Golden Yellow

I am working on the backing for the Golden Zebras quilt. As you can see it is going to be scrappy. I am also a big fan of using big, big prints on the backs of my quilts.

This got me to thinking about a yellow bird, so I went looking. This is a student bird made at one of my classes in 2017. If you want to make your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Binding the Magic Carpet

I was so engrossed watching Dr Jeff on TV last night that I came to the end of the binding of the Parade of Zebras quilt before I even realized it. So that's done, and I'll take it out for some Beauty shots later.

That meant I had to sew the binding on the Magic Carpet quilt, but when I went into the studio this morning before the Men's final at Wimbledon, I realized I had not even made it! So that's what I did.

Now that is sewn on and I can do the hand sewing all around it.


By the way, if you want to know all the details of how and why I sew my bindings to my quilts, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

The Giants - Part 4

I love the color red, and I enjoyed making this red quilt. This quilt lives on the back of my charcoal gray sofa in the living room.

I think I bought this fabric for the backing of the quilt before I had even started cutting pieces for the quilt itself. Yes, it's big. Yes, it's bold. Yes, it's RED. That was the whole point.

This quilt, Font Factory, makes no sense if you just see it hanging somewhere. I made it as a sample for when I teach my free pieced letters class. The letters are grouped on how I think they are best constructed.
 

So I thought it would be fun to use fabrics with two different kinds of typewriters, one on the backing and the other on the hanging sleeve. This is another fabric that I matched the pattern when I joined two pieces together to make the backing big enough.



This is "Life is 'Tweet," a sample quilt I made for the class I teach on making free pieced asterisk flowers, butterflies, birds and hearts. It seems I am totally incapable of making a traditional "row quilt. These asterisks, hearts, birds and butterflies just seemed to want to be airborne.

I bought this fabric for the backing of another quilt, but that quilt never happened, so I used it for Life is Tweet. Again, I matched the fabric pattern when I made the backing big enough for the quilt. My quilter, Chris asks that backings be six inches bigger all the way around.

This is the "Blue Deco" quilt I made earlier this year as a table covering.
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I don't always use the same fabric for the backing. Sometimes, as in this quilt, I will use a large print down the middle and add a contrasting piece on either side. Still though, this is a pretty big flower print. I wanted something blue-ish and spring flower-y.

This is the Triangle Dance flimsy, another "stash-busting" quilt. I wanted to use fabrics from my stash for the quilt,

and I also used fabrics from the stash for the backing. All of these are pretty good-sized prints, and they "echo" the black fabrics on the quilt itself, since those are all fabrics with a black background also.

The "Fall House Top" quilt I made as a table covering (aka tablecloth) for Thanksgiving has three fabrics in the back.

They are all food-related, so I thought they were perfect. One is Martini and other cocktail glasses, the middle one is all about coffee and the last is a novelty fabric that has eating utensils.

And, um, yeah. All three of those came from the stash too.

This is it for the backings of my quilts. I have other quilts, but you get the point. I think if a quilt has two sides, you should make the "B" side interesting too, and that it should relate somehow to what's on the front. Strangely enough, though, I do not consider it a compliment when somebody (who obviously knows nothing about quilts) says, "It's reversible."

Um, no.

I like to make the backings a surprise. I like to make them interesting. I strive to make them relate to what's on the front. I don't ever want anybody to turn one of my quilts over, look at that back and think, "where did THAT come from?"

Why not? Well, think of it this way. If everything you do has "you" written all over it (even if it doesn't have your formal signature), why would you want anybody to think you didn't care enough to do a good job when you got to the back?

At my job, (and I will have been there 27 years this week), I have a very nice reputation. I heard it from another coworker, who put it this way.

"If you want it done right, give it to Lynne."


Now THAT'S a reputation worth having.

The Giants - Part 3

The Black Box has been exhibited at five AQS shows. This is an especially good photograph of this quilt. You can click it, then double click again and scroll around to see all the lovely details I put in it. This quilt took several months for me to make, and I made every element at least twice, but I am very proud of it.

I always thought of the box like a Magician's Hat, and the box was on stage, so I knew I wanted something to look like a theater curtain, or a tapestry, for the back of it. I was very pleased when I found this print.

The labels on the bottom of the quilt are my address label and the show labels from each of the AQS shows where it has been exhibited.

The bright Crayons quilt is made from bright, intense hues.

 I thought this Art Nouveau style fabric was just the ticket for the back.

This is the most whimsical quilt I have ever made - it's called "Too Much Chicken" and has over 275 free pieced letters in it. We start at the top with a pristine Roast Chicken, and then the quilt is full of meals that make use of leftover chicken. As you move to the bottom of the quilt, the word "chicken" gets more and more broken up, signifying the universal dread of leftovers that just won't quit.

As Brenda, the waitress that inspired the quilt said, "LET the Chicken Go!"

When Gerald Roy appraised the Black Box and a few other of my quilts, he asked if I signed them.

"I sure do," I said, and pointed out my signatures on the backs.

His reply?

"Not big enough."

I can't wait to hear what he thinks of the signature panels I make now when he sees"Too Much Chicken" in December.

The Black & White Crayons has been exhibited in two AQS shows so far, and is entered in several more for 2016. It's currently my favorite quilt.  Julie says it summarizes everything about my work: the choice of fabrics that work together, their precise placement, letters, birds, and the fact that my quilts draw you in so you see more and more upon closer inspection.

I've said it before, I want more than the five second glance. I want my quilts to reach out and grab you by the proverbial lapels and say "LOOKATME, LOOKATME, LOOKATME!"

This fabric just screamed out to be the backing of this quilt. It's perfect in so many ways.  In this photo you can clearly see the two different fabrics I used to bind the quilt.

Yes, I planned it that way.

The Giants - Part 2

My pal Julie and I agreed to do a quilt swap in 2010.  I made her what I still think is one of my all time best quilts.

When she asked for a quilt made from predominantly jewel tones, I knew just what kind of fabric I wanted for the backing,

a very big Philip Jacobs print.  I made a signature panel for the back of this one. Julie loved it.

What started as a way to alleviate my boredom one Sunday afternoon became this quilt, "Nine x Nine," a quilt with nine nine-letter words in different "font" styles. I felt the rectangular letters needed something colorful and curvaceous on the back.

Heh! I still love this print!

I made two "Rules" quilts for myself. Here's the Black one,

I found a terrific Jane Sassaman fabric for the back, which I loved so much that when I pieced it to make it big enough for the backing, I matched the pattern so the seam would be invisible.

because NOT to do that would have just been WRONG!

At a talk I gave a while back, a fellow quilter said to me, "You like busy backs." I don't think of them as "busy," but I think a big plain backing, which is what you get if you use a small print, looks very dull and uninteresting.  When I was drawing, it was important to frame the drawing so it showed the drawing off well. To me, the backing and the binding of a quilt do the same thing. They need to relate to the quilt. They need to show you're not "asleep at the post." Like Chris says, "Don't drop the ball on the back."

The Giants - Part One

When I talked about my stash the other day, I mentioned I use large prints on the back of my quilts. It's a funny thing, but when I take photos of my quilts I don't take photos of the backs, which is a bit of a shame because I choose the backings so carefully. I never just use what I have hanging around.

So last weekend I set up my quilt stand and remedied that situation. Some of the photos have a blue cast because they were taken in the shade on a sunny day, but you get the idea.

In 2009 I made this quilt, Letters From Home as a sample for Tonya Ricucci's book, Letter Play Quilts. Tonya had stipulated the quilts had to be quilted. I had never had one of my quilts quilted before and was wary to let somebody else loose with it. Fortunately Julie Sefton intervened and recommended Chris Ballard.

When I talked to Chris on the phone she said, in her inimitable Southern accent, "I don't know how I'm going to quilt your quilt. I'm going to hang it up on the wall. Your quilt will tell me how it wants to be quilted."

Right then and there I knew Chris was the one, and she has quilted all my quilts since. I let her do her thing and it is always perfect.

At that time I had been reading Julie's blog and saw how Julie used a lot of pieced backings for her quilt. So I assembled this out of a Kaffe and some leftover bits. As you can see I added a cat emoticon.

When the quilt arrived at Chris's house she gave me a call, "I like the way you didn't drop the ball on the backing."

I've never forgotten that, and make every effort to "not drop the ball" on every backing of every quilt I make.

 Here is The Quick Brown Fox, also made in 2009.

And here is the back. Generally I feel backings are a great big space, and need something equally big to fill it up so it doesn't look stupid. I guess I just don't like a lot of empty space.

 
In between "arty" quilts, I make "normal" ones, or my version thereof. I made this because I wanted to see how many so-called rules about placing fabrics next to each other that I could break. I was going for broke, and ended up with a jewel box. The result is my quilt "Laughing Out Loud."

Here's the fabric I chose for the backing. It's an eye-popping Philip Jacobs print I was lucky enough to get on sale. I figured if I was going for broke on the front, I had to go for broke on the back. I gave this quilt to my Mom, so I don't have a "proper" photograph of the back.

My son asked me to make him a yellow quilt.

 Really.

(An aside: The tutorial for this quilt, Slashed Squares, is here. It's an easy quilt to make, and has lots of possibilities. It is the single most popular page on my blog, having over 27,000 hits since I wrote it in 2008.)


He said he wanted a "Quilt of Sunshine" so when he took a girl to the fireworks they could lie on a nice quilt and he could make a good impression. You can read a bit more about it here. My son gave me all kinds of grief about the fabrics I selected, but I have "Mom Armor" and I ignored him.  He was, originally, quite dismayed at what I selected for the back.

Giant Magnolias.

I had asked him if I could make "to Paul from Mom with love" in free pieced letters on the back of the quilt. He said "NO WAY" so I just made "XXX..." which is the way we sign letters to each other. (Tell that story now, however, and he slaps his forehead and says, "I was WRONG! I should have LET YOU") This is the same son who's getting the Petals quilt. I only have one child.)

When I gave him the quilt, he carried it home and placed it on his bed. He's never once let it touch the ground on the beach or at the fireworks. It's on his and DIL's bed as we speak.

BTW, the other print on the back, a small Japanese design printed in metallic gold, was chosen by him against my advice. Gold sparkly stuff on quilts WILL wash off eventually. So now the back of the quilt is flowers, and gray.

He loves the flowers, and he's graceful enough to admit he was wrong about them.


More backings and more quilts later!