Fiber Art by Ruth Anne

Great News!

2012-01-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

The person I wrote about in my last post is off life-support and talking! Today I worked more with Peg to finish the quilt top, and she is going to bring it to the hospital to show our progress.

Because I like to have a picture in my posts, here is one that is part of the same quilt as my blog header. I think it looks cheerful, which is how I feel.

Why I now like Sunbonnet Sue

2012-01-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

I am helping to finish a quilt top in the Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Sam pattern. I had never been much of a fan of this design--I'm not the "sweet" or "cute" type, any more than I am one to wear lace. I've changed my attitude, though: Any quilt made with love is a quilt to be admired. This is just such a quilt.

My friend Peg helped her young neighbor make Sunbonnet Sue blocks by embroidering and embellishing them. They spent many happy hours together working on the blocks. The quilt is being made for the woman's daughter.

All 42 blocks were completed, but the top did not get put together before the lovely young mother became extremely ill; the outlook at the moment is grim.

You know that feeling when someone is in trouble and you wish you could do something? That was me, so I jumped at the chance to help Peg, who does not do machine sewing, finish the quilt top. We laid out the blocks together, I do the cutting and sewing, Peg does the ironing--and checks to make sure I'm sewing the strips together in the right order. She has already cut a couple apart that I had inverted.

As I pass the blocks under the presser foot on my machine, I think of the many hours Peg and her young friend spent sewing together, lovingly crafting the blocks, thinking about how the little girl would like it.

Now, my thoughts and prayers are for a miracle, that this mother will be able to wrap her child in her arms, snuggled under the completed quilt.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T23:31:00.000-05:00

Some friends and I took our annual holiday trek last week--an informal shop hop around the state. As having a leisurely lunch together to "catch up" is perhaps the most important part of the day, I would have been content visiting three shops. We ended up at six--three quilt shops, three yarn. Some stops were unplanned, noticed along the way and certainly not to be passed by. I was pretty careful in my purchases, as we all decided that when we meet next year we must each have completed at least two UFOs. This sounds like a no-stress resolution, possible even if life gets in our way again, as it did for all of us this past year.

The first thing I'm working on is my granddaughter Julia's Christmas quilt. I offered to make her any design she wanted. She saw some blocks I had been playing with in this fabric, trying out the disappearing nine-patch. That's what she'd like as her quilt. I only had enough to make a lap-size quilt, but she needed a bed quilt. No 14-year-old girl should still have a fairy princess quilt on her bed. I tried to make it larger with other fabrics, but she wanted to stay with the colors of the print--and the other colors didn't really work.

I spent hours on the internet trying to find it, and finally did--in Germany! And they don't ship to the US. Instead I got coordinating fabrics from the same line, which have arrived and I am working on it.

I got excellent service from the people who sold me the fabrics. Next post I'll list them and show photos of my progress.