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This past week I had the great privilege of judging a quilt show in Green Bay, WI. These ladies put on a wonderful show, with some extra touches I hope you’ll find fun and interesting. Like the “quilter” who stands at the entrance to the show (a great reminder that quilt shows should be positive, encouraging and fun!)

My partner in the judging was Alison Rainboth. Alison is a certified judge and appraiser ~ and a delight to work with.

We arrived at the venue at 10:30 Thursday morning, and the quilts were already hung. This is a different way to judge compared to most of the shows I’ve worked on. It’s a great way to really see each quilt. Everything was well organized and our scribes were very helpful. One of the special things this group does is to hold a “Judges Tour” before the show opens the next morning. Everyone who enters a quilt is invited to come in before the crowds, and Allison and I have the wonderful opportunity to walk through the show with everyone and share our thoughts about the quilts.

The quilt behind me in the photo was the Best of Show winner. Every aspect of Lorraine’s quilt was done well and she was one of my scribes. She didn’t let on that this was her quilt while it was being judged – amazing. Congrats Lorraine!

All of the organizers of the show were wonderful. Lindi Kuritz is the talented quilter who has invited me to judge this show this year, as well as many times in the past. It’s always wonderful to spend time with her, and I was happy to see that one of her quilts won a ribbon in a category I judged. “In My Mind” is a lovely rendering of a fantasy destination of hers. I’m glad I got a photo, but sad I missed having her in it.

I hadn’t previously met the quilter who was the show chairperson, and I’m so happy to now call Birgit my friend. Two of my favorite quilts in the show were made by her and hanging near each other.

The following piece by Birgit is definitely not one of your grandmother’s quilts. She challenged herself to do a small piece of stitching each day for a year. She arranged her strips of beautiful needlework by month, and each area was more interesting than the last. I had to pull myself away from gawking at the details, or I wouldn’t have finished the judging of the show on time ~ LOL! It was an easy pick for the show’s Creativity ribbon (she confided in me that a group of hand stitchers in the guild made the ribbons, and this was one she made 😁).

The next piece is entitled “You’ve Got a Friend”. This is a whole cloth piece Birgit sketched and stitched of her sister Margit as a child. She is now with her Lord. Birgit’s talent for evoking emotions through her work is outstanding.

I was pleased to get to know a number of the members who entered quilts in the show, and discovered that the quilter who won my Judge’s Choice ribbon is someone I’d met before. I’ll be teaching a brand new class in Paducah this week entitled Silhouettes and Shadows, so when I saw Joan Pierner’s quilt: “Bird Watching” I knew I’d found my ribbon winner. What a delight to be able to talk with her about it, and to have her remind me that she knows my cousin Cindy. It’s a small world.

Then a “white glove lady” said hi and began to tell me about one of her quilts. She said she doesn’t usually enter because she knows the problem areas in her quilts (don’t we all?), but this year she decided to just do it ~ and Joann’s sampler quilt was so deserving of a ribbon.

The variety of the quilts in the show was fascinating. Here’s just a little whirlwind tour of a few of my favorites (as usual, I loved them all – but there’s only so much space on this page). And I need to start with an apology to some of the makers. Usually I’m able to take photos in which I can read the name of the quilt and maker on the sign. For some reason I couldn’t do that on a number of the following quilts. I still wanted to share them with you, and I hope quilters reading this who know the maker and/or quilt name will share it in a comment to this post. Thanks in advance for your help with the missing information 😔.

There were 2 modern Christmas quilts that caught my eye ~ this one entitled Ho Ho Ho Ho by Kathi Jensen, in which the “O”s were quilted in:

And Starry Night. What an interesting version of a nativity quilt!

Then there was “Tea Cups”, the winner of the Best Hand Quilting ribbon (so sweet, don’t miss the “saucers” quilted in the border)!

This “Twinkly Star” runner by Wanda Bauer was made from leftover blocks. I love the assymetry!

The award for best custom longarm quilting went to Ombré Flower Garden. The use of ombré fabrics always catches my eye.

There was only one entry in the Clothing category, but “Half Squares Gone Mad” was made from a vintage quilt, and so deserving of the blue ribbon!

There were two quilts entered in the show that had a similar style, but a unique difference. This beautiful quilt has an appliqué center with pieced blocks surrounding it.

This equally lovely piece looks like the same general layout of appliqué surrounded by piecing, but upon closer examination the center is not appliquéd, but rather it’s a printed panel!

There are so many clever ways to do things in the quilt world today.

And the last of the contest quilts I want to share was from the guild’s 2024 challenge. The theme was the board game Clue. Each participant drew a room, a suspect, and a weapon, and had to make a quilt in which the viewer got to guess “who dun it”. The Fiberistas did a similar challenge a few years ago and it was great fun (click here to read about it). Oh how I wish you could see them all! I can show you the blue ribbon winner here (perhaps I can talk the guild into allowing me to post them all in a future post 😊):

Besides the competition quilts, the Evergreen show had a number of special exhibits and my favorite was a challenge by Women Who Run With Scissors (don’t you just love that name?) entitled “Curves and Grids”.

Down by the Shore was also lovely, but I’ve forgotten the name of the group responsible for this challenge (sorry – someone please add it in the comments if you know it).

In the entrance there were quilts for sale along with a silent auction:

A huge rummage area with great bargains:

And as you entered the show there was a charming exhibit of quilts made by the guild’s featured quilter this year, Nancy Wakefield. What a nice idea to honor a member each year.

It was a wonderful show and I was so happy to be a part of it!

A year or two ago my mom started going through her jewelry. She organized everything and then invited her kids, grandkids and great grandkids to take whatever they wanted. Once everyone had their turn we talked about making something with the leftovers. Some of you may remember the jewelry wreath I made in 2013, after inheriting some of my mother-in-law’s jewelry. I added more from my side of the family, and it was a fun project ~ and a lovely addition to our home (click here for that post).

I agreed with mom that we should do something ~ and then got busy with other things. After returning from teaching in Florida in January I realized that jewelry playtime had come. Mom was pleased. She wanted to make something for each of her grandchildren, and one for my brother and his wife too (I didn’t need one since I have the wreath 😁). That makes seven projects. Should we make wreathes? I did a bit of web surfing and was reminded of the jewelry tree my friend Julie made.

I posted about it last June, at the end of the story about my “paper quilt”. Click here to read all about it. Mom loved the idea of the trees. So, how would we make our own version?

Frames were collected from local thrift shops and it was time to begin. I told mom I’d quilt some solid color background pieces and, while looking for just the right fabrics, I found my collection of old family hankies. Would they work instead?

Once again ~ Mom loved the idea (she’s easy to please 😁). I cut foam core to fit each frame and took everything over to her home. We started laying things out. Background fabric and hankies were fused onto the foam core. Necklaces and bracelets were used to frame the trees.

The next time we got together we used hot glue to secure the tree outlines. We tried other glues, but the hot glue seemed to work the best. It did take a while for me to get over the “hot glue learning curve”, but then the fun really began. We worked together to place pieces, cut off earring backs, share opinions, and then secure it all. Here is one tree done ~ and two others well on the way!

After just one more afternoon of tree making ~ they were all complete!

Next I asked Mom to make a list of who’s jewelry was in each tree. I printed that list along with a photo of the tree and the makers (plus their encourager), to be attached to the back of the frames.

I’m wondering if any local quilters would be interested in a class on making jewelry trees or wreathes. It might be fun to make memory trees together. Let me know!

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And to leave you with a smile… my friend Eileen sent me this joke and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

“Two Sewing Machines walked into a Karaoke bar. The 1st Sewing Machine said to the 2nd Sewing Machine, “Are you a Singer?”. The 2nd Sewing Machine replied, “Don’t Janome?”. The Bartender replied, “Oh, Brother!”.” 🤣

Thanks Eileen!

On my last two retreats I chose to empty my fish bowls full of scraps, press them, and cut them into strips to be used in charity quilts. You may remember the story of my fishbowls. It began as a good use for an old fish bowl, and became something my grandkids looked forward to playing with (click here for that post).

Over the years my fishbowl has overflowed into two additional fishbowls. The strips I cut recently were then thrown into a plastic bag and 2 lapsized tops resulted:

One thing that bothered me as I began working with the bag ‘o scraps was that I’d thrown a lot of stuff in those bowls: chunks, orphan blocks, and loads of half-square triangles. They needed to be sorted – and that’s what I did. I labeled my bowls,

and realized I need one more for the remaining long strips.

I also found leftovers from projects that really needed to be put together. There were some greens from a memory quilt we made after our trip to Ireland in 2010:

The embroidered pieces never made it into that quilt, and I don’t remember why I made the circle block.

After a bit of cutting, arranging, and stitching I ended up with a delightful little quilt.

Then I grabbed leftovers from two different projects that looked pretty together. The blue/white/yellow half-square triangles were made in a class I took in Paducah last year, and I have no idea where the curved floral pieces came from (I may have pulled them out of someone else’s trash during a class).

I trimmed and played, and finally decided on a small table runner arrangement that used almost all the pieces.

It feels Springlike (see photo at the top of this page) – and the pieces are out of the fishbowl!!!

The half square triangle blocks (hst) from the previous project were made in a class with Beth Helfter in which we also made hst blocks with contrasting flanges in the seams. While in Hamilton, MO last year I bought a “Spring Sling” purse pattern, and during a recent shop hop I found a gorgeous bright fabric on a sale rack. These all were unearthed as I dug through my scraps, and the piles on my studio counter, and I had the purse done in time for Easter.

Ooh. It’s such fun to use up the things that are sitting around as PIMMs (projects in my mind). Have I inspired you to play with your previous purchases, leftovers, and scraps???

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And one more thing…

My granddaughter Sommer (on the far right in the kids photo above 😊) loves to draw and make bracelets, but has had no interest in sewing for a number of years. Well, a few weeks ago I showed her some snap bags I was making for a charity boutique (thanks for the idea Deb!). Sommer really liked them and when I told her I’d teach her how to make one, she was all for it. She had fun choosing fabrics from my “chunky” scraps, and was a natural at the machine.

She had it sewn together in under an hour.

Simply search for “snap bag tutorials” to find instructions online to make your own.

A quick note before I get to this week’s topic ~

I met with my friend Kristi for lunch this week, and she mentioned that there is a quilter who wants to go on the trip to England and Wales for the Birmingham Quilt Festival, but she doesn’t have a roommate. If you’ve been dreaming of this trip, but don’t have someone to go with, please contact Kristi to talk about it. Click here for her contact information and all the details. Thanks!

This post is sort of a “mixed bag” on the topic of gradations. Recently Kelly sent me a photo of a quilt she’d completed. Here’s her comment:

“Hi Chris, I took your gradation class at the guild meeting at Cranberry Country Quilters in Eagle River and sat and looked at my piece for over a year until I finally figured out what to do with it. I’m including a picture of the wall hanging I made it into.”

I call this class Gradation Play. In it the students create a bargello style background using only one yard of a gradation fabric. It’s up to them to decide what to do next. Kelly’s trees and spectacular quilting are perfect on her background.

I absolutely love it, and knew I had to share it with you all.

It reminded me of photos sent to me by my son’s best friend Jesse (who is like a second son). He moved to Alaska a few years ago and got into photography. Here’s just one of his wonderful photographs of the northern lights:

I think Kelly nailed it 😁! And isn’t Jesse’s photo amazing! I might have to share more of his work in the future.

Then I found the following post from the Great Wisconsin Quilt show on Facebook:

To link to my lecture click here and ENJOY!

If you’ve made a quilt using gradations please send me a photograph and I’ll share it in a future post!

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And one more thing! You may have noticed the block at the top of this post had many of the same colors as were found in Karen’s quilt and Jesse’s photograph.

I recently made it using the On-Point ruler by Donna Lynn Thomas. I purchased her ruler in Paducah quite a few years ago and finally decided to sit down and figure it out. I used a leftover piece of a beautiful gradation plaid, and really enjoyed the process while stitching this single block. After making it I decided I wanted to know more about Donna Lynn and maybe take a class from her. I did an internet search and found no recent information about her.

I did however find a site that had a great explanation of the ruler and how to use it:

Click here if you’d like to read about it. Actually, I’ve found the entire Generations Quilt Patterns site to be chock full of great patterns and inspiration. You can visit their home page here.

But that doesn’t tell me what happened to Donna Lynn. Does anyone have anything they could share about Donna Lynn Thomas? I’d still like to take a class from her. Thanks in advance if you do!

Before I tell you all about my most recent retreat, I’d like to remind all my readers in SE Wisconsin that the Mukwonago Crazy Quilters show is taking place this weekend and will be open until 3pm today (3-24), with loads of quilts and vendors.

It’s taking place at Parkview Middle School in Mukwonago.

I had the great privilege to be one of the judges at this year’s show and the quilts were delightful. When judging was over I was pleased to present my Judge’s Recognition award to Fly By.

It was made by Linda Forster, and quilted by Joline Palatino. Aviation has been an important part of our life, so the planes made me smile. Then I got closer and the quilting made my decision easy.

Great job ladies!

After the judging I was able to hang the ThreadBender’s Progressions Challenge as a special exhibit. They all looked great hanging together.

I hope some of you get a chance to see the show.

And now – on with this week’s post:

Last week I was blessed to go on yet another wonderful retreat. My friend Kathy invited a bunch of friends to gather together in Lake Geneva, WI. I didn’t know most of the quilters who were there, but am grateful to now call them friends. The On Pins and Needles Castle Retreat is in Lake Geneva, but not on the lake 😊. It’s a lovely older home that has been transformed into a great place for quilters and crafters.

Liz took a selfie of the group in the sewing room.

And everyone got a lot of sewing done (along with eating, talking and laughing!).

Delicious food was made by our chefs du jour each night.

Here are just a few of the projects:

Kathy’s chicks – only one more row to go!

Becky’s Christmas tumblers:

One of Brenda’s Quilts of Valor:

And her daughter Liz made a great “shadow” quilt (I’ll be doing a class on adding shadows to quilts in Paducah next month!)

Kathy K’s diamond stars crib quilt:

And Sandy completed a bright and colorful top:

I decided to use up more of my scraps in my favorite string pieced block (while Quiltina and my Murder Mystery Blocks hung around):

On the morning of our last day we decided to make a road trip to a quilt shop in Delavan, WI.

It was lovely and had loads of samples and fabric to drool over. Then, in the afternoon, I offered to do a short class on drafting compasses. I think it went over well.

As I was packing up Geri gave me this sweet little wrist purse she’d made. Isn’t it delightful? Thanks Geri!

A wonderful time was had by all. I’m so blessed to be able to hang out with talented quilters!

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And one more thing:

Kristi just let me know that there is still one room left on her trip to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. So… if you were thinking about joining us click here for all the information, and contact Kristi before it’s too late.

Last week I shared a link to the ThreadBenders challenge “Progressions” (click here to read that post), along with a post about my journey in making that challenge quilt. This week I’ll bind it all up. To complete my Progressions quilt I needed to have a binding on some of the edges, meeting up with a facing on others. Hmm. This may not be something most of you will ever want to do, but I hope you’ll find it interesting ~ or even helpful 😊. I started by making a sample from scraps to be sure I’d like the results.

I chose to do the faced edges first. The facing strips were cut 1 1/2″ wide, and sewn to the front of the quilt with a 1/2″ seam allowance after it was squared up, beginning even with an edge that will be bound (I apologize for the muslin quilt top and the light gray strip being so close in value).

Next I turned the quilt to the back and pulled the facing strip away from the seam. The back of the facing strip that’s showing should be a 1/2″ wide.

That portion of the strip is folded up and over the seam allowance.

Then folded again to encase the seam allowance, and pulled to the back of the quilt.

This causes the front of the quilt to look as if there is no edge finish. The front just ends at the edge, and the “binding” is completely on the back.

In the next series of photos I’ll be adding the binding. The faced edge is above the binding strip on the left (my sample quilt top has 3 stitched lines on it parallel to the edge). The binding strip is 2″ wide, and begins with excess hanging off the edge. Leave this tail at least 1″ long (mine was a bit short). The strip is stitched to the front of the quilt with a 1/2″ seam allowance.

The quilt is turned over to the back and the binding is pulled away from the seam as with the facing strip in the previous instructions. There will be 1″ of binding strip showing.

Next, the end of the strip is folded over the edge of the quilt.

and the corner is folded, as when wrapping a gift.

The raw edge of the binding strip is then folded up to the raw edge of the quilt,

And this newly created folded edge is folded again, up to the original seam on the back of the quilt.

Where the binding is then hand-stitched in place.

This is what a faced/bound corner looks like from the edge.

Once the edges were finished my Progressions quilt needed to be attached to a sleeve to make it “one quilt”, and then “Storms Coming ~ Rain~Puddle” was ready to be seen.

I think all of our Progressions quilts are quite intriguing. You can see them at the top of this post or, If you missed the link to the ThreadBenders site, here it is! Now I need to get them entered in the Ultimate Guild Challenge at the AQS Grand Rapids show, and see what happens.

Please pardon the repetition (especially since all our snow has been gone for a while), but you’ll understand my reason for repeating this image as you continue to read. Back in January I put a photo at the top of one of my posts that showed a progression of snowy days.

This could have been the subject of my most recent art quilt, but I already had that quilt almost completed when the multi-day blizzard occurred.

The ThreadBenders current challenge theme is Progressions, and here are the rules:

“The quilt must be a triptych made of 3 panels, each 16″ wide and 31″ long, all sewn onto 1 black sleeve with 2″ between each panel. The theme is a “progressive quilt”, so that your idea “progresses” from one panel to the next.  For example, a pair of hands, first young, then middle aged, then old.  Or a seed, then a flower bud, then the fully open flower. 

The outside edges of the 2 outer quilts, and the tops and bottoms of all the quilts will have binding. All the vertical inside edges will be faced. The binding must be 1/2″ wide in a solid color, but not black.”

We usually shy away from intensely detailed instructions because artists don’t like too many rules. But this idea was so intriguing the group decided it needed to be spelled out well. Some of the artists struggled to come up with examples other than the ones used. When I was telling our grandson Trey about it he immediately said “oh you mean like a tree with orange and red leaves in the first quilt for fall, then a dead winter tree next, and a tree with leaves after that”. He got it! After a great discussion the others in the group did too ~ and the end results are fascinating. To see all the quilts in the challenge click here!

My quilt is entitled “Storms Coming… Rain… Puddle”. It was inspired by two photos I have in my “inspirations” folder that had a similar theme ~ rain. I love to use the camera on my phone, and last July I did a post about some of these pics (click here for that post). The first was taken while riding around on our pontoon boat.

It was a bright sunny day and we’d been out floating on the lake for a while ~ facing south. At one point we turned to the north and this was what we saw! Storms Coming! I grabbed my phone and caught the rainbow and the seagull before we hurried back to the cottage (we made it before the rain came – whew). I decided this would be the first of my panels.

The next photo was taken as I was heading north on the road where we used to live, on a rainy afternoon. As I came to the stop sign at the end of the road, I was enthralled by the image the windshield wipers were creating.

Could I make these photos into quilts? And what would be the third panel in my progression? I found an image by Stefan Holm on the web that completed the trio perfectly ~ “Puddle“:

So I reoriented everything to fit the challenge, and had the images printed on fabric through Spoonflower.com. Here are two of them cropped, resized and ready for printing:

Next it was time to add my artistic flair to each panel. I began with “Puddle”, since that seemed the simplest. A pattern was traced onto Glad Press and Seal™:

Two layers of a sheer fabric were fused together,

cut to fit each light area on the pattern:

fused in place, covered with tulle, layered with batting and a back, and then quilted.

I enjoyed the entire process. Next I jumped into “Storms Coming”. It started with cutting and fusing layers of differing values of sheer fabrics for the clouds.

I really didn’t think it was working very well, but a friend came over and raved about the clouds when she saw it hanging on my design wall. This urged me on (we need our quilting friends – thanks Kathy!) She suggested the rainbow be made with sheers too. I was beginning to like it at this point, and fused the gull in place too.

Lines of rain needed to be quilted in. I spaced the first few out to avoid puckers,

then I filled more in and quilted the rest of the piece:

Lastly I tackled the windshield. The tree and autumn leaves were fused on in dark fabrics. I marked where the wiper would go, then layered and quilted it all. Each of the raindrops on the windshield were quilted around also. I did it in this order so the trunk, branches and leaves would all have texture under the fused white organza “windshield”, which I then placed over the rainy portion.

Now – how was I going to make the raindrops? I ordered a number of different dimensional gels (the stuff that makes fake raindrops on silk flowers), and found the one made by Mod Podge™ to work best on a sample piece. It filled the areas nicely.

But when it dried the raindrops allowed the dark fabric to show through so intensely that it looked like a tree with the measles.

Oh no! I was not happy! I chalked it up to trying new things because it doesn’t always work out the way I envision it should. I couldn’t figure out what to do to fix it, so I chose to fuse the windshield wiper in place anyways (using parchment paper as a pressing cloth). I was thrilled to discover that where the iron touched the gel drops they got a bit fuzzy and less dark. Melting the gel by ironing over the entire piece definitely helped reduce the shininess, and lightened most of the drops enough to make me happy. What a fortunate accident!

Some areas remained a bit dark, but I was pleased with the results.

The quilting was finished and all three panels were ready for facing/binding. That step in itself was a bit tricky, and so I’ll save it for next week’s post. Stay tuned ~ I think you’ll enjoy it!