April 2015 Made Fabric Star Blocks into sibling quilts
I made myself and each of my three siblings a quilt incorporating stars that I won on block lotto last year and extra stars that I had made. The fox quilt was made with blocks that didn’t quite make the guidelines for the block lotto “domestic pet blocks”. Before our mother unexpectedly passed away in 1985, she had started to make a double wedding ring quilt and had sewn all of the blue pieced sections into sets of four. I took the four sets and turned and twisted them, sewing them together in a serpentine fashion which I then inserted into the white border pieces. That was the hardest part of the piecing. Elizabeth Clark, also a member of block lotto, and I, spent many hours in front of her design wall moving stars and foxes around trying to figure out pleasing placements. Elizabeth was a great help and an inspiration urging me to push myself to make each quilt different and special for each sibling. The quilting was done by our mutual friend Char Koppenol. My husband photographed each quilt and I did a write up for each one, he put the picture of the four quilts and my write ups into one large photograph that I sent to Spoonflower.com to be made into fabric. I cut each label out and attached a label for each different quilt to the back of that quilt. Each sibling can now see all the quilts in the series and has a short description of their own quilt. I couldn’t post pictures before June 11, the give away day, because my sister Myrna Duthler, is also a member of block lotto and that would have spoiled the surprise. It was fun to see how pleased they were with their quilt and to know that they each have a bit of our mother to wrap around them. I am including pictures of the labels, quilts and siblings. Sophie can you do your magic with them and put them in the finished folder? Many thanks to all who participated in the April 2015 Made Fabric Star Block and who made these gifts possible.
Siblings L-R
Jane Leonard, Barb Post, Myrna Duthler and Larry Medendorp
Stars Over the Mountains for Jane Leonard
Fox Trails for Larry Medendorp
Star Light, Star Bright for Myrna Duthler
Shooting Stars for Barbara Post
Love each and every one of them.
How special and wonderful! Great job!
Wow, those are all great quilts. What a lovely idea to use the DWR pieces that way.
What a batch of beautiful quilts! Does the Spoonflower custom fabric work better than scanning the photos and printing them on your own printer?
Naan, it worked out great; colorfast and permanent. I used the cotton sateen fabric as an instructor at our quilt guild suggested to me that it would work best for what I wanted. The site offers all types of fabrics from silk to heavy canvas. I had heard from a few sources that printing on home printers, even with archival ink, was not truly permanent, although I have been doing that with my other labels. I decided on Spoonflower because designers use it for making fabric, wallpaper, giftwrap , etc. I am really pleased with the results, especially for this project.
These are wonderful! What a great idea, and what beautiful design you came up with. Thank you for posting this: it’s an inspiration!
Sorry, that above comment was from me, Ginny in Brooklyn. My computer is messing with me today!
Fantastic quilts!
I am looking at the quilts again this morning and thinking it must have been hard to decide who got each quilt (and which one you would keep for yourself!) I love how they are all different and yet connected to one another … just like siblings 😉
Great question Sophie, here’s the story. When I started sewing, I resolved to make the quilts so that I would love each one and could keep any one of them if need be but during construction the decision kind of resolved itself. Stars Over the Mountains, with the points around the star field, came to resemble mountains and my sister Jane lived in Durango, Colorado many years and now spends the winters in Tucson a city surrounded by Mountains, so that quilt was naturally meant for her because of her love of the mountains. Fox Trails: My brother’s daughter married a Native American and her last name is now Fox, she loved the foxes I had initially put on facebook over a year ago when we were doing domestic animals for block lotto. I got to thinking I could make the foxes all colors, not just browns, like the Native American Kachina dancers. Plus, foxes can sometimes grant wishes, and my brother has cancer, so my wish for him is a longer cancer free life. Star Light, Star Bright is the first part of that rhyme Star light star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might have this wish I wish tonight….and that went to my sister Myrna, who has four married children, 8 grand children and several great grandchildren and I envisioned that her wish, when she was young for a wonderful family came true – a “shining legacy” with each star representing someone in her clan. Shooting Stars naturally became my quilt with each of the four shooting stars on the border representing my four children, all stars in my eyes!
I love all the quilts and the story behind them! Awesome stuff going on there!
Thanks Julie!
Julie, I followed your lead with the staggered placement of the stars.
What a beautiful quilt story!
Thank you Kathy.