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Quitters: Exercising their choices through color, fabric and designFrom / B1attracted to antique quilts. I love the fabrics of the '20s, '30s, '40s. They use such vibrant colors.A nurse at Children's Hospital of Orange County for 30 years until her retirement, Healey said a co-worker and friend invited her about six years ago to a quilting class held at a quilt store in Woodbridge Village Center.I really got hooked, she said.Healey said she especially enjoyed meeting other quilters at classes. I'm overwhelmed with their talent and the directions people take. A lot are very art-oriented. That's a very different direction than the traditional quilt. I tend to the traditional side. It has to have a little whimsy.Healey says she will look at some other type of work or art, such as a stained glass window, and be able to see the possibility of a quilt in it. She loves to visit antique stores and fabric stores and a highlight was a visit to Paducah, Ky., which has one of the biggest quilt shows in the country. It also allowed her to visit her daughter Jennifer and grandson, James, who live only 50 miles away from Paducah in Missouri and are currently visiting her this week.Healey said she makes her quilts from patterns, except for one quilt she made for her grandson, featuring a Peter Rabbit motif.I used some of the fabric reproductions from the '30s and '40s, said Healey. I have three bins of those fabrics. That was fun to do.And what are the colors?Lime green and purple, said Healey with a sheepish grin.Also displaying her work at the show will be Northwood resident Judy Dimmick who took on the professional designation after she started teaching quilting at the old Flying Geese store in Heritage Plaza. She currently teaches at Tall Mouse in the Oak Creek shopping center.Dimmick recalled she got started in quilting when she lived in Los Angeles and met some women through the Decorating Committee of the Embroiders Guild of America. A member, Sandy Fox, a former curator at the Los Angeles County Museum ofArt, taught a quilting class through the group.That was in 1976 and I've been quilting ever since, said Dimmick.She joined a quilting group in San Fernando and when she moved to Orange County in 1984 took a class at Piecemakers. She then took a community education class in the city of Orange called, Manipulative Skills for the Older Adult where LaDonna Christennsen taught the basics of quilting.That was very, very educational and that class introduced me to the Orange County Quilters Guild, said Dimmick.She joined in about 1986 and became an very active member, taking on such posts as newspaper editor, hospitality, second vice president and president.She worked part-time at Flying Geese where she began teaching in 1996. She has since started her own business, Aunt Judy's Quilt Making, Design and Finishing offering to do what you do not like to do such as finishing a quilt that's been started, piecing or binding a quilt or making a quilt that one has seen but doesn't feel she has time to make. She does this while also working part-time as a career coordinator for Tarbell Realtors in Mission Viejo.For those planning to attend its From Heart to Art Quilt Show at Concordia University this weekend, the Orange County Quilters Guild offers the following tipis for those who may wish to buy or bid on a quilt:1. Is the design creative?2. Do the colors enhance the design or pattern, with lights and darks evenly distributed?3. If the quilt is hand-stitched, are the stitches consistently sized and spaced? Are the knots invisible?4. How well are the sections joined? DoDimmick has won awards for her quilts and also learned how to judge quilts through an Orange County Fair class and has since judged at the San Diego County Fair. She is active in a friendship group of quilters called Spoolin' Around.Dimmick is displaying a bed quilt she made for a neighbor’s daughter's birthday featuring a palm tree design in green and brown with a turquoise blue backing called Tropical Nights. It is a nine-patch block with double-sashing and is machine-pieced and machine-quilted by Nana's Capo Beach Quilting.She notes she has an extensive library of quilting magazines, including such basics as Quilters Newsletter, American Patchwork Quilting, Fons Porter's and, of course, McCall's.It's almost become an obsession, said Dimmick of her quilting.So much so that she even loves to read books, including novels, with a quilting theme. Among those are the Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas and the Elm Creek Quilters novel series by Jennifer Chiaverini whose latest book is The Runaway Quilt as well as a personal experience work, Remember Me by Linda Otto Lip-sett who tells of finding a quilt in the attic and researching its owner andpoints and corners meet precisely?5. Are the front and back free of puckers?6. Do curved lines flow smoothly?7. If pieces are appliqued to the surface of the quilt, are the applique stitches invisible?8. Does the quilt hang straight and true?9. Are the corners neat and sharp?10. And the most important question of all: Do I love this quilt?the story behind the quilt.According to Dimmick several who have shown their quilts in the Orange County Quilters Guild Show have gone on to win at the Orange County Fair and even become state winners.But what is best among quilters, she said, is the friendship and camaraderie.Frances McGuinn, also a North-wood resident who is displaying a quilt in the show, agrees.It's fun to play with fabric and put colors together, but it's not only that. It's the people you meet. There's such a diversity, from in their early 20s to their 80s. The common thread is quilting.McGuinn will be displaying a small work called Wildflowers in Red, all hand-embroidered and machine-pieced. It features blocks of different wild flowers plus a butterfly, all in red on white blocks with a red background.A resident of Irvine for 25 years, McGuinn recalled growing up in West Point, Penn., where her mother taught her cross-stitching.I really enjoyed the needlework. That's why I enjoy quilting, said McGuinn.A. vice president with Chubb and Son in Newport Beach, McGuinn said, I travel a lot in business, I can take my quilting with me and sit and embroider on the plane. It's a nice portable project. It's always fun to complete one and move on to the next. But what I enjoy the most are the people I've met and the friendships I've made.Her friendship quilting group, in fact, has a quilt in the silent auction.It's made out of scraps of fabric. We were on a field trip to a fabric store off the 5 Freeway in Los Angeles. Outside was the dumpster and we saw bags of fabric. We went in a said 'Is that trash out there and can we take it.' It was really kind of fun. We brought them home and washed them and pressed them and sewed them together. It came out in a pretty braided pattern in burgundy and blue.It's really quite pretty. We were all amazed.Ups for buying quilts
Newspaper Details
Irvine World News
Irvine, California, US
Thu, Jun 26, 2003
Page 52
Full Page
Clipped by
Connie B.
NA, NA 05 Aug 2024
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