Quilts Hold Lives
Diane Gaudynski
Sue Holly & Pat Nickels
Hollis Chatelain
Quilts Hold Memories
Shelley Zegart
Quilts Hold Stories
Candy Goff
Suzanne Marshall
Yvonne Porcella
Ricky Tims
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
"Sweetheart on Parade"
Bernina Award for Machine Workmanship
1998 American Quilter's Society Show,
Paducah, Kentucky.
The quilt is 85 inches square, machine quilted in the traditional style and based on old Amish and Mennonite sawtooth diamond designs, using rose and deep green cotton fabric. It is currently on display at the Museum of the American Quilter's Society in Paducah.
"It was a difficult quilt to make because of the size of the pieces," says Diane. "It wasn't blocks; it was big pieces. And when you do that and quilt on the machine, it's very difficult. . . to quilt straight lines that length without wobbling, because the whole quilt was done free-motion. The trapunto in the quilt made it so thick, that when I rolled it up, I had to start in the center, I couldn't get my hand around it and fit it in the sewing machine. So I had to just shove it back and forth in the machine to do that center quilting that's very fine and little—shoving and pulling this big wad of fabric and batting.
"The feather designs are traditional; some were stencils and some I drew myself," Diane adds. "The oval ones in the inner green border were from a small antique platter I traced and then added feathers and an interior grid. The most famous design in the quilt is the large feather scroll in the corner pink triangles; it's called the Kretsinger scroll in honor of Rose Kretsinger, author of one of the first benchmark books on quilting in America, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt.
"The reason I made the quilt is we have a very special cat in our house named Hillary, and she was severely ill and not expected to live. On the day that she turned the corner and decided to live just through sheer strength of will, I promised her if she would recover and get better I would make her a beautiful rose and green [quilt]. . . And I did, and that's this quilt."