Quilt Puzzle: Up and Away

Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles.   Up and Away by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Up and Away made by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill of Woodbridge, CT for the 2016 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “Playing Favorites.” Materials: Cotton Fabric, Cotton Thread, Cotton Batting. Techniques: Foundation Paper Piecing, Domestic Machine Quilted. Artist’s Statement I designed and produced Up and Away using one of my favorite piecing techniques–foundation paper piecing. I love paper piecing because I can design and execute precise design elements. All of my paper piecing designs are created in Adobe Illustrator. I also love testing out new designs on a small scale before producing them larger. This challenge was the perfect opportunity to prototype a new design! Sheri’s quilt won Judge’s Choice (Mark Lipinski) and Honorable Mention (awarded by Quilt Alliance members).  Judge Mark Lipinski’s comments: This entry is an original paper-pieced composition, a drifting hot air balloon, with an intentional modern design sensibility. On first impression, the simple templates and pieced colors jump off of the solid white background, drawing me in. I found the overall impact of the work fresh and clean. The shapes within the balloon widen and grow, from slivers of lime green (representing the balloon’s flame) through various blues and finally to deep red- and blue-toned purples, giving the small quilt both heft and dimension. I thought the artist’s fabric choices thoughtful and effective—primarily solid colors with just the slightest bit of minimalistic patterned fabric tossed into the mix. The quilting is simple but efficient, made up of clean and clear straight lines that accent the shapes within the balloon, contrasted with the slightly wavy lines quilted in the background. I really appreciated the white binding the designer used, as almost any other color would have felt heavy and constraining. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…

Quilt Puzzle: A China Sky

Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles.   A China Sky by Dana Zurzolo This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled A China Sky made by Dana Zurzolo for the 2010 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “New from Old.” Materials and techniques: hand-stitched, quilted, colored with oil-based pencils, fabric markers and thread. Vintage fabrics, prequilted backing, fused flowers. Artist’s Statement My quilt, “A China Sky,” is inspired by a recent trip to China. The red tiled roofs, buildings, trees and sky are drawn and inked onto the fabric using fabric markers and colored pencils. The grandmother’s flower garden blocks and the deep red thai selvage used for the binding are from vintage scraps I have had for years. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…

Quilt Puzzle: Off The Top of My Head

Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles.   Off The Top of My Head by Valli Schiller This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Off The Top of My Head made by Valli Schiller of Naperville, Illinois for the first annual Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “Put a Roof Over Our Head” in 2007. Artist’s Statement Sometimes ideas come faster than I can capture them in a quilt. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a roof over my head to keep the bright ideas from disappearing into the clouds? About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…

Quilt Puzzle: National Quilting Day

Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! This month, we’ve got a new challenge for you! See below for clues. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles.   The Spirit of National Quilting Day Passing on a Tradition by Rhonda Denney This week’s puzzle spotlights a 20″ x 20″ quilt made for our 2013 TWENTY quilt contest by Rhonda Denney of Canon City, Colorado. The theme of our contest that year celebrated our twentieth anniversary as a nonprofit organization, and Rhonda beautifully distilled the past, present and future of quilting in her entry. Artist’s statement: This quilt recognizes 200+ years of quilting in America and twenty years of the Quilt Alliance organization uniting the quilting world. Each corner contains a version of our evolving American flag. The twenty quilt blocks along the border symbolize the diversity of quilt creativity and twenty years of the Alliance. The center recognizes the importance of sharing quilting skills to ensure that this unique medium continues on through new generations of quilters. Quilting matters! About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…

KidsQuilt Puzzle 01

KIdsQuilt Jigsaw Puzzle Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! This is our very first KidsQuilt puzzle for you and we’re starting with a game called Rock the Block! See below for clues. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles. Rock the Block! Rock the Block is a quilt block guessing game. Each puzzle features the image of a popular quilt block and the name of that block. The clues below will give you hints about the shape, theme, design or name of the block shown in the completed puzzle. Clues Clue Number 1: Our first Rock The Block puzzle spotlights a quilt block that is made up entirely of straight lines, just like the boards used for the walls of a house.  Clue Number 2 Our mystery quilt block has a square at the center, like the fireplace in the center of a house. Clue Number 3: The name of this block is the type of house that Abraham Lincoln was born in. Think you know what the mystery quilt block is called? Solve the puzzle to see if you’re right!   Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…

Quilt Puzzle: Name That QSOS Interviewee 03

Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website.  Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! This month, we’ve got a new challenge for you! See below for clues. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles.   Name That QSOS Interviewee! This week’s puzzle spotlights a quiltmaker who was interviewed for the Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories oral history project on March 7, 2008. This interview is one of the first 20 interviews added to the new QSOS website to launch our QSOS 20th anniversary year. The Quilt Alliance is in the process of a major update for the project that will include searchable audio recordings and transcript, interview summaries and keywords and photos. The entire collection is still viewable on the QA website here, but this new site, when completed (hopefully by early 2020), will make the collection of more than 1,200 QSOS interviews with quiltmakers far more accessible online. Visit the new QSOS site with sample interviews here and consider making a $25 donation to sponsor an interview! Clues: Excerpts from the Interview Excerpt 1 Interviewee: Like any exhibit, one of the most interesting parts I think of doing a quilt show is to stand next to other people and hear their comments, especially if they don’t realize that you made the quilt, whether it is yours or someone else’s, because you really learn the inside of what quilters are thinking. I have often thought that there should be a tape recorder in the back of quilts and then play it later.  Excerpt 2 Interviewer:Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking. Interviewee: Oh, Karen it goes back to the Stone Ages now. My quilting started in New Orleans of all places, although as a little girl I have always done patchwork. I was gifted with a lot of energy and I think to keep me out of my mother’s hair she would give me needle and thread and so I’ve always done stitching. I did the doll clothes thing. I guess I was always with a needle and thread going through cloth. It just always intrigued me, and I really didn’t have any question about what I would do when I went to college. Excerpt 3 Interviewer: How do you want to be remembered? Interviewee: Oh my, I told my group in Wilkesboro, someone asked me that or I guess it came up in the course of my conversation, and I said I guess I will always beremembered for the full proof knot, it was one of the things I taught on one of the very first shows, my full proof knot for quilting and dog ears. I don’t think anyone has come up with, when you cut off the extension of a triangle, those little things fall off and I have always called them dog ears, but that is kind of in jest, but I think what I would love to be remembered for is probably the comment that people say when they saw me doing patchwork on TV is like, well I can do that, if she can do that, I can do that. I guess that is what I would like to be remembered, that I’m really basically an ordinary quilter that was able to transcribe the fun, the excitement of doing it through a television screen and then many people can say, well I can do that. I guess that is what Iwould like to be remembered for. You are getting me all very emotional about this Karen. [laughs.] I guess the bottom line is that for many of us quilting is an emotional thing. I guess that is the bottom line.  Think you know who the mystery QSOS Interviewee is? Now solve the puzzle to see if you’re right! About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…