All You Need is Love - Beatles Quilts

I loved being part of the Beatles Quilt Project and making this fun bird quilt. My song was "And Your Bird Can Sing".  There is a book available of all the quilts.

 The exhibit of all the quilts debuted a few years ago at the International Quilt Festival in Houston - what an honor! The quilts traveled across the country. Here are two photos from their showing at Home Machine Quilting Show - now Utah Quilting & Sewing Marketplace.

Cheddar Baskets

My newest quilt, Make Mine Cheddar, made for the American Quilt Study Group's 2016 19th Century Basket Quilt Study. Every 2 years, the AQSG has a quilt study on a specific topic and one finds an antique inspiration quilt to reproduce in a small size (42" or smaller). I picked a cheddar orange Mennonite basket quilt from the late 1800s (see below). I chose to recreate it in 1/2 scale - 1/2 sized blocks (5") and 1/2 the number of blocks.

Make Mine Cheddar
31" x 31"
Sandra Starley

The original had only 3 fabrics but I'm a scrappy gal and so I used a different set of fabrics for each basket and then used all of those in the border. So I went from 3 fabrics to 27.

I paperpieced the baskets and sawtooth border and hand appliqued the handles. I machine quilted in the ditch to stabilize and then hand quilted the heck out of it with hearts, lines, and feathers.

1890 Mennonite Baskets
Southeastern PA
Starley Antique Collection

Day 15 - Pick Me I'm Cute

Pick Me, I'm Cute (Flower Humor) 

2010 Sandra Starley - original design

Part of my Word Play series

finished for the 2010 Hoffman Challenge 

Selected to travel across the US in the challenge

The 2010 challenge fabric:

However, the quilt was started for the 2009 Hoffman Challenge 

All the letter were completed but life intervened ...

 Here are the 2009 letters before they were trimmed and integrated to work with the 2010 blue fabric

And here are a couple of close ups of the altered blocks

I'm glad I got it finished and accepted into the 2010 challenge and that I didn't give up!

day 14 - Pennsylvania Posies

Another challenge quilt ... have you noticed a trend here? This one was made for the Pilgrim Roy Challenge to raise funds for the National Quilt Museum in Paducah Kentucky and so I named it Pennsylvania Posies for Paducah.

Hand appliqued and hand quilted. Machine quilted in the ditch of the 1/2 square triangles.

The challenge fabrics plus my 2 additions (the pink on the right and the bottom yellow/cheddar).

The full quilt

Pennsylvania Posies - original design
40" x 40"

It was inspired by several antique quilts in my collection. And you can see more about the challenge by looking at my posts from earlier this year. After the show, the quilts will travel to other quilt shows in the US and then will be auctioned off next April at the 2013 National Quilt Museum fundraiser Auction.  
This quilt was hand appliqued and then the applique flowers and baskets were stuffed for a trapunto effect.  While the borders/ major seams were machine quilted, the applique motifs and blocks were hand quilted.  The Legacy wool batting was a dream to quilt through and even with heavier thread I was getting about 10 stitches per inch without (hardly) trying.

Day 13 Modern Cheddar Stars

 Post 26 of the month between the 2 blogs - wowza!

Today is another cheddar stars quilt made for the Riley Blake Challenge charity fundraiser with the 2010 Home Machine Quilting Show. It is also inspired by the same antique cheddar star quilt that inspired my cheddar repro shared on day 9. This version is modern and larger scale with 5 inch stars instead of 3 inches. It is a quick and fun pattern and work in all types of fabrics.  The pattern is available in my etsy shop.

The Riley Blake fabric was pretty wild with large polka dots, stripes, paisleys and pink, orange, red, green, etc. One day the fabric was sitting next to some solid cheddar fabric for another project and VOILA!!

Not sure why or how but the cheddar actually calmed down the busy fabrics. It still looks a bit wild but wait until you see it with my inspiration- an antique quilt in my collection. Here is a bit of the challenge quilt and the inspiration quilt together: I love how they are so different and similar at the same time.

Another detail-

The full Riley Blake Quilt 

2010  Sandra Starley
 29" x 29"

day 11 - Q is for Quilt

Another one of my favorite quilts is this miniature made for the Quilt Alliance Crazy Quilt Challenge. It won an Honorable Mention in the challenge.

Q is for Quilt. I still remember how long it took to stitch each of those little * in the swag - yes, it was by machine but still slow and yet FUN!!! These are like before/after pics.

Here's what the paperpieced letters look like before they get the decorative stitching/quilting. I use 2

 layers of batting and embroider and quilt at the same time.

Love creating word play quilts and you can see I took the "Crazy Quilt" challenge quite literally!

The full quilt is only 16" x 16" with 120 different fabrics - YES'm you read that right. I squeezed in a lot of fabrics in a small quilt. It is a easy quilt to make and there is a pattern available. Email me for details or wait a few days for me to get it on my etsy shop.

day 10 - Swingin' Bird

This little bird still makes me smile. My original design. Made for the Beatles Challenge, it illustrates one of their earlier songs: "And Your Bird Can Sing". It is touring the country. It was shown last year at the Houston quilt show.

The song says the bird is green and swings so I put her on a swing and made lots of notes. Fusible/machine applique and machine quilting. My sister did the applique (my plan of doing hand applique was derailed by an accident) and I did the quilting. She also donated some cool rainbow shoelaces which I used for the swing - they were the perfect touch, Another great detail is the appliqued frog in the bottom right - my Mom cut into her favorite frog fabric :) I also like the eye cut from a dotted fabric and the rickrack legs and the flower buttons too.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"
Sandra Starley 2013

The backing is awesome 1970s vintage floral gingham fabric. Back in the day, my Mom made me a canopy bed cover and quilt from this fabric. It was fun to use some of the leftover fabric many years later.

You can see my Bird and 149 of its friends in the Beatles Book from Schiffer publishing.

Day 9 Antique Makeover

On of my favorite antique updates is this Cheddar Star quilt: "Cheddar Stars Over Moab". The quilt was juried into the big quilt show, AQS Paducah, KY in the miniature category and was patterned in the American Quilt Study Group's 19th Century Stars Book.  Want to try your hand at this fun pattern?  It is available at my etsy shop.

Miniature repro 20  x 24 

Machine pieced and hand quilted

my hand quilted repro with 3 inch blocks

Here's the full size antique inspiration from my antique collection

Ohio Stars from Ohio c. 1890

74" x 87"

auditioning fabrics is an essential step in creating an accurate reproduction

Day 8 Moab Rock Talk

Being a southwest gal, I really groove on petroglyphs and rock art, in real life and on fabric too.
This quilt was made for a "Text" Challenge - it seemed to me that petroglyphs were some of the first text messages. Traveled with the Text Challenge to Mancuso Shows. Won award in challenge. Original design.

Mountain Goat/Sheep

Moutain Lion

Another Sheep

full quilt

Day 7 - Arrows Redone

I've Got the Blues But Things are Looking Up - reproduction of antique arrow quilt in my collection. Made for the Quilt Alliance (Alliance for American Quilts challenge).

Old and New

16" x 16"

Yes, those little arrows are tiny 1" squares

Day 6ish - Eagle Challenge

Day 6 (ish) or close enough

Thought I'd share my reproduction eagle quilt. Made for the Eagle Quilts by Decades Project and featured on the cover of the Eagle Quilt book!

Detail of reproduction eagle pillar print.

The full quilt.

The antique inspiration. Bird toile (blue and white) from 1790! English fabric.

Day 5 - Applique made modern

I love to give antique quilts in my collection a new life by recreating them. Often I make reproductions in close repro fabrics but sometimes I use modern fabrics. This quilt was made for a Riley Blake challenge (Isabella line) for the Home Machine Quilting Show (HMQS) in 2011.

Detail of Riley Blake challenge quilt.

Full quilt made in 2011  by Sandra Starley

Another version in repro fabrics along with the antique inspiration.

Heart detail

Day 4 - Batik Tulips

An applique pattern is available for this quilt at my etsy shop

Detail of my vintage inspiration and my first retro block are below

The vintage inspiration. Starley Collection.

The quilt after hand quilting
An hand applique pattern is available for this quilt at my etsy shop.  If you don't do hand applique the pattern would be great by machine with a decorative stitch or invisible applique. It would also be perfect for a quick and easy wool applique project!