Wasgij: Camping Commotion

Camping Commotion


Wasgij: Stop the Clock

Stop the Clock


Wasgij: Olympic Odyssey

Olympic Odyssey


Wasgij: Sands of Time

Sands of Time


Wasgij: The Proposal

The Proposal


Wasgij: Best Days of Their Lives

Best Days of Their Lives


Wasgij: Football Madness (Soccer to the USA)

Football Madness


Wasgij: Antique Hunt

Antique Hunt


Wasgij: Home Improvements

Home Improvements


Wasgij: High Tide

High Tide

Wasgij: Bear Necessities

Bear Necessities


Wasgij: Blooming Marvelous

Blooming Marvelous

Wasgij: A Day to Remember

A Day to Remember

Wasgij: Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

Wasgij: Sunday Drivers

Sunday Drivers


Quilt: Prism Stardust

Prism Stardust

      This is my personal design that I have been working on for about a year. The quilt is based off of the design sketch pictured below. It is entirely pieced and hand quilted. It is 90" x 90". There are over a 1000 pieces and some are as small as a fingernail. The border is made of scraps from the piecing and the black braid is an entire skein of yarn braided in an 8 strand crocodile ridge. My daughter Trinity was the detangler while I braided. It took us 3 days and 206 verses of "This old man he played knick knack paddy wack", but we got it done! All the fabric is clothing from our local thrift store. I worked with everything from Packer t-shirts to polyester skirts. This is the first time I quilted the top instead of tying it. It was also the first time I had the colors picked out before we went shopping. It was fun matching the clothes to the colors on the template sketch.  I made this particular piece for display, but it can be used as a full size light bed quilt. I worked on this from March 2012 until early April 2013.

Shows & Awards:
First Fiber Arts Biennale: Wisconsin State of the Art 2013
        Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts

Art of the Quilter III 2014 - Walls of Wittenberg
        Best of Show- Bed Quilt Category
        
Darting Needles 16th Biennial Quilt Show: The Many Sides of Quilting
         2nd Place in Category 12 - Art Quilts, over 100" perimeter

Prism Stardust template sketch

     Above is my design that became the final template for the Prism Stardust quilt. 

Prism Stardust original sketch

     This is my original design that inspired the Prism Stardust quilt. I had to do some modifications so that I could completely piece the quilt. I sketched this around 1992.


Embroidery: Classic Starburst

Classic Starburst

     This is my original embroidery style design and finished piece. This was a pillow, but it's much easier to display on the wall so now it is a wall hanging. I called it classic starburst because it looks like a starburst firework.

Classic Starburst sketch

This design was done around 1989.

Embroidery: Classic Fireworks

Classic Fireworks

      This is my original embroidery piece. This was done on an old pure silk tank top I used to wear back in the 80s. This was in pillow form, but it's easier to display wall hangings so it was simply repurposed slightly.

Classic Fireworks sketch

This design was created around 1990.

Embroidery: Neutron Star with Blue Dwarves

Neutron Star with Blue Dwarves

     This is my original design made into a embroidery style fabric art piece. This was once a pillow, but hey I can't sleep on it so it's now a wall hanging.  I did the braiding around the outside in an 8 strand round braid. Each of these pieces is dated and signed somewhere just like any other artist does to their work.

Shows & Awards:
First Fiber Arts Biennale: Wisconsin State of the Art 2013
          Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Art

Neutron Star with Blue Dwarves sketch

      This one is a combination of 3 smaller designs. Remember that stack of scrap paper from earlier posts? These came from that pile around 1989. Ok I did these little guys in pencil, but I promise I didn't erase, fix or start over.

Embroidery: Geometric Flower with Leaves

Geometric Flower with Leaves

    This is my original design completed embroidery style fabric art. This was a pillow at one time, but pillows take up too much space and are harder to display. The piece appears to be unfinished since I just noticed a couple lines missing from the fabric piece. Well since it was one of my first attempts at getting paper design to fabric, I'll let it go. This one has two different fabrics for the background. They have differing textures also. I get my fabric from remnants or thrift stores.

Geometric Flower with Leaves
I sketched this design around 1989.

Embroidery: Flower in Daytime Window

Flower in Daytime Window

     This is my original embroidery. This was a pillow, but wall hangings are much more practical for display so tada... I usde a disappearing ink pen to put the design to fabric one element at a time. Each element is then sewn on and the next part is inked on, repeated until done. I did this in March 2007.

Flower in Daytime Window sketch
     I do my designs in pen or marker or whatever is handy on any medium in one take. That means I don't erase, put it down (unless there's an emergency) or restart.


Quilt: Graphed Mariner's Compass

Graphed Mariner's Compass

      This took about a month for this to go from sketch to quilt. It's entirely pieced. I tie quilted because winter was coming fast and it has 1 1/2" thick batting. Brendan picked out the fabric from our local thrift store so there's all sorts of textures and textiles in the pieces. This is all pieced.

Graphed Mariner's Compass sketch

     This is my original design. For some reason I thought graph paper would help with designing. That only lasted through one design, but my son liked the design enough that he picked it out for his winter quilt. I sketched this around 1989.

Embroidery: Heart Petals & Double Framed

Heart Petals

     This is my original design made into a 2 sided embroidery style pillow ornament. This is about 5 inches across.This was done in December 2007. It was made as a hanging decoration.
Heart Petals sketch
This was one of those designs from the large stack of scrap paper pieces done around 1988.

Double Framed

 This is the other side of the small ornament pillow.

Double Framed

This design sketch comes from the same stack of scrap paper as described above.

Quilt: Meshed Gears

Meshed Gears

     This is my original sketch made into a pieced quilt for my sister. I tie quilt my winter quilts because they are done with 1 1/2" batting.  The fabric is thrift store finds. I usually decide what colors I want when I'm wandering around the store. The design and quilt are mirror  images. This is all pieced. The quilt was completed in February 2012. It took about a month from design to finished quilt.

     The medallion design was done while sitting in a college speech class. It seems some of my best designs happen when my attention is split.

Quilt: Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope

     This is my original geometric design made into a tie quilt for my brother and his wife. It's a tie quilt because the batting is 1 1/2" thick. My aim was to have a unique color or pattern for each element. The design was done on the inside cover of a writing tablet. The design and quilt are mirror images. This is all pieced December 2011.

     This design was sketched on the back of a writing tablet in about a 1/2 hour. I was sitting in a college speech class at the time. This was sketched in 2011.

Embroidery: Stacked Hearts & Trumpets


Stacked Hearts

     This is my original design made into a 2 sided embroidery style pillow ornament. This is about 5 inches across. It is made to hang as a decoration. I made this in December of 2007.

Stacked Hearts

     This is the design I used to make the pillow. A little back story to this sketch. My aunt had gotten into the printing business and we got the extra paper castoffs. This was part of a huge stack of flimsy multi-colored 3" square paper. I had planned on doing a design on each piece, but I think I only got about 20 done. This was done around 1988.

Trumpets

     Here is the other side of this small pillow. 

Trumpets

    As described above this design came from the same time and stack of paper.


Embroidery: Multiple Starburst


Multiple Starburst

     This is my original design made into an embroidery style wall hanging. This was done for my grandma shortly before her passing. I did the outside medallions on a cream colored fabric and then carefully cut them out. Those were sewn onto the large central design in progress. The central design was then finished around the outer starbursts. The outer bursts were not appliqued onto the middle design as it might appear. The frame is a rawhide several strand (I admit I forgot how many) off set crocodile ridge braid with stylized (once again forgot the proper name) yarn knots anchoring the corners. This was done in March 2010. This is also featured in the header of this site.

close up of multiple starburst

sketch of mutliple starburst

     This is the design I  used for the Multiple Starburst. I sketched this sometime in the late 1990s.

Quilt: Mariner's Compass Ultimate Variation

Mariner's Compass Ultimate Variation

     This is my original design made into a tie quilt. This is a medallion style with the mariner's compass in the middle. I did not know that's what is was until some years after I made the quilt. It's batting is 1 1/2" thick so I didn't quilt it. This is the one that is on my bed during the winter. This one has parts of my wedding dress in it, some old boxer shorts (remember when gals used to wear men's boxers as exercise apparel), a real silk but fake kimono from Japan, some old Marine Corps skivvy t-shirts, parts of a pair of denim pregnancy pants, a bedsheet, a shower curtain and some other stuff I forgot. This is actually the first quilt I made with one of my designs. This is all pieced. I made this in 2008.
     This is the design I used for the quilt. I sketched this sometime in the late 1990s.

Quilt: Star for School

Star for School

     This is my original design made into a tie quilt for a charity auction at my children's school in 2010. It was made out of the unclaimed lost and found items at the school. This also has the mariner's compass in the medallion. This one wasn't quite as thick as the others so it was more of a fall quilt. This is all pieced. I made this in December of 2010.
     This is the sketch I chose from my designs. I think I created this one in or around the year 1989.

Quilt: Walking Wheel

    Details:
  • Dimensions: 39 1/2" x 39 1/2"
  • Design, Piecing, Assembly and Hand Quilting/Embroidery: Joanne Grimes
  • Fabrics: Varieties from local thrift stores
  • Quilting/Embroidering Threads: 3 Strand Embroidery
  • Embroidering Stitches: Stem, Portuguese Stem & Wide Chain see WalkingWheel closeup images

Wow, it has been awhile! I took a break so I could reacquaint myself with the real world. I received an invite to a show the other day so I decided to make some new stuff for it. The due date is April 20th. I am breaking my own little rule about not repeating designs, but the current Walking Wheel quilt is a tie quilt, way too heavy, too big to hang, and is being used on a bed. I do want all of my designs to be show worthy so I have deemed it OK to redo my tie quilts so they can be shown properly. I am only doing the same design. The fabrics, quilting and size are all different. Time to get to work.

    Click on a day to see progress:
  • Mar 31, 2015
  • Mar 8, 2015
  • Mar 3, 2015
  • Feb 23, 2015
  • Feb 15, 2015
  • Feb 14, 2015
  • Feb 9, 2015
  • Feb 8, 2015
  • Feb 3, 2015
  • Feb 2, 2015
  • Feb 1, 2015
  • Jan 31, 2015
  • Jan 25, 2015
  • Jan 24, 2015
  • Jan 18, 2015
  • Jan 17, 2015
  • Jan 11, 2015
  • Jan 10, 2015

  • Jan 10

    Of course I must contemplate which design to do. Well I did have to figure this out and it just ended up being a tie quilt redo.

    This is the design.

    The tools I use to draw the design to size.

    The finished design. This is a closeup. The circled numbers are the individual pieces. The other numbers indicate where each piece connects to another.


    Jan 11

    I picked out fabrics and grouped the numbered pieces in their proper fabric selections. I am using 12 different fabrics. It took a little figuring what went where, but with a little help from my 12 yr old we got the groupings matched to their fabrics.



    This is what my groupings look like. Don't ask me to explain it. All that matters is that I know what to do with it. Basically the lines of numbers correspond with the numbers on the pattern. The circled numbers go with the fabrics. The little symbols match roughly what the pattern pieces look like.



    Jan 17

    I start in the middle as usual. This is the grouping that fits together quite well for ease of sewing.

    The pieces are pressed onto their fabrics and laid out how they will be sewn together.


    The first two pieces are sewn together


    The center hexagon is added to the sewn pieces


    More pieces are added.


    I keep adding pieces.



    Not bad so far...


    Jan 18

    I finish up the first section. I did make a change on the round next to the little equilateral triangles so that the pieces contrast better.

    The second section is ready to go. Now I basically repeat the process from Jan 17.

    1


    3

    2

    5


    7

    4


    6


    Jan 24

    I keep adding pieces...



    ...until I get done with round 2.



    Jan 25

    Round 3 paper is cut, pressed to fabric, fabric pieces cut and laid out properly. This is the last round.



    Here I go...Showing one section...



    So then I repeat from the top of today and add another section. I did have to handstitch some of the curvier pieces. It just takes too long to mess around machine stitching real round parts.



    Jan 31

    So I add another section or two. I think I've got the curved piecing figured out quite well. I haven't had to rip out many pieces in awhile. Yay for me.



    Feb 1

    All sections and borders are added. I did a quick prewash to get rid of the washable marker. It's now ironed out and ready to make a quilt sandwich.



    Feb 2

    The sandwich is made and pinned from the back. I did this upside down because the top is flattest against the floor.



    Feb 3

    I picked some threads for the quilt top. I doubt I'll stick with what I picked out completely, but this gives me a base line idea. I'll be using embroidery thread and hand quilting the top.

    I drew out a design on the quilt top. It's rough and hard to see on the maroonish area, but it's there.


    Feb 8

    I start quilting the top with embroidery thread. I ditched the threads I originally picked, well not all of them. I rearranged the embroidery thread in the box and I pick thread colors as I quilt.


    Feb 9

    Here is what the back looks like so far.

    I finished out the green half heart.


    Feb 14

    I did another section with the triangles and half hearts. It's coming along nicely.

    The progress is seen better on the back.


    Feb 15

    ...and I hand quilt another section. Yup it's boring to look at. This takes time, which isn't very exciting.

    The back is a little more interesting to look at, but not by much.


    Feb 23

    ...stitching on...hard to tell I did anything, but I did...



    Mar 3

    I finish the inner star and half heart area. in the green and maroon half hearts I used a Portuguese Stem Stitch. One can't really tell from the pics, but it's there.



    Mar 8

    Stitching, sewing, hand quilting, embroidering, whatever you want to call it. It's getting done. I am using a wide chain stitch for the single flower petals that are scattered around the darker maroon area.



    Mar 31

    All done! Here's a couple of closeups showing the stitches used. It's entirely pieced. My signature is there, too.



    The original tie quilt


      Details:
    • Dimensions: Full Size
    • Design, Assembly and Tie Quilting: Joanne Grimes
    • Fabrics: Varieties from local thrift stores
    • Tie Quilting: Yarn