Batiks and markers were used in this little quilt, and I put a UFO in the sky 🙂

The little quilt above was entitled “The Other UFO”. Most quilters are all too familiar with the UnFinished Object type UFO!

And sure enough, I recently found this box in one of my storage areas:

I dated it, back in November of 2021,  thinking that if I hadn’t finished the UFOs in it within a year I probably should throw them out.

WELL! Some of these are too good to throw out, but maybe this is the year to get them done! Look what I found, and for goodness sake pass on any ideas about what I should do with each of these.

#1 I bought this panel years ago at MaryJo’s fabric shop in Gastonia, NC. MaryJo’s is, sadly, long gone, but here’s this panel.

#2 This is a leaf pounding I did years ago and eventually set aside unfinished because I didn’t like the way my echo quilting turned out.

#3 I believe I bought this fabric at an antique shop, thinking it was a feed sack. Looking at it now, it is 50″ long after washing and has selvedges on two edges. I think it probably is a feed sack because there are a few holes where twine stitching could have been removed. However, it’s too loose-woven to be used in a quilt.

#4 Orphan block set from a long-forgotten improv block spree

#5 Small mola (reverse applique) blocks bought at a craft sale. The Craft Guild of the Southern Highlands includes Hmong artisans who do beautiful work, so of course I had to buy a few blocks.

OK! I have 5 potential projects and 4 months left in the year. Maybe I can get these finished in 2024?

Or I could just go back to trying to balance pins on point on my magnetic pin holder…

But of course that wouldn’t get the UFOs done. Any suggestions for what to do with these would be appreciated! And I’ll let you know what I do, including any I discard.

Even before we went to the wonderful car museum on our trip to Indiana, we went to a number of great quilt shops! Here are a few pictures so you can share the fun. Most of these shops were in the Shipshewana Indiana area.

At one point some of us were sitting in rocking chairs waiting for the other(s) who were still shopping, and a young person came by and said, “So this is what old people do!” Our party’s response is not recorded.

All the shops had pretty quilts on display, and we got a number of good ideas (as well as some fabric). I’m sorry to say I no longer recall which quilts were in which shops, but here’s a sample of what we saw.

Shipshewana is an Amish area, but this was one of the few traditional Amish-type quilts we saw

This Amish-inspired modern quilt was my favorite of the trip

This is one of these things I admire greatly but don’t want to make!

I could get only part of this quilt because of where it was hung, but I loved it!

I thought this was a better-than-usual row quilt design

One gift shop had a display of handmade potholders

There were many more quilts, but most were more ordinary than the above. Many were hand quilted (yikes!) and all were beautifully made.

Shipshewana was a fun place to visit. There’s a huge flea market, too, but we didn’t get to see much of it because a dangerous looking storm rolled in just as we were starting. No problem, because all the quilt shops were indoors 😀

This first quilt was made to display the beautiful fabrics from a line called Ancient Beauty, by Robert Kaufman. A friend and I found fat quarter bundles of this in a shop we visited while travelling, and the fabric was just too beautiful to leave there.

Here’s the swirl picture:

Quilt Stats:

Name: Ancient Beauty

Pattern: tic-tac wall quilt from the book Cozy Modern Quilts by Kim Schaefer

Finished size: 51″ x 61″

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

The second quilt is the “Indonesian ethnic” one made after I watched a lecture on ethnic fabrics.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Indonesian Ethnic

Pattern source: Block design by Carole Lyles Shaw for some blocks; Gwen Marston style stars for some blocks; overall design is mine

Finished size: 60″ x 68″

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (here), I found an interesting-looking lecture on the use of African fabrics in quilts. Offered through Creative Spark, it is called African Fabrics for Contemporary Quilts, Crafts, and More.

My friend Laura agreed to sign up for the lecture too and we scheduled a time to view it together (from different states). The lecture was specific to African fabrics, and we both had some of those in addition to some other interesting fabrics we hoped to use.

We both enjoyed the lecture. Laura was happy to learn the meaning of some of the designs in her African fabrics, and I was happy to hear Carole Lyles Shaw‘s take on “cultural appropriation”. The question presented was whether it’s acceptable for individuals who are not of African descent to make things with African cloth. Carole’s response was that cultural mixing goes on all the time, so it’s perfectly acceptable for anyone to use the fabric. However, the designs should not be used without attribution, which of course is a basic principle across creative endeavors.

The other presenter for the lecture was Lisa Shepard Stewart. She’s obviously in favor of everyone being able to use African fabrics, because she has an online shop to sell them!

There were two bonus patterns at the end of the lecture, one for a notebook cover and one for a small quilt.

When I went back to my stash, I decided I didn’t have enough different African fabrics to make the small quilt. HOWEVER, a friend gave me this wild fabric from Lunn Batiks several years ago and it seemed to have enough variety all in one piece. And batiks are an ethnic fabric with a long history of use in quilting, so here we go!

I made some Gwen Marston-type stars, and some of the blocks from the bonus pattern (designed by Carole Lyles Shaw), and combined them into this:

The top is finished, but you’ll probably be seeing it again when it’s quilted and bound.

As for using fabrics from different cultures, I’m with Carole: we’ve been a cultural melting pot for years. Nobody questions whether I can use cottons from India since I’m not of East Indian descent, or whether to use Japanese yukata fabric in quilts. And we’ve been using Indonesian batiks for years. Cultural appropriation is a legitimate concern, but that’s not what this is. As a friend once said, “Worry about something else.”