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Give Me Liberty - 30 Years of Liberty London Fabrics in One Quilt!

4/11/2016

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​I have not produced many quilts in the past few months. There is a reason - 
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Give Me Liberty, at the Opening Reception for Stitch Modern 2016.
​Meet my latest quilt, Give Me Liberty. I don't normally post photos of myself with my quilts, but I wanted to show some perspective as to the size of this bugger. Give Me Liberty is about 84 inches square. 
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​The background is foundation pieced with a crazy amount of selvedges. ​​It is embellished with hand appliqued petals, that have been stuffed with an extra layer of batting. I used Liberty London prints for all of the petals, and then layered those onto solids (mostly Michael Miller's Cotton Couture) to give each individual print an extra sparkle.
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​Oh my gosh, I get exhausted just talking about it. This quilt took about 2 months longer than I ever dreamt it would take to complete. ​But I wanted to share it with you, because I think the story behind how this quilt came to be is pretty special. Here is the story behind why it is appropriately named, Give Me Liberty.
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​I have always loved Liberty London Fabrics. There is something about the colorful designs of the prints that makes my heart skip a beat. I have a hard time saying no to anything Liberty.
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​I began collecting a stash of Liberties a few years ago, to create this quilt. I had seen an image in a magazine that sparked the idea. As time went by, my stash got a little bigger, my ideas changed, and the quilt began to bloom into a tribute to the community of quilters that I am blessed to be a part of. They were instrumental in my completion of this quilt. My community of quilt friends is an eclectic and a unique group of, all incredibly talented. 
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​Piecing a selvedge background was the bright idea of Tracy Allen, a long time friend that is my go to when stuck for ideas. She is amazing.. I am so glad she thought of it.

​The majority of my selvedges were a gift from Kerry Reed, the awesome longarm quilter that I rely on for most of my quilts. 
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The story continues with the collection of Liberties used create the flower. On two separate occasions, two very special quilters heard I was collecting Liberties and offered to share their vintage stash with me. Some of the prints that they gave me were 30 years old. Wow! ​Thank you Diana McClun and Darra Williamson, for sharing your treasures with me. It made me smile every time I sifted through my stash. 

And so it began. I started sewing and sewing and sewing. . . selvedges. 
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Work in Progress - even Betsy thought I was nuts.
My dog, Betsy was slightly neglected during this endeavor.
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The next step? I took an image of a dahlia and blew it up REALLY BIG. I printed out each petal to use to create freezer paper templates. I had a lot of design issues along the way. Things get a little confusing when they are that big, with that many pieces . I am thankful for all the awesome advice and tips I received.

And so, more words of gratitude go out to those that were at my January Quilt Retreat, and also to my wonderful quilt group that I meet with once a week.. There were many times I couldn't "see the forest through the trees", as they say. There were so many quilters that helped me navigate my way out of the woods!
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The applique was a project all on it's own. I blind stitched my Liberties to the solids by hand.  Using an iron, liquid starch and my freezer paper templates gave them a crisp, clean edge.  I felt it need some structure, though, so I added a layer of fusible batting between the Liberties and the solids. Next, I trimmed out the solids to about 1/4" larger that the petal shape. The raw edge that I left played nicely with the raw edges of the selvedge background.
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Probably the biggest challenge I had was to complete the layout of the petals. Each time I tweaked one, I fell into a black hole of a time sink, moving and readjusting every petal that was near it. At some point, I just took a deep breath and glued everything down. Betsy was seriously needing attention by this point.
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Then, more hand work to attach the layered and stuffed petals in place. Sorry, Betsy, this is gonna take a while. Getting a needle through all those layers did quite a number on my thumb. 
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The last step was to take a toothbrush to the edges to emphasize the raw edges of the solids. And then it was off to Kerry Reed to work her magic!
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Yep. That is definitely some magic. Thank you, Kerry!
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Kerry gave me a hard time because she said she couldn't find any of the selvedges from my fabric line in the mix. And so, I decided to pull some Capri out of storage to use as the face binding on the back.
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Hey Mark Lipinski, here's a flashback for you!
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I barely finished this quilt in time for the installation of Stitch Modern. The East Bay Modern Quilters put on yet another awesome show. I am so happy to be a part of it.

Be sure to check out all the scheduled events on the website. It runs throughout the month of April.. Stitch Modern 2016
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And so, as I said in the beginning of this post, this is a quilt that definitely embraced all the amazing people I am fortunate enough to know in my quilting community.

​Many thanks to all of you, from the bottom of my heart, to the very tip of my bruised and swollen thumb.
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​​If you would like to see Give Me Liberty, it will be at the Piedmont Arts Center for Stitch Modern 2016.
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Then, Give Me Liberty,  will move to the Vallejo Piecemakers Quilt Show, where they have, so kindly, asked to be the featured artist. I am totally excited! More about that soon.
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