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I think one of my favorite requirements for quilty friends is a sense of silliness. The group that I go on retreat with certainly fits that criteria. At our Spring retreat April showed us a pair of old, dirty bib overalls her husband got at a rummage sale. He wanted to stuff them to make a Halloween scarecrow, but she wanted to wash them, patch the holes with doilies, and wear them. We were all encouraging her and then the conversation morphed into a challenge ~ where we would each buy a pair of bib overalls and embellish them. Cathy suggested we call it the Bib-a-thon, and the big reveal was planned for our October retreat!

We gathered together this past Thursday for our Autumn retreat at Cattail,

set up our machines and began to stitch, and talk, and giggle.

On Friday Ruth, a first timer, arrived and was welcomed into the group. From the start it was pretty obvious she wasn’t wearing bibs, since she didn’t even know about the challenge, and then one of the group started teasing that she was wearing invisibibs 😄.

Friday lunch is always spent at Fitz’s restaurant on Lake Wisconsin, and we were hoping our usual waitress would be there to pick the best bibs. But sometimes plans don’t turn out the way we intend. Shortly before we were to leave for lunch Cathy injured her leg and got a free trip to the urgent care. She’s doing fine and we made it to Fitz’s for dinner.

We asked our wonderful waitress Pam to pick her favorite and…she picked Ruth’s invisabibs 🤣.

We held a secret viewer’s choice vote amongst ourselves and Sandy was the winner of that! Her appliqués are amazing.

Here’s the fashion show of the rest of us:

I’m pretty sure there was more talking and eating accomplished than sewing, but a good time was had by all. Now where am I going to wear those bibs???

In last week’s post I asked the kids to sign the artwork they painted on our garden shed. I was surprised that they both decided to use only their initials (click here to read that post).

Over the years I’ve also signed things with my initials and I’ve done some other fun things with them too. When Wendy and I led our Hawaiian cruise, we came up with a project using our initials in our own version of Hawaiian appliqué (to read that post click here).

The green quilt includes the initials for our travel name: Sew We Go ~ SWG ~ in the design. The yellow one has my own initials ~ CLK.

A long time ago I came up with a quick signature using my initials. I like to utilize it when signing small or artsy quilts. When I wrote “Where Do I Start With Fiber Art” I decided it would be fun to autograph the books with my personal “brand” 😊.

Recently my friend, Lori Jean Schloesser, signed the back of one of her art quilts with her version of her initial autograph, along with the year.

She embroidered it ~ and everyone in our art guild was intrigued. So we decided to play around with our initials during our meeting. I thought you’d enjoy seeing some of the trials:

Connie sent me a photo of her 2 favorites ~

Lori mentioned that we didn’t need to include our middle initial, and it didn’t really matter which one came first or was bigger. It’s the artist’s choice and there’s no right or wrong. We can even choose to come up with a new design down the road 😊.

Kay’s initials are KAC, and here is her trial page:

I like the ones where the A fits into the bottom of the K. But it’s not up to me, and Kay wasn’t sure which one was “the one” by the end of the meeting.

Barb’s initials are BAG, and here’s her trial page ~

I tend to prefer the ones where the small g fits into the bottom of the capital B. It will be fun to see which one she’ll choose.

Lori also mentioned finishing the initials by placing them in a circle, square or other shape; or even reversing a letter. Hmm. So many fun ideas that I decided to play a little more in a drawing program on my computer:

I’m still kind of partial to my original design, but it was fun to do a little doodling.

So, do you have an “initial signature”? If not, I highly recommend doodling around and seeing what you come up with. If you come up with your own unique brand, please feel free to share it by sending me a photo at: .

Every so often I have a blog post idea that isn’t really about quilting, but it’s so much fun I have to find a way to give it a quilty spin. So, here’s the quilting part 😁:

Way back in 2004 the Milwaukee Art Quilters had a challenge entitled Name That Tune. Now I attended high school in the 70s, and my favorite slow dance song way back then was Color My World by Chicago. I immediately came up with a fun way to make that into a quilt, paintbrush, paint and all:

The problem was that the long narrow size requirements left a lot of open space. How was I going to fill the bottom expanse? Well, if I put God’s hands there in the stars the quilt could be subtitled He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands ~ a second tune to name! This presented another problem. I can’t draw hands. So I had my teenage son, Brad, pose for me,

and those hands were quilted in with silver thread:

It ended up being a really fun group of quilts and you can click here to visit the Name that Tune page of the Milwaukee Art Quilters site.

Are you ready for the segue???

A few weeks ago, as the grandkids (Brad’s kids) and I drove down Main Street in Watertown, I pointed out the new mural that was being painted on the side of the florist shop. Sommer replied “I wish someone would let me paint flowers on a building”.

Fast forward to last week. We have an old garden shed in our yard and Mike decided it was time to clean it out, patch the holes and paint it.

He asked me what color I wanted it painted. I bet you can see where this is going. It took a few minutes for that moment in the car to come back to me, and then I realized Mike had to paint it sky blue ~ and we could give Sommer her wish.

Once he had it done I called the kids, and yesterday they came over in their paint clothes. Trey (7) was as excited as Sommer (10). My only request was BIG flowers, otherwise they could do whatever they wanted. Sommer chose the front:

and Trey the left side.

Great grandpa and Great grandma stopped by to supervise.

And Mike took a break from his yard work to take a few photos and tickle Trey.

Once Trey got back to painting, it didn’t take long for the garden to grow,

And the artists to sign their work. Trey decided on big initials

While Sommer did a small initialing near each flower:

Then they went inside the shed to play and make faces at the grown ups. I couldn’t resist a window shot and, while going through the photos that night, I was surprised to see me and Mike in the window too!

A good time was had by all!

It was a cool, but sunny Autumn afternoon, and one I’ll remember for a very long time! These kids really do add color to my world!

Have you ever finished a quilt, binding and all, only to realize later that it’s not big enough to make you happy?!?

In 2020 I made a new quilt for our king sized bed (click here to read a post about quilting this quilt). It fit great ~ with the bed skirt completing the look.

Then we got a new “Sleep Number” bed that couldn’t have a bed skirt because it had a divided mattress. The beige base looked ok, but if I didn’t tuck the sheets up they hung down and it was obvious the quilt was just a little too small. The good news was our bedroom was upstairs and I didn’t have to look at it very often. Then we moved and our bedroom is now right next to the living room.

Can you see the sheet hanging below the quilt on the left? Grr! I also really didn’t like the hard plastic showing everywhere else (as on the right corner). Grr again!

So last week I decided it was time to add a border to a finished quilt. I’ve done a tutorial on this technique before, but I thought it might be worth repeating. The first step was to remove the old binding and, since I had stitched it down with a machine serpentine stitch instead of hand appliqué, it took me two nights.

Once the binding was off ~ I had the new borders sewn on in a day. Ripping is certainly less fun and more time consuming than sewing 😊.

To add the borders I cut new 5 1/2″ strips for the front, back, and from batting too.

I layered a front border strip, right sides together, along an edge of the quilt center, then a strip of batting, and pinned it in place.

Then I flipped it over and pinned the back border strip along the entire edge also. I sewed the borders on through all the layers; folded everything away from the quilt center, pressed, secured them flat; and added the next border until all the border strips were attached.

This new border was wide enough to require quilting, so I echoed the diamond quilting lines from the rest of the quilt, using rulers and my mid-arm.

I then needed to square everything up before attaching a binding. The old binding wasn’t long enough and I didn’t have any more of that fabric to add the extra length, so I cut new binding and added it all the way around. I secured it with a serpentine stitch once again ~ and I plan to never rip it off 😊.

Every time I look in the bedroom I am assured that it was worth it!

We usually think of a quilt as being finished when the binding is on, but sometimes it isn’t truly finished for quite a while after that!

“Congratulations on the publication of your new book!  I’m wondering if
you might be able to do a guild lecture possibly followed by a  workshop
featuring your intriguing new twist on building memories with quilt
blocks?”

A workshop on the techniques in my book ~ what a great idea! So I’ve been noodling on it and here’s what I’ve come up with:

In my Seminole Sampler workshop I supply kits for making a number of different Seminole borders that the students can keep with their handouts for inspiration and direction in future quilts. No UFO – just more tools in the quilting technique toolbox! It’s been very popular.

So should this workshop be kitted? Should it be samples as in the class above? Or should the students make a project to hang on the wall? The workshop is being held in October and, after quite a bit of noodling, I decided a small project with an Autumn theme would be nice. The students would make two 8″ x 11″ blocks in order to learn a number of techniques, and then I’d demonstrate some helpful finishing techniques so they could see the project through to completion and hang it on the wall. But if that’s not their thing, they can simply slip the samples into a page protector to save for future reference. Here’s the project:

The techniques learned will be Repliqué, raw edged Repliqué, shadow Repliqué, and 2 finishing methods, along with my simple way of “block connecting”. With each of those techniques learned a quilter can re-create any photo as a quilt block!

I decided not to kit the class because the supply list is quite small and I thought students might want to choose their own Autumn fabrics. I invited 3 friends to take a “guinea pig” class and see how it would work in a 3 hour workshop format – and it worked great! I’m looking forward to teaching it in Janesville next month! If your guild would be interested in having me come and share my Modular Memory Quilts, or any of my offerings, please visit the classes page of my website by clicking here! Then email me at: .

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Also, I love it when I receive emails with photos that were sent in response to one of my blog posts. Crystal sent me this response to last week’s post about Karen and Lynn’s jeans quilt:

“Hello Chris, After reading this week’s piece about one lady’s quilt made from her husband’s old work jeans and t-shirts I thought you might like to see a quilt that I made from my husband’s old flannel shirts in 2018. My overall design is a simple one.  The back is fabric I bought that represents my husband’s lifelong fishing hobby. I used wool batting to make it winter cozy. The long arm quilting was done by Anne Books.  The bonus was that I got eight to ten buttons from each shirt that I of course saved!”

I’m sure her husband loves it! And she ended up with buttons too! Thanks Crystal 😊!

Ken is a man with a loving family who worked as an industrial service plumber during his career. Over the years his wife, Karen, mended his jeans and overalls and, about 4 years ago, that pile of mending gave her an idea. She and her daughter Lynn decided it would be fun to make him a quilt from his old clothes (she smiled when she told me that it would be more fun than mending them). So here’s the story:

I met Lynn “virtually” last year when I was recording a Zoom lecture for PBS. Lynn is a video production specialist and I was blessed to work with her. This year PBS recorded my lecture at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show in Madison last week, and I was able to work with Lynn again.

We got to talking and she told me she was a quilter and had a quilt in the show. Then she told me a bit about her quilt, and her parents, and I could tell this was a blog post story waiting to be shared.

After my class that day I went searching through the quilt exhibit and found Lynn’s quilt.

I emailed Lynn and asked if I could meet up with her and her mom and get the rest of the story. When we got together there was a crowd at the quilt. The viewers were excited to talk to Karen and Lynn and have their questions answered.

Then we sat down and chatted and that’s when Karen told me about the jeans. She and Lynn decided their quilt would be a secret and they got together and went through Ken’s clothes. They told me he is a man who never wastes anything, so they determined he would be happiest if the entire quilt was made from reused fabric. So, once they cut up the parts of his garments that would make the best blocks, they cut strips from his gray work shirts to use for the sashing between the blocks.

Karen gathered all the materials and did most of the cutting and some of the pressing.  She also did some hand sewing, such as on the Miller patch. They collaborated on the design and choice of which fabrics went where. Lynn was the sewer who put the blocks together. The story goes that Karen thought it would be nice to use Ken’s t-shirts for the back, but Lynn wasn’t sure a two sided quilt would be something she wanted to attempt. The t-shirt idea eventually won out and Lynn was relieved that it went together as well as it did.

In the end the only part of the quilt that had to be purchased new was the interfacing for the t-shirts.

They presented it to Ken and he loved it (how could he not 😊!)

Thanks to these two dear women for sharing their quilt and it’s story!

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And I just have to add a little bit to my previous post about buttons (click here to read that post). I enjoyed reading all the comments. Someone said their grandchildren enjoyed playing and counting her buttons. Why didn’t I think of that? The next time Sommer and Trey are over I may find out exactly how many I have 😁.

My friend Patti sent me a few pictures of her buttons with this comment:

“Like Lorraine, I have loved buttons since I was a child. My husband Ed made this “roof” for me to fit a doll house which a friend had started and abandoned. Another friend drinks Starbucks drinks and she saved the bottles for me. They fit the “floors” of the doll house perfectly.”

She continued with another email:

“Ed made this container for me. It fits exactly six of my button bottles at once so I can take them anywhere. Friends come and select buttons for their projects, I bring buttons to meetings when someone has requested a specific color or type and these are immediately put into a finished project/new home.
Buttons bring things together and make things beautiful.”

Notice the delightful details:

Thanks Patti, for sharing your collection, and the smiles!

Quite a while ago Lorraine responded to my post about my thimble collection (click here for that post) with a collection of her own and I just realized I never shared it with you. This is what she sent to me:

“Your thimbles are beautiful and I loved the historical information you included in your post. Although I do not have a thimble collection I do have another sewing related collection: BUTTONS!  I have been collecting buttons for over 50 years. As you will notice in the pictures, if you have a button collection you must also begin collecting jars! These jars are scattered throughout our house, mostly in the guest room and my quilt studio. I have more jars but I thought this would give you an idea of the size of my collection. 

I have over 120,000 buttons. How do I know this?  I am a retired elementary teacher and in order to help my 2nd and 3rd grade students understand the concept of a BIG number I would haul several of these jars to school every year and have my math students count them. After it took 25 kids, five 45-minute periods to count about 100,000 buttons they understood that was a LOT of buttons. But imagine a million buttons! They would have to count 10 times as many jars! 

My love of buttons began when I was a kid and my mom let me play with her coffee can of buttons cut off of clothes before cutting up the fabric to make rag rugs or scrap quilts. When I learned to sew in high school I would rummage through the can and select buttons to sew onto my newly made clothes. After I left home to attend college I realized I had to start my own collection. That was back when you could buy a shoebox full of buttons for $1.00. Now you are lucky to buy a small baby food jar for under $4.00. Recently I only add to my collection when someone is downsizing or emptying the home of a loved one and they bring me the buttons they find stashed away in a closet somewhere.

I enjoy going through my newly acquired buttons and have been amazed at the variety of materials used to produce them: horn, bone, walnut shells, coconut shells, rubber, fabric, seashells, glass, celluloid, cork, a variety of metals, vegetable ivory, wood, leather, china and, of course, plastic. They come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes and some are truly tiny masterpieces.

PS. Sorry I rambled on but once I start talking about buttons (or quilting) I just can’t stop.“ 

I love the PS ~ and I get it! The following photo is of Lorraine’s largest and smallest buttons 😁:

What a fascinating collection and story. I’m so grateful to Lorraine for sharing it!

I too have a button collection, although I never planned on collecting them. It seems whenever a family member or friend downsizes or passes away ~ I get her buttons.

The ones from my grandmother are in the lovely antique covered dish she kept them in.

Years ago my mom and I were going through the things my dad kept after retiring from his dental practice. One of the items was a wooden case with drawers for keeping sample teeth for dentures. I could sort my buttons by color and give each group it’s own drawer. This has worked well for me for years.

I also had a bunch of buttons still on their original cards/packaging and those have found their way into a small wooden box.

and here are a few of my favorites:

As I was going through my collection I thought about a quilt I made with buttons for my second book, Snuggle and Learn Quilts for Kids. It’s called Counting on Buttons and it gave me the opportunity to sew some really cute buttons onto a quilt (they’re attached well – with strong beading thread!)

When I designed this quilt I decided that my grandkids would learn cursive 😊.

I don’t have as many buttons as Loraine, but I do love them!

Do you have a special way to store your buttons? Do you have a favorite you’d like to share?

Last week I posted about the upcoming quilt show in Madison (click here for that post). In a comment to that post Marilyn asked if any of the show will be online for non-local quilt enthusiasts. I wrote to Deanna at Nancy Zieman productions and here is her response:

“This year’s Great Wisconsin Quilt Show will primarily be an in-person event, held Sept. 8-10 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. We are planning to record several short videos from the event on Thursday and Saturday, featuring interviews with quilting celebrities, presenters, vendors, and quilt contest award-winners. These live videos will be shared on our Facebook page, YouTube and on the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show website.

In addition to these live updates, the PBS Wisconsin team will record four one-hour educational lectures at the event. We plan to share these presentations via social media in the months following the event.

We will also photograph all of the award-winning quilts in this year’s Quilt Contest exhibit and create an online photo gallery that will be available on the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show website in late Sept.

Additionally, The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show community convenes throughout the year on Facebook and Instagram, celebrating the work of our quilters and participating in online-exclusive challenges. Follow us on social media to be part of the year-round fun!“

Thanks for the information Deanna!

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And… speaking of quilt shows… I have some exciting news about a show I recently had a quilt exhibited in!

Over the years I’ve had quite a few quilts in the Ultimate Guild Challenge portion of the AQS Quilt Show when it was held in Nashville, Knoxville, and Grand Rapids ~ praise the Lord! That was when I had the privilege of participating in challenges with the Milwaukee Art Quilters (click here to visit their site). We won many awards together ~ it’s a very talented group!

Six years ago some friends and I started a new fiber art group called the ThreadBenders. We have a lot of members who joined as “newbie” art quilters, and it’s been fun to hold challenges and see what everyone comes up with. ThreadBenders began holding challenges from the start, and have had them accepted into the Ultilmate Guild Challenge competition at AQS each year. This year our “big” challenge ~ Vintage Travel Posters ~ won a red ribbon!!!

To see a close up of each of our Vintage Travel Posters, plus photos of many of our previous challenges, please go to our ThreadBender’s site by clicking here!

AQS posted photos of all the winning quilts in the Grand Rapids Show online. I’m always interested in all of the quilts in a quilt show, ribbon winners and non-ribbon winners alike, and I understand that AQS can’t post the entire show online. So I have to settle for a view of the winners ~ and this show did not disappoint! It was especially fun to see the other Ultimate Guild Challenge quilts. You can see the quilts too by clicking here.

To add icing to the cake, two of our members were at the show and were interviewed by Bonnie Browning.

You can watch that YouTube video with Connie and Cindy by clicking here! The tidbit of information I found particularly interesting in this video was that there were 16 groups of challenge quilts accepted into the competition – so second place is quite a coup. Good work ladies! I’m so grateful to be a part of this inspiring group and I can’t wait to see what we come up with next 😊.