Friday, May 18, 2012

Bloggers' Quilt Festival!



My entry for this Bloggers’ Quilt Festival is a quilt titled “ SHATTERED.”   The story behind this quilt goes a little something like this …

A few months back my friend and I were going thru his late grandmother’s quilting stash that he had inherited.  Knowing I was a quilter, he asked me to take a look at it and wanted to know if I could make something from the things leftover in the buckets of fabric he had gotten.  We stumbled upon these hand-sewn paper pieced (with newspaper) half square triangle pieces (the big block pieces in the center).  How could we not resist making something with these pieces - there was such cool vintage fabrics in every triangle and what a unique way of using your stash!  We placed the triangles out on the bed, playing around with several layouts and finally came to the conclusion to sew them together to make squares looked best, but then it needed more.  My friend is an artist and he knew that black would really set off the colors, so I knew a black border was a must to really make those squares pop, but it still needed MORE!  Then, I had remembered recently reading about a fellow blogger’s postage stamp quilt and thought that might be an option for some borders.  Using postage size pieces all around the inner pieces and building a 5 inch postage stamp outer drop border turned out to be a great way to use lots and lots of fabric from his grandmother’s stash and really let all the colors play! It turns out there are over 3000 postage stamp sized pieces in this quilt!!!  (I have to give a BIG THANK YOU to my mother for helping me cut all those little buggers! If she didn’t help me with that part, I’d still be working on this top!) This quilt measures 105x105 inches and is soon going to the long arm quilters to be beautifully stitched.  I just love how the layout of the angles play tricks on your eyes and makes it look like shattered glass.

I’d like to thank Amy for once again for hosting the AWESOME Bloggers’ Quilt Festival!  I look forward to it and enjoy it every time! I love looking at everyone’s hard work and talents! 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting.  Please feel free to leave a comment so I know you were here!

Amy's Creative Side

14 comments:

Lynne (Lily's Quilts) said...

I've got to say I love this quilt A LOT - it leapt right off the page at me in the thumbnails - lovely story too

Auntie Em said...

Wonderful design you came up with. I'm sure it would have made his grandmother smile.

CitricSugar said...

How cool! What a find - and the collaborative process with your friend and your obviously patient mother... :-) Wow!

Mom said...

awesome quilt

Margaret
http://quiltsoflove.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

What a great quilt! Your friend is lucky to have such a talented friend to honor his Grandmother like this!

Sarcastic Quilter said...

It is beautiful. You did a great job honoring and highlighting her work.

Canadian Abroad said...

What a great combination of old and new.

Susan J Barker said...

I love scrap quilts and vintage scrap quilts are even better. This is spectacular!

straythreads said...

wonderful quilt and story
Ann

Janet said...

What a lovely tribute to your friend's grandmother and her quilting. I love what you have done with the borders too.

Hi, I'm Suz!! said...

Hi, my name is Suz. I've just been looking around your blog at all of your beautiful quilts. Then I realized, you're in the same part of the country as me!! I live about an hour or so south of St. Louis on 55. We're practically neighbors!!

Have a great day!!

Hugs ~~ Suz

Eileen said...

lovely quilt with using the old fabrics! thanks for sharing and have a great day

Simply Sandy said...

Great story behind this awesome quilt. It does remind me of shattered glass. I really love the way you used the black around each square. And it way a great idea to use postage stamp squares. You must be proud.

Candace said...

What a fun, unusual quilt and story. It's beautiful. I'm so glad I got to see it.

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