Wet Lands

Wet Lands

Machine pieced and hand quilted

measures 16" by 20"
Stared Oct. 2012
Finished Jan. 2013
This piece has been  at The Corner, Pacific City, OR
The Creator's Gallery, Jacksonville, Oregon
Rogue Valley Art Gallery, Medford, Oregon. 

Art Presence Art Gallery, Jacksonville, OR

It is currently in my studio collection.

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This quilt, size 16" by 20" was started in Nov. 2012 and was the last quilt I stared in 2012. 

This is what it looked like at the beginning of December, 2012.  I had pieced the background  and prepared the freezer paper for the applique portion.  The quilt started out as another Red Bag of mystery fabric which I received at my Oct. "Red Mystery Bag" quilting group.  The bag was full of homespun type fabrics of stripes, tweeds, plaids, and solids.  There were very slight contrast features of the fabrics.

  Oh Boy!

  But, homespun says to me folk art, log cabins and utility hand quilting.  I knew when I left my group what I was going to do and had picked a pattern form the book Making Quilts...the promise of joy, by Kathy Doughty, Quilt Mania.  I chose a folk art applique block from that book to sew to a machine-pieced background.

The main problem was to get subtle value changes and interesting texture out of the homespun I had to work with.  I added a few prints from my own stash and stitched together 4 log-cabin blocks set in a barn-raising variation centering the lightest values.  It worked.  My son loved the resulting pieced background and suggested I don't do anything more except to immediately make it into a pillow for him.

But...

I chose some very bright prints for the appliqued pieces and prepared them to be stitched to the background.  I showed my son the fabrics I had selected and he hated it, suggesting I tone down the colors and not use the "blue balloons" (as he called them) or the bright red and that the bird print was "way too dark".  His friend Mike agreed.  What do they know.  They are musicians not quilters.

So...

I ignored their advice and pursued my plan. 

 All this was done during the week we stayed at our cottage of the Oregon Coast.  Matt spent the week with us and his friend Mike joined us for a few days.  Our visit started off with a trip to McMinnville to attend a memorial service for Alice Blanchard, my husband's Aunt.  She was age 98 when she passed in her sleep.  She had 22 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren, and several great greats.  It was a lovely service and we did enjoy visiting with friends and relatives at the potluck at the church after the service.  There was four dishes of "funeral potatoes". 

The Pete Wirfs Family, about 1966. Dayton, Oregon.  Pete and Mary Wirfs are seated and surrounded by children, Ray, Cliff, Alice, and Walt.  It was Pete and Mary's Golden Wedding Anniversary celebration.

  We also traveled to Salem twice, once to do some Christmas shopping, and once to visit my brother and wife, Dale and Paddy Price. Dale was fresh from a visit to see his brand new granddaughter, Juniper-or "Juni" and had pictures to share.

Brother Dale and wife Paddy, Salem, Oregon Dec. 2012.

At the end of the week, on our way back to Olympia Matt, Walt, and I stopped at Mike's music store in downtown Salem to see how his first year of business was going.

Matt, Char, and Mike, Salem, OR Dec. 2012

During Dec. I finished the quilt during a flurry of activities...a huge combined garage sale with my daughter, Carolyn, setting up Snow Village with my granddaughter and friends Parker and Elizabeth.  My 86-year-old Father-in-law joined us for Christmas traveling by Am Track to and from Salem.  Finally during the week following Christmas was the clean-up from what was left of the garage sale and  putting away the Christmas decorations.

Christmas Day, 2012 Olympia, WA.  Walt Sr., Matt, Derek Carolyn, Rosalee.  At the left end is Bill Trip and his daughter, Katti.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we also celebrated my husband Walt's birthday.

Dinner at the Oyster House on Celebrating Walt's birthday.  Carolyn is holding son, Derek, Matt in the middle, and Walt, age 65, is holding granddaughter, Rosalee.

It was relaxing to work on this quilt during all that "stuff" going on.  I chose to hand quilt the piece using a multi-colored embroidery thread, two strands, and an elbow quilting pattern.  I was going to finish it in a black binding, but resisted my habit of using dark fabric to finish a quilt.  Instead I chose one of the lighter prints used in the piecing.  I really was happy I did that.  I like the way the eye does not stop abruptly at the edges, but keeps the focus on the light colors and birds at the center.  Originally I named it "Black Birds", but changed the name "Wet Land". The piece reminds me of the estuaries along Highway 101 as it winds down the Oregon Coast.  Large birds and cat tail reeds can be seen along the highway.

I shared my completed quilt with my Red Bag Mystery group at the Jan. meeting.  Everyone had made some great projects.  Like me, just about every one had finished their items at the last minute as they were all caught up in their own individual Dec. activities.

And we got our next "Red Mystery Bag" of fabrics for our next challenge project to be finished mid Feb. 2013.  Fat quarters of red and white prints and solids from the French General fabric collection.

Not sure what to do with them, but I have two full weeks at the coast again the last part of Jan. 2013.  Hopefully I will have it figured out by then.

So Happy New Year to those viewing this.  I have been blogging for one year now. My goal was to establish a quilting journal that featured my projects punctuated by what was happening in my world as these quilts were created.  My secondary goal for 2012 was to finish the projects I started.

2012 was a good year.

It brought us a new family member who didn't even know she would be joining our family when I started blogging last winter.

Hope you had a great year too.

Juniper "Juni"  "June Bug", age 6 weeks. Jan. 22, 2013

Wet Lands

Blood Moon

"Blood Moon"

 Size 16" by 20"

by Char Wirfs

Finished Sept. 2012

Displayed at Short Term Gallery, Baker City, OR

Currently displayed in my daughter's home

Last Feb. I was handed a red bag of mystery fabric as part of a quilting group challenge and was asked to use as much of the fabric as possible to create a project.  There was a lot of black and white prints and a square of bright orange and a square of turquoise.  I had just read about bargello strips and decided to use that pattern as my inspiration, moving the turquoise solid down each time.  I had just started when I decided to add some drama by putting more solid dark strips between.  Notice I started the strips straight up and down and then switched to slanting them.  I finished with a straight edge to pull the composition back to center.

I liked the results and decided to add a moon to the composition.  I used white embroidery floss to quilt.  I had not intended to give the project as Asian influence, but Bingo...it went there.

Sometimes I look at the finished quilt and see a moon reflected in water and sometimes I see a harvest moon rising against a darkening Nov. night.

My son fell in love with the finished wall hanging and I traded him the little quilt for a really nice red pair of art-glass earrings.  Win! Win!

Me with new earrings.  I love red.

So I had quite a few scraps left over and thought about making a sampler.  The entire alphabet is squeezed into this design.  It is not finished yet, but it will be.  These two projects are quite different, but came from the same little red bag of mystery fabrics.  Next week I get a new bag.  wonder what will come from that....?.....

"Sampler" 

Size: 18" by 24" 

unfinished top that I have decided to finish and it will be on display at

Art Presence Art Center Galleria in Spring of 2022.

by Char Wirfs

Raffle Quilt, "Seeing Red", 2012
Old Aurora Colony Quilters

Aurora Colony Museum, Aurora, OR

Char is pictured with the 2012 Old Aurora Colony Historical Museum Quilt Show raffle quilt.

The drawing for this fabulous hand-quilted treasure was held at the end of the quilt show, Oct. 2012.   Each year a new block contest is held and twenty winning blocks are machine set and then hand quilted by a group of ladies who work Tuesday mornings on a quilting frame at the Old Aurora Colony Historical Museum,  Aurora, Oregon. 
www.AuroraColony.org 

I have been submitting blocks for the last 13 years, but my block did not get into this one.

So what happens to the non-winning blocks?    

They are made into more quilting projects by the same group of quilters and sold as fund raisers, so every block entered  is actually a "winner".    All proceeds from the quilts and related projects made at the museum quilters go to the operation costs of the Aurora Colony Museum and the Aurora Colony Pioneer Farm at Hubbard, OR.  The farm is one of the original colony homesteads and gives educational tours to hundreds of school kids every year.

Here is a picture of one of the three quilts the group finished in 2012.  I took this picture at the "Seeing Red" quilt show in Oct., 2012.  The museum quilting group was quilting it in the frame as part of the show.  My block entry, "Daisy Chain",  is stitched up in this quilt and is shown at the front. 

I called the Aurora Colony Museum a few days ago to check on the progress of this third quilt and the group has finished quilting it and  is having the binding applied now.  Soon it will be for sale.  They have already sold the second quilt completed in 2012.

"Colony Life" 12"-pieced block entry for 2013 raffle quilt

And my block I submitted for the 2013 raffle quilt did win and will soon be set into a quilt with the 19 other winners and be hand quilted at the museum.  I named this block "Colony Life".  I usually applique my entry blocks so I can be sure they meet the 12" by 12" entry guidelines, but I took a chance this year and pieced one.  The block is Hole in the Barn Door and that is the view one would see if they were standing inside one of the outbuildings and looking out.

As soon as I find the picture I took of the other 19 winning blocks I will post it below.

All the blocks will be set with fall colors.
Found 'em!

Here are pictures of the quilts I entered in the show:

"Caged Star" or "Western Star",  made by an unknown quilter about 1935

"Come Away",  small art quilt by Char Wirfs, 2012

"Barn Raising",  log cabin variation, pieced by Mary Cadwallader, 2011
and machine quilted by Tracy Lovisone, Baker City, Oregon, 2012

 "Thicket"  Art quilt made by Char Wirfs, 2012

"Double Irish Chain"  made by an unknown quilter about 1875-1900

Purchased at the Palmer Wirfs Show, Expo, Portland, OR, 2012

The dealer told me he bought it in PA on one of his buying trips.

Somewhere I have a picture of Janus Child's red work quilt.  I'll post it when I locate it.

After the show we joined friends, Candice and Steve, at The Ram Pub in Wilsonville, OR