By Anne W. Semmes
There are dozens of colorful and artful quilts of all sizes on display in the spacious, newly renovated Cos Cob Library as seen last Saturday for the opening reception of the 12th biennial exhibit of the Common Threads Quilters. The goals of these quilters are “to designate time for work on individual projects; share ideas, techniques and enthusiasm; and to promote the art and craft of quilt making” in their community!
Beazie Larned, as one of 27 quilters exhibiting, pointed to the range of sizes. “So, there are eight quilts hanging from the rafters,” with some sizeable for bed quilts, some smaller for wall hangings, and one that is “lap size…it’s great for cuddling up on a sofa.” Larned has made a colorful green “O Christmas Tree” with tiny ornaments attached over it. She places it above her kitchen fireplace at Christmas time.
Standing nearby is Robin Edeltson beside her colorful blue-green-black quilt with its title of “Berry Lime Soda.” Newly made this year she tells of her creative process. “I see patterns in books and stuff online…I like how that looks but what if I change the colors to suit me… And this is what I came up with.” She notes, “Every quilter has what they call a stash, a collection of fabrics that you get at the store – you touch, you feel, and something calls to you.”
Edelston meets up with her quilting community “every first Saturday of every month… And that’s a good way to get you back into the group…to bring something to do, and nice people to hang with.” And what are those tools needed for quilting? “The sewing machine is the big basic one. But then you have your rulers and what’s called a rotary cutter. It’s like an exacto blade on wheels, a round knife and you just kind of push it against the ruler to get straight lines. And then it’s a matter of just putting together patterns.”
She points across to an artful “collage” quilt that has a cat shape. The quilter steps forward, introduced as Barbara Hicks. Her quilt is named “Princess Sophie” for her “beloved cat Sophie who lived to be 24 years old.” She had sought out special fabric with flowers to cut out, and crane decorated oriental panels, for those cut out cranes to be flying over Princess Sophie.
“I did buy a pattern for the cat,” she tells. “You cut out motifs, and then you place them all over until you like them. And then you iron them in place.” With that intricate placing all those small flowers, it took Hicks, she says, only a week and a half to create her quilted Sophie. “I got to play with the pieces, and it was fun,” she said with a smile, “and I’m going to make another one!”
Another wonder made by Hicks is hanging over a rafter – it’s a large quilt named “Golfing with Charlie.” Inserted across the quilt are vintage depictions of male golfers bought by Hicks decades ago at an antique show. “It was a decorator panel… And we weren’t married yet… I didn’t want it to look like a men’s golf club item… So, I tried to find fabric that was different…I found it in Tennessee.” Finished a couple of years ago, it now resides, “usually folded up on the couch.”
“All of mine are bright,” introduced quilter Yvonne Clayton. Indeed, she is standing by a quilt with eye-popping colored blocks on a white background, “Building Blocks.” But she points to her other eye-popper, called “Modern Geometrics.” “This was a poster I saw on Pinterest, where, people post pictures by category.” She has recreated that poster on her quilt. “It’s got triangles, it’s got squares, it’s got rectangles, circles, and these are all shapes that you always see in a quilt.”
Clayton reached out for permission to copy it on fabric, then “pieced it together” in less than a week. “And then I had somebody else do the actual quilting design… done by a long arm quilting machine.” She also introduced another startling quilt design, “Fractured Triangles.” But in contrast was a richly patterned “Feathered Star.”
“That’s the name of the pattern’ she says. Yes, a design of deep blue and black and white with a star interlaced with fabrics of small design. “This one took a while – cutting it and laying it out, about 10 days.” What was the hardest part in the making? “Getting the [fabric] points to meet.”
These quilts are a congenial lot, with lots to be proud of. The exhibit, “Quilts of Common Threads 2025,” will be on view through December 13 at the Cos Cob Library.
