Kathleen Bovée - Water Works
If I Could Quilt with Water
Water is colorless. The beauty of water comes from colors that are beneath it, within it and reflected by it. For this quilt, I chose water colors from sunlit or shaded, moving or still, water at beaches, rivers and lakes. I quilted this piece with closely spaced vertical Iines to suggest falling rain.
39” by 40”
Finished: January 24, 2023
Materials: cotton batik fabric, cotton thread, wool batting
Techniques: machine pieced, long arm and walking foot machine quilted
Kathleen Bovée - A Few of Kathleen's Favorites
Multitasking
This quilt is made from pieced solid color fabrics. It was inspired by two classes taken at Quilters Affair in Sisters, Oregon in July 2019.
I had to set this project aside, still hanging on my design wall, while sick with Covid-19 in March, 2020. Then when I felt well-enough to sit at my sewing machine for an hour or more a day, I sewed masks for my family. It seemed like a long wait to work on this quilt again.
For about 18 months, this quilt design preoccupied by thoughts and invaded my dreams to the point that anything else I was doing became multitasking. So that is the name I chose for the finished quilt.
45” by 45”
February 19, 2021
Machine pieced, quilted by walking foot
Plaid Wallflower
I made some of the “bits and pieces” that evolved into this quilt in a “Making Prints from Solids” class taught by Maria Shell in July, 2017.
Back at home, I sewed a few more bits and pieces then put them all into a box with the self-promise of coming back to figure out what to do with them.
A quilt finally came together on the design wall when I rediscovered the project after moving from Oregon to Washington the next year.
Choosing the name: As a plant nerd, I saw four plaid flower petals (and center) with four striped elongated triangle sepals - and it hangs on a wall.
28” by 28”
March, 2019
Machine pieced, machine quilted by walking foot
Stripe Tease
This quilt was designed for a Clark County Quilters Mod Quilt Squad challenge titled “Fifty Inches in Zero Shades of Gray”. It is made with solid color fabrics.
Always preferring symmetry, I figured that fifty inches could be evenly divided into five ten-inch blocks. My need for multiple design elements led to the black and pink checks outlining two rows of mirror-imaged striped blocks.
50” by 50”
August 21, 2021
Machine pieced, quilted by longarm machine
Sweet Sixteen
After finishing “Multitasking” I wondered what my design might look like made with printed fabrics instead of solid fabrics.
This quilt helped me figure out how to trim my sixteen blocks so that the corners of triangles meet in my next quilts made with this block.
I love the bright colors and the variety of Kaffe Fassett fabrics contrasted with the black and white prints.
56” by 56”
March 3, 2022
Machine pieced, quilted by longarm machine
Put A Bird On It
After completing all 12 blocks for Mod Quilt Squad’s block-of-the-month challenge, I did not like how they looked together. So I took out seams, cut up some of the blocks, made more parts, and re-imagined a few blocks. Then I started arranging my parts of blocks on the design wall, attaching them to each other little by little with background fabric, until I had included a representation for each of the original twelve blocks.
Completed 7-12-22
46" x 46"
Raspberry Lemonade
This original quilt is made from the same (original) block that I used to make “Multitasking”. Instead of solid fabrics I used printed fabrics and then incorporated the curved “scraps” that were cut out of the stripes in the body of the quilt, to add a scalloped border.
The pink/red and yellow colors make me think of lemonade with raspberries floating in it.
Completed 10-9-22
55" x 55"
Serenity
This small wallhanging was created for a Clark County Quilters Mod Quilt Squad challenge titled “One Word in Turquoise”.
The background fabric is a batik, dyed in Oregon, that features scenes from Mt. Hood: the mountain itself, trees, lakes, leaves.
My word is “serenity” written in my own handwriting, with its mirror image, to resemble a Douglas fir tree (the state tree of Oregon) with the two “y” letters suggesting a heart. I love the forests of Oregon for the way they make me feel: serene.
17” by 34”
November, 2019