Well its almost here.  Thumbstall Biennial  Quilt Show.  I was pretty productive last year, finishing a queen size quilt for my daughter’s wedding and a king size quilt for my son at Christmas.  Unfortunately since both of my children live out of town I won’t be able to display them at our quilt show in July.

Additionally, I was able to finish two quilts for our guild’s Fat Quarter project and

Simply Charming (quilt fat quarter quilt project)

Delectable Mountains (guild fat quarter quilt project)

a second Fat Quarter quilt to be used in the Silent Auction at the quilt show,

Seasons - Silent Auction

a challenge quilt using a unique focus fabric, and

Quilt Show Challenge

the quilt Seasons – My Favorite Things.

Seasons - My Favorite Things

I particularly enjoyed working on this project.  It not only depicts the seasons by month but I was able to find quilting stencils to use in the borders that are specific to each season.

Quilt patterns for Seasons border

Actual borders on the quilt:

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Each year in January or February we tap into the creativity of some guild members for our program.  On Tuesday, four of us demonstrated techniques we enjoy:  Small Drawstring Bag, Crewel Embroidery, Stamp Carving – and I was pleased to be asked to demonstrate Seminole Patchwork.

I became interested in piecing by the Seminole when my husband and I were on a winter vacation in Florida last year.  The creativity of the Seminole continues to amaze me.

The Indian Removal Policy in the 1800′s  forced the relocation of East Coast Indian Tribes to Oklahoma.  The Seminole took refuge in the Everglades.   Only able to make the trip to the trading post once a year, every bolt of fabric  traded for animal skins and furs was extremely precious.  They were sure to make use of every scrap of fabric on the bolt and Seminole Patchwork was born!

Coming Back from Trading Post

In the 1900′s hand-cranked sewing machines became popular and in the 1920′s designs were completed by strip piecing.  Extremely popular designs were:

• Blocks or Bars of alternating colors
• Sawtooth Designs

I can imagine that the machines were one of their most prized possessions.

Traditional dress incorporated these horizontal bands of both simple and intricate patchwork.  The more elaborate and complex designs were symbolic of:

• Seminole clans
  • Bear, Snake, Panther, Toad, Bird, Deer, Wind, Otter
• Refection of daily life
  • lightning striking across the sky
  • crosses reflecting Christian teachings
  • fires racing through swamp
  • spools holding colored threads that were used for the patchwork

Not only did they use patchwork in clothing for themselves,

Typical Seminole Clothing

but also used it to make doll clothes.

Seminole Doll with Patchwork Bands

It certainly was a fun experience for me.  I hoping that everyone came away with an appreciation of the craft.  It’s a great way to not only add borders to a quilt but some interest as well.

We arrived here on Sunday night and decided that not to wait until New Year’s eve to open our presents.

My son was very surprised and pleased with his Adirondack quilt.  I was happy to see it on his bed. 

A king size quilt just does not show on a queen size bed.

The original pattern was for a double bed and was square.  I enlarged it to make it a king size rectangle by adding pieced and Seminole patchwork borders along with plain borders.

I named the quilt Adirondack Dreaming and printed the label with one of Tom’s pictures of the Adirondacks.  I found the perfect sentiment to use for the label:

Adirondack Dreaming

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind…because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”

Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

It seemed appropriate for someone who enjoyed the Adirondacks so much when he lived in upstate New York.

Well it’s finally done! The borders have been added.  I now have a queen-size quilt.  The original pattern was for a double bed.  I decided to combine pieced and solid borders to add a bit of interest.  Once again I used Seminole piecing for one of the borders.  Easy to piece but the bias edges can cause a problem.  I solved this by using tear away stabilizer.  Make a sandwich of the top border, Seminole border and stabilizer.  Sew with the stabilizer on the bottom.  No stretching and the stabilizer easily tear’s away.

I am now working at finishing a quilt for our guest room.  The piecing is finished – and now I am adding the borders.  I decided that I wanted to add pieced borders along with the straight borders in the pattern.  The patchwork in pieced borders can be very simple (blocks) to more  intricate (Seminole Patchwork) designs.  I’m using both for this quilt.

The first border is spaced squares from the EQ5 library

Border of Spaced Squares

and the third border will be Seminole Patchwork.

Third Patchwork Border

I am constructing this border from strips left over from the strip-pieced blocks in the quilt – a true Seminole Border construction technique.  If you’ve been following my posts, you know that Seminole women developed this patchwork technique to use up fabric left over after clothes construction.  Nothing was wasted.  The patchwork embellished the clothing they made.

Pieced blocks ready to be assembled

Of course I used my Shape Cut ruler to quickly cut the pieced strips into 1-1/2 inch units.  A demonstration video for using the ruler can be found on  June Taylor’s website.

Cutting units with Shape-Cut Ruler

To make sure  that the borders lie flat, I always cut the borders with the straight of grain for wall hangings.  When making a bed quilt, I find that using the crosswise grain works well as long as I measure the quilt in the middle and not on the sides. (Adding Borders at Quilt Qua).

There’s always time to quilt!