Another Scrappy Braid Quilt

Our guild challenge for this year is a baby quilt. The only requirements are that it measures 40"x40", no cheater cloths and it must be quilted and bound. After being displayed at our June quilt guild meeting, the quilts will be exhibited and sold at the West Chester Growers Market to benefit a local women's organization that helps needy mothers. Check their website at the end of May for the date.

I have returned to my favorite scrap buster quilt of the moment - the braid quilt. I cut up a bunch of 3"x8" rectangles and sewed them into braid strips, separating the pink and the brown to make a cute little girl quilt. A thin strip of brown fabric on the top and the bottom was used to separate this section from the top and bottom borders. My only question at this point is why when you cut up a bunch of scraps, it never seems to diminish your piles of fabric?

For the top and the bottom border, I pulled the softest fabric, called minkee, from my stash. I had bought it a while ago and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. This challenge was it. I couldn't think of anything softer next to a baby's cheek. On the minkee borders, I appliqued the letters using fusible applique and a machine blanket stitch. I chose not to border the sides. I like the vertical look that you get with only borders on the top and bottom.

Getting ready for machine quilting, I basted the layers using a spray temporary adhesive product on my design wall. I have found this method to be quick and easy for small quilts. First I pinned a bed sheet to my design wall, making sure that the sheet covered part of the floor. (The spray adhesive can be a nasty product if it is not contained. )

Then I pinned the backing fabric, wrong side out to the sheet. This was done with lots of pins and pretty taught so that it didn't shift. I sprayed the backing mainly focusing on the 4 edges. The batted was smoothed onto the backing starting at the top and working downward and outward. This was then repeated for the quilt top.

Free motion machine quilting was used with an all over daisy chain pattern and pink cotton thread. In the minkee borders, I just quilted around the letters.. I didn't want to make the minkee stiff.

A little baby girl will be so lucky to get this adorable quilt. And the women's organization will benefit as well. Winners all around.

AQS Lancaster Quilt Show Review

Oh I had such high hopes. AQS was putting on a quilt show in Lancaster, PA, our backyard quilting capitol and home to the Amish. AQS. This is the Paducah AQS. In Lancaster - about 1 hour from my house. This was going to be a high quality, exciting quilt show filled with eye candy and quilts to drool over. The previous quilt show held in Lancaster at The Host Farms, Quilters Heritage Celebration, said their good byes in 2009. It had indeed grown a bit tired. It was time for them to leave. AQS stepped in to fill the void.

The facility was beautiful. The new Lancaster Convention Center is attached to a brand new Marriott. The show was on 3 floors and also at an off-site location. There was a free shuttle bus provided to get to this other location that was a little over a mile away.

I so want to say nice things, but I think the most positive things I have to say I just said. Oh, one more - there were LOTS of very clean women's restrooms.

I was truly underwhelmed. First, the lighting was horrible. Many of the quilts were so poorly lit, that you couldn't tell if they were raw edge appliqued or appliqued with the edges turned over. And did you want to know if those quilts were machine or hand quilted? Forget it!

The quality of the quilts also left something to be desired. There were a few wonderful quilts, but many that you wondered how they were accepted into such a prestigious show. The Best of Show quilt was a Mariner's Compass by Linda Roy. It was exquisitely pieced and quilted with metallic thread (and we all know how difficult that can be), but was it innovative or unusual at all? I didn't think so.

The one trend that I dfid notice was the use of unusual edge treatments and borders. In Double Damask, Liz Jones used small scallops and striped piping. It gave a great effect.

And there was one with "tabs", created by Janet Shore.

Karen Kay Buckley's border had these beautiful spirals in the border created from appliqued leaves.

Esterita Austin also had a humorous quilt called "Incommunicado" with an unusual border and a very cool depiction of transparent wine glasses. Sorry that I don't have a photo of it. By the time I saw it, I had given up and put my camera away. My favorite quilt was one by Betty Busby, called Cherry Trees. The reflection of the trees in the water was done with paint and was just wonderful. It was embellished so tastefully with beads.

Many of the quilts have been around, for a while. Some I may have seen at least 4 years ago. The vendors were interspersed with the quilts. It made it a little hard to immerse yourself in the quilt entries. Once you went to the 2nd and 3rd floors, there must have been more vendors than quilts. I have to say there was nothing that interested or excited me to try something new. Most of the vendors seemed to focus on country type fabric and patterns.

I am getting depressed even writing this blog post. I just hope that not a lot of people knew about the show, there will be more publicity and that next year will be better.

Guest Blogger

Yippeee! I am so excited to be a guest blogger on Quilting Bloggers. If you want to read about how I got here and developed my acclaimed art quilts, click on the Quilting Bloggers logo just to the right.

If you are visiting from clicking through Quilting Bloggers, welcome! I hope you enjoy reading about my quilts, tips and inspirations and road trips.

I am currently working on a piece inspired by the Kantha Quilts. There is an exhibit at The Philadelphia Museum of Art in The Perelman Annex. These quilts are gorgeously embroidered layered cloths made in the late 19th, early 20th century in what is now Bangladesh and West Bengal. I view it as Indian folk art. Stay tuned for my inspired piece.

I Thought I Swore Off Knitting

I learned to knit when I was a child, as so many of us did. My sister taught me. She was left handed and I was right handed. Somehow I ended up learning to knit continental style. I didn't realize that this was desirable until recently.

I never really got into knitting. Maybe it was the first garment that I ever made. It was for my boyfriend, who later became my husband. I knitted a solid green V-neck vest. This was back in the 70's. Thinking back on it now, I must have used a synthetic yarn. That vest was stiff. He called it his viking vest. He may have worn it once.

I started knitting again when everyone was making those skinny scarves with the eyelash type yarns and the size 19 needles. It was fun, for a while. I tried making a couple of sweaters, but I never grasped the concept of test swatches. So the very expensive sweater that I made ended up being resized with a pair of scissors and a sewing machine. That didn't work very well.

Then I got into making felted purses. That really worked well for me. Swatching wasn't important and if a stitch or 2 was dropped, you couldn't see it after the purse was felted. I did try socks, but you can imagine how that ended. My favorite piece I made during those knitting times, was my needle holder.

I made it from wool fabric that I hand dyed. I love dragon flies. It folded up and the silk ribbons were there to tie it shut. The inside, which was made separately, had pockets to store straight and circular needles. I used cotton fabric, which also had dragonflies on it.

If I were to make another one, I would put a stiff stabilizer in between the outside and inside. I also would add a flap at the top to prevent the needles from falling out.

So after making a bunch of felted purses, I just decided knitting wasn't my cup of tea. If I wanted to sit and do some type of handwork, I preferred beading, embellishing and embroidery. I gave away all of my yarn. I did keep my needles just because I loved my needle holder.

Then the other day, I met my friend Hattie for lunch and she is wearing the most awesome scarf. I love it. It has these fringes along the long edges. I wear those kind of scarves a lot. But I've never seen one knitted. Before the end of the day, we hit the yarn store so I can knit again after being knit-free for 4 years.

Oh well, at least I had the needles.

Mud Sale

I went to a mud sale today. Most people ask, "what is a mud sale"? There is no mud for sale, but it was really muddy due to the spring thaw of snow. A mud sale is an annual fundraiser done in certain towns out in Lancaster County. The goal is to raise money for the local Fire Department. They auction everything from quilts to horses to tools and antique furniture. There are hundreds of people. And lots of Amish made food, such as fresh donuts and pretzels. I can't believe how many Amish there are that live in the area. They must all attend this big event.

It is another world. This is a row of Amish buggies. Most of them are refurbished and they are waiting for their auction time. It really was a beautiful day. (We are so ready for spring.)

The best part of the mud sale is the quilt auction. Local women drop off their quilts to be sold. The women get a percentage of the sale and so does the fire company. There are no reserve prices. Some of the quilts are wallhangings. Some are made from pre-printed panels. Some are antique. Some are just beautifully done quilts, handquilted by Amish women. They have a great system of hoisting up the quilt that is for sale for all to see. First on the right side and then on the left side. It is a very efficient system that wastes little time.

This rack holds all of the 379 quilts to be auctioned. Seats are really hard to come by. The sale started at 8:30AM and was still going strong at 3PM.

Many bargains were had. Most of the bed quilts went for about $300. The pre-printed children's quilts sold in the range of $20. It was quite an experience. Hmmmm, there's one next Saturday at the Gordonville Fire Company.

Finally, The Wedding Quilt

I can finally share the quilt that I made for my son and his new wife. (I was surprised when I found out that sometimes she reads my blog!) This was the first quilt that I made using my new favorite scrap pattern from Moda. Two great things - you cut up all the fabric into 2 1/2" x 7" rectangles. Can't be easier than that. The second great thing is that the pattern is free on Moda's website.

I was saving a bunch of fat quarters for another project that never materialized. The colors were perfect for their house. I just kept sewing until most of the rectangles were used up. That's the beauty of this pattern. I just had to make sure that the braid strips were the same length. I have to add that when I sewed the long braid strips together, I intentionally offset where the rectangles met. If I had to match all of those points, I would have had no hair left by the time I was done. Moda's pattern does the same thing.

One of my goals was also to make it a heavy quilt. My son thinks it would be perfect if a quilt could be as heavy as that lead apron they put on you when you get x-rays at the dentist. The batting I chose was Hobbs Heirloom wool batting and then a flannel for the backing. That quilt turned out to be really heavy.

Before the quilt is quilted, I put a label on the back. I used the label from their wedding announcement. I know everyone has heard it before, but it is so important to document your quilts. Using your computer to make the label becomes such a simple thing.

After printing the label, I frame it out with some leftover strips from the top, add triangles to the corner. It is then fused to the backing and I stitch around it with a machine blanket stitch. Easy.

My wonderful long arm quilter, Susie Racobaldo quilted it for me. She doesn't have a website, but if you want her e-mail, contact me.

Then my buddy helped me to bind it. I really had to squeeze that fabric for the binding. I used the border fabric but had to also use a bit of another fabric. But you would never know unless you looked for it.

I headed to the dollar store to get a gift back. I just try not to use wrapping paper anymore. It kills me that you buy it, spend the time wrapping it and then as soon as it is unwrapped, it gets thrown away. On my way there, it dawned on me that for the same price, I could run into Home Goods and get a reusable bag.

These bags are just gorgeous and perfect for the gift giving of a quilt, and they cost 99c. So I bought all of these. And they have a snap at the top, too. I really don't care that the store name is visible. I think they're gorgeous.

And finally, here's the quilt!

I think they liked it.

On The Road

I'm heading to the Allentown, PA area tomorrow, Tuesday. I'm speaking about how to personalize quilts with words and images. Your computer's word processing program is a very powerful design tool. So if you're in the area, come to the Crazy Quilters Quilt Guild monthly meeting, starting at 7PM.