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A KEEPSAKE QUILTING CHALLENGE: FICTION COMES TO LIFECongratulations to the winning quilt and essay, by Laurie Hamilton!
"Island Bliss" by Laurie Hamilton
Island Bliss
By Laurie Hamilton As I dig through my piles, boxes and bags of fabric scraps, remnants and yardage, many of the pieces seem to speak to me. They remind me of the reasons I bought them, the items I made with them, or the projects I intend to make with them. Of course, there are many that have no purpose yet, they were just too pretty to leave behind at the store! Digging deeper, I find a few pieces that were passed down to me decades earlier from my mother’s fabric stash. These pieces hold a special place in my heart. My mother was the person who taught me to sew. From hand sewn doll clothes to my first project on her White Rotary sewing machine (a “Flying Nun” Halloween costume), she gave me the confidence I needed to continue, even if they didn’t turn out perfectly. These fabrics also remind me of our yearly trip to some fabric mill store. I’m not sure where it was, but my mother would meet her friend and begin their day-long fabric search. My sister and I were on a hunt of our own. We would browse through the colorful aisles, trying to pick out our favorite piece of fabric. My mother promised to make it into something for us. I’ll never forget the multicolored mushroom fabric she stitched into a peasant dress for me. It quickly became my favorite. As I continue to sort through my collection, I find the perfect scrap of rose printed fabric. I know exactly what I’m going to use it for, and I remember where it came from. It happens to be left over from a previous quilt challenge titled, “Home Sweet Home.” Even the name of the fabric, “Timeless Treasures,” seems perfect. Next I find just the right shade of green mottled fabric, another challenge leftover. I still need one more piece, when I come across a dark blue and white printed fabric. I intended to use it for a patriotic summer quilt, but it turns out the white design reminds me of waves splashing, so I place that in my save pile. It’s now time to pack away all the others for use some day in the future and get started on my summer beach quilt. I know exactly what I want the focus of my quilt to be. I was lucky enough to have spent every childhood summer on an island in Maine. I hope I can share this wonderful place with others through my quilt.
Thanks to Keepsake Quilting for sponsoring this wonderful contest! Here's how it went down:
The Threadbare Heart is novel is about, among other things, the way that fabric can speak so powerfully about our lives – about the things we love, the things we lose, and the things we may regret never doing. The main character, Lily Gilbert, loses a lifetime of fabric in a fire. When she ventures into a fabric store for the first time after the tragedy, she imagines a summer beach quilt she never made: Lily wandered through the aisles, stopping at bolts of fabric that caught her eye, considering the possibilities. There were burnout velvets, Italian wool so fine they felt like silk, silk in a cacophony of color, weight, and texture. Every bolt offered something new to Lily’s imagination—a coat, a skirt, a dress—and every possibility reminded her of a piece of fabric she had lost in the fire. There was so much fabric and so many things she had never made! She thought that she could list them all on her yellow pad of paper—Hattie’s gray tweed that had not become a jacket, the sage green flea market silk that had not become a skirt, the white dotted Swiss that she had bought in Boston when she thought she might have a little girl. She had one Rubbermaid tub that was stuffed with swatches of printed cotton in different shades of blue. There were stripes, dots, florals, swirls, and geometric prints, and taken all together, they had looked like the sea. Lily had always thought that she would make a beautiful quilt with all that blue. She would design the horizon, the sky and the water, and somehow, it would cease to look like bits of cotton stitched together, and would look, instead, exactly the way the beach did on a clear summer day. “I should have done it,” she said, and she realized too late that she had spoken out loud. Keepsake Quilting has specially selected a fabric Medley™ of 5 fat quarters that evoke the beach on a clear summer day. YOU MAY PURCHASE THE KEEPSAKE MEDLEY BY CLICKING ON THE LINK IN THE RIGHT-HAND COLUMN. The challenge is to use at least 3 of the Medley fabrics, and at least 3 fabrics from your own stash to make the quilt Lily never made. In addition, we’d like you to write up to 500 words about the fabrics you use from your stash – where they came from, what they mean to you, why you chose them for this project—and we’d like you to name your quilt. The finished quilt should be 30" x 30". Quilts will be judged by members of the Keepsake Quilting staff and me in early July. All entries must arrive at Keepsake Quilting by July 1, 2010. You can get all the details about where to ship when you purchase your “Fiction Comes to Life” Fat Quarters – and you are not required to purchase or even read The Threadbare Heart to enter the contest, although I obviously think you SHOULD. The maker of the winning quilt will receive a $150 gift certificate from Keepsake Quilting, and a “Book Club in a Box” kit, featuring 10 signed copies of The Threadbare Heart; an hour-long phone chat with author Jennie Nash so that you can gather your friends together to discuss the book and bring Jennie into the conversation; and a gift certificate for a delicious “Rum Cake by Kelli” to serve at your book reading event. The winning quilt will be displayed at the Keepsake Quilting shop in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, and on The Story of My Stash blog at the Quilting Club of America, AND IF THE DESIGN IS ORIGINAL, MAY BE CONSIDERED FOR A KEEPSAKE QUILTING QUILT KIT. Five runners up will each receive $25 gift certificates from Keepsake Quilting and a signed copy of The Threadbare Heart from Jennie Nash |
Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. It was such a joy to read these essays and to view the spectacular quilts. I was very humbled. Congratulations to the five runners up, who each won a signed copy of The Threadbare Heart and a $25 Keepsake Gift Certificate. Prizes are on their way:
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