Saturday, May 14, 2011

Bloggers Quilt Festival -- a first for me


Bloggers Quilt Festival, hosted by Amy at Amy's Creative Side (link at end of post), is a brilliant idea (and I'm sure loads of work).  Here are two terrible pictures of a quilt that completely fits the bill of a quilt that has meaning.  I hope to get better daylite pix if it will ever quit raining -- but I wanted you to see my birthday quilt.  I love this quilt.  It's not fancy...it's not intricate...it's not even color balanced.  But when I look at it, I hear stories in my head.

Amy's Creative SideSome of you may have read an earlier post about my 60th birthday last year when I asked my very small family to each give me one FQ of any fabric that reminded them of me or something we had done together.  All I wanted was the fabric and the reason written in a card.  NO PRESENTS as I had too much stuff and I would use the FQs to make a quilt for me.

This is the quilt.

So, how do you take 8 FQ that range from a pastel homespun to batiks to a flannel and come up with anything congruent?  I decided that I needed a lot of neutral and some way to tie them together but keep them apart.  Each of the 8 outer blocks is from a FQ (altho my husband cheated a bit and gave me two batiks for two separate reasons which is why one corner block has both red and yellow in it).  The center block is the "family" block and contains all of the fabrics placed randomly.

It was a wonderful day.  I would open a card, admire the fabric, silently read the note, weep a bit, admire the fabric some more and maybe we would talk about the "why" and maybe keep it to ourselves.  My nieces took two opposite approaches.  One recalled something we used to do together in church on Sundays and looked for a fabric with a specific motif.  The other (the quilter) went to the FQ section and slowly looked at the fabric without knowing what she was looking for but being "open" to it.  And, one particular fabric caught her eye, caused her to recall a particular piece of clothing I used to wear during a time that had meaning for her.  I love them both. I even love the brown flannel with bright green and orange dinosaurs that was given on behalf of my yet to be born grandson (first grandchild!) because they were sure that "F" would love dinosaurs.

So -- for me, I have the quilt and I have a treasure trove of notes from my immediate family -- each with a corner of fabric stapled to it.

I love this quilt!  Amy, thanks so much for the chance to post for the first time to Bloggers Quilt Festival. I am not likely to get the button to work so here's the link to some incredible quilts and blogs.  Worth every minute of your time!  http://amyscreativeside.com/2011/05/13/bloggers-quilt-festival-spring-2011/

Keep piecing, Jan

12 comments:

little pink moth said...

This is a great idea. I will keep this in my for a future birthday. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

This is a fantastic idea! I totally want to do this sometime, either for someone else's birthday or get people to do it for me. Really love it, thanks for sharing it with us!

Pattilou said...

How great of your family to follow through and help you toward the completion of this lovely quilt.

Kristen said...

Beautiful! I love this idea!!

Miri said...

Lovely idea and the result: a beautiful quilt.

Ann J said...

What a lovely story and a great quilt too!

Luv..........Ann J

mb. said...

really wonderful; they DO all work with each othr!

Laurie said...

Lovely story. Now I know what to ask for for my 60th birthday. Really good idea.
Thanks for visiting my blog.

stitchinpenny said...

Love the quilt. My daughter asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a couple of fat quarters that she loved. She went and spent much time trying to pick what I would love. I did love them, but I wanted a p art of her. I told her what my plan was and she surprised me at Mother's day with a collection of fat quarters that she loved. I am thrilled. I know that having fabrics someone else loves to make a quilt makes me and probably you think of that person every time you see the fabrics in the quilt.

Karen said...

That is such a brilliant story. I love the way your quilt came about. What a wonderful birthday idea and what a special quilt!

JudyCinNC said...

Wonderful opportunity to create a lovely family memory. For my 70th, I requested a charm that represented each member - my favorite gift forever. Judy C

Lisa said...

I love this idea too! I don't need anymore stuff either, but fabric, you can always use fabric! Lovely quilt. Thanks for sharing.