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KirschArt

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As quilters we often make quilts inspired by the creativity of others ….. we do so love all our patterns and books! This is a great system because designers have ideas to share and many quilters are not into making up their own designs.

My daughter-in-law, Betsy, is a professional graphic artist and Sommer’s mommy. In 2009 I was in a creative rut and I began asking her about her work. After an exciting discussion she agreed to loan me some of her pieces. My hope was to create fiber art that didn’t reproduce her work, but was inspired by it. This became an adventure we call KirschArt.

We’ve had our work shown in a number of different venues. Our first joint exhibit was at a restaurant in Hales Corners, Wisconsin. We shared exhibit space with my talented friend, Laura Krasinski.

We currently have pieces hanging at the Brickhaus Café in Jefferson, Wisconsin, and this is one example of our collaboration – Betsy’s photography and my fiber art.

The Brickhaus Cafe has a beautiful garden area for outside dining and great food. Tea and Textiles, a wonderful quilt shop, is just a block away. I’d love to have you stop in if you live nearby.

Since then Betsy and I have collaborated on a completely different project: Compass Capers! She did all of the illustrations in my book and then taught me how to use Adobe InDesign while putting it all together. She is a very talented young woman and such a blessing to me.

So – have you ever created a quilt which was inspired by someone else’s art? If so, I’d really enjoy hearing about it. Please comment to this post or, if you’re so inclined, email me a picture :-)!

PS I really enjoyed reading all the comments about your favorite notions. Thanks to everyone who responded. Most of them I already have on my “fav” list, but I hadn’t heard of the “touch n brow”, so I stopped at Sally’s Beauty Supply the other day and …WOW… this is a great tool! Thank you Cindy!

 

Feeding Needy Children

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A few weeks ago I asked if anyone had a vintage Burgoyne Surrounded or Pineapple Log Cabin quilt they might be interested in selling because I’m in need of those patterns for a new quilt lecture I’m putting together. I already had a sample of Mariner’s Compass and Rose of Sharon, but I was thinking I’d like a better example of those too – if I could find them.

Well, I decided to do a bit of searching on-line and I found a gorgeous Rose of Sharon top on a site called Buckboard Quilts, and it was in my price range! I contacted the owner, Judy Howard, purchased that top and conversed about the other quilts I needed. During those emails, she said she would send me information about a project that is dear to her heart. It’s a quilt contest to raise funds to feed children.  I decided I wanted in and I completed a small “Parallelisms” quilt I had in my UFO pile. It’s called Chasing Butterflies and the idea was that children should be concerned with childish things like chasing butterflies and not about hungry tummies. Here’s a picture of my quilt:

As a thank you for donating the quilt to the contest, Judy sent me a copy of her wonderful cookbook and I just knew I needed to share this information with you. I asked Judy to send me something to put on the blog and here it is. Enjoy!

22”Quilt Contest/Exhibit Feeds Needy Children

The overwhelming need to feed needy children inspired Buckboard Quilts to sponsor the “Food for Body and Soul Touring Quilts Contest and Exhibits.” The exhibits are touring the U.S. for three years with all proceeds from the $100/week-end exhibit rental and accompanying 1905 Cookbook—Food for Body and Soul going to local soup kitchens and food pantries.

     See http://www.heavenlypatchwork.com/food_for_body_and_soul.html for quilt photos, entry and rental forms, calendar of shows and sample recipes and stories.

   These two hundred-fifty 22×22” and larger touring quilts capture the essence of pioneer cooking, ethnic customs, vintage kitchen collectibles, passion for food, family, celebrations and holiday traditions, food stories from the Bible, fighting hunger; feeding hope–anything and everything food or anything that feeds your soul like quilting, grandkids, music, art, gardening, etc.

    

 It’s not too late for you and your children to enter your 22” quilts to receive a free copy of the 1905 Cookbook–Food for Body and Soul with each entry, free advertising on the story label and a chance to win $2500 in prizes and 33 rosette ribbons.

 

     Please mail your 22” quilts ASAP to 12101 N. MacArthur, #137, Oklahoma City, OK 73162. Reserve your exhibit today by emailing  or calling 405-751-3885. Displayed in as little as 20 feet, sixty 22” quilts can be hung in 40 minutes displayed 3 up, back to back, or spread out for maximum effect. Drop-down labels feature heart-warming stories.

     Judy Howard’s new cookbook for cooks, foodies and historians is based on recipes from pioneer days in central Oklahoma. 1905 Cookbook: Food for Body and Soul will inspire today’s cooks regardless of age or sophistication. Recipes like Molasses Drop Cake and Delightful Biscuits or Delicious Chicken Pie and Roast Beef with Oyster Dressing entice the taste buds and make you want to keep this book within easy reach to satisfy your body and soul. In addition to this amazing and often amusing collection of 300 epicurean delights, Howard’s book is flavored with 200 turn-of-the-century photographs, 1905 merchant ads and stories of the 89er/pioneers who compiled the original cookbook found at a flea market. This cookbook will complement any cook’s recipe collection and is the perfect gift at discounted price of $12.95 if ordered on http://www.heavenlypatchwork.com/1905%20Cookbook.htm.

     Enter your 22” Food Quilt today to help feed needy children. And reserve the $100 exhibit for your next show.

Also…

If you’re looking for some quilting fun this week. I’ll be teaching at the UW Platteville Sewing and Quilting Expo. For all the information go to: http://www.uwplatt.edu/cont_ed/sewing_expo/index.html

Parallelisms in England

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One of my favorite workshops to teach is called Parallelisms. The above quilt is entitled “Joy” and it’s just a small sample of this fun technique. Parallelisms is an art quilt class for traditional quilters who would like to try creating a piece of fiber art, but aren’t sure they can. My answer is absolutely “yes” and I’ve had a lot of fun proving it. A few years ago I taught this class at the AQS show in Paducah and one of my students, Doreen Davis, had traveled all the way from England for the show (not just to take my class :-)). After returning home she emailed me to ask if she could teach my technique to her quilting friends and I was honored to be asked. She recently sent me pictures of a class with this message:

“Hi Chris, We had a wonderful day yesterday at the class, the ladies had the most fab time, they were all a bit hesitant at first cos I think they were all used to being told you must do it this way and that but after I had stressed onto them that this is a fun workshop and not to be stressed over, they all let their hair down and thoroughly enjoyed every minute as I hope you can tell.”

Doreen procured permission for me to share a few photos on the blog, so here they are. First a few of Doreen’s quilts (I’m so impressed that she has had such fun with the technique!):

And now WIP’s (works in progress) by Linda, Carol, Ruth, Eve and Liz:

It certainly looks like they were having a bit of fun. Thanks ladies!

I will be teaching Parallelisms for Quilter’s Plus quilt guild in Illinois on August 30th. If you think your guild would be interested in a “let your hair down” kind of art quilt class, please let me know!

Labeling Vintage Quilts

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JoLynn recently wrote me with an antique quilt story:

“I found this old quilt this last month in the middle of the hwy in Texas. It is a grandmothers fan quilt pattern. It needed a lot of repairs so I washed it and I am taking it apart and restoring all of the damaged fan blades. I love how you would not think to add such non matching colors together. I went to the store and bought some of the same colors to replace the ones that were damaged. I have no clue how old this quilt is but it was all hand done. I myself make quilts but I use the sewing machine. :) I am wanting to come up with some type of lable for the quilt but dont have any ideas. If you have any ideas please let me know. Thanks……. Oklahoma Self”

I did a blog post last October with instructions for creating simple labels for vintage quilts. You can click here to read all about it (be sure to read Lucy’s excellent instructions for making labels with the computer). JoLynn’s request made me realize that often we don’t know the quilt’s previous history – so does it really need a label? And if so, what should be on it? My answer would be yes because every quilt has a story we do know: who currently owns it and how they acquired it. JoLynn’s quilt has a wonderful story of adoption and caring and it should be on the label, along with her name, place and date.

Taking the time to label vintage quilts, especially if you have a collection, may be the difficult part. I was guilty of this for years and than a dear friend, Maggi Gordon, wrote a book entitled Vintage Quilts. She was interested in including a number of my quilts. Before I could give them to her for photography they needed to be labeled and now I’m so grateful to have them in the book and the labels done!

This is a wonderful guide for identifying and pricing old quilts and can be obtained through Maggi at: http://www.maggigordon.com/

And now for a plea. I’m currently putting together a new lecture called “Tradition with a Twist”. It will include vintage quilts and modern interpretations. I’ve been collecting the older quilts for a while and find there are still 2 patterns I don’t have. I’m looking for an old (30 years or older) Pineapple Log Cabin and a Burgoyne Surrounded. It you have either of these you would be willing to part with, please let me know and we can talk about it :-). Thanks!

PS I had a wonderful visit with my daughter and grandkids in Washington. I can’t resist sharing a few pictures. Here is Rainee Lynn at 2 weeks old:

and her sister and brother, Hanna and Willy:

And the Capers Continue

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I recently received an email from Cindy Frese and here’s what she had to say:

“Hi Chris, I was searching for patterns to piece flowers for the border of a quilt I’m currently working on. I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for so I used your folding method from Compass Capers to create what I wanted. It worked great for all of them including the tulips. Thought I’d let you see how they turned out. Thanks, Cindy”.

Here’s the picture of her blocks:

My response to her email was: “WOW”! It is such a thrill for me as  a teacher to see students take something from my class and make it truly their own.

I asked her for a few more pictures to see what she was doing with the blocks. Within a day she had the blocks on the quilt and sent the pictures my way, saying that this is a queen size quilt and the blocks were meant to anchor each corner of the quilt because they looked a little plain. Here’s the whole quilt top:

And a close up of a corner:

A very clever border idea!

Another example of this was sent my way a few months ago by Michelle Costen.

This is a very creative piece. What a blessing it is to me to know that I played a part in these wonderful quilts. Praise the Lord – and thanks so much Cindy and Michelle.

When Wendy Rieves and I made our quilt, “Welcoming the Son Into Our Garden”, for the National Quilt Museum’s New Quilts From an Old Favorite contest, I wanted to piece a variety of “sunflowers” into the background to compliment her wonderful raw edge flowers. Some of the background “sunflowers” were made like traditional Dresden Plates, but others were compass variations – including the Sun!

If you have made a unique compass using my technique, please let me know…or better yet – email me a picture please :-).

If you would like to learn how to draft your own compass blocks, you may purchase my book, Compass Capers, by clicking on it in the sidebar at the right or email me at .

 

 

Sweet 16

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I’d like to share a short story about my dear husband, Mike. We met in High School and were dating when I was “sweet 16”.

This past Tuesday we celebrated our 36th anniversary! The time has flown by.

Well, a few months back Mike came home from work rather excited because he had received a bonus for the first time in 4 years (the economy and a brief trial run at retirement were the reasons). The next thing he said was “what do you want to buy?” – What a nice guy!!!

I thought for a moment and actually responded that I really had everything I needed and he came back with “don’t you want one of those long-arm things?” – That took me by surprise. After a few seconds of contemplating this I explained to him that the bonus was not big enough and he’d have to empty all his stuff out of the barn so I’d have room for it. That took him by surprise and he replied that that was not an option. Then he asked if there was something somewhere in between…and I immediately thought about a mid-arm. My concern was where to put it and he said if I could figure that out – I should get one. It didn’t take me long to decide the “where” part and I made plans to test drive all the mid-arms I could find at the quilt show in Paducah.

The Quilting Connection is a shop not far from me in Elkhorn, WI that carries long and mid-arm machines. I usually try to buy local, so I visited them prior to my Paducah trip and did a test drive. I was very pleased to realize that, after looking over the competition in Paducah, the Handi Quilter Sweet 16 from the shop in Elkhorn was the one for me. It was delivered on our anniversary and I quilted a small quilt on it by the time I went to bed that night. What a joy and a blessing!

I’ve positioned the new machine just to the left of my regular sewing machine so I just have to swivel my chair to use it.

I’m very pleased with the way the head is situated, the bright lights and the stitch quality.

It is easy to set up and easy to use and I’m hoping my quilting will really improve :-).

I’m especially pleased that I could buy locally. Not only does it help the economy, but I have a technician nearby and that is worth a lot!

Do you quilt on a home sewing machine or do you have something bigger? If you have a quilting machine, would you recommend it to others? What do you love about it? Any complaints?

PS I guess I now have to admit to owning 8 machines. This was a topic of discussion in my July 31st post entitled “Howe Many Machines do You Own?”. It was inspired by the purchase of an 1867 Elias Howe sewing machine. To read all about it go to: http://clkquilt.wordpress.com/category/vintage-quilts/ and scroll down.

Scraps, Value and “Beautiful Buts”

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Thanks to everyone who responded to my survey about quilt classes a few weeks ago. It was interesting to see how many of you like scrap quilts and it got me thinking about a technique I developed for sorting my scraps by value. Value is the relative darkness/lightness of a fabric and it can make or break many quilt patterns. I came up with a value  sorting technique when I was making a quilt I called Almost Charming.

I had been in my guild’s 6″ square exchange and decided to use those squares  in the Friendship Star pattern and this ended up becoming a very popular class. A true charm quilt has only one piece of each fabric used. Because I cut each square into triangles, there are two pieces of each fabric and thus it is “Almost Charming”.

When sorting scraps for a quilt, some patterns require just lights and darks, with the mediums needing to be removed for the pattern to work. Other patterns need lights, darks and mediums, but if there isn’t a clear delineation between the values, the pattern can get lost. The Friendship Star uses darks in the stars, lights in the background (which becomes the diagonal lattice when the blocks are set together) and mediums in the remaining “on point squares at the corners of each 9 patch star block.

I grabbed a bunch of 6″ squares (even after making this quilt I still have a box full – I think they multiply in the dark like bunnies)

Step 1 – quickly and without any deep thinking, divide the fabrics into 2 piles: lights and darks (there are no wrong answers, so just do it)

2. Using the same quick method, take the dark pile and divide it into 2 piles: light and dark (remember value is relative to what’s being sorted)

3. Now do this for the original light pile.

4. Here’s the tricky part (remember not to overthink anything) – of the four piles before you, set the dark/darks and the light/lights aside. Now sort the medium/dark pile from step 2 into 2 piles: dark and light; and sort the medium/light pile from step 3 into 2 piles: dark and light. This will give you 4 medium piles.

5. By removing two of these piles there will be a definite difference between the darks, the mediums and the lights. The pile on the far left and the pile on the far right above need to be removed. The two center piles will be combined to form the “mediums”.

So here you have it all. The 3 piles along the bottom of the picture are the dark, medium and light piles. The 2 piles at the top of the picture are the ones set aside for use in a future quilt.

So what are “Beautiful Buts”?

I wish I remembered where I learned this expression, but the concept has stuck with me. There are some fabrics printed with an equal amount of dark and light in them. They are usually “beautiful – but” they are not dark, light or medium. They are Beautiful Buts and they often don’t work well in scrap quilts and will need to be set aside. Here are just a few:

I hope you found this helpful. Do you have any helpful tips for sorting by value?

 

 

A New Look For My Blog & a Quick Miter Tutorial

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Welcome to my new blog look!

Diahann Lohr, of Adunate Word and Design, inspired me to create my blog over a year ago. I then hired her to design my website, now she has integrated the two. I’m thrilled and I hope you enjoy the change!

The address for my new blog is: www.chrisquilts.net/blog. It’s shorter and simpler than my previous blog address, and the good news is that if you usually access my site by clicking on the link in my emails, you can continue to get here the same way. Please feel free to offer feedback by clicking on the word “comment” at the end of this post.

This week’s topic is about my favorite way to miter a border. Once you have sewn on the border strips, stopping both seams 1/4″ away from the corner to be mitered, it’s as easy as:

1. Fold diagonally through the quilt while aligning the border strips on t0p of each other (right sides together), and lay a ruler along the fold with the 45° line along the stitching.

2. Draw along the edge of the ruler on the border strip, remove the ruler and pin.

3. Sew on the line!

I’ve been doing a bit of mitering lately because I was designing a new Attic Window project for a Summer class at WCTC in Waukesha.