Three Gifts

January 31, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

My daughter recently graduated high school. It wasn’t always an easy journey and I was inspired to make a few gifts for some folks who helped her (and us) get through.

The first is a mini quilt for her Japanese teacher who taught her for 3 years and was an amazing presence in her days. This teacher is such a fun person, such a character, such a quirky and positive personality. We all love her. She happens to have a thing for Brad Pitt. He often appears in her powerpoint presentations. Her room is covered floor to ceiling with mostly Brad Pitt and a little Japanese ephemera. So this mini quilt is for Sensei, and now hangs in her classroom. It measures about 23” square. I made the center from a t-shirt and pieced the rest with Japanese fabrics I found on etsy. I handquilted it in a baptist fan motif to mirror some of the prints on the fabrics.

Next I made a Triangle Jitters quilt for the school guidance counselor who helped us navigate high school for both of our kids. Seven years of countless emails and phone calls from me! He handled it like a true pro with patience, skill, and care for my kids that I sincerely appreciated. I didn’t know what colors he would like so I went with the school colors. I quilted this on my Juki, using a walking foot organic X shape from Jacquie Gering’s book Walk. This was my second time making this Suzy Quilts pattern and it’s fantastic. This one measured 49”x71”.

Finally I made a quilt for the color guard coach. My daughter enjoyed 4 seasons of spinning flags with the color guard, and we loved watching her do it. It was a highlight of her high school years for sure. I designed this quilt myself, attempting to convey spinning flags. The team used hot pink practice flags this year which really appealed to me. I wanted the sashing to be dark enough to read almost black but in actuality it’s several colors (blues, reds, purples, and browns). I did some stitch in the ditch quilting and some handquilting to finish this one up. It measures 54”x64”.

Most photos by Mitch Hopper, a few by me. It’s weird to be the parent of two high school graduates! It went by so quickly. Onward!

Ode to Kindah Khalidy

January 10, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

I love to collect colorful prints on white backgrounds but they tend to languish in my stash. I challenged myself to use them together in a quilt, experimenting with the various scales and densities of the patterns to see if I could create contrast despite the shared background. As I chopped and rearranged the fabrics, the resulting shapes reminded me of the bright and joyful paintings of Kindah Khalidy, one of my favorite artists. So I’ve named this one after her. The wool ties move in a quarter arc rainbow across the entire surface, adding another fun layer of color and shapes.

Measures approximately 73” square. Photos by Mitch Hopper.

The Cat Quilts

August 10, 2018 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

I never expected to turn into a cat lady. Growing up my family had cats but they lived harsh, short lives in the out-of-doors. I learned not to get too attached.

When my kids got bigger one of them wanted a snake. I wasn't into it. My husband convinced me we should talk the kid into a cat instead. And so we did. And then I fell in love. Hard.`I was so charmed by the way our cats (yes, plural, as we soon got a second) moved and played, so delighted by the way my kids connected with them. I posted cute cat videos on my social media. I started noticing all the very cute cat-themed items available for purchase in this world. I bought a cat shirt and cat pins. Probably some other stuff I can't remember. People started giving me gifts with a cat motif which was rough because I'm extremely picky about my cat motifs. I felt like this was all becoming too much. I felt like a too much of a nerdy cat lady, basically. So I came up with the perfect way to cool it with the random cat purchases but still fully indulge my cat obsession. FABRIC DUH. I started buying up all the cute cat-themed novelty fabric I could find. I wondered if I could possibly make an all cat fabric quilt that didn't look completely tacky and garish. The most modern-aesthetic cat-quilt ever made. That was my goal.

I had long admired the Color Wheel quilt in Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts. I decided this would be my first all-cat-fabric endeavor. I cut wedges out of all my cat fabrics, and ended up with enough for two and a half color wheels.

The first full color wheel I made used all of my favorite prints, all of the best colors. I had trouble finding orange cat-fabrics that weren't Halloween themed. I ended up dyeing a couple fabrics with white backgrounds in order to fill out the orange quadrant. I used my absolute favorite neutral kitty print as a background. I had to search and scrounge for it, since it was an older and popular Lizzy House print. I had *just* enough of it to finish the top. This quilt was given to my daughter and hangs above her bed. She loves it and it totally makes the room.

The back of this quilt has all the wedges I cut from the neutral prints. They didn't fit into the rainbow color wheel but made their own striking version against the blue background prints I chose.

Kitty Color Wheel hanging on slanted wall

I made a second kitty color wheel, a more scrappy version, with a varying background and second-tier colors and prints. This was a gift for kids I babysat for three years, a parting gift as our time together came to an end. Their color wheel wasn't as strong as the first version I made, but it still made for a cute gift. I used more cat prints to piece the back of their quilt too.

Label for Kitty Color Wheel #2, a gift for some special kids in my life

Around the same time as my kitty color wheels were taking shape, my guild embarked on a medallion-a-long. I had never made a medallion quilt before (a quilt that grows by adding borders around a central block, rather than by adding rows to each other), so I was eager to give it a go. The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild kindly agreed to let us use their 2015 pattern. I started off with this pattern but didn't stick to it strictly. I worked out my own designs for several of the borders. The challenge with this quilt was to stick to 100% cat novelty prints, but keep an eye on the overall composition of the quilt, especially in regards to color and contrast. In the end I was very happy with how it turned out. Nikki Maroon did the gorgeous quilting for me, and Mitch Hopper took the final photos. It measures 83" square. Big beautiful girl. I put 12" square cat fabrics on the back to use up my stash. I really think I've scratched that cat-fabric itch and won't need to make any more quilts with this theme. Like, ever again.

And here are the two knuckleheads who started the whole thing... Lupin and Sirius.