Three quilts and a life lesson I will never forget Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on April 27, 2014 at 10:28pm View Blog

Right after my college graduation in 2005 (I was 50 years old - it took me 32 years to get my degree in History!) I was hired as the Executive Director of the Ligonier Valley Historical Society. Fancy title, hellish job. It was a very good thing to do for three years although it took everything out of me. The Society has a 1799 Stagecoach stop museum called Compass Inn and we did living history, candlelight tours, school tours, fundraising events, you name it we did it with a staff of two and a handful of volunteers. Each year was a holiday event called the Festival of Lights. We held a silent auction and for three years 2005, 2006 and 2008, I made a Christmas quilt to be auctioned off. The first from 2005 is above. The second year, 2006, my daughter Becky did the cross stitch for this beauty. The theme was sweaters and mittens. I am really sorry this one got away from me because it was spectacular.

In 2007, I did not make them a quilt as my daughter, Jamie was getting married and I was too busy. In 2008 I did however and it turned out to be my last year there as director. Good thing too. I was tired. The board and I were not agreeing on the direction for the society and it was time to go. I had started looking for a new job in October while working on this quilt and announced my departure after the Festival of Lights was ended. Here is the third quilt. Now this quilt has an interesting story, and a fitting end to the saga of Ginnie and the LVHS. Things had gotten pretty rocky at the office - the board knew I was unhappy and frustrated. Becky did the cross stitch again on this quilt and as you can see, there is alot of white fabric. The texture on this one is a mix of satin and corduroy. It is just beautiful. I tell you these details because of what happens next. At the opening night of the Festival of LIghts when the auction items, including this quilt are displayed for the crowd to peruse, someone spills red wine on the white border and does not tell anyone. As soon as the night is over, I discover the spreading burgundy stain and totally lose it. All efforts to remove the stain are in vain so I pulled the quilt from the auction which made me even more popular! I have always wondered if the spill was vandalism. I gave the quilt to Becky as a thank you for all her hard work and we have both decided the stain is just part of its story (a pink stain now).

Lesson learned? Never, ever give away your joy, your creativity, your talent to someone(s) who will not appreciate and treasure it. The funny footnote to the story is that two people kept bidding on the quilt after it was withdrawn and the winner (who also won the 2006 quilt) was so upset that she could not take it home. Did she not notice it was gone, missing, vamoosed? Sure wish I had that 2006 one though.... Gin

Time for another quilt project - this time it's documentation Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on May 10, 2014 at 11:00pm View Blog Any of you who check into my site will notice that I am posting quite a few new quilt pictures and creating new albums. Some of them are from the very early days of my quilting life, such as this one from 1975, a quilt I made for my mom and is in fact, the very first quilt I ever quilted. I must not have thought much of the quilting process however, because I went back to tying for several years! And the quilting on this is pretty atrocious!

When my parents moved into a senior living community a few years back, Mom gave me back this quilt so it has come home so to speak. She must not have used it much because it is in very good shape. Ironically, my signature on the back is only half sewn, I will have to finish that!

This was long before I had a fabric stash and I was making quilts from scraps of fabric I had left over from making clothes. I distinctly remember some of the items I made with fabric in this quilt! So, I have been gathering information on all the quilts I have made. I have at least one picture of all of them except #20, which I recorded a long time ago as a baby quilt for a Jennifer Nightingale (Jennifer, if you are out there, send me a photo!) and I know it has three baby ducks on it. That's all I know though. I sincerely cannot remember it at all. My old photo books of my quilts were up to date until #86 or so from my pre-Pennsylvania days or 1997 or so. I had pictures of all the others, just not very well organized. Some were traditional paper photos, some were digital and I got it into my head that I would try to get digital photos of all 141 (yes, 141!) quilts that I had made. A big goal but I was charged up for it. So, I gathered all the digital photos and compiled my list. I identified which ones I did not have digital photos on and if I knew who had them and where they currently were. Then I turned to my facebook friends and started calling in quilt favors. I sent messages to all the owners or their heirs and asked them to send me digital photos of the full front of the quilt, the back where any signature, date, or dedication is, and a few detail shots. And the pictures have started coming in! Prior to 2000, I was making 5 x 7 prints of all the finished quilts so I started printing the digital photos I had as 5 x 7's (a small fortune was spent) and my book is almost complete. I purchased two new photo albums with archival paper and created an blank information card to be filled out on each quilt. So far I have two done. In the process of getting all the quilt records together, I discovered I had mis-numbered the quilts. So there are several places in the list where a number will be repeated with a letter B and sometimes C. I tried to make this work where it made sense, like quilts that went to brothers and sisters. Even though the current quilt I am working on is #133, there are 8 more after it if everyone is to have a unique number, but they were actually made prior to #133. Very confusing. I am not a patient woman but I am willing to wait a few more weeks before sending out 2nd reminders on some of the folks who owe me pictures. One of the most interesting requests for photos went to my prior fiancee who got a gorgeous Norman Rockwell Santa quilt. My daughters are still friendly with him and in fact friends with him on facebook so Becky agreed to ask him for the pictures. We will see if he complies. We did not split amicably. Deep sigh. Oh well. And the funny thing is, he gave me the quilt back. I should have kept it but it found its way to him again. Hope he didn't torch it... I will end with a series of baby quilts I made for brothers and sisters, the digital pictures of which have found their way to me this past week. Thanks to all the folks who so willingly (and happily) supplied the photos, especially to Chuck Luebke and Sandy Taghon. You guys are the best! The Luebke kids' (Beth, Kevin, and Caitlyn) quilts:

The Taghon kids (Katie and Brian)'s quilts:

and finally, the Masengarb kids (Jana and Karin)'s quilts:

All these baby quilts have gotten me into the mood to make a few more small quilts. Good thing too as I will be gramma again in September, this time to a little girl. Happy quilting! Ginnie

I'm back in the saddle again! Working on "Topography" with my cat buddy, Vinnie Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on June 26, 2014 at 11:41pm View Blog

Loving how this quilt is coming together but I have run into a slight problem - it is too narrow. This is a wedding quilt for my "third" daughter, Artemis and her husband Tom and it is (at this time) 45 x 84 inches. I thought of adding a row of blocks down the right side. My husband suggested something sand colored so as not to take too much attention away from this "slice of earth and sky" I have created. While talking to my quilting daughter Becky on facebook tonight, she suggested I tilt it slightly and then make it square again with blockwork in the corners I will need to create to make it square. Since I am really trying to quilt outside the box with this one, that idea is appealing to me! Here is a better picture, sans Vincenzo Gato.Time for bed. I will think about this "problem" for awhile and come up with a solution I am sure. Notice how the "earth layers" have shifted in the bottom print.

Outside the box...outside the box.... Keep quilting! Ginnie

What a difference a year makes! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on September 16, 2014 at 8:30pm View Blog

Dear fellow quilters, As you will recall, last year at this time I was frantically quilting the 15 Christmas quilts in my year long project and hardly had time to breathe, let alone do anything else. Well, 2014 has been radically different and as I look back on 2013, I am amazed at how different two years can be. This year I have been working on three different quilts and as the year winds down, I am wondering if I will finish any of them! It has been a year of health challenges and I am sure that is the major reason for the slow down. In mid January, I had a foot surgery to alleviate the pain from arthritis in my right foot (called a mid foot fusion) and I learned to run the sewing machine pedal with my left foot. Actually, I was quilting the 15 Christmas quilts with the left foot most of last year as the right one was hurting pretty badly. I was off my foot for 13 weeks, both in a cast (or two) and a boot and finally was walking and driving by tax day, April 15. The next excursion into Healthcare Land, or "man, it sucks to get old" is bilateral knee replacement on November 17 this year. Yep, you heard me right. I will have BOTH of my knees replaced at the same time two months from now. What fun. What a pleasure to look forward to. I will be out of work for 6 weeks. Right now I am in a physical training program to strengthen my thigh muscles so that rehab and recuperation will be easier (yeah, right.) so I have moved my bicycle up to the living room on its stationary stand, right in front of the TV. I will bicycle away everyday between now and the surgery date and do the same when I come home from rehab around Thanksgiving. As you will remember, we have a multi-level old, old house so I will have to conquer the steps early in the game. I am so up for this because I know it will be no pain (or less) by Christmas. And that will be a real blessing. In the meantime, I will keep working on my three quilts and riding my bike. My new granddaughter is due any day (one of the quilts is for her, a sunflower baby quilt with the lyrics to "you are my sunshine") so I will look forward to a speedy trip to California by the end of the month to meet her. Life is so full. Take care, my friends and we will talk again soon! Ginnie PS: this is the center of the Sunflower quilt. I found the embroidered sunflowers on a pair of pants at the local Goodwill. I wore the pants once and then cut them up for the quilt!

Another cross stitch quilt is added to the Allmendinger women family collection Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on October 24, 2014 at 11:30pm View Blog

The fourth in an apparently on-going series, here is the Thanksgiving cross stitch quilt all finished as of tonight. My sweetheart hubby is in New Orleans at a philosophy conference so I have been sewing buttons on like a crazy woman the last two nights and watching epic movies. It is finally done. We started this one many years ago, if fact, the cross stitch squares were originally intented to be an autumn quilt but my girls and I did so many, we got three quilts out of the effort. Here are the cross stitch quilts we have made so far: #1 - the Original cross stitch quilt begun in 1985 and finished in 2002, Christmas:

#2 - the Halloween quilt, finished in 2008:

and #3 the apples and school quilt,, finished in 2009:Becky and I have also made several baby quilts with cross stitching, in fact the baby quilt I am working on right now for my new granddaughter, Ruby Charlotte will have two cross stitched borders done by Becky, but these four quilts are exclusively cross stitch, both blocks and borders. That's a heck of a lot of cross stitching and most of it done by Becky!

One last cross stitch quilt series of pictures as a pictorial survey of how time can change us as well as our quilting. Here I am with cross stitch quilts 1, 2, and 3. I don't spend too much time looking in the mirror each day but I have come to the conclusion that as I get older, time is making more changes to me at a faster rate!

and here I am tonight. Oh vey!

What will the next cross stitch quilt theme be? No clue. Waiting for my daughters to tell me! Happy Quilting everyone! Ginnie

Life with new knees and other miscellany Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 13, 2014 at 1:22pm View Blog

It's the end of week four after double knee replacement surgery and things are going pretty well. I am making progress and even getting some sewing done. Above is the Christmas stocking I just finished today for new granddaughter Ruby Charlotte who is almost three months old already. I will get it off in the mail to her Monday, arriving in time for Christmas and St. Nick. I am also getting some work done on Topography, which is possibility Artemis and Tom's wedding quilt. So things progress. I have not gotten much of Christmas out this year except for the Christmas quilts and pillows. Here is our feline companion, Vinnie, resting on the heat register on one of my Christmas quilts. Merry Christmas everyone!

New Granddaughter Ruby Charlotte and her baby quilt from Gramma Gigi (that's me) Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on August 1, 2015 at 12:50am View Blog

She's 10 months old and has gorgeous blue eyes and a no nonsense attitude. That's my Ruby Charlotte. I finished her quilt in April but never got around to writing this post so here I am on Blue Moon night, unable to sleep and typing away. I first went outside and snapped a few pictures of the gorgeous blue moon and then a few dozen of my porch at night. In the summertime, the porches extend the house by a couple rooms. The front is wide open while the back is screened (great for late night reading and no bugs bothering me). A neighborhood cat whom we feed (we call him "Ghost" or "the old guy") sleeps on the back porch and I am always trying to catch him out there. No luck yet. Anyway, here is my favorite rocking spot by night.

And lastly, here is Ruby's quilt, the original subject of this post. Sorry I got a little distracted there. It must be the blue moon!

Lots of pictures in my albums. I should finish the next quilt, Topography this week and then it is on to the next new Granddaughter's quilt. Sylvia Reagan was born 2 months ago to my quilting daughter, Becky and her husband Todd.

Big News on the Leiner homefront and a new quilt, this time for me. Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on August 31, 2015 at 11:37pm View Blog

Things have been happening around here and they have kept me so busy that I have not had time to either blog or quilt so this weekend, I decided it was time to change that and started this delightful flower quilt for me. It is really rare when I make a quilt for myself but I think I am gonna keep this one. Here's the story. Back in 1996, I decided to remodel and update my home in East Moline, Illinois. I was not looking to sell or anything. Things were just in need of repair and sprucing up so I redid the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms with new flooring, new woodwork (a beautiful oak rail and staircase, hidden under carpeting for years!) and new living room furniture, bought on Labor Day sale at Montgomery Wards, remember them? Anyway, I also redid all the bedding and the decorative pillows in all the rooms. I bought six flower pillows at JC Penneys and found a matching one later at some yard sale or thrift shop. I was lookin' good! Fast forward almost 20 years, I now live in Pennsylvania, I still have the chair from the living room furniture and its matching ottoman and most of the bedroom furniture, all the bedding and YES! the flower pillows but they were starting to show some wear on the back side. So I ripped them apart and found an eighth one on ebay, added a sunflower tapestry runner and some very colorful fabric and voila! a quilt top. On the back side of the quilt, I decided to use one of a set of curtains I had with tulips on them and for batting, a not so old but no longer being used mattress pad/cover. So since the majority of the fabrics were something else in a previous life, I decided to name this one, "My Recycled Garden, Summer 2015." I am almost done with the quilting, will probably finish it this week, just in time for the quilt appraiser to arrive on Sunday and appraise all my quilts. Why, you ask, is she having all her quilts appraised? Well, first off, it is a good idea for insurance purposes. But secondly (and this is the Big News), I need to have them appraised for the quilt show I have been asked to mount come November 2015 thru May 2016. Yep. This amateur hour quilt momma has been given a show, a solo show, a real life gallery show in a real life gallery. Gulp. Deep breath. I will post the official announcement postcard when it is printed and if any of you would like one, please let me know and I will send one off. It is such a long show that we are mounting 20 of myholiday quilts, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas from November 12, 2015 - January 22, 2016 then we will go dark for a week while we mount 20 of my non-holiday quilts February 1 - May 22, 2016. Little did I know how much paperwork is involved in this: permission slips, pre-appraisal questionaires, descriptions for the gallery. Words, words, words. I was sick of talking about quilts and desperate to make one. Off to bed now. Rest up you all and we will talk soon! Happy Quilting! Ginnie

A big week in Quiltland! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on October 18, 2015 at 6:40pm View Blog First, the postcards came out for the quilt show which is less than a month away. Yikes!

Secondly,I finished the beading on Topography so it is officially done!

Thirdly, I made two Halloween pillows after failing to find what I liked on-line or in the stores. I also worked 40+ hours at the Museum (Grand Reopening next weekend!), cleaned my house (ugh!) sewed a strip of velcro on a 150 year old coverlet for the museum, went on two movie dates with my sweetie spouse (Bridge of Spies and The Martian, both excellent!) and battled the erratically operating security alarm on my car that keeps going off in the middle of the night (my neighbors love me).

What I did not get done was work on the quilt sleeves and text panels for the McCarl Gallery show so now I am behind. Oh woe. I will work on that tonight and try to catch up. Five sleeves to go and a good idea on the panels. Life is good! Ginnie

Two Holiday Pillows and a quilt show opening Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on November 8, 2015 at 11:29pm View Blog Hello all: I have been keeping myself busy with little projects in this time before the quilt show opens. Here are my two newest creations: The Thanksgiving pillow is a Moda print and the needlepoint in the center of the Santa pillow is a repurposed Christmas stocking that I found at a local thrift store. I delivered 22 holiday quilts to the McCarl Gallery on Wednesday this week. My house seems unusually quiet and empty without them. They all had new sleeves sewn on them and their text panels and such were all written. I had to do an artist statement and a bio, both really weird things to write. The show opens on Thursday this week and I am feeling very numb about it. I still can't quite believe a gallery would want to show my work. I am thrilled, petrified and confused. Right, just about normal, I would say! Daughter Becky arrives Thursday for the weekend to see the show and is bringing our newest granddaughter, Sylvia who is now 6 months old. Becky, as you will remember, is my cross stitching, tee shirt quilt making, co-conspiring quilt project kid. We will have three fun days of museums, shopping, eating, more shopping. Several fabric stores will be visited. Can't wait. Plus I get to spoil that beautiful baby! Off to bed now. I will post more after the show opens. Yikes! Here is my bio: Born and raised in East Moline, Illinois, Ginnie Allmendinger Leiner moved to Southwestern Pennsylvania in 2000 to marry her husband and live happily ever after. She is the mother of two wonderful daughters and the grandmother of three over the top grandchildren. She and her husband, George Leiner live in Greensburg, Pennsylvania in a rambling old house, complete with sitting porches, rocking chairs, and a cat named Vinnie. Simply stated, her quilt philosophy is that there are no rules in quilting and no limits except those imposed by your imagination. She believes a little black in every quilt is appropriate as quilting, like life, needs the dark to help us appreciate the light. Ginnie also believes that documenting your quilt is an important final step, as quilts represent women’s untold history. Ginnie was sewing clothes long before she ever considered making quilts. Her first quilt was made at age 18 as a child bride, out of scraps from clothing she had made. Although her great grandmother and grandmother were quilters, Ginnie is basically self-taught. Her quilting heros are Jinny Beyer and Liza Prior Lucy To date she has made 143 quilts with countless ones planned for the future. Her major quilt accomplishment was a series (2013 – The Year of the Christmas Quilt) of fifteen (15) Christmas quilts made for her family members in 2013. She feels her personal best is her daughter Jamie’s wedding quilt, Road to California, made in 2012 and her current quilting goal is to imagine and executed more quilts outside the box of traditional quilting, as shown in her most recently finished quilt, Topography of a Marriage. Most of her quilts are given away to the people in her life she values. Professionally, Ginnie is the Membership and Development Coordinator of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. She holds a BA in History from Saint Vincent College and while she loves her museum life, she is counting the years until retirement, when she will be able to quilt full time and travel at whim. Ginnie © 2022 Created by American Quilter's Society. Powered by Website builder | Create website | Ning.com Badges | Report an Issue | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service

It's almost game day! Quilt Show opening tomorrow! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on November 11, 2015 at 9:03pm View Blog http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese... Here is an article about the quilt show. Wish me luck! SVC McCarl Gallery present ‘Changing Seasons’ quilt exhibit November 9, 2015 WT A&E, Exhibits, Family, Lifestyle, Local, News Ginnie Leiner with a stack of her Christmas quilts LATROBE, PA — The Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery at the Fred M. Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College will present the first part of a two part exhibition, “Changing Seasons: The Quilts of Ginnie Allmendinger Leiner,” from Thursday, Nov. 12, to Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. The first part of the exhibition will feature 22 holiday-themed quilts. An opening reception with the artist is planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese... Ginnie SVC McCarl Gallery present ‘Changing Seasons’ quilt exhibit November 9, 2015 WT A&E, Exhibits, Family, Lifestyle, Local, News Ginnie Leiner with a stack of her Christmas quilts LATROBE, PA — The Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery at the Fred M. Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College will present the first part of a two part exhibition, “Changing Seasons: The Quilts of Ginnie Allmendinger Leiner,” from Thursday, Nov. 12, to Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. The first part of the exhibition will feature 22 holiday-themed quilts. An opening reception with the artist is planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese...

I walk, I talk, I push creativity! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 8, 2015 at 5:43pm View Blog The gallery show has been up for about a month now and last week, Saint Vincent College (where the McCarl Coverlet Gallery is located) did an alumni spotlight video of me. Here it is! I hope you enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fHCGEV37s&feature=youtu.be Now back to sewing on sleeves on the quilts for the second half of the show beginning February 2, 2016! Happy Holidays! Ginnie

Creativity is striking and I cannot sleep Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 12, 2015 at 1:30am View Blog Christmas is fast approaching and all of my family are telling me they are missing their Christmas quilts which I borrowed back for the quilt show. If you are interested, here is another article on the quilt show. https://archive.triblive.com/news/quilter-to-display-work-in-holiday-themed-exhibit/ In the midst of the quilt show work, I have been struck by the creativity bug and I cannot sleep tonight. I bought my first pieces of digitally printed fabric and I am so excited. Here are swatches of the fabric for the next quilt which I think will be the wedding quilt for daughter #2 Becky and Todd, even though they have picked out different fabric. I will make that quilt for them later. I have fabric up in the attic that I know will go with these two but I do not want to wake up the sleeping husband to go tromping around above his head. It will have to wait til morning, I guess. Deep sigh. I am going to try doing something very outside the box again with both the front and the back on this quilt. I'll post more details as they development. In the meantime, I am still stitching sleeves on the 19 quilts for the second half of the show. I have yet to come up with a means to describe this next bunch of quilts. For the Holiday Quilts, I used "Steps to Make a Holiday Quilt" and talked about the different parts of quiltmaking while describing each quilt. Not sure what my schtick will be this next time. I don't have to have that part done til January 22 so I have a bit of time yet. Well I guess I will try to catch some shut eye. I had a snack and thought some more about my project so it should have calmed my brain down a bit! Goodnight to you all and Merry Holiday Quilting! Ginnie

He went home for Christmas Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 31, 2015 at 4:53pm View Blog

It is with profound sadness that I write to tell you of the death of my father, Gene Edward Long, 82, who died peacefully in his sleep in the early morning hours of December 23, 2015. He will be sorely missed by his family and friends. Rest in peace, Daddy-o.

New Technology and winning the quilt lottery Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on February 18, 2016 at 10:30pm View Blog Hello Campers! Back at it again after a short hiatus. Life set me back abit between my father's passing and all the family visits this winter. I visited daughter Becky and granddaughter Sylvia in early February and daughter Jamie and grandson Wyatt were out here in Pennsylvania this week. Good times all around but I am glad to be back to spending time in my quilt studio. Quite unscheduled, I am making a quilt for someone I do not know. Here is the story. Never wanting to become a dinosaur in the real world, I am often convinced to try new technology. This fall, October specifically, I joined i-phone nation and broke down and bought a new cell phone. I did it because face timing with the kids and the grandkids was so much fun. I was learning how to use my phone on the busiest day of my museum career, the Grand Re-opening of The Westmoreland where I am employed, October 24, 2015. The museum had been temporarily relocated for two years while a new wing was added and the original portion of the building was renovated. We were throwing a gigantic party that night and I was running all over getting things done. My high school girlfriend, Margie Trousil, texted me on this very busy day and asked if I would make a baby quilt for one of her college students (she teaches nursing in Fort Madison, Iowa). Not sure how to respond as I really wasn't making quilts outside of my lists, I put the phone away for awhile and got on with the day. When I looked at it again, I had somehow given her the "thumbs up" symbol and she was thrilled, absolutely thrilled that I had agreed to do the quilt. What? I agreed? So anyway, she had to wait five plus months until the quilt show was going before I even started it. Given the other quilts I am supposed to be working on (Becky and Todd's wedding quilt, Sylvia's baby quilt, Christmas quilts for both of my granddaughters, and 2 wedding quilts for two nieces and nephews), I decided this needed to be the quickest quilt ever and that meant nine patch. I wanted to use batiks so I found 72 different batik fabrics in my stash (I am so embarrassed to have that many!) and threw this little cutie together. I will finish it with a border and off it will go to Iowa, the land of corn and incidentally, where I was born.

I guess you could say these students of Margie won the quilt lottery. So what are you working on? Technologically challenged, I remain, Yours in quilting, Ginnie

Yak, yak, yakking about quilts and looking like my mother Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on March 14, 2016 at 8:08pm View Blog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmaSTtsYcmU We are a few weeks into the second half of my quilt show and here is the youtube video from the second half. I talk about two quilts in particular, Mosaic Wedding Quilt which belongs to my nephew and neice-in-law in Oak Park Illinois and Topography of a Marriage, the lastest wedding quilt for Tom and Artemis Vasilou, my unofficial third daughter. Here they are:

If you missed the first video, here it is too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fHCGEV37s ; In both of them, I look incredibly like my mother! Here she is!

You just cannot escape genetics! Happy quilting! Ginnie

What do you do when you are stymied about one quilt you are making? Make another one instead! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on April 30, 2016 at 8:23pm View Blog Hello Campers! Welcome to spring and are you all busy on your quilt projects? I am supposed to be working on my 2nd Daughter, Becky's wedding quilt (they will be married five years next weekend - I am a bit behind) and it has been a challenge from the get-go. We picked out the fabric last spring during a visit to her house in Plano, Texas. Here are the fabrics:Not feeling inspired about this collection AT ALL, I started making her another quilt with another fabric color palette that looked like the hike I took in Yosemite this past Easter weekend with Daughter #1 Jamie and her family - very outdoorsy prints, trees, rocks, water (see previous blog post about digital printed fabric). Everything was hunky dory until in conversation with Jamie I heard myself saying to her, "I can't imagine Becky taking this hike (in a National Park -that's not her thing) like we are." when it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that the natural theme quilt was more suited to Jamie than Becky and I was making the wrong quilt for that daughter.

Back to the drawing board. So I puzzled over the fabric and came up with a few blocks but I couldn't figure out how to make them work together. The black cool palette did not work with the warm browns. Frustrated, I put it all away and decided to make a quickie quilt for a wedding we attended today for two of my husband's former students, of which the bride was our tenant in one of our rental houses, Courtney and Matthew. Here it is below.

I am calling this quilt "Home Furnishings" because the center is from a sample pack of upholstery material that I found at a local thrift store. The border is wide wale corduroy and the back is faux suede. None of it the cottons I am used to working with. I embellished the quilt with warm autumn colored glass beads about the size of a pea and embroidered the couple's name and wedding date on the reverse. All done in a week. The beads took the longest time, all hand sewn. My message to the happy couple told them that the blocks in the center represent the stability and foundation of marriage. The randomly placed glass beads represent chaos, change and challenge (also all a part of marriage) and the stars in the heavens above. So now that is done and I must go back to the challenging wedding quilt. The pattern in the book that this is based on calls it "She Runs Hot and Cold" but that may be the name of the quilt. Certainly not an appropriate name for a wedding quilt! We will call it the working title... Anyway, I am sure I will figure this conundrum out, eventually! What are you working on? Best, Ginnie