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!

Day 3 - Art and Old Lace

Day 3 - here is one of my favorite word play quilts.

Literally Challenging
18" x 18"

To read more about this quilt, 

day 2 Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks

Sew excited to have my block published in the newest edition of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine, Volume 12.

It was fun to create this Echoing Churn Dash block and play with repeating the churn through the block. It was hard to keep it under wraps for most of the year but happy to finally be able to share it.
Enjoy.

Echoing Churn Dash 12 1/2" (unfinished)
Sandra Starley 2015

It was also fun to participate in the official blog tour on my 2nd blog.

Quilty Blogathon

Here we go on the journey of a month of blogging -- or in my case, more like 2 months, since I have 2 blogs :)
I've accepted the challenge issued by my friend Muppin, aka Cheryl Sleboda to write/post/blog every day in December.
To join in or to visit other quilty bloggers, here's the challenge link
http://muppin.com/wordpress/index.php/the-31-day-blog-writing-challenge/

And to see my other December blogathon, visit my antique quilt page.

For your daily smile:

Detail of my Beatles Challenge quilt
"And Your Bird Can Sing"

And Your Bird Can Sing
2013, Sandra Starley

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks

I have some great news: one of my new creations will be part of the next Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine!!! I would love to share a photo but alas I can only tease you until the magazine hits the newstands and download queues in November. There will be a fun blog hop and great give aways then so stay tuned.

Scrappy Color Play 8.5" x 11"
Pattern available

The above photo gives you a preview of the colors used - black, white, pink and grey. Probably not a shock to anyone who follows my non-traditional quilts which tend to be in that color scheme. Another hint - a version of the block is found in the picture above and is related to churning butter or shooing flies and you might have read about the traditional pattern in my Behind the Block column for the National Quilting Association's magazine Quilting Quarterly.

To see what the magazine is all about or to purchase current and back issues, visit their shop.

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Art Quilts

Literally Challenging
Original Design
18" x 18"
Wools, Cottons, Lace

 This quilt recently came home after traveling for several years to national quilt shows with the Arts and Old Lace Challenge sponsored by Artistic Artifacts in VA.  I love Bloggers Quilt Festival time which is a great reminder to make and share ART

Here is what was included in the challenge packet: 2 sets of salesman's samples. Greys and black suitings and then summery stripes and woven checks, as well as laces and buttons.

I really enjoy paper piecing and making "word play" quilts using my own patterns.  I used more than 105 different fabrics from the packet and a lace for the ampersand. I only added 2 vintage laces and a woven tape binding (thanks Mom, for all 3).

OKAY, now time to see the rest of the Bloggers Quilt Festival quilts - enjoy. If you like my quilt you can vote this week at the viewers choice link or check back in a week and vote for it at the Art Quilts page.

Spring 2015 Bloggers Quilt Festival Page is HERE.

Art Quilts Page is HERE

Vote for Viewer's Choice HERE Nominations- May 15-21

VOTE for your Favorites in each category May 22-29
Winners Announced May 30, 2015

Log Cabin Love

One of my all time favorite patterns is the log cabin and I wanted to share one I made in my early quilting days.

Made for a quilt challenge using African fabric a guild member brought back from her trip to African. I used the fabric for the block centers and then added free form wonky log cabin strips to complete the blocks.

African Sun - Rising to the Challenge
32" x 33"
2001 Sandra Starley

Some 14 years later, I still think this improvisational piecing method is one of the best ways to highlight special fabrics in a low stress, fun way. Pick a focus fabrics and lots of coordinates and start piecing. Give it a try sometime, enjoy.

Fun with Antique and Modern Quilts in St. George

Need a breather and a chance to create.  Then come see me and lots of other wonderful people  in St. George, Utah,  January 6-10, 2015.  Time for the 2nd Annual Quilt St. George retreat, a truly Quiltabulous Event!

Need a jolt of joy or craziness ?  Then this funky free-form and fun, alphabet paperpiecing class with the choice of two delightful projects would be perfect.

Love Birds & Lady Bugs  18" x 30"

Crazy Quilt, 16" x 16"

I'll also be teaching my cheddar stars class as well as a red rock landscape quilt.


And I will be sharing antique quilts galore.  With a half day class on antique signature quilt, you'll get to see many museum quality early quilts from 1840 forward.  You'll be able to get up close and really examine the fabrics and names and the amazing tiny stamps and drawings that many people added to their signatures.

Hoopes Worral Quilt, dated 1850, Chester Co. Pennsylvania

And I'll also be doing a second half day class, Patterns Through Time.  You'll see about a dozen different quilt patterns and 2 or 3 examples of each which give you a chance to see the changes in quilting and society over time.

If you like modern artistic quilts, my luncheon trunk show: Everything Old is New Again will show you how to learn from past quilters to make amazing new quilts.

And I will be doing quilt appraisals in my spare time at the retreat.  I'm certified to appraise all types of quilts, old and new, traditional and modern.  Email me if you want to schedule a time.

Beatles Bird for Bloggers Quilt Fest

Happy to share my Inspired By the Beatles quilt "And My Bird Can Sing" with the Bloggers Quilt Fest crew.  Timely entry as my quilt is actually hanging right now in Houston at Quilt Festival with 149 of its friends.  Such an impressive quilt project.  If you enjoy seeing this quilt, consider
voting for me in the Art Quilt category.  Voting starts November 1 and goes through the 7th.

Here's the full quilt

Inspired by the early Beatles song "And My Bird Can Sing".  Thanks to my sister Donna for all her help and Mom for the frog applique and more help.

You can read all about it in the beautiful book written by the project creator/leader Donna Marcinkowski DeSoto and published by Schiffer.  Includes all 150 quilts and their stories.

Travels with Cheddar

In case, you are wondering what you've missed if you couldn't come see me at my various quilt appraising and teaching events, I thought I'd share a few pictures from my booth at the Home Machine Machine Quilting Show.

More of the booth with the c. 1885 Variable Star quilt along with my reproduction Mod Cheddar Stars and the c. 1870 Four Eagle Quilt from Pennsylvania.  By the way the pattern for the Star quilt is available at my Etsy Store 

And here's the full booth shot with even more cheddar fun.  Remember me when you need a guild speaker, trunk show or quilt class.  Hope to see you soon