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USNA Reunion: 2006, 55"x 35"
front, reverse
(click images to enlarge)
We attended my husband Mike's 40th
reunion at the USNA in Anapolis, MD, this fall, where we were entertained,
wined and dined like royalty.
At the dinner dance, I met the
charming wife of 1966 graduate George Wright. Her name was Pat
Wright, and we hit it off immediately, like we were old friends.
Since I am now obsessed
with making fine art textiles, the conversation soon got around to the work,
and Pat seemed fascinated with the whole process. So interested was she,
that she asked me to do a reunion piece Ms. Wright said she'd like a quilt
rather than a more standard, impersonal, reunion souvenir.
When I got back home to The
Woodlands, I shopped around, selecting various fabrics and threads I
believed would be appropriate for the USNA reunion theme. I knew I could
also draw from materials in my own collection.
USNA Reunion quilt detail: (left) chapel, (right) Severn River
After gathering materials, I
did several different drawings to help formulate my ideas. They were okay,
but something was missing.
I decided to wait for fresh input,
laid my ideas aside and worked on the Kimono Wedding piece for
awhile. It seemed to take forever to do the machine embroidery, piecing, and
pre-stitching on Kimono Wedding. I finished that part of the quilt,
but wasn't yet ready to do the final quilting. Something was missing.
In November, I attended the
international quilt festival in Houston and took classes from two master
quiltmakers: Jennie Rayment, of England, who invented the pin and
tuck method of quilting, and Karen Eckmeier, who authored the Accidental Landscape approach.
I took another class from
Linda
V. Taylor, a master pantographer and author of The Ultimate Guide to
Longarm Machine Quilting, and went home from the festival with my own,
more modest, longarm quilting setup.
After taking Taylor's class, I
knew I needed a better method for quilting the layers of my |
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quilts together (top, batting and backing), so I took a $3,000,
one-year-no-interest chance, and bought the machine and table.
Coincidentally, about a week after the festival, my local Sew Pfine Diva
sewing shop sponsored a workshop under another master quiltmaker, Sara Moe, who has invented an ingenious system for creating curved
blocks. Naturally I enrolled in the two-day workshop, after which I finally
felt ready to tackle the USNA Reunion quilt.
So I employed Eckmeier's techniques to
make the landscape area, Rayment's methods to create waves and other
details, and Moe's curves to make the banners. All these techniques
were modified and added to more traditional quilting blocks and blocks of my
own to create the entire composition.
USNA Reunion: (L) pinned, (R)
pieced,
prior to adding borders
When I got the basic blocks
together, I pinned them together onto my design board, had my husband
Mike take a picture, and e-mailed it to Pat. "I love the quilt," said Pat.
We agreed upon a price range, she sent me a deposit, and I began
completion.
First I finished the piecing and embroidery. I
added the borders. Then I rolled the top, batting and backing layers onto my
new quilting table rollers and began my first pantographed quilt.
Once done, I trimmed up the piece. I made and
attached sleeves through which to place a hanging rod. A plain binding to
cover the edges of all the layers would not do. Instead, I created a
pieced border of gold fabrics that I cut on the bias. Once the binding
was attached, folded over and attached again, USNA was finished, except for
the label.
USNA Reunion: label & detail
I machine embroidered the label, sewed it on,
and a project close to my heart was complete.
When they received USNA Reunion, Pat's
comment was, "We both love the quilt." It now resides in Baltimore --
with new friends.
Quilt history: Thanking Our Troops: God Bless
America Touring Quilts, by
Judy Howard (Dorcas Publishing, Oklahoma City, OK, pp.
Thanking Our Troops: God Bless
America Touring Quilts, by
Judy Howard (Dorcas Publishing, Oklahoma City, OK, pp. 59 & 60. $19.95)59
& 60. $19.95)
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