My Year in Quilts 2023

It is a shame that last time I posted on here it was exactly one year ago when I wrote about My year in Quilts 2022. I already made my New Year’s resolution: in 2024 I am going to write a blog post at least once a month!

As always, my year was adventurous and busy. It started slowly though and in January I only made four more bookplate quilts :

In February I received an email from my friend Nancy. Nancy is a senior pastor at Oasis of Love church in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Nancy asked me for help with four large banners for the renovated church. The banners were bautifuly made by my other friend, Sue, who is a missionary in Ghana. She made the banners from beutiful Ghanaian fabrics and they needed to be quilted. That was an amazing international project: the banners were made in Ghana, brought to the USA, mailed to me in Lithuania and, after I quilted them, I mailed them back to the USA. I wasn’t able to take good photos of the banners because they were too large for my space. But here are some photos taken after quilting:

Banners on the church’s wall:

I was also asked to make a large quilt of the crown or the cross. I just couldn’t decide on what to make, so I made both. They are rather large too, 64×52 inches each what makes 124×104 inches together:

They were hanged on the stage of the chruch:

The topic of the year 2024 for quilt challenge group Fifteen by Fifteen was “nature”. We had to choose our own subject and make three series of two quilts. I chose to compare my favorite trees- aspen in America and white birch in Lithuania. In the process I learned they didn’t belong to the same family of trees what I originaly thought. I made three series of bark, wood grain and leaf skeleton:

Aspen tree quilt photos are on top, and white birch tree- below.

I made quite a few quilts answering calls for entries. Some of them never made into exhibitions but I wasn’t upset. Two of those quilts I made using linen fabrics and Baltic symbols. My Baltic Tribe was a large quilt for The European Patchwork Meeting contest Tribes:

The other linen quilt was a small panel for SAQA call Heritage:

I love reviving old Lithuanian textiles making them into quilts. I call them “Voices from the Past”. This year I took care of two of them for my friend Salomeja. They were two large pieces embroidered by her mother about 60 years ago. Quilting by hand added a new dimension and new life:

Finally towards the end of the year I started making new style quilts that I’ve been thinking of making for a while. I made 6 of them total but can not show all ofthe here. I am waiting for a jury decision to see if any of those quilts will get into Abstract Elements exhibition. Here are three that I can show. First is named Color Play: Blue and Yellow:

Last but not least was Double Rainbow:

The year is over but my work will continue. I have a few more quilts in progress and I have many ideas for new quilts. I hope 2024 to be a very productive year. Wish me luck!