I hope you enjoyed last week’s post about Rumi O’Brien and her quilts (to read that story click here). I also hope you’re looking forward to the rest of the story!
While going through my photo album I was so pleased to find how well I had documented the “sister city” challenge – between quilters in Madison, WI; Freiberg, Germany; and Berne, Switzerland. This is a picture of my album with a photo of the challenge poster, the fabric scraps opened across the top, and me standing next to my quilt. Don’t you love the 80’s hair?
One of the newspaper clippings I saved, reported a part of the story I had forgotten:
The German and Swiss quilts were lost in shipping! Georgellen enlisted the help of Swiss, German and U.S. embassies, then Sen. Herb Kohl, and the Postal Service, to help find the quilts. We hung the American quilts so the exhibit could open on schedule, and the European quilts finally arrived the morning of the opening reception! Talk about excitement!
I won’t be able to show you all of the quilts, but I chose a few of the ones I found most interesting. The pictures you see here were taken of photographs, so the quality is not perfect. The American quilts have their makers in the pictures. The European ones don’t. I apologize for not having the quilter’s names with their quilts. That was one part of the documentation I neglected to include 😥 . I’ll share a slick trick about my quilt at the end of the line up!
I found it interesting that most of the American quilts were traditional in design, while many of the European quilts were quite “artsy”.
The quilt I made for the challenge is named “Floral Lights”. I chose to add a burgundy, a blue, and a pink fabric to the challenge fabrics; and pieced them into basket weave blocks. These became the background for a floral silhouette.
Isn’t the floral design lovely? I’ll let you in on my secret. The white fabric was a “white-on-white” print, so the design was already on the fabric. I drew around it with a washout marker, quilted on the line, and trimmed away all the non-floral areas of the white fabric, so the piecing showed through. I then machine satin stitched the flowers and hand-quilted the same design in the border areas.
I’m quite sure this was the first challenge I ever participated in, and it was a great experience!
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A Sew We Go from Quebec to Boston update!
Wendy and I are working on the projects and extra special plans for our upcoming cruise from Quebec to Boston this Fall. One of the quilters who signed up early has had to cancel due to a family circumstance. Her roommate is still planning on going and is looking for a travel partner. If you think you might be interested in coming along, please email me at , or contact Kristi at (262)786-6763/. For more information on the cruise, please go to: https://www.chrisquilts.net/trips/
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