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Corner Labels

July 10, 2011 7 Comments

This past week I came up with a really simple way to label a quilt and I can’t wait to share! It’s a variation of a quilt hanging technique I’ve used for years that works great on small quilts. To simply hang a small quilt: fold 2 squares of fabric in half diagonally and place them in the top corners of the quilt before binding. When the binding is attached, a dowel, cut the width of the quilt, fits inside the corners for easy hanging without a sleeve.

So here’s the exciting label variation:

Cut a 6″ square of a light, solid color fabric and iron the shiny side of a 6″ square of freezer paper to the back. Crease it in half, diagonally, to mark the fold, open it flat and draw a few diagonal lines, on the freezer paper, with a thick black marker (these lines will show through to the front and act as guidelines for your writing)

Turn to the fabric side and write all your information on the bottom half using a fine, permanent fabric marker.

Remove the paper, fold the label wrong sides together and pin into a bottom corner of the quilt before binding. Once you bind the quilt, 2 sides of the triangle will be secured and the folded edge can be left open or handstitched down.

I’ve found a new labeling trick I really like! Hope you like it too!

U Rah Rah Guilds

July 4, 2011 6 Comments

Thanks for all the positive comments about the spiral quilting on my recent project. It made me want to keep at it. This got me to thinking about how valuable encouragement from others really is, especially in our quilting. It can come in many forms: friends, family, classes and guilds (just to mention a few).

That led me to thinking about the quilt guilds I’ve belonged to and I decided it was a topic I wanted to expound on. So I’ve put on my cheerleader personna to get everyone excited about  guilds (yes, this was scanned straight out of my yearbook and I’m not telling the year!) 

Guilds are a great way to socialize, problem solve, be inspired and encourage each other! I feel that quilt guilds are also a great bargain. I currently belong to 2 guilds, but at one time I was a member of 5! The average yearly dues typically run between $20 and $30 and can include up to 12 meetings a year. Some have sub-groups where quilters can really get to know each other and many do charity projects. Most have at least a few speakers each year and to attend similar lectures at a quilt show would probably cost more than the yearly dues. What a bargain – and that doesn’t begin to cover what I think is the real value! My favorite part of each meeting is Show & Tell. I am always inspired by seeing what others are doing. In the Milwaukee Art Quilters we often use our S & T time to ask for critiques or help on current problem projects. This is something I greatly appreciate and it could be done in a sub group if your main meeting is too large.

Patched Lives (my more traditional guild) has 2 pot luck meetings a year that really focus on sharing ideas and getting to know each other. Good food and good friends, who could ask for more? We also have challenges and exchanges that inspire us to do different things and stretch skillwise as well as creatively.

I could go on and on, but I won’t :-). This brings me to a subject that is dear to my heart. It takes a lot of effort to have a great guild and many hands make light work. So if you belong to a guild, make sure you don’t just sit back and enjoy, but you do your part. I’ve found being on the board of my guilds has extra benefits. As President I found I got to know more members outside of my immediate circle. As program chair, I was able to bring in the teachers I wanted to learn from. When working on committees I experienced the satisfaction of being a part of the good things that were going on.

A number of years ago Wendy Rieves and I got the idea to write a book called Guild Builders. Our hope was that it would give loads of ideas to new boards so that they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel once they were elected and it would encourage everyone to get involved. The subtitle was going to be “How to Get That Quilter in the Second Row Off Her Fat Quarter and Helping”! We haven’t succeeded in having it published yet (actually making quilts is more fun), but it’s still a possibility. Wendy and I are always willing to share our Guild Builders ideas with anyone interested and are always looking to add to our stockpile of helpful ideas.

In conclusion I would recommend that, if you don’t belong to a guild – do it, and if you do….well…..you just read that “fat quarter” thing (hee!hee!).

Go Guilds!

Hurry Up or Wait

June 28, 2011 7 Comments

While reading an issue of Irish Quilting Magazine I came across a comment I spent some time contemplating: “never be in a hurry to finish a quilt”. Now, my first response was that it was good advice, but I soon discovered that there are times the opposite can be true. Let me explain :-).

The article went on to say that “most of the time when we’re in a hurry, mistakes happen”. This can certainly be true and I decided I agreed. A day or so later I realized it was time to do a bit of tidying up in my studio and ended up staring at one of my recent (I use the term loosely) projects. It is my version of a mariner’s compass on drugs. About a year ago I started drafting a bevy of amoeba shaped compasses that interconnected, and I was pleased with the design. I had it enlarged and then agonized over a color scheme. Once that problem was solved the piecing was great fun. It turned out so well I decided I needed a truly wonderful quilting design and began to ponder what I could do that would take the quilt over the top – I didn’t want to rush into anything.

The top has been hanging on my design wall since March :-(. I was telling myself it was marinating, but now its simply frustrating. No amazing quilt design has materialized and I’ve gone way past the stage of rushing into something!

So, while staring at this piece that used to make me smile I realized that there is a happy medium for everything and at that moment my own advice, which I often share in my Beyond Meandering class, resounded in my ear:

When choosing a quilting design don’t say to yourself “a judge would appreciate feathers”, but rather “what would be fun to do today?” I was looking for the perfect design and it wasn’t forthcoming…. so I made the decision at that moment that my favorite free mo design is spirals and they’d be more fun then cleaning so I set up the machine and had a ball! I’m not ready to show the whole thing – and there’s more quilting left to be done – but I’m back to excited again. Here’s a picture of some of the fun.

So, don’t rush, but don’t let the moss grow on your quilt either. The perfect quilting design is the one you are in the mood to do today!

The Big Picture

May 23, 2011 7 Comments

 Thanks for the positive response to my method for creating a Celtic quilting design. If my ideas inspire you to create a design of your own, please send me pictures. One of the comments mentioned using green thread. Actually – I did, the picture just didn’t show it. Here’s a new one:

And a view of the entire quilt (please ignore the binding clips :-):

Now for something completely different :-). This week’s topic concerns making pictures or patterns larger and then printing them easily. I often need to do this. For example, when recreating a picture in appliqué using my Repliqué technique, an enlargement of a photograph is needed to make the pattern. Another instance where this is necessary is when I draft Mariner’s Compass patterns using my paper folding techniques. Sometimes I draft them the size of a sheet of paper and then need to make them bigger (for descriptions of both of these techniques, scroll down to the Architectural Repliqué and Mariner’s Compass Simplified descriptions on my website at https://www.chrisquilts.net/lectures_and_workshops.htm). You can probably think of instances in your quilt life when this would be helpful too.

In the past I’ve enlarged pictures at my local print shop; and I’ve made patterns bigger with the help of an overhead projector. Since the enlargements cost money and the overhead has to be used while I’m at work, neither is a particularly convenient option.

A while back I read an article in The Quilt Life magazine which recommended doing these enlargements using Microsoft Excel, along with a home computer and printer. It really works, so I just have to share! Here’s the step by steps:

1.  Open Microsoft Excel

2.  In the File Menu select Page Set Up; select Margins; set footer and header to “O” and set the margins to .5 on all 4 sides; select “OK”

3.  In the View Menu select Zoom; change the magnification to 25%; select “OK”

4.  In the Insert Menu select Picture; select From File and then find the drawing or picture you want to enlarge from your computer, click on it and then select Insert

5.  Your picture/drawing will now be in the upper left corner of the Excel document. Click on it and then place your cursor on the bottom right corner square; click and drag your picture/drawing to the desired size. Each rectangle in the Excel program represents an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper and when you press “print” it does …… and all the sheets fit together!

If you’re printing a photo onto printer fabric, the margins we left will provide enough space around each portion for seam allowance.

If you’re printing a drawing or pattern, the margins can be overlapped when the parts are taped together.

I hope this is helpful. If it seemed a bit confusing, open Excel and give it a whirl. You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is!

Design Your Own

May 14, 2011 8 Comments

During our Irish “Sew We Go” adventure many of the quilters signed and exchanged Irish Chain blocks. I pieced mine together into a friendship top shortly after we returned… and then it sat. This past week I decided it was time to quilt it, but how? It was easy to decide to do some straight line quilting through the chains. Then I felt a Celtic Knotwork motif would be nice in the signature blocks, but I didn’t have a stencil. I was pleased with what happened next and thought you might find it interesting and, hopefully, helpful.

I began by pulling out my June Tailor “Mix ‘n Match Templates”™. Each package contains 6 different sizes of a chosen shape. I’ve found them to be a wonderful tool and own all their shapes, but you can also find great templates at the Craft Store. Check out the kid’s foam pieces or wood cutouts there.

A few years ago it was suggested to me that quilts could be marked with Crayola Washable Markers™. I was very hesitant, but decided this would be a good time to try them. I did a test piece first and the marker washed out well. So, I used it to mark the entire quilt and, once the quilting was done, I threw the whole quilt in the washer and it came out great. I’d do it again, but I recommend testing it on every fabric it will be used on.

Sample block, templates and washable marker

Now I was ready to create a design. The packaged “feather” template, shown in the package above, didn’t work, but the small “leaf” template fit into the areas on the center of each side, so I drew them in. I could have connected them, but felt it needed a bit more. I couldn’t find a “tear drop” template, so I drew one of my own and cut it out. Then I traced around both templates until I was pleased with the placement of the shapes.

Celtic Designs usually are not made up of lines, but visual “tubes”, so I needed to “widen” my lines. I drew these free hand about 1/4″ away from the first lines inside each shape.

Next, I needed to connect them and did this free hand too. You’d be surprised how easy this is with only a bit of practice!

Taa Daa!

Drawn and ready to free motion quilt (except this is an extra block and I actually had to draw it in each block on the quilt).  Here it is quilted:

I had so many blocks to quilt that I decided I didn’t need to have the design look like it wove “over and under” at each intersection. Thus the entire block could be done as a continuous line by starting at any crossed line intersection on the pattern.

The best part about creating your own design this way is that you can make it fit your project whenever you’re ready. You never need to have the perfect stencil in your stash.

Have you done any of your own designing? Are there any tools that work well for you? If so, please share :-).

Another Sunny Day

April 29, 2011 2 Comments

Wendy and I had the day open for fun and did some serious Vendor supporting. So many wonderful things that we didn’t own and really needed :-).

We were able to do our annual lunch at Grace Episcopal Church. This year it was a variety of “slider” sandwiches and salad with cupcakes for dessert – DELICIOUS!

The sweet lady on the right is Molly. She’s a Paducah native who truly loves her hometown and we enjoyed hearing her stories.

This evening Wendy had a class, so after dropping her off I headed downtown. The fiber art exhibit at the Yeiser Art Center was very good. This was the site I viewed upon exiting. The park across the street is where the carriage rides begin and a dixie land band was playing in the gazebo.

 The unique part was the angel “statue” right up front – she was dancing to the music, in between stiking various poses. What fun.

From there I walked to the Four Rivers Performing Arts Center to climb the outside stairs to the second story deck and see a bit of the flood over the wall.

One of the local shop owners said that the water was only up 1 1/2 feet on the downtown flood gate. It’s supposed to crest early next week and shouldn’t be as bad as they first expected here.

There was a large crowd lined up to see Ricky Timm’s performance tonight and as I walked by I ran into some quilting friends from Watertown. We agreed we were all having a great time.

Tomorrow’s the last day. We have some fun planned, including tear down of the show. This week has flown by and, praise the Lord, everything worked out quite well. Looking on the bright side – a lot of memories were made :-). I’ll get back to my “regular”  sharing posts on Monday. Until than I’d like to leave you with these pictures of where the Executive Inn used to be. They were taken Monday before the flood wall was closed off.

 

Having a wonderful time!

April 28, 2011 3 Comments

Today the sun was shining, the birds were singing and thousands of quilters were enjoying a great event. Wendy and I have been busy doing all the normal Paducah things – praise the Lord! It really came together. The wall quilts and classes are all at First Baptist Church. It has a beautiful lobby:

And the wall quilts are displayed very nicely    (if I do say so myself 🙂 in the Great Room:

I took an excellent class from RaNae Merrill on Spiral Mandalas. She shared many good tips and techniques:

The problem with taking a class is that you don’t get to go out and enjoy the sunshine. We’ll make up for that tomorrow. We have nothing to do but hit the vendors, wander the artist district in Lo Town and have lunch at Grace Episcopal church. We are so blessed.

So tomorrow I’ll post some pics with sunshine, but in parting I’ll leave you with this picture of me with Quiltman at the National Quilt Museum reception (his sidekick, Bobbin Boy, didn’t make it into the picture).

Only in Paducah :-)!!!

The Quilts are up!

April 26, 2011 2 Comments

Hi again from Paducah!

Wendy and I are exhausted. We were at the Pavillion (marshmallow) at 8am and spent the morning hanging the Bed Quilts and placing the miniatures in their cases. At the same time many vendors were setting up their booths. We got that all together by early afternoon and headed to First Baptist Church to hang the Wall Quilts. That took us until around 7:30pm at which time we did run out for a quick dinner. We ended the evening helping to hang the Lancaster winners  and a few quilt challenges at the vendors malls located in the old Circuit City and Office Max buildings out by the Mall. Got “home” at 9:15!

It took so long because we were “reinventing the wheel” with each venue. All the spaces were different from usual and the hanging periphenalia had to find it’s way there too. AQS did an amazing job of making it all come together. We were so impressed by the way the Schroeders and their staff kept their cool under very stressful circumstances.  It’s a great show and the quilts are breathtaking!!!

The flood walls are up now and it was dry all day (with a huge cloud burst about 1 hour ago). The waters are rising, but shouldn’t crest until the show is over. Paducah is not under water and is really ready for the quilters.

Tomorrow Wendy is taking an all day class and I’m going to go back and actually see the show :-). Hopefully I’ll have some pics for tomorrow’s post.

PS Happy Birthday to Wendy! It was a unique way to celebrate a birthday and we both had a wonderful day!

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