Quilts Tell Stories

It’s quilt show season ~ and I want to see them all. So this weekend my friend Cindy and I attended the West Suburban Quilters show at the Expo Center in Waukesha.

Recently I was listening to a sermon that talked about how we are all wired to enjoy a good story, and of course he went on to talk about the greatest story ever told 😁. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized the show’s theme was “Quilts Tell Stories” ~ and they do! This is actually a big part of my lectures and classes. I love to tell stories, especially about my quilts. I enjoy hearing the stories of quilts made by others too. So… I hope you’ll enjoy my sharing a few of my favorite quilts from this recent show and some of their stories too.

One of the first quilts I saw hanging was a variation of the One Block Wonder! How exciting, since I’ve been really into this “wonder”ful technique recently (my last 3 blogposts were about them you know). I’ll start my virtual show with Patty Martin’s “Sunflower Kaleidoscope”.

I was captivated! How did she get the the house and the flowers to all flow together so well? Then I met up with her and I couldn’t wait to ask her all about it. Her secret (well it’s not really a secret 😊)? She cut her repeats from identical panels. The original panel was of a home under a blue sky, surrounded by flowers. This is a portion of that original panel:

She purchased 7 panels and cut her identical strips and triangles from 6 of them. Then she cut entire portions of that last panel and merged it with her pieced hexagon blocks. In this block you can see entire sunflowers and a pieced one, which I outlined in red (there are some half hexagons too):

Here are the daisies in the panel, and half of a pieced daisy block:

She laughingly told me that she was having a hard time getting it all to work until she got a design wall. Oh yeah ~ that’s essential for this type of work. Plus, Patty has a great eye for placing the blocks. She says she already has the panels purchased for her next quilt. I can’t wait to see it!

As I continued to wander around the show there were lovely pieced quilts like Leftovers by Lucy Herman. This quilt’s story is that these blocks were the ones she didn’t like from a previous quilt. She was surprised how great it turned out. The variety of values add so much interest.

There were wool applique quilts like Woodland Creatures by Darlene Savatsky:

And a Mariner’s Compass my friend MaryJo started in one of my classes and finished it for the show.

Wash Day is a sweet Row-by-Row quilt made by Ann Walker.

Lolita Lukach shared her story about her quilt ~ Christmas Memories. She said the photos were of past Christmases from 1945 to about 2010. Many of her family’s special events took place in December such as weddings, graduations, etc.

She did an amazing job of putting it all together. Here’s a detail shot:

Mary Margaret Wacker’s quilt “Nine Kids in Pajamas and One Na-Kid” really made me laugh … when I finally got it!

The “Na-Kid” one is the goat who’s PJs are hanging on the line 🤣.

What Lies Beneath is a modern quilt by Judy Valentino. She states that the design was hand drawn in a class, enlarged and then created in fabric.

Mary Clare Schuller was gifted bright birthday blocks which she decided to make into a large table runner, and then quilt in black because she was feeling confident and bold. She used Lori Kennedy’s Peony quilting pattern. WOW!

I ran into my friend Gloria Volland at the show and she told me the background for her quilt “Happy Tomorrows With Sunflowers” was inspired by the Gradations workshop I taught for her guild. I couldn’t wait to find it and when I did I wasn’t disappointed.

Gloria also had a lovely exhibit of quilts she made from her hand embroidered Christmas blocks.

They were each hand embroidered and hand quilted!

I have to include a quick photo of some of our ThreadBender challenge quilts. It’s always fun to have our art quilts exhibited.

And of course Cindy and I had to support the great vendors and the guild boutique.

Then we had a delicious lunch in Waukesha. Our day together was made complete by a visit to Sew Much More since Cindy is new to the area and had never been there before. What a fun day!

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I started this post with photos of a One Block Wonder quilt and I’d like to end it with photographs some of my readers sent me in response to my previous posts. They are so interesting and I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing them too!

Barbara wrote to me:

“I thought I would share my one block wonder quilt with you.  I have done other stack and whack quilts but only one like this. My before fabric was pretty wild!!  I took a class from you several years ago in Bismarck, ND.”

It was so nice to here from her, and here’s her fabric and her quilt:

Shellie also sent me a photograph of her One Block Wonder quilt with this note:

“Back about 2014 or so, I made a one block wonder, using Maxine’s book.  I made it in a class at a now-defunct quilt shop in Chanhassen, Minnesota (west of Minneapolis).  I found it quite exhausting, working with 84 sets of 6 triangles, each with 3 different possible combinations.  I could only do so many a day.  But I was pleased with how it came out.”

This technique certainly has inspired some beautiful quilts!