Friday, June 1, 2012

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-


5 comments:

  1. Happy June!
    Love your watermelon quilt and the 1000 pyramids is wonderful. I've always like this quilt!

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  2. Happy June to you too, Kyle!Love your treasured quilts that you have made.

    Hope you have a great weekend.

    xx, Carolyn

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  3. I love when you show your quilts -- they are always so fabulous! I'm trying to take having done all that patchwork by hand.

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  4. Kids have another week here. I really like your 1000 Pyramids. There is one in my UFO pile that just didn't live up to my vision beforehand.

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  5. I love, love the watermelon quilt. I love to eat watermelon and I love watermelons on a quilt.
    Your Pyramid quilt represents a good documentary of fabrics available at the time. I made a charm quilt in the early 90's Not nearly so many pieces as yours. I ended up with a duplicate fabric too.

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