Quilts and Classics: Basket Weaving/1953 Chevy Tin Woody

My cousins, Terry and Cathy, know several people who have cars that ended up in this calendar.

Last year, on a beautiful day at the end of April, we ventured to their house for a photo shoot. We were still fairly new to life under lockdown due to the pandemic. Would it be safe to be around people, even though we were outside? Could we safely use the bathroom in their house before we made the trip home? So many unknowns. But by six weeks into the shutdown, we craved conversation beyond just the two of us. 

 The car is a beauty.  Taking pictures at  Smokin' Possum Farms, Terry and Cathy's house, was the perfect backdrop. And I'll warn you right now, this will be the most picture-heavy post of all the quilts and classic cars because I handed my phone over to Shannon, Terry and Cathy's daughter-in-law, a professional photographer.  And believe me when I tell you that this is just a fraction of the photos that Shannon took. So many that her husband, Travis, decided to just take a rest on the other side of the car. Ha!

So here we go:

The quilt itself, Basket Weaving, was something I have dreamed about for years. A long time ago, I bought yards of a fabric that looked like a woven baskets. At the same time, I began collecting basket blocks, but rather than standard basket blocks, I tried to find unusual blocks. For a long time I couldn't decide what fabric to use for the flowers themselves. I finally settled on prints by Alison Glass as the blocks were so dissimilar so it was nice to have some fairly unifying prints for the flowers.

Pattern: Sunday Best, Quiltworks, 2017

Pattern: Summer Love, Bonnie Olaveson, 2018

Pattern: Flower Basket, Fussycutter Quilt Kits, 2014

Pattern: Cindy's Basket, designed specifically for this quilt by Kerry Gulder @kidgiddy, 2019

Pattern: Ombre' Flower Bouquet, Vanessa Christenson, 2019

Pattern: Piecemeal Quilts, Sandy Walton, 2009

Pattern: Hanging Baskets, Sandee Wachal, McCall's Quilting, 2005

Pattern: Sunday Best, Quiltworks, 2017

Pattern: VIVA! My Friends, Fusako Nakamura, QNM, 2003. I almost didn't make this one because of the hand appliqued handle, but I'm so glad I included it.

Pattern: Piecemeal Quilts, Sandy Walton, 2010

I paid no attention to the size of the blocks, but then realized several were quite small compared to the larger blocks. I didn't want them to get lost, so I chose to add some pieced segments.

Pattern: Prairie Star Basket, Judy Martin, 1998

Pattern: Pinwheel Basket (found on Instagram, designer unknown)

Pattern: Quilty Basket, Julie Sanders, Quiltmaker, 2015

Pattern: Cathedral Window, Barbara Campbell, QNM 2010

The quilting was a gorgeous design that has a custom feel to it, done by Darby of @quiltedsquid.

One afternoon,I took it to Tagua, a local fair trade shop that supports artisans in developing countries by selling their handmade crafts. They had a display of beautiful baskets.

It was fun trying to match the baskets with the quilt blocks.

Pattern: Seminole Basket, Karen Boswell, QNM, 1991

I'm so glad that my collection of basket block patterns finally became a sampler quilt, one that I really love.

Quilts and Classics: Kaleidoskop/1937 Ford

Here is it April 29 and I just realized that I never did a post on one of my most epic quilts ever, Kaleidoskop, photographed with an equally epic car, a gorgeous 1937 Ford.

This quilt was the last one to be photographed for the calendar and I knew that the vehicle choice and backdrop needed to be stellar. For years, I have passed this house on the way to see my good friend, Dotty. What I didn't know for a long time was that the owners were also collectors of classic vehicles. Dotty approached them with my calendar idea and they said I was welcome to not only use one of their cars but also photograph in front of their beautiful home with the circular driveway.

Our first choice was this beautiful 1938 Babe Ruth Nash. 

However, the brakes were not working on the day we chose to photograph. The owners offered to roll it out into the driveway but that made me really nervous. So instead we decided on the Ford. Actually, I think the gorgeous deep red was a better backdrop for the quilt and the home.

Kaleidoskop evolved slowly over the period of four years. The pattern was designed by Katja Marek and the blocks came from her book,  The New Hexagon. When it came to naming the quilt, I searched the word "kaleidoscope" in several different languages. I ended up with the German spelling, as Katja is German and it seemed like a way to honor her roots, and mine as well.

Although I had done a bit of English Paper Piecing before starting this quilt, I had never done anything more complicated than a few hexies, and I certainly had never actually finished a project.

At the time I began this quilt, I already had an extensive stash of fabric by Denyse Schmidt. I had never made a quilt with many different fabric lines from one specific designer, but decided this was the one. 

It all began with this little pie hexie.

This pink and orange medallion remains my favorite of the entire quilt.

Many of Denyse's fabrics lent themselves beautifully to "fussy" cutting, and I spent a lot of time choosing just the right fabrics for each medallion. Choosing the specific colors for each medallion was fun as well.

Along the way, as I always tagged Denyse in my Instagram posts, she asked a couple of times if I needed fabric from an upcoming line. You better believe I never turned down that offer! At the time of completion, I had at least one fabric from every single line she had designed to that point. And one time this block even made it on one of her videos for Free Spirit. 

I was able to get signatures from both Denyse and Katja--a very special part of the quilt.

And of course, various parts were photographed here and there. This is my favorite--Pismo Beach, California, technically where the city marked the sewer for some work to be done. But it seemed custom made for me. :)

Huntington Lake.

Of course, there had to be a beach shot too.

Completed!

I have ongoing English Paper Piecing projects but this first fully completed quilt will always hold a special place in my heart.