Tayta's College Quilt

My blog posts are all out of order now, but oh well. I was so happy to completely finish Tayta's happy quilt before traveling to the US last July. That is why it is my happy quilt. Tayta calls it her happy quilt because it makes her happy to look at it.

When we began considering patterns for her college quilt, I showed her this pattern in one of my quilting books: 

One of authors, Amanda Jean Nyberg, who blogs at Crazy Mom Quilts , is the quilter who first inspired me to pick up quilting again, by introducing me to the world of modern scrap quilting.

Tayta, with some imput from Artist Son and Me, chose the fabrics from my stash of scraps. Represented in the quilt are clothes from most family members: a shirt of Active Sons, dresses and tops from Oldest Daughter and Tayta, fabric from a dress I made for myself over 25 years ago, a shirt of Dear Husbands, and leftover scraps from Artist Son's college quilt. Tayta did a lot of the laying out of squares, with minimal help from me, and I did the sewing and construction--such a fun project to work on together!

For the back of Tayta's quilt, I used a vintage cotton duvet cover that I found in the used market. It didn't provide quite enough backing fabric, so I improvised by adding in scraps left over from the front. I first added the wide strip, thinking it would be enough, but it wasn't, so I added the cross strip as well. The binding was fashioned from, of course, more scraps. I machine quilted the quilt using a diagonal pattern and I used two-inch wide masking tape as a guide for the stitching lines.

Here is Tayta looking happy about her quilt in the olive grove near our home. Beautiful olive trees are one of the enduring favorite things of Tayta's childhood, so she thought the olive grove the perfect place for a quilt photo-shoot.

I am in awe of people who quilt as a business. I enjoyed making this quilt, but it took me a long time! If I had to put a price tag on it, either my hourly wage would be very, very low or the quilt would cost much more than I could actually sell it for! And that isn't even with considerations of it's imperfections (i.e. mistakes). 

Next quilt? I'm not sure. I need to find my inspiration. I think I'll work on some smaller projects first...

Gone Quiltin'

I'm enjoying a flurry of creative projects this month, which have taken up hours of time. I'm not complaining as I find the that I am most energetic and hopeful when I am creating. I've finished 41 of the 48 squares needed for  Tayta's college quilt. I should be able to begin assembling them sometime later this week. Meanwhile, they are laid out on floor of a seldom-used-room of our house.

Besides the quilt, I have been processing my 2016 Wildflowers of Jordan calendar, which was printed last week, and I've been working on creating a line of cards which features images of flowers and other scenes around Jordan. Those will (hopefully) be in market by the end of May. Oh, yes, and Tatya and I are completing our last three weeks of high school education. It is a daily duty to stay focused on the goal!

Art Quilt

I'm not sure how it happened. I think it began by pinning a couple art quilts which caught my eye on Pinterest. First they went on to my Quilting Board but I soon created an Art Quilts board as I found myself drawn to pin more and more art quilts. I had never seen quilts like these before; their colors, textures, and designs captivated my imagination and gave me courage that I could play with fabric and principles of design as I ventured into new creative avenues with recycled fabrics.

After a couple months of admiring and pinning, I decided to attempt my first art quilt. The boys bedroom was slowly morphing into a guest room and I needed a wall hanging to replace the baseball poster. The room already had some bold colors, including a dark red Bedouin rug with some orange and black accents. I wanted to make this art quilt entirely out of recycled fabrics and decided to begin with my felted wool, which I felt would give me the textures and colors I wanted to go with the bold, minimalist decor of the room.

I knew that I must be gentle with myself and begin simply, and so I chose to do uneven Log Cabin squares, imitating this scrap quilt design by textile artist Victoria Gertenbach. I used scraps and then pulled pieces from some other sweaters to achieve the color scheme I wanted.

It was very easy to cut the pieces for this 3 feet/1meter square quilt--I didn't measure as I used my rotary cutter and quilting ruler to cut a collection of strips of varying widths and trimmed these strips to their required length as I created my squares. The seams don't show here, but they are completely flat as I butted the edges of the wool together and zig-zagged them.

 I found a used denim curtain panel at the second-hand market, which I used for the back of the quilt. The middle layer is a cotton flannel sheet, also recycled, and the binding is fashioned from denim shirt scraps. I quilted all three layers as I zig-zagged the finished squares together, so it only has four actual quilting lines. I made a three inch sleeve that runs the length of the top of the quilt. Dear Husband engineered the rest of the hanging apparatus using a scrap piece of wood (from an old bookshelf) Much to his delight, was able to hang it on the nail/screw which held the baseball poster, as he doesn't like to put too many holes in the wall. Drilled concrete is not easily patched.

When Artist Son arrived, I enjoyed discussing the color and design principles of this quilt. I think there actually are some, though I don't know how to talk about them well--I'm learning. I've noticed that the "random" look is not randomly achieved and that I choose colors carefully, even for a design that sort of looks thrown together. I find one of the greatest satisfactions of finishing a project is, besides the finished project, the permission I give myself to begin dreaming of and plotting the next project...

Quilt for an Artist Son

Oldest Daughter didn't receive her college quilt until the fall of her sophomore year, Active Son received his quilt after completing his first semester, but I somehow managed to finish making Artist Son's quilt so that he could take it with him to college. It was still down to the wire, though: I finished the machine quilting just in time to take the quilt with us to a family reunion in Montana, where I completed hand-sewing the binding. My goal had been to bring the finished quilt with us from Jordan when we traveled to the US in May, but that goal was much too lofty for me to attain. I did manage to bring back the pieced quilt top--at least it was easy to pack!

 Plain Spoken, designed by Bill Kerr

The Modern Quilt Workshop

My third quilt made from recycled clothing  was constructed using pieces from 25 men's 100% cotton shirts that I purchased from the used clothing souq in Amman (Souq Jumma'). Artist Son chose the design and approved my color scheme. I'm still keeping it simple as I am precision-challenged and have a hard time getting my lines straight and my points lined up. So as not to emphasize my wiggly waggly seams, I decided to machine quilt using diagonal lines which would cut across rather than follow seam lines. I used approximately 3 inch wide masking tape as my stitching guide.

The multi-color binding was made from scraps of the same fabrics.

I forgot to take a picture of the back, but the quilt is backed with chocolate brown minky fabric, just like Active Son's, and I did the machine quilting with the same shade of brown thread.

I think it is the perfect quilt for an artist son. It certainly brightens up his dorm room! I hope that he is cheered by is colors and kept warm by its bulk on grey winter days.

One the most satisfying aspects of finishing a quilt is shifting my mind to begin thinking about the next quilt. I have some ideas but need to do some shirt, I mean fabric, shopping first. Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up a scrappy wool throw that I began last spring in yet another over-optimistic burst of creative energy. It's been too hot around here to even think about wool, but it is finally cooling off (low-mid 80's) so maybe I'll be able to finish it up this week. Or next.

Last Wooly Winter Post of the Season

Many are surprised at just how cold a Jordanian winter can be. I've known Canadians, Minnesotans, and northern Europeans who declare Jordanian winters to be the coldest they've experienced. It is not that temperatures drop so low--though we sometimes receive snow and frost in the higher altitudes. Rather, it is that many houses and buildings are inefficiently insulated and heating fuel is expensive. Until a couple weeks ago, the warmer (read: heated) rooms in our apartment registered about 60 degrees Fahrenheit/16 degrees Celsius on the thermometer.

Here is proof of just how cool our house is:

I took this picture yesterday. My "Christmas" amaryllis, which I potted back in November, bloomed this week. It is in our south-facing sun porch. I guess it thought it was still being stored in the refrigerator! I had all but given up on it, but I'm glad I didn't. Even the narcissus, planted outside, bloomed before it did.

Thus, wool is my close friend from December through March and my wool turtlenecks and sweaters have been on permanent rotation--even at night. I don't even consider cotton during these months. One thing that made the cold more bearable this winter was cashmere. I made a few scarves from recycled sweaters and I wore these daily--even in the house. Especially in the house.

I ruffled the edges by zig-zagging them while pulling the fabric taught.

By making some stripy scarves I could stretch one short sleeved magenta sweater into three scarves, one for me, one for my mom, and similar one for Tatya. She choose an infinity scarf.

Inspired by a Pinterest pin which led me to Molly at Finish Something Already, I made my first felted wool baby quilt, a gift for a baby girl scheduled to make her appearance next month. I learned some things making this first quilt and on my next one I'll work a little more on color placement. This quilt was made by butting the edges of the felted wool up against each other and zig-zagging, though I think I need to loosen up my stitches a bit next time. This quilt turned out "ruffly" but it was for a girl, so that is okay. Instead of adding the intended boarder, I zig-zagged/ruffled the edges (Thanks for the idea, Tayta) and in the end it looked like I had planned those ruffly seams. I chose my softer wools, mostly lambswool with some angora, for this quilt. I enjoyed making it a lot and hope to make more quilts in the future.


In fact, I've already started my next one. Once I saw Chris of Resweater's fabulous quilt, I knew I had to make one with my scraps. I (obsessively) cut out 550 hexagons over the course of week--it is a good hand activity when watching a dvd or listening to a lecture. I've begun sewing them together, using the same butting/zig-zag technique. I've finished about 1/5 of the quilt, adding a row or two each day.


As much fun as I am having with this quilt, I have decided that I will set it aside at the end of the month as I really need to get going on Artist Son's college quilt; we will be leaving for the summer at the end of May.

I finished cutting the 450 pieces (25 colors) from recycled 100% cotton men's shirts over a month ago. How satisfying it was to stack them all when I finished cutting!

I tossed the pieces all together for the first step in this quilt, which is random pairing. I don't do very good at random but I am trying and Tayta kept me honest when she saw me start to choose colors I though should go together.

Today my turtleneck is cotton, which is just as much a sign of spring as are the budding forsythia bushes and wild almond trees.

I Am a Quilter

I've wanted to be a quilter for a long time. I was so sure of it that I took a quilting class 24 years ago in which I learned to pick fabrics and piece a small doll-sized quilt. I machine pieced the quilt but never quite got the hang of the hand quilting and repeatedly ripped out my uneven stitches. I set the quilt aside to "finish later"and when we moved to Jordan 22 years ago I packed up the small quilt, my cutting mat and and rotary cutter, because I was sure that I would be a quilter. Other projects that came along (remember counted cross-stitch?) as did four children, and then we decided to home educate those four children. Evenings were now spent reading and educating myself, not sewing and crafting.

circa 1987 doll quilt, not yet quilted

About two years ago, when Oldest Daughter began her second year of college, I made her a simple quilt from recycled denim and through the process of creating this quilt, realized that I had been a quilter all along--I had just to discover what kind of quilter I was! I was not a traditional quilter, choosing coordinating calicoes to cut into intricate, traditional patterns and hand quilt with patient precision. (That is my friend, a true quilting artist, Renae of Renae's Quilts, now a machine quilting industry innovator. Check out the amazing quilts in her gallery.)

Searching the internet for a binding tutorial, I came across Crazy Mom Quilts' site and my quilting imagination was awakened. This was the kind of quilter I wanted to be--on a more basic level, of course--making simple, modern, bold quilts which could be machine quilted. Ever in need of keeping it simple, not to mention affordable in Jordan, I decided to limit my quilting--at least the tops--to recyclable materials.

Next up would be a denim quilt for Active Son to take to college with him. It wasn't finished when he moved into the dorms last fall, but I was able to give it to him before we left the States in early January. And though I had purchased a couple of inspirational modern quilting books:







it was to Crazy Mom Quilts' site I returned, using her Fair Square quilt pattern and tutorial.

Active Son's Quilt

The top of the quilt is made of recycled--or upcycled, as they now say--denim shirts. I used jeans for Oldest daughters quilt but it was tied. As I planned to machine quilt this one, I thought I'd better use a lighter weight fabric; is a good thing I did. When I chose oh-so-soft minky fabric for the back of the quilt to please oh-so-tactile Active son, I didn't realize, having never machine quilted before, how difficult I had made things for myself.

I used a walking foot for quilting but I didn't have a proper quilting table/extension on my machine which made the machine quilting laborious and less than perfect. Thankfully, Active Son has no hints of sewing perfectionism in him and he loves the minky backing, so all was good.

Next up will be a quilt for Artist Son but I'll not be starting that one right away as I've been smitten with another recycling/upcycling crafting project...

A Quilt as Metaphor

Just before heading back to school this fall, Oldest Daughter casually mentioned that she needed another blanket for her dorm bed this winter. And I casually responded that I would make her a quilt, reminded that I had intended to make her a quilt of recycled denim when she went off to college, but somehow never did. I planned to make this quilt and send it with a dear friend who was traveling to the States the first week of October.

The next couple of weeks found me working purposefully and unrelentingly on this quilt; though I used to sew frequently, I hadn't worked on a sewing project in years, many years. I had a small stash of recyclable denim but needed more, so for a couple of weeks rose early on Friday morning and headed to Amman's used clothing market to hunt for just the right jeans. Besides traditional blue I found pink (two identical pairs!) and turquoise jeans. The purple fabric is from a men's cotton shirt.

Sometime around the second week of working on this quilt, en route for the second time to the used clothing market, I realized that my crafting of this quilt had gone beyond enjoying-a-new-creative-outlet to near-obsession level. What was up with this?? Once I began thinking about it it didn't take me long to realize that this quilt was a metaphor for my mother love for Oldest Daughter, a surrounding, protecting love, and a love still being perfected and righted by a gracious and loving Heavenly Father.

And here is a glimpse into God's beautiful providence: soon after Oldest Daughter arrived back on campus, pressures came to bear on her that caused my mother's heart to ache. I was challenged by the irony of the word "mother" being contained in the word "smother" as God gently, though painfully began working on my smother love, refining it into a more fitting mother love. (With three more children to send off into the world, something tells me God will have more refining to do in the future.)


I stitched and prayed, stitched and prayed, thanking God for his loving care of me, giving this quilting project as a gift to me so that I could give Oldest Daughter a tangible gift of my mother love at this particular time, reminding her that she is ever surrounded by my love and prayers, and for his loving care of Oldest Daughter, strengthening her in all Truth to bear the pressures that had come her way.