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March 15, 2023
Quilty House Portrait: A Labor of Love from Gefilte Quilt

I've made a lot of cityscape quilts, and I always have a blast doing them. Here's one, "Nonsense Town." 

And here's a closeup of some of the buildings. Let's look at that orange one. 

With a single plaid, I suggested zillions of windows. The other buildings, similarly, have relatively few pieces representing hundreds of windows.

Below is an even simpler example, a potential skyscraper made from two print fabrics. It would take 4 minutes to cut out and sew together. The darker perspective side gives it a nice dimensionality. Modern skyscrapers require so little time to ...

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January 5, 2023
Celebrate New York City! Make a Quilt! from Gefilte Quilt

My favorite things in life (aside from people) include most foods; most quilts made by someone other than me; and many aspects of New York City, which is sorta my ancestral homeland. 

So I am thrilled to announce that after a lifetime of gestation (plus a year of actual work), my book, "Quilted New York; Celebrate the City with Fabric and Color" is in print and available! 

Here’s the proof, my new book in my old hand, wearing my Dad's even-older ring (I think my grandmother gave it to him in the 40s). My Mom’s ring is ...

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July 22, 2021
Photoshop Your Quilt into Different Quilts from Gefilte Quilt

My big idea was to create a building under construction, based on some of my New York City photos, especially of the building on the left.

To capture the sense of looking directly inside rooms, I drafted a foundation paper piecing patterns. It's constructed in strips. Here are the top portions of two of the strips. 

And here's what it looked like, all sewn up. It didn't give as much of a sense of space as I'd hoped.  

It's very small - most  pieces are an inch or less - so there was no obvious way to ...

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May 15, 2021
Are you Buying this Stairway to Heavenly Apartment Pods? from Gefilte Quilt

I’m overhauling and expanding my cityscape quilt booklet, and exploring new ideas. Warning: The Internet catacombs of interesting architectural ideas for quilters is freaking infinite. 


The photo below, I would argue, represents rainbow stairs leading to a modern, Brutalist, warm, diversity-welcoming, almost heavenly apartment building made up of hexagonal pods.

 It's mostly my fantasy, but partly influenced by the mind-boggling Guangzou Circle Building in China, designed by Italian architect Joseph di Pasquale. I figured if di Pasquale could make a coin-like circle stand on its edge to serve as a useful building, I could do the same with ...

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April 16, 2021
My Newest City Quilt, a Triumph (for the Cat) from Gefilte Quilt

Fresh from the photographer! My newest quilt - it's about 70" high. I should have blocked it, look at that top edge, curved like an archery bow, oy!

This quilt started out with a pile of buildings from my earlier city quilts. Playing with leftovers is SO much more fun than starting from scratch. Along with not having to face a blank design wall, trying to redeem flawed fragments makes me feel environmentally noble - like I'm keeping them out of landfill and thereby saving the world! 

The biggest decision I had to make was whether to turn my leftovers ...

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January 31, 2021
Quilt Your City on Pillows from Gefilte Quilt


Out of wall space? How about making some quilted pillows?

I might not have thought of this, if I hadn't been asked. A neighbor saw my pandemic porch quilt show (the subject of my last several blog posts), and commissioned me to make four 18" pillows, including two with scenes from our town, South Pasadena, which is part of Los Angeles. We negotiated a price and a backing color - grey - and I was off. It took about two weeks, and here they are. 

The first one in the lineup above represents the town's Gold Line MTA Train crossing ...

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November 17, 2020
Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 29 - 33: Flamingos and Hashtags and Adverbs, Oh My! from Gefilte Quilt

Day 29: Flamingo Carrom 

This was made in the early 2000's, when my kids, my fabric stash, and I were so young! Also, I was obsessed with Marilyn Doheney's wedge rulers. Despite the frenetic color, and, lordy, the gold lame in the center (what was I thinking?)....

...I still sort of love it. Flamingos and zebras and tigers, oh my! 



Day 30: Frankenquilt! 
The previous project left me a bunch of extra wedges, which I stuffed into my UFO cabinet. About 15 years later, I pulled them out and made the central circle and inner border of this ...

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November 1, 2020
Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days #22-24, New York, Los Angeles and Fantasy Land from Gefilte Quilt

Day #22. "NYC, Room 2913". Some buildings in this large quilt are based on real Manhattan buildings; some are pure fantasy. It's from my series of modern, improv cityscapes. 

The fun part of cityscape quilts is brainstorming techniques that convey the essence of a building. The purple structure below is foundation paper pieced, to represent the extraordinary Hearst Tower in NYC. (To see what it looks like in real life - it's not purple - go to Wikipedia, here.)

Day #23, I Love Los Angeles
While hanging this quilt on the porch, our new (indoor) kitty Cleo escaped her enclosure ...

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January 23, 2020
Strange Thrills: Put Your Quilts on Mugs, Notecards, Pillows, and/or Other Quilts! from Gefilte Quilt

Here are the two latest fat-quarters to enter my fabric stash. I'm certain that no one else on earth owns these fabrics. The first:

What the heck is it? A photograph of my recent Chicago quilt, downsized from its original 72 inches wide, to only 9 inches across. Six copies fit on a fat-quarter of fabric (FQs are 18" x 22"). 

They were printed onto a lovely organic cotton sateen by the custom printer Spoonflower.com. Spoonflower's usual price is about $13.00 per FQ - I took advantage of a two-for-one sale to pay that price for the ...

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January 20, 2020
Turn Your Maxi Quilts into Adorable Mini Quilts (and Maybe a Mug) from Gefilte Quilt

In our last installment, I put photos of quilts that are about 70" wide onto fat-quarters of organic cotton sateen, with the help of Spoonflower.com. I downsized each image to about 6" across.  Here's the fat-quarter with images of my Los Angeles quilt. Before cutting it up, it fit 8 photos, plus four partial images along the top. 
I decided to make the reprints into individual wallhangings, and this time I not only added borders, but also quilted around each building with "invisible" monofilament thread. Here's a finished Chicago wallhanging, 10" wide including borders:
The original quilt ...

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December 31, 2019
Los Angeles II: A Modern City Quilt from Gefilte Quilt

I'm on a roll with city quilts! I've made two New York quilts,  a Chicago quilt, and now, a second Los Angeles quilt. (Photos of  earlier quilts and an instructional booklet are here.) Below is the second Los Angeles quilt: 

It's a wedding present (a scant year-and-a-half late!) for my dear friend Elizabeth and her groom Rick, who whisked her away to the East Coast, leaving her family and friends happy for them, but sorry for ourselves. 

In my first LA quilt, I recreated significant buildings that would be fun to translate into fabric. For this quilt ...

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November 10, 2019
City of Chicago, Modern Quilt Style from Gefilte Quilt

I've been working on this quilt on and off, for a year, and it was one of my most challenging. Rather than just pleasing myself, I also had to please an equally delightful but entirely different person - someone I've admired for years - who has high standards in everything she does. I was thrilled when she commissioned me to make a quilt that would remind her of the Chicago she grew up in.

The finished piece measures about 63" x 70" 
We began with her list of two dozen meaningful landmarks. Over the months, I worked my way down ...

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  • cityscape quilts
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