Working away ...

I’ve been working away at several projects during the last month, in between trips to Southern Illinois. My mother has been battling pneumonia since February and has been in and out of hospitals and a nursing home. She is getting good care, but she smoked for years and has chronic pulmonary disease, so her prognosis is not good. In between trips to see her, I made her this appliqued and quilted pillow:

My sister Joan and I told her that the pillow just “pulls the whole room together,” and we had a good laugh over that one. Not much you can do to make a hospital room more cheerful, but I tried with this pillow. She really liked it, almost as much as the stuffed dachshund Joan gave her! Mom loves dogs, in particular the three doxies owned by my sister Maribeth, and she misses them.

I also finished the Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild Winter Challenge: Women and Peace. The challenge was to use a bright orange batik fabric and the peace symbol in a quilt 40-inches square or smaller. I started with the border, a rainbow of 2½-inch strips I had sewn together for another (failed) project:

I cross-cut the strips to make squares, arranging them in a stair-step pattern. Then I appliqued a 20-inch block for the center. I wanted a sort-of hippie look—peace and love and all that. Patterns for the tree, birds, sun, and peace sign came from www.weefolkart.com (free). I was going to draw all this, but I knew I would run out of time. I searched for a peace sign pattern, and up popped Wee Folk Art. Their art has just the right whimsical look I was looking for, so why reinvent the wheel? Here is the finished quilt:

I call it “Peace, Love, and Sunshine.” I am happy with the result, and I won 2^nd place in the challenge. The quilt has been on display at a local shop this past month.

I also made a quilted computer case for my daughter by strip piecing various upholstery fabrics. I started with a pattern, but soon abandoned it and did my own thing:

Finally, I finished Part 2 of American Quilter Magazine’s latest Mystery Quilt, called Rainbow Rotini. Below are the 12 blocks from Part 2. Now I put it away and wait for the final installment in the July issue of the magazine.

Best news ever!

My small wall quilt, Waterwheels III, has been accepted for entry in the American Quilter’s Society Show & Contest in Paducah, Kentucky, in April! (Scroll down to see a full picture in my post from Jan. 28.) I am very excited about it, especially since I entered the quilt sort of at the last minute. I originally planned to enter a larger quilt in the same pattern, but it wasn’t finished. So I submitted Waterwheels III instead. Here is a different close-up of the quilt:

Making coasters

I’ve been working on multiple projects this month, including these clever coasters. I made sets of six and sent them off to my daughters for Valentine’s Day.

Here’s how to make them: For each coaster, you need two 5-inch squares of fabric, one 5-inch square of batting, and four additional smaller squares, which can measure 4 or 4½ inches. In the example below, I used 4½ -inch squares. Fold these 4 smaller squares in half on the diagonal and iron the crease. Layer your 5-inch squares with the batting in the middle, shown below at bottom right.

Place the folded squares (now triangles) on top of your 5-inch squares as shown below, matching up the corners and tucking the end of the fourth triangle under the first one.

At this point, I put in a few pins because the layers tend to shift while sewing. I also use a stylus to hold down the layers as I sew around the outer edge, pivoting at the corners. I sew 1/4-inch away from the edge.

The result is shown below, on the left. Trim the corners, shown on the right.

Turn the triangles to the other side of the coaster, gently poking the corners out with a point turner. I have a fancy point turner (the one marketed by Alex Anderson), but I like my simple bamboo one the best. Below you can see the coaster before pressing (on the left) and after (on the right).

There is a small opening in the top of the coaster, which you can leave like that or sew closed with decorative stitches. The larger the triangles, the smaller the opening. In the batik examples in the above pictures, I used 4½-inch squares to make the triangles, which leaves a very small hole in the center. Don’t use squares any bigger than this because you will be sewing too many layers into the corners and the coasters will be impossible to turn. In the examples below, I used 4-inch squares for the triangles. This creates a slightly bigger hole in the center, which I closed with a buttonhole stitch.

That’s it! You can come up with all sorts of interesting color combinations or match these to your décor. It’s a great way to use up scraps of batting or leftover squares from charm packs.

Two projects--finished!

Hurray! I finished two projects I’ve had going for some time—a great feeling, since I work on multiple projects at once and frequently put them aside if I get bored or reach a design problem I need to think about for a while. That means I have a stash of projects in various stages of completion. It doesn’t really bother me; I think I even like having unfinished work I can pick up when the mood strikes.

I finished these placemats for my daughter Libby. I bought the fabric in Colorado last summer and immediately cut out 2-, 4-, and 6-inch squares, the simplest of shapes. I looked at placemat patterns, but decided that if I made all of them the same, I would get bored and have another unfinished project on my hands! Instead, I experimented with different arrangements of the squares in each placemat. I also made half-square triangles from the 4-inch squares and arranged them in pinwheels, and I used 1-inch filler strips. These are machine quilted with a walking foot.

I had put these placemats aside after they were pieced but before they were quilted because of weddings, then Christmas, the urgency of other projects, and you know how it goes.  Next I plan to make matching coasters, so look for a little package in the mail from me, Libby!

After TWO YEARS of off-and-on hand quilting, I finished this quilt, Water Wheels III. These are leftover pieces from a larger Water Wheels quilt, as yet unquilted. Yes, this is the third in a series, and I can say that I have curved piecing down pat.

Batiks have a firmer hand—they are a little stiffer, more tightly woven—than other cottons, and these were no exception. So someone STOP ME before I ever attempt to hand quilt another batik project. This small wall quilt is only 40 x 40 inches. Weirdly, I added the final border with that tiny strip of yellow AFTER the rest of the quilt was finished. (Nothing like changing the design of your quilt after it’s done!) Amazingly, this quilt turned out perfectly flat. Here is a close-up of the quilting.

What did I do after finishing these two projects? I created more projects, of course. My quilt guild has a Christmas group, and I joined it because I want motivation this year to make 4 Christmas tree skirts—one for each of my 3 daughters and one for myself. I bought fabric at after-Christmas sales and cut out pieces for all 4 of the skirts, which took almost two days. Now I have a nice backlog of Christmas projects I can pull out when the mood strikes me. I love my unfinished projects!

New sewing machine

My sewing machine broke before Christmas. I pressed the backstitch button, heard a pop and a clunk, and could only go forward after that. I managed to finish the two wall hangings I donated to a Christmas fund-raiser, but then I gave it up and put the machine in my car. I drove 80 miles over two-lane roads to the nearest Bernina dealership, Top Stitch Sewing Service near Barnett, Missouri, which is near Versailles, which is near Jefferson City. (Yes, it's rather remote. I saw a bald eagle on the way.) Although Timothy (the owner) and his staff are as nice as they can be, I am always overwhelmed when I walk in. So many sewing machines! So much thread! So many notions!

$200 later, I came out with 6 spools of thread, Diane Gaudynski's book, "Guide to Machine Quilting," and a Daylight floor lamp I've been wanting. I wandered around and LOOKED at the new machines, but why, oh why didn't I try out any of them? I knew I would be in the market for a new machine this year--it's well past time. But I just looked. Some of those machines are SO intimidating. I wasn’t really sure I wanted a computer that sews, or if I could handle one.

Back home, I put my last-minute Christmas presents on hold and actually had to vacuum my sewing room! I also put up this beautiful pegboard system behind the door to hold my rulers and various other items.

When I went back to Top Stitch to pick up my repaired machine, I was determined to be brave and try out a new “sewing computer.” Well, I bought one—a Bernina Artista 640. It happened that fast. Timothy is a good salesman—the best. “If you’re thinking about a new machine in the next year, you should buy it now, because Bernina has no-interest financing until Dec. 31….” That did it.

I said good-bye to my old Bernina 1230, which I had for 22 years. After Christmas, I sent it off to Colorado with my daughter. It has a lot of happy sewing left in it. I ordered a new table insert for my sewing cabinet, but it didn’t fit properly and will have to be sent back. I’m tired of losing pieces and pins down the empty hole. But that hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for this new sewing machine. It has features I never knew I needed, but that I LOVE—it cuts the thread at the end of a line of sewing, and it has a self-threading feature. I just used the pre-set button sew-on program—easy as pie. I’ve read the entire manual except for the embroidery part and am ready for my weekly lessons back at Top Stitch (the lessons come with the machine).


I also bought a new pair of hiking boots, and I've been using them, too. Here I am with my daughter's pups at Mill Creek Recreation Area.

And a self-portrait at Paddy Creek Wilderness. It's a long way down to the river off that big rock in the background!

Sewing away ...

I let out the cat and couldn’t go back to sleep. There’s nothing like a little insomnia to make me sit still long enough to update my blog. Now that I take time to think about it, I sure have been a busy woman! This fall, after my daughter’s wedding, I put on a quilt show, visited Indianapolis with my daughter and granddaughter, helped my sister with another wedding, celebrated Thanksgiving, and finished my Christmas shopping early. And I’ve been sewing—a lot.

After the quilt show, I picked up my daughter and granddaughter in Tennessee, and we hit the road to visit dear friend Ellen in Indianapolis. Ellen likes red, and this is the quilt I made for her, called “Red Potpourri”:

It is a version of Kaffe Fassett’s Yellow Potpourri quilt from his book Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts. Very simple to construct—3-, 6-, and 9-inch squares. Since I can never leave well enough alone, I added random circles and used my machine’s decorative stitches on the edges:

 I love red, too, in combination with almost any other color. Check out these beautiful primary colors of the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum:

What a place! Go there, even if you don’t have a child with you. The Barbie exhibit was a trip down Memory Lane!

My family celebrated our 4^th and final wedding of the year in Marion, Illinois, last month. I made a 9-patch quilt for my niece and her new husband. Here it is, on the bed in the hotel room, finished just in time for a last-minute photograph:

I made some cute little wall hangings for the church bazaar, something called “He Was Born in a Manger,” and a one-patch quilt with appliqued flowers:

I finished almost all my Christmas shopping early—via the Internet—and I’ve even wrapped most of it. I have more time to sew! I was working on Christmas quilts last week when my sewing machine broke. I heard a pop and a clunk, and then there was no more reverse. It’s in the shop, 80 miles away, and I miss it badly!

2-year Liversary!

My family is celebrating today--the 2nd anniversary of my daughter Genevieve's liver transplant, or her "liversary," as she calls it. Read what she has to say about it on her blog:
http://pscgenevieve.blogspot.com/2011/11/some-sappy-crap.html

It's been a long haul. We are forever grateful to the family of the organ donor, whoever, wherever you are.

Here's Genevieve, trying on a hat before my niece's wedding last week:

Ranch Wedding

Well, we had a ranch wedding! Sept. 17—3 weeks ago already. I am very grateful for these first two pictures, taken by my sister-in-law, Anne B, and I can hardly wait for the professional photos to be ready. My daughter Libby, the beautiful bride:

Libby and Clayton with my husband and me:

The inside of the honeymoon tipi:

The wedding was held at my sister’s ranch near Florence, Colorado. My sister set up an authentic tipi and decorated it with her quilts and antiques. The happy couple spent the night outside on the lawn, in the tipi, with Kitten Carson, the cat who staked it out as his own. I didn't catch Kitten in this photo, but he made himself comfortable on the bed. 

This is a quilt blog, after all, so here is the quilt that my friend Barb made for Libby and Clayton. I love it, I love it! She calls it Tucson Sunset:

A VERY good time was had by all! I slept for a week after I got home—no kidding—and stayed in my pajamas until noon every morning.

Now on to the next thing—the BIG quilt show that I’m chairing this weekend. If you are reading this and you are near Rolla, come see it at Rolla Middle School, Saturday 9-5, Sunday noon-5. It’s been three years since the Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild had a show, so we have lots of lovely quilts for you to see. I got a new camera this week, and I’ll be trying it out.

Colorado quilts

Three of my wall quilts, now living in Colorado with my sister:

I was in Colorado for three full weeks. It seems like I slept for a week after I got home, and now I'm going back, this time for my daughter's wedding. Hurray! Libby and Clayton, the lovely couple, with their dog, Moose:

Blue person, hand quilter

Eleven hours from the door of my home in Rolla, Missouri, to our hotel in Snowmass Village, Colorado—tiring, especially for my husband, who did the driving legs from home to Lambert Airport in St. Louis, then Denver to Snowmass. The views along I-70 in Colorado are spectacular, but the traffic is definitely not! Anyway, I’m finally here for a week with my walking shoes and hand sewing projects. First, the view from our hotel room balcony:

Yes, we did pay a little extra to be on the mountainside of the hotel, but I don’t come to Colorado that often, so who wants to look out of the window at a parking lot? We ate at a delicious Italian restaurant, Il Poggio, last night. I had very tender veal with gnocchi and Jim had duck. The pizzas there looked good, too, and I may go back for lunch one day. A good night’s sleep was a lot harder to come by than a good meal, though. The altitude here is 8,000 feet, and I tossed and turned for hours. My task today is to walk around and try to acclimate. I know that really getting used to the altitude takes months, but I have to try, and I want to explore the village.

When I need a break from walking at 8,000 feet (and I will), I will be quilting. I brought with me three hand-quilting projects. The first is my abstract “Roman Ruins on Lake Garda,” which is blue, blue, blue:

The next is “Water Wheels, No. 3,” which is also blue, but darker. This is the third in a series of Water Wheels quilts I’ve made. The first two are owned by my daughter Anne, and the fourth is the largest and has yet to be quilted.

Finally, here is a “Postage Stamp” in reproduction fabrics, which always make me happy:

As you can see from two of these quilts, I may be in a blue phase right now. This morning I was reading one of the blogs I follow, Forty-Two Quilts at http://milo-designs.blogspt.com/, and Jenifer asked, “What’s your favorite color?” From childhood, my favorite has always been red, and I do use it frequently in my quilts. However, I would never buy a red car (too much of a radar target), and I wear red clothing sparingly (too tomato-like). I never thought I was “a blue person,” but now I’m sort of craving blue. Maybe it’s the influence of all the travel I’ve been doing—blue sky, blue water—or maybe I’m seeking the calming, soothing feeling that a beautiful blue always brings.

Hand quilting is calming, too. I never thought I would be one of those, either, but here I am, blue person and hand quilter, down to the borders on these three quilts. First, I need to get my mountain legs, so I’m off to explore with my camera. At 9 a.m., Snowmass Village is still silent and the intense mountain sun beats down. Covered in sun screen, mountains, here I come!

Christmas in July

While I was in Tennessee with my daughter, I went to a “Christmas in July” weekend retreat at The Stitchery Quilt Shoppe in Dyersburg. See http://www.stitcheryquiltshoppe.com/ What fun! There were only 5 quilters, plus Linda and Danny, the shop owners. Everyone brought great pot-luck dishes to share, and Danny made a beef brisket. Heaven forbid that quilters should get hungry! We stitched and ate our way through a Christmas project, listened to oldies on the radio, and talked and enjoyed all the customers who came into the shop. I came home with all my blocks sewn and trimmed, and I just finished putting them together yesterday.

I chose this pattern called “Tree’s Up! Lights On!” by Pieces from my Heart:
http://piecesfrommyheart.net/patterns/winter-christmas/tree-s-up-light-s-on.html
This is an easy “stack and slice” pattern. You copy the pattern onto freezer paper, iron it to a fat quarter of fabric, then stack under it as many layers as you think you can slice with your rotary cutter. The pattern said to slice 10 layers at a time, but I only cut 5, like this:

You need 30 fat quarters—10 in each of three colors. I chose red, off-white, and black/green, and all my fabrics were purchased at The Stitchery. After you slice the pattern, you rearrange the pieces so that the prints are mixed up, and you sew them together in the order indicated on the pattern.

My finished blocks were very uneven, but they are supposed to be, since you are creating your own seam allowances, in effect, with this type of pattern. When the blocks are done, you trim them all to the same size. I managed to get a 10” x 14” block, but some quilters trimmed to 9½” x 13”.

I can never leave well enough alone, so after I got home, I drew some wacky stars—to go with the wacky trees—and appliqued them to the leftover scraps. I inserted some stars with the blocks, and used others in the border.

The border is scrappy out of necessity. I only bought 1 extra yard of 1 black fabric, so I had to add in pieces of other black and red leftovers. The end result is a happy quilt, as a Christmas quilt should be.

I thought that surely I would be able not only to finish the top, but quilt it by today, but life and laundry happens, you know, and I feel lucky to get the top finished. It's pretty big--68" x 78". I’ll have plenty of time to think about how I want to quilt it, because I am off on another road trip, which you all know I love. Woo-hoooo!!--to Colorado this time, for 2½ weeks. First to a conference with my husband (he’s conferencing, I’m hiking) in Snowmass, where we will find a nice restaurant and celebrate his 60th birthday, which was yesterday. Happy birthday, honey! In the picture above, on the left, you see some spare bicycle tires and other equipment he is packing with his bicycle so he can ride in the mountains.

Then I’m off to Longmont to visit my youngest daughter, Libby, and to my sister’s ranch near Wetmore to cook for Libby’s wedding in September. I’m taking three hand quilting projects with me to finish. Libby has my old Bernina, so I can even sew on the binding if I finish the quilting. And do you think there are any quilt shops in Colorado? I’m flying there, but driving back, so that means … I better take an extra tote bag!

Going gets tough

One of the best things about sewing, I think, is that I have quiet time to think. Some people like to have the television on somewhere in the background, or music, both of which I do occasionally, but usually it’s just silence. Just me, my thoughts, and the hum of my machine. And man, have I had plenty to think about. Worry, actually, since there hasn’t been much I can do about anything.


It all happened at once: On July 1, my future son-in-law was “furloughed” from his job (a lay-off), along with 18 other engineers at the same firm. My daughter has a job, but who knew a job as a writer/editor would be more secure than an engineering job? In this economy, I guess no job is secure.

Then on Sunday, July 3, my brother-in-law Robert Hamilton survived a small plane crash near his ranch in Colorado. He went up in a 1941 bi-plane piloted by his friend, flying over the ranch and seeing the local sights. The plane crashed in a ravine on national forest land, for no apparent reason. The pilot died. Robert was injured, but tried to get his friend out of the plane. He had to run as the plane caught fire and exploded. Here are a couple of news reports, with pictures:
http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/Top-Story.asp?ID=16911

A short video, showing the burned terrain (the crash started a forest fire):
http://www.krdo.com/news/28455851/detail.html

My sister had gone shopping with the wife of the pilot and several other women. There was a short time when she didn’t know exactly what had happened and believed that Robert had also died in the crash. She didn’t let him out of her sight for the next week.

The third thing: My daughter Genevieve (liver transplant girl) discovered a lump in her breast. What else could happen to her? The radiologist in Tennessee told her to get to a surgeon immediately. On July 5, the surgeon at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis said the lump couldn’t be identified for sure and would have to come out.

In the midst of this, I took my granddaughter to our local 4th of July carnival:

And when the going gets tough—and there is nothing else I can do—I turn to sewing. The thinking time helps me come to terms with what is happening, I suppose. I pulled out a small UFO, quilted it by machine, and gave it to my quilt guild for a silent auction at our quilt show in October:

I called this “Raining Color,” 18 inches by 20 inches. The pattern is Exquisite, from Gwen Marston’s 1996 book Liberated Quiltmaking. I should say non-pattern, because there is no pattern or template. You just make it with scraps, piecing corners of various sizes onto squares. I’ve made several versions of this, and it’s one of my favorite creative exercises. (I just looked up this book on Amazon, and it’s $90, for heaven’s sake!! Must be out of print. I see my book collection is becoming valuable.) Liberated Quiltmaking is perhaps my favorite quilting book EVER. Seriously. Liberated Quiltmaking II is a recent version, much more affordable.

Anyway, I finished a little quilt and gave it away. Then I made aprons for Genevieve and Danica out of the butterfly fabric that they both liked:

This is the Four Corners Apron from Vanilla House Designs:
http://www.vanillahousedesigns.com/p132-four-corners-apron/#more-112
I guessed at the measurements for a child, but I see on the Vanilla House website that there is also a child-size pattern for this same apron. These aprons made me happy as I sewed them, and Genevieve and Danica liked them.

Then I bought fabric to make a jacket for myself for my youngest daughter’s wedding, and it’s about half done already. I am making the Chinese jacket from Folkwear patterns, a jacket I love and have made several times before: http://www.folkwear.com/114.html

The fabric is a brown embroidered silk, with the lining in orange silk flecked with brown. The jacket is actually reversible. I also bought two skirts to go with it, so I’ll have a choice. I hope the whole outfit looks good with my new cowgirl boots! I got the jacket to the half-way point, then I had to leave it and head for Tennessee so I could stay with Danica during Genevieve’s lump surgery on Monday.

Hard to believe she only had a 1-inch incision and she came home that afternoon. The results were positive—the surgeon said it looked like “dense tissue,” meaning a fibrous lump. She got the lab report yesterday, and all was benign. Hurray!

Now I am back home in Missouri with my sewing machine. Genevieve, another surgery behind her, is living life with a 5-year-old. My sister and her husband are still recovering from the shock of the plane crash, of course, which will take some time. And my future son-in-law has a job interview today. Hurray! Positive vibes running from Missouri to Colorado right now ….

Things have calmed down for the time being, but there’s my daughter’s ranch wedding coming up, and I already had a crazy dream about it. I still have tons to think about while I sew.