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Floss Frenzy

August 17, 2014 55 Comments

In my blog post from August 3, I mentioned staying at the Quill Haven B & B in Somerset, PA. Rowland and Carol were wonderful hosts, and during one of our many conversations, I mentioned I was a quilter. Rowland said to me, in a rather excited tone: “do you know about floss?” I answered “yes, I’m also a dental hygienist” (groan). He did laugh politely, but then told us about a very large box he had in the attic of his barn. His sister-in-law had passed away a few years previous and she had at one time owned a needlework shop. They were still trying to find homes for some of her things and they hadn’t yet figured out what to do with this box full of embroidery floss! Then he asked if I wanted it. I of course said “yes”!

So Mike made room for it in the trunk of the car and I didn’t allow myself to open it until we were home and unpacked. What an adventure opening that box was! It contained 237 boxes of DMC floss!!

The back of each box is stamped “Made in France”, and they look to be quite a few years old. I did an internet search to learn about DMC. The company got it’s start in 1746, and you can read the history at: http://www.dmc-usa.com/DMC-History.aspx . There is more information about the company today on the “about” page of that same website.

So, I pulled out all the boxes and arranged them by number.

237 is a lot of boxes of floss. Each box originally contained 24 skeins of the same color floss. There were only about 7 colors that had multiple boxes and a majority of the boxes were full! I thought I’d open a few so you could get a better feel for the amount of floss I had been generously given.

The problem is – I don’t do that much embroidery. So what to do with all this floss?!? The first thing I decided I would do is keep one skein of every color for myself, so I pulled these from their boxes and laid them out in numerical order.

WOW (an understatement)! What a feast for the eyes! I was amazed at how often colors switched in this line up.

So here’s where you come in. I’m looking for suggestions on what to do with the rest of the floss.

Should I keep the collection together? If so, who would want it?

Should I take it to my quilt guild and have a give-away floss frenzy? (after you get first dibs – Barb J 🙂 )

Should I have some sort of a “winner take all” contest on the blog?

What would you do with it?

Perhaps everyone who comments to this post should win a box :-)!

Please let me know. I look forward to your input!

And a quick reminder

Saturday, August 23rd is rapidly approaching and there are still a few spots left in my free motion quilting workshops at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Art. Click here for the descriptions and a link to sign up!

An Amish Adventure

August 3, 2014 6 Comments

You may remember my mentioning that Mike and I were in Philadelphia over the 4th of July. We decided to drive there and, to make the journey more enjoyable, we chose to take our time (3 days out and 3 days back) and stay in Bed and Breakfasts along the way. Mike used to absolutely refuse to stay in B&B’s, but after a number of years of my politely requesting we try it, he gave in and it was such a good experience – we’ve stayed in many since. Prior to this trip I did some on-line research into B&Bs in the area we’d be traveling through, and things couldn’t have gone better.

In Somerset, PA we stayed at Quill Haven. I was truly excited when I first found them on line, only to realize it wasn’t Quilt Haven (the owner, Carol, has a thing for hedgehogs :-).

But in their lovely home Carol had quilts on the beds, made by her Mother. She and Rowland also had beautiful flower and vegetable gardens, chickens and … goats who liked oatmeal cookies (and their goat’s milk fudge was delicious).

We enjoyed the surroundings and conversation so much, we stopped for another night with them on the way back to Wisconsin also.

Further down the road on the return trip we stayed at the Big House in the Little Woods near Shipshewana, IN. Once again, the owners were warm and friendly and their home was charming. This was obviously in Amish country and Gail not only made a scrumptious breakfast (with Dave’s help), but she’s a quilter. There were once again quilts on all the beds,

as well as the walls

and windows. Gail said she adjusted a table runner pattern to make this valance. I apologize for the poor quality photo – the colors were really lovely)

A real highlight was when Dave asked if we’d like to go for a buggy ride. He called his neighbor, Ben, and within the hour we were touring the Amish countryside in a horse drawn buggy!

Riding with Ben and Missy (the horse) was a real treat.

Ben has a wonderful sense of humor (he has 11 children, all of them boys except for 9), a wild sense of color (he chose the interior for the buggy without any help from his wife),

and a real gift for conversation. Mike was in the back and did the photography (with permission from Ben).

Ben Borntreger holds two quilt/rug/craft auctions every year at his farm in Millersburg, IN. The auctions are held on the 2nd Saturday in April and the 3rd Saturday in September. The address is 4110S 1000W, Millersburg, IN 46543. You can call him for more information (they have a phone by the road and they check their messages often): (260)593-2640. I hope to get to one of his auctions in the near future. It would be a great opportunity to visit Ben, Dave and Gail once again!

Quilt Magazine Fun!

July 5, 2014 Leave a Comment

Just a bit of inspiration, before I share the “topic of the week”:

A friend recently sent me a link to a web site which features “satellite photos from Digital Globes in an attempt to change the way we see our planet Earth” These pictures are truly amazing and I saw quilt inspirations everywhere. Here’s just one.

I highly recommend visiting the site: http://www.boredpanda.com/daily-overview-satellite-aerial-photography-earth/

Now for more “Quilters in Denmark” excitement:

We just received information on this article which will appear in Kludemagasinet, the quarterly publication of the Dansk Patchwork Forening (guild). [http://www.patchwork.dk/en/node/1012] The issue (#3) is not yet available for sale on the website but here is the article on our visit, written by shop owner, Kirsten Ekdahl.

Google translate offers this rough translation:

Letters from Readers

American Quilters By Kirsten Ekdahl, Kirstens Quilt

Most quilters would like to visit the shops and meet other quilters when they are traveling. This applies when Danish quilters are traveling, but it is certainly also true of quilters who visit Denmark.

On May 18, 2014, 48 U.S. quilters (including a few spouses) traveled to Denmark to participate in a Baltic cruise. To start the trip, they wanted to meet some local quilters. This brought them to stop by Kirstens Quilt in Hedehusene, who arranged a delicious 3-course meal and socializing with Danish quilters. Charlotte Bergstrom was invited to show some of her amazing textile images, which were very much admired. Although guests were tired after a long flight and a tour that morning, the group enjoyed lively conversation and exchanged lots of experiences and opinions – both patchwork and quilt, but also about much else.

As a special gesture, the group brought gifts – and a challenge – To all Danes. We offer’ fat eights’ (approx. 22 x 55 cm) with a call to sew something with the fabric and send pictures to Chris Lynn Kirsch. Thereafter, they will be posted online in a small gallery together with the creations of the Americans. All in all a great day for everyone, who went home with lots of inspiration.

******************

So, the fun of our Baltic adventure continues! What a blessing!

Wendy and I did pass out fat 1/8ths of fabric to the Danish quilters and those in our group. Everyone was asked to make some quilted item of their choosing with it and send me a photograph by October. These projects should be quite interesting and I’ll post a link on this blog to the photographs when it’s done.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

My most recent quilting creation was made from the autograph blocks we exchanged on the trip, and flag blocks of the countries we visited. The predomanent colors are red, white and blue, so I couldn’t resist leaving you with this photograph of my latest “patriotic” quilt (When I put a centerpiece over the flags, it really does look perfect for Independence Day :-).

Painted Quilts

June 29, 2014 4 Comments

A while back I did a post about the painted barn quilt I ordered to hang on our shed (click here to read about it). My dear husband had encouraged me to paint it, but I was more than happy to purchase it from someone who was good at painting. “Give me a sewing machine, not a paint brush” was my motto. Well, not any more.

I live a few miles south of Watertown, WI. Watertown is a small city that lies midway between Milwaukee and Madison. We’ve lived here for 10 years and find it to be a friendly community with a lot of charm.

The Watertown Arts Council “was founded in 1964, and their purpose is to foster and encourage, coordinate, establish, and publish the performance and exhibition of the creative arts in Watertown, and to encourage, develop, strengthen and enrich the cultural life of the area; to further develop a general interest in the natural beauty of the city and to promote an interest in cultural landmarks and work for the preservation and restoration of historic buildings and natural beauty.” One of their projects has been to paint murals on our downtown buildings: That being said, last year they put together a program where they made banners available to anyone interested, asking them to paint both sides for display on Main Street during the Summer. They were great! Some were made by individual artists, a number were made by groups of kids in the elementary schools, there was a lot of variety.

This year they chose to do it again and Kay, one of the members of our small fiber art group, decided we should make a group banner. She got the idea one week before the deadline – and we all said yes! We met for 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon, brainstormed a different design for each side and started doing some painting (I was amazed at how quickly and well this came together – it’s a great group!). During the next week, three of the members took turns doing the rest of the painting – and we got it done before the deadline! The banners were coated for the weather and then hung on lampposts up and down Main Street.

Here are a few of my favorites. This one was made by the students at Douglas Elementary School: And then there is ours – side #1: and side #2: I actually had the privilege of painting a portion of the Mariner’s Compass side and I discovered that painting a quilt is actually fun … and it goes faster than sewing it. I’m quite sure I won’t give up my Baby Lok for a paint brush, but I recommend stepping out of the box every once in a while.

If you’re looking for a nice driving destination, please come and visit our town. On Main Street alone we have family run shoe and furniture stores, two ice cream places (Mullen’s is my favorite), an old fashioned theater where first run movies are $4, and there are many other nice shops and restaurants throughout Watertown.

There are also some nice quilt shops out our way. If you’re coming from Milwaukee, you’ll definitely want to stop at Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc. Their fabric department is actually a large, high quality quilt shop. Plus their craft supplies and gift items are spectacular. Their website is: http://benfranklincraftswi.com/

After spending some time in Watertown, it’s a short drive south on Hwy 26 to Jefferson, where you’ll find a shop called Tea and Textiles at the corner of Hwy 26 and Hwy 18. Barbara has a great selection of fabrics and you’re always welcome to a cup of tea. For more information go to: http://www.yelp.com/biz/tea-and-textiles-jefferson

If you’d rather head north a ways, J & A Stitches, near Juneau is a very unique quilt shop. Take Hwy 26 north and then head west on Hwy 60 a short ways to Welsh Road. You’ll probably have to wait for the geese and peacocks to clear the drive before you can make it up to the farm house/quilt shop. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the adventure. You can find them on the web at: http://twosistersandaquilt.com/contact/

Thread Portraits

June 22, 2014 1 Comment

This week I’d like to introduce you to a very talented fiber artist and dear friend. When Sandy Hendricks joined the Milwaukee Art Quilters a number of years ago, she brought with her a portfolio of some of her work, and we were blown away. She’d devised a free motion machine embroidery technique to do portraits in thread of residents in a senior living facility. Sandy was kind enough to allow me to photograph some of these works. Even though I took these pictures rather quickly, and with my phone, I think you will still be amazed at Sandy’s ability to capture the essence of these dear people.

When my Mother-in-law passed away, I asked Sandy if I could hire her to do a thread portrait of Johanna and her response was “you should do it”. I remember that I chuckled and repeated my question. That time she said she would show me how. Well, life got busy and I didn’t bring it up again for over a year.

Sandy and her husband Jon have traveled to both Italy and the Baltic Sea with Wendy and me. Here’s a photo of them with Wendy having breakfast at our villa in Sienna.

While on this last cruise I brought up the subject again. Sandy said she was serious and she’d be happy to teach me how she does her portraits. So, last week I finally took her up on her generous offer!

I brought an 8″ x 10″ photo of my Mother-in-law to Sandy’s home

and we began by tracing some of the details of the picture onto tracing paper. Then she helped me pick out a variety of threads from her substantial collection and encouraged me to do a bit of practicing with the threads to decide which ones would work (after posting this picture I realized that the practice piece on the right looks like some sort of weird modern art).

Sandy does her portraits on a product called Lutradur. It’s a stiff material that seemed to me to be a cross between paper and fabric, that comes in different weights. I did my practicing above on a medium weight sheet.

Next I traced Mom onto the Lutradur – and began stitching in the lines. Sandy’s advice was not to overdo, and my first attempt was a bit heavy handed. At that point I thanked her and headed to Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc for some Lutradur. I went home, began again, and I was fairly happy with the results this time.

I think the piece needs to have some areas shaded in more, but I don’t seem to have the right variety of flesh toned thread – at least thats my excuse!

God has truly blessed Sandy with a wonderful talent and she is very humble about it and so generous to share. Thanks Sandy, for a fun morning!

I’ll leave you with something Jon told me that just might make you smile. He came home while I was stitching and when I asked him where he’d been he said he was having breakfast with the Romeo’s. When I questioned him about it he responded that it stands for “real old men eating out”. Too funny!

One more thing I just need to share :-)!

When we had dinner at the quilt shop near Copenhagen, a Danish quilter named Kirsten, dined at our table with us. Here’s the picture from a previous post (Kirsten is in the center).

During our conversation she told us she was very excited because she was planning on attending the IQA Quilt Show in Rosemont near Chicago this month. This past Thursday Nancy (next to Wendy on the left) sent me this email:

“Hi Ladies, I just had to tell you the neat thing that happened today. I was at Rosemont for the day. I knew that Kirsten from the quilt shop in Denmark was going to be there, so I was watching for her–and I found her! Had a nice chat with her, and then we found Kristi and Pam. Since Pam drove down, they were able to have dinner tonight with Kirsten. Isn’t that great? Just had to share.”

What a delightful continuation to our Sew We Go adventure, but it gets better! Saturday morning Kristi called everyone who had been at that table, to tell us that Kirsten was taking the bus from Chicago to Milwaukee. Kristi was going to pick her up and take her to Patched Works Quilt Shop and out for lunch. She invited us along. None of us was able to make it, but we were able to meet up with them a little later at Kristi’s home for a lovely time of conversation, snacks and eventually – pizza! (all except Lisa, who had to work 🙁 )

This was a special, and unexpected, treat for us all. Kirsten took the bus back to Chicago that night, and Monday morning she flies to LA to meet up with her 3 daughters. The plan is for them to rent a car, and tour California, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota (I may have missed a few). We wish her safe travels and count ourselves very blessed to have had the chance to get to know this sweet quilter from Denmark, just a little better :-)!

Tallinn, Estonia

June 15, 2014 2 Comments

A quick addition to last week’s pictures from Rostock, Germany. I didn’t want you to think I was the only one hugging German men. Wendy found two (Reinhard, and Klaus – the tour guide):

And Kristi (our fantastic travel planner) rated a kiss!

Speaking of Kristi, she arranged for a phenomenal trio of classes while we were in Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia holds artists in very high regard. We began with a stop in a handicraft type shop. This shop had quite a variety of items (from hand knit sweaters to wooden trivets and so much in between). They were all made in traditional Estonian style.

In the back room of the shop was an exhibit of fiber art. The artist’s made wall art inspired by jewelry (the jewelry was displayed in shadow boxes next to the art).

This reminded me of a recent Milwaukee Art Quilters challenge called Bead Inspired (click here to see the quilts in that exhibit).

Many artists are trained at the Universities in Estonia, and the old town of Tallinn is filled with shops and studios featuring these very creative individuals. A short walk from the handcraft shop we discovered more fiber art for sale:

What a feast for the eyes. But this was nothing – Kristi had scheduled our travelers to take classes with a group of Estonian artists! Our next stop was the studios of the Katariina Gild.

Here is a picture of the members of this “Gild” from their website: http://katariinagild.eu/index.html (I highly recommend visiting their site! It starts in Estonian, but if you scroll down a ways it’s in English! Be sure to visit all the pages 🙂 )

We broke up into smaller groups and some of us took a class in Patchwork, making an embroidered and quilted bag:

Others took a Fiber Art class, and made broaches from yarn and other embellishments.

and there were even workshops in Leather Art. I found that intriguing, and the instructor, Pille, was very talented and very inspiring. In the first photo Jerrie and I are making business card wallets. In the second we’re posing with Pille and our finished creations. It was an interesting process, and I did buy one of her handmade books (on the shelf behind us).

It was a wonderful day of inspiration and learning. I didn’t take any photographs of the finished projects (the patchworkers actually placed their projects into a packet and stitched it closed for the trip home – so none of the rest of us got to see them), but we’re having a cruise reunion in July and I’ll be inviting everyone to bring what they made for show and tell. Watch for pictures in a future post.

I wish we could have had another day in Estonia – what a wonderful place to explore!

Blaudruck and Handdruck

June 8, 2014 Leave a Comment

Blaudruck, is a German word translated Blue Print. It is a dyeing method in which a white pattern is formed on a blue background. It uses what is called “reserve pressure” in which the fabric is printed with a resist (called a “Papp” in German) and then indigo dyed.

Handdruck is a German word that can mean “hand printing”.

We were able to experience both first hand on our tour in Rostock, Germany. We began the tour on the outskirts of Rostock, just down from St. Peter’s church, on what looked to be a residential street.

What a delight to discover we were heading to this shop:

On the first level of Christine and Reinhard Haase’s home we were treated to a demonstration of Handdruck, and a display of both Handdruck and Blaudruck created by the Haase’s. Note the logo to the right on the sign above – Haase is German for hares!

Reinhard is a delightful, bearded man with a great sense of humor, who didn’t speak a word of English – and yet we all thoroughly enjoyed his demonstration! They use very traditional German methods for their art, and he had a book showing how they still do it the old fashioned way. Then he jumped right in!

He demonstrated how he loaded the dye onto the traditional blocks, lined up the design, and printed a table runner before our eyes.

The Handdruck “direct printing” demonstration was easy to understand and he made it look quite effortless (I’m sure practice has a lot to do with it!). A Blaudruck demonstration would have been more difficult to do as the Papp (a resist made of the sap of birch trees and clay – if I understood our guide correctly) would be applied with the “blocks”, dried, indigo dyed and then washed in a special solution to remove the Papp. After the demonstration we were able look more closely at some of the shop samples and make some purchases.

I’m so pleased to own a blaudruck runner and egg cozy from Reinhard’s shop. I’m also happy that he agreed to a hug and a photograph!

What a delightful and educational visit!

And here’s an interesting addition to last week’s post. I ended with a picture of Sew We Go making our mark on Copenhagen:

I just found the photo I’d taken of the description of the “Happy Wall”:

For more information and a fascinating tour into the art of this very creative man, go to: http://mrdambo.wix.com/thomasdambo-2#!about1/cnk1

Sew We Go to the Baltic Sea

June 1, 2014 Leave a Comment

Wendy and I have returned from our quilting adventure on the Baltic Sea – and it couldn’t have been more wonderful. We traveled with a warm and friendly group of 51, including quilters, non-quilters and 5 men! Each and every one was a blessing to Wendy and me. Our event planner, Kristi, of Journeys and Gatherings, was able to join us on the trip, and she kept everything running oh, so smoothly. We visited 6 countries in 12 days and the weather couldn’t have been better (they say it is only sunny 60 days each year in St. Petersburg and we got 2 of them :-)! The Norwegian Star cruise ship crew did a fantastic job of keeping us comfortable, entertained and well fed.

I’m planning to share the quilt/fiber aspects of the trip over the next few weeks. Kristi did a great job of fulfilling our wishes for special excursions that would appeal to quilters and fiber artists, and these stops were mixed well with tours of the important things every tourist in that area would want to see. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about what quilters and fiber artists are doing in other countries. We’ll begin in Denmark :-)!

We flew into Copenhagen very early on a Sunday morning. After a visit to the Viking Museum (which included a typical Danish lunch) we checked into our hotel for a bit of a rest (we’d flown through the night) – and then it was on to Kirsten’s Quilt in Roskilde. Yes – a real live quilt shop just outside of Copenhagen! And it is a large and well stocked shop. That would have been exciting enough, but then Kirsten and her group of Danish quilters served us a fantastic meal in the upstairs classroom and then we all ate together and got to know each other. I bet you can’t tell the Danish quilters from the Americans! Kirsten gave each of us a placemat pattern of her own design: After dinner, Wendy and I made a little presentation of some things we brought to share with the Danish group. I gifted copies of my 2 most recent books and Wendy shared the story of Quiltina, and then gave Kirsten her very own Quiltsissie! We also brought fat 1/8ths of a lovely green/blue fabric which we gifted to all of the Danish quilters in hopes they will join us in a: Next we went downstairs to do some fabric shopping, and admire an art quilt display by Charlotte, one of the Danish quilters. To see Charlotte’s work, please go to her website: http://www.charlottebergstroem.com/ It was a delightful evening of quilts, food and friendship. If you’re ever in Denmark, I highly recommend a visit to this shop. And that was just the beginning of our Baltic adventure.

The final day of our trip we spent in Copenhagen once again. This time a number of us set off on our own for a train ride into the city and we discovered the Happy Wall. It is a large black wall with hinged, rectangular, colorful “doors”, that passersby are invited to flip, thus creating words and designs. We couldn’t resist making our mark: Here’s a distance shot, so you can get some perspective: What fun! Next week I’ll share what we learned about Blaudruck fabric printing in Rostock, Germany.

And one more thing :-): I have a free motion quilting class coming up on Friday, June 13th, called Beyond Meandering. In it I share how to make quilting the quilt as much fun as making the top.

The class needs a few more students in order to run. If you’re interested, please register at www.wctc.edu. Thanks!

Floss Frenzy

An Amish Adventure

Quilt Magazine Fun!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Painted Quilts

Thread Portraits

Tallinn, Estonia

Blaudruck and Handdruck

Sew We Go to the Baltic Sea

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Contact Chris!

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Happy Fourth of July everyone!

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