Quilter's Sunset

Working on getting a bunch of memory quilts ready to give for Christmas from my father and I, I've been keeping the trail beat down between Stilwell, Oklahoma and a quilt shop in Jay, Oklahoma.  It is about 58 miles one-way to go up there and spend a day working on a rented long-arm quilting machine.  Despite the drive, it has been worth the trouble.  I have saved my father a few dollars that we'd be paying out for a machine quilter's time.  I have been able to personalize the quilts by freehanding some dates and other secret messages into the quilting thread patterns, and... I was privileged to catch this gorgeous sunset on camera.  While driving.  I took a series of pics, as the sunset changed from moment to moment.  Here I just hit it with one lil edit fature.... blacking out some headlights at the bottom.  All of the sky colors are au naturale.

Eye Heart Tahlequah Quilt

Eye Heart Tahlequah Auilt is a fun thing.  It has big stripey sides, and the panels are hand dyed and sometimes superimposed with applique confetti that is also hand dyed.  In places you will see distressed screenprint "Eye Heart Tahlequah" designs.  I was hoping to do it using the Cherokee letters for Tahlequah, but there was some discrepancy between the pronunciation of the word Tahlequah in Cherokee, and the way it is formally written, such as on the old plat books of Indian Territory days.  Turns out that recently the University (NSU), Tahlequah and Cherokee Nation have partnered in some promotional advertising that answers the question.... the correct protocol will be to use the historical spelling in Cherokee Syllabary, rather than a literal translation.  It suggests that perhaps over time, the way we say Tahlequah has changed.  Tah Lah Quah is how one would pronounce the city's name, according to the plat map spellings when the city plat maps were filed.  Today when we pronounce it in English, it sounds like like Teh Leh Quah.  So, I wonder if our ancestors used to put a glottal stop after the first syllable?  If so, the original pronunciation was more like Tot Lah Quah.  Fascinating.
Today, check out my Island Retreat Etsy Shop for a boatload of recent quilt listings!

Lil Cherokee Stars Quilt

Little Cherokee Stars quilt is one of my most unusual quilts.  It has the feel of an informal Gees Bend or Outsider quilt because it has very little intentional framing.  I made it using the san blas style of underlayment applique, with informal Cherokee 7-point stars going up the middle.  And the copper and gold fabrics are vintage 1960s shirting fabric-- the kind that looks copper from one direction and green if you look at it from another direction.  It has been spoken-for and will go to a member of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative.  It also has a lot of hand-dyed fabric which I made early in my learning journey.  I practiced for years on recycled sheets before ever aspiring to use new fabric.  When I finally took the big step, I was amazed at how pure, rich and deep the colors now were.  I learned from it that after many washings, fabric fibers take up a lot of chemicals like soap and bleach, which keep the dyes from bonding uniformly, smoothly on every little molecule, and this you get a fainter tiedye when recycling.  The two iris panels are hand dyed by a couple of tiedye and hand painting artists in Australia who do gorgeous fat quarters... which are ever so slightly not the same size as American fat quarters.  They use a light grade of muslin.  I can only imagine what beautiful work they could do if they actually used fine cottons.

Swirly Nana Pop Art Quilt

This "Swirly Nana" Pop Art Quilt has a lot of optical illusion in it, and it is one in the series using my mother's fabrics for a log cabin square in the center.

Little Jungle Nana Quilt

Little Jungle Nana Quilt is one in the series of quilts with a log cabin square center made of my mother's diverse sewing stash.  It has a jungle border on the sides with some sort of plant in the lily family.  Perhaps it is pitcher plants.

Confetti Quilt Top

Confetti Quilt Top is one of the tops in the Nana Series.  The centerpiece "log cabin" pattern is made in part from Nana's fabric stash.  This one is pictured not yet quilted.

New Art Series

Dinner Napkin or Kitchen Towel

The good news about December is that it is my most productive month for Fluffy's Compleat Boutique.  The bad news is that I may not be able to write a daily blog.  I'll at least try to post a fiber art picture each morning, and I hope to be back in full swing with full blogs from time to time.  This morning's image is a dinner napkin.  I love to make these because they're perfectly flat and symmetrical so it is possible to get a lot of feathery dye migration.  This one is going with 4 other different ones of various styles, to an Etsy customer.  I'm also making some for Oklahoma Food Co-op customers and as giveaways for the workers at OFC Central Processing in OKC.