Still Here, Still Quilting!

I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth! Even with a 2 1/2 year old and a 3 month old, I’m still managing to get into the studio from time to time — even if some of that time is spent buried under children:

After all, sometimes the planets align such that they’re both asleep at the same time. And now that Ronan’s old enough to be trusted to explore the button tin, we can frequently spend time in the studio together without him defaulting to his standard behaviors of pushing buttons on the sewing machine, unplugging the sewing machine, turning off the power strip, pulling out the knee lift lever…

Even Finley sometimes hangs out in there with me like a little friend:

So what have I been doing with my quilting time? I have made a quilt for Finley; I’m just now getting the binding handsewn to the back, so it will be the topic of a future post. Here’s a preview:

I’ve also been playing with a technique from Anita Grossman Solomon’s Rotary Cutting Revolution. She’s the visionary who developed the Unbiased Block that I used in Alexander’s quilt last year. I caught up on a bunch of The Quilt Show episodes while up in the middle of the night with Finley those first few weeks, and the episode where she’s the guest just set the cogs turning. I’ll be featuring that quilt-in-progress in its own post soon, but you’ll get a sneak peek at it if you watch my video.

Because I also just made a technique video that I posted to YouTube on how to use Quilter’s Rule’s nested square rulers to square up quilt blocks:

The “X-Centric” block from Anita’s book calls for squaring up the component blocks to 7.5″, and that is just not a size that exists from the standard ruler sources. But these nested squares from Quilter’s Rule have a lot of potential. I got them at their booth at the Quilters Unlimited show last weekend, when Finley and I met Diane there. It was a great show as usual, with lots of quilts and vendors of high enough quality (in both categories) to make the drive worthwhile. Here are some highlights (click to enlarge):

Detail, Vertigo by Suzie Buck

Detail, Rings and Things by Kay A. Lettau

Detail, Fade to Red by Martha Bush

Detail, Trains by Amy S. Lancaster

Detail, Winding Ways by Shirley R. Winn

Detail, Beauty of the Old Dominion by Amy Flenniken

Detail, Quilting the Bases by Dian Epp

Detail, Ribbon Stars in Taupe by Martha Bush

Detail, Black and White and Cats All Over by Judy Kozlowski

When Flowers Party by Linda T. Cooper

I also succumbed to buying (gasp) full price fabric! Alexander Henry struck again, designing what I referred to in an overexcited text to my mom as “quite possibly the best fabric ever produced.” While that may have been laying it on a little thick, my inner goth girl rejoiced at this fabric, called “After Dark”:

That black widow spider is 12.5″ tall.

From a practical standpoint, I do have TWO people in my regular gift-giving rotation who are hardcore Edgar Allen Poe aficionados. This was one of many featured fabrics at the Some Art Fabric booth that I could have happily wrapped myself in yards of, but at $12.45 a yard (I wince as I type) I was able to restrain myself.

So I have one quilt (Finley’s) all but finished, another top (2008 Shop Hop blocks!) completed, a third (Christmas X-centric blocks) well under way, and they just announced the challenge (solids) at guild last month. And that’s not addressing any of the UFOs! Oh well. At least I’m sewing, creating, and enjoying the process, which is far more important than finishing anything at this stage in my life.

I just have to finish convincing myself of that.

Orphan Block Guild Challenge

It’s always summer when you’ve got shades!

Obviously, it’s been a really long time since I posted. I had intended on taking the summer off from blogging, but I didn’t mean to let it drag so far into fall. However, Hurricane Sandy closed my office on Monday, and since the power at home stayed on, I got some good momentum going on this post before normal life resumed.

Part of what has kept me quiet was the fact that until very recently I literally couldn’t talk about the main project that has occupied me since July: the guild challenge. This year’s theme was orphan blocks. We randomly drew bags that contained anything from a single orphan block to a collection of blocks or precut pieces, and then had to make something new out of the bag’s contents. My bag had just one single block in it, and it had issues:

The original orphan block

In the plus column, it’s a 54-40-or-Fight block, which I’ve always liked the looks of but had never made; the basic color palette had promise, since purple and green are two of my favorite colors; and the fact that it was primarily made of solids meant that finding coordinating prints would be relatively simple. HOWEVER, I completely understand why this block ended up an orphan. It’s hand pieced, and the seam allowances were positively enormous, in the 1/2″ to 5/8″ range. There were rust stains, probably from being stored with needles or pins in it, and this block did not have a single 90-degree angle to its name. If I had made a block like this, I would have stopped at one, too. I salute the brave quilter who not only held onto this block for some years, but offered it up for public consumption. And I have to say, it inspired me to make something I’m very proud of, that I never would have conceived of otherwise.

My first thought was to just rip out the seams and use the individual pieces for applique. Heck, with those seam allowances, I certainly would have ended up with plenty of fabric! But ultimately, I decided I really wanted to maintain the sharp points of the original block and riff off of those for my final design.

The finished product, “Aurora Borealis,” 36″ x 36″

A brief aside regarding my conflicted relationship with foundation paper piecing. I absolutely love “sharp pointies” designs such as New York Beauty and Mariner’s Compass, and paper piecing definitely seems to be the way to go to achieve satisfactory results with these blocks. However, I really don’t enjoy the process that much. I’ve tried several different books’ and teachers’ methods for paper piecing, I’ve tried several different types of paper foundations, and I still just find it to be tedious. I don’t like sewing on paper because the presser foot slips around, I despise having to trim after each seam, and I HATE having to tear the paper off afterwards. But in order to achieve the results I want with those super-sharp points, it’s what I have to do, and I’ve made peace with that. It will just never be my favorite technique.

I’ve had a book in my collection for many years, “Quilt Mavens: Perfect Paper Piecing” by Deb Karasik and Janet Mednick, whose pictures I have (metaphorically) drooled over for as long as I’ve had it. Up until now, though, I’ve never had occasion to make any of the patterns from it. But strangely enough, their pattern “Spike Redux,” which is essentially a giant Lemoyne Star by way of the Chrysler Building, seemed to echo the sharp points of the 54-40 or Fight block while introducing new design elements. I just changed the color and value distribution to suit myself, and swapped out the corner New York Beauty-style blocks for the orphan block.

I had bought the beautiful, hand-dyed-look, gradated purple and green fabric, “Glacier Lake” by Caryl Bryer Fallert, at least eight years ago. (I found it on the enclosed porch of the old location of Endless Mountains Quiltworks, so it’s been a while.) It was love at first sight, but it’s been one of those “too good to cut” fabrics for me all these years. With this color palette pre-established, I had finally found its showcase in the big setting triangles and curving center pieces. I only had a yard and a half, so I had to cut carefully, and I only have a few scraps left after just barely having enough to make the binding, but it was the perfect fabric for the job. In fact, most of the fabrics for this project came from my stash; the only ones I had to shop for were the pale lavender and pale chartreuse, because I needed lights for value contrast, and these are not shades that naturally occur in my collection. Fortunately, my mini-retreat with Rhonda and Kathy occurred just when I was about to embark on this project, so a shopping trip to Sauder’s did the trick.

Detail, “Aurora Borealis”

The only part of the quilt that I hadn’t completely pre-planned before starting to cut fabric was the corner blocks. Initially I had considered leaving the block intact and just making three more like it (obviously machine pieced and with new fabrics), but I was concerned that wasn’t changing it enough for the spirit of the challenge. Also, having three identical blocks and one “vintage” block would probably tend to draw focus to the odd one out, like that old song from Sesame Street:

So I tried cutting the blocks in half diagonally, although I flipped the orientation after playing around on the design wall. I experienced a great deal of stress when finally rotary cutting that block, because it was the only one I had — normally the worst thing that could happen is that I’d have to recut or repiece, but the stakes were high on this! Plus, those hand-pieced seams really wanted to spring apart until I sewed across them. I had fun making my own new 54-40 or Fight block for the other two corners. I finally used the Tri-Recs ruler I’d bought years ago, and was very happy with the result.

Quilting detail, “Aurora Borealis”

For quilting designs, I mostly fell back on my old standbys:  freehand feathers in the Glacier Lake pieces and  parallel lines in the paper pieced areas. The stroke of genius was Dan’s, as he came up with the idea to quilt the corner setting triangles as if the piecing continued for complete blocks. Doing the dense pebbling filler pattern not only created contrast in the solid areas, but also gave me some additional peace of mind regarding the hand-pieced blocks, that they wouldn’t be going anywhere.

And all my work and soul-searching was very well rewarded at our guild meeting, when my quilt got the highest number of votes at the big challenge reveal! I got a lovely prize bag and the grateful satisfaction of knowing my work is appreciated by a group of quilters I love and respect so much. Priceless.

For the happy dance, I had to go with Gilles Marini’s Bollywood dance from DWTS All-Stars. It just makes me smile:

AQS Lancaster 2012 (and 2011!)

Monkeying around at the quilt show

I can’t believe more than a month has passed since the AQS Lancaster Quilt show. Spring is apparently when time gets away from me more easily:  I had actually started to write a post about last year’s show, but got busy and never finished or posted it. So I’m going to beg your patience and try something a little different:  let’s call it a time travel post! Starting in the past:

On Saturday, March 19, Ronan and I attended the AQS Lancaster Quilt Show. We met Diane and Lisa there, and spent from 10 am to 4 pm on the premises. The crowds were decent, but not unmanageable; although it was the only weekend day the show was open, it was also the last day of the show. Quilts were viewed, stuff was bought.

So far, everything from last year applied to this year’s show as well. I reiterate my frustration with AQS’s policy of running their shows Wednesday – Saturday rather than continuing to Sunday the way the Mancuso shows do and Quilters’ Heritage Celebration always did. The rationale that’s given at my father-in-law’s model railroading shows is that vendors who have brick-and-mortar stores can be open on Monday if they have Sunday to travel and unpack. Yet at the same time, I frequently hear representatives of both hobby communities lament the increasing average age of hobbyists and bemoan the difficulties of attracting younger people. Talk about unclear on the concept! Younger people work, or attend school, or have young children. In this economy, I see plenty of people who are afraid to take a day off work for dental treatment, let alone to attend a quilt show; child care is also frequently easier to arrange on weekends. To me, having the quilt show end on Saturday is saying to young quilters, “We are not at all concerned about making your attendance easier, because we don’t need you.” Not exactly the message I’d expect.

"Blue Rhapsody" by Carolyn Rider. Breathe, Sarah, look at the pretty blue quilt and calm down...

Hey, who left that soapbox out? Anyway, back to 2011:

Based on a rereading of my blog posts from last year’s inaugural AQS Lancaster show, I’d very much like to claim to be a great predictor of the future. However, my March Madness bracket hanging in the office lunchroom puts the lie to that. So I’ll have to settle for believing that the powers that be at AQS must be very perceptive, receptive, and willing to fix what doesn’t work. I’ve been impressed with the organizers of Quilting with Machines on the very same counts, which gives me hope that the future of organized quilting is with people who are open to change.

First, and most important, it was all under one roof this year– no more silly Liberty Place nonsense. And as if that weren’t triumph enough, they utilized the space they had in the convention center far more effectively for displaying the quilts, placing them in the most brightly lit areas of the main exhibition hall. The displays are still chained off, making it difficult to see details on the center quilt in each group of three, and AQS policy is still that no turning of quilts is done by the “white glove angels” to show quilt backs, but overall the quilt viewing experience was vastly better this year.

Again, nothing to add. They’re still playing with the layout of the competition quilts on the main floor, and I think this year was the best yet for traffic flow and lighting.

"Princess Argiope" by Martha Lorshbaugh. She made an arachnid quilt. I love this hobby so much...

I can’t talk about my show experience without discussing how different it was to walk a quilt show with a four-month-old. He was in his element:  there were colors, lights, and lots of people smiling at him. He’s a little ham, and quite the extrovert, so of course he was smiling and showing off his dimple and generally flirting with everyone in sight. He was mostly well-behaved, only fussing when he needed to be fed or changed, and was willing to ride in his stroller for most of the day with just one interval mid-morning of needing the Baby Bjorn. That was when I had my big moment of starstruck quilt geekdom, when Rachel Pellman (!) came over to me (!!) to confirm that I was the pregnant woman she had talked to at a guild meeting last August and to see the baby!!! So Ronan made Rachel Pellman remember me! I can live with that. Far better than if she’d said, “weren’t you the one who told that cat vomit story at a guild meeting?”

It was even different again to attend with a 16-month-old. Ronan was very well behaved in his stroller, smiling at ladies and even reacting to some of the quilts!

"Out On A Limb" by Ann Horton, Joyce Paterson, & Renee Gannon. Ronan reached out for this quilt with both hands and jabbered away about it!

I tried to be as considerate and unobtrusive with the stroller as possible, and while the multilevel nature of the convention center required me to spend a far greater fraction of my day waiting for elevators than I would ideally have liked, I can’t fault the facilities otherwise. There was a lovely “family bathroom” in the main exhibit hall that made changing Ronan very easy and convenient, and the third floor had clever little banquettes built into the wall that made for a quiet, private place to feed him. Overall, good baby and good environment made for an excellent experience.

That quiet area on the third floor also worked out this year as a place for him to run around and burn off some energy after having been in the stroller for too long.

A well-deserved break in the quiet 3rd floor hallway

As I’ve been trying to do at most quilt shows I’ve attended lately, I kept fabric purchases to a bare minimum, just a panel for a gift and some interesting salesman samples still on their cardboard hangers. I did buy a decent amount of thread, hitting the Superior Threads booth as anticipated but also getting some to try from Fil-tec, which is located right in relatively nearby Hagerstown, MD. I also fell victim to my usual Achilles’ Heel, intriguing notions and gadgets, with the purchase of a set of strip pressing bars that have already made themselves very useful in my studio.

But of course, as always, the stars of the show were the quilts. I’m always looking for inspiration for quilting designs, as well as just enjoying the beauty, especially the unexpected. The official show website has better pictures than I could ever take of the top ribbon winners, but here’s a sample of some of the others that stood out to me:

“Neuron III” by Pamela Kirsch

Detail, “Pane Reflections” by Timna Tarr

Detail, “Boston Common” by Peggy Holt

“My Spirit Is In the Rogue” by Nancy Lee Chong

Detail, “Bohemian Fireworks” by Sandra Peterson

Detail, “Let’s Start!” by Ikuyo Kitada

Detail, “An Unexpected Snow” by Laura Fogg

“Astral Burst” by Beth Nufer

Detail, “Tea With Miss D” by Sandra Leschner

Detail, “Birds in Hand” by Mandie Burrell

Detail, “A Garden Romance” by Glenda W. Ely

Detail, “Parrot’s Paradise” by Judy Woodworth

Classes at Quilting with Machines 2011

I’m back from a whirlwind trip to Quilting with Machines in Huron, Ohio, and the quilting center of my brain is just vibrating with new ideas, skills, and motivation. Finishing Ronan’s Minkee Dragons quilt was a real confidence booster going into it, and I’ve got four quilt tops basted and ready to quilt while I’ve got some good momentum going. We’ll see how it all shakes out!

"I'm on vacation!"

Dan and Ronan came to Ohio with me, and at first that seemed like a mistake. We left Wednesday evening after I got home from work, planning to spend the night in a motel in Hermitage, PA, which would get us most of the way to the resort and leave us just two hours yet to drive in the morning to get me to my 11:00 am Thursday class. Easy, right? As you faithful readers know, I tend not to do so well with the whole “best laid plans” concept, and adding a 10-month-old baby into the mix doesn’t exactly improve my batting average. We left a little later than we’d planned, but still thought we were doing OK until Ronan decided he wasn’t going to sleep. Ever. I got about 3 hours of very intermittent sleep, with Dan doing a little better (he was driving in the morning) but we managed to get me to class with 20 minutes to spare.

Fortunately, it was Sue Patten’s class, and anyone who could sleep through one of her classes probably needs to have a physical. The class was “Zen-Sue-dled in Fabric and Thread,” Sue’s version of the ZenTangles idea. I’ve been a fan of her Three Textures concept for quilting ever since I first heard it in one of her classes two years ago, namely that every quilt needs to contain Puffy, Medium, and Stipple-ish textures of quilting the same way the quilt top needs to contain light, medium, and dark values in order to have depth. In this class, she extends the concept to an idea for designing a wholecloth quilt in a very randomized, artistic, no-rules manner to create a framework for creative play. “Put your favorite part of quilting into this,” is what she told us.

A Zen-Sue-dle wholecloth in progress

I think I could use a piece like this as an opportunity to try some threads, filler patterns, and techniques without the stress that comes from worrying about “ruining” a pieced top, while still finishing something I could call a quilt rather than just creating yet another doodle cloth. Plus, it’s always worth the price of admission to watch her quilt, and she always makes me laugh. After all, this is the banner she had up in her booth:

Next up was Dawn Cavanaugh’s “Quilting Feathers When You’re a Chicken.” Dawn writes the machine quilting column for Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine, and I had taken her continuous curve class at last year’s QwM. I unfortunately missed the first half-hour of class because my poor sleepless brain somehow thought there was an hour between my 11-1 class and my 1-5 class! Hopefully I didn’t miss anything life-altering, but Dawn graciously welcomed my apologetic breathless disoriented self into class, and I spent the next 3 1/2 hours happily drawing feathers on a whiteboard as she talked us through different feather styles and techniques. I definitely understand Kim Brunner’s “Twirly Whirly Feathers” better now, and I think I know how I’m going to quilt the setting triangles on my Shop Hop sampler quilt.

My favorite of my whiteboard designs

Thank heaven (and more locally, Dan,) Ronan took a good afternoon nap and then slept well Thursday night, so Friday morning I felt like a human being again and was prepared for class. My morning class was initially a letdown through no one’s fault but my own:  I had accidentally registered for the exact same Pam Clarke class, “Fabulous Block to Block Custom Quilting,” that I had taken from her 2 years ago! My heart sank when I flipped through the all-too-familiar handout. But not only was this a great topic for review, but Pam emphasized slightly different aspects of the material, especially as she responded to class questions. Also, since Matt and Alyssa’s wedding quilt and the double pinwheel table runner, two of the only projects I’ve finished in the last year, relied almost exclusively on her concepts and designs, it would have seemed wrong not to take a class from her when attending a seminar where she was teaching, even if it was review.

I had a three-hour break until my next class, and while I did go see the quilt show (future post) and shop at the vendors (future post), my top priority was to go swimming with my family. So I did, and it was great! The Sawmill Creek Resort has this crazy pool:

Yes, Dan is holding Ronan up, but he didn't want to be in the picture so is underwater.

We had a lovely time swimming before my next class, which loosened up my back and neck before sitting at my machine all afternoon, and completely justified the decision to make this a family vacation. At only ten months since Ronan’s birth, I would not have been ready to go away for four days, nearly 400 miles away,  for “just” a hobby trip. I’m already feeling some pangs over my desire to attend the guild retreat in December. But thanks to Dan’s generosity of spirit, we managed to make it work together. He may not be a quilter, but he totally gets it.

And this post got really long, so the second half of classes will be in Part II!

The Airing of the Quilts 2010

It doesn't get much better than this!

Tunkhannock is a tiny little town in the Endless Mountains region of northeastern Pennsylvania.  It has an admirably vibrant main street, beautiful Victorian architecture, treacherous winters, and traffic jams on high school football game nights.  In many ways, it’s just like a lot of other picturesque American towns that we drive past on the highway at 65 mph.  But Tunkhannock has Jeannette Kitlan.

Jeannette’s quilt shop, Endless Mountains Quiltworks, is definitely a destination quilt shop, and I’m very glad that the Northeast Pennsylvania Shop Hop introduced me to it.  In 2002, just a year after opening the shop, Jeannette started The Airing of the Quilts, an open-air quilt show, held rain or shine, the first Saturday in October.  Home- and shopowners along Tioga Street, the main street in town, hung out family quilts if they had them, and borrowed quilts from Jeannette and the local quilt guild if they didn’t.  In just a few short years, this little display has expanded to also incorporate indoor quilt exhibits at the theater, the Catholic church, and the middle school; annual quilt-related speakers or performances at the theater; lunches provided by multiple community organizations; a quilt block contest; and a trolley to ferry attendees around to the various events.  What started as a little quilt show has turned into a full-fledged town-wide fall festival, and I know I’m not the only one who travels in from several hours away to be a part of it.

This year, the featured speaker at the Dietrich Theater was Gail Kessler.  Owner of the ever-fabulous Ladyfingers Sewing Studio in Oley, PA, she is also the marketing director for Andover Fabrics in New York City.  Gail delivered a fascinating presentation called, “From Concept to Cloth,” about how quilting fabric is designed, manufactured, and ultimately makes it into the quilt shops.  Although my guild had hosted a speaker on a similar topic within the last year, Gail added significantly to my knowledge on the subject.  For example, I didn’t know that Jinny Beyer was the first fabric designer to design fabric specifically for quilters.  She also discussed licensed fabric designs, such as the Olivia and Eric Carle fabrics Andover currently manufactures, and revealed that there aren’t many actual quilters working for the quilting fabric companies.  That’s why, so often, details like providing proper seam allowances between panels are ignored.  She also displayed many quilts made as examples of different fabric lines.  A fascinating and entertaining talk; and since it was held in a theater, we got to eat popcorn while listening.

Gail Kessler at the Dietrich Theater, 10/2/10

We had an absolutely beautiful day for walking around Tunkhannock.  The exhibit at the Catholic church was very interesting, featuring quilts made by a group of friends who would go on retreat together and each make her own version of the same design; I wish they had displayed the groups of similar quilts together, rather than displaying each quilter’s work separately, but other than that quibble with exhibit design, I really enjoyed it.

"Tree of Life," by Lorraine Ezbiansky, 2001

The show at the middle school was also interesting, featuring “The Pennsylvania Invitational” quilt show.  Quilters from throughout Pennsylvania were invited to select a signature work for display.  Therefore, several of the quilts were ones I’d seen before in various venues, but as several were many years old, seeing them again was quite welcome.

“Peaceable Kingdom,” by Cheryl Kennesties, Wyoming, PA, 1998

Pinwheels was among the vendors at the show, and they worked their usual mojo on me, so I left with a couple of taupes.

We finished at the shop, which was packed with eager shoppers, and therefore didn’t actually buy anything due to the mad crush and long lines.  My mom will be returning there within the next few weeks for the Shop Hop, so she’ll get a second bite at the apple.  This will be the first time I’ve missed a shop hop in years, but with good reason:  as appropriate as it might be for my child to be born in a quilt shop, I don’t know that anyone else would appreciate it much.  Plus, the entertainment value to me provided by the fact that my dad will have to chauffeur my mom around to the various shops this year is rather priceless.

I do wish, though, that I had gotten the opportunity to thank Jeannette for starting this event, and to congratulate her on how it’s grown.  It’s really gratifying and inspiring to see how one woman’s passion for quilting can bring a whole community together to produce something beautiful, and I’m grateful for the chance to share in it.

Gearing up for Quilting with Machines

Turning the calendar page for September always seems to sneak up on me.  I’ve been out of school for over a decade now, but the end of summer still carries with it a sigh and a plodding return to a less-fun routine.  However, this year it also brings excitement:  September is the month I go to Quilting with Machines!

Detail, QwM 2009 teacher quilt exhibit

Diane and I are returning attendees this year, having had an overwhelmingly good time at last year’s event.  At first, I was disappointed to learn that the organizers were changing the time and the location for 2010, moving it further west and from October to September, but that was before I knew I’d be in my third trimester of pregnancy in fall 2010.  Attending a machine quilting conference six-and-a-half hours away from home is much more doable at 32 weeks than at 36, when I’m no longer supposed to be more than an hour’s drive from the hospital.  (I’ve been fortunate to have a very healthy and active pregnancy to this point, so I have no reason to expect drastic change in the next two to three weeks, but obviously I will be sensible and cautious.)

Last year, I didn’t really know what to expect.  QwM started as a retreat for an Ohio longarm quilting guild and has grown over the years into a learning event for all forms of machine quilting.  However, as a domestic machine quilter, I was concerned.  Despite what the mission statement said on the website, what if the classes were far too longarm-specific?  What if the teachers looked down on domestic machine quilters?  What if I was wasting my time and money?  Of course, all I wasted was a lot of worry.  Although the teachers were all well-known longarm quilters, the designs, techniques, and thought processes they taught were applicable to any type of machine quilting.

I came back from the conference with my mind just buzzing with new techniques to try.  As Sue Patten said in her Freemotion Freehand Possibilities lecture, “If you don’t go home and practice what you’ve learned, next year just mail me a check and stay home.”  With that in mind, I’m trying to do as much machine quilting as possible leading up to this year’s event so that I am in the best possible mindset to absorb the information.  I’ll be recently familiar with my biggest strengths and weaknesses in machine quilting, and thus be primed to learn, and ask when necessary, how best to overcome them.

To that purpose, I’ve been quilting as many tops as possible from my stash that were ready to quilt.  This Noah’s Ark panel was a cheapie from JoAnn’s that I specifically bought because I didn’t care about it:  I used it to test my idea for the addition of lattice strips for Window on Whimsey last summer, thinking that if it turned out decently, I’d quilt and donate it.  Now that we’re having a baby, I’ll use it as a “tummy time” playmat for him.

In the Quilt Guilt corner, I’ve been holding on to my mom’s Halloween Attic Windows wallhanging forever. We took an Attic Windows class together at Smile Spinners probably 6-7 years ago (I know it was before I bought my Janome, and that was July 2004.)  She made this absolutely charming wallhanging, using fabric that reminded us both of the Edward Gorey animation from the opening credits of Mystery! on PBS:

When I came across it in her sewing room a couple of years ago, still an unfinished top, I asked if I could quilt it for her.  She agreed, saying, “no hurry.”  This is not a good phrase to use on a quilting procrastinator like me.  I’ve taken it to at least three guild retreats with the good intention of quilting it, to no avail.  At least I made the positive step back in February to order a spool of Superior Threads NiteLite Extra Glow glow-in-the-dark thread to use on it, but it’s only since last weekend that I’ve actually made progress.

Mom's Halloween Attic Windows

Once I’ve got the bindings on, and the label and sleeve on my mom’s quilt, I’ll post some detail pictures of the quilting.  I did some playful experimenting on both, and am very happy with the results.

The third project is, of course, Matt and Alyssa’s wedding quilt.  I’ve started quilting it and I like the virtually no-mark design I’ve chosen, but I’m having weird thread problems and becoming very frustrated.  I’m using Superior Threads Bottom Line in a pale blue in both the top and bobbin, and while it is usually one of my favorites, I’ve been getting unexpected skipped stitches and having the thread “catch” on the needle.  (To be fair, since I’ve used this particular cone of thread before without incident, this is more likely a machine problem manifesting due to the fineness of this thread, than an actual thread problem.)  Following the advice on Superior’s excellent troubleshooting pages, I’ve mitigated these symptoms by adjusting my bobbin tension (eek!) and going up to a #90 titanium topstitch needle (their thread guide suggests a #70 or #80), as well as running the machine much more slowly than I’m used to, which is playing havoc with my stitch length consistency.  It’s improving, but problems like this can drain away one’s motivation, and of course with all the ripping and adjusting, it’s taking forever.  I’ll post a picture when it’s finished.

All this quilting, with its attendant ups and downs, will hopefully not only prepare me for Quilting with Machines, but also for quilting Ruby Wedding.  I haven’t basted it yet (it’s 90″ square, thus presenting some logistical challenges) but I’ve pieced the back and made the binding, so I’m getting there.  I think I’ve even made most of the design decisions for it.  At this point, it’s really just a question of confidence:  I’m so happy with how the top turned out that I want to make sure my quilting enhances, rather than detracts from, the beauty of the top.  Hopefully all this intensive quilting will help build that confidence, because there’s nothing to it but to do it.

Psst! Lady, Wanna Buy a Sewing Machine?

I had a request for this story after mentioning it in passing in my last post, so here goes.  Sorry for the length, but it is all true, and decidedly stranger than fiction.

I can’t title this, “my first sewing machine,” because that title belongs to my mom’s Bernina, which continues to be her one-and-only.  Despite its being nearly as old as I am, it still sews like an absolute dream.  She likes to tell the story that when I took a home ec elective in 8th grade, I raised my hand and told the teacher my classroom machine was broken.  When the teacher came over and checked, she said it was working fine.  I said, “but it’s making that horrible noise.”  She responded, “that’s what sewing machines sound like.”  I said, “not my mom’s.”  “What kind is it?”  “A Bernina.”  “Well, that explains it.”

My mom's Bernina 800, purchased in 1976 and still going strong

I can’t even call this story, “the first sewing machine I bought for myself,” because that distinction belonged to a 50’s- or 60’s-era store branded machine, mounted in a cabinet, that I bought for a dollar at the Monday night auctions in Annville, PA, where I went to college.  What a great place for college students to find furniture!  Many of the ugly couches on campus were purchased for under $20 at the auctions, back in the days before Craigslist and Freecycle.  I used that machine to make a duvet cover and some curtains for my boyfriend at the time, but the tension was so far out of whack that I had to run each seam between my fingers after completing it to distribute the gathers the stitching caused.  It’s possible that a trip to the sewing machine doctor would have cured what ailed it, but I lacked both transportation and funds.  Also, this particular machine was straight stitch only, and a zigzag is nice to have.  So that poor machine went to the curb rather than continuing to fight with me.

By the following summer, I was dating my now-husband, and I wanted to make costumes for us to wear to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire.  I knew better than to try for another $1 special from the auctions, but I didn’t have the disposable income to spare on a new machine, even a cheap one.  Knowing what I know now, it’s undoubtedly for the best that I couldn’t afford a new cheap machine, as by the early nineties they were mostly plastic construction and not worth the money.  I know of far too many new sewers who make the mistake of buying an inexpensive machine from Target or Costco after being inspired to sew by watching Project Runway or DIY Network, only to find they spend more time fighting with their machines than actually sewing.  I know of nothing that discourages a new quilter more quickly than a “bargain” sewing machine.  What I now normally recommend to someone who wants to sew but either can’t afford, or doesn’t want to make the commitment to, a high-quality new machine is to hit Craigslist, eBay, the repair shops, and the yard sales and find a good, solid, metal machine, a Kenmore or a White or a Necchi or a Singer from the 1960’s.  Not only do these machines tend to be adorable, but they’re indestructible as tanks.

A vintage White sewing machine from my own collection. Atomic cute!

So:  back to my story.  I wanted a sewing machine for less than $100 that would actually form a reliable straight stitch and zigzag.  I looked through the local Pennysaver paper (remember those?), expecting that any sewing machines I might find would be from estate sales or attic cleanouts, and therefore might not be in working condition.  However, I found a listing from a sewing machine dealer who said he had second-hand, freshly serviced machines starting at $29.  I called, expecting to be given directions to a shop.  Instead, the man who answered said that he’d come to me.  I gave him directions to the campus and we set up an appointment.

Once again, my expectations were confounded.  I expected to meet a van or a panel truck.  Instead, a rangy older man pulled up in an avocado green, two-door, seventies sedan that was packed to the absolute gills with sewing machines.  There was literally only room for him to sit in the driver’s seat:  every other available space was occupied by sewing machines.  The seats were covered, the footwells were full, some machines in cases but most without, with cardboard boxes of footpedals, light bulbs, power cords, and who knows what else balanced precariously wherever they’d fit.  I tend not to find myself speechless as a rule, but this was definitely one of those rare occasions.  As he explained, he didn’t have a shop of his own; rather, he went around to sewing machine repair shops and bought up abandoned machines which he then resold.  I deeply regret not having had the inspiration or the opportunity to take a photo, but suffice to say the mental picture has held up well these 17 years.  Made an impression, you might say.

We got down to business:  I explained what I was looking for and what I was willing to pay.  He opened the trunk (apparently the location of his “zigzag machines under $100” department) and sold me a two-tone brown-over-tan Kenmore for $79.  It had the mounting brackets from having formerly been housed in a cabinet, but I always used it on a desk or tabletop.  He somehow managed to get the trunk closed again — even minus a machine, it still appeared impossibly overfull — and went on his mysterious way.

That sewing machine and I had some grand times.  Not only did I make Dan’s and my Ren Faire garb, but I made Halloween costumes, sorority letter sweatshirts, the previously mentioned friendship quilt, and even one of those poet blouses that were so popular in 1993.  I also learned quickly that having a sewing machine in one’s dorm room is an excellent opportunity for practicing saying “no” to the myriad people who suddenly think you’re going to be thrilled to do their mending for them.  That selfsame old workhorse Kenmore was the machine I made my wedding gown with, years later.

Our wedding day, May 24, 1997.

I finally had to sacrifice the Kenmore; its zigzag gear cracked in half and could not be repaired or replaced.  By that point, I had moved several times, graduated from dental school, and had rediscovered quilting.  The tiny throat space on my Kenmore was ill-suited to machine quilting, and I had found a 1920’s Featherweight at an antique mall for a surprisingly good price, so I didn’t need another straight-stitch-only machine.  When we moved to our current house, in the interests of decluttering, I got rid of it.  I can’t say I regret that decision; I don’t want to be the kind of person who lugs around a heavy, bulky, not particularly attractive, broken appliance out of pure sentiment.  (The third season of “Hoarders” starts on Labor Day!)  But I will always have fond memories of that machine and the experiences I had with it.

And I’d like to think that somewhere, in the wilds of central Pennsylvania, an old man is still driving around in his old green car packed perilously full, making matches between young women and old sewing machines.  Like some sort of enchanted peddler out of a fairy tale, he certainly had exactly what I’d wished for, to help me reach the next chapter of my story.

My First Quilt

WOW.  I got to meet Rachel Pellman!!!

To explain why this was such a big deal to me, we have to go back in time.  WAY back, to before I made my very first quilt, to approximately 1986.  I have sewn for as long as I can remember:  my mom bought a Bernina when I was a toddler, and I grew up watching her make wonderful clothes for herself, me, and my sisters.  I have fond memories of spending time at the Stretch & Sew store in La Grange, Illinois while she selected patterns and fabrics, and I must have just absorbed a fascination for sewing through example and osmosis.  I was given access to my mother’s scrap bin, and by the time I was seven, I had petitioned successfully to be allowed to learn to use the sewing machine.  I made little blankets, pillows, tote bags, bean bags, and eventually some stuffed animals and simple clothes.  But I was always looking for new projects and new outlets for my interest in fabric and sewing.

I was fortunate that my childhood and adolescence coincided with the quilt revival of the late 70’s and early 80’s.  The back-to-nature movement blended fairly seamlessly into the interest in Colonial life surrounding the Bicentennial, bringing the American craft of quilting to the forefront of society’s consciousness again for the first time since before World War II.  (For a really good explanation of this sociological phenomenon, with lots of dreamy quilt pictures, watch the documentary, The Great American Quilt Revival.)  My mom bought a handful of the quilt books that were released and promoted during this time; the ones I specifically remember as being the most influential on me were Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel, the original edition of  The Complete Book of Machine Quilting by Robbie and Tony Fanning, and The World of Amish Quilts by Rachel Pellman.  This last title was the book that made me want to make a quilt.

I don’t know what it was that specifically spoke to me about these quilts:  the graphic geometrics, the unusual color combinations, the blend of beauty and utility.  By this point, we had moved to Pennsylvania and lived in a rural area with a significant Mennonite population.  I was familiar with the Plain people I’d see in their horse-drawn buggies, the women wearing their distinctive dresses and bonnets, and I saw the quilts displayed for sale in various local craft stores and tourist traps.  But those quilts were much more contemporary, made for the market, in the same colors that were endemic throughout housewares departments everywhere:  remember those mauves and French blues, burgundies and hunter greens, all in fussy little floral calicoes?  The striking “dark quilts” that were featured in Rachel Pellman’s book were nowhere to be seen.  So, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I decided to make my own “Amish” quilt.

My First Quilt: "Amish" Bear's Paw, 1986

Now, of course, I approached this project as a fairly typical fifteen-year-old.  While I had the interest and discipline to design my own quilt based on what I had seen in the book, I had absolutely no intention of making it in a traditional fashion.  For one thing, I hated hand sewing.  For another, I was an impatient teenager:  I wanted it done already!  Therefore, I blended what I had learned from the Fannings’ book on machine quilting with the Amish designs.  I would use the sewing machine for every square inch of this project, no matter what.  And as I had tried a couple quilt blocks out of Georgia Bonesteel’s book, and knew how long they took to make, I decided my quilt wasn’t going to have 12, or 16, or 20 blocks.  It would have FOUR.  And they’d be BIG.

Little Mess on the Prairie: the result of my attempt to attach prairie points with a purple machine zigzag and some HUGE hand whipstitching

In fairness to my adolescent self, I did do some things well.  I designed and drafted my own quilt, rather than relying on a published pattern.  I researched the process, and I stuck with it until it was done.  However, I also did a lot of things I shouldn’t have.  I’m pretty sure the whole thing has 5/8″ seam allowances, because I was an apparel sewer.  I used a weird, twill-weave, cotton/poly blend for the top, because that’s what JoAnn Fabrics had in the colors I wanted.  The batting is polyester; I’m not sure I knew anything else existed, and it has bearded hopelessly.  I machine quilted fearlessly, but also somewhat recklessly; there are a LOT of puckers on the back, and I wasn’t ripping out or redoing anything.  The binding is really interesting, as I was not going to bother with the laborious process of mitering corners, and the hand sewing on my prairie point edging looks like Frankenstein’s sutures.  But at the end of it all, I had a quilt entirely of my own making on my bed.

OMG 80s fabrics! Country bears and pindots: could it get any more stereotypical?

I went on to make five more bed-size quilts before I graduated high school, as well as a crib quilt and a whole stack of placemats as trial pieces for various techniques that are mostly still in use at my parents’ house.  I couldn’t really quilt during college or dental school, although I did coordinate the making of a friendship quilt wall hanging for my sorority chapter during my senior year; I’d bought a second-hand Kenmore sewing machine out of a guy’s car the previous summer, which is a story for another day.  But quilting never really left my blood, and once I had free time, floor space, and an income, I picked it right back up, but now with the patience and (hopefully) maturity that I’d lacked in a younger decade.  And ooh, rotary cutters had happened while I was gone!

It’s possible that with my lifelong interests in fabric and needlework, I would have found quilting — or it would have found me — inevitably.  But Rachel Pellman’s book put me on that path during a very impressionable, creative, and inquisitive period of my life.

And I welcomed the opportunity to thank her in person.

Bonnie Hunter in Pittsburgh? Road trip!!!

Me and Bonnie Hunter!

Another reason why it’s good to be part of a network of quilters:  while Diane was here, she mentioned that Bonnie Hunter was going to be the guest speaker at the Three Rivers Quilters meeting the following Tuesday.  I had first learned about Bonnie when she was profiled in Quiltmania magazine (funny to learn about an American quilter in a French magazine, but c’est la vie, I suppose) and then I was fortunate enough to hear her speak last summer in Indianapolis.  Since then, I’ve been a faithful reader of her blog, and have been (gradually!) instituting many of her stash management ideas into my own quilting.  I was all excited to see that she was on the faculty roster for Quilt Odyssey this year, but I was unable to register in time to get into any of her classes, which filled up in a blink of the digital eye.

This made me all the more excited that my schedule allowed for me to drive four hours to Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon in order to hear her speak.  I realized that this was a crazy impractical idea as soon as it flitted through my forebrain, so I called my mom and invited her to come along.  With a travel companion and therefore a tacit endorsement of the scheme by a usually cooler head than mine, we headed west.  Before the meeting we had time to stop at Quilters Depot in the Castle Shannon neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  A new shop, it is small and doesn’t have much inventory at this time, but they were having a nice little sale and they stock some very interesting notions.  I bought a magazine and a half yard of (surprise!) taupe fabric from Red Rooster, who has really distinguished themselves in recent years as a domestic producer of taupes.

We went to the church for the meeting, found Diane, and were pleasantly surprised to find that nearly half the room was guests!  The guild president had us each stand and introduce ourselves, giving our name, hometown, and what guild we belonged to, and it took quite a while to get through all those introductions.  (Other than the one member’s little granddaughter who was visiting from Florida, my mom had come the farthest.)  They obviously did a good job advertising, and having a draw like Bonnie Hunter certainly brought the quilters out on a hot night!  A couple of women had brought as show and tell quilts that they had made from Bonnie’s website and magazine patterns so that she could see them, and the guild members who had taken the daytime workshop, Jared Takes A Wife, showed off the blocks they’d made.

Although I’d heard a slightly different version of the same talk in Indianapolis last year, I was very happy to have the information reinforced.  Plus, since Bonnie’s second book, Adventures with Leaders and Enders, has come out since then, she showed several of the quilts from that book, which were not available last year.  I was also able to get a picture of this quilt, which is the main visual aid she uses for this talk, and which I hadn’t gotten a good shot of in Indianapolis:

The Fabric Food Chain by Bonnie Hunter

She illustrates through this quilt (how cool is that?) the essence of her Scrap User’s System, which is that precut 1 1/2″, 2″, 2 1/2″, and 3 1/2″ strips, squares, and “bricks” can be combined into most of the basic units used in the most common sizes of patchwork blocks.  By cutting any scraps that measure between 1 1/2″ and 4 1/2″ into these usable units, rather than just pitching them into bags, boxes, and baskets (“all those B-words”), and then organizing them by size and separating light from dark, you can utilize your scraps and your stash, for which you paid $9/yard, when assembling your blocks, “rather than jumping in the car to go buy another jelly roll.”

Between this concept and the Leaders and Enders idea, where you sew on and off of usable squares rather than a ratty scrap when piecing your other projects, thereby building new quilts “in between the lines” of the ones you’re already working on, my mom and I really experienced some quilting revelations.  I had bought Bonnie’s first book, “Scraps and Shirttails,” in Indianapolis, and my mom bought a copy for herself right there; I bought the “Leaders and Enders” book, and we both got them autographed.  It was absolutely worth coming so far to both meet again one of my major quilting influences, and to share with my mom, Diane, and a room full of other happy quilters, why I was so excited when I first heard Bonnie speak.

We weren’t going to drive home at 9:30 at night, so we spent the night in a motel (talking about quilts till we fell asleep!) then started the day with breakfast at the Hot Metal Diner:

The door says, "No Smoking, No Whining"

If Guy Fieri hasn’t been here, he needs to.  Huge portions of tasty food and a stimulating, fun environment.  From there we headed to Quilters Corner in Finleyville, which turned out to be one of the best quilt shops I’ve ever seen.  Amazing shop model quilts, a huge selection of fabrics, great purse patterns displayed with stitched models, and wonderful support from the staff.  Plus, they have a bed in the middle of the shop, which always makes me happy.  It’s a silly thing, and a smaller shop can’t spare the room, but I love getting to see a quilt displayed on a bed rather than on a wall.  If I hadn’t just heard Bonnie Hunter speak, I probably could have done some major damage, but I heard her voice in my head:

“You know what? Quilting is a multi-billion dollar enterprise….the fabric is NOT all of a sudden going to stop being printed and dry up! I have faith in the fabric manufacturers that they will keep printing fabrics…maybe different fabrics…so yes it’s important to have what you need to finish projects you’ve started…but you can’t buy ahead for every project you ever want to make in your life.” — Bonnie Hunter from her “Paralyzed by the Stash” essay

Thus I managed to escape with just a taupe (yeah, I know) remnant — 3 yards for $9.95! — and another magazine.  I have their business card, and I have a friend in Pittsburgh, so if I decide I absolutely have to have something I left behind, I have recourse.  We finished the day at the National Aviary, which despite being in the midst of some major renovations was absolutely wonderful.  (Steller’s Sea Eagles!  Hyacinth Macaws!  Rhinoceros Hornbill!)  Any quilter who needs inspiration on how amazing color combinations occur in nature could certainly do worse than a trip to the aviary.  Then home again, home again, bursting with renewed energy and motivation.  Definitely a worthwhile road trip!

Pillowcases!

Once again, I’ve spent much of the last week pursuing quilt-related activities while not getting any actual quilting done.  My guilt on this front is partially assuaged by the fact that I’m attending a guild retreat this weekend, at which I should get a ridiculous amount accomplished.  But I can’t complain too much, because while my quilts-in-progress continue to gather dust, I am very proud to have 20 pillowcases ready to donate to ConKerr Cancer.

Pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer

In case you haven’t heard of this wonderful project, ConKerr Cancer was started by Cindy Kerr in 2002, after she started making pillowcases to brighten up her 12-year-old son’s hospital room as he received treatments for the cancer that would ultimately take his life at age 18.  When she saw how he enjoyed the pillowcases, she started making them for other children in the ward at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and gradually got other friends and volunteers in on the project.  From those simple beginnings, over 175,000 pillowcases have been distributed, and chapters have started in Canada and South Africa as well as all over the U.S.  Cindy Kerr has been recognized as a 2008 L’Oreal Paris Woman of Worth and received Martha Stewart’s Dreamers Into Doers award.

Basically, it’s an extremely worthy cause, accessible to all levels of sewing ability, and is a great way to burn through yards of child- and teen-appropriate stash fabric while feeling really good about it.  My guild has adopted ConKerr Cancer as one of our ongoing service projects, but until now I hadn’t mustered up to act on it.  Directions for the basic pillowcase are on the site; I preferred the result from the Hot Dog technique, which was almost like a magic trick.  If you make one of these, just take the first one on faith:  it actually works extremely well, it  just feels deeply strange.  But it does result in a completely enclosed edge where the pillowcase body fabric meets the cuff, which I thought was nicer.

In addition to the 20 donation pillowcases, I made one for myself, and this is why.  Last summer, on the advice of my chiropractor, I bought a custom SleepNumber pillow to help with my chronic neck problems.  The system is pretty neat:  they have a variety of inner cores, outer shells, and protectors that you mix and match to create your perfect pillow, depending on whether your priority is luxury, hypoallergenicity, or postural support.  I chose a contoured foam core, a memory foam outer shell, and a protector that has silver woven through it as a natural antibacterial measure.  They have a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is a good thing, or else I never would have been able to bring myself to buy a — wait for it — $150 pillow.  Yikes.  But within just a few nights, I was sleeping better, my neck felt much improved, and I knew that $150 was a small price to pay.

However, that’s not the reason why I need a brightly colored batik pillowcase.  That reason occurred probably about a month later, when we drove to Indianapolis for vacation.  We’d be away for a week, so naturally I wanted to bring my new pillow so I wouldn’t exacerbate my neck trouble.  We left Monday evening and drove just over the West Virginia – Ohio border, where we spent the night.  Tuesday morning we got up, had a leisurely breakfast, and continued west.  We were just passing Zanesville, OH, about an hour from our motel, when I realized we’d left my pillow on the bed.  My husband called the motel while I turned the car around, and a nice lady from housekeeping said that oh yes, they’d found the pillow, they had it in lost and found, no problem.  An hour later, we pulled back up to the motel, to find that the shift had changed, the lady he’d spoken to had left, and no one knew where my pillow was.  Another tense half hour passed before it was located.

Now, we were not operating on a tight schedule.  We had planned to make some stops in Columbus and arrive in Indianapolis sometime mid-afternoon, but we had no fixed plans.  Nevertheless, losing two and a half hours of vacation over a pillow had me really frustrated and angry with myself.  So angry, that I was still seething by the time we were driving past Zanesville again.  So angry, that I didn’t realize I was going over 80 mph in a 65 zone until I saw the lights in my rearview mirror.  The policeman was very nice and polite, but the ticket was the last straw.  I decided that our vacation was cursed, that I never should have left the house.  There’s an airport in Columbus, and at that point I was fully prepared to have my husband drop me there and let me make my way home, skipping our vacation and possibly hiding under the bed for the rest of the week.

But fortunately, one of our planned stops in Columbus was the Krema Nut Company.  I had heard about them from a coworker who’d attended a convention in Columbus, and thought it would make a nice change from fast food for lunch on the road.  We went to their peanut butter sandwich lunch counter, where (much like the custom pillow process) you can select your choice of fresh bakery bread, type of peanut or other-nut butter, and topping.  I had a cashew butter and spicy raspberry jam sandwich on freshly baked whole wheat bread, that was assembled before my eyes, wrapped in waxed paper, and handed to me in a brown paper bag.  Our sandwiches, plus pretzels and little elementary-school-cafeteria-sized cardboard cartons of milk, came to less than $10 total for the two of us, and by the time I’d finished my sandwich I had abandoned all thoughts of flying home and was back in the proper vacation mindset.  We went on to have a wonderful time.

So although everything turned out fine, I never again want to risk leaving my super-special pillow behind anywhere.  Therefore, I now have an extremely loud pillowcase for whenever I travel.  I hope it doesn’t keep me awake at night, but at least I don’t have to worry that it will ever again blend into the bedding.  Unless there’s a Grateful Dead-themed hotel somewhere I don’t know about…

Unforgettable... that's what you are...