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Thanks to everyone for their encouraging comments about our kitchen-in-progress post a few weeks ago. I’m happy to say ~ the remodel is done!

Before we moved everything back in I staged a few photos to make it look like they do in magazines.

The under cabinet lighting is wonderful, and I absolutely love the backsplash tile. Mike says he does too! It really sparkles when the sun shines in (and we have 1 1/2 boxes leftover – let me know if you’d like some for yourself 😊).

 Once the photos were taken I put all the things necessary to make it a convenient working kitchen back in place ~ and my chicken collection came back to roost above the cabinets.

I baked cookies in the new oven the first day it was moved in, and now we can get back to normal… except the guys came the next day to break out the old tile in the front and back halls.

As you can tell from the dining room ~ we’re not quite back to normal yet 🤣.

But I’m not complaining. We’re so blessed to be able to get this done!

Originally that was going to be the end of this week’s post, but I usually like to include something quilty each week. Trey was the inspiration for this quilty addition. He came over to hang out with us on Wednesday. When he arrived I asked him what he wanted to do and he asked if he could sew something. WooHoo! While heading down to the studio he asked me how I stitched the cherries on Sommer’s jeans.

I showed him the card with all the stitches on my Janome, and he was enthralled. He asked if he could stitch on a piece of black fabric so he could put it on a sweatshirt. Of course I said yes. He was a natural at threading the machine.

As he practiced that it hit me… rather than stitching lines of decorative stitches, perhaps I should show him how to stitch circles like the students did in my Specialty Stitch Spectacular class in Madison last September.

He loved the idea and quickly chose a blue variegated thread for his first circle. We taped a thumbtack in place, and he was off (for a short tutorial on this technique click here). It’s such a great technique because the machine does all the work.

After the first circle was done we moved the tack, he chose a new design and thread, and circles 2, 3 and 4 were added. Once completed I showed him how to use the monogram feature to add his name. He was very happy with the results!

What joy! Now to find a sweatshirt!

PS he told me his favorite circle was the spools of thread. That’s my boy!

 

 

Our granddaughter Sommer just turned 13. Where did those years go? The first 7 years of her life we were grandpa and grandma daycare – and we loved it! She brought so much joy into our lives. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown.

Sew ~ what would she like for her 13th birthday? I thought back to when my daughter was that age, and remembered I’d made her a pair of what she called patch pants that she loved. Hmm. I headed to a local thrift store and bought a pair of jeans in Sommer’s size. Then I pulled some scraps out of my fishbowl (to read a post about Sommer and my fishbowl full of scraps click here).

I cut the seam off along the outsides of the legs to a few inches above the knee.

Then I sewed the scraps into a strip.

I selected a fun stitch on my machine, laid the patch strip under one side of the opening in the leg, and stitched.

Yup ~ cherries ~ since that’s what Kirsch means in German 😊. I actually didn’t notice the cherries in the fabric until I began stitching. Too much fun!

Pinning and stitching the other side of the opening was a bit more challenging since these are skinny leg jeans. But I persevered.

And they turned out nicely.

Sommer loved them!

Happy birthday Sweetheart 😘.

There are many ways to mark quilting lines, etc. on our quilts. The problem is ease of removal. I decided to do a post about this topic when a friend of mine recently had an issue with a method of marking.

I know many quilters who like to use the Frixion™ pens to mark their quilts because the lines disappear with heat. Donna did that on her ThreadBender’s Achromatic challenge quilt, and ironed the marks away upon completion. When she brought her quilt for the “big reveal” at our February meeting she was shocked to discover that the markings on her quilt, which she’d left in the car on a cold winter’s day, had returned!

I took all the quilts home to photograph them after our meeting, and she asked me to please iron the marks away before photographing it. I did ~ and it worked great. Here’s her beautiful quilt.

Afterwards I decided to do a little test of my own. I placed her quilt outside in the cold for half an hour. And… the marks returned once again.

Fortunately they did iron off the second time too. I did an internet search and found a great article on this topic. Click here to read it. Thanks Donna, for letting me share your quilt’s story.

So, do you have a favorite marking tool? The one I use the most often, and share in my classes, is the very inexpensive “sliver of soap”.

It shows up on most fabrics, and always comes off easily with a little water. I simply spritz it with a spray bottle, or wet a small piece of muslin and rub gently. We save hotel soaps (they’re going to throw them out anyways), and use them instead of liquid soap so that I have slivers to use on my quilts and in my classes.

If the area to be marked is white or very light I will use a fabric marker. I made a quilt many years ago and marked the quilting design using a blue washout marker. The marks disappeared with just a spritz of water. It looked like they were gone but after hanging it for a period of time I was shocked to discover the color of the fabric behind the marks had faded from blue to light gray. I no longer have the quilt, but trust me – I haven’t done that again. I still use the blue marker occasionally, but I soak the entire quilt to remove the marker chemicals completely.

I must admit I like Crayola washable markers, but I always test first on the fabrics used in the quilt to be sure they will come out, and I completely soak the marks out after the quilting is done.

Whatever you use, mark lightly ~ only as heavy as you need to see it ~ so that the marks are easier to remove.

I’d love your feedback! Please comment with any recommendations you’d like to share.

Recently I’ve had a few different ideas for blog posts, but individually they didn’t have enough “meat” for a single post. So I decided to combine them. They don’t relate to each other, but I hope you’ll find them interesting.

First ~ a conclusion to a previous post. I made a quilt for a friend’s niece a few months back (to read the quilt’s story click here and then scroll to the end of the post). Isabelle finally received that quilt for her birthday, and here she is!

So sweet!

The next project was also made for a little one. Last year in Paducah I needed a project to sew on in our B&B. I found this fabric at a vendor and thought it would be fun as a One Block Wonder.

I cut it into stacks of triangles, started sewing, and brought them home half finished. While packing up for my last retreat I spotted them and decided it would be better to “get ‘r done” than to put them in the UFO bin. I brought along a blue fabric to put between the hexagons, but I didn’t have enough. So while on retreat I added the white triangles and green strips. I then played around until I liked the placement.

While adding the border I learned that a friend just had a baby boy. I decided this quilt was meant for Nathan, but wouldn’t it be a nicer gift if a book went with it? I found the perfect one online.

Now it’s ready for the baby shower.

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And lastly ~ how many of you have had a zipper pull come off a jacket? I have. The last time I attached a key ring because I still love the jacket and needed to make it work.

Recently Mike had the same problem. He replaced the missing pull with a key ring too, but then he did an internet search for other ideas. At the same time we’d brought home a bag of old keys from our cottage. One of the suggestions Mike found was to use an old key as a zipper pull!

So we did! The key Mike chose had the tag above tied to it (we don’t lock the outhouse any more 🤣). He liked the lion.

I chose the one with the half circle opening that says Master.

They’re a great conversation starter 😊. Sew ~ what do you do with orphan keys?

The definition of achromatic is: “without color”, and it’s also the theme of our latest “big” challenge at ThreadBenders:

“Quilts must be black, white and/or gray (no off-white or blue grays). Any technique, designs or embellishments may be used in the quilt center, as long as there is no color added.  Size 37″ square: center of quilt 32″ x 32″; visible 2″ solid white border all around; and 1/2″ binding in the same metallic gray used by all.”

The rules may seem a bit intense, but since the theme was so open to interpretation, we wanted the quilts to still have a cohesive look.

Have you ever made an achromatic quilt? I had a bunch of ideas, but one by one they didn’t turn into what I envisioned. The first was to try “thread sketching” a photo of the pier at our previous home. A 32″ square whole cloth in which the design is only done in thread sounded like fun. So I printed the photo in black and white, and made a sample pattern. Then I layered a small quilt sandwich and jumped in.

The sample on the right was as far as I got when I realized it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. So on to plan B. I took a photograph of a curvy road and decided to have “geese” fly down it using a photo altering program. After a while I knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do either.

As a side note some of you might be interested to know that I no longer use Photoshop™, but have changed to Affinity Photo™. It’s been a good change for me. Contact me if you’d like more information.

So now what? I’ve said before that artists are inspired by many things, and my faith in Jesus has been a big part of the inspiration for many of my quilts. So one night I simply prayed for an idea that would bring Him glory. In the morning I had a new direction based on Genesis 1:4 “And God divided the light from the darkness”. Why don’t I pray about it first ?!?

I love working with swirls and spirals, so I searched the internet for a positive/negative, black/white swirling image to give me the “bones” of the design. I deleted some portions, and added others until I was happy with it. Then I had the pattern enlarged to actual size, straight stitched the pattern through the black and white layers,

trimmed away what wasn’t needed, and spent two days at our December retreat satin stitching it all via Repliqué (on my new machine – I love it!).

It was looking good, but something was missing. I had another conversation with the Lord and thought about how sin is often referred to as darkness in the Bible, while Jesus is called the “Light of the World”. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Word God spoke to create everything. He was there at the beginning, and God’s plan was already in place to have Him suffer, die and rise again to pay the price for all who would believe. So I needed to add the cross. That was what was missing. I added it at top center, white on white (it’s subtle, but it’s there ~ and much easier to see in person). Then it was all framed with a gray flange, and the white border.

Once the quilt sandwich was pinned I experimented with different quilting designs, drawing them on with a sliver of soap on the dark fabric and an erasable fabric marker on the light.

The quilting step was great fun (I love spirals!). When that was completed I decided that the white border was so narrow it might not need any quilting. So I put on the binding and discovered I was wrong. The border did need quilting. Then it was finished!

Last week was the “big reveal” meeting where we bring in our challenge quilts, do a sort of “bed turning” in which we all get to see them one at a time, and then wait while our fellow ThreadBender ~ and amazing judge ~ Carol Butzke, juries them to select the eight that will be entered in the Ultimate Guild Challenge competition at the AQS show in Grand Rapids. There were thirteen quilts revealed and they were each wonderful! They are now posted to our ThreadBenders site. To see them you can click here! I’m so blessed to be a part of this talented group!

These quilts have been invited to be displayed at the Crazy Quliters Quilt Show in Mukwonago, WI on March 29-30. For all the details on that show click here.

 

This winter I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Florida for teaching and quilting fun. I’ve also been on two great retreats. One at Tall Pines with my Fabric-ator friends, and the other at Cattail with the Sisters of the Cloth. While on the Cattail retreat I talked the ladies into taking a road trip to Baraboo to visit Ardyth’s Sew and Vac (so I could pick up my new sewing machine tote 😊)

and then have lunch at Jen’s Alpine Cafe across the street. It was lovely!

Both stops were great ~ and there were some other fun shops in Baraboo as well. I’m so grateful for all these winter adventures with friends.

During this time I left Mike with a house that was anything but normal. As I mentioned in January, we had our kitchen torn out,

and almost all the hardwood floors on the main level refinished (meaning all the furniture was moved out 🤪).

The floors were finished in January, and then the cabinets were delayed. They finally were delivered the Tuesday after my last retreat ~ and John got to work.

He had them in by Friday, and we’re very pleased!

That same day we had the measuring done for the countertops, and that will only take 2 to 3 weeks (UGH!). In the meantime we’re looking at tile and light fixtures. So many decisions.

And what does this have to do with quilting??? Well, after trips to three different tile stores there was nothing I liked enough to use for the backsplash. The image at the top of this post is the old subway tile that was torn out (and very poorly done). Maybe we’d have to go simple like that again. We tried one more store and ~ I FOUND THE ONE!!! Wait until you see it! With the yellow walls and sage cabinets I didn’t want to add any more color (I know neutral is in, but I love color so much that I had to have sage cabinets ~ even if they’re not trendy 😊). The countertops will be white with a slight marbling in shades of gray and beige.

Drum roll please…

Do you see tone-on-tone texture? I’m leaning towards the rectangles. The entire backsplash will be a mix of all the different textures ~ sort of like a patchwork quilt!!! Here’s a close up:

I think it will quietly say “a quilter lives here”. And what about a grout with a light sage green tint to it? I’m so excited. Decision made ~ and Mike likes it too. So now we wait.

As promised after my trip to Florida last month, I want to introduce you to my new friend Carla. She has a lovely home on the river in Labelle Florida.

Her business is called Kits by Carla. She has a shop/classroom in her home, and it’s also a quilter’s retreat.

Linda showed me Carla’s book the night before our visit, and I’m intrigued by her techniques. Once we arrived she introduced us to some of the lovely ladies from her sewing group. I told her I was interested in her “Shortcut Sheets”, and I wanted to purchase her book.

To view her video tutorials click here. In essence Carla has done all the math, and all you have to do is pick the basic block you want to make. You then follow her instructions to do some simple strip piecing of what she calls a “sheet”. The sheet is then cross-cut into oodles of the chosen block, and she gives instructions for how to make them in many different sizes. I’ve already watched a few of her videos and I’m looking forward to trying her techniques in the near future!

As we entered her living room to see some of the quilts she’s made with these blocks, I was impressed with her corner quilt.

Why didn’t I think of hanging a quilt around a corner. What a fun perspective!

I’ve always loved the Hunter’s Star pattern, and have made a few of my own quilts using Deb Tucker’s ruler (this is one of mine).

I can’t wait to try Carla’s method because it looks even easier, and it yields extra blocks that make a great border. She’s also discovered that the Hunter’s Star blocks can be rotated to make maple leaves (be sure to notice the fun border made from the leftovers):

or a pattern she referred to as No Star Hunter’s Star (also with a leftovers border).

She calls this quilt pattern “Mosaic”, and it contains all of the different basic blocks that can be made with her technique.

It was a wonderful visit. I think I have some fun and playful piecing in my future. Thanks Carla!

PS Carla said that if you book a retreat with her she cooks the meals. I wish I could have stayed long enough to try it out.

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And one more thing…

The ThreadBenders have an exhibit of work hanging at the Wauwatosa Library through the end of February. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it! If you are unable to attend, you can see some more photos on our site by clicking here!

This past week I learned that a very dear friend of mine passed away at her home in Arizona. Evelyn and I met many, many years ago at the Log Cabin Quilt Guild in Hales Corners, Wisconsin. We connected right away and I was excited to join in a small group she put together called the “Quilty Bees”. We all collected bee fabrics and made fun projects from them, but Evelyn was definitely the Queen Bee.

She was a very talented quilter, teacher and lecturer. She was known for her beautiful vests and embellished art quilts. I wrote a post about some of her amazing work five years ago. Please click here to read all about it (and be aware that the first part of this post is from long ago ~ and not current information).

I learned a lot from her over the years, especially about paint sticks. On a visit with her in Arizona she shared her knowledge and helped me to make a quilt that ended up winning awards. She even used them to make the shadow along the lower edge of the flying geese in our collaboration quilt: Intragalactic Journey (aka Out of the Bathtub).

In 2008 Evelyn joined Wendy and me on our quilter’s riverboat cruise in France. We had a pre-trip contest in which we sent fabric to each participant and asked them to make something for the trip. Evelyn’s vest was the winner, and her prize was her very own Quilt Sissie. She named her QuiltTilly.

Evelyn’s sister Hazel was also a quilter, and she shared Evelyn’s love for life ~ and quilting. In 2010 they invited me travel to Alaska, and teach for a few guilds near Hazel and Eddie’s home in Kenai. What a fantastic adventure that was! I met so many lovely people and saw many amazing sites. The classes went well, and the best part was who I was with.

Then in 2012 I was invited to teach for shops and guilds in Arizona ~ while staying with Evelyn once again (Hazel lived there half the year). This was my bedroom (and her studio) there.

Our time in Mesa (and the surrounding area) was great. Plus we made a trip to a quilt show in Tucson. What a wonderful adventure!

The following year Wendy and I invited the sisters to join us on our annual trip to Paducah for the AQS show.

We even got to meet Quiltman and Bobbin while having lunch at Grace Church.

We had a lot of fun, but all good things come to an end. After we took Evelyn and Hazel to the airport we discovered that Evelyn had left QuiltTilly behind. That started one of the silliest adventures I’ve ever blogged about! If you’ve never read the story (I have posted about it before), and you’d like a good laugh, you’ll want to visit the links below (and be aware ~ the saga of QuiltTilly is at the end of each of these posts). To begin with, we noticed QuiltTilly was in rough shape. She’d traveled all over the world with Evelyn and seemed to be suffering a bit (one hand was actually missing!)

So Wendy and I conspired to send a ransom note while driving home from Paducah (click here to read about it).

While QuiltTilly stayed with me she got into a bit of mischief (click here and then here for that part of the story).

In the end the ransom was paid and there was a happy reunion (click here for the conclusion!) I told you it was silly ~ and I’m so grateful for friends I can be silly with!

A few years later Wendy and I led a trip to the quilt show in Sisters, Oregon. Evelyn, Hazel, and their Quilt Sisters joined us for another wonderful adventure.

This was followed by a cruise of the St. Lawrence River from Quebec to Boston a few years later.

One of my fondest memories of time spent with Evelyn was prior to my trip to Japan. She wasn’t able to travel with me that time, but she called me a few months before and told me I needed to make a jacket along with her. The jacket she’d made previously with this particular pattern had worn out, and I was delighted to spend time with her making our new jackets. I love wearing it, but the time spent with her is the best part of it’s story (click here for that story).

For my 60th birthday Wendy arranged to have my friends send me blocks (to read about that click here). I made them into a quilt that I use often. I’m so grateful to have Evelyn’s block in that quilt. Every time I snuggle under it and read her block, it reminds me of my dear friend and all our wonderful adventures.

I miss you Evelyn! And I’m so grateful for all the precious moments we’ve had together!