quilting
A quilt is a fabric “sandwich”, made of a woven cloth top and bottom with a non-woven filler between. All three layers are sewn or tied together. Edges are finished or bound to keep them from unraveling.
The practice of quilting dates from ancient times, and occurs in many cultures worldwide. Any fabric item can, and has been, quilted, including clothing. The items we most commonly associate with quilting today are bed coverings, although many craftspeople use quilting techniques to make a wide variety of everyday objects, clothing, or purely decorative items. Today, quilts are even presented as objects of fine art.
The quilts in this exhibition are a small sampling of the creativity, artistry, and whimsy that quilters bring to their craft. We hope you enjoy them.
HOMESPUN
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Jean Cline
This is a project started in January 2020 in the sewing room at Tropic Star R.V. park before COVID entered our lives. Just for fun, I had my sewing room friends sign a paper to be copied onto fabric and put with a label. By March, all had changed, and we went home. I finished it that summer, on lockdown. The last two years have been very hard. Several of my friends lost their husbands and several more won’t be returning to Texas. I know I may never see them again. But when reading their signatures, I see their smiling faces and it’s yesterday once more. 2020 taught us all to never take anything for granted and appreciate every day. It was a fun project. All the doilies are from the Don-Wes Flea Market. The fabric is homespun.
DO THE WAVE
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Donna Schmidt
I have always been fascinated by different patterns of the Log Cabin. I especially liked this one, so made it. The pattern was for a single bed, so I enlarged it to a queen. I like the use of tans on the one side of the log cabin and the dark and light colors on the other.
FOR THE LOVE OF BATIKS
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Mary Messerli
This is my first quilt. I wanted to use the many batik fabrics I had collected over the years and I wanted a pattern that didn’t use repetitive blocks. Browsing through quilt patterns, I happened upon the Kaffe Fassett Stone Log Cabin pattern. Using this as inspiration, friends helped me sequence the batiks and decide on widths for each. After learning how to cut perfectly consistent strips, I began. While I believed I could easily sew ¼ inch seams, it turned out to be much harder than I thought. I struggled to keep the dimensions of the quilt uniform. After trimming off “smidges” after every third frame, I was ready to quit and be satisfied with a ten-frame wall hanging. My good friend, Debbie Cullinan, an expert quilter, initially tried to talk me out of this pattern and now I understood why. She offered to finish it for me so I cut the remaining strips for the next 18 frames and she went to work. She also created the beautiful pattern on the back of the quilt using left-over fabrics and did the long-arm quilting. I made the matching shams, which she also quilted. I am forever in her debt and I now understand the logic behind making blocks and being able to square them up before assembly.
Untitled
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Audry Stewart
My husband retired after working thirty-five years for the Army. This quilt was made by me to honor his service career. He developed Alzheimer's shortly after his retirement. He is still a very loving and bright man. He at one time spoke three languages and his soldiers called him "the Wizard."
Momma's first quilt
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Pamela Garza Geddes
My paternal grandmother (Ernestina Zamora) and her sisters were quilters. She passed before I was born. A quilt she made my father (Ceciliio Garza, Jr.) lays on my bed. It's magnificent, and even has a few blood spots where she poked herself. I am now forty-two. I have a bachelors and masters degree, as well as many professional sales awards. I have three beautiful children, and as they grow, I want them exposed to the labor and love of quilting. Quilting is a dying art form. That said, this year I commited to making my very own quilt. And this is it! Inspired by my grandmother with a theme of cats and dogs because over Covid we rescued/adopted so many! God bless my husband for his patience!
Scrappy happy covid-19
Machine-quilted Bed Quilt
quilted by Janna Laumann
I LOVE scrap quilts! I've admired this pattern that I found in my American Patchwork & Quilting, October 2017, magazine for years, and thought someday…. The summer of 2020 and Covid quarantine provided me the "time opportunity" to make this quilt. There are over 2,650 2½ inch squares. The edge to edge computerized machine quilting was also done by me. I worked part time for five years at a quilt shop in Anoka, Minnesota -- Millie P's, where I learned to do long arm quilting on an Innova machine. As an employee I was able to rent the machine for my own occasional use. I've made many bed quilts over the years, but this one definitely had the most pieces.
Frida Kahlo
Wall Hanging
quilted by Lynne Michiels
This is a pixelized quilt from a self-portrait of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It was machine quilted by Teresa Jantzi and hand-pieced by myself.
paper doll
Wall Hanging
quilted by Debbie Cullinan
In a local Minnesota quilt shop, I saw a quilt made by Linda Hohag called Dolly Days of Brandywine Design. The pattern reminded me of paper dolls when I was a young girl. I am married to a man who has three brothers and we wives called ourselves the paper dolls, attached with “tabs” to our men. While in London, England several years before the class, I had purchased a line of fabric by Liberty Fabric. After seeing the pattern, I knew instantly that these were the perfect fabric choices for the outfits. Since Linda was offering a class as well, I decided to make the quilt. There is a mix of hand and machine applique, hand quilting, and custom hand-guided long-arm quilting, all done by me. Each outfit is adorned with buttons and lace. The buttons are from my extensive collection, some of which are family heirlooms. Buttons are my signature and I attach a special one to every label. While I have made many quilts and gifted most, this quilt is for me. It hangs on my wall and I smile every time I walk by.
MaJestic Motifs
Wall Hanging
quilted by Ellen Untz
There are eighty-one separate motifs with no repetition in this quilt. It was made by using five layers -- a beige batik and a colored batik on either side of the batting. It was placed on the embroidery machine to create the elaborate pattern. Then the top and back colored pieces were cut away, revealing the beige beneath. Blocks were joined with yet another embroidery motif.
turning of the quilts program
February 11th, 2022 at 2:00 pm
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE QUILT IN-PERSON
200 E TOM LANDRY AVE - MISSION, TEXAS 78572
Credits:
photos by Mary A. Mariscal with the Mission Historical Museum