2022

Mimi’s Forest Friends

44″ x 52″
Designed, pieced, embroidered, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 12/2022
When my granddaughter arrived three years ago, I was told her bedroom would have a ‘woodland forest’ theme in shades of pink. With paint swatches in hand, I set about to find fabrics in the right shades.
I found the fabrics easily enough, and had in mind to use some of Elizabeth Hartman’s Fancy Forest quilt patterns. However, if this quilt would accurately represent the critters in this Mimi’s forest, this quilt needed a buck, so I set about to design my own buck block. I’m delighted to say her daddy approves of her 8-point buck, and I can’t wait to give it to her this Christmas!
On the label I encourage Anika to, like her Mimi, keep looking to what’s right and looking up (as represented by the flying geese blocks), because God loves her!

Noah’s Ark – Baby’s Christmas Quilts

(Each) 34″ x 38″
Quilted and finished by Sue Hickman     Berryville, Va     12/2022
I was first commissioned to make 2 “Baby’s First Christmas” quilts from Noah’s Ark sheeting for a grandma’s first two grandchildren in 2014. She had long cherished a picture of herself comforted as she held tight to her own Noah’s Ark sheet as a child. Hers was long gone, but she extensively searched ebay and found and bought a number of them. It was my honor to make these for her not only as a “gift” but also as a way to share a memory and leave a legacy and this year she asked me to make two more.

Christmas

42″ x 36″
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 11/2022
In 1997 I had pieced together quite a few of these sweet quilt tops.
I love their ‘old world Santa’, trees, wreaths, and apples (which are often featured in our Christmas decorations).
Back then, I had hand quilted and gave two of these as gifts, but then set the rest aside.
This year I re-discovered these in my ‘stash’ already paired with batting and backing, only needing to be quilted. It was a delight to load this one on my longarm and creatively free-motion quilt.
Next year, it is on my ‘must-do’ list to finish the rest of them.

Rainbow and Raindrops Tablerunner

17″ x 45.5″
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 11/2022
In my adaptation of Julia Graves “Raindrops and Rainbows” pattern, I used fabrics left over from my “Promise” quilt (See below. It showcases the 7 color families in God’s rainbow and the sunshine and raindrops that create it).

Additional ‘Harvest Home’ Table Runners and Toppers

30″Square
Designed, pieced, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 10/2022
After refinishing our antique kitchen table this summer, it deserved to have a new table topper to welcome fall.

16″ x 49″
Designed, pieced, appliqued, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 10/2022
When a dear friend saw my Harvest Home table runner and requested I make her one of her own, of course I worked to fulfill her special-order wishes.

Christmas Ornaments

Each of these three wall/door hangings measures 18″ wide by 25″ high
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 10/2022
I find it interesting that this Erin Grogan’s Merry & Joy quilt pattern is so very similar to a pattern in Sew Kind of Wonderful’s Mini Wonderful Curves book. Both use a simple curve to create a large ornament block, but Erin added the mini star block atop hers. I took their concepts a step further and showcased a festive block in the center of my three ornament wall/door hangers, getting a head-start on my 2023 holiday quilts.

His Promise

63″ Square
Designed, pieced, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 10/2022

While others have made ‘runs of color’ in a wide variety of shapes and patterns, I had something unique in mind when I set out to create this quilt. Beyond the simple ‘Drunkard’s Path’ lies Promise of His Rainbow.

I’d long pondered making a quilt that showcased the seven colors of God’s rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. [Put together, those seven colors make white light, that some consider an eighth color.] However, finding the right run of pure-color fabrics to achieve this proved a challenge until this year.

Once I’d found a run of 21 colors that achieved my goal, I began work on my design.
I decided at the start not to use the traditional ‘Drunkard’s Path’ curved block for this quilt. Instead, I began to sketch and as my design took shape it became clear that there were 7 unique curves required to achieve my goal. I went old school and created simple cardboard shaped templates.

Once my top was completed and mounted on my longarm, my free-motion quilting worked to further emphasize this quilt’s ‘story’. In the quilting you will see that the sun shines in each of the four corners of the world. It is when clouds gather and rain falls that His rainbow appears. Round and round my rainbow goes because there is no end to His Promise given in Genesis 9:13 [I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.] And at the center of it all His light shines forth bright white.

Inside my rainbow I quilted flowers, because they also appear as a result of sunshine and rain.

Triumphant Liberty

36″ Square
Pieced, appliqued, and hand-guided quilting by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 9/2022
In this patriotic quilt (an old Jo Morton pattern called Liberty Eagle), a laurel leaf wreath circles the eagle motif. My name for this quilt comes from the understanding that laurel leaf wreaths symbolize victory… may it be so!

White Buffalo

Pieced and collaged by JoAnn Kowalski, then free-motion quilted and finished by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 9/2022
While I do longarm quilt for others, I don’t usually list them here, but when my custom longarm stitches add so much to the finished product and I finish it with binding, a sleeve, and a label, it seems appropriate to do so.

Additional ‘Harvest Home’ Table Runners

Designed, pieced, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 9/2022

Harvest Home

15.5″ x 50.5″
Design, pieced, appliqued, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 9/2022
Inspired by ‘volunteer’ pumpkins that grew in our compost pile this summer, I designed the center of this table runner with wool gourds appliqued on cotton, surrounded by traditional log cabin blocks made with autumnal fabrics.

Wonder

12″ Square
An art quilt, designed, created, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 8/2022
This is my first (of what I hope will one day be many) 12″ square quilts inspired by a simple ‘prompt’… this one being “wonder”.
I saw it first in the picture my daughter-in-law took of our Miss Anika, and from the moment I saw it I thought about capturing that emotion in a quilt.
I don’t recall exactly what inspired her look in the picture, but I imagined that to be her look of wonder were she to gaze upon the Christmas star on a cold December night.

Perspective

28.5″ Square
Designed, pieced, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 8/2022
This began as an exercise in curved piecing led by expert quilter, Ricky Tims. His class was challenging, but also a lot of fun! While most of the other participant’s results were more abstract, this is what appeared to me as I began drawing curvaceous swishes across my paper.
What guided my fabric selections and quilting of this piece was the question, “Is the sun rising or setting on the road to your tomorrows”?
My personal answer to that questions is that I honestly don’t know. As a dear friend commented, at this stage of my life it is probably a setting sun… but surely it is still quite early in the evening, right?
Until it fully sets, I will continue to create.

Woodland Winter

35″ high x 32″ wide
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 7/2022
I couldn’t resist making this sweet wall hanging. It reminded me of my woodturner husband’s Winter’s Evergreens. (You can see them here.) When I see his trees, this is just what I see… woodland creatures gathered around them enjoying the season.

The Woodlands at Christmas

Pieced and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 7/2022
Eight small wall hangings, each measuring 12.5″ high by 11″ wide share the sentiment of the season… Love, Peace, Joy, and Noel.

Self Portrait

18.5″ Square
Designed, created and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 7/2022
Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Picasso all did it, so when I was issued a Creative Summer Challenge to describe myself in a quilt without words, letters, or numbers… to tell my story… share my history and interests… I stopped all my ongoing projects to give it a go.
A few of the things this piece says about me is that, as a quilt artist, I enjoy challenges and stretching myself creatively. I like to step out of my quilting comfort zone and try new things.
It says that after living in many different places and climates, and even different countries, I chose to make the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia next to the Blue Ridge Mountains my home, and I love the ‘country life’! It also makes a nod to the fact that I’ve been patriotic since birth.
It has been been said by English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, High Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci, and even philosopher Cicero, but before them all, it can be found in Matthew’s writing in the Bible (Matthew 6:22-24). They all speak to the eyes being the window to the soul.
So, what my “Self-Portrait’ says most about me can be discovered in my eyes. Yes, I know you really can’t see them, but I hope I’ve made it clear that my gaze is steadfast ‘Up’ (besides being a ‘positive/glass half full’ kinda gal, I’m also watching for Jesus’ return) and to what’s ‘Right’!
“Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in Him!” Psalm 34:8 .

Patriotism

Approximately 38″ x 14″
Pieced and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 6/2022
Patriotism. Time and season-less. The red, white, and blue are as American as apple pie!
Like denim, the red, white, and blue “go with” every style home and decorating taste!
While I’m not generally a ‘production’ quilter (most of my pieces are unique, one-of-a-kind), I couldn’t resist making a series of these (9) table runner/door or wall hangings incorporating traditional eight point star and half-rectangle blocks celebrating the American Spirit. Hand-guided, free-motion quilting creates wonderful texture and adds movement across the stripes.
Available in my Etsy Shop, while they last.

Turned Vases

18″ x 16.5″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 4/2022
These vases, turned not on a lathe but instead ‘turned’ out of quilting cotton fabrics, bear resemblance to ones made from curly and spalted maple, walnut, and black walnut wood. (OrigCrv-Cr)

Ciante for Two

17.5″ x 15.75″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 4/2022
This wall hanging was designed to resemble a central fiasco/’squat’-style bottle wrapped in straw flanked by two wine glasses, one light, one dark. (OrigCrv-Cr)

What Does Your Eye Behold?

14.5″ x 33″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 4/2022
Whether you see the reflection of the sunrise and set over waves consistently rolling in and out on a beach of sand OR a mirage in the desert under the rising and setting hot sun, this quilt works well as a wall hanging or table runner.
(OrigCrv-Cr)

Delectable Dark Chocolate and Wild Blueberries

60″ x 71″
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 4/2022
As I work my way through my reserve of long-ago started quilts, it was time to complete this one!
Beautifully designed with a variety of large and smaller half-square triangles encircled first by a small, then a larger outer border, this generously-sized lap quilt will keep you warm on a cold winter’s day or take the chill off a cool summer’s evening. (Pinwheel Mosaic pattern by Judy Hopkins, from her 1996 book “Down the Rotary Road”)

America Waves

13.5″ x 28.5″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 4/2022
Subtly red, white, blue… and yes, even a little green. This beautiful contemporary wall hanging fits beautifully with any decor. (FC-Cr)

Breath of Fresh Air 2

10″ x 41″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 3/2022
As I further experiment with interleaves, I’m finding each one to be refreshingly fun to make! Whether you see light green fields or a river of blue below these Blue Ridge Mountains, this table runner is sure to make a beautiful centerpiece to any table. (mS-w)

Breath of Fresh Air 1

10.25″ x 41.25″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 3/2022
My ‘Currents” quilt, made earlier this year, so inspired me, I had to experiment more with interleaving more these wonderfully fresh fabrics. This table runner is the first in a series I hope to make. I’m calling them Breath of Fresh Air, as that’s what they remind me of. (VmS-w)

Dark Chocolate and Salted Caramel

68″ x 56″
Pieced, appliqued, and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 2/2022
These rich vintage fabrics are like comfort food to my soul, and the whole time I was working on them I was thinking of dark chocolate and salted caramel. I think the result is simply delicious!
This is the last of Jodi Barrow’s SnS patterns I’d long-ago purchased and am finally finishing. This one came in a book called Kisses From Your Beloved – A Civil War Love Story Sampler Quilt. Sadly, the instructions aren’t as clear as they could be and you have to own a number of her other books to be able to fully figure out these blocks.
I truly do love the resulting quilt, but I don’t enjoy her process.

Brita’s Disappearing Sampler

45″ x 45.5″
Pieced and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 2/2022
Just in time for me to take a break from Interleaves, I took a Zoom class with Brita Nelson. She was teaching 9 of her disappearing blocks from which participants could make a sampler quilt.
Brita is known as the “Questioning Quilter“. She is always asking, “What if?” (I felt from the start she was a kindred spirit.) With an engineering background, she has figured out how to first make a variety of traditional blocks and then cut them up in a variety of ways to create new, innovative blocks. What fun!
I’ve done that a time or two before, but Brita takes this concept of “disappearing blocks” to a whole new level, and makes it fun in the process. Both her lecture and class are wonderful, and her patterns are very well written!
I’ve found I always pick up something new and worthwhile from every class I take.
Of course, I had to make my sampler my own. I changed the placement of colors in the blocks a bit and changed the layout, too, and added borders. Finally, I finished it with big free-motion flower swirls.

Time in a Bottle

17″ x 17.5″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
As I was creating interleaves this month, I kept thinking about some fabrics I’d picked up on a ‘free’ table a few years back. The fabrics were deep classic navy blue and off white. One fabric had a variety of clocks and time pieces all over it and the other said Millennium 2000 in small square blocks throughout. Of each fabric pattern, I had one white with blue print and the other blue fabric with white print. I had no idea what I’d do with them at the time I picked them up, but Y2K, as it as it not-so-affectionately became known, was a significant event around the world, and it was the year we built our home. I knew I’d do something fun with it.
It occurred to me I could create curves and interleave them to create a “bottle” and voila.
(Note – it is closed at the top with time trapped inside.)
And as I worked on it, Jim Croce’s 1973 song, “Time in a Bottle” kept playing through my mind. (An oldie, but goodie!)

Vintage Interleave

26″ x 12.25″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
I couldn’t resist experimenting with some of my vintage fabrics. I love browns with a pop of teal!

The Long and Winding Road

40.75″ x 12.5″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
These fabrics were simply meant to go together and allowed me to enjoy more interleaving fun… a win/win!
Intended to be hung vertically, this quilt also works beautifully as a table runner.

Currents

32″ x 34.5″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
Before Google, before AC and DC electrified our world, there was The Coriolis Effect. Currents. In the air and in the ocean, currents have always been a thing of beauty. This concept of interleaving fabric has ignited my creative passions anew and has me eager to further explore the countless possibilities.

A Red River Runs Through It

17.25″ x 23″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
More interleaving fun! I love to play with black and white fabrics and tossing a pop of red in the mix is like adding icing on top of the cake. It just makes it better. In this interleave I played with more fabrics of different sizes.

And the Choice is Bright and Bold

56″ x 45″
Pieced and free-motion quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
I couldn’t resist taking up the challenge given by one of my quilt groups to create a quilt using the traditional “Sister’s Choice” block. I started before the end of 2021, but completion was delayed by the interleave quilts below.
I love creating from my stash and I purposed that each block would feature bright and bold fabrics.
This block is especially fun because even though all are the exact same block, they can look different depending on the placement of the chosen fabrics.

Using free-motion on my long-arm I was able to uniquely quilt each block and add a touch of whimsy to this fun quilt.
It’s large enough to keep a lap warm, but also has a sleeve so it can be hung where it can brighten a room.
For now, having this hanging in my studio certainly brightens the cold gray wintry days of January.

While I’m not inclined at this time to begin teaching via Zoom, I’ve genuinely enjoyed exploring new techniques with instructors near and far via Zoom during this Pandemic!
Henry Ford said, “Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” I’m all for that!
With each new technique/concept learned, I add yet another tool/skill to my artistic toolbox. I grow!
Life is too short not to step out of our comfort zone and try new things! It’s fun!

That said, my first three completed quilts of 2022 began with an Intriguing Interleaves Zoom class with Mel Beach. Halfway through the 1st class I was hooked.
I traced this concept back to the 2013 January edition of American Quilter Magazine article entitled Bits, Binary Code, and Patterns: The Quilts of Kent Williams. The image of his quilt Oh, Gee, caught the attention of Lorrie Cranor, who, besides being a quilter, is also Associate Professor of Computer Science, and Engineering & Public Policy, at Carnegie Mellon University. She began experimenting with ‘interleave quilts” and her results caught the attention of many modern quilters, including Mel Beach. With Lorrie’s permission, Mel has been teaching her techniques for creating Interleaves.
I now can’t wait to try experimenting further on my own with this concept, but first I’ll have to complete the quilt on my long-arm and the one on my design wall.
So now, let me introduce you to 2022’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quilt…

Sine, Sine, Everywhere A Sine

16.25″ x 17″
Pieced and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
Started and finished in the first (4 hour) class, this quilt incorporates 6 different fabrics and features a Sine curve… a geometric waveform or s-shaped, smooth wave that moves up, down, or side to side. I learned mathematically speaking, sine curves are defined by the function y = sin x, but I’m not especially mathematically minded. My name for this quilt came easily, as the Five Man Electrical Band‘s 1971 song “Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign” kept running through my mind. (I especially love the line that says, “”Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me. I’m alive and doin’ fine.”)

Hidden Helix

17″ x 16.5″
Pieced and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
I was so intrigued with my first interleave I had to start, and finish, a 2nd interleave quilt the day after my first class.
This one also incorporates 6 fabrics, but in this one I used a Helix curve. While there is also a mathematical equation for the Helix, suffice it to say Helix is Latin for spiral.

Swimming Against the Green Tide

11″ x 10″
Designed, pieced, and quilted by Sue Hickman Berryville, VA 1/2022
In this 3rd interleave quilt I used only 4 fabrics and again used a helix curve.
If you look closely, you will see the little fish in the light aqua fabric swimming against the green wave.