Wind Beneath My Wings

Designed and Pieced by Judy Kriehn

In fall of 2000, the Quilter’s Guild of Dallas announced the beneficiary of the 2001 Dallas Challenge - the newly opened Women’s Museum at Fair Park. When the theme was announced to be “women who have been stars in our lives,” I knew exactly who I wanted to honor. I chose my friend and mentor, Dr. Deborah Cron.

Deborah, the Assistant Superintendent for Educational Operations for the Garland ISD, was my boss for a few years when she was Director of Communications. She is one of those rare individuals who is able to recognize talents, skills, and capabilities in people that they don’t even know they have. She pushed me to explore writing - something that I had always considered to be my weakest skill. While I would still be unable to identify a dangling participle in an emergency grammar situation, I have discovered that not only do I like writing, but I’m pretty darned good at it too.

Over the years, I’ve come to depend on her wisdom and insight. I can always depend on her to be likewise indignant when I am feeling put-upon, to share a commiserating pout with me when I am feeling blue, or offer a dazzling celebratory smile when I have accomplished something I’m really proud of. I titled this quilt “Wind Beneath My Wings” because she is indeed that - the wind that has taught me to soar.

How it was constructed:

The challenge fabric was a ditzy floral - not quite a calico, but not terribly exciting either. The background is a blue that leans toward periwinkle, and the flowers are sort of watercolor-y pinks and yellows. (it is the lighter fabric in the first sawtooth border.) Challenge rules called for (a) recognizable amount of the challenge fabric in the quilt, (b) a star block in the center, and (c) multiple borders - or a medallion style quilt.

I tend to bend the rules as far as I can, and knew I wanted to do something with something more mariner's compass-y than star-like. So, I sat down one day and started "doodling" with my Macromedia Freehand program. I came up with an off-center compass, and set about drafting it in the manner learned from Karen K. Stone. Then, I started contemplating borders to use. A sawtooth would be simple enough to accomplish, so that was the first one drawn.

As the theme "wind beneath my wings" kept running through my head, at first I contemplated doing an applique of a bird - but then thought about Caryl Bryer Fallert's flying geese treatments. That seemed to be a direction that would allow me to have "wings" in the quilt but retain the geometrics in the design. So I started messing with spiraling geese in the drawing program. Eventually, I settled on the placement.

Now it was time to actually get to work. I had gathered a variety of stuff from my stash and from the shelves at Fabric Affair in particular, the periwinkle blue bali in the center and binding), but needed more. (Evidently I am very good at buying fabrics I don't really like much, purples and reds - but not so good at blues...) So, my first trip was to Quiltmakers. I found several good blues and the golden yellows. On a whim, I bought the red bali as it just appealed to me. By fluke - it worked with the periwinkle blues in the center! I tightened up the drafting on the design by hand (ruler, compass, etc.) then traced paper foundations onto tearaway paper.

I pieced the sawtooth borders and the sun rays/sky. Then, I decided I wanted some texture on the center of the sun - so I put some elastic thread in the bobbin and freemotioned on the yellows. After that, I hit it with a good blast of steam from the iron and "poof" - a cool wrinkled and very textural look. I bonded this to some thin fleece. After that, I tried a few different combinations of the square within a square cornerpieces to the sawtooth border. My small group, the Twisted Stitchers, all voted for the yellow/red corners, and that was that!

Okay. Now the rubber was meeting the road. What to do, what to do, with the last border... At first, my plan had been square within squares in alternating colors, but decided it would be too time-consuming and frustrating. As it happened, the strips I had made in a chevron piecing class with Virginia Avery was tossed in a box to the side of my sewing/dining table, so I snatched those up and pinned them beside the center medallion to see how the design worked. It was quickly evident that a particularly funky method of strip-piecing would look very nice. Trying to echo the colors in the challenge fabric, I started randomly piecing the braided border in a combination of blues, yellows, and pinks. But - after a few hours of stitching, cutting, stitching, cutting, I held it up. Yeech! While it was a gorgeous bit of piecing, the colors fought with the center of the quilt BIG TIME. As my objective was to suck people into the center of the quilt, that just wouldn't do... I had also, by this time, done a serious number on my accumulation of blues. So... I'd have to go shopping again. The next day, I had to leave for Austin for a conference, so I decided I would just take all the pieces with me, and go hit The Quilt Store on Anderson Lane there. If anybody had a gigantic collection of blues that would work with this fabric, it would be them.

Sure enough, I got quite the selection of blues there, (as well as collecting a few admiring oohs and ahhs from the staff on the completed parts thus far.) I also snagged a couple of nice balis at nearby Silk Road during my regular pilgrimage there.

After returning home, I had agreed to work at the store on Saturday while Patti Porter was teaching digitizing classes. With most of our regular customers distracted by digitizing classes, I got all the blue strips cut and ready to stitch. Sunday afternoon was a blur of sewing. And sewing. And sewing. But - I got the braids completed and sewn onto the center. I also got two different versions of the "swoosh" of geese pieced. (I was indecisive about what fabric was "perfect" for the background of the geese strips.) I appliqued the goose swoosh into place, then had to make a NEW decision. The braided border appeared to be overwhelming the center of the quilt. I emailed my friend Barbara Oliver Hartman for her opinion, but unfortunately she was never able to get the file to open. In the meantime I had the bright idea of "turn the edges under and pin into place to see how it would look if you whacked off a bit." Yeah, I have my moments... Lo and behold, just eliminating 3/4" all the way around made a HUGE improvement. So - rotary cutter in hand, WHACK!

I was pretty happy with this baby at this point, so it was time to do some basting and get it quilted. The deadline to turn it in for judging was looming. Like in four days... So - off to the store I went. I got it basted and returned home to study it for inspiration. I decided "in the ditch" would be the way to go for the large majority of the quilt. So - I started with the flying geese, then progressed to the sun burst points. Then I free-motioned in the center of the sun to ensure that it didn't get all bunchy after washing. (yes, contrary to the art quilters' credo, ALL my quilts get washed. I like them smooshy. Deal with it.) In any case, I used Sulky invisible in the needle and for all but the geese, I used Sulky rayons in the bobbin.

Now for the braided border. Eeeuw! Well, the only thing to do was dive into it. Yep - every seam is stitched down. I had to do a lot of "running the thread back into the batting with a needle" on this one... But it was worth it. Really helped the appearance a lot. Then, as an experiment, I decided I wanted to see what parallel wavy lines radiating between the sun rays would look. If I had it to do over, I'd do it with rayon thread instead of invisible, as it would have had a bit more "glitz" to the surface. But, the invisible is fine. You can see some of the effect in this photo at left.

Now, we were HOME FREE! Just add the binding, hanging sleeve and label and we'd be done! And with 24 hours to spare!

HA!

This quilt was one that insisted on my taking the time to MEASURE the binding before stitching it down - not just making a long piece of binding and sew it on. The sides of the quilt were rippling in the breeze. Or as Karen K. Stone says, "waving to all passerby." Off came the binding, and out came the ruler. Oooh. Visible improvement!!!

Wednesday evening, I was off to the Twisted Stitchers meeting to see what everybody else was doing and do the handwork on the binding. Carol Morrisey was doing the same to HER Dallas Challenge quilt. (hers is VERY cool - features a hand-colored photo of her grandmother in the center of a large Ohio Star block, and includes both feed sack fabric and rick-rack from her grandmother's stash!) We both commiserated over the "not our style" challenge fabric (we both had used all the leftovers for our quilt back) and showed them off to our fellow Twisters.

Thursday was "zee beeg day" for turning the quilt in for judging. This particular category is judged by "members choice" - the guild members in attendance at the March guild meeting. Surprise, surprise! At the end of the night, the challenge coordinators announced the winners, and this baby won First Place! Yippee! (and Carol's quilt snagged third place.)

Posted 03/02/01

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