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Quilting in Alaska

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What a wonderful adventure! Quiltina and I met Evelyn at the Madison airport on a Tuesday afternoon and we arrived in Anchorage after 10pm (it was still light out!). Evelyn’s sister, Hazel, met us there and drove us to her home in Soldatna – 3 hours away. Needless to say, it was a late night :-).
 Hazel and Eddie generously opened their beautiful cabin in the woods to us and made me feel like part of the family.  

My residence was in an “apartment” they’ve built over the garage which consisted of my bedroom, bath and the living room which is Hazel’s quilting studio. The three of us actually spent many happy hours there stitching :-). 

During the next 12 days we shared fun, fellowship, good food, beautiful sites and a lot of quilt related activities. It is so wonderful to visit a new area with friends who live there. 

I had the blessed opportunity to teach 4 different classes. My Mariner’s Compass class, held for a quilting group which meets at a church in Soldatna, went so well that they invited me back the following week to teach Free Motion Quilting. 

I taught 2 Replique classes. One at a friendly quilt shop in Seward called Sew ‘n Bee Cozy. A lovely shop and a great class!

The other Replique class was taught at the Eagle’s Roost Lodge. The owners, Ken and Patty, even treated us to a boat ride up the Kenai River. What fun!

Thanks to everyone who made these classes possible and to the students – who were not only fun, but taught me a lot.

I’m finally unpacked, so that I can begin to repack for 3 days of teaching at Nancy’s Notions Quilting Expo in Madison, WI. I hope to see many of you there!

PS I was able to spend 3 days at the end of the trip visiting my grandchildren in Washington. Hanna, Willy and I had so much fun that I couldn’t resist this final picture of our day at a children’s museum. What a blessing!

On the Road Again

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This Tuesday Quiltina and I will be flying to Alaska with my dear friend Evelyn Link. Her sister, Hazel Robinson, has arranged for me to teach a few classes there. What a blessing these 2 quilters are to me! Hazel has graciously invited us to stay with her for almost 2 weeks. There’ll be time for sightseeing, stitching, giggling and really getting to know each other. What a delightful opportunity. I’m very excited :-). 

So, I’ll be unable to blog, but I’m hoping to come up with some good topics to share when I return.

By the way, if you’re wondering who Quiltina is I’d be happy to introduce her. You may have heard about “Flat Stanley”. He’s a cardboard cut out schoolkids take/send all over and then write about his adventures. Well, Wendy Rieves and I lead quilting tours in the US and Europe. Prior to our last trip I mentioned to Wendy that we needed a quilterly version of Flat Stanley to accompany us on our travels and her fruitful imagination created Quiltina:

Here we are beneath an olive tree in the South of France! This fall Quiltina will be joining us in Ireland. God is so good!

Sewing On a Mountain II

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Years ago I wanted to quilt a king sized quilt and I didn’t have a large sewing table so I improvised. This works quite well when you only need to set it up occassionally. I used a portable banquet table, a card table and a tv tray. The 2 tables are placed in an “L” with the tv tray in the inside corner. Place the machine on the tv tray with enough magazines under it to bring the bed level with the tables. Voila! It’s that easy!

Beth G shared a website for another slick way to create an inexpensive and  more permanent arrangement at: http://www.squidoo.com/sewingtable. Thanks Beth!

I hope many of you found this helpful!

I’d like to squeeze  in one last note about my first Open Lab class this semester at Waukesha County Technical College. It’s a four week class that was scheduled to begin on September 9th. I’ll be teaching at Nancy’s Notions Quilting Expo in Madison, WI on that day and so the class has been changed and will begin on September 2nd. We’ll skip the 9th and continue the remaining 3 weeks after that. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do sew soon :-)!

Sewing On a Mountain

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No, I’m not talking about stitching at your cabin in the woods, but a way to make quilting easier :-). My definition of “sewing on a mountain” is when your machine is perched atop a desk or table. This way of quilting is bad for many reasons:

First – its too high, so you need to either raise your chair (which, if you’re vertically challenged, makes it difficult to reach the foot pedal) or just grin and bear it. Ergonomically this is hard on your body. The desired position when machine quilting, is to have the bed of the machine at elbow level so that when your arms are bent at a right angle your forearms are parallel with the work surface.

Second – the flat, usable portion of your machine is small. This makes it hard to piece and even more difficult to quilt.

Third – when working on a larger quilt you are constantly fighting the weight of the quilt as it falls off the machine bed. Plus, it’s easy to get safety pins hooked on the corners of the machine bed when machine quilting.

So, what to do?

Often I’m told that an extension table that fits around the machine is the answer. These do improve conditions when piecing, but many of the same problems persist when machine quilting a larger quilt because there is still an edge where the weight of the quilt drops off and pins can get caught.

A sewing cabinet or custom made table is the ideal option. If you don’t have one, I’m giving you permission to get one, and soon! I own a Tracey’s Table. Mike Spangler, the son of my dear friend Diane, makes them. He is located in Wisconsin, but he sells his cabinets and tables throughout the US. I highly recommend them. The quality is excellent and the price reasonable!

If a table is out of the question at this time, I have some rather clever suggestions to share (if I do say so myself), but I think I’ll save them for my Thursday post. Stay tuned :-)!

The Best II

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Welcome to a little corner of my world!

Just of some of my favorite notions.

I enjoyed reading about yours. I own many of the ones recommended, but there were a few I don’t have and I’m anxious to try. Several of them were up there with my choice for favorites. If we were going for most used – I’d have to agree with Kathleen’s suggestion of the seam ripper.

Since I had to pick just one, I’ve chosen my Machingers™.

They are lightweight, breathable machine quilting gloves and I find they really do help to move the quilt more easily. This reduces body stress and makes free motion quilting more fun.

The Best

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As quilters, we all have loads of tools and notions. I can’t resist having the latest gadget any more than you can and I’d hate to be missing out on owning your favorite :-). Therefore my topic of the week is more like a question of the week: What’s the best quilting tool you’ve bought for under $10?

After pondering this a while, I found it difficult to narrow it down to the best quilting notion. There are so many! However, my favorite sewing notion came to me quickly:

This “bodkin” is easily available, inexpensive and the best one I’ve found for turning hanging sleeves right side out or filling casings with ties or elastic. The end with teeth grabs whatever you’re trying to move and the ring holds the bite tight. I’ve tried many a bodkin and this one’s a keeper.

I’ll save my quilting favorite for Thursday. Please share the one tool you can’t live without :-)!

Inspiration Time II

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Thanks to all who shared their inspirations. It just proves that there’s inspiration all around us. Sometimes it hits us right between the eyes and other times we have to look for it … and what better place to look than in a class? I like to encourage quilters to take classes in techniques that are outside their comfortable box so they can learn and grow. You never know what untried technique or pattern will become a new and exciting direction for you. On that note, my tech school classes will be starting up again in the Fall. If anything sounds interesting, I hope you’ll sign up and see where it takes you :-).

I teach on Monday afternoons from 12:30 – 3:30 at Madison Area Technical College, Watertown Campus. The quilting classes are held in the old gift shop at Bethesda.

The first 6 Mondays of this semester my 2 project workshop will include my 2 most popular classes: Mariner’s Compass Simplified and Replique.

We’ll spend 3 weeks drafting a traditional Mariner’s Compass block using a pencil, a ruler and paper folding techniques. Then the compass will be foundation pieced. It’s so simple anyone can do it!

The second 3 weeks you’ll have the opportunity to recreate a picture of your home in fabric using the Replique technique from my first book. We stitch directly on an enlarged photograph, so there are no templates, fusibles or degree in art required :-). Everyone will begin by making the little sample house on top in the picture above and then move on to their home once they know how its done.

The second 6 weeks in Watertown I teach a class I call Quilting: Open Lab. In this class students work on any project of their choosing and I’m a resource person to help with problems and encourage finishing! I also demonstrate a helpful technique each week.

At Waukesh County Technical College I teach three 4 week long Open Labs on Thursday afternoon.  I also teach a number of 1 day workshops on a variety of projects. This semester they will include:

Spinwheels – Friday, September 17, 9:00 – 2:30

Mini Lanscapes – Friday, October 8, 9:00 – 2:30

Doggie Stockings – Friday, November 12, 9:00 – 2:30

Please comment if you have any questions on how to sign up. I hope to see some of you this Fall!

PS Just click on the names of the schools above to be linked to the registration page on their websites.

Inspiration Time

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Quilters can be inspired by so many different things – nature, books, patterns and even blogs. The possibilities are just about limitless. Art quilters have many different sources of inspiration. Much of my fiber art is inspired by my relationship with Jesus. Last year the quilt I made for the Milwaukee Art Quilter’s challenge: “Portals” was an example of my faith being the inspiration for a quilt.

It is entitled “The Narrow Gate” and represents a portal to heaven through the cross. The leaves on the tree are printed with Scripture verses explaining this amazing gift. Portals won first place in the Ultimate Guild Challenge at the AQS show in Knoxville last year!

What inspires you? I believe many of you are often inspired by taking classes because that’s how we met. On Thursday I’ll touch on some of the exciting, new classes I’ve planned for the Fall. Until then I’d enjoy hearing about your inspirations! Please click on “comment” and share.