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

​I have not produced many quilts in the past few months. There is a reason - 

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. 

​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.

​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.

​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.

​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. 

​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. 

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. 

Work in Progress - even Betsy thought I was nuts.

My dog, Betsy was slightly neglected during this endeavor.

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!

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.

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.

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. 

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!

Yep. That is definitely some magic. Thank you, Kerry!

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.

Hey Mark Lipinski, here's a flashback for you!

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

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.

​​If you would like to see Give Me Liberty, it will be at the Piedmont Arts Center for Stitch Modern 2016.

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.