't tell her it was going to be a whole quilt.

So Cat and Dave's funky house is in the center block - with a circle of flying geese surrounding it.

I added blocks and borders . . .

A Moose munching in a river . . .


The same shore birds as in Linda's quilt, as they both love the little shore birds . . .


The Three Sisters mountains, near where their families camp every summer . . .

A few years before, Cat and Linda had been at our house in March, celebrating all of our birthdays together - Cat's is in Feb. and Linda's and mine are in March - she is 360 day OLDER than me. It was during the time of Hale-Bopp comet and one starry night we all stood on the deck of our house and watched the comet in the sky - a terrifically wonderful experience, so I had to stitch the comet over the mountains . . .

A Blue Jay . deer . loon . . .


A bear . . .


Canada Geese . . .

I started putting the quilt together with fill in blocks and sashings and when I got to the outside border of pine trees, each border fit perfectily, within 1/4", and I had not measured the strips for the borders, I had just sewn them until I thought they were long enough.

Cat's finished quilt - hand pieced and hand quilted . . .
I put a Mariner's Compass in Cat's quilt, because you still need to know where you are going in the woods. The four brown blocks in the corner are Bear Paw.

It was fun to surprise Linda with her quilt - as she had no idea what it would look like. After she had examined it and seen all that there was to see, we went to the living room to have some iced tea, and Don snuck back into the guest room and put Cat's quilt on the bed - and then we called her to come to the guest room. Everyone was so surprised -

This is Cat's first reaction. . .

Everyone is looking at Cat's quilt . . .you see that Linda brought her quilt with her . . .

Enjoying their new quilts in the living room. . .

I have to say - I'm not sure who enjoyed this day more, them in receiving the quilts, or me in giving them their surprises. It was a grand day.

Cat is an artist and this is the thank you note she sent, of her and Dave sleeping beneath the new quilt.