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Barn Quilts – a Wonderful Recurring Theme

July 25, 2021 6 Comments

I’ve done posts about wooden quilt blocks hanging on barns, fabric quilts with a barn theme, and even sales held in barns. I love this topic and was happy to visit it again when my friend Margaret sent me information about an event her guild is hosting in West Bend, WI, which includes a lecture on the Barn Quilt Movement, and a class where you can paint your own barn quilt!

Please join the It’s a Stitch Quilt Guild as we host this amazing lecture on August 12th, 2021, at the Jackson Community Center (N165 W20330 Hickory Lane, Jackson, WI 53037) starting with registration at 6pm and lecture beginning at 6:30pm. A dessert bar will be available. Cost to attend is $10 for non-members.

In addition, we are providing a Barn Quilt Painting workshop with limited space availability on Friday, August 13, 2021, at the Jackson Community Center from 9am-3:30pm. The cost is $60 per person and you will go home with a 2’ x 2’ painted barn quilt board of your own. Confirm space availability first before sending payment by emailing Marilyn at

(PS – The above link to Suzi’s site doesn’t work – you can access it by clicking here!)

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She followed this information up with a story about the lap quilt she recently made for her brother.

“My brother just turned 70 & still farms the home farm where we grew up (Trempealeau County). I once told him that his red barn with the end facing a state highway would be the perfect place for a “Barn Quilt” … I proceeded to explain, but could tell that was never going to happen! (He has recently told me about seeing one!)
Then I found this panel (in my closet) & decided to make him a “retirement quilt” (even tho he has no intention to retire!) When I looked at this barn, I thought about the name “corn & beans” … which is what he raises on about 1000 acres …

… so … I used that pattern to make a label for the back!

Don’t you just love the way quilters can “personalize” their gift to fit the recipient?!?

Thanks Margaret, for sending photos of this charming quilt and it’s story!

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And speaking of charming 😁 – you may remember the quilt I made for my nephew and his wife’s baby girl (click here for that story). They recently sent me this email and photo:

“Roan Mary loves her quilt. She loves looking at the colors! We use it nearly every day.”

What a cutie! It’s so wonderful to know our quilts are being used and enjoyed!

Sun Embellishing – Part 2

July 18, 2021 5 Comments

In a previous project I paired larger triangle shaped beads, that had big holes, with a metallic yarn threaded through them for a “seaweed” effect.

When it came to beading the rays I found these delightful square orange beads. Since the square beads had big enough holes to do the same thing, I quickly searched my yarn/cord bin to find a piece of gold braided ribbon. It was thin enough to pull through the quilt top at the ends to finish each ray, and stitching it down with the beads was great fun (note: the fine pins are holding the beads in place as I stitch).

Once the sun itself was embellished, I felt it was time to add more rays in the sky. If I beaded them through the wool batting, I would lose the trapunto effect I wanted behind the sun. So, before I beaded the extra rays in the background, I trimmed the batting away behind the sky.

At this point I realized it would be difficult to machine quilt around the lines of beads once they were stitched in the sky, so I layered the top with backing and a thin batt, and straight pin basted it together.

Next I took a photo of the beaded sun with my iPad. I’m able to “write” on the screen with my “iPencil”, so I used it to audition quilting designs. There are phone apps that allow you to do this using your finger as the pencil; or the image can be printed, put in a plastic page protector, and drawn on with a washable marker. Here is the design I liked the best. I’ve also done this with Glad Press and Seal™ (click here for a post on that technique).

I drew similar lines onto the quilt top with a sliver of soap and quilted around them, leaving a path for the beads. Then, to make the trapunto batting under the sun “poof”, I meandered in the background.

Even though the sun itself had been quilted already, it needed to be quilted through these new layers. The quilting didn’t need to be as heavy, but even doing just a bit presented the problem of the beads being in the way. To make it work I quilted over some of the existing arcs and lines with a zipper foot. Where there’s a will, there’s a way 😁.

The beads in the sky were added, the quilt was faced, and voila… my sun quilt is done!

I’m working on making this into a 3 hour class. If your guild is interested – let me know 😁.

Sun Embellishing – Part 1

July 11, 2021 7 Comments

Before I began “beading the sun” I decided to back my piece with wool batting (if you missed last week’s intro to this topic click here). In this way I’m able to hide my knots in the batting and have a more substantial surface to hold the beads.

My plan was to trim away the batting from behind the sky after the beading is done, and layer it all with a flatter cotton batt. This will create a trapunto look behind the sun.

Next I gathered my beads and supplies and began laying out some favorites from my collection:

I added an arc of fasteners to the layout:

then I auditioned some snaps and interspersed beads to see how it all would look:

Next I marked the areas to be quilted.

The quilting needed to be done before the beading. I used a bright variegated thread to quilt the “channels” and “fillers”.

Once quilted – the beading could begin! I found some very intriguing beads in my collection (I’m as addicted to collecting beads as I am to collecting fabric!) This circle bead has the holes going through from the side and room for an additional bead in the center.

I’m really enjoying stitching down the fun patterns:

There are more beads to come, but I’ll save that for next week’s post.

And speaking of beading… I found this post on FaceBook (the text is part of the post):

Isn’t this just screaming to be beaded??? I actually wrote Harvard University and obtained permission to make a piece of beaded fiber art based on this amazing photo. We’ll see if I actually do it 😊. I can’t imagine how anyone could think that something this tiny and complex could happen by chance. God’s imagination is infinite!

Beading the Sun

July 4, 2021 4 Comments

Happy Independence Day! With all the recent days of sunshine and heat, I thought it was a great time to tell you about my most recent project. It came to be with inspiration from three different directions.

I received a comment from Karen to a recent post about my mailing tape beading technique (click here to link to that post):

“Let us know when you will be teaching another class in adding beads to a quilt. I have tons of beads and need some ideas on how to use them on a quilt.”

This got me to thinking that I haven’t done any beading classes for a long time. Then the ThreadBenders group chose a small challenge theme of “Sun”. This challenge had very few rules – “make a quilt with a sun on it” 🌞 . On top of that I was excited about the wonderful way Clara embellished a wall hanging with fasteners (click here to read it). This all came together in my brain and I jumped right in to my beaded sun quilt.

So where did I begin? Well – I needed to have a base for my beading and it needed to contain the sun. I chose a wonderful, bright hand-dyed fabric for the sun and a beautiful blue hand-dyed fabric for the sky. These were fat quarters from my stash and the colors alone made me want to continue. I drew an appropriately sized 1/4 sun (it seemed to fit best) on a piece of freezer paper, cut it out, ironed the shiny side to the sun fabric, and layered it with the sky. Then I stitched along the outside of the paper, through both layers.

all the way around.

The paper was peeled away and the excess sun fabric was trimmed next to the stitching, ala my raw-edged Repliqué technique.

Leaving me a wonderful top to embellish.

I trimmed the sky fabric away from behind the sun to reduce bulk (and who would want to waste any of that beautiful fabric?)

During this entire process I was contemplating where and how to embellish. Stay tuned to next week’s post to see where I went from there!

Remembering a Dear Friend

June 27, 2021 7 Comments

I met Maggi Gordon many years ago when she signed up for my class at WCTC. She was friendly and funny, and a great addition to our Open Lab group. Over the years we got to know each other better and occasionally we met for lunch. I remember telling her one time that I loved her British accent and I asked her where she was from. Her answer? … she was born in Mississippi! We both had a good laugh about that one.

It turns out that her husband is British, they lived in England for 30 years, and their boys were born there. While in London she worked as an editor for craft books and eventually she began writing books about quilts and their history. You could easily have a few of these in your collection (and this is only a sampling of her many books).

I remember the day she told me she was an author of quilt books. I responded with: “why are you taking my classes?” To which she chuckled and said that writing about something and actually doing it are not always the same. She told me she liked to make simple quilts, but enjoyed the ideas and encouragement she got from the Open Lab classes I taught. That’s the great thing about the Open Lab formula – we all learn from each other!

During this time Maggi decided to write a book about vintage quilts. She asked all of her friends to share their quilt collections with her. She worked with the UW in Madison, to research, photograph and evaluate each one. Here’s the book description:

Warman’s Vintage Quilts
More than 300 collectible quilts, dating from 1825 to the late twentieth century, are illustrated in full color to tell of the rich history of quiltmaking. A description of each quilt includes the pattern name, the materials used, the date and where known, the maker’s name, and a collector value. Hints on starting, expanding, and maintaining a collection are also given.

I was thrilled to be able to have my collection documented by her, and honored to receive a copy of the finished book. It’s a great resource!

This is just one of the quilts I have in the book:

After a few years Maggi’s husband retired from his job at the Milwaukee Art Museum and he did freelance work for other museums. This moved them to New York – and it was sad to say good-bye.

About a year later the program person for the Empire State Quilters guild called to ask me to teach for them. I suspected it was at Maggi’s suggestion, and a wonderful trip it was! Maggi was recovering from shoulder surgery, so she couldn’t participate in the guild activities, but I had a lovely visit with her and David in their condo near Central Park. Then, after my teaching obligations were over, I was able to meet up with her at the Metropolitan Museum of art to visit a fascinating exhibit and have lunch. I did 2 blog posts about that amazing trip and you can click here for the first, and read the continuation of the story here.

During that time we stayed in touch and she even participated in my Floss Frenzy challenge back in 2014. You can read all about the challenge here, but in brief, I was blessed with a gift of a huge amount of embroidery floss. I sent those who wanted to participate 3 skeins of thread, chosen at random, and asked them to do something (really anything they wanted) with it. The response was great! Here are the threads sent to Maggi and her finished butterfly quilt. She didn’t get hers done by the deadline, but sent me the photo later.

To see all the quilts in this viewers choice challenge, click here!

As time went on she and David decided to move to California to be near children and grandchildren. Maggi and I stayed in touch while playing Words With Friends – and chatting online. A few months ago she stopped playing and I didn’t realize until this past week that she had passed away from metastatic breast cancer. She was always so upbeat and fun, and now I know she wasn’t one to burden others with her problems. I had no idea and am truly sorry for her family and friends.

To read about her and all of her books, you can visit her website at: http://www.maggigordon.com/

Maggi was a wonderful woman, quilter, collector and friend, and I am grateful she was a part of my life.

Yikes! Spiders on a Baby Quilt!

June 20, 2021 6 Comments

A new little girl was recently born into our family. My nephew and his wife have been the subject of a few of my blog posts. You may remember them as the ones who brought me back African fabric from their time in the Gambia with the Peace Corps (click here for a post about those fabrics, and click here for one with Kevin, Alex and the wedding quilt I made them that was inspired by, and backed with, those fabrics).

Roan Mary Walters is a joy! And she needed a quilt 😄. Last summer my Open Lab group met a number of times in each other’s yards, and on one of those days we brought in items to share. I picked up an unfinished top with fabric inspired by the book The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.

For some reason I just knew it would be the perfect quilt for Roan, so I layered it with bright green fleece and straight line quilted it on my HQ Sweet 16 with my channel ruler.

Then I free-motion quilted 5 of the red squares with my own webs just for fun.

I quilted “Made with love for Roan Mary by Aunt Chris” along with the words to “Jesus Loves Me” in the borders.

And in no time it was done. I showed it to Mike and he was a little surprised that I would make a quilt with spiders on it for a little girl. That thought hadn’t crossed my mind (this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned that we don’t always think alike 🤪). I chose to move forward anyways and wrapped it up with a copy of the book. We gave it to Roan when we saw everyone on Mother’s Day. Not only did Kevin and Alex love it, but Kevin’s brother Adam said he wanted one for himself (my nephew Adam is a grown man who did a tour of duty in Iraq! I guess I’m going to have to do some searching for more VB spider fabric online).

Here’s Roan with her new quilt and her grandma Mary Sue.

If you’ve heard any of my lectures you may remember me mentioning my dear sister-in-law who talked me into taking a quilting class back in 1987, never finished her first quilt, and contributed greatly to my addiction!!! This is her! And I’ll be indebted to her forever 😊.

Homestead Barn Sale

June 13, 2021 8 Comments

While driving home from the farmer’s market in Ft. Atkinson a few weeks ago, Mike and I followed some signs to a barn sale. We found a beautiful old barn filled with treasures galore. When we stepped inside the ladies running the sale were very welcoming. There were oodles of interesting items and a lot of variety. Furniture, jewelry, barn boards, tools, toys, sewing items, and a whole lot more. And the prices were reasonable.

In one of the small rooms at the end of the barn I noticed a large, lovely framed photograph of a bride. There was something familiar about her.

On the other side of the room I discovered a large framed photo of the barn I was standing in, with the family name Spangler.

This brought back memories of my friend Diane, a very talented quilter who used to take my classes in Watertown. I heard she had passed away a few years ago, and I was quite sure she lived on Hwy Y near Johnson Creek. And… one of the women who greeted us resembled her. So I went back to the front table and asked her if she was related to Diane Spangler. Not only was she Diane’s daughter Lynn, but we had actually met years before at WCTC where we were both teaching. What a small world! That was when Lynn said that when she first saw me she thought I looked familiar too. She introduced me to her sister Amy and we had a wonderful conversation. I actually know their brother Mike too, since I own 2 of his Tracey’s Tables!

Lynn showed me the family tree charts that were hanging in the room with the photographs and I learned that the farm had been in the family for 5 generations.

Note the stack of vintage ironing boards. I have one that I’ve used as a sideboard in my dining room for years.

I asked them about the sale. They said that they had moved back into the family homestead a few years ago and began going through Diane’s things. She had many nice vintage items and they didn’t want to have a simple garage sale. Then Lynn was given the responsibility for handling the estates of two different friends who had passed away, one of which was quite a collector (bordering on horder). They decided to have a Homestead Barn Sale and knew they had enough to run it all Summer long, as they continued to go through the estates.

I asked them if they had a schedule and this is what they sent me:

Our 2021 sale weekend schedule is set as follows:
June 10-13
June 24-27
July 15-18
July 29-August 1
August 12-15
August 26-29
September 9-12
September 23-26
September 30-October 3

We will be open for all sales on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays; 9 am to 5 pm Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 9 am to 4 pm on Sundays.

We are located 1 mile south of Johnson Creek, just past Rob’s Motorsports. You can also find your way to our sale from Highway 18 near the former St. Coletta campus just east of Jefferson. Watch for the big pink signage. Our address is N5761 County Road Y, Johnson Creek. Sometimes GPS likes the street address as N5761 C-r Y better.

Please PULL INTO THE DRIVEWAY to park. Park on the grass if needed. Safety is of utmost importance. Don’t leave your pet in the car. Bring a leash. We usually add new items daily and definitely add new items for each sale. Come see what’s new at The Homestead Barn.

Koda (our 5 month old puppy) liked their dog friendly attitude! We went back this past weekend to take a few more photos (and buy a few more treasures).

Everything was neat and well organized. Lynn confided that her mom would be pleased to have her things displayed with this much love, and would have hated a jumbled rummage sale. Here are just a few of the treasures I brought home:

The book is a bridal shower gift. When I saw santa peeking out of the bottom of the jar of red buttons, I couldn’t resist it. The Sunbonnet Sue needle case will be a wonderful addition to my collection. There are actually 6 plates that coordinate but don’t match. And… don’t miss my new $3 ring. Very unique — and they had a lot of jewelry.

If you live in southeastern Wisconsin, I highly recommend taking a ride out in the country to visit Lynn and Amy. If you do, please let them know you heard about it here 😊.

Laundering a Large Quilt

June 6, 2021 15 Comments

I think it’s finally time to take the winter quilts off the beds and clean them for storage (It’s 92 degrees today, although in Wisconsin you can never be too sure 😊). My friend Mary recently asked me for advice on doing this and I thought it might be helpful to share it with the rest of you. Here’s what I find works well for me:

I would avoid dry cleaning, especially since all the materials are washable.

Choose a rainfree/windfree day. Use a front loading washer, as it uses centrifugal force rather than the agitation of the toploader that can put pressure on stitches.

Load the quilt and select cold or lukewarm water and Orvus soap. This is available at quilt shops in small quantities or at Farm and Fleet – as a horse soap where it is much less expensive. I use it for delicates and it’s great for other laundry, especially if you have a septic system; as you need only a tablespoon per load, and it’s very gentle. Since we’re using cool water to wash the quilt, I dissolve the Orvus in a cup of warm water before adding it to the machine (can you tell I used this wooden spoon when dyeing my denim blue socks?)

Once the quilt is washed, I lay a sheet beneath the washer opening and gently dump the quilt out onto the sheet. Try not to yank or stretch anything as wet threads break easily.

Wrap it up in the sheet and carry it outside “Santa” style.

Lay a dry sheet out over an area of grass or a clump of bushes

and lay the wet quilt on it to air dry – this again is easier on the stitches than hanging it on a line.

If the sun is bright, or there is a fear of bird droppings, cover the quilt with another sheet. You may need to place heavy objects at the corners of the sheets to keep things from blowing if on the ground, or use clothspins to hold the sheet to the bush.

Once it’s dry – or almost dry – it can be air fluffed in the dryer on no/low heat for a few minutes. And remember to do any mending on the quilt before you carefully store it for the summer.

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I’m posting this week from the Cattail retreat center near Lodi Wisconsin. This is the third time I’ve been with this group and we’re having a wonderful time!