Quilt for Oso: Layers of Hope 9/11

I've spent the last 5 days making a bed quilt to be donated to someone needing comfort and support--and warmth--in the community hit by the mudslide in Northern Washington state.  I'm just calling it the Oso quilt.

It went together very quickly...it helps when you've got a stash of vintage blocks to put to work.  Another speedy technique is to quilt it right onto polar fleece...you get a cozy quilt, and it is much simpler when there are not those two layers to keep from wrinkling as you sew.  There is much less basting involved.
I got my fleece at my local discount store for ten dollars: a good price for what is essentially both backing and batting.

The blocks are to the right; the fabrics I pulled are to the left.  This quilt came entirely from my stash.

The first thing I did was lay the blocks out on the fleece, up on the design wall.  The small blocks are the "Crown and Thorns" pattern.

To cut my long sashing strips, I used my new Quilt Cut 2, by Alto's.

It's a very neat system.

It holds the fabric layers securely and you can set the ruler to any angle.  (This is 90 degrees.)  I went through design school using a T square, so this comes very naturally to me and it was fun, too.

I hung my strips between the rows of blocks.  I liked the look, so sewed them up and then made the sashing strips between the small blocks.

Do you notice that small strip of white along the bottom of the right hand block?  I had to do a little fudging to get them to fit...

As always, quilting was a dream on my HandiQuilter Sweet 16.  And see the trim I had appliqued onto the big blocks in the center row?  That was fun...

I reused the binding that was on the fleece blanket to make my smaller quilt binding.

And here it is finished, 76" X 76".
I am sending it off tomorrow to the lady who has initiated this quilt drive.

This is her blog entry that tells all about it:
http://layersofhopequilting911.blogspot.com/2014/03/washington-state-landslide-families-and.html?spref=fb
I hope you will consider making a quilt too.

Layers of Hope Quilting 9/11...time to get to work!

In response to the terrible mudslide tragedy in my home state of Washington, I'll be making a quilt for someone who needs it, via this wonderful effort by QuiltingGranny.

The information on her blog is here:  http://layersofhopequilting911.blogspot.com/2014/03/washington-state-landslide-families-and.html?spref=fb

I'll blog about it too.  Going to get to work on it today!

QNNtv....and me!

I well remember, when I was asked as a girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, what my answer was:  "Something where working and playing are the same thing..."

My time filming 3-D Flower Embellishments with host Jodie Davis on QNNtv sure fit that criteria.  What a blast!  And we were so productive!
The first of three episodes has just gone live; you can view the free preview here.

QNNtv has a very reasonable subscription price to give you access to so many great TV shows.  My co-author Val Bothell has a 3 segment episode too, and the timely project is a crazy quilted Easter Egg.  Her preview is here, and her blogpost about it is here.  It is awesome.

Anyways!
Here are a few photos from my play/work on the show last summer.

This painted lace bouquet quilt was my teaching sample for one of the techniques I demonstrated, putting color onto lace and then making 3 D flowers out of it.

Here are Jodie and I on set.  The crew was great, and Jodie is the ultimate hostess...she made me feel so comfortable and at home.

Of course, while  I was in Denver I had to make a couple of field trips...one to a very cool craft and sewing store named the Fancy Tiger. 

Also, I went to nearby Golden to finally visit the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, something I've long wanted to do.

There was a great exhibit of quilts by Pat Holly, whose work I admire so much. (Click here to see a few more of her small quilts.)

This is Flight of Fancy, 20" X 24", 2001.

Jodie and I are great friends and you can tell when you watch our show.  Thanks, Jodie, so much!

Announcing Our New Book! "Quilting...Just a Little Bit Crazy"

Quilting...Just a Little Bit Crazy: A Marriage of Traditional and Crazy Quilting

Our new book is done and will be out in May!!!

Valerie Bothell and I are absolutely thrilled to be able to share our news with you at last.  We are so proud of our work with C & T Publishers to bring this new book to you.

Our hope is to reach out to both crazy and "sane" quilters--mainstream quilters, if you will--to show that crazy quilting can be for all quiltmakers!
In our technique chapters and in the 10 projects we present, you will see that embellishment is an option for these quilts--not necessarily a requirement. Learn that you can still incorporate machine quilting, and you can use all cotton fabrics, not just the "fancies", (though we offer projects in wool and silk as well). Embroider by hand OR machine...you'll still be crazy quilting.  We love both traditional and crazy quilting and you will learn how to combine them in ways that bring out the best of both genres.  You can speed up the process or take your time.....
Inspiring old time CQers to try new techniques and enticing first timers to give this liberating approach to quiltmaking a try, we've designed projects everyone can relate to.

Val and I live in different states and have very different styles in our crazy quilting. How we came to work together is a great story...and you can read about it on Val's blog.

I will say that this great lady, Carole Samples, played a most pivotal role in our becoming co-authors.

Our joined creative processes present a broad spectrum of working methods and sensibilities to our readers. We loved working together and just adore each other....you can feel that on every page.  ;-)

We did spend a few days actually sewing together in the summer of 2012 (this book has been in the works a long time).  Val came to my home in Washington state--she lives in Kansas--and we had a great time.

She saw that my silk stash needed sorting....Val is very organized, one of her many qualities that I really appreciate.

We both got a lot of work done together that week.  For the next many months we relied on Dropbox and emails, with lots of imagery being sent back and forth.  It was so much fun.

There are some seriously delicious projects in our book!  This became "Morning Chores", in the chapter we call "Workingman's CQ"....

We have hand and machine embroidery techniques, several ways to piece blocks and a myriad of options for finishing your quilts. And there is one project that is so very, very special, in the chapter called "Historically Crazy".....You will just have to wait til the book comes out for us to tell you its story....all I can say now is that it started at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, NE....

We can hardly wait until May! (Though you can pre-order it on Amazon here.)
It feels so great to finally be able to tell you about it!

....with lots of love, (and great excitement!)
Val and Allie

"Inspired By..." A Modern Take on an Amish Crazy Quilt

The Quilt Alliance has a great theme for this year's annual fundraising contest: "Inspired By...". (The contest guidelines are here.) You all know that I have lately been deeply inspired by vintage crazy quilts....my current project is a case in point.

But in the midst of that very long term project, I had occasion to try the Inspired By approach for a wedding throw quilt for my nephew Andy and his lovely bride Caylie.  You remember them, don't you?  ;-)  And the wallhanging I made for him to give to her (at his request) while he was wooing her, "Love by the Moon"?

They love bright colors, live by the beach down near Oceanside, and needed something cozy because Caylie gets cold!  So silks quilted onto silk fleece seemed perfect.

The quilt that so inspired me is from the Susie Tompkins Buell Quilt Collection.

I love the large blocks and solid shapes with the intricate geometric grid overall.  I had to try out my own quilt with these basic parameters.

Here is the beginning.  As always, my "blanks"--foundation muslins--are up on the design wall.  I like to see how the blocks are going together as I make them.  (Here I am using Method 4, Intuitive Applique, from my Craftsy Class.  Sign up for it here if you are interested, with a $20 discount!)

It came together very fast, and here it is under the needle of my beloved Sweet 16 from Handiquilter.
I didn't mark the quilting lines, but I did first quilt in the ditch in the seams between the blocks, using clear thread.  That helped stabilize everything (along with my basting pins) for the quilting to come.

Here's a better look at that quilting on the silk.  So yummy!

I loved diving deeply into my prodigious silk stash to make this quilt.  I didn't have to buy a thing.  ;-)

You know me and binding: we are not pals. I will do anything to avoid making a traditional binding.
So I love to use trim or lace; it is so quick, easy, and looks and functions great.

I had trimmed the edge of the quilt and am just covering the raw edge with the lace.  There won't be any fraying, and the quilt police were nowhere in sight....

To sew it on, I used a 9mm wide zigzag stitch in clear thread, with a strong yet fine matching thread in the bobbin.  I only needed to make one pass.  My kind of binding, for sure!

You can see it from the back, along with how cool that gridded quilting looks on the silk fleece.  And the label, of course.  Always label your work, please!

Let's look again at how my quilt was definitely was inspired by the Amish quilt.  Here it is again, so you can view them right next to each other:

(And just a reminder, when you are thinking about your Quilt Alliance quilt for "Inspired by", you must choose a quilt from the Quilt Index and site it in your entry.  We are hoping to encourage more people to explore the Indesx this way!)

Of course, I had to try my Inspired-by version out before sending it off to Andy and Caylie....

It works great!!!

The Vintage CQ: Borders Constructed, 5 Years Later....

This quilt was begun in the summer of 2009.  I have made 45 blog posts about it!  If anyone is really curious and wants to see the individual flower blocks being made, and then the outer blocks, you can poke around
here, where the posts are all in one link.

This is the vintage crazy quilt that started it all.

How I wish I knew who made it or who owns it!  All I know is that when I first saw it, I instantly realized that I had to attempt a quilt based on it. Who knows why?  Love is not reasonable!

It was the border that made me put this quilt into hibernation from 2010 until 2014.

Not being a piecer, you can see why.  My friend Maureen Greeson even drafted the border pattern for me, but still I waited.

I think collaborating on our new book with my co-author, Valerie Bothell, whose work is so precise and logical, (and gorgeous) must have helped me tune up for this challenge.  Thanks, Val!

There are lots of technical issues, as you can imagine.  Working with wiggly, easily fraying fabric in small pieces was the main one; being accurate to the diagram, of course, was the other.  I'll share how I approached my task.

Because I am so used to working with a foundation, I decided to combine some "pre-piecing" of the units with machine applique.  Others would do this very differently, I am sure, but this is the only way that I could get a handle on this.  After tracing Maureen's diagram onto the muslin, and then interfacing it, this is the first "quadrant" being laid out.  I had traced freezer paper templates off the pattern for cutting out my shapes, and this worked very well.
I had sewn the units together...along their vertical lines.  That made the sewing easy.  The rest of the seams were ironed under, with the whole thing pinned to the foundation for sewing with clear thread.

Lots of pins....

For those chevron shapes along the outer edge, I sewed the fabrics together first, then ironed on the template and cut the shape out as one piece.  Then I joined the two halves of the chevron together by machine, matching where the seams came together in the center. This was doable!  The yellow triangles are appliqued on last.

One of the things I loved most about making these borders was that I got to revisit my fancy fabric stash, digging into the bins for just the right color and texture.

No scrap was too small, either!  I was right to save them all!

I used interfacing ALOT as I went along, sometimes before cutting the shapes out, sometimes after.

I will not even attempt to cut silk charmeuse without interfacing it first.

But more stable fabrics, like the silk tie fabric on the left, are ok to sew but they will fray like mad.  So I interfaced that chevron wedge after sewing but before cutting.

The other fabric that demanded strict and non-negotiable handling was that notorious diva, velvet.

Interfacing and then pinning it about every 1/2" did the trick.

Take that, you velvet, you!

By the time I finished the second quadrant, things were going very smoothly.

Here I've started playing around with using vintage velvet ribbon to cover the raw edges between the rows of units.

By the fourth quadrant, I really didn't want this phase of my Vintage CQ to end...

You can see I've got ironing, cutting and sewing all within reach.  What you can't see are the piles of fabric all over the rest of my sewing room!

There were many sweet memories as I used fabrics from so many friends and from family, too. This is a distinct advantage of working slowly.  It gives plenty of time for reflection....

I call this the "Seidman Corner".  My Uncle Bill Seidman was in government under Ford and Bush 1...his FDIC and Treasury Department ties are in there, an American flag eagle, a medal from his time as an economic adviser to the President in the White House.  I am very proud of his public service.
The ribbon is from my Aunt Sally's sewing box, a beautifully woven commemoration of the Bi-Centennial in 1976.

So this is where I am now:

The quadrants and ribbons are all pinned into place on the design wall, just so I can see that everything will eventually fit together alright. (Again, thanks Maureen!!!!)
When it comes time to sew it all together, I will have those rulers handy so I can get everything exactly the same size, not just eyeball it like here.  (Again, thanks Val!)

But first I need to embrodier those quadrants....

I'll be using the same fly stitch that is featured in all the center flower blocks, in DMC's Satin Floss, which is rayon and therefore nice and glimmery.

With that, and all the tremendous amount of finish work ahead of me, this quilt has a long ways to go.  But it will be done this year, for sure!