A Favorite Welsh-Inspired Quilt,

It's been a really long couple weeks.  My husband is recovering from a fall and it's beeen all too convenient to blame that situation for everything I'm not getting done.  But, thanks to Tia Curtis' encouragement (and others, thank-you!) I'm finally getting the quilt pictures scanned for transferring to the blog. As you can see, that process still needs some polishing up! Please be patient, I'm not a technology person and would much rather do something rather than read computer books.  Wish me luck.

When the weather and my husband finally get better, I'll get some of my antiques photographed.  I don't have a huge collection but I do have some interesting quilts.  So, as soon as we have a good overcast day with minimal traffic on our gravel road, I'll hang the quilts on the end of the wood shed and shoot them.  Sadly, my budget no longer allows for professional photography.  The pictures on this posting were taken by Mark Frey (and are copyright protected).

Cottage Quilt

This little wall quilt (about 32"sq.) was inspired by the Welsh quilts I photographed in 1997 at St. Fagans near Cardiff, Wales.  The quilts were stacked up on a couple beds in an upper bedroom of one of the cottages.  These quilts were mostly everyday quilts but I've always believed that they were some of the most interesting.  More on these later.

One of my favorite features of Welsh quiltmaking is that the quilting designs usually had nothing do to with the piecing or patchwork.  This quilt is made from cotton sateen using leftovers from other quilts which is why there are irregular rectangles of tan sateen inserted in the center of each side.  I didn't have enough blue for the borders so I stretched it with the tan pieces which aren't the same size or centered. In the blue/tan borders, the quilting pattern runs across the patchwork, elsewhere on the design, I pretty much stitched patterns as they fit the corner blocks, the gold border and around the hearts.

The binding on this quilt isn't the traditional British folded edge finish that I usually use but is a separate, sewn on binding of red sateen.  I thought it needed the touch of red around the outside.  This quilt hung at a The Assoc. of Pacific Northwest Quilters show in 2002 and when I entered it I was quite certain my binding corners wouldn't meet a judge's approval and they didn't.  I don't recommend sateen for binding if you want nice square corners but it's a pleasure to hand quilt with. 



The hearts are also sateen which is a challenge for needleturn applique anytime you have an inside point because sateen is inclined to fray.  I lined the heart pattern up so the sateen's straight of grain was aligned with the inside point on the top and the point on the bottom.  This way, when the clip is made to turn the inside point of the top of the heart, it's less inclined to fray as much.

As I said, this is one of my favorites, I hope you enjoy it as well.  May it inspire you as the cottage quilts stacked on the beds inspired me.

Ysbrydolwyd Gan Y Cwiltian Traddodiadol Cymreig

"Ysbrydolwyd gan y cwiltian traddodiadol Cymreig" or as we say in the English speaking world, "Inspired by the tradditional Welsh quilts".  This Welsh phrase was translated for me years ago in a very around about way.  I had mentioned to Chris, an English quilt friend, that I'd like to have a couple phrases transalated into Welsh to print on my patterns but the phrases I was interested in didn't exactly show up in Welsh language dictionaries for tourists.  After a short time, a package arrived in the mail, in it was a sheet of paper with several Welsh quilt related phrases written out and a cassette tape.  When I popped the tape in a player, out came a short tutorial on how to pronounce the phrases done by a woman who worked at the University of Wales.  Chris had lived in Wales for a time and had called on this old friend for this favor.  Awesome.

I love this phrase and I can pronounce it in a mangled sort of way.  Welsh is an interesting language with some real challenges for an American.  The double 'dd' is pronounced like 'th' but that's the easy part of the challenge for an English speaker who never hears Welsh spoken.  As I said, I mangle the phrase in Welsh but I like what it says because it really describes the effect that the study of the Welsh quilts and culture has had on my life and especially my quiltmaking. 

Welsh quilts captured my imagination from the very first time I saw a photo of them.  I love all the lines, the leaves, hearts, spirals and the linear patterns.  I love the way every little open space was quilted with a motifs such as spirals or 'snails' which can come in all shapes including some with flat sides to make them fit into the space they're meant to fill. One of my favorite features of older Welsh quilts is how there is a sort of organic movement of the quilt patterns as they come together into a design.  If you were to lay a quilt out and measure how the patterns fit together in one quarter of the quilt design compared to the same patterns in another quarter of the quilt, you'd probably find that while they appear the same, the spacing and arrangement of patterns varies gently from section to section.  In a computerized world, I find this evidence for a human touch a bit refreshing. 

A favorite feature of Welsh quilting on pieced quilts is how the quilting design flows across the patchwork with no regard for 'staying inside the lines'.  There is a quilt in a museum in Wales which is a red and white strippy on one side, a red on white tree of life on the other side and the quilting design is a classic Welsh medallion design.  This quilt is amazing.  I love this way of quilting across patchwork and enouraged it with my students with a warning that if they put their quilt in for judging, this approach to quilting 'outside the box' might not be appreciated by judges and sure enough, one of my students got marked down on her quilt because the quilting crossed the pieced line.  That was over ten years and fortunately, there is a much broader appreciation for variations in quilting now.  I still love the quilting across the patchwork and plan to stitch Welsh designs onto the free-form scrap quilts I'm in the process of making now. 

The study of Welsh quiltmaking took on a life of it's own as it spread across the British Isles.  I joined the British Quilt Guild (as it was called then) and followed leads related to both traditional and current quiltmaking all over the U.K. and anywhere else it led.  As a result, I can no longer spell.  Color became colour, favorite became favourite and so on.  I've confused a few American quilters with the British terminology as  quilt batting became wadding and muslin became calico and so on.  On the plus side, I like the way the British broke down the quiltmaking process in defining themselves as patchworkers if they pieced quilt tops and quilters if they quilted them.  At the time I was doing my study, a quiltmaker or patchwork quilter was the person who both pieced the top and quilted it. If they referred to quilting, they were talking about the stitches of the actual quilting, not the entire quiltmaking process as the word 'quilting' is used in the States.  I like the more defined terms.  Years ago, I taught a beginning patchwork class (piecing only) but the shop listed it as a beginning quilting class.  One of the students was a bit confused that we never got around to quilting the project but only talked about options and then steered the students to the hand or machine quilting classes to continue the process.  Now, I think that American quilt influence in the U.K. is erasing the subtle little cultural differences that made us unique and I find that a bit sad.  I like the little things that set the Brits apart from American tradition.

These days, I do a bit of everything.  I teach needleturn applique, free-form piecing, machine quilting in addition to other things I do and I can see the influence of the old Welsh quilts.  It might not stand out to the casual observer but I see it.  I think they've made me a better teacher and quiltmaker.  So, there's no arguing that I'm definately inspired by tradditional Welsh quilting.  So, when I look back to the day when my English friend Chris offered to get some phrases translated for me, I should have added another phrase, 'consumed by tradditional Welsh quilts' as well as my favorite phrase.  Life would have been different if I hadn't had this experience with Welsh quilts and the other people I've met because of it.  I'm glad for the experience.  My Welsh great granny would have been pleased also.

The 'Return' of the Welsh Quilting Pattern & Design Handbook

It's been thirteen years since I printed my first copies of my WELSH QUILTING PATTERN & DESIGN HANDBOOK.  It was created out of a need for a pattern resource for students and myself because by that time, I had mountains of sketch notes along with every book I could lay my hands on with any reference to a Welsh quilt.  Not much help in a class. 

In 1994 when I discovered Welsh quilts, studying them was more akin to doing detective work.  Along the way, I learned about Welsh culture which was really intriging for me because I had a Welsh great-grandmother, Grandma Jones.  I really idenified with the Welsh quilters which added a very human element to the Welsh quilting.

When the time came to pull the handbook together and print it, the absolute last thought on my mind was that it would ever reach beyond my own classes.  If I remember right, the first printing consisted of twenty copies which I needed for one of the first classes I taught for a guild.  So why does this all matter now?  Over the years, I've had offers from people who have very kindly offered to help me 'clean up' my Handbook and I want them to know that I really appreciate their interest and support.  But the Handbook has taken on a life of it's own for me.  It's spelling isn't always correct, it got rushed to finish and probably could have included additional information such as how to bind the quilts correctly.  But at the same time, it has a kindred connection to the culture it represents, it's a one-of-a-kind, it's a little unpolished and a bit of an outsider.  It isn't just another commercial product of the quilting marketplace.  When I look through it, I don't see line drawings in black and white, I see colorful, textured quilts made from wool or cotton sateen.  I also see the faces of the Welsh women who stitched the quilts.  The Handbook represents my new appreciation for my Welsh ancestors who I know little about and the friends I've made in Wales and around the world as a result of the research experience and teaching.  In a way, my Handbook is a bit of a rebellion against the computer age and perfectly printed quilt books and the fast moving, financially driven quilt business which I've been involved with at many levels.  Don't get me wrong, I own many quilt books and I operate everyday in the quilt 'business' but I don't want to be consumed by it.  

So, the Handbook will stay as it is and will continued to be printed in some form for the time being but there are no promises in regard to how long it will be available.  In 2011, The Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre starting publishing the Handbook for sale, it's bound differently and has a color photo of the Quilt Centre inside the cover but it's the same book.  I consider it a major honor that the book has been accepted by Jen to sell at a place which is so important to preserving Welsh quilt history.  If you order the book from Jen, the sales proceeds go to the upkeep of the museum so I would encourage you to order it from her website jen-jones.com. The Handbook is due to be available through a Texas quilter and possibly a quilt shop in Texas in the near future, details will be listed when I have them.  I prefer to let others sell for me.

So, if you're drawn to Welsh quilts, I hope that you'll see them through eyes of the ancient culture of the Celtic Welsh rather than the trends and marketplace of the global quilt marketplace.

May your journey into Welsh quiltmaking be a path of discovery of old ways and new friends.

Blessings

I recently came across a book about blessings and after a few weeks of exercising 'blessings', I've got to say, it's a life changing way to see the world and the other people who share it with us.  A lot of the information wasn't new to me but the way the author brought it all together was reveolutionary. 

I think we often think of blessing another person in terms of the people we like or love but the author encourages us to bless those people who not only dislike us but who hate us just as Jesus did and he was the master of blessing the people who hated and mocked him.  

So in this election season which will dominate the media for the next year, step back and instead of taking part in the negative verbal onslaught, take the time to form your thoughts and words into blessings.  If blessing doesn't come easy because you feel like you might be condoning ideas or actions that you believe are wrong then remember that a blessing is speaking the favor of God over a person or situation and He only wants the best for all of His creation.  God can't bless that which is wrong or evil and He is certainly the best one to sort out which is which.  So when your co-worker, a crazy driver or someone you love, does something and you feel hurt or angry, take a moment and bless them instead.  Speak out God's very best for that person.  It's a start in the right direction and it's a blessing.

And by the way, the book is THE POWEROF A BLESSING  by Kerry Kirkwood. 

Machine Quilting Information and Update

A while back, during my last machine quilting class, I promised to post information about a very interesting online resource for machine quilters.  So, here it is.  The Website is daystyledesigns.com and is the work of Leah Day.  I'm sure you'll be amazed at her output of ideas for machine quilters. 

If you find it a bit overwhelming, remember that practice is important. Take some fabrics you're tired of or buy some just for the purpose of practicing, it doesn't have to be the 'good' stuff, this a good time to use up the uglies in your stash.  You'll have more control of the patterns if you can see what you're doing so try putting a solid or near solid fabric on the working side and a print on the backside.  You'll be able to see what you're doing on the solid and then how the pattern looks on the printed backside.  Be ready to go in advance so you don't have any excuses.  Assemble some practice fabric snadwiches or just some felt (2 layers) and give yourself permission to just play.

Good Quilting!

Tile Applique and Welsh quilts?

Finally, Ruby Street Quiltworks has everything for the new class, Bird On A Branch, a Tile Applique Wall Quilt such as the supply list and description to go along with the finished sample.  SO, the class is scheduled for Oct. 12 &14.  This will allow a little bit of time in between the two classes for students to do some foundational work to get started so they can get the piece done in time for Christmas.  Tile applique is really simple but it comes together with such interesting detail on the finished work.  For more information, you can check out TILE QUILT REVIVAL BY C&T. 

I'm really hooked with the tile applique technique and have had plans to work it in to some scrap piecing which will then be quilted using patterns which are drawn from Welsh quilts.  After presenting my lecture on traditional Welsh and English quilts at the Great Western Quilt Show, I browsed through the quilts in the main exhibit and came across a use of appliqued patchwork on a quilt that was really creative and better yet, the quiltmaker was standing next to her quilt and I got to talk to her and see more of her work on her phone.  The quiltmaker, Margaret Teruya was from Kaneohi, Hawaii and her quilt featured a very much larger than life pineapple.  To create the texture of the pineapple, she had pieced freeform log cabin blocks and then appliqued them in curved rows to suggest the texture of the pineapple.  It put all sorts of ideas in my head as to how freeform, pieced blocks could be combined with tile applique for really unique quilts.

So, once again, there's nothing new under the sun.  Traditional tile applique will get mixed with scrap piecing and quilted with patterns inspired by old Welsh quilts to make something all 'new', if there really is such a thing.  It'll be good when it's done.

Books That Change Lives

It's appropriate to have a wallpaper of books surrounding my blog posts because I do love books.  I have hundreds of them and at times it concerns me, I've heard organizers say that to keep from being buried by your 'stuff', you should get rid of an item when you bring a new one into the house.  I thought about trying that with my books and at one time I actually had quite a few quilt books sorted out to sell.  The pile has shrunk but not because any were sold. At some moment of curiosity, I peeked inside one of them and found some little nugget of inspiration and decided the book had to stay.   I now own a NOOK which is a pretty awesome way to store and access books but I still like the feel of a real book.

Books take you places, they inspire you and let you get into the minds and lives of other people.  Books can change your life's direction.  One such book that had such an effect on me was THE PASSIONATE QUILTER by Michele Walker.  This was the British quilt book that introduced me to Welsh quilts and literally changed my life's focus.  I still love Welsh quilts and they are a big part of who I am but there have been other books that have changed my life.  The most recent of these is about finding your 'cause' in life.  It's written by George Barna, an author I'm very familiar with and a newcomer, Mattew Barnett.  Anyway, the book tells the story of Matthew Barnett and the Los Angeles Dream Center and how it came into being to serve the people of the neighborhood.  It's inspiring and challenging but it's also a life changer.  This book is in my 'top ten'.

So, what role do books have in our lives?  It'll be different for each person but I think it's tragic when a person doesn't make books part of their life.  A book encourages you to think about what you're reading and process the information.  A book isn't passive like so much of out mofern media. 

I have a book by N.T. Wright that boggles my mind but many books just tell us a good story.  Agatha Christie is an example of a great storyteller and there are many others,   Tyrants like Hitler feared and burned books and ironically, he eventually met the same fate.  So whaterver your taste in books, they can make our lives richer.