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This year our family will have a very different sort of Christmas celebration. We usually spend Christmas Eve with my Dad’s side of the family, but that tradition is changing. Recently my brother had to be moved into a memory care home. He’s had early onset alzheimer’s for almost 8 years, and my sister-in-law has taken wonderful care of him. But the time came when he needed more than she was able to provide. He’s in a very nice home in Madison. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, my parents have been living at Shorehaven for 6 months. Dad is still doing well in assisted living. Mom is in hospice there. Currently she sleeps a lot, is often confused, and the hardest part is she’s become very hard of hearing. But she’s still with us and we are grateful. So Saturday we had a small family Christmas gathering with snacks and cookies at “Dad and Mom’s place”. Mike read the Christmas story and we all praised our Lord for His goodness to us.

The other reason this Christmas will be different is because our grandson Will is a senior and I’m blessed to be able to take him on a trip and enjoy spending time (and some of his inheritance) with him. We leave this week for Italy! Seeing all the beauty of this season in Italy will be wonderful ~ especially with my sweet grandson (Mike decided not to go. After 34 years of flying all over the world ~ he just prefers to stay home 😊).

We’ll begin with a day in Rome,

and then board a cruise ship to travel around Italy, ending our adventure in Venice. We are beyond blessed! And I’m so very grateful that Will is doing well in school ~ and wants to travel with his grandma 😊. I’ve attempted to schedule blog posts for the weeks when I’m gone. If you don’t get an email from me the next 2 Sundays, please feel free to visit my blog at any time: https://www.chrisquilts.net/blog/, and hopefully the scheduled posts will be there.

And, since I like to include something of interest to quilter’s in every post, I want to share a rather odd Christmas project. I made a quilt for our son Brad when he was 9 years old using a Mary Ellen Hopkin’s pattern named Bricks and Mortar. I wrote a post about that quilt and a subsequent one back in 2019 (click here to read that post).

It was tied with wool yarn and stayed on his bed for many years. It left with him when he and Betsy married. Two years ago Betsy told me that they all loved that quilt (really!?!), but it was getting quite worn and they’d love it if I made a new version for Christmas. I was happy to oblige and had Betsy choose the fabrics. Both quilts were flannel backed.

Imagine my surprise when Trey recently told me his favorite quilt had a tear and he asked me to fix it. I had to wonder which quilt was his favorite? This is what I got:

When I picked it up I could see why he loved it. It’s been washed so many times that it’s soft, drapey and snuggly. It still looks pretty good. Some of the black blocks are faded, and the wool ties are all felted into knots. But what needed fixing? Then I turned it over:

The flannel on the back was thin and shredded. So I found some nice thick plaid flannel online to simply add a new back. Then it sat. Our family Christmas Saturday ended around noon. Dad and Mom were ready for naps and after Mike and I got home there was a lull. Hmm. Maybe I could get that quilt repaired for Christmas Eve.

The wool yarn knots had held up so well that I chose to retie it in the untied areas. This required putting it in my basting frame. I was stunned to discover that I still had some of that same yarn left from when I first tied the quilt. I stitched, cut, and knotted every dark brick.

Then I trimmed the flannel, turned under a hem, and appliquéd it all around. I’ll take a photo of Trey with his repaired favorite quilt on Christmas Eve, but I won’t be able to share it with you until Will and I return from our trip.

May your Christmas be wonderful! What joy to know that we can celebrate the birth of our Savior no matter what is going on around us ~ and He can be with us through the good and difficult times! “God bless us every one” ☺️.

As I was sipping my tea and looking at all the ornaments on our tree, I began thinking about each one and it brought back many wonderful memories. We have never had a tree that you’d see in fancy home decor magazines. In fact, we’ve collected so many ornaments over the years that I no longer put on anything but lights and ornaments (the garland just seemed to get in the way). This year the kids helped hang the ornaments and, although their spacing isn’t necessarily the way I’d have done it, I love it!

That’s 49 years of ornament accumulation! Some of the more recent ones were made by grandkids.

I think my favorite grandchild ornatment would have to be the one Trey made us last year with Shrinky Dinks™.

Some of our other ornaments were made by my grandmother ~ and I treasure them.

A few were from Mike’s childhood – like his glass astronaut.

This is another of Mike’s favorites. When we were first married he told me José used to have pipe cleaner arms and legs. I told him I didn’t think he was very Christmassy and perhaps since he was missing parts, we should get rid of him. That became a family “battle” ~ and our kids and grandkids have all taken his side. I still make my comment every year, just for the response. Everyone loves José (even me).

I have a few favorites that I’ve purchased at craft fairs over the years. The tiny sleeping gnome is in a walnut shell bed!

And some I made to sell in craft fairs years ago. I put together the honey bear from purchased parts and wrote on his honey pot. Then the honey was added with a hot glue made for wood. They sold well. The other big seller was the Dairy Christmas cow. I had a booth at the Dairy Convention in Madison for 2 years. It’s my own design and they were a hit!

Others I didn’t sell, but made for us. The Santa spoon was fun to paint, and I made quite a few for family and friends.

We have many from places we’ve visited: Holland, Italy,

Hawaii and Estonia, just to share a few.

A friend made this for me and I still marvel at the workmanship. It’s only 2 1/2″ square.

We have many ornaments that focus on the real reason for Christmas, and this is my favorite.

I hope you’re enjoying preparing your tree, home and heart for Christmas!

My friend Judy put out a request on the women’s group at church for squares of many different types of fabrics. Well that was right up my alley. I didn’t ask why, I just began digging through my bins and cutting off chunks. I labeled them and let her know I’d put them in her folder at church. The only one she asked for that I didn’t have was burlap.

The next time I saw her I asked what she was doing. She told me her granddaughters Meredith and Olivia were members of the American Heritage Girls (a Christian version of the Girl Scouts, click here for their website), and she told me they were working on a merit badge about fabric. I was thrilled! I love teaching future generations about quilting/sewing. I asked her to take photos and share how it all went. Here’s Meredith working with the fabric samples.

And this is Judy, Olivia and Meredith with their finished project!

She said the girls wanted to sew too. They made dresses and pillows for their bears.

I think I can see you all smiling! I’m always excited to see young people with a desire to sew.

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And if that wasn’t fun enough, I have something else to share for quilters in southeastern Wisconsin. I stumbled upon a delightful quilt shop while meeting our new insurance agent. He’s in an office building in Hartland, and Our Quilting Workshop is in the same building. When I saw this sign as we entered from the back parking lot, I remembered some friends telling me about it. What a nice surprise.

It’s located in the lower level of the building,

And once you get inside this door the atmosphere is very inviting:

They have everything a quilter could want!

I enjoyed meeting Laura and Veronica and hearing about their passion for everything quilting.

They have a lot of Minky and Shannon fabrics. I even found some crib sized remnants for 30% off!!! Now that’s too good to pass up. They also have a nice collection of the National Parks fabrics.

They do longarm quilting for hire, and also train quilters to rent out time on their longarm machine. Click here for all the store details! Veronica also told me that they have a newsletter which features their specials, sales and classes. If you haven’t been to their shop, I highly recommend a visit!

Oh my goodness. I woke up this morning to the winter wonderland above (is it still November???). This is the table on our deck:

10 1/2″! Wow! It is beautiful (says the one sitting inside with a cup of hot tea, while her husband blows the driveway 😂). I couldn’t resist sharing these photos. And our church service has been postponed until 3pm so we can safely travel there. Blessing upon blessing!

So let’s get to today’s post:

Almost ten years ago I started playing with a technique that produced some fun art quilts ~ and resulted in a popular class. Perhaps you were in one of them and know where this is going 😁. You’ll find out why I’m revisiting this creative class at the end of this post. As you’ll see ~ the class title says it all. This was the first pair of quilts that resulted from this crazy idea:

And this is the back of that pair of quilts.

It all began with a stack of blocks made from a Kaffe Fassett stripe I acquired in a Milwaukee Art Quilter’s challenge. I decided to sew those striped blocks together. I then cut a piece of gorgeous green hand-dyed fabric the same size. I made both of these tops into quilt sandwiches; one with a black tone-on-tone on the back, and the other with an old UFO quilt top made of flying geese. I quilted both with diagonal lines 2″ apart. Then the fun began. One quilt was placed on top of the other and a circle was cut through both. After separating them, I swapped the circles and zig-zagged them into their new place. The results were so interesting that I couldn’t resist cutting/stitching a few more circles in the same way and then doing a big “swoosh” across them too. It was such fun I just had to make another pair of reversible quilts. This time with a beautiful turquoise and pink floral on all sides; a dark pair and a light pair.

The pairs are fun to hang together. Hmm. What would happen if I cut triangles???

Or rectangles (oops – I never bound one of them)!

Are you intrigued? Well, the reason I’m sharing them now is that I will be teaching at the AQS show in Paducah again this year, and I thought it would be fun to teach something I hadn’t taught there before. While noodling on this I pulled the triangle quilts out because I like to hang them at Christmas. I think they look like trees 😊. That’s when it all came together! I proposed the class and Lauren at AQS loved it. I guess I’d better finish the last binding.

If your guild is looking for a fun and easy art quilt workshop? Please let me know!

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And one more thing…

Mom and Dad are still doing OK. Mom is sleeping more and more, but we were blessed to have yet one more Thanksgiving with them both. In this photo we all arrived with pumpkin pie. Mom gobbled it up 😊!

Recently their 3 bedroom condo went up for sale. The building is for people 55 and older and it’s in a lovely area of Oconomowoc near Silver Lake.

Their home has spacious rooms and a beautiful view of a nature trail from the glass/screen porch.

If you or someone you know is looking for a place to retire and enjoy life in Lake Country, please click here!

Before I get to the “topic of the week”, I have to share some “cross” quilt photos sent to me since last week’s post. Doris’ daughter Margie made her this bright and cheerful quilt:

Then my friend Lori sent me a photo of her quilt entitled “Faith in Perspective”. It was made for the 2014 Quilt Expo challenge: Black, White plus one color, and it is fascinating. You may have to stare at it for a moment for the perspective to become clear. WOW!

Thank you both!

Also, someone asked about the kit Susan used for the first quilt featured in last week’s post. Karen was kind enough to send the information: “Susan’s teal cross at the top of your post is called Farmhouse Cross Quilt Kit from Shabby Fabrics and is still available to purchase”. Thanks Karen!

And now for “the Light Side”. I recently shared my “Gone to the Dark Side” lecture for the Crazy Quilters guild in Mukwonago. If you’ve heard it you might remember that I met a group of garment sewers years ago who thought that, because I was a quilter who used to make garments – I’d “gone to the dark side”. They wouldn’t explain what that meant. Why is quilting the “dark side” of sewing? I don’t know, but it led me to put together a lecture about some of the garments I made decades ago (that I still have of course), and some “related” quilts. So why is this post entitled “Gone to the Light Side”? Because my granddaughter Hanna wants me to make her a garment ~ a coat ~ for Christmas!

She recently emailed me with a request, from a fitting room in a clothing store. She said this jacket was $150 and was wondering if I could make her one for Christmas. I got my hopes up that she might want one made from an old quilt, but alas she wanted it to be a bit more plain to “go with everything”. I was just happy to know what to make her.

Sew where was I going to find the fabric? My first stop was the new fabric store in Watertown (click here for that post). Haley was there and she told me they are moving to a larger location on the west side of town. WooHoo! Stay tuned for more information. She did have a fabric for the outside of the jacket that Hanna liked.

But the brown gingham for the lining was going to be more of a challenge. Oh good ~ a reason to head to Waukesha and “Sew Much More”. They didn’t have the gingham, but they did have a small houndstooth plaid that would work. I then realized the hardest part would be the pattern. Boy do I miss JoAnns!!! Hobby Lobby is selling out of their patterns, so the selection was very limited. I grudgingly went online. I found one that would work and downloaded it,

only to find that the pattern pieces needed to be printed – and it would take 58 pages that would then need to be taped together. The other option was to have it printed. I took it to the local printer who prints my books, and to have it printed on large paper (similar to what we used to get in those wonderful simplicity patterns) was going to be $67!!! I printed and taped together the 58 pages 😵‍💫.

Our latest Fabricator’s retreat was this past week at Tall Pines in Mukwonago. These friends were students in my Open Lab class at WCTC, and we continue to enjoy being together. Sadly, I forgot to take any photos of the group, but I did snap a few of my project. My plan was to quilt the fabrics for Hanna’s coat together and then cut it out. A quilt retreat is the perfect place to do this rather boring straight line quilting. I layered the fabric with hi-loft poly batt and spent the first 2 days of the retreat quilting it with a 4″ grid.

I did this from the lining side because the print in the fabric made it easy to stitch long lines without having to mark them.

Once quilted I cut out the jacket pieces.

It was then I realized the cut edges needed to be secured. True confession time ~ I don’t own a serger, and I don’t even know how to use one. It surprises even me since I’ve made a lot of garments. Maybe it’s time. Susan invited me to come to her house for a visit soon and sew Hanna’s coat on hers. What a great way to determine whether or not I “need” one! So the coat project was packed away, and I pulled out my latest “quilt in progress”. The current challenge at ThreadBenders is entitled “Birds Eye View”, and I had some unique stitching that needed to be done on it. I think I’ll save that for a future post.

The entire retreat was a wonderful time of friends, fabric, food and fellowship. Quilting friends are the best!

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And… I want to “leaf” you with one last colorful photo. All the trees in our yard look like it’s time for winter except the ornamental pear trees that line our very long driveway. Last week they finally began to turn and they are gorgeous, especially compared with the rest of the naked ones in the yard.

Wishing each of you a blessed Thanksgiving!

I shared some of Susan’s food quilts a few weeks back (click here for that post). This was her response:

“I just read this week’s post and I’m thrilled and honored to have my comments and photos included.  I’ve met you several times and have attended several lectures you gave, when the tech college in Oshkosh used to host a quilt show.  I enjoyed every single one of your lectures and love your work, especially your spiritual pieces.  Your work inspired me to make my own spiritual piece, a wall quilt of a cross, which I named “I Am the Light”.  I quilted lines running outward from the cross, which simulate Christ’s light of salvation, won for us on the cross.  I hang it in my living room during the Lent and Easter seasons.  I just love it!”

“I’ve attached photos of two difference cross quilts, and hopefully you can see the quilting lines radiating from the center of the cross.  I made mine (blues, grays, floral border) from a kit, and have also made a second for a friend of mine (greens).  I have a penpal, Astrid, in Netherlands, whose son is a pastor.  Last year, he was stricken with Guillian-Barre syndrome and has since recovered.  I had sent a photo of my quilt to Astrid and she asked me if I could make a similar quilt as a comfort for her son.  As a rule, I do not usually sew for others, but I made an exception in this case.  We chose the fabrics together (we communicated via Whatsapp and had a lovely conversation in JoAnn Fabrics that day!) and I drafted a smaller version of the original.  I completed it in less than two weeks, and shipped it to Astrid and it now hangs in her son’s living room.  Astrid chose the name: “Christ’s Love Radiates Light”.  In Dutch it is written as “Chistus’ Liefde straalt Licht uit”.  My husband and I traveled to Netherlands in May of this year, visited Astrid and her son and I was able to see the quilt again with my own eyes”.

I’m so grateful to know about these quilts and their stories! Thanks Susan!

I’ve made a number of cross quilts too. This one was a group quilt I coordinated in the “water color” style at my previous church:

And this one was made by my friend Maria when she took my classes at WCTC:

“Risen” was made for a Milwaukee Art Quilter’s challenge way back in 2010. Each quilt had to have the same red rayon rat tail cording entering from the left and exiting on the right. In this way they could be connected to one another when hanging at a show or exhibit. To see the rest of the quilts in this challenge click here!

“Puzzled No More” was made for a ThreadBender’s challenge entitled Colored by Emotion. Each participant randomly chose a color (hue) and emotion, and was challenged to make a quilt showing that emotion with only their color plus black and white. My color was purple and my emotion was puzzled. The label reads: “My life was a purposeless puzzle until I met Christ at the foot of His cross, and now I’m puzzled no more!”

To see all of those challenge quilts click here.

“Water and the Spirit” is a small art piece (14″ x 16″) from my Crossings series. It was made in four pieces from a lovely fat quarter of hand-dyed fabric, and then those pieces were beaded back together.

Many of you have seen this quilt before because it tends to jump into many of my lectures. It was made for an “Opposing Forces” themed challenge and is named “God is Light and in Him is no Darkness at All”.

Do you have a cross quilt you’d like to share? Please send photos to me at:

I recently baked an apple pie in order to photograph it and make a block for my cookbook quilt (plus ~ it made Mike happy).

When I took it over to Shorehaven to share with Dad and Mom (who are still doing quite well), my Dad had a story to share. I made the pie in a plate inherited from my grandmother. Dad noticed the plate and asked if I knew how Grandma got it. I did not. He explained that back during the depression going to the movies was a big deal, and to get people to attend they had “plate night” in which each person was given a plate. He said they were the only nice dishes he ate off of growing up.

I found this information about Dish Night online: “Movie attendance plummeted during the hard times of the 1930s. Savvy marketers at Salem China and other potteries sold theater managers on the idea of giving away free dishes to women to attract viewers. “Dish Night” promotions were wildly successful, and Fiesta Ware was another type of dishes given away.” Dad added that it wasn’t uncommon for someone to drop a dish during the movie, and when they did everyone applauded 😂.

The contest I’m planning to enter my cookbook quilt in requires a traditional quilt block to be included in the design. After making the “food” blocks for my cookbook quilt I needed to start making the Dresden Plate blocks that I thought would make it even more interesting. So, while on retreat I made a few. They were cute,

but they didn’t look right on the quilt. Phooey! That left me with the question: “what traditional block should I use???” Nothing with triangles seemed to fit, and I knew it needed to be “simple”. Then it hit me ~ rows of four patches would make a checkerboard! Yes! I decided to frame the photo of Mom and me first. If you’ve read my blog for a while you know that when I have “duh” moments I sometimes share them so that others might be saved the same frustrations. Well – this ended up being a really “duh-duh-dumb” couple of hours: Since I chose the four patch as my block, I began making my checkerboard with 1 1/2″ squares.

After 4 hours and oodles of ripping it was done (and not as accurate as I’d wanted).

I went to bed disappointed in myself, and woke up realizing how foolish I was. Checkerboards are much easier to make with long strip piecing (DUH – I knew that!). So that’s how I did the top and bottom borders, and they were actually easier, fun, and much more accurate!

I placed them top and bottom onto the quilt and then hand appliquéd the framed photo in place. I chose to sew the binding on before stitching on the other appliqués, and was pleased with the results. Now it was time add a bit more quilting. The area around the photo of Mom and me needed something, so I copied a portion of the original design of the cookbook onto freezer paper, cut it out, ironed it in place, and quilted around it.

Because of the blue background fabric I left around each appliqué, it was easy to machine top-stitch them onto the quilt, once I figured out where to put them. I then photographed the quilt to enter it in the contest and that’s when I realized the red background needed more quilting. I had a wonderful time spiraling it all. Then it was done.

I couldn’t wait to show it to Mom and Dad ~ and they loved it! I gave it to them this past week and hung it in Mom’s room so they could enjoy it.

I’m so grateful they are still here to see it. Every moment with them is a blessing!

Way back in August I wrote a post about food quilts in which I challenged my readers to make a quilt for the “Food Glorious Food” competition being held at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah (click here to read that post).

Then Carol sent me the photo and story of her recipe quilt (click here to read that post), and I was inspired to take the challenge myself! I really wanted to make a quilt about my mom and our cookbook.

The beautiful red and white design on the cover would be wonderful as the background of the quilt. So I contacted General Mills and asked permission to place it on my quilt. Once that was accomplished I gathered  photos of our family from cookie baking days, put them all in a jpg image, and sent it off to be printed at spoonflower.com.

The fabric came back exactly as I’d imagined, even with the worn and taped portions of Mom’s cookbook in view. For this project I decided to add dark blue border strips (mom’s favorite color), quilt the background on the lines of the design, and add the appliqués later. This may sound a bit backwards, but I like to try different things.

Then I realized the quilt really needed food on it, so I decided to do a bit of baking, take some photos, and make blocks inspired by these treats (before everyone devoured them 😁). Mike was thrilled, as it meant I needed to bake some of his favorite desserts. The photos that resulted are at the top of this post. They were then repliquéd to make “the “food blocks”. This is the schaum torte in progress:

Next came the apple pie and fruit cake. Here’s all three food blocks done:

I used the same blue as in the borders for the background and trimmed it close to outline the appliqués. I then did the same outlining trick to the small photos I wanted to include:

At this point I needed to add a traditional block somewhere in the design per the quilt contest requirements. That was an adventure in itself ~ and it will be the topic of next week’s post. Stay tuned 😊!

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And one more thing…

The ThreadBenders challenge ~ “Achromatic” won an award in the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge contest. The top 3 winning groups were published in the latest issue of AQ, and I thought you might enjoy seeing them all together.