Clam Shell

Postal Blue is finished.  The pictures have been selected, printed, cut to size and ironed on the quilt.  I took this picture standing on the stairs looking down.  Do you see my socks?

This is my next project that I am almost finished with.  It is a clamshell pattern. I made a template of the clamshell with some plastic template.  Then I went through my whole fabric stash and cut out a clamshell from almost every fabric that I had.  I sorted all the cut fabrics by color.  Red, pink, blue, tourquoise, dark blue, browns, etc.  I noticed that the colors mostly sorted themselves into packs of 25.  So then I started to hand piece them.  I usually sorted the 25 pieces on the couch next to me in rows of 5 each of 5.  As I watched television in the evening, I was able to piece together one set.  Once I had a lot of sets done, I laid them out on the floor to see how they looked together.  I had to cut out more circles and part circles to complete the sides and bottom edges.  I wanted it to have scallops all around the quilt.  I have finished outline stitching in the ditch to secure everything and take out all the safety pins.   Now, I'm trying to figure out if it needs more quilting.

 I had to move everything around in the room to be able to put this on the wall and take a photo of it.

Here is a close up.  I was thinking of naming this quilt Clamshell Mountains or Shell Mound.

quilt national 2011

The San Jose Quilt Museum  http://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/ currently has the Quilt National 2011 quilts until April 29, 2011.  If you have the chance, it is worth a visit.  My husband Larry asked me on the drive there "Whats the difference between these quilts and the International Quilt Festival? What a loaded question.  I said that these are contemporary art quilts.  The IQF quilts are more traditional.

Unfortunately we were not able to take photos of the quilts.  So here is a photo of the wonderful book that the Dairy Barn Arts Center published in Athens Ohio.

The exhibit was wonderful.  I was so proud to see the California quilters Ellen Oppenheimer's our own EBHQ member BR #1 and Tanya Browns "Farmer Brown".  I had taken two fabric dying classes from Ellen and was very impressed with her skill and attention to detail.

I think my favorite quilts were the Shibori dyed ones.  Elin Noble's "Fugitive Pieces" and Sue Cavanaughs "Ori'Kume 20" really stood out for me.  I had taken a class with Sue Cavanaugh and the size of her piece is very impressive.  In the workshop, she was able to take us step by step in her technique.  We tried a small 8 inch piece so to see this large quilt was a treat.

Larry liked the quilt "Mother Me, Mother you".  He said you could see it as 3 ladies or an elephant in the room.  What elephant.  What ladies?  I couldn't see what he was seeing.  He said this is what he thinks quilts are.  Using recycled fabric to make something that pleases your eyes and makes you want to keep looking at it to see the details.  Wow.  I have a lot to learn.

Since we couldn't take pictures of the quilt national quilts, here are 2 quilts that were at the entrance from the san jose museum collection.

Hexagon and Stars

This quilt had all the Quilting Guilds in it.  Do you see the EBHQ block in the top right?

How wonderful.