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I hope many of you got to see all the wonderful quilts at the Crazy Quilter’s show! The ones I saw I really enjoyed, but I was a bit disappointed the quilts were not all hung by the time I left because I knew I wasn’t able to return that weekend. The crew was doing a great job of hanging them, but after judging I was too tired to stay until the last quilt was hung. I did take photos of some of my favorites that were up – and they will give you just a small taste of the show. This first one was awarded my Judges Choice ribbon. Congratulations to Vicky Krause for American Quilter Quilt.

I have a soft spot in my heart for samplers. I also love America, so I fell in love with this beautiful quilt. I also really enjoyed this next sampler quilt with blocks in the trees. Both of these sampler quilts are so clever (sadly, I wasn’t able to read the maker’s name on the label from my photo of the tree quilt. If you are the maker or know who she/he is, please share their name in the comments).

I’m always intrigued by “Stack and Whack” style quilts in which the original fabric is cut into pieces and put back together in a kaleidoscope fashion. They really appeal to me. Rotating Flowers by Mary Pfeiffer is a pure delight! What a great use of that border print!

A little farther down the row I found my friend Debbie Hawver’s hydrangea quilt. It’s a One Block Wonder quilt made from panels, and she did a lovely job.

“Panels” was the show theme. So many of the interesting quilts entered were made from preprinted panels. It was fun to see the clever ways they were used. Endearing by Amy Stowlowski was bordered in a very appealing way. And don’t miss the scene printed in the back of the large dear.

Elephant Walk is a delightful crib quilt made up of reproduction fabrics (I must apologize to the maker once again as my photograph wasn’t clear enough to read the name). This sweet quilt made me smile.

Red and White All Over is a lovely two color quilt by Mary Thuillez. All aspects of it are done well, and it’s just so pretty.

Then I must admit that I marveled over both of these tree skirts for quite a while. I’m amazed at the beautiful designs which can be made on embroidery machines. Both of these talented ladies did a great job! The top one is Snowflakes Glisten by Kelley Draves. The second is Tree Skirt by Betty Butenhoff.

There were also a number of special exhibits in the hallways outside of the main show. The Crazy Quilters did a monochromatic group challenge this year in which the quilt could only be made from different values of their chosen color (no black, white or gray could be added). They were very well done.

It was an interesting contrast to the ThreadBender’s Achromatic challenge which was also hanging there. Our quilts could have no color, and here they are from both directions. Thanks for putting up our display Maryjo and Vicky!

As I stated ~ it was a wonderful show!

So, last week I did a bit of an essay on what quilt judges look for (in my opinion). While writing it a few things popped into my head. The final comment on each form at the Crazy Quilters show was labeled “Needs Improvement”. Years ago it was usually pretty easy to come up with a comment to place there. The past few years I’ve judged many quilts in which I struggle to find something that could have been done better. The makers accomplished what they set out to do! This is a good thing! But then the question arises ~ “why didn’t it get a ribbon”. That answer is often quite simple ~ The category had 30 quilts (for example) and only 4 ribbons could be awarded. That’s why I stated last week ~ enter your quilts so that others can see and enjoy them ~ not to win a ribbon 😁.

Also, I’m a teacher at heart. So when I make a “Needs Improvement” comment, there’s a part of me that often wants to suggest to the maker a tip or technique to make it better. Of course that’s not possible on the form, but I can’t resist including one short lesson in this post.

A common comment I’ve heard and used over the years is “binding should be full”. Do some of you wonder what that means? When a binding doesn’t have batt filling it to the edge, it can get a bit sloppy overtime and after multiple washings. Usually these bindings aren’t full because the maker stitched the binding to one side of the quilt and then wrapped it to the other side for the second stitching, lining up the folded edge of the binding with the previous stitching. If the binding strip wasn’t cut the correct width there will be a portion that is “empty”. The solution is to either cut the binding strip narrower, or fold it past the previous stitching even if it’s visually a little wider than the other side.

In this example I’ve cut my binding strip 3″ wide, and I’m sewing it to the front of the quilt and folding it around to the back. I’ve folded the binding strip in half to use as a double binding and I’ve stitched it to my sample quilt with a 3/8″ seam on the left, and a 1/2″ seam on the right (this view is of the back of the sample).

When the binding strip is folded over the edge of the quilt on the front, this is how it looks on the back. On the side with a 3/8″ seam there is more binding left to fold over the previous seam. The portion sewn on with a 1/2″ seam is just about equal.

In the samples below, the top shows the one sewn on with the 1/2″ seam. It folds tightly around the edge of the quilt and just covers the previous seam, leaving the binding full.

The bottom sample has to be folded beyond the previous stitching to fill the binding. This will make the binding wider on the back than on the front. The good news is that there is no reason why the binding has to be the same width front and back 😊 ~ so it’s an easy fix.

I hope this was helpful!

I’ve been asked this question often, and recently I’ve been thinking that it might be helpful to share some of my thoughts on this topic. Then I had the wonderful opportunity to judge the Crazy Quilters Show in Mukwonago last week, and it confirmed that this post’s time had come. I really enjoy judging this show each year. The guild members are delightful, and the quilts are always wonderful. But I must admit I think judging is the hardest job I do in the quilt world. It takes discipline to set aside a person’s personal likes and dislikes. I also really want to be an encouragement to everyone because, let’s face it, most of us put our hearts and souls into our quilts because we love to quilt!

I’d also like to preface this topic by encouraging all of you to enter competitions because YOU WANT to make a particular quilt and share it with others. I’ve found the ones I’ve made because I want to win a ribbon usually don’t do as well. That being said… here are some judging thoughts:

Most judges have been part of the quilt world long enough to know what makes a good quilt (and many have been certified to do the job 😊). You probably know many of these things too – the trick is for all of us to make them to the best of our ability, and grow in our skills with each one.

Typically the first thing judges look at is the overall appearance/design. In order to get a feel for the entries in a category we usually begin by having the quilts held up by volunteers to be viewed from a distance. This is easy for small quilts. Bed sized quilts are most often layered on tables, as in a bed turning, and the top half of each is held up, showing half of the quilt, then folded over forward, so the next can be held up. I have judged shows where all of the quilts are hung first and then they are judged hanging. Both ways have their pluses and minuses. In either case, I like to start with this overall viewing because it helps me get a feel for what’s in the category – sort of a preview of the competition. This also allows us to have a distance view for the overall “design” portion of the judging form, as we can see how the color, value and pattern all work together in each quilt. So what are we looking for?

Are the color and value of the fabrics well balanced?

Is there good visual impact? What’s the “wow” factor?

Are the main seam lines straight (at least the ones that are meant to be straight)?

Do all the components work well together?

Is the quilt so busy it’s difficult to see the pattern? or is this the look the maker was going for?

For this question we also need to keep in mind the intended use of the piece. If a wallhanging is very busy with “no place for the eye to rest”, it may get a “needs improvement” comment. But often a busy bed quilt works on the bed, even if it would be quite busy hanging on the wall. The bedskirt, carpet, etc often balance the busyness. This was something I’ve learned over the years (thanks Karen!)

I think you can see from this list that many of the questions are answered before the maker even begins if they are using a kit, or matching the fabrics precisely to the photo from a pattern or book. I find this part especially difficult when judging because I can’t be familiar with every pattern and kit available and, if you think about it, telling a quilter her value choices were great when a kit was used isn’t really a compliment to him/her 😊.

Next we look at the quilt “up close and personal” to assess the workmanship. This is often where we generate the “Needs Improvement” comments. We all strive to do our best and I think most of us, no matter how good we get, still have room for improvement (myself included). The basics come first:

Do seam intersections meet well?

Do pieced triangles have all their points, or were some “blunted” by seams or the binding?

Are appliquéd pieces stitched neatly and securely? Are curves smooth?

Does the quilt lay flat, with no “bubbles” in the middle or “wobbles” along the edge?

Are the corners square?

Are quilting stitches consistent in length (hand or machine)?

Is the tension good when machine quilted?

Please remember too that when there are a lot of quilts in a category, the judge looks even more closely at each of these things.

And then there’s bindings! Years ago it seems I put a “Needs Improvement” comment about the bindings on 75% of the quilts entered, but that has improved greatly over the years. I think many teachers, like myself, have made it a goal to teach good binding technique. But some less than perfect bindings still show up. It seems some quilters get tired of a project by the binding step and just slap something on so they can get on to their new and exciting next project. It really is worth the time to finish the quilt well!

I’ve found many of the judges comments I’ve received on my quilts to be helpful, but most of the time I already know what they’re going to say. We typically are aware of our own shortcomings 😁.

I’ve also found it a bit more difficult to judge in recent years because so many quilts are entered by the maker of the top, but quilted by someone else. So the question is – should the comments be more about the work the maker did in the design, piecing and appliqué, or should it be about the quilting if not done by the original maker? Ugh. Did I mention judging is not easy???

Lastly, I have been asked to judge challenges and contests too. These are not quilt shows and by nature are judged a bit differently. Typically these have a theme, and successfully accomplishing the theme should carry a great deal of weight compared to the other judging aspects. In most of these cases I’ve been asked to give the most weight to how well the theme and rules were carried out. Next, or equal to it, comes workmanship. The show committee gets to decide which aspects are the most important.

Since this post didn’t have many photos, I decided to have fun with this aspect of judging and share some very old challenge quilts from my past. This one is from 1992. It was a challenge at the Sun Prairie Quilt Show in which we were supposed to use the flag fabric (in the top banner and bottom ships) in a quilt that paid tribute to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America. I decided to make a Miniature Patriotic Sampler, and was awarded a second place ribbon.

A few years later that same show’s challenge was to use a fabric printed with sewing machines in a small wall quilt. I came up with a quilter’s town I called “Pieceful”. The printed machines are used to make the buildings on main street, and also in the border corners. I really had fun with this one: the border is made up of “bolts” of fabric with sewing motifs, the telephone poles along the road are needles with metallic thread running between them, and the grass was inspired by Olfa cutting mats. I don’t remember it winning anything ~ but I had great fun making it.

In the late 90’s my quilt guild challenged us to make a quilt based on a nursery rhyme. I had saved some of the cute pockets from my daughter’s jeans. Perhaps I could fill them with posies (and other things) as in Ring Around the Rosie.

I’ve always loved challenges.

So now – to get back to the topic at hand – what’s the takeaway? A very wise quilt judge once told me it doesn’t depend as much on the degree of difficulty of a pattern or a technique – what matters is how well the maker accomplished what they set out to do. If a quilt is simple, but done to perfection, and another is very complex, but with points that don’t match, or quilting with bad tension, the one that did the different parts well may be deserving of the ribbon. But, when a person takes on a difficult pattern and nails it – that’s a ribbon winner!

At this point I’ve run out of room to share some specific thoughts and photos about the Crazy Quilters Show. Please stay tuned for next week’s post!

Thanks to everyone for their encouraging comments about our kitchen-in-progress post a few weeks ago. I’m happy to say ~ the remodel is done!

Before we moved everything back in I staged a few photos to make it look like they do in magazines.

The under cabinet lighting is wonderful, and I absolutely love the backsplash tile. Mike says he does too! It really sparkles when the sun shines in (and we have 1 1/2 boxes leftover – let me know if you’d like some for yourself 😊).

 Once the photos were taken I put all the things necessary to make it a convenient working kitchen back in place ~ and my chicken collection came back to roost above the cabinets.

I baked cookies in the new oven the first day it was moved in, and now we can get back to normal… except the guys came the next day to break out the old tile in the front and back halls.

As you can tell from the dining room ~ we’re not quite back to normal yet 🤣.

But I’m not complaining. We’re so blessed to be able to get this done!

Originally that was going to be the end of this week’s post, but I usually like to include something quilty each week. Trey was the inspiration for this quilty addition. He came over to hang out with us on Wednesday. When he arrived I asked him what he wanted to do and he asked if he could sew something. WooHoo! While heading down to the studio he asked me how I stitched the cherries on Sommer’s jeans.

I showed him the card with all the stitches on my Janome, and he was enthralled. He asked if he could stitch on a piece of black fabric so he could put it on a sweatshirt. Of course I said yes. He was a natural at threading the machine.

As he practiced that it hit me… rather than stitching lines of decorative stitches, perhaps I should show him how to stitch circles like the students did in my Specialty Stitch Spectacular class in Madison last September.

He loved the idea and quickly chose a blue variegated thread for his first circle. We taped a thumbtack in place, and he was off (for a short tutorial on this technique click here). It’s such a great technique because the machine does all the work.

After the first circle was done we moved the tack, he chose a new design and thread, and circles 2, 3 and 4 were added. Once completed I showed him how to use the monogram feature to add his name. He was very happy with the results!

What joy! Now to find a sweatshirt!

PS he told me his favorite circle was the spools of thread. That’s my boy!

 

 

Our granddaughter Sommer just turned 13. Where did those years go? The first 7 years of her life we were grandpa and grandma daycare – and we loved it! She brought so much joy into our lives. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown.

Sew ~ what would she like for her 13th birthday? I thought back to when my daughter was that age, and remembered I’d made her a pair of what she called patch pants that she loved. Hmm. I headed to a local thrift store and bought a pair of jeans in Sommer’s size. Then I pulled some scraps out of my fishbowl (to read a post about Sommer and my fishbowl full of scraps click here).

I cut the seam off along the outsides of the legs to a few inches above the knee.

Then I sewed the scraps into a strip.

I selected a fun stitch on my machine, laid the patch strip under one side of the opening in the leg, and stitched.

Yup ~ cherries ~ since that’s what Kirsch means in German 😊. I actually didn’t notice the cherries in the fabric until I began stitching. Too much fun!

Pinning and stitching the other side of the opening was a bit more challenging since these are skinny leg jeans. But I persevered.

And they turned out nicely.

Sommer loved them!

Happy birthday Sweetheart 😘.

There are many ways to mark quilting lines, etc. on our quilts. The problem is ease of removal. I decided to do a post about this topic when a friend of mine recently had an issue with a method of marking.

I know many quilters who like to use the Frixion™ pens to mark their quilts because the lines disappear with heat. Donna did that on her ThreadBender’s Achromatic challenge quilt, and ironed the marks away upon completion. When she brought her quilt for the “big reveal” at our February meeting she was shocked to discover that the markings on her quilt, which she’d left in the car on a cold winter’s day, had returned!

I took all the quilts home to photograph them after our meeting, and she asked me to please iron the marks away before photographing it. I did ~ and it worked great. Here’s her beautiful quilt.

Afterwards I decided to do a little test of my own. I placed her quilt outside in the cold for half an hour. And… the marks returned once again.

Fortunately they did iron off the second time too. I did an internet search and found a great article on this topic. Click here to read it. Thanks Donna, for letting me share your quilt’s story.

So, do you have a favorite marking tool? The one I use the most often, and share in my classes, is the very inexpensive “sliver of soap”.

It shows up on most fabrics, and always comes off easily with a little water. I simply spritz it with a spray bottle, or wet a small piece of muslin and rub gently. We save hotel soaps (they’re going to throw them out anyways), and use them instead of liquid soap so that I have slivers to use on my quilts and in my classes.

If the area to be marked is white or very light I will use a fabric marker. I made a quilt many years ago and marked the quilting design using a blue washout marker. The marks disappeared with just a spritz of water. It looked like they were gone but after hanging it for a period of time I was shocked to discover the color of the fabric behind the marks had faded from blue to light gray. I no longer have the quilt, but trust me – I haven’t done that again. I still use the blue marker occasionally, but I soak the entire quilt to remove the marker chemicals completely.

I must admit I like Crayola washable markers, but I always test first on the fabrics used in the quilt to be sure they will come out, and I completely soak the marks out after the quilting is done.

Whatever you use, mark lightly ~ only as heavy as you need to see it ~ so that the marks are easier to remove.

I’d love your feedback! Please comment with any recommendations you’d like to share.

Recently I’ve had a few different ideas for blog posts, but individually they didn’t have enough “meat” for a single post. So I decided to combine them. They don’t relate to each other, but I hope you’ll find them interesting.

First ~ a conclusion to a previous post. I made a quilt for a friend’s niece a few months back (to read the quilt’s story click here and then scroll to the end of the post). Isabelle finally received that quilt for her birthday, and here she is!

So sweet!

The next project was also made for a little one. Last year in Paducah I needed a project to sew on in our B&B. I found this fabric at a vendor and thought it would be fun as a One Block Wonder.

I cut it into stacks of triangles, started sewing, and brought them home half finished. While packing up for my last retreat I spotted them and decided it would be better to “get ‘r done” than to put them in the UFO bin. I brought along a blue fabric to put between the hexagons, but I didn’t have enough. So while on retreat I added the white triangles and green strips. I then played around until I liked the placement.

While adding the border I learned that a friend just had a baby boy. I decided this quilt was meant for Nathan, but wouldn’t it be a nicer gift if a book went with it? I found the perfect one online.

Now it’s ready for the baby shower.

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And lastly ~ how many of you have had a zipper pull come off a jacket? I have. The last time I attached a key ring because I still love the jacket and needed to make it work.

Recently Mike had the same problem. He replaced the missing pull with a key ring too, but then he did an internet search for other ideas. At the same time we’d brought home a bag of old keys from our cottage. One of the suggestions Mike found was to use an old key as a zipper pull!

So we did! The key Mike chose had the tag above tied to it (we don’t lock the outhouse any more 🤣). He liked the lion.

I chose the one with the half circle opening that says Master.

They’re a great conversation starter 😊. Sew ~ what do you do with orphan keys?

The definition of achromatic is: “without color”, and it’s also the theme of our latest “big” challenge at ThreadBenders:

“Quilts must be black, white and/or gray (no off-white or blue grays). Any technique, designs or embellishments may be used in the quilt center, as long as there is no color added.  Size 37″ square: center of quilt 32″ x 32″; visible 2″ solid white border all around; and 1/2″ binding in the same metallic gray used by all.”

The rules may seem a bit intense, but since the theme was so open to interpretation, we wanted the quilts to still have a cohesive look.

Have you ever made an achromatic quilt? I had a bunch of ideas, but one by one they didn’t turn into what I envisioned. The first was to try “thread sketching” a photo of the pier at our previous home. A 32″ square whole cloth in which the design is only done in thread sounded like fun. So I printed the photo in black and white, and made a sample pattern. Then I layered a small quilt sandwich and jumped in.

The sample on the right was as far as I got when I realized it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. So on to plan B. I took a photograph of a curvy road and decided to have “geese” fly down it using a photo altering program. After a while I knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do either.

As a side note some of you might be interested to know that I no longer use Photoshop™, but have changed to Affinity Photo™. It’s been a good change for me. Contact me if you’d like more information.

So now what? I’ve said before that artists are inspired by many things, and my faith in Jesus has been a big part of the inspiration for many of my quilts. So one night I simply prayed for an idea that would bring Him glory. In the morning I had a new direction based on Genesis 1:4 “And God divided the light from the darkness”. Why don’t I pray about it first ?!?

I love working with swirls and spirals, so I searched the internet for a positive/negative, black/white swirling image to give me the “bones” of the design. I deleted some portions, and added others until I was happy with it. Then I had the pattern enlarged to actual size, straight stitched the pattern through the black and white layers,

trimmed away what wasn’t needed, and spent two days at our December retreat satin stitching it all via Repliqué (on my new machine – I love it!).

It was looking good, but something was missing. I had another conversation with the Lord and thought about how sin is often referred to as darkness in the Bible, while Jesus is called the “Light of the World”. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Word God spoke to create everything. He was there at the beginning, and God’s plan was already in place to have Him suffer, die and rise again to pay the price for all who would believe. So I needed to add the cross. That was what was missing. I added it at top center, white on white (it’s subtle, but it’s there ~ and much easier to see in person). Then it was all framed with a gray flange, and the white border.

Once the quilt sandwich was pinned I experimented with different quilting designs, drawing them on with a sliver of soap on the dark fabric and an erasable fabric marker on the light.

The quilting step was great fun (I love spirals!). When that was completed I decided that the white border was so narrow it might not need any quilting. So I put on the binding and discovered I was wrong. The border did need quilting. Then it was finished!

Last week was the “big reveal” meeting where we bring in our challenge quilts, do a sort of “bed turning” in which we all get to see them one at a time, and then wait while our fellow ThreadBender ~ and amazing judge ~ Carol Butzke, juries them to select the eight that will be entered in the Ultimate Guild Challenge competition at the AQS show in Grand Rapids. There were thirteen quilts revealed and they were each wonderful! They are now posted to our ThreadBenders site. To see them you can click here! I’m so blessed to be a part of this talented group!

These quilts have been invited to be displayed at the Crazy Quliters Quilt Show in Mukwonago, WI on March 29-30. For all the details on that show click here.

 

This winter I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Florida for teaching and quilting fun. I’ve also been on two great retreats. One at Tall Pines with my Fabric-ator friends, and the other at Cattail with the Sisters of the Cloth. While on the Cattail retreat I talked the ladies into taking a road trip to Baraboo to visit Ardyth’s Sew and Vac (so I could pick up my new sewing machine tote 😊)

and then have lunch at Jen’s Alpine Cafe across the street. It was lovely!

Both stops were great ~ and there were some other fun shops in Baraboo as well. I’m so grateful for all these winter adventures with friends.

During this time I left Mike with a house that was anything but normal. As I mentioned in January, we had our kitchen torn out,

and almost all the hardwood floors on the main level refinished (meaning all the furniture was moved out 🤪).

The floors were finished in January, and then the cabinets were delayed. They finally were delivered the Tuesday after my last retreat ~ and John got to work.

He had them in by Friday, and we’re very pleased!

That same day we had the measuring done for the countertops, and that will only take 2 to 3 weeks (UGH!). In the meantime we’re looking at tile and light fixtures. So many decisions.

And what does this have to do with quilting??? Well, after trips to three different tile stores there was nothing I liked enough to use for the backsplash. The image at the top of this post is the old subway tile that was torn out (and very poorly done). Maybe we’d have to go simple like that again. We tried one more store and ~ I FOUND THE ONE!!! Wait until you see it! With the yellow walls and sage cabinets I didn’t want to add any more color (I know neutral is in, but I love color so much that I had to have sage cabinets ~ even if they’re not trendy 😊). The countertops will be white with a slight marbling in shades of gray and beige.

Drum roll please…

Do you see tone-on-tone texture? I’m leaning towards the rectangles. The entire backsplash will be a mix of all the different textures ~ sort of like a patchwork quilt!!! Here’s a close up:

I think it will quietly say “a quilter lives here”. And what about a grout with a light sage green tint to it? I’m so excited. Decision made ~ and Mike likes it too. So now we wait.