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Welcome to my first post after my recent trip to Italy. What a fantastic adventure it was! As I mentioned a few posts back, My husband traveled for his career and really isn’t interested in doing so in retirement. I however have loved to take groups of quilters on tours and, even though I’ve reached the point where I’d rather not have the responsibility for leading the tours any longer, I still love to travel. Mike and I agreed a nice compromise would be that I’d take a grandchild on an adventure their senior year and he’d stay home with the dog 😊. This year was Will’s turn and it couldn’t have been more wonderful. We flew into Rome the day after Christmas, checked into our hotel, and walked over 38,000 steps in 1 1/2 days!

He was fascinated by the architecture and the food – and this was true for the entire trip. The afternoon of the second day we boarded a cruise ship and set sail for Naples. We only had a day there and decided that our choice of shore excursions would be the ruins of Pompeii. It was amazing. To think that these walls and roads were completely covered with 23 feet of ash, debris and earth that needed to be painstakingly removed.

One of the things I found most interesting was the condition of the frescos in some of the buildings. Fresco is a type of mural painting done on wet plaster, and our guide said that the term comes from a combination of the words “fresh” and “stucco”. I’m not sure how true that is, but it sounded good. Just look at the examples that survived, after being buried for centuries.

The fresco that really grabbed my attention was this one depicting cherubs working with fabric… yes… fabric! And isn’t the intensity of the colors mind blowing?

That night we set sail again. This time for Messina, Sicily. It was difficult to choose what to do with our limited time in each port, but this time we both agreed on a bus tour that took us to the village of Taormina located on the top of a mountain. The landscapes were spectacular as we traveled up and up, and the village was even more fascinating. At the top of the main street (another goodly walk) we came to a theater that was centuries old and had been built and occupied at different times by both the Greeks and the Romans. What a view!!! And please don’t miss Mt. Etna in the background. It began to “let off steam” just a few days before we arrived there.

We had free time after seeing the theater and decided to try some local pasta on our walk back to the bus. It was delicious! And almost pretty enough to be the inspiration for an art quilt 😋.

We definitely didn’t have enough time there. Our next day was at sea as we made our way around the boot of Italy, through the Ionian Sea, and up the Adriatic to the port of Dubrovnik (this map is not of our exact cruise, but it gives perspective).

Our time in Dubrovnik proved to be the most interesting for me as a quilter, as I learned about local fibers and small scale silk production (it deserves a post of it’s own and will get one next week). So I’ll conclude this week’s post with our next port of call: Zadar, Croatia. Because our ship was smaller than many cruise ships, we were able to dock close to the best points of interest, and this was especially true in Zadar. The old walled city sits on a small peninsula protected by islands along the Adriatic. We docked along the end of the peninsula next to the Sea Organ (our ship was where I’ve drawn the thick red line in the lower left and the Sea Organ is just to the right by the musical notes).

What, you may ask, is a Sea Organ? Well, it’s a natural musical instrument, seventy meters long with thirty-five organ pipes built under concrete. It was created by a Croatian architect in 2005 as part of a reconstruction of the Zadar shoreline. The waves flow into the organ pipes and create a haunting melody that increases and decreases with the intensity of the weather. Click here for a video that captures the sound and feel (please watch to at least the 11 second mark so you can see/hear the “music” and the waves). I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and wandered off the ship a number of times to sit on the curved benches along the organ that look like a piano keyboard, and just listen.

As the sun was beginning to set I made my way back to the ship, only to find a small group of young people swimming off the stone steps! This was all the more surprising because the temperature of the air was about 42 degrees! When I got back to our cabin I found Will on the phone with his girlfriend. When I told him about the crazy swimmers he responded (you’ve probably already guessed this) – “can I?” I held his towel and took the photos. Crazy kid! I did join him in the hot tub afterwards 😊.

As the sun was setting the other part of this lovely shoreline became the star attraction. The same architect who designed the Sea Organ also came up with the “Greeting to the Sun”, a solar installation that collects the sun’s energy during the day and than creates a light show at night that dances with the sound of the organ. It was truly amazing – and the best place to view it was from the top deck of our ship. What a blessing! Please click here to watch the video I took (it was quite windy, so you won’t hear the sea organ, but the light show is pretty nontheless).

This brings my first trip post to an end. I can’t wait to share more with you next week. but I do want to share one more thing…

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I was invited to teach a class at the AQS show in Paducah this year and registration for members has opened. Registration for non-members begins January 20th. The class is entitled “Quilt, Slash, Create” and you can read about it in a post from November by clicking here!

Click here to register for my class – or to see what other instructors are offering. Don’t miss my friend Lori Dickman’s classes too!

It’s been an unusual and eventful year. As may be evidenced by the fact that I’m in Italy at the time of this posting and I scheduled it’s arrival back in mid-December! Technology is amazing (she said as she was hoping this all actually did happen in an orderly way 🤣).

The year began in a warm and wonderful way because I was invited (for the second year in a row) to teach for a quilt guild in Ft. Myers, Florida in January. And the best part was staying with my friend Linda who made it all possible (click here to read that post)!

When I returned home we began the remodel of our kitchen and refinishing of almost all the floors on the main level of our home – yes in winter!

After 4 months it was done. It is beautiful ~ but what a mess it was! And very little quilting took place during that time 😞.

In April I made my 34th pilgrimage to the AQS quilt show in Paducah, and was blessed to teach along with my friend Lori. What a wonderful time we had!

Shortly after we returned home my life changed quite a bit because of my Mom’s deteriorating health. She and Dad moved into a Senior Living Facility and 2 days later Mom went on hospice. As many of you know she’s been put on “end of life care” three times, and she’s rallied each time. No one would have believed she’d still be with us at Christmas, but praise the Lord ~ she was! During this time I didn’t get much time to sew, but I did manage to make a quilt about the cookbook Mom gifted me. Click here to read that story (in case you don’t remember it 😊).

When Mom first went on hospice they said she had “hours to days” to live. Since then she has seen her 91st birthday, Dad’s 94th birthday (he’s doing quite well), and their 71st anniversary. What a gift God has given us to spend this extra sweet time with her.

I’ve posted about our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations over the past few months. My big Christmas sewing project this year was a jacket for Hanna. I started working on it in November and if you don’t remember the details, you can read about the beginnings of that sewing adventure by clicking here!

After quilting all the fabric and cutting out the pattern pieces at our retreat, I realized I needed to do something about the poofy edges of each piece.

My friend Susan invited me to serge them at her house. It worked great! In no time at all I had all the edges finished, and I think I need a serger (but that’s for a future post). Thanks Susan!

Piecing a garment with pre-quilted fabric was a new adventure for me, and I enjoyed it.

Once all the seems were stitched all the outer edges needed to be bound. I used the outer jacket fabric and made a lot of binding. I sewed it to the inside, turned it to the outside, and top-stitched it in place with a serpentine stitch.

Next it needed buttons and loops. I went through my button collection and found some vintage ones (probably from a grandmother). I sent Hanna a photo for approval, and she loved them. They are made of fabric covered with metal. Once the fabric loops and buttons were in place all that was left was to add a “label”.

The good news is I did get it finished in time to ship it to her in Washington ~ and she loves it! I’ll send a photo of her in it when I return from my trip.

There have been many retreats, travels, teaching adventures and quilt projects stitched on throughout the year. Thanks for traveling along with me through 2025. I’m looking forward to more sewing adventures in 2026! Who knows ~ next week’s blog may contain some fiber fun from Europe! I don’t know what lies ahead for William and me in Italy, but I sure hope I find something of interest for quilters while I’m there.

In January of 2020 (can it really be six years ago already?) I was blessed to be able to lead a group of quilters on a tour of Japan. The highlight was spending three days at the Great International Quilt Show in Tokyo. We also toured amazing sites and took classes with Japanese teachers. I now know it was a once in a lifetime trip for me, as it was the last Great International Quilt Show ever held there. The show was permanently cancelled the following year because of the pandemic. I’m so grateful for all of it and the wonderful memories we have. If you’d like to read my first post about the show click here. I did a number of posts about the fiber art we saw and classes we took. To read them please click here, and here, and here , and one more here.

So why am I telling you all this in 2026? Well, in the end of November I received an email from Sharon. She’d come across my Japan post from 2020 and liked one of the quilts in that post (I don’t blame her – it is amazing!)

She contacted me to ask if I’d taken a photo of the label because she reads Japanese! Sadly, I hadn’t. She then wrote to say that she was making her own version from the photo and wanted to give credit to the maker. And… she sent me this photograph!

Wow!!! I wrote her back and asked if I could share her quilt in progress. I was hoping someone might have information on this quilt to share with Sharon. If you know anything about it please comment below.

When I wrote her I also asked if she’d share a bit of her story. Sharon did not disappoint, and in December she sent photos of her finished quilt along with this information:

“I came from a family that sewed, canned, and farmed so making things has always been part of my life. 

I first went to Japan as a young teenager to study the Japanese language.   That first trip strongly influenced my sense of color, shape, and asymmetry. I had a long career in natural resource management and regulation.  While I did small sewing projects and needlepoint during those years, quilts just seemed too demanding. But when I retired quilts became the dominant art form for me.  I prefer to design my own quilts and typically use Japanese fabrics, often old hand dyed pieces.

When I saw your photos of the 2020 Japanese quilt show, the moon quilt called my name.  It took me a few months but here it is!”

Isn’t it exquisite? Sharon, you did a beautiful job. Congratulations and thanks for sharing it with us!

And one last link. I did an additional post about the food in Japan and thought some of you might find it interesting too. Click here to read it!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

This year our family will have a very different sort of Christmas celebration. We usually spend Christmas Eve with my Dad’s side of the family, but that tradition is changing. Recently my brother had to be moved into a memory care home. He’s had early onset alzheimer’s for almost 8 years, and my sister-in-law has taken wonderful care of him. But the time came when he needed more than she was able to provide. He’s in a very nice home in Madison. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, my parents have been living at Shorehaven for 6 months. Dad is still doing well in assisted living. Mom is in hospice there. Currently she sleeps a lot, is often confused, and the hardest part is she’s become very hard of hearing. But she’s still with us and we are grateful. So Saturday we had a small family Christmas gathering with snacks and cookies at “Dad and Mom’s place”. Mike read the Christmas story and we all praised our Lord for His goodness to us.

The other reason this Christmas will be different is because our grandson Will is a senior and I’m blessed to be able to take him on a trip and enjoy spending time (and some of his inheritance) with him. We leave this week for Italy! Seeing all the beauty of this season in Italy will be wonderful ~ especially with my sweet grandson (Mike decided not to go. After 34 years of flying all over the world ~ he just prefers to stay home 😊).

We’ll begin with a day in Rome,

and then board a cruise ship to travel around Italy, ending our adventure in Venice. We are beyond blessed! And I’m so very grateful that Will is doing well in school ~ and wants to travel with his grandma 😊. I’ve attempted to schedule blog posts for the weeks when I’m gone. If you don’t get an email from me the next 2 Sundays, please feel free to visit my blog at any time: https://www.chrisquilts.net/blog/, and hopefully the scheduled posts will be there.

And, since I like to include something of interest to quilter’s in every post, I want to share a rather odd Christmas project. I made a quilt for our son Brad when he was 9 years old using a Mary Ellen Hopkin’s pattern named Bricks and Mortar. I wrote a post about that quilt and a subsequent one back in 2019 (click here to read that post).

It was tied with wool yarn and stayed on his bed for many years. It left with him when he and Betsy married. Two years ago Betsy told me that they all loved that quilt (really!?!), but it was getting quite worn and they’d love it if I made a new version for Christmas. I was happy to oblige and had Betsy choose the fabrics. Both quilts were flannel backed.

Imagine my surprise when Trey recently told me his favorite quilt had a tear and he asked me to fix it. I had to wonder which quilt was his favorite? This is what I got:

When I picked it up I could see why he loved it. It’s been washed so many times that it’s soft, drapey and snuggly. It still looks pretty good. Some of the black blocks are faded, and the wool ties are all felted into knots. But what needed fixing? Then I turned it over:

The flannel on the back was thin and shredded. So I found some nice thick plaid flannel online to simply add a new back. Then it sat. Our family Christmas Saturday ended around noon. Dad and Mom were ready for naps and after Mike and I got home there was a lull. Hmm. Maybe I could get that quilt repaired for Christmas Eve.

The wool yarn knots had held up so well that I chose to retie it in the untied areas. This required putting it in my basting frame. I was stunned to discover that I still had some of that same yarn left from when I first tied the quilt. I stitched, cut, and knotted every dark brick.

Then I trimmed the flannel, turned under a hem, and appliquéd it all around. I’ll take a photo of Trey with his repaired favorite quilt on Christmas Eve, but I won’t be able to share it with you until Will and I return from our trip.

May your Christmas be wonderful! What joy to know that we can celebrate the birth of our Savior no matter what is going on around us ~ and He can be with us through the good and difficult times! “God bless us every one” ☺️.

As I was sipping my tea and looking at all the ornaments on our tree, I began thinking about each one and it brought back many wonderful memories. We have never had a tree that you’d see in fancy home decor magazines. In fact, we’ve collected so many ornaments over the years that I no longer put on anything but lights and ornaments (the garland just seemed to get in the way). This year the kids helped hang the ornaments and, although their spacing isn’t necessarily the way I’d have done it, I love it!

That’s 49 years of ornament accumulation! Some of the more recent ones were made by grandkids.

I think my favorite grandchild ornatment would have to be the one Trey made us last year with Shrinky Dinks™.

Some of our other ornaments were made by my grandmother ~ and I treasure them.

A few were from Mike’s childhood – like his glass astronaut.

This is another of Mike’s favorites. When we were first married he told me José used to have pipe cleaner arms and legs. I told him I didn’t think he was very Christmassy and perhaps since he was missing parts, we should get rid of him. That became a family “battle” ~ and our kids and grandkids have all taken his side. I still make my comment every year, just for the response. Everyone loves José (even me).

I have a few favorites that I’ve purchased at craft fairs over the years. The tiny sleeping gnome is in a walnut shell bed!

And some I made to sell in craft fairs years ago. I put together the honey bear from purchased parts and wrote on his honey pot. Then the honey was added with a hot glue made for wood. They sold well. The other big seller was the Dairy Christmas cow. I had a booth at the Dairy Convention in Madison for 2 years. It’s my own design and they were a hit!

Others I didn’t sell, but made for us. The Santa spoon was fun to paint, and I made quite a few for family and friends.

We have many from places we’ve visited: Holland, Italy,

Hawaii and Estonia, just to share a few.

A friend made this for me and I still marvel at the workmanship. It’s only 2 1/2″ square.

We have many ornaments that focus on the real reason for Christmas, and this is my favorite.

I hope you’re enjoying preparing your tree, home and heart for Christmas!

My friend Judy put out a request on the women’s group at church for squares of many different types of fabrics. Well that was right up my alley. I didn’t ask why, I just began digging through my bins and cutting off chunks. I labeled them and let her know I’d put them in her folder at church. The only one she asked for that I didn’t have was burlap.

The next time I saw her I asked what she was doing. She told me her granddaughters Meredith and Olivia were members of the American Heritage Girls (a Christian version of the Girl Scouts, click here for their website), and she told me they were working on a merit badge about fabric. I was thrilled! I love teaching future generations about quilting/sewing. I asked her to take photos and share how it all went. Here’s Meredith working with the fabric samples.

And this is Judy, Olivia and Meredith with their finished project!

She said the girls wanted to sew too. They made dresses and pillows for their bears.

I think I can see you all smiling! I’m always excited to see young people with a desire to sew.

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And if that wasn’t fun enough, I have something else to share for quilters in southeastern Wisconsin. I stumbled upon a delightful quilt shop while meeting our new insurance agent. He’s in an office building in Hartland, and Our Quilting Workshop is in the same building. When I saw this sign as we entered from the back parking lot, I remembered some friends telling me about it. What a nice surprise.

It’s located in the lower level of the building,

And once you get inside this door the atmosphere is very inviting:

They have everything a quilter could want!

I enjoyed meeting Laura and Veronica and hearing about their passion for everything quilting.

They have a lot of Minky and Shannon fabrics. I even found some crib sized remnants for 30% off!!! Now that’s too good to pass up. They also have a nice collection of the National Parks fabrics.

They do longarm quilting for hire, and also train quilters to rent out time on their longarm machine. Click here for all the store details! Veronica also told me that they have a newsletter which features their specials, sales and classes. If you haven’t been to their shop, I highly recommend a visit!

Oh my goodness. I woke up this morning to the winter wonderland above (is it still November???). This is the table on our deck:

10 1/2″! Wow! It is beautiful (says the one sitting inside with a cup of hot tea, while her husband blows the driveway 😂). I couldn’t resist sharing these photos. And our church service has been postponed until 3pm so we can safely travel there. Blessing upon blessing!

So let’s get to today’s post:

Almost ten years ago I started playing with a technique that produced some fun art quilts ~ and resulted in a popular class. Perhaps you were in one of them and know where this is going 😁. You’ll find out why I’m revisiting this creative class at the end of this post. As you’ll see ~ the class title says it all. This was the first pair of quilts that resulted from this crazy idea:

And this is the back of that pair of quilts.

It all began with a stack of blocks made from a Kaffe Fassett stripe I acquired in a Milwaukee Art Quilter’s challenge. I decided to sew those striped blocks together. I then cut a piece of gorgeous green hand-dyed fabric the same size. I made both of these tops into quilt sandwiches; one with a black tone-on-tone on the back, and the other with an old UFO quilt top made of flying geese. I quilted both with diagonal lines 2″ apart. Then the fun began. One quilt was placed on top of the other and a circle was cut through both. After separating them, I swapped the circles and zig-zagged them into their new place. The results were so interesting that I couldn’t resist cutting/stitching a few more circles in the same way and then doing a big “swoosh” across them too. It was such fun I just had to make another pair of reversible quilts. This time with a beautiful turquoise and pink floral on all sides; a dark pair and a light pair.

The pairs are fun to hang together. Hmm. What would happen if I cut triangles???

Or rectangles (oops – I never bound one of them)!

Are you intrigued? Well, the reason I’m sharing them now is that I will be teaching at the AQS show in Paducah again this year, and I thought it would be fun to teach something I hadn’t taught there before. While noodling on this I pulled the triangle quilts out because I like to hang them at Christmas. I think they look like trees 😊. That’s when it all came together! I proposed the class and Lauren at AQS loved it. I guess I’d better finish the last binding.

If your guild is looking for a fun and easy art quilt workshop? Please let me know!

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And one more thing…

Mom and Dad are still doing OK. Mom is sleeping more and more, but we were blessed to have yet one more Thanksgiving with them both. In this photo we all arrived with pumpkin pie. Mom gobbled it up 😊!

Recently their 3 bedroom condo went up for sale. The building is for people 55 and older and it’s in a lovely area of Oconomowoc near Silver Lake.

Their home has spacious rooms and a beautiful view of a nature trail from the glass/screen porch.

If you or someone you know is looking for a place to retire and enjoy life in Lake Country, please click here!

Before I get to the “topic of the week”, I have to share some “cross” quilt photos sent to me since last week’s post. Doris’ daughter Margie made her this bright and cheerful quilt:

Then my friend Lori sent me a photo of her quilt entitled “Faith in Perspective”. It was made for the 2014 Quilt Expo challenge: Black, White plus one color, and it is fascinating. You may have to stare at it for a moment for the perspective to become clear. WOW!

Thank you both!

Also, someone asked about the kit Susan used for the first quilt featured in last week’s post. Karen was kind enough to send the information: “Susan’s teal cross at the top of your post is called Farmhouse Cross Quilt Kit from Shabby Fabrics and is still available to purchase”. Thanks Karen!

And now for “the Light Side”. I recently shared my “Gone to the Dark Side” lecture for the Crazy Quilters guild in Mukwonago. If you’ve heard it you might remember that I met a group of garment sewers years ago who thought that, because I was a quilter who used to make garments – I’d “gone to the dark side”. They wouldn’t explain what that meant. Why is quilting the “dark side” of sewing? I don’t know, but it led me to put together a lecture about some of the garments I made decades ago (that I still have of course), and some “related” quilts. So why is this post entitled “Gone to the Light Side”? Because my granddaughter Hanna wants me to make her a garment ~ a coat ~ for Christmas!

She recently emailed me with a request, from a fitting room in a clothing store. She said this jacket was $150 and was wondering if I could make her one for Christmas. I got my hopes up that she might want one made from an old quilt, but alas she wanted it to be a bit more plain to “go with everything”. I was just happy to know what to make her.

Sew where was I going to find the fabric? My first stop was the new fabric store in Watertown (click here for that post). Haley was there and she told me they are moving to a larger location on the west side of town. WooHoo! Stay tuned for more information. She did have a fabric for the outside of the jacket that Hanna liked.

But the brown gingham for the lining was going to be more of a challenge. Oh good ~ a reason to head to Waukesha and “Sew Much More”. They didn’t have the gingham, but they did have a small houndstooth plaid that would work. I then realized the hardest part would be the pattern. Boy do I miss JoAnns!!! Hobby Lobby is selling out of their patterns, so the selection was very limited. I grudgingly went online. I found one that would work and downloaded it,

only to find that the pattern pieces needed to be printed – and it would take 58 pages that would then need to be taped together. The other option was to have it printed. I took it to the local printer who prints my books, and to have it printed on large paper (similar to what we used to get in those wonderful simplicity patterns) was going to be $67!!! I printed and taped together the 58 pages 😵‍💫.

Our latest Fabricator’s retreat was this past week at Tall Pines in Mukwonago. These friends were students in my Open Lab class at WCTC, and we continue to enjoy being together. Sadly, I forgot to take any photos of the group, but I did snap a few of my project. My plan was to quilt the fabrics for Hanna’s coat together and then cut it out. A quilt retreat is the perfect place to do this rather boring straight line quilting. I layered the fabric with hi-loft poly batt and spent the first 2 days of the retreat quilting it with a 4″ grid.

I did this from the lining side because the print in the fabric made it easy to stitch long lines without having to mark them.

Once quilted I cut out the jacket pieces.

It was then I realized the cut edges needed to be secured. True confession time ~ I don’t own a serger, and I don’t even know how to use one. It surprises even me since I’ve made a lot of garments. Maybe it’s time. Susan invited me to come to her house for a visit soon and sew Hanna’s coat on hers. What a great way to determine whether or not I “need” one! So the coat project was packed away, and I pulled out my latest “quilt in progress”. The current challenge at ThreadBenders is entitled “Birds Eye View”, and I had some unique stitching that needed to be done on it. I think I’ll save that for a future post.

The entire retreat was a wonderful time of friends, fabric, food and fellowship. Quilting friends are the best!

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And… I want to “leaf” you with one last colorful photo. All the trees in our yard look like it’s time for winter except the ornamental pear trees that line our very long driveway. Last week they finally began to turn and they are gorgeous, especially compared with the rest of the naked ones in the yard.

Wishing each of you a blessed Thanksgiving!