Inspiration/Generally awesome needlearts you've seen 2016

Don't have a project going? Out of the regular crafting game but still love it? Why not post neat projects you see. Having a bout of craft-block? Why not get some inspiration here.

Post pictures or not, just make sure to link to the creator. If you see an image floating around and can't place the source try Google's reverse image search.

I'm totally in love with this quilt. There are more images and close-ups in the link there.

I didn't realize until I was reading that it's actually a raw edge applique, making this style much less daunting than I'd initially thought.

This pixie hat pattern is available free from Ravelry.


This free (non-counted) embroidery piece is really lovely, but also quite simple to do.


Super cool crochet shell rug is also a free pattern on Ravelry. I think it's so perfect for a children's room or play space.


Bright ombre quilt (I have a deep love affair with bright colors) by Megan Pitz.


And just one more. Paper Shredder quilt by Carol.

Interesting pieces. I absolutely LOVE that rug!

Cool! Great idea for a thread! And I love All. The. Things!!

Look forward to seeing lots more here.

I've had two warm days, and been busy outside, but thought I ought to mention this before I forgot to do it. I should add that "warm" in this case means above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I digress.

There's a local group, made up mostly of women who have retired from (or are still working at) Hanford. I belong, although in the most casual sense possible. I gave them money, and once in a while I show up and embroider or crochet.

It's called the "White Bluffs Quilt Museum" (an homage to one of the two places that was "depopulated" to make room for the nuclear work during and after WWII).

http://www.whitebluffscenter.org/Pages/default.aspx

The museum isn't exactly a museum, although it always has interesting pieces hung on the walls. One of the most interesting (and I've only seen photographs) is from 1700s (yep, that's right), and was found in the TRASH by one of the members. The age was verified by type of fabric, thread, and the approximate area it came from (which I've forgotten, sorry) was determined by the particular pattern.

They're an interesting bunch of people. I do wish their web site didn't use so much blue in text, because that color of blue is so often a link, and it's clearly a labor of love rather than expertise. They change out the display of quilts (and other handwork) available, and there's always something interesting hanging on the walls. Some of them are visible in the current projects pages.

http://www.whitebluffscenter.org/Pages/currentprojects.aspx

A quick history of White Bluffs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Bluffs,_Washington

Just in case you still had spare time on your hands:

http://www.quiltindex.org/

http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/projects/quiltindex.php

You all had loads of free time to look at quilts, right???

Technically, this exhibit ended in December, but I failed to upload the pictures until recently.

Here are a few examples of what was on display at the New England Quilt Museum's miniature and doll quilts exhibit. Apologies in advance for not rotating some of the images. PB doesn't pick up the rotation from my new laptop and having PB do it is a royal pain.







George Sciciliano, Lebanon, PA.
The artist is renowned for his original technique for piecing an reinterpreting the log cabin pattern, and has recorded more than 700 designs. Working primarily in silks, his use of color is superb and creates movement rarely seen in pieces of this size. George has won hundreds of awards around the world for his tiny quilts, and his work is in many major collections.

"Betwixt and Between," 2012
Dupioni silk, 5 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches, 2874 pieces

"6522," 2014.
Dupioni silk, 22 x 22 inches, (viewers were supposed to guess the number of pieces used)

Detail of "6522"

Again, apologies about the lack of rotation! A few more (I was volunteering in the library that day so couldn't spend as much time as I may have liked with the exhibit). Another volunteer I worked with here at the museum is into miniature quilts and she tells me that they really get off on taking a traditional quilt pattern and seeing how small they can make it. To each her/his own, eh?!



I did not get the information on these pieces, but I can say that the largest of these is about 16x16 inches.



This was part of a display of little doll quilts. I liked this one best because of dimensional work, and I believe it was called just "flower basket." The little bed it is on is about 8 x 12, I'd guess.



"Flowers in Grandmother's Flower Garden" by Carol Henry, Florida. No size listed but each of those tiny hexagons are about the size of the end of a pencil eraser! This was in a display case, thus the glare.

Oh - I really wanted to go see this exhibit, but didn't get there. George Sciciliano came and spoke to a quilt guild that I belonged to some years ago and his quilts were spectacular. The top one looks almost 3-dimensional. I can see that using silk would probably cut down on the bulk at the seams. I would have guessed that the title "6522" was the number of pieces.

>8 dudes22: Oh, I didn't think of that, but that sounds about the right number of pieces!

The day I was there, someone mentioned they had a friend who took a class with Sciciliano once, and there was some suggestion about his using tape to assist with the piecing.

>5 Lyndatrue: I definitely spend some time browsing there! And I thought I'd replied to your comment ages ago, dratted brain.

>6 avaland: Those minis are incredible. I can't even imagine doing that kind of work, and to that level of precision!

>9 avaland: - I think there was a class offered when he came to our guild, but I had to work and couldn't take it. I do have a vague impression of something about tape.

I wish AQS would have their show in Knoxville again. I really enjoyed it when it was here a few years ago.

Quilts from the "Original Sewing and Quilt Expo," Worcester, Massachusetts, going on this weekend. Here is a link to the Expo's exhibit page, if you would like more details on the exhibits.



From the Best of Quiltcon 2016 exhibit (a modern quilt exhibit). "Pine Bur Quilt" by Tara Faughnan of Oakland, CA. The pieces overlap and are loose at their tips resembling pine cones.

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From the display of Tom Korn's quilts. Korn is a retired engineer and former serviceman, who, a few years ago, let his sisters teach him to quilt. He makes quilts 45 x 15 inches that are replicas of service ribbons.



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From the exhibit "Celebrating Silver" by Mary Pal of Ontario, Canada. She depicts silver miners here, noting that we seldom think about how we get our silver. What you see as silver in this quilt is gauze!



I had hoped to post a close-up so you could see the dimension the gauze creates.... but despite cropping a photo on photobucket and using the appropriate code, it will not let me post the cropped photo, so I'll enlarge the original above.

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More quilts coming....

As simple as they were, I really liked the Tom Korn quilts. I had just showed my husband an article I saw about him recently. (Don't remember where - quilt magazine maybe?) Thank you, Lois, for taking the pictures and posting them. Takes me forever to get pictures posted here.

Also from the "Celebrating Silver" exhibit (silver anniversary theme), Jeanne Moore of Escondido, CA



From the "Fall Leaves" exhibit. Vicki Peterson, Carver, Minnesota. This is a pattern from American Quilter magazine of 2002.



From the "Quilt as Desired" exhibit. This was interesting in that they took very ordinary antique quilts or quilt tops and machine quilted them.



From the same exhibit, as an example, "Oh the Stars Shine Bright" star top circa 1945 Sue Papouachek, Smithville, West Virginia.

Thanks for the effort of sharing these. They were much enjoyed.

Here's a few photos from a local Massachusetts quilt guild's show last week. It's just a few random photos, taken more because of my interest in either pattern or color or both, and several because they are patterns I've thought about doing in the past. I like the local shows because there is a variety of abilities on display.

I have been pulling my hair out trying to get all the photos rotated and having the rotated copies replace the original, and let's just say it wasn't going well.

So, there are a few duplicates, and I can no longer tell if they are all there anymore, but I hope you enjoy them. There were six or eight similar "trip around the world" quilts done at the same summer workshop. The slight variations are interesting.

http://s208.photobucket.com/user/avaland_photos/slideshow/Chelmsford%20Quilt%20G...

Nice pics. Some interesting ideas.

>18 dudes22: That's what we go to these for, isn't it? :-)

>17 avaland: Thanks for the quilt show pictures! With photobucket and replacing originals it often seems like there's a pretty big lag before the new one shows up for you (because of cached information maybe), but I think they show up for others right away.

Just saw this lovely log cabin layout (picture links to the maker's original post and information).

That is a nice log cabin. I think the light colors might be florals also. Do I really need another quilt idea/project? But I do have a lot of florals in my fabric stash. What to do? What to do? I think I'll at least Pin it.

The light colors definitely still seem mostly plant-based, and more could be done with the color arrangements I think. It can be hard to use up those busier florals, I imagine.

Yes it is. I bought some florals for another project (a quilt of tea cups - never finished - or not finished yet) and usually I would only use one as a focal fabric with other less busy fabrics. But this would let me use up a lot of the scraps at once.

Just back from a trip to Lunenburg, where a trip is never complete without a visit to Laurie Swim's gallery. http://www.laurieswim.com

wow! cool!!

Gorgeous! I love the way the clouds are done especially.

>26 mabith: and I was thinking the same thing of the water!

One thing for sure, quilting will never be a stale art, there's always something new or some new standard to hit. There's a contemporary quilt exhibition near me soon and I can't wait to go. Nice to have something in between Quilt National shows.

>20 mabith: Oh, that's lovely! Reminds me a lot of the watercolor quilting of the 90s (damn, I'm old!), which got renamed as "colorwash" quilting. All things are new again, eh?! I did one watercolor quilt way back, but what I learned from making it has informed every quilt since.

>24 SassyLassy: Lovely!

Deconstructed Lone Star by Amy Struckmeyer

Oooh, very cool!

>30 mabith: I love that!

>30 mabith: Clever! (I can't look at it with seeing the concentric circles of quilting and imagining drawing that out....)

The quilting was the first thing I saw too. I am so jealous of those quilters who can make these wonderful things.

>30 mabith: Ohhh I love that!

YouTube video of a talk given at the New England Quilt Museum recently about embroidery in quilts.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H89Gh5a_JAM&feature=youtu.be

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. Two thousand people were killed, nine thousand were injured in a city of approximately fifty thousand people at that time. Halifax was on a wartime footing. It was the major east coast port from which supplies and soldiers left for Europe and WWI, and the major communications hub for the cable which sent information westwards. It was also the largest rail terminus on Canada's east coast.

A Norwegian ship loaded with relief supplies for Belgium collided with a French ship loaded with ammunition in the Narrows of Halifax Harbour. The French ship exploded minutes later, causing the largest man made explosion until the atomic bomb. Windows blew in all over the city, blinding hundreds, and a tsunami washed onlookers into the harbour. The next day a blizzard hit the city, further adding to the misery of the thousands now homeless.

To commemorate the anniversary, quilt artist Laurie Swim (work also in 23 above) created this quilt, Hope and Survival:



The little girl flying through the air is based on a real story of a child who was blown several kilometres when the blast wave hit. Here are two links to the story of the quilt and its creation:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-explosion-quilt-captures-fragm...
https://www.laurieswim.com/halifax-memorial

In them, you will see better detail of the following image, but I wanted to show how the pieces were grouped to give the full impact of the display. The panels of names were grouped in 4 x 3 settings to give the impression of the windows which blinded so many. The beading under each name is done in Braille, as a reminder of those who were blinded. One of the results of the explosion was the foundation of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. A happier result was the tradition of sending a Christmas tree to Boston every year as that city's official tree, to thank the citizens for their aid in the aftermath of the explosion.



I saw the quilt exhibit this past weekend as part of a larger exhibit commemorating the Explosion at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic:

https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca

Holy moly, that quilt is gorgeous. What an amazing idea!

What a beautiful quilt. Thank you for sharing the history behind the work, too. What a tragedy.

Both of those pieces are exceptional and moving!

That is quite a story; I don't think I knew about this. The quilt is a wonderful commemoration, so well done.

The background of that Hope and Survival quilt is AMAZING.

>41 avaland: I said that and notice while doing the reorder at the bookstore this morning that there is a book out on it.

What a fascinating quilt, and a fascinating story. We were in Halifax in 2014 and were told of this disaster then. It was hard to believe that the beautiful harbour in front of us was the scene of such devastation.