June is Here

I love the month of 

It signifies the beginning of the lazy days of summer.

Schools out.
Jessica and the other teachers
 all waved good bye to their  kiddos last week.
The kids and the teachers are all excited,
but for different reasons!

Picnic time

And swim meets.

There are two quilts that I'd love to 

share from my collection that remind me of June.

Summer Spirit
June, 2001

I loved all the symbols of summer,
flags, watermelons, and flowers, the perfect
ingredients for a summer picnic.

The single block pattern is from the book
Seasonings
by Jan Patek and Sue Spargo.

I used this pattern to teach applique classes, using each of the
four blocks to teach a different applique technique,
hand applique,needle turn,
hand applique, freezer paper
machine applique with a blind hem stitch,
and
fusible applique with a buttonhole stitching.

It was a wonderful class to allow students to experiment with
different methods to improve their skill and find
an applique method that worked best for them

No more fear of the "A" word!

This quilt is more than a 

 Thousand Pyramid

1989-1992

It could be called my "Swim Meet Quilt".

Each summer as my 3 girls participated in swim meets

through our neighborhood pool, I would sit and 

hand stitch all of these 60 degree triangles together.

All of these 1000 fabrics were cut from my stash.

When I began,
 I thought for sure I would have

to borrow and trade with my friends.

But surprise, I had it all myself! 

Not all of the fabrics are beautiful and exciting
but they work well together.
It is a documentation of fabrics available at the time.

I sewed individual triangles into larger

triangles.  Some with 10 darks and 6 lights.

And some the opposite, 10 lights and 6 darks.

 That way I could construct the quilt in rows,
alternating the dark and light large pieced triangles.

 Now just to make things interesting I repeated one fabric,

So in reality there are only 999 fabrics.

And so that I would remember myself, I slipped a piece of that

repeated fabric behind the label.

***

With the flip of the calendar it's now my favorite month.

Time to start another quilt to remind me

of the beginning of summer.

Hope you start one too.

 Until Next Time-