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Closet Clean-up

November 1, 2015 12 Comments

Two years ago I wrote a blog post entitled “Magazine Issues” in which I shared my frustration with my “collection” of old quilting magazines. My system was to put them in boxes and shove them in the bottom of the closet. From there I started just stacking them on the boxes:

(to read that post click here!). Many quilters responded to that post with great suggestions on how to organize my mess, but as of 3 days ago it still looked like this photo, plus 2 more year’s accumulation! Ugh!

A few months ago we had a professional organizer speak to our guild. She helped me face the fact that I hadn’t looked at a single one of these magazines after they found a dark home in the closet. Obviously I don’t need them. What I do need is space! I’ve cleaned and organized most areas of my sewing room a time or two in the 11 years we’ve lived here, but THAT closet had not been cleaned, in fact, it just kept getting more and more stuff shoved into it. I finally reached the point that no more would fit, and I had new stuff piling up in the rest of the studio with no place to put it. Since I just finished my 5 month long competition quilt, and the room was closing in on me, I decided enough was enough. Now what did that professional say I should do???

Oh yeah! Pull everything out of the area you want to organize (that way you can’t quit half way 🙂 )

cleaning my sewing room closet — I didn’t think to take the picture until after I had folded my medium/large quilts and re-filled a shelf with them – progress already!

I emptied the closet during the kid’s naps last Thursday. When Trey woke up I went upstairs to get him, that’s when Mike came home – looked at my studio – and asked me who I was mad at (it was a fast and furious mess). I guess the answer would be me, for letting it get so out of hand.

Since I hadn’t looked at a single old magazine, I decided it was time to “release” them. Most of my friends already have a lot of magazines of their own, so I “bit the bullet” and dumped them in the recycle bin. Actually, there were so many, and they were so heavy, that half will have to wait until next recycle day (the boxes in front of the bin).

closet clean mags gone — The recycling doesn’t get picked up until Thursday. If anyone wants them, let me know and I’d be happy to pull them out for you to pick up.

Well, yesterday I had an entire rainy, “non-babysitting” day, and this is what my studio looked like after one trip to the store for bins, and before Mike took me out to dinner to celebrate a hard day’s work:

And here’s the pile of stuff that’s going to my guild’s rummage sale:

There are still a few odds and ends to be put away, but many of my closet bins now have breathing room in them. Ahh! Next, I need to clean up the rest of the room once again. I think I’ll take a week off. And, oh yeah, there’s another challenge quilt I was thinking of making 😀 !

Cleaning does make one feel virtuous, but a person can only clean so much before they deserve a reward!

PS I still love quilting magazines. So, for a short while now, I’ve been much better about what I do with my new issues. I read them, copy anything I want out of them, and place the issue on the “share” table at my next guild meeting. This way I don’t have to “clean it up” later, and my friends benefit.

Blocks, Blocks and More Quilt Blocks!

October 11, 2015 1 Comment

In my series of posts about my Lunch Bunch quilt, I asked you all to send me a picture of your stack of challenge blocks. These were the three photos I received (thanks ladies – and no names are included so as not to induce guilt)!

Joyce Egle blocks — These blocks were made by an Amish friend of the owner, in all different sizes, and are kept in the vintage Santa box.

I hope this may encourage you to put them together, and I can’t wait to hear all about it 😉 . If you have been meaning to send me a photo of your stack of blocks – there’s still time – just email them to me.

On this same topic of bunches of blocks that are waiting to become a quilt, a few weeks ago I did a class on Repliqué for the Chocolate City Quilters in Burlington, WI. They are a really fun group and they did a great job creating their house blocks. Whenever I teach my Architectural Repliqué class I make a sample house block along with the students. During this class I actually counted them only to reveal that I’ve taught this particular class 70 times!

If a person made that many of the same block, they probably would get a bit wacky with their fabric selections. And I’ve done just that. I have many seasonal themed blocks, and I chose these four as close-up examples:

I thought you might like to see some of my more “interesting” ones up close.

You may have noticed writing on the blocks. Each time I make one I ask the students to sign the block, and then I write the name of the guild, location and date on the paper backing. I think you can tell I’ve really enjoyed making these blocks. I have so many wonderful memories of these classes and students. When I finally put them together I will have one REALLY BIG Autograph quilt (or maybe two normal sized ones 🙂 )

Who knows when that will be? If you are interested in my Repliqué technique, you may purchase either of my books on the subject at: https://www.chrisquilts.net/books/.

If you’d like to have me present a class for your guild, please send me an email at .

Madison Quilt Expo 2015

September 27, 2015 2 Comments

I think this year’s Expo was better than ever! They say attendance was up 4% over last year and everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. It has really become a national level quilt show.

I headed to Madison the day before the big show began to hang a special exhibit of quilts by the Milwaukee Art Quilters. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw the Ducky car. It’s here every year and lets me know the fun is about to begin!

The Marq exhibit was entitled “Color Wheel Opposites” and the quilts looked great (if I do say so myself 🙂 ).

From there I checked into my hotel room and set up a mini-studio.

I spent the afternoon happily stitching away on my latest challenge quilt. I don’t tend to get much quantity/quality quilting time while watching 2 small children, so this was a treat. My husband is amazing – he had Sommer and Trey all to himself for three days and did a great job – while I ran away to the Quilt Expo. I’m very blessed!

Wendy arrived late in the afternoon and set up her machine. We had a lovely evening of eating, sewing and giggles.

The next day the show began. I presented my Great Finishes lecture each morning of the show and then taught a class I call “Quilt, Slash, Create” in the afternoons. This class is a crazy way of playing with fabric that turns 4 fat quarters of fabric into 2 reversible art quilts! The students were fantastic! Here are a few pictures of the fun:

The quilts in the show were very inspiring, the Fall Challenge quilts were delightful,the vendors were enticing, spending time with friends was the best, and … I can’t wait for next year!

Did you make it to Expo this year? What was your favorite part?

A Lunch Bunch Quilt – Part 3

September 20, 2015 1 Comment

Binding an Inside Corner

Every so often a quilt comes along that has an odd outer edge – the question is “how do you bind it?” This was a problem I had to overcome in the Lunch Bunch quilt I’ve been sharing with you. Because the quilt was done “quilt as you go” style, in columns, I ended up with an interesting bottom edge.

All the corners are right angles. The “outside” corners are easy – they miter like the corners on a square or rectangular quilt. The “inside” corners are a bit trickier, but not too bad if you know the “tricks”.

1. Begin by stay-stitching, inside the seam line, about 2″ from both sides of the inside corner “pivot point”.

2. Clip to the stay-stitching “pivot point”, stopping a few threads from the stitching.

3. Attach the binding down one side of the inside corner, stopping with the needle down at the binding “pivot point”.

4. Leave the needle down, lift the presser foot, and pull the quilt straight (the clip will allow you to do this). Lay the binding strip even with this new edge and continue stitching the binding to the quilt.

5. The binding will be standing up on this corner.

To create the miter on this first side, fold one side flat, as in the picture:

Then fold the other side until a 45° miter is formed.

Pin or stitch this side of the miter to secure.

6. Turn to the other side and fold this new miter – fiddling until it looks good. Repeat to pin all inside corners and then stitch the binding to this side of the quilt, using your preferred method.

It really is quite simple and the effect is worth the effort!

And now (drum roll please!) Here is the finished Lunch Bunch Quilt!

Almost 20 years in the making – and finished! It was even juried in to be featured at the in the Fine Furnishing Show held this weekend in Wauwatosa, WI. It was hung in the entry to the show and I was very pleased – praise the Lord!

So, are you considering sending me a picture of your blocks? I hope so!

A Lunch Bunch Quilt – Part 2

September 13, 2015 Leave a Comment

This past weekend was the Madison Quilt Expo. It was a great show! I’m inspired, and exhausted 🙂 . I’ll post about that soon, but this week I want to continue the lunch bunch quilt story:

Last week I introduced you to my Lunch Bunch blocks and the idea for using them in a bed-sized “Log Cabin Quilt With Attitude” (if you’re new to the blog this week, please click here for the original post). Once I made all the wonky log cabin blocks, I stitched them into columns, and decided it would be a great idea to layer and quilt these columns individually, rather than make and quilt the entire top. It was so enjoyable quilting the long skinny pieces!

Once all the columns were quilted, I connected them with the “Reversible Quilt as You Go” technique I used in my grandkid’s quilts. (click here to read that post).

I decided to use 2 different backing fabrics on the columns, this made the back of my quilt quite interesting.

You may remember that the blocks were all squared up to 10 ½” in width, so that they’d fit together into the columns, but the lengths were all different. As you can see, this left me with a very unusual lower edge. Sharon showed this bottom edge effect in her book, and I like it! But how does one bind such a quilt? That will be the “topic of the week” next time. I’ll show you the finished front then too.

Don’t Forget the Block Stack Challenge!

I’ve had 2 pictures of exhange blocks sent in. Others emailed that they didn’t know if they’d have time. There is no time limit and no one seems to have an abundance of time. So, if you are at all inclined, please send a picture of your blocks. It may be a ways off into the future, but you just might get yours together and win. Here is the challenge once again:

Do you have a stack of exchange blocks just waiting to become a quilt? I’d like to challenge you to send me a picture of your stack of blocks (feel free to arrange them any way you like – thrown all over the room, or in one tall stack, or artistically draped, or… ???). I’ll then post the pictures (without naming names) and challenge each participant to put them in a quilt. The first one to actually make their blocks into a quilt will get their name and photo in the blog, along with a wonderful prize of my choosing!!!

A Lunch Bunch Quilt

September 6, 2015 4 Comments

Before we get to this week’s topic, I just have to share a picture of three quilts. After last week’s post about baby Caleb’s quilt, Eileen emailed me this message:

“Hello Chris, Delighted to hear more Mom’s are going for the “jungle theme”! I made these three quilts (my own design) for my Goddaughter’s baby boy. Couldn’t settle on which animal she might like. As it turned out she went with elephants for much of her theme in the baby’s room. Whew – glad I made one!! But she got all three and seems to love them. Little too early to tell which one Baby Bennett will like!”

What a lucky little boy – to get all three! I think Eileen may have to market her designs – those animals are adorable. Thanks Eileen!

So – what’s a “Lunch Bunch” quilt?

Back in the late 90’s I belonged to a local guild, Common Threads, that met on Wednesday mornings. One of the great things about this larger guild, was that it had smaller sub-groups called “Bees”. These smaller groups allowed us to get to know some of the members one-on-one. There was a “Scrap Bee”, “Charity Bee”, “Miniature Bee”, and an “Appliqué Bee”, just to name a few. Each “Bee” had a “Queen Bee” who ran that group and chose the time and location for the bee. All of the bees were kept organized by the “Beekeeper”. It was a great idea!

The “Bee” I joined was called the “Lunch Bunch Bee”. We met at a different restaurant for lunch after the meeting each month, and exchanged 4″ blocks. We chose a different block theme each month. There were 7 of us in the group,

lunch bunch quilt makers — Sally Boaz, Pat Smith, Mary Camacho, Joan Wilson, Elrid Johnson, Ann Wanke and me

which meant we needed to make 7 identical blocks each month and we did this for 8 months. We kept them in fabric covered boxes we covered in a guild class. Joan is holding hers in the picture above, and here’s a close-up of mine:

I didn’t think to photograph all the blocks before making a quilt with them, but I did take pictures of some of my favorites after the quilting was done (these were placed together as you see them here in Photoshop, you’ll need to wait to see how they fit into a quilt):

Screen Shot 2015-08-09 at 3.46.03 PM — You can order one on her website: http://www.bysher.net/bysher/Books.html

These blocks sat in the box for a long, long time! Then my friend, Sharon Rotz, wrote a book called Log Cabin Quilts With Attitude.

I decided my 4″ block collection would make great centers for these crazy log cabin blocks.

It was so much fun, I wanted to make more blocks and came up with additional centers.

I cut each block to finish 10″ in width, but I let the length be determined by the wonky strips added to each one. I then sewed them into long columns. Because the blocks were the same width, they all fit together into the column, but the columns themselves ended up being a variety of lengths.

Since this quilt is one of my bigger ones, and it took many years to create, I’ve decided to make this a series post. Next week you’ll find out how the columns were quilted and put together. The following week will have information on a slick binding technique – and a picture of the finished – yes, I said finished – quilt!

A Block Stack Challenge

Do you have a stack of exchange blocks like mine, just waiting to become a quilt? I’d like to challenge you to send me a picture of your stack of blocks (feel free to arrange them any way you like – thrown all over the room, or in one tall stack, or artistically draped, or… ???). I’ll then post the pictures (without naming names) and challenge each participant to put them in a quilt. The first one to actually make their blocks into a quilt will get their name and photo in the blog, along with a wonderful prize of my choosing!!!

Coordinating a Baby Quilt

August 30, 2015 4 Comments

My niece, Rachel, is expecting in October and this past weekend was her baby shower. Three weeks prior to the event I realized I hadn’t made a quilt (the story of my life lately). I went through my stack of crib sized UFO’s, but nothing seemed right. Rachel was registered at Buy Buy Baby, so I went to the store registry listed on the invite and discovered that all the nursery items had a jungle theme and are from the Lambs & Ivy® Peek-a-Boo Jungle collection (please visit their website: http://lambsivy.com/pages/bedding-collections – their designs are delightful!). The jungle animals on the crib sheets and room decor were adorable. I thought it would be fun to make a quilt that coordinated with them.

Now I need to add a disclaimer. I made my own versions of these designs for my own personal use, to go with the other pieces purchased for baby Caleb. Please be aware of copyright!

I used my Repliqué technique to create the animal blocks. I added Caleb’s initial and set these squares with 9-patch blocks. What fun! Next it was time to quilt. About half way into the quilting I realized there was a problem. Can you find it?

I decided to go with the Amish adage “Only God is Perfect”, and continued quilting. (In case you didn’t find it, one of the 9 patch blocks is turned)

While Wendy and I were in Portland last month we visited the Rose Gardens. They were spectacular.

In the gift shop we both had to purchase new “free motion quilting gloves” – so I decided to give them a try (can you believe some people actually use them for gardening?!?).

They are oh, so pretty, and they work great too!

I put fleece on the back of the quilt, and turned it to the front for the binding, just like I did for my granddaughter Rainee’s quilt. It really is soft and squishy – just right for a baby!

Caleb quilt back — Outline and spiral quilting from the back

I finished quilting it just as Trey got up from his nap.

I think he approves 😀 !

I presented the quilt to Rachel at her shower and she was very excited! It is such fun to give a gift we make ourselves. I just wish I’d taken a picture of her with the quilt. Maybe in a future post 🙂 !

The Sisters Show

July 13, 2015 4 Comments

I’m writing to you from Oregon where Wendy Rieves and I are enjoying the company of 31 delightful quilters while participating in every aspect of the 40th Annual Sister’s Quilt Show! We began our trip in Portland and then bussed our way down to Sisters, shop hopping to 4 quilt shops along the way. Each one was unique and we loved them all!

We began at the Cotton Patch in Keizer, OR – a bright and cheery store with a generous owner and a friendly staff. Then it was on to Salem and Greenbaum’s Quilted Forest. A big store in the heart of downtown, with lots of fabrics and sample quilts. We also visited BJ’s Quilts in Bend. Another friendly shop with loads of exciting things to choose from.

The 4th shop we visited was the the Stitching Post in Sisters! This is the store where Jean Wells started it all 40 years ago!

This was on Thursday, because we wanted to beat the crowds to this special store. There were still plenty of people there, but the shopping was good. This store had so many creative patterns and little extras, plus a huge fabric selection.

When Jean Wells started the Sisters Outdoor Quilt show, I’m sure she never imagined it would become the quilter’s “bucket list” destination it is today. The quilts are hung on the second Saturday in July, on the outsides of the buildings, for one day only. I decided I needed to take a picture of the main street two days before the show for comparison purposes 🙂 ! So hear it is on Thursday:

And this was Saturday:

Friday we went to visit the vendors at the Fair Grounds in Redmond – and then it was off to the picnic. 800 quilters were fed a yummy meal of hamburgers, watermelon, and cupcakes!

This was followed with a greeting by Jean Wells herself, and entertainment which included Alex Anderson, Laura Wasilowski and some wonderful singing by 5 of the Gee’s Bend quilters.

The next morning we arrived back in Sisters for the show. Over 1400 quilts were hung that morning (most attached to heavy wire with clothes pins), and it was even better than we’d imagined. This was our first view of the side of the Stitchin Post that morning:

But that was only the beginning of the quilts. They were hung on just about every building on the main street, plus many buildings on many other streets. The shops in the town were varied and wonderful – from art galleries to antique stores. There were also vendor tents set up wherever there was room. Good food, good music, great shopping and…

The weather was amazing! 70’s and partly sunny! We didn’t have to deal with the usual high temperatures and blazing sun. It couldn’t have been a better day for an outdoor quilt show. However, the wind did pick up in the afternoon and we were able to see a Quilt Rescue Team-member in action 😛 .

It was a very full and extremely enjoyable day! I highly recommend a visit to the Sister’s show. I hope to return some day soon.

This was our 9th Sew We Go adventure! We traveled with a great group who loved to laugh and socialize. We really enjoyed getting to know each other and traveling together on this exciting trip which also included Portland and the Columbia River Gorge.

If sharing a Sew We Go adventure with Wendy and me is on your bucket list, please consider saving the date for our upcoming cruise of the Adriatic! Our travel planner Kristi, is putting the final details together for September 24th to October 1, of 2016. We will be visiting Venice, Croatia, Turkey and Greece, seeing all the sites and including many memory making extras – arranged just for quilters. As soon as the details are ready, I’ll share them here on the blog!

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And just a quick update on the quilt I featured in last week’s post. I had a wonderful visit with Hanna, Willy and Rainee this past week. I gave Rainee the quilt for her birthday – and she loved it!

Closet Clean-up

Blocks, Blocks and More Quilt Blocks!

Madison Quilt Expo 2015

A Lunch Bunch Quilt – Part 3

A Lunch Bunch Quilt – Part 2

Don’t Forget the Block Stack Challenge!

A Lunch Bunch Quilt

So – what’s a “Lunch Bunch” quilt?

A Block Stack Challenge

Coordinating a Baby Quilt

The Sisters Show

My Guide

Contact Chris!

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Don’t Forget the Block Stack Challenge!

So – what’s a “Lunch Bunch” quilt?

A Block Stack Challenge

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My Guide

Contact Chris!