Old Faithful and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
I realized a while ago that for someone who constantly claims not to have UFOs, I have quite a few… Not a whole lot by an average quilter’s standard but still too many for my taste. One of my guilds is having a UFO challenge this year, and I signed up to finish three projects until May. These are the first two, Old Faithful Geyser and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I made those two blocks almost ten years ago, I actually wanted to make a whole Yellowstone quilt. I remember that I started working on a third block with a bison but somehow that never got past the design stage, the blocks were stored safely in a box and moved halfway around the world with me but I never really thought about them again. Until last year when I joined the “My Happy Place Row Along” and went back to my designs to create my Yellowstone row. I didn’t feel the need anymore to make a whole Yellowstone quilt, especially with the wall hanging that I made from the row, but I still liked the blocks very much. They were made during a time when I experimented a lot with different materials and stitches, and I piled lots of yarns and wool on top of the block and free motion stitched with different colours to create texture. I decided to turn them into small wall hangings and just added borders to the blocks. I am very happy with the way they turned out.
Ich behaupte ja immer gern, dass ich keine UFOs hätte, aber irgendwie haben sich doch ein paar angesammelt… Immer noch keine große Zahl, verglichen mit anderen Quiltern, aber doch zuviele für meinen Geschmack. Eine meiner Gilden hat in diesem Jahr zu einer UFO-Challenge aufgerufen, und ich habe mich mit drei Projekten angemeldet. Bis Mai sollen sie fertig sein, und hier sind schon mal die ersten beiden, der Geysir Old Faithful und der Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Die beiden Blöcke habe ich schon vor fast zehn Jahren genäht, damals wollte ich einen ganzen Quilt zum Thema Yellowstone nähen. Ich hatte auch mit einem dritten Block begonnen, der aber irgendwo im Design-Stadium eingeschlafen ist. Die Blöcke wurden ordentlich weggepackt, kamen in eine Kiste und zogen mit mir um die halbe Welt. Erst im letzten Jahr, als ich beim “My Happy Place Row Along” mitgemacht habe und für mein Yellowstone-Muster auf die alten Designs zurückgriff, fielen sie mir wieder ein. Einen ganzen Quilt zu dem Thema wollte ich nicht mehr machen, zumal ich ja schon die Reihe aus dem Row Along in einen Wandbehang verwandelt hatte, aber die Blöcke gefallen mir immer noch gut. Damals hatte ich gerade eine Phase, in der ich alle möglichen Materialen verwendet habe. Es wurden jede Menge Effektgarne und Wolle auf den Block gehäuft und dann freihändig darüber gestickt. Die beiden Blöcke habe ich jetzt in kleine Wandbehänge verwandelt und nur noch Ränder angefügt. Mit dem Ergebnis bin ich sehr zufrieden.
CATEGORIES: Personal Projects
TAGS: Appliqué, Custom Quilting, Quilt
13 responses to “Old Faithful and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone”
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Both of these turned out great. Love the texture created by using some wool accents. I have a bit more than 10 UFO’s but I guess that is just the way it is. LOL Thanks for sharing.
10 UFOs would kill me LOL When I finish the third (and the top is done, it just needs to be quilted), then I have only one left that is a true UFO. And two that still qualify as WIPs. I used to be one of those “work on one project at a time” people, and I think it works much better for me.
You should be major proud. Not only have you accomplished getting done some UFO’s but you have managed to make amazing beautiful wall hangings. Wish I could take a class from you on this. I’m impressed.
Thank you, Ann! While there are many quilty things that I could teach and have taught, I don’t think this would qualify. I had honestly no idea what I was doing. I was sewing with a group of friends back then who did a lot of this, not just wool and yarn, also tulle and organza and anything else you could possibly think of. I just took a little bit of everything and started stitching. I was lucky it turned out this way but I am not sure I could reproduce it.
Maybe not do the same thing, but the techniques of some of what you did. I just love it.
If you ever come to my neck of the woods, call me, and I will show you. Trust me, there aren’t any special techniques, certainly not enough to charge someone for teaching a class. It’s just free motion stitching. The only “trick” I can share is to set your machine to zig zag before lowering the feed dogs. That achieved some interesting results and is something I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
Thank you. You never know what might come in with the wind. Your work is beautiful, I look forward to seeing more of it.
Great blocks! Thanks for showing them to us.
Thank you, Barbara, and thanks for stopping by.
Beautiful. Finished feels so good and you have some beautiful fibre art. Well done!
It does feel good 🙂 Thank you, Janice.
WoW, they turned out so beautiful Beatrice. They really do have that Yellowstone feel to them.
Thank you, Marian. I am very happy with them.