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

As a sidebar, one of my favorite children’s stories is “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch.  What brings this to mind is one of the repeating phrases in this book about a baby growing up: “And he grew and he grew and he grew.” So this special quilt is also the story of the quilt that grew.

Of course the reason I was thrilled to do the binding was more than just feeling like I was rescuing it from the UFO pile and getting it into Linda’s brother’s hands (for whom it was made). Rather I loved the feeling of totally completing the project and bringing it full circle. I guess you could say I helped this quilt grow up and enter its new life in her brother’s home. Okay, rather sappy, but still….

As I mentioned, this is a special quilt for me. Should you be getting ready to begin your own longarm quilting business, my recommendation to you is find a friend with a quilt, especially one with a few challenges and one that will help ease your fears about taking that first scary step and working on someone else’s project.

I may be getting the details wrong, but the story goes something like this:  Linda got the Laurel Burch panel from the fabric line called “Mythical Horses“. She decided to make a small lap quilt or wallhanging for her brother and sister-in-law who loved horses. Well, she got the top made and her brother asked if she couldn’t make it a bit bigger. So she added a border and made into a small couch quilt. But her brother said, oh no, we really want to put it on our bed, can’t you make it bed size?  So…. 9 borders later, Linda finished the quilt and I was just getting ready to take my first “real” customer.  At which point, Linda handed the quilt to me and said, “Take it, do what you want with it, I absolutely hate this quilt.” The only design suggestion she had was if I had some horses I could add somewhere (yes, I did — they are in the outer border). Now, the quilt is lovely and she was so creative with her many borders, I’m sure the hate was more because it grew beyond what she’d envisioned when she started.  Such are many things in life, eh?

The reason I suggest you find a similar friend or project is that this quilt had absolutely every type of quilting experience for me to test my fledgling skills on.  I was petrified at the possibility of ruining a customer’s quilt and yet Linda took that fear away, because yes, she kept reassuing me that she really did hate this quilt and there was nothing that I could do that would do anything but improve it.

So here are the skills this quilt allowed me to learn:

• I did mention nine (9) borders right?
• The center panel was free-motion around all the motifs and between them (see the photos below — all the horses are outlined and free motion inside)
• The backing was pieced with strips down the middle, so I had to be sure to center it on the frame
• Because she gave me full rein, so to speak, I was able to be creative with all the border designs and match them to the feel of Greece or Egypt
• One of her border styles was a raised piece so I needed to do some straight top stitching to be sure it was held down
• I did stitch-in-the-ditch around many of the borders and the center panel
• Sorry to say with all those borders, this was not a very square quilt, so I had to figure out how to deal with that, especially once I got to the bottom
• I had to use two different thread colors on the top (a sage-y green for the center and rust elsewhere) with rust in the bobbin — thus dealing with tension issues and making sure I didn’t have too much pin-dotting
• It has several small and medium cornerstones and other blocks which needed stand-alone designs as well

Of course I probably would do things entirely different were I to do this quilt now. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t turn out so nice.

So here are some shots of the quilt. I think you’ll agree, Linda did an awesome job and I’m sure her brother and sister-in-law will enjoy this quilt for many years to come.

Happy quilting, and may all your “babies” grow and grow and grow into everything you want them to be.

~ Kathy

This is also a good time for me to jump in and remind everyone to support their local quilt shop. Yes, I succumb occasionally to shopping online — its good to support those folks too.  But too many neighborhood quilt stores are being hit awfully hard by the economy.  And where would we be if we couldn’t compare fabrics side-by-side or worst, not be able to feel their texture or see their quality.  Plus you get to meet a bunch of really great people and have the opportunity in most cases to get classes you’d never see anywhere else.

So back to my local shop.  It happens to be the Quilt Patch in Tecumseh and the class I took was called “Raw Edge Mosaic”. The instructor is Barb Cey and she makes the most awesome lifelike wallhangings. She has a couple of techniques. One is her landscape class.  I started to try to learn that but while I loved her art, I just didn’t fall in love with the process (I think I’m a little too analytical for it or something).  Her animals though — wow! Here’s one of hers:

Isn’t he just way too cute?  She also has started selling some of her patterns at the Quilt Patch.  You can call them for more information:  517-423-0043. Barb tells me she will someday have her own website but until then call the shop and they’ll help you. And yes, this guy is one of the patterns she sells!

And here’s what I’m working on.  This isn’t what Barb had for the class project (I admit, I’m a bit of a rogue), but it’s her technique 100%.  I couldn’t have even attempted this on my own.  This is my shih tzu, Berry. To create the “pattern” I took a photograph of him, pulled it into Photoshop Elements, posterized the photo to get better areas to outline and then took the pencil tool and drew in a lined pattern.   I think the pattern looks a lot like what you see when you get a paint-by-number, don’t you?

I printed the pattern out to be about 21″ x 27″ and then got to have lots of fun with fusible and batiks.

This is what I’ve got so far. I think it looks like him, don’t you? I still need to do the free-motion quilting but that is what Barb is going to cover on Tuesday.  Doesn’t this just make you want to take her class too?

Happy Quilting!

~Kathy

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