Past Perfect: Edyta Sitar

Sticks & Stones

Designed by Edyta Sitar for Laundry Basket Quilts

July's Past Perfect quilter is Edyta Sitar whose pattern company Laundry Basket Quilts offers a wide range of designs inspired by the past.

New York Beauty

Edyta is having a show of her work at Quilt House in Lincoln, Nebraska, from July 11 through October 8, 2017.

"Bringing an individual vision to the traditional look of American quilts, Edyta Sitar designs quilts and fabrics and teaches workshops around the world. Sitar had an innate love for textiles and sewing as a child, but was introduced to quiltmaking by her husband’s family. She proudly carries on the family tradition 'stitched together through the generations.' Her quilts on exhibition offer inspiration for today’s quiltmakers who, likewise, sustain these tradition."

Blue Spruce

Edyta and husband Mike Sitar live in Michigan, where they run their business based on patterns and Edyta's fabric designs.

They offer "Laseys," which is a pretty good pun

for laser-cut applique shapes. Brilliant idea!

Paint Basket

Jolene's Star

Nine-Eleven

I bet this photo on the cover of one of her books

is Edyta and her mother. She was born in Poland,

raised in Germany and came to the U.S. temporarily---until she met Mike.

Rainbow Star

Several years ago the Grand Rapids Press did an interview:

"A resourceful child without her own fabric stash, Edyta Sitar cut a piece of fabric from her mother's beloved drapes. When she presented her mother with the pillow she had stitched by hand out of the drape fabric, her mother was not pleased. 'She took it all apart and put those drapes back together. Thank goodness, she didn't kill me that day,' Sitar said, laughing about how she went on to cut up four of her mother's best sweaters and stitch pieces of each back together to make one sweater.
'She loved it,' Sitar said, explaining her mother realized early there would be no containing her daughter's creativity.

Reaching Out

"Staying in the U.S. wasn't the plan when Sitar arrived in California to study English. But plans to return home were preempted when Sitar fell in love and married Michael Sitar. 'I was very lucky to be welcomed by his family,' Sitar said.The couple lived briefly with her husband's grandmother, an avid quilter who was strict with one house rule in particular.

'When you live in my house, you're going to quilt,' Sitar recalls her grandmother-in-law telling her.
Sitar agreed to this condition even though 'I had no idea what the word 'quilt' meant.'
But she learned quickly, spending hours quilting with Grandma, who eagerly shared 64 years of quilting knowledge with her."

Sweet Blend

Sweet Sixteen

Broken Glass

See Edyta's quilts in the Pumphrey Family Gallery at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum's Quilt House:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/nowshowing/nowshowing.html/title/edyta-sitar-regeneration
The show opens on Tuesday the 11th of July.

Dancing Umbrellas

And see many more of her designs at Laundry Basket Quilts.

https://www.laundrybasketquilts.com/