Happy Wednesday!
Monday night I attended my quilt guild meeting where Joe Cunningham was the speaker. If you’ve ever attended a lecture by him, you’ll know he’s very funny, musical and quite an accomplished quilter! I believe Joe writes a column for Alex Andersen and Ricky Tim’s magazine as well. Joe entertained us with some guitar playing and then a display of his interesting art quilts. One thing I found particularly neat about Joe is how well he hand quilts. He started out making Amish quilts and learned the craft of hand quilting and then went on to make the art quilts.
I have never attempted hand quilting because I always felt it would take too long. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that. Joe held up a quilt that was 6′ x 6′ and heavily hand quilted. He asked how long we thought it took him to quilt something that size. I would have guessed hundreds of hours. Nope. Joe timed himself while he quilted so that he could show people that it really doesn’t take as long as you think. It took him 66 hours to hand quilt the project…not hundreds of hours, not thousands…just 66. So as he said, if you quilt for 2 hours per day, it would only take you a month to get that done. It could take longer sending it out to be machine quilted!
So you guessed it…I’m inspired to try hand quilting now! This is what I love so much about quilt guild. Last month I got inspired to try an art quilt…my migraine quilt (which is now finished and I’ll include a photo). This month, I’m ready to try hand quilting. I can hardly wait for the next meeting! Do you get inspired at guild?
Here’s a picture of Joe and one of his quilts. You can find him at
As I mentioned, I did finish my Migraine art quilt. I haven’t written the label yet but here’s what it will say. It will say that this is my first art quilt and that the idea for it was born when I was suffering from a migraine on the way home from a guild meeting where art quilts were the topic. The size of the quilt (8.5″ x 8.5″) is unusual but I don’t feel like myself when I have a migraine and I wanted this quilt to depict that. The silver raindrops on the top represent the silver shards of glass I see in my aura before a migraine hits. The clock represents waiting for the headache to go away and the medicine to kick in. The pill bottle represents relief. The circular stitching around the eye represents the throbbing pain. So here it is..
Lastly, I took up Knooking this week. Knooking is knitting on a crochet hook. Leisure Arts has come up with a nifty beginner kit that is available at Walmart for $6 and includes the crochet hooks, cord and instruction booklet with 4 patterns. It was super easy to learn and I am making a scarf…and here that is…
Don’t forget that Christmas is coming and Little Quilt for Big Occasions has lots of great holiday projects and makes a wonderful gift! Use coupon code “Fall2011” to receive 20% off in my Etsy store. You can also get it on Amazon next time you are placing an order there.
Happy Quilting!
Sandi
