Kitten Britches

Quilt Show Ribbons!

My local quilt guild - Quilter's Anonymous (not a recovery group, for sure!) had it's annual show last month.  It's a non-juried show, anyone who is a member of the guild and puts in at least 4 hours of volunteer time each year can enter their quilts.  We had over 500 quilts this year, and the range of talent and different styles of quilts is pretty amazing.

Although you wouldn't know it from looking at my blog, I was so busy quilting other people's quilts last year that I didn't finish any of my own....  But there were 10 quilts that I had quilted for customers in the show, and two of them received ribbons!  Viewers vote on their favorites in several different categories - applique, pieced, large, small, etc.  Both of my ribbons were in the pieced duet category - pieced by one person, and quilted by another - in this case, yours truly.

The first is this butterfly quilt, made by my friend Joan Dawson.  Here it is on the design wall, pre-quilting. 

And here's a few shots of the quilting details:

 

I love using variegated thread on batiks.  This quilt won second prize in it's category. 

The second quilt that won a ribbon is "Cool Runnings" made by Pam Pifer.

The fish are all foundation paper-pieced. 

I wanted to make the background look like moving water.  Again, variegated thread (Superior Rainbows) for both the background and the fish.

This quilt won honorable mention in the same category as the butterfly quilt.

The ribbons are awarded at the guild meeting after the show, so no photos of the ribbons on the quilts.

As a side note, when quilting batik quilts, especially when there's applique, extra layers, and both the top and back are batik, I find that I have better tension and stitch quality when using a #20 needle.  This helps to keep the thread from fraying, which can be an issue with variegated thread.  I also lightly spray the area I am about to quilt with water - just get it a little damp.  The damp fabric seems to grab the thread, and there are no skipped stitches or loops on the back.

The weather is finally warming up a little - raining today, but supposed to be up around 70 for the rest of the week.  That would be nice!  I am ready for spring to settle in.

Happy Quilting!

What Quilters do on Vacation....

I took a little road trip last week to visit my Sister in Idaho. When she told Mr. Thimblepie that we needed an extra table in the sewing loft for my sewing machine, he said, "She's bringing her sewing machine on vacation??"  Doh.  We laughed about that one all week.

Here's what we really did:

1.  Road trip!  It's a beautiful 9 hour drive from my house to hers, through snowy mountains, rolling wheat fields, fruit orchards, vineyards - I didn't slow down to take many pictures, but this caught my eye -

Part of the wheat field had been burned in a perfect stripe, it reminded me of Tolkien's drawing of Hobbiton-by-the-Water.

Then on to Janie & Mike's house.  It's on a hillside in a pretty valley near the Salmon River.  The scenery is beautiful any way you look!  They are building their home themselves, and are living in it while they finish up with the interior details.

Here's Jane & Chai up in her sewing loft. 

The stairs aren't in yet, but that doesn't slow us down.

We did some laundry and ironing -

 It was a beautiful sunny day for hanging pre-washed fabric on the garden fence.

We worked on our tea-towel quilts - here is Chai checking out Jane's Cool as a Cucumber quilt.

Then we took off for two fun filled days of a workshop with Sue Spargo in the pretty little resort town of McCall Idaho.

The class was all about Sue's creative stitching and embellishing of wool applique.

We even learned how to stitch these cute little bumblebees! And lots of other fancy stitches too.

Check out the machine quilting on the wool background: - I am inspired to try this myself!

Jane's daughter Ainsley came to the workshop too.  We laughed and shopped and went out to eat, and had sew much fun!

There is so much more that we did, not enough room to write about it all in one post.  I was sad to have to come back home, - I wish we lived closer, but it was a great trip, and we will see each other again soon.

What do you like to do on vacation?  I hope you make time to do some quilting!

xoxo

Pam

finding balance

I was looking back at when i started this blog three years ago, - it's fun to go back and get reminded of what I have been doing, because it's easy to start feeling like I haven't accomplished much, or am just one little hamster running on a squeaky wheel.  But really a lot has happened...  - after leaving one accounting job, taking some time off with family and Stretch I ended up taking another accounting job.  Not sure what I was thinking, but sometimes all this talk about following your bliss and doing what you love gets interrupted by the reality of earning money, and other minor details like having health insurance.

In the background though, I have steadily been machine quilting three or four quilts a month.  This means not much time for grandkids, gardening, housework, exercise, cooking, or working on my own quilts.  So, I have decided to leave accounting for good - 35 years of a desk job is enough - and really try to make a business of my long arm quilting.  I gave my notice at work.  Hopefully we will have someone new hired and trained by the end of May.  In the meantime, here are some reminders of what's really important - not in any particular order, just as I find the right photos :).

Family.

Family in Hawaii!

Quilting...

My adorable dogs - Olive

and Kermit.

More photos and news to come, but today I still have to go to work!

Take care of yourself, hope you find time to do something creative today.

 

 

Something for me!

A couple of weeks ago I went on a fun retreat with some quilting friends for 5 days!  We  went to a great retreat house in Poulsbo, Washington.  The house holds 12 happy quilters, and is walking distance to a nice fabric store and a great ice cream shop.  While there I worked on a quilt just for me.  It was so nice to have some sewing time for myself.  I had so much fun with it, I came home and finished the top.

The pattern is Boston Commons, sort of a trip around the world but set on point.  Buster gives it the KittenBritches seal of approval. 

My mom had a Boston Commons quilt on her bed when I was little.  I loved laying on her bed, looking for the row with my favorite fabric, which was a sort of brown with what I thought were little safety pins.  Probably some stylized 50's design.  For a while I have been thinking about making this quilt -  I thought it might be mostly browns.  Once I started laying out fabrics it quickly morphed into something more colorful.

It goes together like this, on the diagonal, rather than in rows:

After I got the top all pieced, I realized that the colors match this painting that I have:

This is an original oil painting done by a good friend of my Mom's - Debra Hansen from Boise, Idaho.  It will look so nice hanging in the bedroom, (which is painted pale blue) with my new quilt on the bed! 

I have a couple of customer quilts to do, but then I will quilt this one.  For the past couple of years my own quilts have taken a back seat to customer quilts, but this one has it's own spot on the calendar!  I just have to decide now how I want to quilt it.  Any suggestions?

I am going to leave the zig-zag edges, and use facing, rather than binding.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Here are some close ups of the fabrics I used:

I couldn't find any fabric with safety pins, but aren't these little clothes pins sweet?

Shoes and bugs.

Here's what my sewing room looks like after making a scrappy quilt:

And here's the next customer quilt, ready to load on the machine.  I pinned it up on the design wall so I could get some inspiration for how I should quilt it.  Sometimes I have to look at a quilt for a few days before something comes to me.

This one is going to be really pretty!  Can't wait.  I just love quilting, don't you?!?!

 

Winter Colors

Here in Seattle the winter is not extremely cold, but the damp grey days can make it pretty gloomy.  I forget how the bright sun feels.  The garden is bedraggled and covered in wet, brown leaves. I need to remind myself that even in the darkest days in winter color is everywhere... if I remember to look for it!

The Anna's Hummingbird is a year-round resident of Puget Sound. She sat on this branch for about 2 seconds, so I could get a picture of her irridescent feathers, all puffed out in the cold.

This incredible fellow has the most brilliant red head.... and he is BIG!  The Pileated Woodpeckers live in the woods behind our house, - we hear them more often than see them, but they like to come and visit the suet feeders when it's cold.

The Stellar Jay, calling to his friends. These guys are quite demanding!

And there's always some color on the quilting machine.....

This quilt will cheer up the cloudiest day!  Made by Susan Kenyon, Everett, Washington.  The fabrics are so busy, the quilting doesn't show much, but I had fun with it.  I did lots of different designs, using white and black Glide thread. I quilted pebbles around the polka-dots, and lots of swirls and squiggles.

I used bright yellow thread for some daisies in the bright centers.  Here's a little peek at the back.

Happy Friday, hope you have a great day, and get time to do some quilting this weekend.

 

 

 

Old Swedish Quilts

I work in a book store that sells new and used books.  I now have the used book buyers trained to let me see the quilting books they buy before they are out on the shelves.  Not sure if this is such a good thing, but I recently came across this absolute treasure.

The author writes about growing up in Sweden, her love of fabric as a child, learning to sew and make quilts, studying textile arts, and teaching classes in quilt-maiking and "the adaptive recycling and reuse of clothing."  I love it! 

After finding two old quilts in a a rubbish dump, she decided to find and have an exhibition of old patchwork quilts.  She made it her hobby to ask everyone she met if they had any old patchwork quilts....  Whenever she found one, she interrogated (her words) the owners about the history of their treasures.  The histories of the makers are as fascinating as the quilts.  It's a little like the quilts of Gees Bend. - There is so much poverty and hardship in the stories, and yet people find the time and resources to make something not only functional but artistic.  Her exhibitions of the quilts she found led to the publishing of this book both in Swedish and English.

Here are just a few of my favorites...

This log cabin quilt was made by Anna-Britta Persdotter, in 1890.  I think the large black centers to the log cabins give this quilt such interesting depth.

This quilt was made by a man - Karl Magnus Jonsson, a tailor.  It was made in the late 1800's from scraps of the clothes he made.

A string quilt!  Everything old is new and trendy again... This was made by Maria Augusta Lindholm in 1938.  Because of an injury she received as a young girl, her parents thought she would never get married, so they decided to provide her with an education.  She was sent to Helsinki where she received training as a linen-goods seamstress.  She made this quilt for her niece as a wedding present.

These are just a few of the many fascinating stories and beautiful quilts in this book.  I hope you can find a copy for your own quilt-book library.

What quilt books are you looking at these days?

 

 

 

Happy New Year Already!

In my last post I sort of made a list of things I want to blog about this year.  Not sure if they are all interesting to anyone but me, but that's OK.  Not sure who is looking at this anyway, besides my sister.  She is my most loyal reader. :)

Primarily I want to document & photograph the quilts I finish on my long arm.  I was at a friend's house recently - she had brought out several Christmas quilts and had them displayed all over her house.  As I looked at them, I kept saying, "this is so nice, who quilted this?" and she would say, "Um, you did." 

Anyway, long story short, I need to write about whatever I am doing, because otherwise I just  can't remember.

Here are the quilts I have done so far this year:

This is a close up of a vintage quilt my friend Joan re-made.  I could not get a good picture of this quilt that would show the quilting, or the true colors of this quilt.  She took an old quilt apart and re-set the blocks, then outlined the stars with baby rick-rack and added big rick-rack in the sashings.  So cute.

 

You get the general idea, it's very cute and vintage looking.  I quilted some hearts and swirls in the border, then outlined the rick-rack and stars.  I think with old  quilts its good to keep things simple.

Here's another vintage quilt.  It belongs to my friend Mary Pierce.  Someone did all this embroidery on a pre-marked whole cloth.  Even the quilting patterns were pre-marked. 

It was easy and turned out super nice.  The quilting shows up so well on the plain white background.

Oh yeah, and then I accidentally changed the design format for my blog.... now I can't figure out how to change it back!  Oh well....

Happy Quilting

Pam

Inspiration du jour

While I am working on finishing an overdue baby quilt, and wrapping up the last few machine quilting jobs of the year, I have been looking at some great quilting books and fighting the urge to start a new project.....  I wish I had time to sew something new every day, there are so many great ideas out there waiting to take shape.

My favorite new book is 15 Minutes of Play by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  It's a great book, full of ideas, stories, processes and pictures of quilts.  I prefer this kind of book over one that has cookie cutter quilt patters that tell you exactly what fabric to use in which block.  Basically, Victoria encourages you to cut loose - play and get creative for just 15 minutes a day, to get the creative/artistic juices flowing.

Victoria has a great blog and is super nice!  You can go to her web site to buy one, & she will send you an autographed copy of your own.  :)

Here's the baby quilt, ready for the long arm machine.  It's going to have prairie points around the outside, and maybe some yo-yo's added after the quilting.

If this quilt looks remotely familiar to you - could you let me know?  The idea came from a picture of a quilt I found on the internet a few years ago, and unfortunately I did not write down the source.  I would love to give credit to the original artist.

Happy Quilting!

 

Procrastination.....

do you procrastinate?  I think procrastination is my worst enemy.  No matter how many times it bites me, it seems to be my life story, and my mantra is "sorry I'm late...."!  So, in spite of best intentions, I have not been posting all the important things I have wanted to document, so that now when I sit down to blog, I don't know where to start and feel overwhelmed. 

Oh well, I'm just going to go with it.  I'll make a list here of all the things I want to post, then see how I do...

Today, I'll just give a brief update of my daughter Libby.  She just had her 18 month CT scan, and it is clean, she is cancer free!  She will have CT scans every 6 months now for another 5 years or so.  Thanks for everyone's support and kind words and prayers.  I don't take my health or my family's health for granted any more.  Every day is a blessing.

Libby has had two semesters at University of Hawaii, but is not sure what she wants to study, so is taking a leave of absence.  She is home now and plans to work and save her money for a few months. 

Here she is on the beach with her friends.

She is the left side of the "O".

OK, here's my list:

1.  Libby

2.  Cute baby quilt I'm making - with prairie points

3.  Catching up on machine quilting

4.  New diet and eating plan

5.  Sticking to diet, and the benefits of exercise for machine quilting.

6.  Quilt books I'm reading, and other inspiration

7.  Sprucing up my blog, learning more about using typepad.

Phew.  That's enough for now.  We'll see how I do on this.

Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday (to me) and Happy New Year!

 

Pam

 

Becoming a better machine quilter

Practice, practice, practice.... that's my advice!  I love all the blogs that are out there now, sharing ideas and tutorials.  Two of my great go-to web sites are Green Fairy Quilts and Sharon Schamber.

Sharon has many free videos on Youtube, but also a web site where you can subscribe and watch videos of her quilting to your heart's delight. 

I am nowhere near as good as these two, they are really over the top, but they definitely have inspired me to try some new things.  Here are some close ups of my latest attempt:

This quilt is from a friend in Idaho.  The quilt is so huge I don't have a good picture of the whole thing, but it has sort of a medallion in the middle and appliques of the different cattle brands all their families have used.  There are some big open spaces and the borders are about 14" wide.

The main quilt fabric is actually a polyester sateen sheet.  I know.  This is not something I would have ever considered, but it really quilted up beautifully.  I thought it ended up looking almost like tooled leather.  I used Glide thread in a peach color, and Hobbs 80-20 batting.

All the credit for my design ideas goes to Judi Madsen at Green Fairy Quilts -  most people are surprised to learn that using a ruler to do straight lines is much harder than all the free hand swirls and feathers.  Judi's posts gave me the confidence to mark this quilt and add the lines, which I think came out beautifully!

Here's a picture of one corner, which gives you a little idea of the overall look of the quilt.

Here's what else I have been up to - one of my favorite things at the end of the summer is the beautiful abundance of produce.  I try to put a little summer in the jars.

Here's one of my favorite songs by Greg Brown, take a minute to listen.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful end of summer day.

Happy Quilting!

Pam