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12 Pointed Mariner’s Compass Stars

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A few weeks ago I posted about what I was stitching on during our time of isolation. One of the projects I shared was a twist on my Mariner’s Compass technique inspired by my friend Mary Ellen. I made three of these compass stars while on retreat in the beginning of March:

Then I made 3 more while I was “safer at home”:

The drafting is almost identical to the technique I use in my Compass Capers book (click here to purchase a copy).

Compass Capers, by Chris Lynn Kirsch

I begin with a circle of paper, but this time I fold it into sixths instead of the traditional eighths. Then, as in the book, a few marks are made, and I connect the dots! Here’s an example:

By connecting the dots in different ways, many different stars can me made as is evidenced in the 6 compass stars above. I then cut them into wedges and paper piece them.

Once my compass stars were made I decided they would be beautiful in a tree skirt (our current skirt is 44 years old and has seen better days). To do this I taped together newsprint until it was a good size for a tree skirt. I folded this large piece into sixths, laid a compass star at the outer edge of the paper and drew an arc to fit. These 6 wedges were cut apart and I was ready to cut my background fabric, batting and backing.

I decided to use a “quilt-as-you-go” technique for putting the skirt together. This meant I could layer and quilt each wedge individually which made things much easier. And this is the finished tree skirt (I know it’s not a Christmas tree but, c’mon, it’s May 😄):

I used a number of different techniques while putting this project together and I’ve decided to do tutorials on them in the next few posts. Stay tuned 😊!

Mending With Boro

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It turns out I have one more “Japan trip” post in me. It’s actually about the origin of sashiko – which began as a type of mending – and I hope you find it interesting.

While in Japan I enjoyed wearing the jacket I made with my friend Evelyn prior to the trip.

When I returned home, after washing the jacket, I discovered a tear along the bottom edge of the lining (I must have caught it on something).

I could easily have patched it and nobody would have been the wiser, since it was on the inside of the jacket. But I’ve been fascinated by “Boro” mending ever since learning about it in Japan, and I thought it would be fun to give it a try. For a site with the history on this ancient utilitarian technique and how it grew into the sashiko stitching we know today click here.

I bought this lapel pin while on my trip to Japan and was told it was an actual piece of vintage boro.

So I cut a rectangle of blue fabric, stitched and turned it so there were no raw edges (not typically done in boro, but I just couldn’t help myself):

Pinned it in place.

Chose a thread and began to stitch!

Because of the thickness of the fabrics, I had to do a stab stitch, but I think it adds to the effect and I’m loving the results (bottom center on the back of the jacket).

Wow! A way to mend that’s fun! Then, a few weeks after mending my jacket I had another “boro” style mending adventure. This past February I went to a wonderful reunion in Florida with a group of my cousins (before everything was shut down). Deb, Kathy and I found a shop with fun clothing and we all purchased similar shirts.

Mine has been worn and washed a number of times, and the last time I noticed a 1″ hole on the right front. I have no idea how it got there, but something had to be done. Since it was a t-shirt knit I decided to add lightweight fusible interfacing on the inside and then I blanket stitch appliquéd a leaf on the front, and added stitching similar to the shirt embellishment.

I’m rather pleased with the way it turned out.

This might just cause me to like mending. Have you done any creative mending? It takes a bit of imagination, but I recommend you give it a try!

Face Mask and Surgical Cap Update

We would like to thank everyone who has helped with our Mask and Cap project over the past 2 months. To visit our updated site and read the latest news click here.

Gina has compiled a list of all of the hospitals and organizations who have benefitted from your generosity these past 2 months. Click here to read this very exciting list!

Raw-edged Repliqué

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Happy Mothers Day to anyone who is a mom or has/had a mom ?! I had a lovely lunch today with my Mom, and I’m very blessed to still have both of my parents healthy, active and in in my life!

Recently, at the end of a post, I shared a photo of a quilt I gave to my son’s family after the passing of their dog Moseley.

I started that quilt in a workshop with Barbara Beasley. Her quilts are amazing and her technique is very interesting. To read my post about that class click here.

I have to admit that I found using fusible in a “jigsaw puzzle” fashion, with all of it’s reversing and cutting, a bit tedious. So, it wasn’t really my thing. But… Brad, Betsy, Sommer and Trey have another dog who is also 13 years old, and I felt this time of being “safe at home” would be a good opportunity to make a quilt of Nershi too. I decided to create this quilt with my raw-edged repliqué technique because it doesn’t require fusibles and pre-cutting. Click here to read a tutorial I did on this technique last year!

I found a good photo of her – but something was missing:

With Nershi it is all about the ball. As soon as you sit down in their home a ball is dropped in your lap, in the hopes that it will be thrown – over and over again. So I found an image on the web that would work:

I enlarged the photo of Nershi, inserted the image of the ball, and printed it out. Years ago I discovered a way to do this using MS Excel on my computer – Once the directions are completed and print is clicked, all of the portions print out, ready to be taped together. To visit that post and learn how to print enlarged photos from your computer click here and scroll past the Irish chain quilt.

So I taped the enlarged photograph together, placed it on a light box, and traced all of the different shapes and areas to the back of the enlargement.

This step is a bit tedious, but I rather enjoy it. I then chose my fabrics and determined which ones go where by referring to the original photograph. The first part I do is the eyes, using white paint for the sparkle. I stitched the darkest fabric on next using my repliqué technique, but skipping the satin stitching step. As I add each area, I color it in on the pattern. Here it is from the front with the eyes and black fabric added:

I continued adding fabric from darkest to lightest in this way until the dog and ball were done. Then I cut her out from the paper and pinned her to the background fabrics. To add the shadow under Nershi I saved that portion of the paper pattern, taped it in place on the back of the grass fabric, and raw-edged repliquéd the shadow with black tulle.

Next I free-motion stitched Nershi to the background all the way around, cut the background away from behind her, and removed the paper.

The raw-edged repliqué was complete!

It was time to add borders, batting and backing, and to have fun free-motion quilting!

She was done in time to gift to my family for Easter!

I do prefer this method for creating animal portraits in fabric, but now I’m ready to move on to something completely different. Maybe it’s time for some piecing ?.

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Hankies – the topic that continues to make us smile!

This past week Margaret sent me another “hankie email”. I’m really loving the responses to that post! I think you’ll enjoy the clever memory boxes she made:

“About 15 years ago, my mother came up with this idea to give to each of
her (4) grandchildren, so I made it happen.  Each memory box contained
one of her hankies & a pair of earrings, one of my dad’s ties with a tie
clip, a copy of their wedding invitation (1944), and a copy of our
family picture (1964).“

Beautiful! Thanks Margaret!

Then my friend Maureen also sent me a photo of a favorite hankie from her collection, since she was born in Wales, and a book she owns with many ideas for using hankies.

I did an internet search and was able to find copies of this book available for sale.

I asked her about being born in Wales and she responded:

“My mother was a War bride from Neath, Wales. My father was a cook and truck driver serving in England.  I don’t know how they met but my mother told me they dated only three months when he proposed to her!  When my father returned to South Dakota after the war (1946) my mother came to America with me on a boat with other war brides. The captain of the boat woke them up in the middle of the night so they could see the Statue of Liberty as they arrived in New York. We rode a train to South Dakota.”

What an interesting story. Thanks for sharing Maureen!

What are You Stitching?

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While many of us are homebound, we are fortunate to have more time to quilt and – stashes to work from! Who knew how truly wonderful our stashes were. We don’t ever need to feel guilty about them again ?!

I know that many of you have been making masks for our heroes on the front lines of this pandemic. The face mask project I was blessed to be a part of has collected and distributed over 4300 masks thanks to so many of you. We have recently been made aware of a shortage of scrub caps and are now accepting them also. For a simple video pattern please click here and visit our site. Also, if you or someone you know wears an elastic mask and it’s bothersome to your ears, please read on – I’ve discovered a simple “face mask wearing hack” and I’m sharing it at the end of this post.

Besides making masks (and doing jigsaw puzzles), I’ve been working on a number of other projects. After receiving an email from Betty – I decided on this week’s theme. This was her image and message:

“Chris you’ve inspired me! I have sunbonnet sue blocks that my mother embroidered and hankies that I took when we went through everything after she passed away 3+ years ago. Your posts about the hankies led me to put them together. I will even back them with a thin bed cover that my grandmother had. It will be priceless to me. My question for you is, how do I emphasize the embroidered parts with quilting? I feel like the dainty sunbonnet sues are lost in the rest of the color, even though I love the colors and hankies.  I have attached a photo of the blocks on my design wall.”

What a joy to be a small part of this delightful memory quilt! It was fun coming up with quilting ideas and this was my response:

“When quilting the quilt it might help to emphasize the Sunbonnet Sues by echo quilting around them. This would be easiest to do free-motion by machine or by hand. The heavy quilting will cause them to come forward while the background goes back. This echoing could fill the entire block, causing the hankies to “go back” too. If you prefer straight line machine quilting, The outside edge of each block could be “echoed” inward, avoiding quilting through each Sue, to again cause her to pop.

After sending these suggestions I had another, so I emailed her once more:

“If you quilted “columns” of a design (perhaps a cable) vertically through the hankie triangles, leaving the Sue columns unquilted, that could make the Sues stand out, and add interest to the quilt.”

Then I put the photo she sent me into Photoshop™, added the column lines, and filled them in with a design I found in the computer program, to help visualize this idea. I’m aware this design is ugly and not what Betty would quilt, but quilting in those strips with a cable or filler design might work well.

Betty told me she’d let me know what she decides, and I’ll be sure to share it with you..

So here are some of the projects I’ve been working on:

While on our Sew We Go cruise from Quebec to Boston I purchased pre-cut wool circles (known as “pennies”), a piece of black background, and matching perle cotton in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. I had no idea what I would do with them.

I began blanket stitching some of the small circles atop the larger ones after the trip. Then I put them in a pretty little bag and haven’t thought about them since. At the beginning of our time of isolation I pulled them out, decided on a nice arrangement, and created a candle mat.

It’s backed with a homespun plaid (once again – hooray for the stash!) – and I love it!

Another project that I’ve been actively working on was inspired by my trip to Japan. There were quite a few quilts in the International Quilt Festival that had intricately pieced backgrounds mainly in blue, and I found them very intriguing. Here are a few examples:

In February I started creating my own blue background for a future Japan memory quilt. I even inserted the sashiko sample I had stitched before the trip. It used up a lot of the dark blues in my stash, and I threw a bunch of other bits in there for fun.

My plan was to take the pieces I made in our classes in Japan, along with a few of my purchases while there, and scatter them over this background. It was great fun to figure out how to add all those special pieces to the top and I now have it complete and ready for quilting, but I can’t share it yet. I hope you’re curious and I apologize for teasing you in this way, but I added three elements to the quilt top to make it acceptable for a challenge being held by my Fiberistas group. These quilts are not supposed to be “revealed” until May, so I can’t show it until then. Stay tuned – I think it will be worth it ?.

Once that top was done I didn’t feel ready to quilt it (has that ever happened to you?), so I looked through my pile of UFOs and found some pieces I had been working on at my guild’s retreat in March (the weekend before the big shut down). These blocks were inspired by my friend Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen used to live in Wisconsin, but now resides in Indiana. A few years ago she invited me to teach for her guild there. One of the classes I taught was Mariner’s Compass. She had taken that class previously and showed me something original she’d done with my technique – she drafted 60° compasses. I was intrigued and drafted a few of my own, then paper pieced three of them at the retreat.

I’ve recently been drafting and stitching more. I love the spikey variety that can be achieved in drafting these beautiful stars:

And now they’re ready to be made into a tree skirt. That should keep me busy for a while. Thanks Mary Ellen!

Sew… What are you up to? Please comment and tell us. If you have photos to share, email them to me at:

The Mask Hack!

My Dad wears hearing aids and the elastic type mask didn’t work for him. Besides that, I found mine to be very uncomfortable around my ears. So I came up with a hack that works quite well:

I loop an elastic hairband through each side elastic piece on the mask,

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then I loop a third hairband through one of the first bands, and I hold the 2 band ends together with a safety pin.

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It isn’t pretty, but it stretches over my head easily, and it’s much more comfortable.

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Stay safe, and comfortable everyone!

 

Hankies

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Two years ago my cousin’s husband passed away unexpectedly at the age of 57. Jim was a wonderful man and this was a difficult time for our family. Another cousin flew up from Florida to stay with Mike and me. The morning of the funeral, as we were all teary eyed, Cindy asked me for a hankie. I handed her a packet of tissues. She then told me that difficult times like these demanded a hankie. I had never thought about it like that.

A few years before this my mom had given me a bag full of aprons and hankies from the women in our family. So I pulled it out

and we chose the ones we took with us that day.

Recently my friend, Eileen, and I were talking about how often we cry happy tears – especially during worship on Sunday mornings, in gratitude for what our Savior has done for us. I mentioned that I really should be following my cousin’s advice and use my heritage of hankies more often. She agreed, and said that she had purchased some hand-dyed hankies when we were in Paducah together, but they were too pretty to use.

I encouraged her to get them out because – if you never use it, you’ll never use it… so use it and enjoy it while you love it.

That was when I pulled out my bag of hankies once again, in preparation for today – Resurrection Sunday. I thought it might be a good topic to remind others of what our mothers and grandmothers knew. Hankies are a blessing.

In 2014 I wrote a post about a memory quilt I’d made called Lacy Hearts. I hand appliquéd hearts to muslin, embellished them and then hand-quilted it all. It was a fun project and I’ve taught a class on it a number of times.

Two of the hearts are made from hankies that were so worn I didn’t mind cutting them. The one in the upper left used the lacy edge of one hankie, and the lower right used the purple embroidery from another.

To read the post about this quilt: click here.

Some of the hankies in my collection look like new, like this one with the lovely edging made from variegated thread.

While many of the hankies in my collection were well used.

So many of them have lovely edging designs, but it seems that is the part that often wears out the fastest.

Others have beautiful embroidery.

I know that all of them came from a woman in my family tree, but I don’t know which one belonged to whom. In the photo above I think the one with the blue flower is likely my grandma Ardis’ because it is in very good condition. Blue was her favorite color, so I could see her saving that one for special occasions.

The next one was a souvenir of New York and I don’t think it has ever been used. The embroidery is lovely, but it has yellowed with age (I placed it on-point atop a white hankie so you could get the full effect).

The ones I have that are made from a printed fabric I think may have been the most utilitarian. This one is still in useable condition.

I think the following hankie is my favorite of the printed variety, but I can’t imagine how it got so stained. I wonder if one of my grandfathers used it to change the oil in the car ?.

Recently my friend, Vicky, made a quilt for a guild challenge centered around a “handkerchief lady” block. Her quilt is entitled “The Symbol of Love is the Heart”. Beautiful!

If you do an internet image search for handkerchief lady quilts, you will be amazed at the beautiful quilts that have been made from these lovely pieces of our past.

Do you have a favorite hankie? Do you use it? Would you like to share it’s story? Have you made a quilt from hankies? Please send me photos and stories at:

Face Mask Update

We continue to get requests coming in for face masks. As of today over 2750 masks have been donated through this project! Our contact and drop off points remain the same. Thanks to all who have been a part of this great project – and to all who continue to support our heroes! For all the information click here!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Mask Madness

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Who would have ever thought that we quilters would be so excited to be sewing face masks! What a blessing to be able to use our sewing skills to help the heroes in our community! During this time of isolation – we have a project – and a goal – and are part of the solution! Praise the Lord!

I’d like to send a huge

THANK YOU!

to everyone who has made masks, and to all who are continuing in this effort!

When we began this project we didn’t know where it would take us. Over 2020 masks later we’re still going strong, and we’re very grateful our small group of women could get the word out and fill such a huge need. Not only are we supplying hospitals and medical clinics, but we’ve had requests from police departments, hospice facilities, school cafeteria workers who are making meals for under privileged children, and more. We’re filling these requests as we are able and are also accepting requests. If you know of a place that has a need please have them contact Gina Magnus at (262)424-7640.

We started by asking for plain, professional looking masks and that’s what we received,

but it didn’t take long for many stitchers to run out of the “boring” fabrics (or just tire of them) and dig into the “pretty” ones!

Some were even made to look more masculine.

And some were just plain fun!

I will be working at the polls on Tuesday and I offered to bring masks for all the workers. My offer was accepted and I’m happy to be making patriotic masks – God bless America!

I’m sure your local polling place would appreciate masks if you can make some that quickly ?. And maybe you have friends or neighbors who would appreciate this gift of safety. Please be inspired to fill these needs also!

May God bless all of the medical, housekeeping, law enforcement and others who are on the front lines during this very difficult and dangerous time. They need and deserve our prayers and thanks.

The need continues, so please keep up the GREAT work!

For all of the information about making masks please click here!

Thank you again for all of your help and prayers. It is appreciated more than you know!

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Comfort is Times of Trouble

On a separate and very important note – I’ve noticed many people are quite anxious about these scary and uncertain times. I was recently listening to a sermon that I found informative and comforting. Click here to listen to it. May God bless you and your family, and keep you healthy and safe!

Jesus said: “In Me you may have peace; in the world you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world” John 16:33

Food in Japan

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I typically write about some aspect of quilting and sewing in my weekly blog posts, but I hope you’ll find this topic interesting too, since we all like to eat! Enjoy!

I am a somewhat adventurous eater and I was looking forward to experiencing food in Japan. The one thing I was warned about ahead of time was that there wouldn’t be many green vegetables – and I found this to be surprisingly true. A few floral shoots of broccoli snuck into dinner one night, but that was not the norm.

Aside from the salad bars on the American portion of the breakfast buffets, the majority of meals revolved around seafood, rice, tofu, noodles and salt. Although Daikon radishes and cabbage were pretty easy to find.

We went to a sushi making class during the trip. It was more of a stage production than an actual cooking class, but it was fun. What we made was pretty, and much of it was tasty – even if most of the seafood was raw (the rice is hiding underneath each item):

Eating in restaurants was an interesting experience. There was plastic food outside all of them and it was made to look exactly like what was on their menu.

I found out later that it’s a multi-million dollar industry in Japan, and it did make choosing our dinner a little easier (even if we didn’t know what we were ordering because the descriptions were all in Japanese). If you’d like to learn more about the plastic food industry in Japan click here.

One night a few of us decided to have dinner at the Tempura restaurant on the top floor of our hotel. The view was beautiful and the meal very interesting. Everything is deep fried while you watch, at high heat and in a very light batter. The chef began by showing us a wooden box filled with all the foods he would be preparing, and the presentation was a lovely part of the meal.

The first item he prepared for us was prawns. He showed us the large, beautiful prawns: heads, tails and all; cut off the heads, and cooked the rest to perfection. He put two of them into my boat shaped dish and I lifted them off with my chopsticks, dipped them in salt (no cocktail sauce), and enjoyed. Then he did the same thing with the prawn heads!

I looked with wide eyes at Vicki, who was seated next to me. She said – “when in Japan” and popped one in her mouth!

So I did the same. It was crunchy, and I ate them both. We all enjoyed the meal very much.

Besides seafood and rice, there were many restaurants that served chicken and pork. It was often deep fried, served with noodles and quite yummy.

The night we stayed at the resort near Mt. Fugi we were served an amazing multi-course dinner. The presentation and unique dishes were a highlight:

Course 1 – roe stuffed shrimp, lotus fruit, and tofu in a number of interesting shapes and colors
Course 2 – rice with more tofu shapes and a few small veggies
Course 3 – soup with unusual mushrooms and more tofu (the piece that looks like a peppermint was tofu too)
Course 4 – a 1 1/2″ tall cake of crushed ice layered with thinly sliced Daikon radishes, raw fish and wasabi
Course 5 – under the lightly toasted paper box were pieces of meat and seafood
Course 6 – delicious cold mushroom soup
And then desert – fruit, custard, and a light sorbet

An amazing meal and surprisingly filling!

While traveling from place to place I would get the munchies. Potato chips were not easy to find, and when we did the only choices were wasabi or shrimp flavor (I’m afraid they must be an acquired taste):

We purchased Bento Boxes for lunch on the bullet train. It was very compact. The two boxes stacked and were topped with the beautiful cardboard lid.

Many people in Japan commute long distances each day and these boxed lunches are extremely popular. Mine was delicious!

I’m going to end this post on a sweet note. We noticed many different flavors of KitKat candy bars all over the country. It turns out that KitKat is pronounced similarly to the Japanese phrase for “you will surely succeed”. So the Japanese people began gifting them to friends prior to athletic contests or academic tests. They became so popular that the Nestle company decided to fill the need and make a variety of them. The most unusual was Yuzu fruit/Matcha tea (not my favorite).

It was a fun souvenir to bring home to the kids.

I truly enjoyed the culinary experience, but I must admit I was ready for a hamburger with a big dish of asparagus when I returned.

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In a comment last week, Laurie asked about the project I Roketsu dyed. I chose a dragonfly design on a t-shirt.

I finished in a short amount of time and the teacher made a comment through Izumi that I should add one to the back shoulder. I love it!

I love it. Now if it will just warm up enough outside to wear it.

Roketsu Dyeing

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All of the classes we took in Japan were great, but this one was hands down my favorite! It was also our last class – and what a finale it was!

We were each invited to decide whether we wanted to create a t-shirt or runner, and to choose a pattern.

We sat two to a special table with a hot wax pot and brushes in the center, and a built in lightbox.

After “painting” the first coat of wax, the light tables were turned off and a second coat was applied.

And then if was time to prepare to dye:

Our pieces were divided into two groups and we took turns stirring the indigo dye.

This is Jim’s fish – quite impressive!

The pieces were then removed from the dye, rinsed and hung to dry a bit.

Next the pieces were put into boiling water and we observed our instructor stirring and teaching as the wax was melted out of the fabric. Thank goodness Izumi was interpreting.

From there they were rinsed, had the water spun out of them and handed to us to iron dry.

Once again we had a fantastic group of teacher/helpers.

And a good time was had by all!

It’s been a joy for me to share the fiber related memories of our trip to Japan, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I have to admit, I have one more blog post about the trip in me because it was such a fascinating part of our tour – “Food In Japan”. That will happen next week ?.

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And, on a non-quilting note:

This past week one of my granddogs, Mosely, passed away. He was almost 13 and died of natural causes. This has hit my son’s family hard – Moseley was a very sweet dog.

A few years ago I made this quilt of him in a class with Barbara Beasley and I decided this would be the perfect time to finish that quilt and gift it to them. Praise the Lord – it was a great comfort.

Moseley, you will be missed!