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Beading the Sun

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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

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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!

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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

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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

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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!

Sewing,

eating our retreat treats (and so much more),

and getting things done!

It’s been a blast and I’d like to leave you with a smile. Saturday was Laura’s birthday and we gave her a card from the gang:

We decided it almost looked like us, but not quite. Photoshop to the rescue – and Laura even joined in as a cat (per her request).

Happy birthday Laura! Thanks for planning another wonderful retreat!

Accordion Door Quilts

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Last week Suzanne commented that she’d like to know how I make an accordion door quilt (click here to read that post). I’ve been asked if I would ever teach a class on this technique and my answer is always “I don’t think anyone else is crazy enough to want to make three quilts to get one” 🤣. But I guess there are a few of us out there, so I decided to share the basics now. I did a bit of searching and discovered I had covered this technique briefly once before, but that was back in 2013 – so let’s do it again.

The first time I made an accordion door quilt was back in the late 1990’s. It was made for a contest with the theme “Reflections”. Making hand mirrors with the reflections of the women who were part of my quilting journey seemed like a good idea. These included my great, great grandmother Mary (lower left). She is the only quilter in my family tree. I never met her but I own, and treasure, 2 of her quilts. My mom is in the upper left mirror and she taught me how to sew when I was 7. She is still one of my biggest cheerleaders (Dad’s the other – praise the LORD!) My dear friend Sharon is in the mirror on the lower right. She taught me how to quilt when I was 40 and is still one of my closest friends. And the last mirror is of me. I included interlocking circles to represent the Trinity (since my faith is a huge part of my inspiration as an artist), and I connected them all with a twisting red thread.

This quilt was interesting, but it wasn’t interesting enough to enter into the contest, so I made a second quilt the exact same size. The design began in the lower left corner with log cabin blocks similar to those in one of my grandma Mary’s quilts. These blocks morphed into a variation of my Parallelisms quilts. I felt it represented my earliest quilt inspiration in one corner flowing into my passion at that time, art quilts, on the other.

As you can guess, I had to find a way to put them together and the accordian door quilt was born. I call it “Reflections of My Quilting Heritage”. The base quilt I made to hang the “accordion door” from measures 70″ x 50″ and contains small shisha mirrors which I hand embroidered in place to keep the reflections theme going. It was all put together through the magic of Velcro™.

A few years later I felt the urge to make another one, but smaller. It was inspired by a stack of vintage double wedding ring arcs a friend found at a rummage sale. She gave them to me and I gave one to each of the members of the Milwaukee Art Quilters and asked them to do something creative with it. I began by putting paper backed fusible on the back of my arc and cutting it into skinnier arcs. Then I fused them to a background fabric in a swirling design and quilted concentric circles. The blue lines are where the quilt will be cut.

I pieced and quilted a more traditional intersection of double wedding ring arcs for the second quilt (cutting lines marked here too).

Both quilts were cut on the blue lines and laid out in alternating strips which I zig-zag stitched together with invisible thread, and then bound the entire piece.

On the back I stitched a length of the hook portion of Velcro™ tape along both sides and down every other seam (the grandmothers flower garden on the back is a preprinted cheater fabric). I used white and black Velcro™ because that’s what I had on hand.

On the base quilt I sewed the loop Velcro™ strips.

The Velcro™ strips are then matched up and this is the finished quilt from the left and right:

How Beautiful – Liberty is the third and most recent in my series.

I’m not sure if/when I have another one in me, but if you decide to play around with this crazy technique please send me pictures!

PS If you’d like to see all the other Objet D’Arc quilts in the Milwaukee Art Quilter’s “double wedding ring arc” challenge click here.

A Time Saving Machine

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Last week Joanne commented that she wanted to know more about my Brother Scan ‘n Cut™. I’m actually using it on a current project and it is such a time and “hand” saver. Let me start at the beginning 😊.

A few years ago you might remember I made a quilt entitled “How Beautiful – Liberty”. It was one of my accordian door quilts, so it was made as 3 quilts: 2 were cut into vertical slices and sewn back together alternately, and the third was the base for the others to hang from. When viewed from the front the center portion is a bit confusing:

But by simply moving a few feet to the left you can see the New York Beauty quilt,

and viewed from the right the true New York Beauty appears!

While making the base quilt I wanted to include the first sentence in the Declaration of Independence, but how to make those tiny letters??? My husband suggested there must be a device that would save me from all that intricate and laborious cutting. So I called my friend Wendy at Sew Much More and she recommended the Scan ‘n Cut™. I did a post on how well it made the letters back in 2015 and you can click here to read all about it.

Since then I’ve used the Scan ‘n Cut™ for a variety of projects with great results. Many letters and shapes are loaded in the machine’s memory, so many projects can be created on the screen. Plus Brother™ has a site on the web called “Canvas” in which many, many more projects and alphabets can be found.

I made the words for my postcards featured in last week’s post with an alphabet in the Scan ‘n Cut™.

This week I began a new project in which I wanted to make 6 identical moths in fabric. I found a photo I liked

and traced the 3 different colored areas onto the paper side of fusible web. I ironed them to the appropriate fabric, cut them out by hand, and fused them all together. It worked, but my hand ached. That’s when I remembered the scanning feature on my Scan ‘n Cut™. I traced those 3 shapes again, onto paper this time, and placed it on the sticky area of the Scan ‘n Cut™ mat.

I loaded it into the machine, but this time I used the scanning feature to save my image in the Scan ‘n Cut™ memory. I was able to crop out the empty moth body shape in my scan and duplicate it 5 times on the screen to create my first “project”. I ironed the fusible web to the back of the black fabric, put it on the sticky mat, and chose the cutting feature this time to cut out 5 identical black moth bodies.

I was thrilled. I left the paper from the fusible web on the back of these shapes and went back to my original scan to crop out the shape to be cut from the dark blue fabric. I made a new project screen with 5 of those shapes. They were rather intricate and this time I was not thrilled 😟. The machine didn’t cut the tiny areas well at all and everything bunched up, and there were many areas that didn’t even cut through (sorry, I was frustrated and didn’t think to snap a photo).

It was then I had a lightbulb moment. I’ve been using this machine for over 5 years and never changed the blade. The size of the blade and the way it works is mind-boggling to me. This is what you see of it in the holder (it’s so tiny I had a difficult time getting a clear shot):

I decided to watch a few videos about it before purchasing a new blade and realized the whole area needed regular cleaning (duh). I took the unit apart and it was full of lint. I cleaned out the case with a dry cotton swab:

and used it to wipe off the blade also:

Once it was back together it cut the dark blue pieces perfectly! I fused them onto the black moth bodies.

The light blue portion of the wings was just as intricate – and the machine did a wonderful job! The background cutaway on the right is just laying on the mat loosely after I pulled it away from the wing pieces (please ignore the black lines on the mat – they were an oops from a previous project):

After fusing these final pieces in place

I was very pleased!

And so happy I didn’t have to cut it all out by hand. My hands don’t do the intricate cutting as well as they used to, so this machine is a real blessing to me!

The additional detail on the moths will be stitched in. These moths will be part of a new challenge quilt I’m making. Stay tuned to see what comes of them!

Fun Mail

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Ever since I was a child I’ve loved getting mail, and in response to a few of my recent posts I’ve really been enjoying the daily trip to the mailbox.

In April I posted about my first “Non-virtual” class since the pandemic began (click here to read that post). My friend, Jo Jacobi, followed that post up with this email:

“Hi Chris, I love reading your blogs! The one you posted about teaching Seminole patchwork reminded me of one the first quilting classes I took. Helen Kelly taught Seminole at a WQI Symposium. My project is still a UFO but I was so enthusiastic that a friend gave me an authentic Seminole apron and tiny doll. Probably made for the Florida tourists. I want to give them a good home instead of keeping them stored away. I will send them to you if you give me your mailing address.”

The package arrived a few days later and I was thrilled!

The child’s size apron is delightful and the tiny doll is only 3″ tall! She is wearing a beaded necklace and her head is even made with the traditional palmetto leaves.

I’m looking forward to sharing them in future classes. Thanks so much Jo!

On top of that I received 2 postcards after my Fabric Postcard post (click here to read that post). Christy’s was the first:

The hummingbird on the front is lovely. Then a few days later Marilynn’s flying geese flew into my box:

These were so much fun to receive that I decided I needed to return the favor. But what design should I use for the front of the cards? I pulled down the bin containing my paints and inks, with the intent to create something pretty, only to find a stack of fabric pieces I’d made on a previous “play day”. They were perfect for the cards, so I cut them to 4″ x 6″ and fused them to rectangles of a very stiff interfacing I found in another bin.

The cards were pretty, but most needed a focal point.

It was time to pull the Scan n Cut off the shelf and cut out some letters.

I stitched down the words. Then these card fronts were fused to another piece of fabric from the bin for the backs.

I satin stitched around them for the finishing touch (Marilynn and I both learned not to put cardstock on the back because it tears away along the dotted line). Then messages were written, addresses/stamps applied, and they were off to return the smiles to some of my friends.

What a blessing quilting friends are!