I’m thrilled to be featured as a guest blogger! Quilting has always been such a relaxing past time for me. In 1976 I was working on a needle point picture of Mickey Mouse commemorating the 500 year anniversary of the bicentennial. I was flipping through Family Circle magazine and came across a picture of a quilt made by Jinny Beyer called “Rising Sun.” The magazine had quilt blocks in it and I started making 9 patch and half square triangle blocks mimicking the ones shown in the magazine. I followed the magazine for months and taught myself how to cut squares and triangles and figured out how to turn them into patchwork blocks. I continued to make patchwork from the magazine and bought whatever books I could find on patchwork. I sewed blocks until we moved to Atlanta in 1981. I guess you could say the rest is history.

Little Quilts started with Alice Berg, Sylvia Johnson and myself. Alice, Sylvia and I started making little quilts to sell in the early 1980s. We saw a room setting in one of our country decorating magazines that had small doll quilts hanging on walls or as accents in cupboards or end tables. We loved the look and feel these small doll quilts created, however, they were very expensive so we decided to study books that had antique doll quilts and try to make them ourselves. We made them for ourselves, gave them away as gifts to our friends and we sold them at antique fairs and festivals.

We set up an outdoor clothes line that had the quilts hanging on it and tagged each one with a little story about how they came to be. Over the years we sold more than 500 of these doll quilts. They were not miniature quilts. They were made with squares of fabric never smaller than 1″ and usually the quilt blocks were about 5″. In miniature quilts, the block are usually 3″ or smaller.

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For every quilter, there’s a story to tell about how they began quilting, here’s mine…

My name is Mary Stori. I didn’t come from a family of quilters, as a matter of fact, the only sewing experience I had growing up was making that ‘token’ gathered skirt in Junior High. I recall thinking that the end result was ugly, homemade looking and definitely something I never wanted to do again. Time marched on and no one is more surprised than me that quilting has become my career, providing the opportunity to author seven books and a DVD.

Despite being a late bloomer, (this is my third career), I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world presenting workshops, lectures, and meeting wonderful folks everywhere. First I worked for an airline, next I developed a cooking school, but then back surgery necessitated a lifestyle change. My mother-in-law put a needle in my hand while I was recuperating. She wasn’t a quiltmaker, but had always sewed. Living in California, she was influenced by the wearable art movement in her area and began incorporating patchwork into her clothing. It was with her encouragement and help that I make my first little patchwork pillow.

Soon I began making small traditional patchwork quilts. Eventually I discovered the freedom of creating original work and I was hooked! It’s funny, my favorite part of cooking was the garnishing; I loved making those little tomato roses and butter curls. My favorite part of quilting is the embellishing. So now, instead of garnishing food, I embellish quilts! However, the reason I began embellishing was because I didn’t have the proper sewing skills to accomplish what my creative side designed. For instance, instead of taking the time to perfect hand appliquéing a uniform circle for the center of a flower, I’d use a button instead. Attaching found objects to my work provided the fun, funkiness, and personality that I found appealing. Over time, I’ve honed my skills, but I still choose to incorporate embellishments into my work because they help tell my quilt’s story.

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Books have been written, songs have sung, stories have been told about the city of New Orleans.

How to describe one of the oldest American cities: Do you start by telling of its rich cultural heritage? Founded by the French, given in treaty to Spain, sold to the United States, plantations worked by people of color? Or do you speak of its music: sultry blues, magical jazz, upbeat zydeco, strains of Caribbean rhythms mixing in? Perhaps you speak of its magnificent architecture. Maybe you speak about the exquisite cuisine peculiar to that city. The cuisine that makes my mouth water just mentioning it, and makes my taste buds dream of delights to come, resides in that city.

All of those things are New Orleans, plus much more. The people of New Orleans laugh easily, work hard, and dream the same dreams of all Americans. The dreams came crashing down when Hurricane Katrina unleashed her fury upon the city. We have all seen the pictures of the devastation left in her wake. It was heart wrenching to see what the failures of the Army Corps of Engineers and Mother Nature had wrought. Homes and businesses, schools and hospitals, all destroyed or damaged badly. Far away in Missouri, I cried as I saw what had happened to the city of beauty I had known growing up in southern Louisiana.

The people of the city are determined to rebuild and reclaim their lives. They are tough and resilient. They are bravely trying to clean up the mess. In the days immediately following the storm there was help, there still is help, but not enough. There are some famous and well-known people who are helping but they can’t do it by themselves. Presidents visit the city and promise aid but when they go back to Washington no one comes after them to follow through.

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My name is Cheryl Lynch and I am thrilled to be a guest blogger. I started quilting when my family moved to the Philadelphia area in 1992. My kids were in school and I started taking classes at the local quilt shop (which is no longer in business.) I was hooked almost immediately. The possibilities were endless.

By 1994, I was designing my own quilts and entering quilt shows. I started teaching landscape quilting and found that I loved sharing what I had learned with others. This led to more classes, and then a line of Judaic quilting patterns, called Oy Vey! Quilt Designs.

A turning point in my quilting designs came in 1994, after dropping off my youngest son at college. He was my best buddy and traveling companion. To help me get through the sadness, I decided to make a quilt. I had been getting this great magazine called Quilting Arts since its inaugural issue, but never had used any of the techniques from the articles. (Remember this was 1994.) I started with one technique and one block. After crying my eyes out, I started to feel better. It didn’t take that long, before I had completed my first art quilt. The short name for it is “Motherhood”. My real name for it is “If I did such a good job of giving my kids roots and wings, then why am I so sad?”

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The Parkinson’s Quilt Project is the first global quilt project to focus the world’s attention on the nearly one million people in the US and more than 4.1 million people worldwide living with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The project aims to raise awareness of the impact that the disease has on people living with Parkinson’s along with their families, caregivers and friends and on our continued urgency to find a cure.

The Quilt gives people all over the world the chance to express their support of people living with PD and highlight their connection to the disease by adding their own personalized panel. You do not need to be a sewing expert to create a panel for the quilt. You can use paint, needlework, iron-on transfers, fabric markers or even spray paint. If you are a poet, you can write a poem on the panel or even write it on a piece of firm paper and sew that paper to the panel.

The Quilt will consist of panels made by individuals and groups affected by Parkinson’s, in honor of the cause, of their group or in honor of their loved ones affected by PD. Each panel will be two feet tall and two feet wide, and will be sewn together in eight foot sections. There will be the opportunity for groups to create both panels and sections.

The Parkinson’s Quilt will be displayed for the first time at the 2nd World Parkinson Congress in Glasgow, Scotland from September 28th through October 1st, 2010. After this initial showing, blocks of the Quilt will be available through 2011 for rent to display at PD events. Details of this opportunity will be available in 2010.

The sky is the limit with this project and it is open to anyone touched by Parkinson’s or wants to honor those with Parkinson’s. The more creative the piece the more exciting it will make the final Quilt!

Registration to make a panel opened December 1, 2009 and will end June 1, 2010.

• How to get involved
• Help raise awareness

By: Grace Thorne

I’m sure we’ve all seen photos of beautiful quilts and wallhangings that earn oft-coveted blue ribbons. I raise my needle to the innovative and industrious makers for their discipline, vision and expertise and for the serious eye candy and inspiration they provide for the “rest” of us, meaning the everyday, ordinary quilter.

Once while having a bit of a pity party trying to measure up, I thought about why I quilt. I quickly realized I quilt because I just plain enjoy doing so. When I quilt, I think not about recognition, rather about ordinary women who sat and sewed by lamplight to provide warmth for families out of necessity, or maybe those whose overburdened lives on dusty plains or in overcrowded tenements caused them to ache for something soothing, comforting and creative.

I like to think when they sat down for a brief moment to piece in silence free from daily drudgery, they felt the rhythm of the needle within the soul, as we all do, and it transported them to that place that nurtures all of us who find delight in this pastime. I hope they found sustenance for the will to continue day after day in spite of overwhelming responsibility.

I think about someone wrapping a crudely-constructed quilt around a sick child who could very well die, giving the only medicine available. I think about the shards of color it might provide in an otherwise drab and monochromatic existence. I think about how someone might have used quilts to say things that could not be verbally uttered, to record family history or calm nagging worries. I think about how one might have used a quilt as a shroud for a loved one, or perhaps about one whose life was mired in poverty and despair but guarded scraps like gold coins for the day when there were enough to construct a favorite pattern.

I think about how we all, their descendants, still use quilts and fabric and color as communication, icons of imperfect lives and the modern struggles we encounter and remarkably survive.

I’m not a purist; yes, if the Pilgrims had sewing machines I believe they would have used them. But whether quilts be used for utilitarian or artistic purposes, in the end I don’t think blue ribbons are the real measure of a quilter, even though I cheer for those who reach peaks of perfection. Plain or fancy, expert or beginner, I think quilts only count if they convey the soul of the quilter, speaking to those who might otherwise never hear, even if it’s only ourselves.

Isn’t this really why we all quilt?

About Me: I first began sewing at age 8 through the local 4-H program. Amish quilts drew me into quilting with their intricate quilted patterns on plain cloth. In 1979, I signed up for my first class to make a sampler. That quilt sustained me through many ups and downs and finally succumbed to constant use. Since then I’ve made countless quilts and smaller items, none of them blue-ribbon quality, but all of them lovingly made for countless occasions or for fun and every day use.

Through the years, my courage has been emboldened and my current projects are a double-wedding ring (my 2nd),

a full-size Amish quilt

and a full-size Hawaiian applique.

Please feel free to view my album on my personal blog, www.cityquilter.blogspot.com.

Want to be a guest blogger? Contact me. I’m booking for April and May now.