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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!

It was live ~ and in person! And it truly was Great!!!

Everyone I ran into was excited to be there. Especially me 😁!

Deanna Springer of Nancy Zieman Productions told me that so many people had enjoyed the show from afar, virtually during the pandemic, that many asked for parts of the show to be shared online this year. So they decided interviewing some of the quilters with quilts in the show would be a good way to reach out to those who couldn’t attend. I was honored to be invited to chat with her about my quilt, and that interview can be found on the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show’s Facebook page ~ along with many others.

I also had the privilege of presenting my Gradation Play lecture each day of the show (thank you to my friend and roommate, Laura, who snapped this pic and helped things run smoothly for me in so many ways!)

The first day of the show PBS actually taped my lecture. That was an honor as well, and it led me to meet a quilter who was part of the PBS production team ~ and she had a quilt in the show. I can’t wait to tell you about Lynn, but you’ll have to wait until next week’s post for that story.

There were so many quilters lined up for the first day of the show,

and the attendance was high! The quilts were truly spectacular, and the variety and quality of vendors was exciting. I spoke with a number of them who said it was a very good show for them! I especially love the ones who get into the spirit of their booth, like these ladies from Purple Pineapple Studio:

My Creating Curves classes were a blast ~ the students were excited to be there and they made my “job” so much fun!

Each year I, like other quilt lovers, like to take photographs of quilts in the show that grab me. I’ve had many of you who can’t attend comment that you appreciate this chance to see them. I truly wish I could share the entire show with you, but that’s not realistic, so I hope you’ll enjoy a few of my favorites, in no particular order.

Hanging next to my Oak Leaf and Swirl quilt was this lovely Cathedral Window. Pamela Kuck bordered her Fields and Flowers quilt with silk embroidered flowers and they were a lovely frame for this traditional pattern.

Peppermint Twist by Joanne Howe also had an interesting border that really added to the quilt.

She used directional pintucking to add the twist to her peppermint twist:

Winter Wind, by Karen Neuendorf, stopped me in my tracks. The twisted and braided twine tree grabbed my attention right away (I’m kind of into windblown trees 😊).

And I loved what the wind was doing to the tire swing and the snowman’s hat.

Joan Bereyl Pierner was a student in my curves class. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the quilt she had in the show was made with beautiful circles ~ and the fairy was her own original addition to the pattern!

Perhaps she should teach a curves class of her own 😊.

Bus Stop by Jill Kerttula fascinated me.

Here’s the story in her own words:

Another pictorial quilt was Madison by Ron Humphrey.

I had no idea Longfellow wrote a poem about Madison, WI!

Then, on the lighter side, it was fun to watch the antics of Wilbur and Orville, Two Silly Squirrels, by Lorraine Stenoish. I think her color palette was delightful.

Bill Hoernke is a friend who taught at the show for the first time this year. He’s always fun to be around and he had an intriguing quilt in the competition.

Here’s the description:

I was very curious as to what part of the quilt came from a panel, and had to laugh when the white glove volunteer turned the quilt back to reveal Bill’s mom’s panel:

Another quilt that made me smile was Zelda the Zebra. My friend and fellow teacher, Lori Dickman, likes to recreate her granddaughter Dani’s art in fabric. It must be fun to have your own personal pattern designer 😄.

Donna Parrel’s Patches of Love had a lovely sashing of postage stamp sized squares that really framed her scrappy blocks nicely:

And this modern quilt called Curvilicious by Roxanna Herder was made up of a wonderful combination of color, design and quilting!

The last quilt I have room for today was made by another friend, Eileen Daniels. She always does amazing things with found items and vintage bits. In her quilt Flowers for Ukraine she added doilies to her appliqués with incredible results. What a lovely tribute.

The entire show was such a feast for the senses and being together with quilters again is better than just about anything! It went by too fast – and I’m already looking forward to next year’s show!

Oops! My email link for the Family Affair quilt post accidently may have sent you here. To read that post go to: https://www.chrisquilts.net/18144/. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you’re looking for my post about Buttons, you’re in the right place 😊.

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 😊.

After years of waiting ~ the Madison quilt show is going to be live again! I can’t wait!!!

I’ve been blessed to teach at every “in person” show since the Madison Expo began and I’ll be a part of the faculty once again ~ praise the Lord!

My morning lecture all 3 days is:

In it I’ll share quilts that use gradation and ombré fabrics, as well as some that use individual fabrics chosen to work as a gradation. There will be loads of samples, and attendees will learn many ways to use those fabrics we purchase, but don’t quite know what to do with. Here are a few examples:

My afternoon Sit and Sew class on Thursday and Friday is Creating Curves. In it students will make samples of many techniques for adding circles and curves to quilts. I’ll be providing kits, so we can jump right in!

You can sign up for classes, explore the full event schedule, and buy your tickets now at quiltshow.com.

Hope to see you there!