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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have a quilt hanging in the National Quilt Museum in Paducah! Praise the Lord!

During Spring Quilt Week the museum held a “Meet the Artist” event and eight of us were there. As an unexpected bonus to all that fun, each artist was asked to do a short interview about their quilt, and I now have the link to those interviews. To view the videos click here!

I hope you find them as interesting as I did :-)!

When I enter a contest such as this, I not only enjoy creating something according to the contest rules, but I love to challenge myself to try things I haven’t done before. This quilt was no exception.

I began with an idea I’ve heard about, but never tried – quilting the background first and then adding the appliqué. I knew I wanted to achieve a trapunto look in the unquilted areas, so I used a double layer of batting: an 80/20 cotton first, with a washable wool on top. The fabric was a beautiful silk/cotton blend called Radiance. I only had a yard and they no longer make this fabric. Since the minimum size for the contest is 50″ x 50″, I knew this wasn’t going to be big enough, but I tend to worry about things like that later.

I came up with a basic pattern using a windblown tree I’ve played with in other quilts, adding copyright free leaves from the internet, and a twisted traditional oak leaf and reel block I created for the central design (more about that later).

I marked the areas where I wanted to place these motifs, and then quilted around those areas to mark them.

From there I added large spirals to mimic the wind (plus a little bit of stippling around the central image to see how the faux trapunto was going to look):

Once the swirls were done, more stippling and mini-spiraling could commence:

and more:

Until the quilting was completed:

You may have noticed I added a bit of matchstick quilting along the top and right edges. I like the way the curvy and linear designs play together:

The oak leaves were made from men’s silk necktie fabric. Each one was made by sewing 2 pieces of the same tie fabric, right sides together, in the shape of a leaf; then turning this piece right sides out and stitching it to the quilt along the vein line:

The tree was done using a technique I call raw edge repliqué. I used the same technique for the blocks in the border on the left, but this post is getting a bit long, so I’ll save that information for next week’s post.

Have you ever quilted the background first and then added the appliqué?

Did you enjoy the process? I really did and I hope to play with it more in the future :-)!

Nine years ago my neighbor Di and I worked out a barter. I taught her how to make a Lone Star quilt and she built my website. She also got me into blogging!

Well, last Fall she informed me that my website was due for an update and we worked out a new barter. I posted about this when the barter began, and you can read about it by clicking here.

The quilt top is done and I’m thrilled to have brought it to completion. This is one of the blocks the quilt is made from:

and here’s the king sized quilt top ready for Aunt Susie’s Long Arm Quilting!

Jenny didn’t want a pillow tuck, so the border doesn’t go around the top of the quilt. The pieced center just fits her king sized bed and the plain cream colored border/final pieced border drop off the quilt sides. It’s a very bright and cheerful quilt.

Any guesses how many pieces are in it?

1796!!! I think that’s a record for me. What’s the most number of pieces you’ve put in a quilt?

The other half of the barter is coming to fruition this weekend! Di has uploaded my new website and I think it is lovely! Please go to: https://www.chrisquilts.net/ to visit my homepage,

and feel free to navigate around a bit (i.e. click on whatever looks interesting) to see all that it has to offer.

Today Di is completing the uploading of the blog. I think you’re going to like the new format. It’s visually crisp and clean, and should be easy to use. But please be patient if a link doesn’t work – or something doesn’t look quite right yet – we’re still in the final stages of the upload.

Thank you Di, for all your knowledge and hard work. It’s really appreciated.

It certainly is fun to have friends with different talents to share. Have you done a barter with your quilting skills that you’d like to share? If so, please send me an email about it: .

I met Margaret 8 years ago when she joined my church family. She is an amazing woman. She was born deaf, but was able to have her hearing in one ear restored to 80% of normal when she was 9. She has a number of other disabilities, but she hasn’t let them keep her down. She is one of the most encouraging people I know, and her love for God and sharing His word is huge. She is a blessing to me.

So when she decided to move to Mt. Pleasant, WI to be nearer to her adopted family, we were all saddened to have her move away, but grateful for the new adventure she has ahead of her.

Last week our mutual friend Ann was planning a Sunday School lesson focusing on how much Margaret means to all of us. She asked if I had a small quilt or table runner we could give her to go along with the lesson. My first thought was “why didn’t I think of that?” My second “I need to make her a lap quilt to snuggle up in when she wants to feel the love from her Calvary family”. So, I dug through my UFO bin and found a stack of “25 patch” blocks I’d collected in an exchange at Patched Lives Quilt Guild.

I squared them up and sewed them together. It was a joy and they went together effortlessly. Then I made the quilt sandwich and had fun free motion quilting spirals in the dark squares,

leaving the light squares for signatures! I signed first and here’s what I wrote:

Everyone in class signed it and this week we had more of Margaret’s church family autograph her friendship quilt as she said here good-byes.

We had a wonderful Mother’s Day brunch and took the opportunity to have a picture taken of our Sunday School class. I’m blessed to have all of these wonderful sisters in Christ in my life.

Dear Margaret, May God bless you in your new home. We are all so glad to call you our friend!

Just a short message to quilters in southeastern Wisconsin

I have been teaching at Waukesha County Technical College for over 23 years, and it’s been a wonderful ride. Recently the college announced they will be discontinuing the adult enrichment classes. These include Quilting, Sewing, Reupholstery, Drapery, Clock Repair, and many more.

I feel it is sad that these classes, which are really important to the retired members of our community, will disappear. 

SEW – WHAT CAN YOU DO???

Well, the college will be having a hearing concerning these classes this Tuesday, May 14th at 5pm, at the Richard Anderson Center on the Pewaukee Campus. In the past these types of decisions have been overturned if the outcry from the community is big enough.

PLEASE CONSIDER SHOWING UP! You don’t have to say anything, but we’re hoping for a huge crowd to show support for our classes. So, bring your friends and be there :-). Thank you!

We helped to hang the quilts on Monday. As always, the plethora of quilts was awe-inspiring. To see photos of the top winners click here!

I usually look for one quilt where I either say “I wish I’d made that” or “wow – I could never do that”, and sometimes both. There were many that grabbed me this year, but the one that stopped me in my tracks was called Celtic Migration. Here it is from a distance and it is lovely, but wait till you see the close-up!

All of the flying geese were 1/4″ x 1/2″ and there were a lot of them!

The National Quilt Museum is always a “must do” at Quilt Week and this year was especially delightful – they had the Best of Show quilts from the last 35 years. The first time I went to Paducah was in 1989 and the winning quilt was Corona II – Solar Eclipse by Caryl Bryer Fallert. It set the quilt world on it’s ear because it was machine quilted. I was new to quilting and I LOVED it.

It’s still one of my favorite quilts!

I was thrilled to be a part of the Museum’s Oak Leaf and Reel contest this year. It’s an honor and a privilege to have a quilt hanging in the museum. My entry is entitled “Oak Leaf and Swirl”. I’ll share more about it in a future blog post.

This year’s contest contained a great collection of art quilts and they were all put into a book available at the NQM gift shop. To see the top 5 winners in the challenge click here. The artists were invited to a “Meet and Greet” on Friday and they had a very good turn out. What a talented group – I’m humbled to be a part of it.

I had a lovely surprise while walking through the opposite gallery. There was an exhibit of quilts recently acquired by the museum and as I came around a corner I exclaimed (to myself) “That’s Roberta’s peacock!”

My friend, Roberta Williams, was an extremely talented woman in so many ways. She has been gone for a number of years, and I believe this quilt was her crowning achievement. I’m so pleased that her family was able to have it selected for the museum’s collection.

One other very exciting opportunity presented itself to me at the museum. A few month’s ago Bonnie Browning, the executive show director for AQS, contacted me to ask if I’d like to be interviewed by the Tri-State Christian Television network because they were looking to do a program about Christian quilters. Praise the Lord! I was thrilled. I brought a few of my quilts and it was a delightful experience. Thanks to Amanda and Kelsie! They said they’d let me know when the program is complete and I’ll be sure to share it on my blog.

Another unique opportunity this week was to spend a little time with my friend Judy Berry. She is the travel planner who has invited me to lead a quilting tour to the International Great Quilt Festival in Tokyo, Japan, this January. She had a booth to advertise the trip and I helped out a bit.

To read all about our upcoming adventure please go to: https://www.chrisquilts.net/trips/. There were many Japanese quilts in the AQS contest and I’ll be including some of them in next week’s post.

In conclusion I need to thank my dear friend Eileen for accompanying me on this wonderful adventure. We laughed, we shopped, we studied God’s word, we took classes, we hung quilts and we rolled them up for shipping home. It was truly a joy-filled week!

As I type we’re on the way home. They got 3″ of snow back home in Wisconsin yesterday, but it’s supposed to reach 50 degrees today so we’re hoping it’s already melted.

This was my 30th year in a row to be a part of Spring Quilt Week in Paducah. I am truly blessed!!!

It’s Easter Sunday and my friend Eileen and I are packing up to drive to Paducah for the Spring quilt show. We will be celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior together on the drive down (we hang the show tomorrow :-)), and are ok with this arrangement since we consider every day a day to celebrate what Jesus did for us!

But I couldn’t leave you without a Sunday post, so here goes:

A few months ago I posted about a very talented machine quilter named Doreen (you may read about her at: https://chrisquilts.net/?p=10656)

While reading her blog I was intrigued by a tool she recommended. Then I began a project that required a very accurate grid to be marked on my fabric – and it was time for a fun new purchase!

It’s not a typical quilter’s tool, but it certainly is handy. It’s called a laser level, and it’s very easy to use.

When you turn it on it sends out 2 perpendicular beams of light. Here’s how I used it to mark my quilt:

This delightful tool made quick work of marking my quilt. It is also helpful in squaring up a quilt for binding.

The project I’m working on here is something I’m quite excited about. This is the base quilt for some really fun blocks. I’m making it for a challenge, so I can’t show you the rest yet. But I think you’ll find it interesting – so stay tuned!

Wishing you and your family a blessed Resurrection Sunday!