Showing posts with label Thirty Years Later. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thirty Years Later. Show all posts

Friday, November 11, 2011

National Corduroy Day 111111




In the very early 1970's
I used a cardboard template traced from one of my grandmother's books
to cut these scrappy pieces from fabrics in my mother's stash
(she made clothing, not quilts).

Printed velveteen, cotton lawn, eyelet, dotted swiss, seersucker, 
stripes, plaids, wovens, polyester gabardine, florals, solids, and . . . 

CORDUROY!

The queen size yarn-tied, poly-filled comforter was used for many years,
first at our house and later at my mother's.

* * * 



Fast forward to 2007 . . . 

I gently unstitched my dresden plates from the tired muslin backing,
followed Janet Berlo's advice to "smash those plates"
(by cutting each circle into quarters)
and hand-appliqued the quarters onto blue splatter-paint background squares.


Designed and created by Julie Sefton
Quilted by Chris Ballard

In August 2008, Thirty Years Later
was juried into the Nashville AQS show!



Look closely at the second ring . . . 
do you see the corduroy?



My mother made me a jumper from that red/brown plaid corduroy . . .



I'm pretty sure she made a jumper for my sister from the red . . .



I still love the gray gingham corduroy . . .



. . . and I had a skirt made from the navy blue wales.

* * *



And so, in honor of National Corduroy Day 111111,
here's a current photo of Thirty Years Later.

* * *

To see lots more corduroy quilts, please visit Nifty's blog.


Quiltdivajulie

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Nashville Show - Day 1


Started out  driving through rain this morning, which gave way after an hour or so to heavily overcast skies.  The sun broke through shortly after I entered Nashville ~ their air quality today was awful.  Smoggy, smoggy, smoggy.  The heat had also increased, so the walk from the Opry Mills parking lot through the old Opryland theme park to the Opryland  hotel/convention center was a bit uncomfortable ~ but...

What a thrill to see my quilts hanging along with the others today... wow!  Chris and I wore ourselves out looking at the amazing workmanship.  There are just NOT enough hours in the day!

There were no ribbons attached to mine ~ I really didn't expect to find any ~ but they are present and in great locations.  It was such fun to watch others stop and look... and even more fun to talk with some of the other quilters wearing pink "competitor" ribbons on their name badges.  And many thanks to the kind anonymous quilter who used my camera to snap a photo of the two of us with Thirty Years Later...

At one point, we heard shrieks of joy and everyone headed in that direction.  The beautiful purple Best of Show ribbon had just been pinned to the winning quilt ~ about 20 of us grabbed our cameras and started taking photos.  The woman who made the quilt was beaming ~ five years of incredible work.  No photos can do justice to the exquisite applique and amazing detail.  Fabulous!!!

I've created a Picasa album with the photos I took this afternoon.  Tried very hard to capture the name tags associated with the various quilts in order to give credit to the makers.  There are still A LOT of quilts at the show that we haven't seen ~ saving those for Day 2!  And another half of the vendor area remains unexplored...

Chris and I stayed at the show until just after 5 then headed to Applebee's for dinner.  Then off to our respective hotels to crash and regroup for tomorrow.   Stay tuned!

Blogger and/or Picasa are being tempermental about organizing the album (approx. 145 photos - some with captions, some without) ~ sorry about the last few that are out of sequence... we walked through several times and kept noticing things we missed on earlier rounds!

Enjoy the photos - click here to view.

Quiltdivajulie

Saturday, July 5, 2008

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Back at the end of April, these two items were mailed off on a wing and a prayer.

Today, I received word from AQS that BOTH of my entries for the show in Nashville have been named as semi-finalists!! Totally UNBELIEVABLE!!!

And Sometimes Y along with 30 Years Later will be on display August 21-23 at the Opryland Convention Center along with the other 275 +/- semi-finalists.

I am still in shock! Just ask my husband ~ I've been entirely giddy all evening! One minute I'm laughing, then tears, more laughter ~ omigosh!!!

Rest assured, I have no grand plan to become a "show quilter" ~ in fact, that aspect makes these two even more special. They were completely finished before the thought of entering them into the show even occurred to me... unlike so many that are created specifically for competition. Nope, these are MY quilts ~ free spirited, unique, scrappy, and colorful. And soon, while they're hanging at the show, they'll have the opportunity to make lots of people smile!

Hope you take a minute or two to enjoy the lyrics of this song ~ sometimes crazy dreams really DO come true!!


download Crazy Dreams Ringtone Crazy Dreams Lyrics


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"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." (Dale E. Turner)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Thirty Years Later


I originally pieced 25 scrappy Grandmother's Fans in the early 1970s 
using scrappy fabrics from my mother's sewing stash 
(she made clothing, a few crafts, 
and numerous comforters, but she was NOT a quilter)

My machine-pieced fans were hand appliquéd onto 
oversize muslin squares which were then
sashed with bright yellow broadcloth. 

The top was then layered with a batt of polyester fiberfill 
and a muslin back before being tied with yellow acrylic yarn.

After 25+ years of service on the guest bed at 
my mother's house in Michigan, 
the stained and lumpy comforter came back 
to my house in late 2004. 

I took it all apart, saving only the fans. 

Over the last 3 years, I tried a number of times 
to rework the eclectic group of fans 
into a new quilt top, 
but each attempt came up short 
which resulted in the fans being stacked back on the shelf.

Then, last year, I found this length of royal blue, 
seemingly splatter-painted, fabric 
buried in my stash and realized it could be 
a perfect backdrop for the multi-color fans. 


Armed with the thought process from 
Janet Berlo’s article "Smashing Those Dresden Plates" 
dated December, 1993 and included in her book titled 
I bravely cut my fans into quarters 
and began the process of hand appliquéing 
each to a 6-1/2" square of the blue fabric. 

Unlike Ms. Berlo, 
I clung to my need for order in the face of chaos and opted, 
after several tries at random placements, 
for this exploding sunburst concept. 


And many thanks to Chris 
for her wonderful custom quilting! 
The golden yellow thread added the final "zing"!!

Note added later:  
This quilt was later juried into and displayed 
as a semi-finalist at AQS Nashville 2008.  

It now hangs on the wall in our master bedroom.