ThreadBear

It’s not her fault, but since I’m feeling rather shamed by my quilting buddy who manages to blog daily (Kathy Schmidt of Quirks, Ltd), I have decided to not only resurrect my quilt blog, but also to figure out how the heck to get it to show up in FB. If I did it right, this post should magically appear (but then again, it might not, at which point no one will have a clue).

I hope to kick myself into gear and try to get something blogged at least once a week. I figure I’m just not going to have enough of interest to say every day — but 6 months is probably too long of a dry spell. Since my business really is that of adding the finishing quilt touches to my customer’s quilts, I plan on showcasing a customer quilt in each posting. I’ll discuss things like decisions made on how to quilt them, what features the quilt has that make it unique, what issues can be avoided if you have me work on one of your quilts, and maybe even some things on trends in the industry or just in my quilting life.

For this posting, however, let me talk about my personal quilting and what I’m doing. My most recent flurry of activity has been to somehow get three quilts ready for the Sauder Quilt Show in May. Plenty of time, right?  (Ack!)  I figure I’ll show one of my older, pre-longarm quilts that I’m pretty proud of (see photo of my Garden Twist), so that takes care of one.  But that still leaves two more new creations to come up with.  Nothing like working under pressure.

A preview of my Garden Twist quilt

My inspiration for the first of the two new quilts is… (believe it or not) the Detroit Auto Show last month. I took a photo of a vintage Mercedes and if I can get it from head to fabric, I think it will be pretty cool. My biggest challenge was finding enough batiks in gray shades that would give me the variation I wanted.  I found tons of medium tones, but very little in light. I won’t spoil the outcome too much right now, but here is the car.   I’ll give you a hint, I’m not going to put the entire car on the quilt.

Vintage Mercedes NAIAS 2012

Tomorrow will find me off hunting up some more Wonder Under which will then get the applique part accomplished. Then to quilt and I hope to add some beads which (again thanks to Kathy) I have added to my obsession list.

Following that, I need to come up with my third quilt for the show. I’m thinking it probably will be my newest pup, but I’m not really sure yet. Plenty of time! (Did I say “Ack!”???)

Oh, and if you really want to see a lot of information on very artistic quilting, pop on over to the Quirks site in my blogroll. The “other” Kathy is pretty awesome.

Happy Quilting all.  Keep safe and warm where ever you are.

~Kathy

I joke a lot with friends and customers about how quilting is a cult, but think about it….

First of all, a cult is typically defined as a group of worship or religion. I can’t tell you how many times I have railed at the quilting “goddess” because my seams aren’t lining up or the pattern description just isn’t making sense. Or prayed that I can find that last bit of fabric to make that special quilt.

There is also the enthusiasm level. Anytime you get two quilters together, quilting is bound to creep into the conversation: “What are you working on now?”, “Done anything exciting or new?”, “Found any new, cool fabric or tools?” and so on. While our non-cult (I mean quilt) friends and family stand by us with dazed looks and wonder when they need to stage the intervention.

Next, in a definition of a cult, you definitely have the concept of bringing other lost souls into the fold.  Do you even stop to think when you see a poor lost “non-quilter” and how you must share with them your enthusiasm and love for this cult (oops I mean art of course).  And we mustn’t scare them away, so we are gentle and kind and show them how all they need to do is buy this small bit of fabric and we’ll show them how easy it is. Oh no, you don’t have to be like those quilters with yards and yards of fabric in their stash (20 bins of fabric later….).

Certainly we have our charismatic leaders.  Who doesn’t get enthralled with their favorite quilting guru (aka. Alex Anderson, Ricky Timms, etc.)?  Who wouldn’t stand in line to get their special autograph or put their name on Amazon’s waiting list for their lastest and greatest new book?

And dare I add in the money we end up giving to our cult?  The money we don’t even think of spending for… (ooooh, look more fabric!  I need that color!).

Sorry, got side-tracked.

Cults also have their own language, symbols, terminologies if you will.  Do I need to even expound on this? Think: “frogging” (rippit – ripping out seams), longarm, SID (stitch-in-the-ditch) and so on.

I just had a conversation with a customer today and she explained how soothing just touching fabric is.  True Nirvana!

So yes. I guess I do belong to a cult. I hope no one ever un-brainwashes me. I truly think finding this love of the art that is as my husband says, “cutting little pieces of fabric up and sewing them back together”, has truly made me a better and happier person.

Hope I can say the same for you!

Happy Quilting!

~Kathy