This-and-That | OccasionalPiece--Quilt!

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Free Motion Quilting can be one of the main challenges we quilters face after we’ve gotten down the basics of piecing and other construction methods. Now we want to stitch and shape and sculpt our quilts with thread. This coming Saturday, September 14th, I’ll be teaching a Free-Motion Quilting workshop in Antelope Valley, and if you are nearby, come on down (up?). You can find out more at their Quilt Guild Meeting, held Thursday evening, where I’ll present a show titled “An Undercover Traditional Modern Art Quilter.” I’m bringing two suitcases of quilts, some stories and a sense of humor. Hope to see you there!

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Simone drew up another one of her fabulous blocks for us in the Gridsters Bee, and I got busy and did six of them. I just kept wanting to try out different combinations. More info (and a free download) of this block is available on her website.

Book 15 Gamache

I started a new Inspector Gamache book, #15. Halfway in, and I can’t wait to get back to listening.

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Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Austin, TX (common abbreviation, I found out, is ATX) to see my son and his family. Here we are outside Coopers BBQ, where I’m going when I go to QuiltCon in February (well, both places: the BBQ, which is right downtown, and also to see the grandsons).

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I always learn something new when visiting the youngsters: did you know you could charge up your shoes, and when you are at a dance, they will glow different colors?

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When the boys went back to school and their parents went back to their regularly scheduled lives, we did touristing at the State Capitol Building.

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Then up to the University of Texas at Austin, where I visited someting I’d been wanting to see for a very long time: Austin, by Ellsworth Kelley. Kelley gave the design for this chapel-like space to the Blanton Museum, which had it built. It’s just over 2700 square feet, so not huge.

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But inside…

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We went in the morning, and then back again after lunch and a walk through the next door Blanton Museum. I want to come here again, in February, when they say the light comes in the grid over the front door. Hope it’s not cloudy at QuiltCon!

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Another Ellsworth Kelly. We call this Couple Self-Portrait in Kelly’s B. Occasionally if you spend too much time in museums you can get a bit goofy. We also went to the LBJ Presidential Library after all this.

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But this — a dance of color and light — is what makes my quilty heart sing!

In this episode of This-and-That posts, I wanted to lead off with a little freebie for your Fourth of July: the instructions for a Teeny Tiny Flag quilt. You can whip this up quickly, and it slips over a dimestore 4″ x 6″ acrylic frame. I made one recently for a friend in the hospital: no flowers or balloons were allowed. This brought some cheer to her stay as she loves red, white and blue.

I thought you might like the how-to’s, so download the PDF file (please re-download this new file–earlier this morning, there was a glitch):

Teeny Tiny Flag Quilt

I finished it off with some cute buttons. For more Tiny quilts (and Teeny-Tiny quilts), visit the Tiny Quilts tab, above.

Here’s a new favorite book of mine, Sunday Best Quilts, by Sherri L. McConnell and Corey Yoder. Sherri and I have been friends for a while ever since we shared English assignments for the classes we were teaching, at two different community colleges in two different states. I also appreciate her wonderful quilt designs, and have enjoyed her fabric lines (favorites are Bright Sun, Creekside and Front Porch).

I expect certain things out of books these days. I’ve stopped buying everything that’s new as I was pretty burned out with what I call “vanity” books — a famous quilter gets a book and really, it was nothing new under the sun. So now I am pretty selective about what I’ll add to my quilt library. The book has to have 1) a new way of looking at familiar quilts, 2) a thorough (but not mansplained) direction section, and 3) great photographs, plus 4) the writing has to be pristine and readable, no small feat.

This book fulfills all four of those criteria. If you are looking for a new book to add, I can recommend this one.

Truth.

So our Guild had a rummage sale this month, well, really it was a Clean-Out-The-President’s-Sewing-Room/Garage sale. Evidently people had been bringing her stuff for many years; husbands would call when their wives had moved to Assisted Living, and leftovers from classes all just sort of congregated in her garage. Time for it all to go.

I am always fascinated by what quilters used to do Back in the Day. Like these vests. Did we really a) have haircuts like that, and b) dress like this?

Another binder had templates with lots of code numbers on them, and then these illustrations. I loved “Home Grown” #8, and think it would make a great block in a quilt. No, I didn’t bring that one home.

But I felt like I scored with this box of “vintage” magazines (really, they are just 20-30 years old–how is that vintage?). I’d bought a few things here and there, stuffing my dollars in the Rummage Sale Jar, but at the end of the night, when so much was left, she said, “Take it all away!” So we did.

I wanted to post some construction images from Ladybird, the quilt from the last post. At this point I was thinking: what am I doing? This was the quilting after the first day. I threw it on the spare bed and left it there for two days.