Jerica's Quilt

One quilt often inspires another. That was the case with a quilt that I made for Sarah when she moved into her first apartment. After she chose a pattern from my quilting library, we hit the quilt shops in search of brown, gold, and cream fabrics with musical undertones. The quilt turned out beautifully and Sarah hung it proudly in her apartment.

          That’s where Jerica saw it. Sarah and Jerica have been friends since they were in elementary school. They were roommates their freshman year at WSU.

           Sarah told me that Jerica loved that quilt, and admired it whenever she visited. Eventually, Jerica asked me if I’d make the same quilt for her, out of different colors, if her mom bought the fabric. It would be a gift from her parents for her 21^st birthday. Of course, I said yes.

          In the spring, my favorite neightborhood fabric/quilting store, Pacific Fabrics went out of business. Jerica, her mom, Sarah, and I took advantage of the big closing sale. We grabbed a shopping cart and filled it with eighteen bolts of purple, brown, and cream fabrics. Jerica and her mom hadn’t ever shopped for fabric before, but Sarah and I showed them the ropes and they caught on quickly.

          Spring turned into summer. I had planned to work on the quilt over the summer, and just barely made that deadline, by cutting all the blocks out as August ended. That’s also when I panicked and remembered to make an appointment for time on a long arm quilting machine.

The first time available was on October 4. That would work. Jerica’s birthday is in December. It would also light a fire under me to get moving.

Sarah and Jerica left for college. I wish I could say that I got right back to work on the quilt, but I didn’t. The blocks sat neatly stacked on my sewing counter, while other things took priority.

In mid-September, I started slicing the curves into the blocks, then stitched along the curves to create new blocks.  I sprinkled the smaller accent squares onto those blocks. Karla Alexander author of Color Shuffle, explained her process simply and accurately. I slapped the blocks up onto my design wall as I finished them. I sent Jerica and Sarah pictures of the quilt in progress.

Once I got all the blocks up on my design wall, I was glad I hadn’t waited until the absolute last minute. Over the next week, I’d arrange and rearrange the blocks almost every time I walked past them on the way to my car, trying to get it balanced, and trying to make sure that the same fabrics weren’t right next to each other. Sometimes it felt like one of those square puzzles that you slide numbers around in trying to get them in order. At last, my Rubik’s cube of a quilt top was arranged to my liking.

Let the piecing begin! I joined the blocks into rows, and then joined the rows into a quilt top.

          Next step, I started doodling possible quilting patterns to quilt on it. I had quilted Sarah’s quilt with swirls. That went well with the music theme, but I wanted something different for Jerica’s quilt. I went to sleep with no plan. I woke up with a few very tentative possibilities.

At Trains, Fabrics, Etc. I helped the quilt shop owner load the quilt top, batting, and backing onto the long arm quilting machine. I picked out a variegated thread of browns and cream. I looked over the diagonal rows of curves. Should I echo the curves? That seemed too obvious. Should I quilt angular, geometric lines to contrast against the curves? No, I liked the curves. I wanted them to stand out.

I grasped the handles of the quilting machine, and relaxed, confident that something would come to me. As always, it did: vines with curling fronds climbing up the diagonal rows. They would be flowing and curvy, and simple enough to be forgiving. But best of all, this design would match the mood of the quilt.

As I quilted, other quilters who came into the shop came by to see what I was working on, and offered their compliments. It’s not a traditional quilt, definitely more contemporary. Brown and purple are also not usually paired together, but in this quilt, they play well together.

Two layers of fabric with batting sandwiched in between, held together with thread. It really was a quilt now. It looked fantastic.

I had to keep reminding myself that it was Jerica’s quilt, not mine. I continued reminding myself of that as I stitched the sleeve and binding on. The label reminded me again.

On Saturday, we celebrated Jerica’s birthday early (she was a Christmas baby) at Stanley & Seafort’s restaurant overlooking Tacoma. When she pulled her quilt out of a matching pillowcase, her face lit up with a big smile. Happy birthday Jerica!

Laura Keolanui Stark is glad that so many of her quilts have found happy homes. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Quilt Factory: UFOs Turned Into Finished Quilts

Over the last year, I’ve been working to tie up some loose ends. I've got way too many UFOs. If you’re not a quilter, you may be asking what I’m doing with alien aircraft, and where do I keep them. In quilt language, UFO stands for un-finished objects---meaning quilts that were started, but not finished. I prefer to call them WIPs—works in progress.

       One day in a burst of organization, I gathered all my WIPs together, and hung them on hangers. I had 12! A couple of them were still in the piecing stage, but most were quilt tops that needed to be quilted. They ranged in size from bed sized to table runners.

I made a list and separated out the ones that I needed to finish quilting by hand. I’d work on those while I watched TV at night.

Top priority in the hand quilting pile was a Hawaiian quilt wall hanging that was supposed to be a wedding gift for my sister and her husband. In a nanosecond moment of delusional hope, I thought I could finish it in time to enter it in the Puyallup fair.  I missed that deadline by more than a month, but I missed the wedding deadline by a lot more. As I was stitching the finishing binding on, I thought “Looks like it’s going to be a fifth anniversary present instead of a wedding gift.”

Ulu quilt made for Cynthia and Bruce Iverson.

The bed sized quilt tops would be a lot easier to quilt on a long arm machine. Shoving a queen-sized quilt through the 7” throat of my sewing machine, while trying to keep my stitches even in a creative quilting motif is not an easy task.  I’d need to make an appointment at one of my favorite quilt shops, Trains, Fabric, Etc. to rent time on their long arm quilting machine.

Everybody always asks why I don’t have my own long arm machine.  I’ve got the room, but not the cash. They start at about $10,000 and go up to $30,000. That’s several semester’s worth of tuition, or a car! And owning a long arm is similar to owning your own swimming pool—lots of complicated maintenance for a little bit of fun. For now, I’d rather rent. When I win the lottery, I may feel differently.

Back to my WIPs. To get through them, I needed some discipline. I made a rule that I couldn’t start a new project until I finished three WIPs. I didn’t go overboard and say “until all the WIPs were complete,” because that would just turn quilting into drudgery and punishment, stifling any new ideas. Of course, making the rule guaranteed that I’d have to break it, but, it sort of wasn’t my fault.

Last year around this time, my Zumba class had a fundraiser for a Zumba gal who was going through a really tough time: cancer, no health care insurance, two small children, and a husband who left her.

My contribution was to make a quilt to be raffled. It could raise some money for her, and use up some of my Christmas fabric. Another one of my quilting goals is to shrink my fabric stash. It wasn’t really breaking my new project limitation rule, just bending it a little. Besides, it would be for a good cause. I’d have to complete it, and it would be quick.

I was pleased with how the quilt, “Home for the Holidays” turned out. It hung for a couple of weeks in our gym while people bought raffle tickets. Other people must’ve liked it too because it raised more than $500.

"Home for the Holidays" raffle quilt

I got back to my WIPs. I finished two of them.

Then Sarah requested a music quilt (new project) to hang in her apartment. It was done in time to put it under the Christmas tree for her. But, as often happens, one quilt leads to another. Sarah’s quilt led to Jerica’s quilt—same quilt, different fabrics. (More on this in a future blog).

Sarah's music quilt

I’m finishing up Jerica’s quilt now. Even though her quilt was a “new project,” it helped me knock two WIPs off my list. When I packed my bag to quilt Jerica’s on the long arm, I also optimistically tucked in two wall hangings in case I finished hers, and still had time.  The long arm was all mine from 10 am until 6 pm.

The owner of the shop helped me load Jerica’s 48 x 70” quilt. I don’t get on the machine often enough to remember what goes on which roller, and which way to crank those rollers. I chose the thread and quilted until 1:00, then took a break to eat the lunch I’d packed.

Jerica's quilt on the long arm quilting machine.

There wasn’t much left to quilt, so I was sure that I’d get to at least one of the wall hangings. It would be “That Fall Feeling,” a wall hanging. I designed it after taking a reverse appliqué course from Nancy Lee Chong a few years ago.

At 2:30 I asked the gal who was quilting on the other long arm to help me load the fall quilt. It measures 42 x 42. It’s not big but I hadn’t planned how to quilt it, so that slowed me down a little. I never seem to get inspired with quilt designs ahead of time. I always try to plan ahead, but nothing comes to me until I’m standing there gripping the handles of the machine. And it did come to me: swirls on the night sky, echo quilting on the pumpkins, and pumpkins in the border.

"That Fall Feeling" on the long arm machine.

At 4:15, it was done. Just the binding and label to go, and it would be hanging before Halloween! I was pooped, but enjoying the feeling of accomplishment. Two quilts done!

I was unpinning the orange and black quilt from the rollers on the machine, when the other quilter came rushing in, “Oh good! I came in to help you load your last quilt. Hurry up!”

I’d convinced myself that I could quilt the last one, a fourth of July wall hanging, on my home machine, later. It was a long time until July. I was tired.

I took a deep breath, and tried to rise to her expectations. We loaded it up. I found a spool of red, white, and blue thread and wound some bobbins. My pressured “inspiration” was to quilt loops and stars. Some of the stars aren’t twinkling very brightly (maybe they’re dark holes), but they’ll do. I’ve always said that I don’t make perfect quilts, I make good ‘nuff quilts. At 5:30, I was done and had a half an hour left to do a little shopping.

Fourth of July quilt, just needs the binding sewn down

Four of my WIPs are now officially complete! The stack is shrinking, only five left! What’s that? I think I hear a Christmas quilt calling my name.  

If you click on the photos, they'll get bigger and you can see the quilting. 

Laura Keolanui Stark is eyeing her stash of Christmas fabric with glee! She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.