Quilts

A Lovely Time at Road to California 2015

January 25, 2015November 6, 2019 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

This was my big weekend at Road to California where I got to see three of my quilts hanging at the Road to California quilt show. I enjoyed every minute of it. Above, St. Nicholas and I are whooping it up.

When I wasn’t there checking on him, he hung out with two other really cool Christmas quilts.

Here I am with Sol Lewitt, who so graciously provided an idea for me to work with in cloth.

He was tucked into a corner among the Modern Quilts — a lovely home.

After seven tries the nice lady who took my photo finally got it. Here I am, coaching her from behind my plastered on smile, “The white button on the screen. . . the white button on the screen.”

All those Lollypop Trees were on a side aisle, which was consistently busy. I had many nice conversations with people who stopped by when I was standing there. One pair of women had made the St. Nicholas quilt, asked me who my quilter was. “Me!” I said. “Then that’s the difference,” one said. “I sent mine out for an edge-to-edge long arm quilting design and it just doesn’t look as good.” We had a nice conversation about the lovely green and white blocks from all my Mid-Century Modern Bee Mates.

I went Thursday, Friday and Friday night all my local quilting group — the Good Heart Quilters — came to a Road Potluck at my house. After we finished, we sat around the table chatting, trading stories and enjoying each other’s company. We had some hard news: one of our members starts chemo next month for her newly discovered cancer and I was quite touched by the offers of help that came willingly, to assist her in any way she needed. I sat and listened, looked at these beautiful women and felt incredibly grateful to be surrounded by such wonderful quilting friends. They have cheered me on, and celebrated my successes. I can’t imagine my life without them.

I’ve put a TON of photos up on Instagram, if you want to scroll through them (some aren’t mine, some are). I hope to get some more up in a week or so, but first, I need to address the upcoming Four-in-Art challenge and get that going. The deadline is in about a week!

Quilts

Busy Quilty Weekend

September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This past Friday night was our little quilt group’s Quilt Night. We hold it the first Friday night of just about every month, taking off some here and there. Lisa (on the left) and I founded The Good Heart Quilters when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is will soon be 18. Hard to think we’ve been going that long! On the right is Charlotte, one of our newer members, and Lisa’s running/marathon buddy. Why are they smiling? I cleaned out my fabric stash this past month and brought all the leftovers for them to claim.

Speaking of pregnant ladies, Tiffiny, on the left, is waaaay pregnant and due this week. (So far, no news.) She is our bonafide Newest Member, but I’m guessing with a new baby, we won’t be seeing her for a while. She’s helping Lisa hem and sew buttons on band uniforms (Lisa is a parent volunteer). See? We don’t always do quilts. We want Tiffiny to come any time she wants to as she brought us all a yummy key lime pie. Treats are always a good thing at Quilt Night.

And still speaking of pregnant ladies, Caitlin (on the left) is due in January. Simone (on the right) and I rounded out the group and we are definitely NOT pregnant. A small gathering, but fun. And with great treats that everyone brought.

I kicked them all out 10 p.m. because the next day I had to leave at 7 a.m. to head to San Diego to the San Diego Quilt Show, where I was taking a Free Motion Quilting Class with Sue Rasmussen. She was great. The class started out with a comprehensive overview of needles and threads, but soon we launched into hands on FMQ. I had taken a class with another instructor about twelve years ago and a lot of what I know now I’ve gleaned through books, internet and Instagram. So I thought it was time to do something classroom-y again.

We learned about hand position, speed, foot control and the all important wild card of what to do when our brain kicks in with questions like “Should this be a feather?” or “You really messed up there.” She also taught us three methods for starting and stopping, and kept the class moving with good demos and good advice. I’m now totally intimidated on submitting anything to a show as she clued us in to some things she looks for in a show quilt (she’s often a judge). Thankfully she didn’t say “sparkles.”

I had an hour for lunch, see the show, and visit the vendors’ booths. I raced through it, so didn’t have time to grab names or titles of quilts (sorry) but here’s a few photos that I grabbed as we zipped by.

This French landscape is Sue Rasmussen’s. You can bet I looked closely at the quilting. (It was perfect.)

She actually had three of these trees, all in different color ways and different fabrics. It was fascinating to see how different they all were.

I loved this fun quilt, but it didn’t win the Modern Quilt category prize. (Inconceivable!)

Great quilting, eh?

This one won first prize in the Modern Quilt category. Hmmmm. I see “improv piecing” which seems to be a criteria (or at least according to Road to California’s blurb when I took a look at it this morning). That’s it? Improv piecing as the only qualifier for Modern? Oh, that and “significant negative space,” or something like that. I hate these seemingly artificial qualifiers and divisions. Like Leanne of She Can Quilt says, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Back to class for another few hours. Here are some of Sue’s samples. I really enjoyed her class and was glad I made the effort.

On the long drive home, there is this elegant bridge spanning the wide freeway. When I see this, I know I’m halfway home. It was a good weekend, with good friends and experiences, but heading home is what I like to do most.

Quilts

Deep Summer

July 21, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

In deep summer, everything moves a little slower because of the heat. The sewing slows down because we’re at the beach, or watching Endeavor on the television, or just lazily talking after dinner on the patio. The dusk deepens, and we realize we’ve talked the evening away as we flip on the overhead twinkle lights and talk some more, maybe eating an ice cream bar. Or something else cold and slippery and refreshing like a tall lemonade.

So I sip some lemonade while fighting the urge to take the scissors and whack off this veritable mountain of seams on the backside of Circles Block #2, which I’m currently working on. I’ve made this section twice, and have now realized we need a Design Change. It will work fine, but in Deep Summer, it’s best not to be thinking too hard.

I finished the block this morning (this is the backside–full reveal the first week of August), went to add the background corners and realized I’d drawn the whole shebang one inch too large all the way around. I slumped into my chair–it’s really too hot to do anything else, right? Then after slumping for a while, I got up and redrew parts of it to make it conform to what we have going on so far in Circles Block #1 and #2. I’m NOT remaking that center section, though, having already sewn it twice. It will all be correct when I finally post it, and tested.

We had our annual Good Heart Quilters Retreat at Lisa’s house, and were joined by her two sisters-in-law, who traveled down from the Mountain West to join us. This is just the first batch of quilters in the moring–more came and by evening, when the fudgy brownies came out of the oven, there were many more.

Jean was a phenom, getting several quilt tops to the finished stage so she can quilt them on her machine. Others quilters were just as industrious, but I was head-down-fingers-stitching on the Circles Block and forgot to take photos.

I also finished my Four-in-Art quilt, but that reveal is not until August 1st, so check back then. I really like this one and tried a new technique of printing on fabric. I’ll share the quilt and all the “deconstruction” details next week.

And in Deep Summer maybe something we ought to do is read a poem or two, while sitting outside under the twinkle lights on the patio downing the last of the frozen peanut butter cookies — a poem like this one, by Susan Hutton, found *here.*

Falling Through

My neighbor, perched high on a ladder
one weekend afternoon,
trimmed the wrong branch and sent himself
slowly wheeling through the sky.
He curved through the air as smoothly
as if he’d been drawn with a compass,
a graceful inflection discordantly accompanied
by crepitating branches and breathy leaves,
and landed in a lush, bent sapling.
To call it beautiful misses the point.
To say he stood and walked away unharmed
is true. For fifteen years I’ve remembered that shape,
its pace, but it’s the moment when he understood
it would happen that I return to: that fear,
and whether he resisted it or surrendered.
How often it happens that we step, half-consideringly
into the impersonal forces at work,
unable to pull ourselves back.
The tread of the stair beneath our feet
the appalling speed of our own blood.
The fifty years of our working lives limit our thoughts
as the pyramids’ size was ultimately determined
by what they could build within the pharaoh’s life.
The arctic whale moves through the water
with a century-old, ivory spearhead buried in its flesh.
My son was born early, before his body had developed
the reflex to suck. He spent his first two weeks alive
covered in wires and tubes amid loud, beeping machines.
I did not know him yet, in the lasting way,
but I saw he had my grandfather’s face.
And oh I was afraid. And we moved through it.
SUSAN HUTTON
Michigan Quarterly Review
Spring 2014

Finish-A-Long · Quilts · Something to Think About

A Quiet Week

November 23, 2013November 23, 2013 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

After the big TaDa! moment of getting Santa and his blocks and his neighborhood all done, it was a quiet week. No bee blocks. No quilting. No sewing, unless you count the samples that I put together to teach my Pleated Tote Bag class on Tuesday night. Tonight, I finished the bag that I’d used as a teaching sample (above), putting the pieces together, arriving at completion.

And because I have a quiet week, and I’ve had a chance to reflect on recent events, and because we are approaching the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s time to count my blessings, quilt-wise. In the photo above, Cindy, of Live A Colorful Life is seated at my dining room table, sewing on my little featherweight. This was the second year she has come down for our Good Heart Quilters Potluck Event, and I’m so glad she did. One of the blessing of modern quilting is the internet, the connections we make through Instagram, through blogs and their comments, through emails, and through bees (Cindy organized the Mid-Century Modern Bee, of which I’m a part).

When she arrived, on Halloween Night, we turned out the lights on the porch and went out for Pho and flatbread from a new restaurant in town. She was pretty adventurous, even so far as to have the Korean-style flatbread, with kimchi on top. Later, we came back home and talked and sewed (my husband was out of town, so we had the run of the place). Cindy’s gift of collecting people and connecting people has greatly blessed my life.

After sewing all day Friday, we set up the tables in my dining room, and hosted the Good Heart Quilters, or about half of them. It seems it was a very busy weekend, and we were missing a good number of these fine quilters.

This was what I made for my contribution to dinner: stuffed pumpkin (recipe found *here*).

from l: Carol, Laurel, Janette, Leisa and Tracy

from l: Simone, Caitlin, Cindy and Lisa

We always start (and usually finish) with Show and Tell. This is Laurel’s finish–a quilt for her sister. It’s very tall, so the angle isn’t the best, but as always, Laurel combines piecing with appliqué to create something we all want to sneak off with, into our cars.

Lisa got her borders sewn on tonight–a Hallelujah! moment because she’s been busy getting ready for her daughter’s wedding in about three weeks, and she has sewn her own dress and most of Bridget’s trousseau, amidst working all day. We were thrilled for her.

Simone started coming this spring for the first time, and has her first finish: an apple core quilt done in modern fabrics. It’s fabulous.

But she didn’t stop there–she used the scraps to create a table runner. A clever quilter, wouldn’t you say? Last year, we ate and then just chatted, but this year we ate and then got to work and everyone made progress on their projects. Next quilt night is at Simone’s, on Saturday, December 7th, a shift from our usual Fridays (the church Christmas supper snagged that Friday!). In counting my blessings, this quilt group is one of my big quilty blessings. Sometimes we’ve been only a few ladies gathered at a house for munchies and sewing, sometimes there’s been a lot of us, but after meeting for sixteen years, roughly 8-10 times a year, we’ve all become close friends, and are always ready to welcome in a new quilter (like Simone and Caitlin).

I don’t know if you can see this, but when I went to Arizona to spend time with my daughter and her family while her husband was in Tonga doing free dental work, I got to sleep in her daughter Keagan’s room. I turned out the light, pulled up the covers and was greeted by a giant pink Hello Kitty and the time, all broadcast to the ceiling. It made me smile, and count my blessings of having grandchildren who like to know what time it is. Even if it is in the middle of the night.

While I was there, Barbara took me to a giant fabric/quilt shop store where they had tons and tons of great quilt fabrics: 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, in Phoenix Arizona, where I found a piece of Ann Kelle’s Christmas trees for no good reason. Ah, but the very good reason became apparent to me after I finished off the Santa top. This will be the perfect backing (and I got it on sale!).

And lastly, about fifteen years ago I started this Friendship Quilt. At that time I wanted to remember lots of women in my life who had been my mentors, my friends, my sisters and sisters-in-law, my daughter and daughters-in-law. Some of these women: two of my aunts, and my mother-in-law have passed away already. It’s time to get it done. I have put it on my Finish-A-Long list nearly every month, but hadn’t done much about it. Recently I laid out the squares in what I thought I remembered as my original design. Holes in the pattern were apparent. I realized that I had just enough missing blocks that I could gather my granddaughters’ signatures, as well as the my most recent daughter-in-law. It’s tempting to keep it going, to add those friends who are close to me now, but I decided some time ago that with the exception of adding those related to me, I would leave it as it was: a snapshot in time. But because I am counting my quilty blessing on this post, from new friends and far-flung internet friends and old friends both near and far, and all those related to me, I must end by counting these sweet blessings in my life:

These were the signatures I collected last week, from the three-year-old Dani to the eldest granddaughter Keagan, and all the others in between.

I am beyond blessed to know these little women. They make my heart sing.

Happy Thanksgiving week, every one. Don’t let the cooking interfere too much with the sewing (although, judging from what I see on Instagram (photo above), things are proceeding apace! (Nice quilt block, Leanne!)

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