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101 Quilt Project

Creating a series of 100 related art works goes back at least to 1830s Japan where blockprint artists competed to create 100 views of local sights, such as Hokusai's 100 Views of Mt. Fuji. (link) In 1967, probably in homage to those Japanese artists, Bronslaw Bak created blockprints of 100 Views of Chicago.(link) More recently, cartoonist Lynda Barry created a delightful collection, One! Hundred! Demons! (link) In 2014, I heard Sonia Philip tell how and why she sewed 100 dresses, having never sewn before: 100actsofsewing.com. Her talk gave me an itch to create 100 art works...

The San Francisco Quilt Guild wanted small quilts for premature babies at Kaiser Hospital, so I quickly pieced up a few 24” x 24” quilt tops from leftover blocks. What fun! After checking that other guild members would topstitch and bind them, I challenged myself to make 100 small tops.

By quilt # 9, I knew this was my “100 project”. At #11 I took the leftover scraps from the first ten and started to improvise- which led to the next batch of ten quilt tops. tops.

This gave me a framework to change my “rules” every ten quilts:

48 quilts by Joy-Lily.
  • 1-10 orphan blocks
  • 11-20 improv using scraps
  • 21-40 using ombre fabrics, (so much fun I made 20!)
  • 41-50 designs from my book Carefree Quilts
  • 51-60 squares & color
  • 61-70 all-in-one applique/quilting, using hand-dyed raw-edged silk
  • 71-81 leftover strips, (11 because I was on a roll)
  • 82-86 open space designs (no fun, so I changed the rule)
  • 87-91 hand applique, (easy to do while traveling)
  • 92-101 completing unfinished projects from my UFO drawer.
I began this adventure in April 2015 and finished in May 2016. I learned a lot about myself, about quilt piecing and designing, in those 400 days! And I enjoyed the process a lot. Now I'm inclined to make a series instead of just a single piece, to explore the possibilities of an idea or technique.

For quilt guilds I offer a talk called 101 Quilts Later – Why I Did It & What I Learned.

About half the quilt tops (not shown here) will be donated to Kaiser Hospital, after completion by guild volunteers. The hospital offers a selection of several quilts to each pair of premie parents, suggesting that they take it home, sleep with it a few nights and then return it to the hospital nursery. Their scent on the quilt gives their baby a chance to bond with its parents before it gets home.

I'm topstitching (learning freemotion stitching!) and finishing the rest of the quilts. As they are completed they will be posted here. Please email me for purchase. 101project@joy-lily.com

'Snow Flowers', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Snow Flowers (#48)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       28" x 28"       Enlarge 		'Gone Dotty', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Gone Dotty (#57)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Blue Squares', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Blue Squares (#51)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Sunflowers13', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Sunflowers (#13)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$140       19" x 22"       Enlarge
'PurpleHeart89', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Purple Heart (#89)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Turnersmorningstar56', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Turners Morning Star (#56)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'X', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Red & Green Fans (#92)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched hand dyed cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		HawaiianFiesta', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Hawaiian Fiesta (#??)
Wall quilt, hand-stitched, appliquéd cottons.
$225       24" x 26"       Enlarge
'67-WinterTrees', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Winter Trees (#67)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched silk noil.
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Blue Net70', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Blue Net (#70)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched hand dyed Silk noil.
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'WindyLeaves64', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Windy Leaves
Wall quilt, machine-stitched hand dyed silk noil.
$225       24" x 29"       Enlarge 		'66-Six By Six', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Six By Six (#66)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched hand dyed silk noil.
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge
'Caryatids #100', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Caryatids (#100)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Little Boxes on the Hillside', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Little Boxes on the Hillside (#59)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       27" x 27"       Enlarge 		'Migration Routes', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Migration Routes (#39)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       21" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Flutter Babies', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Flutter Babies (#19)
Wall quilt, machine-stitched cotton.
$175       22" x 24"       Enlarge
'Spot in the Redwoods', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Spot in the Redwoods (#63)
Wall quilt, hand-dyed silk.
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'On Fire', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
On Fire (#65)
Wall quilt, linen and hand-dyed silk
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Interplay', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Interplay (#68)
Wall quilt, linen and hand-dyed silk
$200       24" x 24"       Enlarge 		'Goodnight Matisse', a wall quilt by Joy-Lily. Click to enlarge.
Goodnight Matisse (#69)
Wall quilt, hand-dyed silk
SOLD       24" x 24"       Enlarge

To document this project, I created a birthday calendar/datebook with images of all 101 quilts; it has spaces each month to write in your birthdays and other important dates to remember. It has no year so it can be used forever. $20 ( + $3.50 US shipping). datebook@joy-lily.com

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