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

But on to my ‘river’. What is it?

Well… my rather artistic quilt group, the Knot Even Quilters (of which I am one of the lesser of the artistic, but I have fun) set up a challenge. We drew a river on a sheet of paper, cut it into 9 sections and each of us took a section. We then picked fabric that each of us would use in the river.

Rules?  Only rules were that the outer edges of the river itself had to stay the same size so that we can hang our rivers side-by-side and have them “flow” and to use some of the focal fabric.  Can you see below where the quilts on the sides of mine match up?  That was it!  It really ended up being a lot of fun. Here are a couple of photos that Kathy Schmidt took of my quilt since I haven’t broken out the camera to take my own:

River Challenge ("Just Before Dawn")

River challenge close up

It’s got a lot of everything in it — some piecing and lots of fusible/raw-edge applique. I even broke out my embellishing tool and hot glued little pearls and crystals. That was just too much fun! Just for something different, there one small area with couching because I didn’t like the way that raw edge was looking. I was most pleased with the river itself and the forground which is a pieced almost crazy quilt looking section. Quilting all done on the longarm.

Pop on over to Kathy S.’s blog and see the rest of the quilts.  They are all so cool and different. We are excited that they will be featured in the Quilt Patch’s fundraiser show in May (weekend of May 14th).  If you are in Tecumseh, you’ll have to stop by.  Its a fundraiser for the project to transform the old Carnegie Library building into a welcome center for the area (hopefully will house other non-profit groups and all kinds of wonderful things). I’ll post more on that when I get more information.

Happy Quilting

~Kathy

For example, I made a quilt a couple of years ago that was an attic window pattern. Nothing special per se, but I was using a landscape print so that it looked like you were looking out of a cabin into the woods. It reminded me of when I lived in California and we would travel up north for vacations into the redwoods. So the quilt became my “Hotel California”.  Every time I worked on that quilt and even when I made the label, the Eagles song ran through my head. It still does whenever I think of this quilt. When I made the label, I took a scan of a vintage redwood photograph and added my quilt name.

Hotel California

Hotel California label

This weekend I was finishing up my “Berry” pupster quilt and knew that it needed a name (well, a name other than just ‘his’ name), especially since he will be going in the Sauder quilt show.  And of course it came to me… “Love is a Warm Puppy”.  I’m so thrilled to be done. It was very hard to take that first stitch, but it came together so easily. Love my Statler!  Recommendations from fellow longarmers were to use a smaller needle (yes, I did break one!) and slow down.  But there were no problems going through the fusible nor did any of my piecing fall apart.  I’m very pleased and I hope you will stop by Sauder to see him in person.

Love is a Warm Puppy

That’s all for this week.  Happy (and warm) quilting everyone!

~Kathy

The latest two items to quilt were a couple of tree skirts.  I know that a lot of my longarm buddies don’t like to take in small projects, but I don’t mind. Because they are very quick to quilt up, it seems like a reasonable service to provide, plus they then bring me their biggies to quilt as well.

But back to the tree skirts.  I’ve quilted these before but on the others I just trimmed out the outside edges and let the customer cut their centers. It dawned on me this time that I could just as easily stitch the circle for them and then that gave me a target to do an inside trim. This way the customer has a guide plus they aren’t cutting across threads.  I also trimmed out the slit they left for skirt.

This turned out very well and I think I will continue this with future tree skirts. I did have to baste the customer’s opening up before quilting but because I’d trimmed the opening out, it was very easy to remove the basting stitches.

So my next couple of projects are also small (some table runners). Hopefully they will get done this weekend. Then on to some baby quilts (this seems to be the next “run” on a theme).

Happy Quilting

~Kathy

I’m extremely happy that my Thistle Garden quilt is not only completely done but is hanging on my dining room wall.  Its amazing how much pleasure one can get from just looking at the colors.  No its not perfect but I don’t have to worry about getting stung by bees or dealing with poison ivy.  This quilt and my “Oh Hummingbird” quilt (pics below) will be in the Ann Arbor Quilt Guild’s show this summer.  Hope you get a chance to stop by and see them as well as all the other fantastic quilts that will be on display.  The show will be held at Washtenaw Community College on July 31-August 1.

Oh Hummingbird is my tribute to the Baha’i Faith (of which I’ve been a part of since I was 21).  The quilt itself is a log cabin star from Quiltmaker Magazine. The center is an embroidered symbol from the Faith which I digitized.  I also digitized all the longarm quilting which were modified from a computer graphic I purchased on the internet.  The quilt label is a quote from the song “Oh Hummingbird” by Seals and Crofts which is one of their tributes to the Faith as well. Do you sense a theme?

More about labels… I am of two minds about labels.  One side of me absolutely loves them. I enjoy creating them and I offer this as a service to my customers (and many of them take me up on it).  I do think it valuable when giving away a quilt to show who created it and when.  On the other hand, if it is going to hang on my wall, I’m not quite sure I care if it has a label or not.  I know… archaeologists unearthing this treasure eons from now… oh, wait. That’s not going to happen. Okay, when my great great great grandchildren come across it… Hmmm. Not sure I will care at that point as I will not be on this plane.  Like I said, mixed feelings.  So now for the most part, my quilts have labels.  At the very least, since all my quilts end up with a “name”, it allows me to put that on it. That might be useful when I’m senile and forget.

Happy quilting all!  May the spammers leave you alone, may you never be senile and may you enjoy what’s left of spring.

~ Kathy

WINTER: First of all, I’m lucky that my sewing room is actually one of the warmest in the house, but I have friends who are relegated to the basement and so have heard quite a few tales lately of misery while quilting. If I were cold, I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I do however hate the fact that it gets dark so early. I really love to quilt when my upstairs room is filled with sunlight (and yes, warmth).  We’ve been very lucky the last few years that the snow and ice storms might knock our internet out, but not the power, so quilting can happen even if I can’t surf the net or read my email. Part of the problem is that I don’t seem to be able to stay up as late, but on the bright side, I’m not going to spend much time out on the snow-covered roads, so great time to be quilting!

SPRING: Not much bad I can say about spring. The days are longer and warmer. I guess the only problem is I have added guilt feelings because I know I should be out weeding, trimming trees, and all that. Heaven forbid if I actually decided to do another garden. Nope, I think I’ll keep my gardening to my quilts.

SUMMER: Having been raised on the west coast where summer meant days of sunshine, no rain, and warmth (not humid either), it seems like this season is an even tougher transition for me than winter and snow. First of all, I hate to be sticky and so its very hard for me to deal with objects designed to keep one warm. Secondly, there’s lightning. I’ve always had quite a decent respect for lightning, but after our house was hit a few years ago and subsequently having lost quite a few of our electronics (phones, computers, garage door opener, etc.), I’m quite fanatical about getting things turned off and unplugged. I also have become a weather aficionado and spend quite a bit of time tracking the weather, listening to weather reports, and even measuring things like rainfall*.  This of course means, that I will not have the longarm or my sewing machine plugged in if there’s even a threat of significant weather.  Therefore, if there are thunderstorms, I can’t quilt.  I guess I could take up hand quilting, but I figured out a long time ago that’s not for me.

FALL: Like spring, not too much other than the occassional thunderstorm to circumvent my sewing, except it seems like all the school activities are crammed into this one season. Not to mention just getting my daughter off to a good start with the new school year. And then there’s the reverse-spring activities such as putting the rose bushes to bed for the winter.

So, yes, the weather does seem to affect my quilting. It certainly affects my mood and there are times when the quilting uplifts me beyond whatever the weather seems to be doing. I guess the worst part is that it always seems like I want to quilt when I can’t (like during those thunderstorm times). Ah well, guess that’s when we can pull out a puzzle or family game, or even (gasp!) watch some television.

Happy Quilting (and weather watching!)

~Kathy

P.S. My friend Kathy’s book has been published. See the AQS blogspot for their review. Doesn’t this make you want to rush out an buy it? (No, I don’t get a commission if you decide to purchase it yourself, but I do want to give her a plug – I’m so thrilled that I actually know someone who’s such an accomplished quilter and author.)  I can’t wait until I get mine!

Rule Breaking Quilts by Kathryn Schmidt

* If you ever want to get involved with weather, there is a great national organization called CoCoRaHs. This group has folks in every state to submit precipitation data, snowfall amounts, etc. on a daily basis. I’ve been doing this for a few years and it is so fun and easy. If you look at the state map, one of the blue Michigan dots is me!

First a bit about me. I am the proud owner of Thread Bear Quilting & Embroidery located in Southeast Michigan. I provide longarm quilting services using my Statler Stitcher and also create customized quilt labels with machine embroidery. I hope you will stop by my website often to see previews of customer quilts, pricing, and information you can use if you want me to work on one of your quilts.  My motto is “I will treat your quilt as if it were my own!”

My current project is finishing up a quilt for which the top has been completed for several years. If you like it, its from a book called “Home for the Holidays” by Mulligan and Smith. You will find that my two favorite colors are purple and green so this quilt really called to me the minute I saw the pattern. This holiday week seemed the perfect time to get the quilt on my longarm and start quilting it. It helped that I’m between customers so don’t have guilt feelings about working on one of my own babies.

The quilting is going to include a lot of flowers and tons of thistles (I’m also somewhat crazy about them — goes with the green/purple thing I guess).  Mulligan/Smith call the pattern “Christmas Pickle”, but I call it my “garden quilt”.  It doesn’t seem very Christmas-y to me.

I look forward to sharing more ideas throughout the year.

Best of quilting in the new year!

–Kathy Koch