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Paducah Glimpses

April 28, 2013 9 Comments

Another year’s pilgrimage to Paducah is but a memory. In spite of a lot of rain and the coldest temps I can remember during quilt week, it was a wonderful trip with many highlights. The dogwoods were at their blooming peak! The quilts were stunning and inspiring! My classes were filled with delightful, enthusiastic and talented students! The vendors were way too tempting. Fun times were spent with good friends! And there were many giggles along the way. I wasn’t as good as I should have been about snapping pics, but here are some special times I did capture:

Wendy’s birthday lunch at Grace Church with a special rendition of Happy Birthday by Quiltman and Bobbin!

Yummy, good times!

Quilting on the back of the Best of Show quilt by Renae Haddadin and Karen Kay Buckley.

Hanging around with dear friends Hazel and Evelyn after a “Bubble Tea” at Etcetera.

Hanging the Milwaukee Art Quilter’s group entry: The Jenning’s Quilt and

Accepting the third place award from Bonnie Browning with fellow Marq member Judy Zoelzer-Levine.

Watching a very enthusiastic employee at Kirchoff Bakery doing the “basket dance” while waiting for our delicious sandwiches.

Dinner with friends at JP’s.

Making good use of car time on the ride home with the Quiltsissies observing (more on them in a future post :-))

It’s Paducah Time!

April 21, 2013 2 Comments

A big hi y’all from sunny Kentucky!

Wendy and I began our adventure this morning

and for the first time we traveled to Paducah via Chicago so we could make a stop at Troy Fabric’s Fabriganza. Troy is a fabric manufacturer and distributor and this weekend they were hosting a big warehouse sale. There were shelves and tables full of beautiful bolts of fabric.

Wendy shopped for the kits for her “Block of the Month” at Frank’s Sewing Center in Waukesha.

Then a nice man helped us load the bolts into an already full van.

As evening neared we knew we were getting close when we crossed over the river from Illinois to Kentucky via the “Flying Geese” bridges. Here we’re approaching them.

And here the geese are flying overhead.

Upon arrival we hoofed all our things up 25 stairs to our B&B above a Mexican Restaurant. We were then able to set up our studio in an area some people refer to as a kitchen 🙂

Tomorrow we’ll help hang the quilts in the 2013 American Quilter’s Society Quilt Show and Contest.

We are very excited to be here and we are also very excited to share that we have some updated information about our May 2014 Baltic Cruise.

We’ve finalized the cruise details: dates, inclusions (daily shore excursions and a pre-trip extra night in Copenhagen!) and prices. You can find all the information at www.chrisquilts.net/trips. We still don’t have pricing for the airfare, but we do want to be sure we get enough cabins reserved. This is your chance to visit the site and reserve your spot now!

Stay tuned! Next week we’ll have pictures from Quilt Week!

Best Part of Spring!

April 14, 2013 1 Comment

To me, the best part of Spring is that it’s quilt show season. Last week was non-stop overcast and rain – perfect weather for being inside at a show. And last weekend was also filled with opportunities in our area.

The Crazy Quilter’s show in Mukwonago, WI is always a treat. The variety and quality of quilts was inspiring and the vendors were chock full of temptations! I had the pleasure of being one of the judges this year and it was a real blessing to be a part of such a well run show. My only regret was that I forgot to take my camera :-(.

This same weekend was also the date for the Sun Prairie Quilt Show. This is a unique show in that it has been run by the same person, Klaudeen Hanson, in the same location for 39 years! Amazing! I’m sure that’s a record! I have been a part of her group, the Prairie Heritage Quilters since I began quilting in 1987. This year we added a special exhibit of quilts by the 3 teachers in the group: Klaudeen, Joanie Zeier Poole and myself. We also each did some free demonstrations for the attendees on Sunday and were blown away by the response – standing room only. What a joy!

I did bring my camera and would like to share a few pictures of the show. This one is of the teacher exhibit. A few of my quilts are on the right, Klaudeen’s bright piecing graces the center and Joanie’s amazing heirloom quilting is to the left.

My dear friend and traveling companion, Wendy Rieves, won a Founder’s award for her latest block of the month quilt which she teaches at Frank’s Sewing Center in Waukesha, WI.

This room contained some of the smaller quilts and quilted items. My dear friend, Ida Porzky, made the flower table runner.

I was very proud of a student in my Open Lab. Louise Sundquist is fairly new to quilting and recently jumped into creating her own art quilts. I had to twist her arm a bit to get her to enter her sunflowers quilt (lower right), but doesn’t it look delightful?

There were great vendors at this show too. What a lot of inspiration for one weekend!

Then there’s just one more “show” I have to mention. It’s actually a Milwaukee Art Quilter’s exhibit taking place at UWW called “Inspired by Nancy”. Nancy Kimpel was a dear friend, talented fiber dyer/artist and marq member who passed away a few years ago. Each member of Marq was given a bag of her fabric and asked to make a small wall quilt for this exhibit. It is a wonderful collection of quilts. Here are just a few photos (but they really don’t do the exhibit justice):

The piece on the left of the kite on Milwaukee's lakefront is one of Nancy's quilts — The piece on the left of the kite on Milwaukee’s lakefront is one of Nancy’s quilts

If you would like to see them in the cloth, here’s the information:

MArQ “INSPIRED BY NANCY” QUILTS • FINE ARTS GALLERY • 1500 N. University Drive, Waukesha • Gallery open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.; Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.; Friday: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Through April 29.

This coming weekend Wendy and I will be packing up the car and heading for Paducah! I can barely wait. So next week I’ll be blogging from Quilt City USA! I’ve already started packing for my classes – I just love Spring!

Does your guild have a Spring show? Are you a part of it? Do you have a photo you’d like to share? Please email them to me at .

PS Registration has begun for Summer classes at WCTC. All of the information can be found at wctc.edu. To find Wendy’s and my classes click on “Course Search” in the bar at the top; type “quilting” in the “Title/Subject” box and click on “submit”; Then click on each class for the details. Here’s a sneak preview:

Beginning Free Motion Quilting 6-14-13 (sorry, no picture)

Quilt In 6-28-13 (sorry, no picture here either) – this class is a one day Open Lab where the students work on whatever project they choose and I’m there to help in whatever way I can and I’ll provide a surprise or two also :-).

Mariners Compass — Compass Capers 7-12-13

logs and chains — Logs and Chains 8-9-13

Wendy's T-Shirt Quilt 6-4-13 — Wendy’s T-Shirt Quilt 6-4-13

Wendy's Dresden Tree Skirt — Wendy’s Dresden Tree Skirt 7-13-13

Wendy's Stars of Fortune 8-10-13 — Wendy’s Stars of Fortune 8-10-13

Diamonds, Gangsters and Quilts???

April 7, 2013 13 Comments

The diamond is a fascinating shape when used in a quilt. I’ve enjoyed playing with the lone star pattern:

and the tumbling block (in a little less than traditional way):

But I have a different sort of diamond story to tell in this week’s blog. This story has been passed down by my husband Mike’s Mom, Johanna, who was 10 years old when it happened. I hope you’ll find it interesting, even though it has nothing to do with quilts (pretty clever segue – huh? :-)).

My husband is from Mason City, IA and his Great Grandfather, Furman Stephenson, was a prominent citizen during his career in the brick and tile industry.

One morning, in March of 1934, Grandpa Furman (who was 76 at the time) went into the First National Bank of Mason City to transact some business. He was wearing a 1 carat diamond tie tack that he had received in payment for a car. While he was in the bank Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and the gang showed up to rob the bank! They took all the cash and then grabbed a bunch of hostages to line up on the running boards of the cars as a human shield and make their getaway.

Grandpa Furman was one of the hostages and as one of the gangsters pushed him up against the car he asked “what do you want with me? I’m an old man and I’ll only slow you down.” The gangster agreed and pushed him in the dirt … with the diamond tie tack in plain view! After the gang departed Grandpa picked himself up, dusted himself off and went about his business. That night during dinner a neighbor called to ask how Furman was doing. When Grandma Sadie asked why, the neighbor told her that he had been in the bank that morning when the Dillinger gang robbed it. The family story goes that facing the gang was nothing compared to facing Grandma’s wrath for not having mentioned it to her :-)!

The diamond was passed down to Mike’s Grandfather who had it made into a ring and Mike inherited the ring when his step-father passed away a few years ago.

Well, I’ve heard this story many times and my Mother-in-law was always a bit disappointed after sharing it because it had never been documented. When she passed away in January, we took her ashes out to Mason City to be buried next to Dad and during her funeral I shared the story of the ring Mike was wearing with an acquaintance. After hearing it he told me that a few years back the Globe Gazette, Mason City’s newspaper, had begun holding a reenactment of the bank robbery every March and he thought they would be interested in the story. We contacted the paper and 2 weeks later the story Mom had shared for so many years was finally documented on the front page of the Globe Gazette with this picture of Furman, Sadie and the ring:

If only we had thought to do this while Mom was still around to see it in print. I hope you enjoyed the story and promise to get back to a more quilt related topic next week!

An Alternative to Fusibles

March 24, 2013 3 Comments

The students in my Open Lab class at WCTC are always bringing in interesting projects to work on! This semester June Puls chose to create a winter quilt from the book: Snowfolk Friends by K.P. Kids (I did a web search and the book is out of print 🙁 ). The quilt contains rows of delightful snowpeople and winter designs that are meant to be created using fusible web appliqué. In brief: each little piece needed to be traced onto fusible web, fused to the correct fabric, cut out and put together on the background fabric “jigsaw puzzle” style. There were so many tiny parts to the snowpeople row June was a bit overwhelmed:

So I suggested using Repliqué. Repliqué is the technique from my first 2 books: “Repliqué Quilts” and “Snuggle & Learn Quilts For Kids”. I know that many of you own one of these books, but perhaps you hadn’t thought of using it for this type of project! In brief: the pattern is traced full size, each part of the design is stitched directly onto this tracing from the pattern side, turned to the fabric side, trimmed close to the stitching and then the raw edges are covered with with a satin stitch finish. June seemed skeptical at first, but is now a believer!

She’s a very talented quilter and she did an amazing job! Everyone in class was very impressed:

All of the other rows in the quilt are much simpler (she tackled the tough one first). Some are pieced, but June says the other appliqué rows will also be Repliquéd!

Just about any pattern written for fusible appliqué can be Repliquéd. Also, photographs and children’s drawings can also be recreated in fabric with this technique. And one of the best benefits is that the quilt keeps a soft “hand” because there is no added stiffness from the fusible web.

Have you used Repliqué in a unique way? I’d love to hear about it!

Talking Quilts

March 10, 2013 5 Comments

Do your quilts talk to you? I’ve discovered mine do and when I don’t listen, they usually don’t turn out as well. This is the story of a conversation I had with a recent quilt. A few weeks back I was piecing a quilt top for an upcoming class at WCTC. I’ve discovered that any class that involves some variation on Log Cabin will be popular, thus I need to make one of these every so often. Once the top was finished (and made totally from my stash :-)), I couldn’t decide which fabric to use for the border.

I was really leaning towards the plaid (just because I think it’s pretty and I’ve been wanting to use it). I laid the fabrics out around the top and the quilt virtually screamed “use the paisley”!

I, of course, asked “are you sure”? The quilt answered “yes”, so I decided I needed a second opinion and took it to Open Lab where the class unanimously voted for the paisley. Well, I gave in and added a 5″ paisley border with a 1/2″ dark green flange tucked into the seam for drama (if you’re unfamiliar with adding a flange, click here! This was a topic of conversation at my WCTC Open Lab this week :-)).

Go figure. The quilt was right!

Do your quilts talk to you? Have you had an experience where you refused to listen? Please tell us about it.

A Future Quilter

February 24, 2013 10 Comments

My granddaughter, Sommer, is almost a year old and growing fast. She is a joy and a very easy baby to care for, which is a blessing since Mike and I still watch her 5 days a week! About a month ago she was playing with toys in the middle of the studio and I was choosing fabrics for a quilt. When I had settled on just the right ones I left them in a pile near my stash and went to answer the phone. Sommer was just starting to do a bit of crawling at this time and when I turned around she had crawled over to the fabrics and was reverently petting them one by one as if to say “great choices grandma”!

Well, she caught onto the crawling thing quite quickly and a few days later I just happened to have the camera nearby when she decided to do some exploring. She’s really into “open” and “close”. I hope you’ll indulge me:

“Sommer, whatcha doin?”

“Grandma, I think there’s fabric in there!”

“Oooooh pretty!”

“Just look at it all”!

“Gotta touch it …………….. and there’s more over there!”

“Flannel and fleece!”

“It’s so soft. Wanna feel it Grandma?”

And I did, so the photo shoot was over. Do you have any pictures of your kids or grandkids enjoying fabric that you’d like to share? Please email them to me at . I’d love to see them and it might be fun to share them on a future blog.

Quilter Jim

January 19, 2013 5 Comments

This past September I taught my Mariner’s Compass technique at the Madison Quilt Expo. I had full classes all 3 days and I enjoyed the show immensely. Two months later I received an email from one of the 2 men who had taken my class at the show. Jim had completed the compass from the kit in class, but he had had some trouble with the outer edge:

I was able to give him an alternative method for appliquéing the compass to a background fabric. Some time went by and then I received another email from Jim with a picture of his compass on the background and with a border. I was so pleased. He asked me about additional borders and suggestions for having it long arm quilted because he had never quilted anything before. At this point I encouraged him to quilt it himself (many of you will not be surprised by this :-)). We exchanged a few more emails and then I didn’t hear anything for a while.

This past week Jim sent me this photograph:

Don’t you just love his smile ……. and the quilt?!? Here’s what he wrote:

“Hi Chris, I have just completed my Mariner Compass Quilt and have it hanging in my Florida Living Room. I wanted to share the image with you as I feel proud of the final quilt. You were quite right I was able to do the quilting myself and the use of the tape was very helpful.”

I was tickled and wrote right back to ask for permission to share his story and his quilt on my blog. His response:

“I would be proud to have you post my story and pictures on your blog. Maybe they will help others like myself to take the leap like I did. I really appreciate the time you took to explain how to do the tape method – it worked beautifully.”

This is what makes teaching so much fun. In case you’re curious about the tape method, it’s a simple way to mark the lines to be quilted by placing the edge of a length of masking tape along the line to be quilted, stitching along the tape and then removing the tape to be used again on the next line.

I’d like to share just one more quote:

“I made a great deal of use of your book “Compass Capers”. The book allowed me to complete the compass as your directions were quite clear and concise.”

Thanks, Jim, for letting me share your story, quilt and picture. You are certainly an encouragement to me!

PS Thanks for all the kind words and prayers concerning the loss of my Mother-in-law. I’m writing this blog from a motel in Mason City, IA. Mom was from here and the family has brought her back for the funeral on Monday. She was a dear lady and will be missed.

PPS I can’t resist posting just one photo from my trip to Washington. Here’s Grandma with Hanna, Willy and Rainee Lynn: