When Lynne Meets Julie

I "met" Julie sometime between 2007 and 2008 while we both participated in Tonya Ricucci's online class of free pieced letters. I had never had a quilt quilted, and it was Julie who recommended Chris Ballard to quilt the quilt of mine that is featured in Tonya's book.

Julie and I both have words on the cover of Tonya's book. Mine is GROW...

Julie made the word LEAP.

We became buddies online commenting on each other's work making letters, and she ordered a kitty quilt in August of 2008. I remember that particularly, because I received her request the day after the death of my goddaughter Violette.

We began to communicate directly. Emails flew back and forth with regularity.
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Selvage quilts became popular at that time, and I made a few tote bags with them. Julie asked if I would make one for her in the spring of 2010.

We must have been getting really friendly, because Julie sent me this quilt for my birthday that year. Around the same time, we decided to do a quilt swap. I had made two Rules quilts, one as a mini swap with a friend in Australia, the other with Tonya herself. Julie wanted a Rules quilt too, but she wanted extras - asterisks, butterflies, and the way I used multiple fabrics in each letter.

The result was the quilt, "No Rules For Julie." It has everything she asked for. I held nothing back. I went all out. Originally I had expected the quilt to take me a week, but I had earlier that summer discovered the magic of using the prints in the fabrics to do what Wanda Hansen describes as "the heavy lifting."

Each letter took much longer the new way. I worked on the letters when I was on vacation one week in July (Wimbledon was on TV that week, and it was the year of John Isner's historic three day match.) At the end of five full days of work, I had only made 33 letters. That's six letters A DAY! I worked ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!

It took me a full month to complete the top. I even put myself in the quilt - that orange bird, I told Julie (who had said she was not particularly fond of orange) was her "noisy friend from New Hampshire."

The quilt is one of my very best, and hangs proudly in the foyer of Julie's house. Originally planned to hang in her studio, that all changed when her husband Larry first saw the quilt. "He looked, and looked, and looked..." I remember Julie telling me. "He never does that." He was disappointed when she told him the quilt was going to hang in her studio, and changed the location.

When the quilt was finished, I brought it over to show my Mom. She was very quiet for a few minutes as she took it all in. Then, "F**k." [yes, mom said THAT four letter word.]

"F**k"  another pause. She shook her head.

"F**k". Then she sighed and looked up at me. "Is she worth it?"

"Yes, Ma, she is."


And today, even more so. Julie is my very best friend.

Julie & Me

My best pal Julie (that's her on the right) and I have known each other since August of 2008, and we have met each other in person twice. This photo, above, was taken the second (and last) time we ever got together. This was taken in June 2014 at the Zimmerman House in Manchester NH. Julie came up to New England that summer to see the Quilts in Color show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I was thinking last night that I should tell our story, since so much of it has happened online and behind the scenes.

Julie helped me to achieve one of the big goals on my bucket list, a visit to the Gateway Arch in St Louis MO. It was one of the highlights of my life, and I will never forget it.

A German tourist took this picture of us that day, in October 2013.

This is Julie with Glorious, the diamond quilt we designed together in 2018.

This is Julie (left) and Chris Ballard, who quilted my quilt Letters From Home, in 2009.

This is me in 2010 with Obsolescence, the quilt Julie made for me as part of a swap.

 Here is Julie in 2010 with No Rules for Julie, the quilt I made for her for the swap.


Way back when when she and I were discussing the idea of swapping quilts, Julie was very particular and very specific about what she wanted. What did I want? "That green quilt you are making. That's very you," I told her. "That's interesting" she replied, "as I am just coming to realize that green is a signature color for me."


So how did Julie and I first get connected? She wanted me to make a Gizzy quilt for her tuxedo cat, Angel (Julie is holding Angel in one of the pictures above.) What did I make?

Yeah, I knew what I was doing last year when I ordered the book GREEN, for her for Christmas.

Even though we have been together twice, and we live 1127 miles apart, we talk on the phone about once a month (in marathon 2 hour conversations we literally schedule in advance), we are now in contact quite frequently. We probably text two or three times a week, even if it's just to share pictures of our grandkids, but usually it's to comment on what we are doing in the quilt studio.

Julie and I have a long story, and it's pretty nifty. I will tell the story over the next few days. We have shared some of the same life experiences (we became grandmothers within months of each other). We have inspired each other, and we have helped each other. We get ideas from one another, and we give each other honest critiques. I always want to hear what Julie has to say.

Friendly Friday

About a year ago I ran out of wall space. I gave my friend Julie a call and asked if she'd like to hang my sampler quilt in her house for a few months.

"Sure, on one condition," she said.

"What's that?"

"Next year when you come for Quintessential Quilts 2013, you leave me the Fox for a visit."
 

I thought it was a fair exchange. So now that QQ2013 is over (for me), my Quick Brown Fox quilt is  hanging in Julie's house. My sampler, "Letters From Home" is being shipped home to me with my other quilts. Here's a better photo:

Julie has terrific light in her studio.

Visiting Julie also gave me the opportunity to visit my quilt, No Rules for Julie, which I made for her in 2010, and haven't seen since.  It was good to see it "in person" again. I still think it's one of my best quilts.

 It was hanging in the auditorium when I spoke at QQ2013 this past Sunday.

What If?

A few weeks ago I mentioned that if it hadn't been for my cat Millie, I wouldn't be a quilt blogger. I wouldn't have met my friend Helen, who lives in Australia. Back in 2010 Helen and I did a private quilt swap. I sent her this, which got me started on a series of Rules quilts.

Well, Helen wrote to me the other day asking where in the US I lived. (Helen and I figured out we live 14,500 miles away from each other.)

I live in the Northeast, an hour's drive north of Boston MA.

Helen wrote that she and her family were considering a trip to Disneyland and wondered if I were close by so we could visit.  As you can see from the photo above, I don't live anywhere near either Disney park.

However, if Helen is going to travel 11,500 miles to visit the US, I am more than willing to travel 3,000 miles to meet her.  We don't know if this is going to happen, because the timing of the trip is a big factor, but I hope we can pull it off.

Like I said, you never know what can happen if you step out of your comfort zone and try something new.

**OKAY! I screwed up. Disneyland is in California and Walt Disney World is in Florida. I made the little labels wrong.  My son lives in LA so traveling across the US to meet my friend in California is not a bad deal since I get to visit my son at the same time. And seriously folks,  if Helen and her family are willing to travel 11,000 miles to California, I am not going to ask them to travel any farther to Florida.

A Friend's View

My friend, The Selvage Fairy, drove up to my favorite Quilt Shop, Quilted Threads, to see the two Rules Quilts together. She sent me an email.

"No offense to your photography but OMG!!! The reds and oranges in "FUN" look like they are on fire in the black one!

I was expecting beautiful, but I'm just blown away..."

Thank you SF! You have made my day!

The Same, and Different

In my quilts, I like to make the viewer on a voyage of discovery. I want them to keep looking closer, to discover the elements I have placed there. The two Rules Quilts exemplify this. At first glance, they are the same, except for the background - one white, one black. But they are also very different in some obvious, and some subtle ways.

The word RULES uses the same fabrics in each letter in both quilts.

The word MISS is NOT the same. I wanted them to LOOK like they were the same. I wanted you to THINK they were the same. Everyone notices the ladies are different, but I've used different fabrics in the M and the S's.

Look closely (click and then click the photos again to enlarge) to see the difference.

The Rules, Together!

Woo Hoo! The two Rules quilts, the "White Cat Rules" and "The Black Cat's Rules" are now hanging side by side at Quilted Threads in Henniker NH.

I've been waiting to see these two quilts next to each other for months. It's everything I could have hoped for.

The Rules, in Black

The colors look a bit truer here. I'm happy with the way this turned out. I can't wait to see them both hanging side by side.

*Compare it with the White version, which can be found here.

Black Rules Finish

Not really, I still have to sew the hanging sleeve, but for all intents and purposes, this quilt is done.

Somebody is gonna have to tell me how to photograph a black quilt and make the colors glow like they do in real life. The quilt is AWESOME, and this photo doesn't show any of that.

The quilt is 47-1/2" wide by 54" tall (about 120 cm x 137 cm)

¿Dónde están las reglas?

Translation: Where are the rules?

Usually I finish my quilts fairly quickly, but I needed fabric for binding.
I had intended to bind the quilt with the same fabric I used to bind the White Rules. (These gold scallops) I even ordered the fabric from an on-line quilt store, but after THREE WEEKS of hearing NOTHING from the vendor about delivery (even though I sent TWO emails and left TWO phone messages), I called my credit card company and discovered the money hadn't even been charged to my account. So I "cancelled" the order, and went to the lqs and bought fabric for the hanging sleeveand fabric for the binding.So this quilt should be finished soon.

Tomorrow, the Red Letter Along continues with the letter Q!

Black RULES!

The flimsy isn't quite finished, but it's getting close. The word OBEY is too tall, and needs to be trimmed. I haven't sewn the last hidden fun to the IF YOU panel yet, and I need to add a bit of black at the bottom, and square up the sides. This is shaping up to be a favorite.
So why do these letters POP so much? A couple of reasons...

First, visually, light areas always pop forward, and big dark areas recede. You can't get darker than black, so the most intense light/dark contrast will always be black and white, but lighter colors against black will really attract your attention.

Secondly, we see color when light hits an object and reflects back at us. Different colors absorb different amounts of light. White reflects all light back at us, black absorbs all of it. So bright colors next to black appear to really jump out at you.

A more intense color will jump out at you more than a less vibrant one. Think of an orange (a real orange you can eat). You can't get a BRIGHTER orange than an orange. If you make it lighter, it loses some intensity, it gets a bit duller. It's the same thing if you make it darker, you lose the intensity, the brightness. (I swiped this picture from earthinpictures.com)

I used a lot of bright colors and bright fabrics in this quilt, so they really jump out. In the White Rules,the brightest color is probably the big pink F, but that doesn't have as much light/dark contrast as the U next to it. These colors are much more subdued than the colors in the black quilt.

The letters "YOU OBEY ALL THE RULES" are exactly the same in both quilts. I used the same fabrics. Actually, the reason I made TWO quilts was to show how differently the same colors look when using a white, then a black background.

Amazing, isn't it?

A New You, Part Two

Now that the big dinner party is done, and the house is back to normal, I was itching to get sewing. The black rules letters are on the design wall, directly opposite the finished white rules quilt.Since I did a new "YOU" in the white rules quilt, I needed a new version for the black one. I started to make a Y with the same fabrics and colors as in the White version, but as soon as I put it up on the wall the "Rules-y-ness" of it got me. Nope.

I didn't want to slavishly copy the fabrics and colors in the White version. I -had- to tweak it a bit and make it somewhat different. So I thought about it a bit, and decided I would make the word in different colors, but maintain the feeling of the fabrics in the white version. So, wider scale prints in the large areas of the Y and U, and prints with a circular theme in the O, and a fun cat in the dot underneath.

I'll trim the letters a bit in the final layout, but for now I am happy. Next up, a transformation of the "all the" that flow from yellow green to red-violet.

Finito!

After much of this:
I have finished this:I will attempt to take some better photos outside, but the weather report shows rain for the next week. (blech!)

Anybody got any creative titles for this quilt? I still haven't found one I like. (And, yes, I will finish the black version.)

You Asked...

I generally pay absolutely no attention to who manufactured or designed the fabric I buy, but somebody asked about this fabric, so here it is.

Suggestions, anyone, for the title of my white Rules quilt? Julie has already suggested "Evolution."

you can click the photo to enlarge.

Ready to Go!

I have made the binding for the white Rules quilt, and I have made the hanging sleeve. The next step is trimming the quilt down to size, and adding the binding and the sleeve.

All the Fun

The white rules quilt is back from Chris, who did her longarm quilting magic. But first, here's the fabric I selected for the backing:
I liked that it had all the colors, and was happy and bright. So here it is quilted:
Gorgeous, stunning, in an all-over celestial sun pattern. I love it.

Now, the question of binding. Sure, I can do a WOW. But it would be the fourth white quilt I made with a white binding, and I'm beginning to get that been-there-done-that feeling.
So I have been thinking... why not the same fabric as the backing?
I haven't decided quite yet.

Yes, yes, yes! I've decided to use that fabric as the binding! Thanks, ladies.

you can click the photos to enlarge.

The Rules, My Way

The white Rules quilt flimsy is finished. It's about 44" wide by 52" high. (112 cm x 132 cm).

woo hoo!

Woo Hoo!

Now THIS is the effect I was looking for! Finally I know exactly how to get precisely the effect I was after. Oh boy, I am really going to have some fun with this technique.

Wordless Wednesday

The space between the U and the N probably needs to be bigger, and the exclamation mark may need to move up a bit.

I found a good quote in Luana Rubin's weekly email blast this week. She wrote: "Breaking the rules = Creativity!"

Wide Fun

This wide, white FUN is just to the right of the ALL THE in my white rules quilt. I love having elements in this quilt that viewers can discover for themselves if they take the time to look. I've decided I'm not telling anybody they're in there.It's going to be very interesting to see the reactions. I hope this works!

The letters are about 2" tall and 7" wide.