As you may recall, I've been nose-down into writing the manuscript for my third book from The Taunton Press. This one will be quite different from the first two. It's scheduled to appear in bookstores in early 2015. I promise to keep you posted right here as soon as I get more specifics.
Seems like everything else on the project list falls behind when there's such a big project in the works, so I'm weeding my way through the pile on my desk and in the sewing room. Here's what I'm uncovering.
For starters, Mini Mug Mat Samples. To prepare for a Take and Teach session at Fall Quilt Market, I've cut up some Timeless Treasures Mini Prints for my class samples. These mini prints will go perfectly with the Mini Mug Mats, don't you think? They are cut, staged, and ready to sew!
While I'm not going to be an exhibitor at Spring Quilt Market--the quilt industry trade show--in Pittsburgh, PA in May, the Mini Mug Mats will be making a bit of a splash there. Along with my assistant, Tracy, I'm preparing a bunch of samples for the FabShop Pre-Market Dinner. The Mini Mug Mats will make their seriously big debut, along with some companion patterns that will feature the brand New Mini Scrap Grid at Fall Quilt Market in October.
My sewing basket is full of Mini Mug Mat samples to finish up.
Calico Gals, one of the local quilt shops here in Syracuse isn't waiting. They're going big with Mini Mug Mats for their demos associated with their current shop hop, April 5-14! I stopped in yesterday to replenish supplies, and snapped a couple of pictures of their fun, interactive display. Here's the smorgasbord of Mini Mug Mat Packs, fat quarters, and companion products to tempt s/hoppers.
And there's Janet, herself, the shop owner, manning the demo table to get things rolling on a perfectly sunny day for hopping.
Speaking of hopping, buried somewhere here on my desk are the beginnings of a fabulous shop hop pattern that is just going to be too much fun for a Shop Hop coming this Fall in Western Pennsylvania. I'm working on the pattern a little each day. Watch for more details on the hop and the pattern right in this newsletter!
And for this summer, have you heard about the Row by Row Experience? It's a shop hop unlike any other. It's a nationwide shop hop--34 states (including one province) are participating! Amazing prizes! All you have to do is travel and quilt - okay there's a bit more to it than that, but that's the bottom line! I'm putting forth my best effort to create a small handful of row patterns that you'll be able to collect as you travel hither and yon this summer.
And while I'm trying to play catch-up with the projects in my in-box, Pat Sloan is getting a handle on her fabric scraps. Check out her blog and her scrap-busting routine. Anything sound familiar? Thanks for the shout-out, Pat!
Phew! Enough talking, I'd better get back to this pile on my desk. This is going to be a really fun quilty season, are you ready for it?
I am . . . or I will be! How about you? What's in your project in-box?
Happy Stitching!
joan
Shortly after my last note, I hit the road and headed to Findley Lake, New York and the Needle in a Haystack Retreat. On a nice day, the resident chickens are rather shy greeters.
The retreat is a beautifully refurbished dairy barn and the home of Judy and Jeff Fenton. Judy also owns Millcreek Sewing and Fabric in Erie, PA.
Inside, a sign offers a warm greeting for my workshop, the popular Stained Glass quilt from the ScrapTherapy, Scrap Plus One! book.
This is pretty sweet. How would you like to have your room inside the quilt shop? The Needle in a Haystack Retreat has it all! Sleeping accommodations for 18, plus shopping in the Outlet Barn on the second floor . . .
. . . and plenty of space to spread out and work on your project. Oh, and delicious meals, too!
You've heard of Quilt in a Day? But have you heard of Quilt-in-a-Stacking-Box? These neatly organized scraps and strips will be transformed into a beautiful quilt over the next few days!
Hyper-organization skills transfer to cutting, pressing and sewing! Do your work-in-progress projects look like this? (Mine definitely do not!)
Outside, it's cold, but sunny. Perfect weather to air a few quilts!
And here are the happy Retreaters! By the end of the weekend, we had many finished blocks, in all sorts of beautiful, colorful scrappy combinations.
Me, Judy, and a couple of toothy grins! Behind us: Barb's beautiful quilt center, ready for borders!
Back home for a day to catch my breath, then I was off to Maryland and a quick stop at Kelly Ann's Quilting in Warrenton, Virginia. Yes, it was snowing in Virginia. . . again!
Inside, let the quilt blocks painted playfully on the floor guide your footsteps toward fabric, fabric, and more fabric!
And here's the Kelly Ann's version of Chopped! Woot-woot!
After a quick dinner in Fredericksburg, I headed over to Material Girls Quilt Boutique in La Plata Maryland. The cold temperatures stayed outside, while inside, warm smiles and more Stained Glass quilts were on the one-day workshop agenda.
"Seams" like we all have "pressing" issues from time to time. Nyuk-nyuk!
Happy, happy!
Back in New York, a trunk show at Thread Bears Quilt Guild in Sherrill. And a photo opportunity for the local paper. The guild members made 85 Quilts of Valor! A quick break to snap a photo for the local paper. Nice job, ladies!
. . . . and the journey continues! Where to next? We'll see!
Happy Stitching!
The ScrapTherapy Mini Scrap Grid was developed to make "99 Bottles," the cover quilt from ScrapTherapy, Scraps Plus One! With all those tiny 9-patches in the quilt (492, to be exact), it seems appropriate to have an easier, more stable way to assemble them. Perhaps you're already familiar with the ScrapTherapy Small Scrap Grid or regular watercolor grid. It's printed, fusible interfacing!
Fuse small pieces of fabric to the interfacing, following the printed grid for fabric placement, then fold on the lines and sew the seam allowances. The interfacing stabilizes the small scraps so the sewing is easier and more efficient.
The Mini Scrap Grid is too wonderful to be reserved only for 99 Bottles! A new pattern, the ScrapTherapy Mini Mug Mat (pictured below) is now in stock and ready for you to make! And more patterns featuring the Mini Scrap Grid are in the works. Since the 9-patch is so versatile, the possibilities are endless and the interfacing isn't just restricted to ScrapTherapy projects! So much fun! And so much fun to use!
Although it looks a lot like regular watercolor grid interfacing, the Mini Scrap Grid is a specific tool with a specific job--to make 9-patch blocks that finish to 1-1/2” square. 9-patches, that’s it. Nothing else!
The interfacing, which is printed by Quiltsmart, comes by the panel. Each panel has enough interfacing to make 54 miniature 9-patches. The bigger the project, the more panels you need, of course! Instructions are printed right on the interfacing panel, but I took things a step further and created a tutorial that lives on the website--under the tab "Freebies and Fun Stuff"--this is definitely "Fun Stuff!"
Jump over to the website to read more, or here are some highlights:
Arrange the scraps. As you place the scrap squares, don't look at the interfacing section as one big 9 by 9 postage stamp block. Look at each little mini 9-patch section as a block by itself. You might have similar fabrics next to each other from 9-patch to 9-patch, but that's okay since they'll be cut apart before they're sewn into the project. Fuse with a medium-hot dry iron with a lift-and-press motion.
Fold on the first dotted line and secure the fold with pins. Then sew on the solid line.
Keep folding, pinning, and sewing until all horizontal seams are sewn.
Clip the seams at the cross hairs.
Rotate the piece 90˚ and fold again on the first dotted line, perpendicular to the existing seams. Oppose the seams. Secure with pins, and sew.
Once all the seams are sewn, cut on the dot-dash lines with a rotary cutter or with scissors. . .
. . . Press each individual 9-patch and trim.
Now, sew the 9-patch into your project(s)!
Happy Stitching!
joan
For the last several years on a weekend in early March, a small group of quilty friends and I head to Watkins Glen, New York for a long weekend. We say at the Inn Upstairs, right above O'Susannah's Quilts and Gifts. We combine cooking in and eating out, along with venturing out to shop on the main street right in town. Mostly we bring lots of quilty unfinished projects to work on.
And sometimes we experience something a little different. This time it was a field trip to Joyful Adornments just down the road in Odessa, New York to learn a little about making glass beads and buttons.
Bonnie, our hostess and owner of Joyful Adornments welcomed us into her studio. We opted to keep her in the driver seat as she made each of us a personalized glass bead to our individual specifications.
Before we got into the bead-making, Bonnie started by showing us how she makes a glass button--perfect to complete your next quilted bag, I might add. In fact, I used one of Bonnie's glass buttons on the Scrap Top Bag that is shown on the cover of ScrapTherapy, Scraps Plus One!
The button is built from the inside out using a special two-pronged holder. The glass is heated to liquid stage - like 3000˚ hot, then it's applied to the button one layer at a time. The silver tube in the background pulls the toxins out of the air in the enclosed studio space.
Here, Bonnie is showing us how to add a pencil-thin detail to a bead.
That bright gob of hot glass in the center is coming off the stick of blue-colored glass. Once the bead is finished, it's put in a kiln so it can cool down slowly without cracking. We had to wait overnight to get our beads when they cooled.
You know the little triangle-shaped dog-ears you cut off your half-square triangle seam allowance (maybe you don't cut them off, but I do!)? Anyway, these little bits of colorful glass are sorta like that. They are the leftover scrap bits of glass. Aren't they cute?
Of course, every good tour ends in the gift shop. Following our up-close experience, we couldn't go home without a little souvenir, now could we?
Oooh! Bling-bling!
More Oooh! Irresistible!
Back at the Inn Upstairs, Marcia completed her quilt top. Ripple Effect, I believe the pattern is called.
Beth had a bunch of projects in the works.
Melonie created a window display of her booty from the weekend's gifts, gadgets, and finds.
Since Wenda couldn't join us this time due to illness, Petunia Pig sat in at the sewing machine. She didn't get much done and she wasn't much for gossip. However, she did a nice job watching over the bead stash!
And the group shot. Bottom row: Janine, Melonie, Marcia. Top row: Beth, and Bonnie the bead wizard. Petunia photo-bombed at the last minute.
Don't you just love quilty retreats?
Happy Stitching!
I thought it might be fun to share some of my not-so-secret, but am-I-the-only-one-who-does-this? quilty techniques with you in a semi-regular series. Not formal, nothing scientific. No deadlines. Just stuff that I do that might be a little out of the ordinary.
To begin, we'll start at the end. The very last bit of making a quilt. The label. For me, it's just about the last step in the process. Once the quilt is quilted and bound, it's time to add a label. At least for me. I know some people sew the label to the quilt back before making the quilt sandwich, that way the label is secured by the quilting stitches. I'm not one of those people. I can imagine, if I did, my label would end up all wonky, out of alignment with the edge of the quilt. And I'm too tidy-butt for that.
I usually make the label from one of the leftover blocks or I highlight an element of the pieced quilt top, and I write the pertinent data on the label with a permanent fabric marker. I then fold the raw edges of the label under about 1/4" and pin it onto the quilt backing, typically on the lower right of the quilt back. Once it's pinned, I then use a slip stitch to secure the folded edge of the label to the quilt backing. None of that is so unusual.
Sometimes my labels can get pretty big. So, a few years back, I thought that with time and wear, it wouldn't take much for that slip stitch to break and unravel, leaving a nameless, orphan quilt with no history. So sad.
To avoid this tragic state of affairs, I started highlighting the quilt label with a running stitch using peal cotton, in a coordinating color. I make the running stitches only through the label and the backing, not all the way through the quilt sandwich. See the stitching just inside the seam of the on-point square on this label?
Some labels get a little more attention. Like this one for Miracle Max a quilt from ScrapTherapy, Scraps Plus One! The cross stitch pattern is from a book called Two Hour Cross Stitch Flowers.
Here's another label from a pattern from Scraps Plus One! This time I added some embroidery following a design from the Quilt Label Collective. See the running stitch along the edge of the yellow border?
There it is again on the label for 99 Bottles, another pattern in Scraps Plus One! Just inside the inner blue border.
Ya know, the label doesn't have to be 'over the top' to earn a bit of running stitch embellishment. In fact, the more plain the label the more it can use that little extra something.
So the running stitch adds a little bit of personality to the label and serves a purpose--that one little added security that will help the quilt maintain its identity!
Do you do something like this to your quilt labels to add a decorative touch and a bit more stability? Better question: Do you add a label to your finished quilt?
Happy Stitching!
joan
