My Quilts | Diane Deaver

I lived in the Philippines for three years. While there I learned how to quilt from an American lady who taught a class there. I learned applique, piecework, borders, binding, patchwork and how to quilt it all together.

I’m a quilter because I love working with my hands and creating beautiful things. I love colors and I love the texture of fabrics and the feeling of excitement that I have designing the quilt top, trying different fabrics and moving them around until I create a pleasing design. This step is intense and takes deep concentration and I’m often filled with tension and fatigue, but when the design is complete, it is one of the greatest highs in life. I hand quilt most of my quilts because to me it’s part of the artwork. I design many of my quilts, and I also use designs from the many classes I have attended.

The thrill of working with various embellishments such as lace and beads is my greatest pleasure in quilting. It adds such dimension and interest and beauty. Here are some of my quilts. I have a collection of over 100 quilts, and will be posting additional ones soon.

I hope you enjoy my collection.

Stargazer (2008)

I made the appliqued flowers and stuffed some of the flowers and petals to make them more 3 dimensional. I did some embroidery on them and also added beads. This is the first irregular shaped quilt I made. I worked on it at 3am in the morning, for a show starting several hours later. I think I would have had more fun working on it any other time than the middle of the night. Reminds me of Shanna because she carried stargazer flowers in her bridal bouquet.

Bargello II

I made this for our dining room in Aptos. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. It has some Japanese kimono fabric and also some shiny mylar fabric.

Yukata Circles

This is a Christine Barnes Design. I used circles of Japanese kimono fabric.

Flowers in the Breeze

This is the first asymmetrical quilt I made. I’m proud of myself that I had done an asymmetrical quilt. It hung over our TV for many years. I started with the piece of Kimono fabric that I used in the middle. The piece only had two flowers. Following good design principles, I wanted to have an uneven number of flowers so I appliqued a third flower on the quilt. I padded and quilted around the flowers to make them more three dimensional.

Streak of Lightning

I made this quilt from some hand dyed pink fabrics that Doug gave me for Christmas one year. The fabrics in the center were all pinks ranging from light to dark. I stepped out of my comfort zone to introduce orange, a color I didn’t use often. I used some orange and pink fabric on the border.

Yukata Orchids 1996

I decided to use all of the designs in the fabric, including the gold color rather than cutting it out. It's not one of my favorite colors. I made an inner border with 1/2 inch square triangles. I decided that I wanted to make it bigger and added a border onto it.

Convergence Quilt with Flowers

This is a Ricky Tim’s quilt design. I made the part in the middle of the quilt with his pattern. When it was done, I was not impressed so I added Japanese kimono fabric from my stash. I liked it much better with the addition of the applique flowers. I also added embroidery on them. Most of the fabric is hand-dyed. This is also one of my favorite quilts.

Chrysanthemum (2004)

This quilt won the Viewer’s Choice Award in my Quilt Guild’s yearly quilt show.The center piece is Japanese Kimono fabric.I decided to keep the gold color because it is a complimentary color to purple.It has a twisted ribbon border.I painted the wall where this quilt is hanging, to compliment the colors in the quilt.This is one of my favorite quilts.

Trashing of the Planet

I made this quilt for the Marin Quilt and Needlework show, it received an honorable mention. I wanted to have my favorite colors of pink and blue so I bought meat on Styrofoam in those colors. It was fun gathering some trash for the stuffing of the quilt, I included cigarette butts in it. Sherry used yarn glued onto the quilt in the shape of the continents. Later I duplicated this quilt for a show in Watsonville on recycling held by my quilt guild and it received good reviews.

I didn’t know what to do with it after the show because I couldn’t fold it. So, we hung it in the garage in Moraga and when the door opened the light would shine on it as if it was an art gallery.

Water Lilies

We took the girls to Europe one summer and went to Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France. I loved our trip with the girls. I wanted to make a quilt in remembrance of our trip and started the quilt. It took me a long time to figure out how to make a 3-D water lily. But once I figured out the 1st one, the 2nd and 3rd flowers came easily. This is one of my 1st 3-D quilts. I quilted it with a pattern that looks like moving water. This is one of my favorite quilts.

Kasuri Orchids

I made this in a class with Roberta Horton.

This is Sashico quilting on the blue circle. Sashico is a simple running stitch using a special thread made for Sashico quilting. Kasuri fabric looks the same on both sides with the image reversed like a mirror image.

Currents

This quilt titled “Currents” was designed by Barbara Shapel. I used similar colors and pattern fabrics as her design because I liked the look of the ocean currents.Her pattern included curved piecing and since I don’t do that well, I appliqued the pieces instead.

Under the Sea

My small quilt group was having a show at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. I made this for a quilt show with my small group. The theme was to portray plants and I added the rocket to represent the California sea rocket plant. After the show I decided to take the rocket off to make it an ocean scene only. I like it better without the rocket. Kimberly has this quilt in her room without a rocket. I enjoyed making the sea horse and sand dollar, I love the underwater scene. I stayed up late trying to finish my quilt several nights before visiting Shanna and her family in Alaska. When I arrived, I was very tired. Sean and Matt had colds when I arrived and Kimberly was due any day. Shanna was finishing up some work before the birth and I was going to take care of Sean during the delivery. While in Alaska my mouth started drooping and my eye felt strange, I wondered if I was having a stroke. So, Matt took me to the hospital and the nurse thought I might have Bell’s Palsy so they did an MRI and confirmed her suspicion. I knew I had only a little bit more to finish on the quilt so on the way to the hospital I grabbed my quilt bag. After a few hours at the hospital, we headed home. On the way home, I asked Matt to stop by the post office prior to the pharmacy in order to mail the quilt to Doug. Doug delivered the quilt to the show on time.

Twisted Ribbons

This quilt is made from hand-dyed fabrics which Doug gifted me from my Christmas wish list. When I saw some beautiful hand-dyed fabrics for sale at a quilt show, I really loved them. We were remodeling, so I held off purchasing some of the fabric at that time. Later, Doug asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I requested some of the beautiful hand-dyed fabrics in pinks and blues. I provided Doug the business card from the vendor.I found fabrics to go in between and on the border of all the strips I had made.
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Amish Triangles

I love how the hand quilting shades show up in the plain triangles. The feather stitches in the light-colored triangles shows up well. The quilt has been hanging on the wall in Doug’s office for many years, and it goes well with the Tropical Stars quilt on the bed in his office.

Welcome 2000

Made with Japanese kimono fabric in the center. I continued fireworks onto the outer edges. I was excited to find multiple fabrics with patterns of streamers and fireworks. Some people thought I had appliqued each firework spark.

I was inspired that we were changing to a new millennium and I wanted to welcome it with a special quilt I made for the occasion.

Iris in the Breeze

This quilt was published in Quilters Newsletter Magazine, November 1997 issue, page 65. I started this in a quilt class with Rosemary Eichorn. I enjoy using Japanese kimono fabric because it is so beautiful. I enjoy learning new techniques. In this quilt I used Seminole and Afghani piecework.

Pegeen's Horse Quilt

I made this quilt for her graduation from Davis Veterinary school for large animal practice. So, I thought the cow pattern on the border was appropriate. The mane and tail are made from yarn so they are moveable. She loves horses, so that's why I did a horse quilt.

Barn Raising

This quilt was made from a traditional pattern.

Crown of Thorns

This is a traditional pattern. I made this quilt for my nephew Bill when he graduated from high school. I had him look through my books and choose the pattern and colors that he wanted.

Hibiscus Quilt

I started this quilt with a piece of Japanese kimono fabric and then I brought in all the colors around it from the colors of the hibiscus blossoms. I was able to find a variegated thread that included all the colors in the flowers so I quilted the border with that.

Dove Quilt

This quilt was in the Marin Needlework and Quilt show. It has real feathers and rubber chicken feet added. Doug joked that it didn’t win an award because of the rubber chicken feet. He thought it would have been more successful with fabric feet instead. In the same quilt show, my trash quilt, which I spent much less time on, won an honorable mention award.

Crazy Quilt II

I love crazy quilts; they are my favorite kind of quilt. I love adding the embellishments. There are so many varieties of choices to add such as: ribbon, lace, charms, etc. I love to look at them in shows because I can always find something new and interesting. aph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Shanna, one of my daughters gave me a beautiful stained glass with dry flowers in the middle. After a while, the flowers got faded. One time she came to visit and she said the flowers needed to get thrown away. I wanted to keep the beautiful frame. So, I made a small heart quilt to replace the dry flowers. It’s the smallest quilt I’ve ever made and I just love it. It has special meaning because Shanna gave it to me. One day when I was going to Mexico, I bought a butterfly pin in the duty-free shop and added it to the quilt. It has been in our dining room for many years.

Rainbow Sherbet

This is one of the few quilts that I machine quilted. I bought a lot of the hand dyed fabrics at a quilt show and added a lot of black to it in between the stripes. I love the vibrant colors in it. When I would show it at presentations, I would use it as a break in between the usual pink and blue colored quilts.

Music Box Quilt

I belonged to a group a few years ago that exchanged Christmas presents. People could either choose to open a wrapped present from under the tree or steal a gift that someone has already opened. When my turn came, I decided to steal the music box because I could imagine it with a small quilt on the top. This is the smallest quilt I’ve made.

Roman Stripes

This is a traditional quilt that I made several years ago.I like the color of the pinks in the stripes.