The Broken Wing: The Crane Quilt

A miniature silk quilt completed in 2018, for Andy Brunhammer & Jim Smith’s Hope Project.*

Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
Pieced origami quilt block

The beautiful cream colored silks were a gift from Tina Katwal of The Square Inch, Chennai!

Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
10 cranes were pieced in pure fine silk on a textured raw silk background; the smallest 1” and largest 3” big
Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
The hand quilted rows are 1/8” to 1/10” apart.
The cranes are lightly trapuntoed and outlined in silver thread.
Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
Weeds made with unraveled silver thread embroidered in to add interest to the background.
Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
The smallest, leading crane has a broken wing…giving the quilt its title.
Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt
The finished cranes mini quilt ‘The Broken Wing’

Ready to hang…

*The Story of the Hope Project:

I quote Jim:

A couple of years ago a Facebook connection was making Cranes quilt blocks, and I learned that he was making 1,000 Crane Blocks. I asked him about his idea and why did he feel inclined to make the 1,000 Cranes. 
I had read about the young  Japanese Hiroshima victim, Sadako Sasaki  and her challenge to herself about attempting to fold 1,000 Origami Cranes. The tale spins in different directions whether she survived her goal before she passed away from complications attributed to the nuclear explosion and sickness

I then asked Andy if he was willing to, between quilt projects, to possibly create Crane paper-pieced blocks from leftover scraps. I told him that I had an idea of designing and creating, once we reached 1,000 Cranes, a possible series of Cranes Quilt panels that we could donate to a children’s hospital. 

Andy agreed. I created a pattern. At the time we were asked by a friend of ours, Melissa Helms, to design a quilt for the 25th Anniversary for a children’s cancer society...

And so the Hope Project was born, which I joined in.

The Hope Project was premiered at the UUC Octagon Art Center in Clearwater, Florida in January this year. Five of the 40 odd quilts made by Jim and Andy were also recently shown at Houston 2019. They eventually hope to donate their collection to a Pediatric Cancer facility/ organization/ hospital…

Who’s The Prettiest of Them All?

I bought this panel of the Frozen princesses To make a quilt ( or wall hanging) for my grand-niece who is a great fan of the two!

The Frozen Princesses Anna and Elsa are my grand-niece K’s favourites!

She was due to visit us and I thought of a quick gift for her. But how boring would this be!

So I came up with this idea.

K goes to the centre of the panel, while the other two look at her admiringly.

I printed her face on a printer-ready fabric sheet after calculating the size I would need to make it.

Everything got more complicated than necessary because I planned to put K on the right side. I cut out the pink princess ( is that Elsa or Anna?) before I realised that that would make my darling Princess K an ‘outsider’ because the other two had interlocked arms.

So I disengaged their arms and locked them with Princess K’s who moved to the centre. Ah, that’s the way I like it. The Disney Princesses look at her admiringly ( and a bit enviously?). The Resident Consultant did not think much of my original idea of a silver dress for his Princess. So I retained the silver yoke and made her blue dress from…a rayon grocery bag! ( Jaipur is a big exporter of women’s clothing. With single use plastic being banned in India, our shopkeepers are using bags made from export-surplus fabric and export-reject dresses).

The quilting was kept to a minimum. ( Also because I had just over a couple of hours for the quilting and finishing). I folded the lighter pink border to the back of the quilted piece, leaving the darker plum inner border to frame the quilt. No binding. The top border became the sleeve.

Not that my Princess minded the short-cuts taken to finish her portrait! She couldn’t believe what she saw.

“How? wow! how? wow…”, she exclaimed!

And here is the Princess herself, posing with her quilted wall-hanging.

Princess K loves her quilt!

Now that done, I have to decide what comes up next!

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