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

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

What projects are you working on to keep you warm?  Right now I’m resurrecting my pupster quilt (see my “Mosaic” BLOG from last January).  I’ve bit the proverbial bullet and am going to display him at the Sauder Village Quilt Fair. If you haven’t been there or put your quilts on display, you should consider it. This is a wonderful quilt show and this year is their 35th. No affiliation, its just one I like to go to.

Of course, since I’ve entered him in the show, this means I need to actually finish the quilting.  At least I have a deadline to work towards – have to get this done by early April! The main reason I haven’t finished him is that I figured if I quilt him like instructed (Barb Cey, I am not worthy!), with so many thread color changes, I would have to do it on my domestic machine.  Why? First of all because it seems somewhat silly to take the small spools of thread through the longarm, and secondly because it would just be a pain to change threads that often. Plus the needles I use on the longarm make a very large hole. I don’t think that would do very well with small fused pieces.  So I tried it on my Viking.  Unfortunately I was reminded very quickly why I got the longarm in the first place. There was no way I was going to do this on the domestic sewing machine.  So there he sat for most of last year.

I’ve now decided that the only way to get him finished is to quilt him on the longarm. This means that I need to use a smaller needle and I’m thinking of using either a varigated thread or maybe even a clear thread so that I don’t have many thread changes (this way I see probably 4 color changes — black, brown, white, red). I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

I also plan on entering two of my other quilts in the show (my hummingbird and my thistle garden).

On other fronts, I had a ton of fun for Christmas making a quilt for my eldest daughter.  She’s noted over the years that mom hasn’t made her a quilt, so this was the year (I won’t tell her about the one that’s in a box that I never seem to have time to work on that she might get someday). So this year I bought a bunch of the fabrics that she likes so much (Amy Butler, etc.) and made a lap quilt for her.  It was totally outside of my box design-wise but I was very pleased with it. I think she was too.

My to-do list also includes a project with my art quilt group. We decided to draw a river on paper and then cut it into sections.  Each of us is taking a section with the only commonality being the river part of the pattern and one fabric.  I’ve already seen two of the sections and I can’t wait until we have all of them done.  We are hoping to find a show or two to display them in — or maybe even a local gallery.

That’s all for now.  I’ll try to write more often!  Keep warm, stay safe, and have fun 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

Just life.

I did manage to finish my “Thistle Garden” quilt but haven’t had time to take photos.  I have not had time to work on my Puppy wallhanging either, but maybe this will be my next to-do.

I’ll tell you the one thing I’ve been doing that is absolutly adicting however.  My once-a-month quilt group (Knot Even Quilters) introduced me to Zentangles.  This is so much fun!  I have been creating all kinds of wonderful little pictures. What are they? They are ways to make little pictures using repetitive patterns. They are very creative and if you purchase a small sketch book, they are very portable.

These are a few of my favorite creations (there must be something deeply psychological about these — I’ve noticed that almost every one of mine has a “quilt” embedded somewhere):

Now the next step is to try to make a quilt from one of these.  If any of you have done that, can you please share?

Happy Quilting (or Zentangling!)

~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!

The other thing I realized is that the up and coming pattern makers (especially the more avant garde or crafty ones) also are these same young people who didn’t learn how to sew in a classroom and thus do not know how to explain how to execute certain sewing related terms or tasks.  Or maybe they just don’t have good proof-readers.

And the third thing (I know… more than a “couple”) I learned is that “everything” really isn’t on the internet.

The reason all these realizations came about was that my eldest was making a tote. The tote’s instructions told her to “ease” two pieces together. But with little other instruction or illustrations, my daughter was at a loss.  I thought for sure that I’d be able to find some instruction somewhere on the internet for her.  I found a couple of things, but they were fairly vague as well.  I looked in a few of the books I have around to see if they had a description that would help a beginner. Nope. So I wrote one for her (see my little training guide in the TIPS column).  I also decided to bid on an eBay 1940′s sewing instruction book in case that has something.  It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m hoping it will help for future efforts.  Of course while I was writing my own instruction and having fun bidding, my daughter figured it out on her own (she’s rather clever that way). But how frustrating that must have been for her.

And it wasn’t just that pattern she was working on. I’ve made a few of these designer totes myself and noticed the same thing.  Either the instructions are vague (perhaps because the designer herself doesn’t really know how to explain it) or they have you do something in such a convoluted way that you do five steps that could have taken two. Or in some cases they have you purchase the wrong amount of yardage (for some odd reason usually way more than you need) or the wrong supplies.

For example, a few years ago I decided to make a cool fabric computer case. I bought the yardage per the pattern instructions, got to cutting things out and it was actually about double the amount of fabric needed.  My suspicion is that they gave the amount for outside and lining in the outside measurement and then also told you to buy lining material.  It ended up being quite expensive.  Of course we can never have too much fabric, so not too terrible, but still… Another thing wrong with this computer case pattern was the zipper.  They had me buy a certain length sports zipper (think “thick plastic”). I hunted all over for the length they required in the color I needed. It took a long time and visits to quite a few stores before I finally found one. Only to discover when I started making the thing that their instructions take into account that the zipper they have you purchase is too long and you have to sew over the end of it to make it work.  Had I know this beforehand I would have just purchased the correct length.  In fact the first store I went in actually had the correct length but I figured it would be too short. Believe me, sewing over a zipper is not something I want to do with my sewing machine, but I made it work.  Fortunately because I have been doing this sort of thing since the age of 12, I can work around the pattern oddities.  I just really feel sorry for the beginner’s out there who are working without a net so to speak.

Of course there’s not much that can be done about this. I don’t think the school’s will bring back home ec classes.  I wish my daughter had been interested in sewing when she lived at home and I could have done a bit of “home schooling”, but I guess I can be happy that she is learning on her own what I consider an essential skill. Plus she knows that she can ask me for help, and unlike my mom, I don’t grab it away and do it for her. It makes me proud that each project she does looks wonderful.

Happy Quilting and Sewing!

~Kathy