Love Buzzard's Crafts & Life

I have always liked impressionist paintings and when I saw the book Impressionist Quilts by Gai Perry I was hooked.  I already had many different floral fabrics but I started buying more anytime I saw a piece that was exceptionally pretty.  I finally got up enough nerve to make a wall hanging and really had a lot of fun playing with the squares.  The one thing that I did not like was that each square had to be cut individually, but since I was making a wall hanging it did not take too many squares.

I cut all my squares and then worked for days and days getting the squares just the way I wanted them.  I worked on a flannel covered portable design board that I usually placed in a chair when I was working for that way I could sit down and work.  I had every square   placed exactly where I wanted one night about midnight so I left the board standing and went to bed.  Yes, you can guess what happened.  The next morning when I came into the studio there was the design board on the floor and many of the squares in a jumble.  Needless to say I was very unhappy but I placed the squares that were still in order back on the board and then worked for a couple of days trying to get it back the way it was before it fell.  I was never able to accomplish that and was not as happy with the second version as I was with the first.

I made the wall hanging in 2000 and gave it to my sister-in-law, Linda Gottreu.  It was even hand delivered for Brian and I stopped in New Jersey to visit with Greg and Linda before going on to Massachusetts to Worcester Polytechnic Institute where Brian was attending college.

I had a photo that was straight on but the colors were not right.  I must have been sitting in the chair under the hanging when I made this one but at least the colors are correct.  This was back in the days before I had a digital camera and could take many shots without wasting film.

The squares were set on point and it was great fun to sew them together.  There was no quick chain sewing when making this hanging.   The rows were sewn from corner to corner and after the first two squares were sewn together, then squares were removed and sewn one at a time.    The author stressed that point and I quickly learned why she did.  It would have been impossible to put together in order otherwise.  But after the first row was sewn together it was fairly easy to do the rest of the rows, just time consuming.  And the piecing was made a little more difficult for I had two inch squares and four inch squares.

I have been collecting floral prints since I made this wall hanging and one of these days I want to make at least one more;  however,  I think I will keep all squares the same size.   I do have some prints that would have to be cut into one inch squares so I might be mixing squares after all.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 @ 10:32 PM on the category Just Life, Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.