Category Archives: Quilt of Dreams

muse monday: dreams of thailand

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In 2005 I created this quilt, Thai Dreamin’, for the Hancock Fabrics/St. Jude Hospital Quilt of Dreams contest. It was inspired by a patient’s dream to go to Thailand. Another inspiration was Japanese Manga-style comics. Can you tell that I dream in color?

The top panel is riding an elephant in Chiang Mai and the bottom panel is of flying kites in Sanam Luang (a park in Bangkok).

This quilt is double-sided and has a map of Thailand appliqued on the back.

The deadline for this year’s Quilt of Dreams contest has already passed, but there’s no reason why you still can’t make a dream quilt. Choose a dream of your own or of someone you love and design a special dream quilt.

Or mark your calendar for the 2010 Quilt of Dreams contest because the new Quilt of Dreams fabrics and brochure will be out early next year. Plan to make and donate a Quilt of Dreams. All quilts entered are given to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patients or sold by auction. More than 15,000 quilts have already been donated and nearly $5 dollars raised by Quilt of Dreams over the past seven years.

Click here for more about this quilt.

fabric friday: doodle art

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Here’s a really fun doodle fabric from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by HiFashion Fabrics, Inc. ©2002. The fabric is designed from patients’ artwork. I love this fabric’s energy and whimsy. Just looking at it makes me feel happy.

In 2004 I made a quilt, The Rainbow Maker (below), for the Hancock Fabrics/St. Jude Hospital Quilt of Dreams contest and used this fabric as the sashing in the outer borders. It won a judge’s choice award and 3 yards of fabric a month for an entire year. Click here to find out more about this quilt. Can you imagine, that was my 3rd ever blog entry! (March 2006) This post is #241.
That rainbow was what really got my stash going. (and the 36-yard fabric prize didn’t hurt either.) Every hue of the rainbow is made up of little pieces of fabric about an inch or so long each. I thought it was cheating if you used the same fabric twice, so I had to go on a real fabric hunt to get enough of each of the colors to make a whole rainbow.

After all these years I haven’t quite shaken that idea. Sometimes it’s still hard for me to use a fabric in more than one place in a single quilt.

My pigma pens and sketchbook are beckoning to me so I’ll sign off now.

=(^_^)= happy doodling!

quilt of dreams 2005

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Here is my Quilt of Dreams 2005 entry, “Thai Dreamin.” It was inspired by a girl who dreamed of going to Thailand. So I chose two things that a child would enjoy in Thailand: riding an elephant in Chiang Mai and flying a kite in Sanam Luang (a park in Bangkok).

The technique I learned for this quilt was inking with Tsukineko all-purpose inks and fantastix brushes. I saw quilt artist Lura Schwartz Smith demonstrating them on Simply Quilts and simply had to try them. They are easy to use and so much fun! (you can buy them at Web of Thread, a marvelous Internet store that also carries amazing hand-dyed silk ribbon and a staggering supply of thread!)

My original plan was to create the girl with the inks in a photo-realistic style (based on photos of my daughter, Annika). It didn’t fit the playful mood I was aiming for, so I decided on the Japanese Manga style (after watching Anime with my daughter, neon-colored hair now seems perfectly normal to me, I’d better watch out when she becomes a teenager!)

I attempted to hand quilt with #10 cotton crochet yarn, going for the “big stitch” quilting look, but I cannot rock the needle properly to get the stitches the same size on both sides, so I outlined the heart and the sunshine in the small rectangle blocks in a hand-embroidery running stitch instead and then did the quilting by machine.

The back side of the quilt is a map of Thailand, which probably qualifies as the largest applique ever (the quilt is 45″x60″, I’m not sure about the map’s dimensions). This literally took days. I could not sit at the machine and finish it in one setting. Some of the islands must also be the smallest appliques. You can’t even see them on the photo here.

This quilt won best use of theme in the Southern California region. A salesperson told me several Hancock Fabrics stores were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and my quilt may have been in one of them at the time. I hope not. I haven’t had the heart to check into this rumor myself.

All in all, I had a wonderful time making this quilt.

happy quilting!

quilt of dreams 2004

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Lest you think that I never quilt, here is one of my finished works. It was created for and donated to the Hancock Fabrics/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Quilt of Dreams fundraising contest.

This is my 2004 entry titled “The Rainbow Maker” It won best use of theme for the Southern California district and the judge’s choice in the National. I won 3 yards of quilting fabric a month for a whole year! Yippee!

The point is to make quilts based on pediatric cancer patients’ dreams and you get to use delicious fabrics based on the children’s artwork. Then after the contest some of the quilts are given to the patients and some are used for fundraising.

One child wanted to be a “rainbow maker” and that’s the dream I used for my inspiration. (the rainbow maker is in the center, painting the rainbow in the sky) My entry description contained an exerpt from a children’s story I am going to write someday and illustrate with quilt blocks much like the rainbow maker quilt (another UFO! LOL!)

It has dimensional appliques (stuffed with cotton batting, filler cord, etc.), chenille for the hair, and hand embroidery (I finally conquered the french knot–hooray!). I always wanted to try making chenille. I made up my own techniques for the applique. It took forever, but it was a really FUN quilt to make and I learned a lot.

The machine quilting was a real horror story. I had only about 1 or 2 days before the entry deadline and it was the first time I had ever used my set of quilting feet and hardly knew step one what to do. I turned it in to Hancock Fabrics literally minutes before the store closed on the very last day. I’ll spare you the gory details. Also you wouldn’t know it by looking, but the whole quilt top was wavier than a tsunami before I started quilting. TIP: hold your iron just above the quilt top and steam like crazy–works wonders to shrink out the waves.

I’m really glad I participated! Next time I’ll tell you about my 2005 entry.

happy quilting!