Stack & Whack Obsession

I had commented to Samantha about loving Stack & Whack Quilts and she mentioned that she'd like to see some of the ones I made so . . here are a few. If you don't like Stack & Whack quilts, you'll think I'm nuts for making so many but I love them!

This was the first one I made. The fabric is kind of patriotic and has the New York skyline, including the World Trade Towers. I had the fabric for a while but made the quilt after 9/11 and this is one of my favorites. I never look at this quilt that I don't remember where I was, and what I was doing on 9/11. The hardest part of making this quilt was deciding on a background and accent fabric. This is the version my quilting classes call the "easy" stack & whack.

The second one was made using a fabric with pretty ladies and cars from the 50's (or sometime thereabouts. This is the fabric I used. I made one of these quilts for my dad and one for my brother-in-law. Both are in their 70's and I figured they'd get a kick out of the girls and cars. I used the same fabric for the backing on both. This is my favorite setting with the nine patches in the sashing.

Next one was made using fabric with Chinese food. There's a story behind this one. Vince loves Chinese food. I can tolerate it every now and then but for the longest time, every time we'd go out to eat, which is rare, it was Chinese. It got to be so bad that we almost had a serious argument about it and we never really argue. I was sick of Chinese food and besides, the Chinese restaurant here is on the poor to awful scale as far as restaurants go. So, I made Vince this quilt as a joke. I need to get a better picture of it . . this one is kinda blurry and the blue isn't nearly as bright as it looks in this picture. And, Vince now eats Chinese food when he's out of town and we don't go to the Chinese restaurant here.

Starting to think I might have had too much fun with these quilts? :) This one was fun to make but I do think it's kinda ugly. It really is sometimes surprising to see how some of the fabric is going to turn out when stacked and whacked. I gave it to one of Chad's teachers last year as a Christmas gift. It was a man teacher and he just loved it (or so he said).

This one was also a teacher gift last year at Christmas. One of Chad's teachers loves purple and green. The green wasn't quite as green as it appears in this picture. I also like purple and green so this one was hard for me to give away. I had originally wanted to use a lime green swirly fabric for the background but the star points just blended into the background and were lost so I had to switch to this darker green. Last but surely not least is my black stack & whack. This quilt won Best of Category at the AQS Expo in Nashville in 2004. It was so weird because I had two quilts in the show. My other quilt had won several ribbons at other shows and I really hoped it would win something in Nashville. My friend, Betty, went to the show with me and we were walking around looking at vendor booths. I told her I was going to look at the quilts so she stayed behind in the vendor booths. I got to my green quilt first and . . no ribbon or anything. I didn't even think the stack & whack might have a ribbon so I casually made my way through the remaining quilts. The quilt was entered in the "AQS 20th Anniversary" category and it had to be quilts made from an AQS book. When I got to that section, they had the quilts hanging with the first place quilt, then my quilt with a purple ribbon, then the second place quilt, then the third place quilt. I stood there for a minute trying to figure out what the purple ribbon meant. Wasn't sure. So, I went and found Betty and asked her. She said . . I think it means you WON. Hmmm, still couldn't figure it out so I bought a show guide thinking it might tell me. I called Vince and I was whispering "My black quilt might have won!" He called me back about five times before I ever figured it out. Yep, it won and I was so excited! There are a couple more stack & whack quilts in my UFO pile and a couple more in my "to be quilted" pile. Yep, they are so much fun to make! Judy