Foto Friday

One last look at some beautiful flowers.....

 with some raindrops....

 and spidery foliage...

  before the ice crystals of a frost...

Thank you my friend Ann Davis, for shaing your amazing photographic skills.

Quilting Funk

I am quilted out.  Sometimes this happens after I have been working on quilts that require a lot of brain power.  It makes me nervous that I may never want to quilt again.  What would I do with all of that fabric that I have accumulated?

So I decided to work on a fun and quick project.  Pillowcases.  I started making pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer back in 2003.  Cindy Kerr lives locally and one of the members from her church belongs to our guild.  I was the Chairperson of our quilt guild's Community Outreach program and chose to support this project.  The goal was, and still is, to make pillowcases for children at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia  undergoing cancer treatment. It started when her son was diagnosed with cancer.

I scheduled a visit by Cindy and her son Ryan, to kick off the project.  Ryan, who was suffering from cancer and had already lost his leg, was engaging and so charming.   He sat on the stage and chatted with 100 women with grace and ease.  We were so lucky to meet him.  And in case you were wondering about the red canvas sneakers in the logo, Ryan wore those to his prom.

You don't need a lot of fabric to make a pillowcase - 3/4yd for the body and 1/3yd for the cuff, and they are so easy.  Click on the purple underlined directions below for great instructions.  I love the "hot dog" method.  It encases the cuff seams.

Directions

So to try and get out of my funk, I made 3 pillowcases.  One for my 4 year old skateboarding fool of a grand nephew, one for his brother that loves airplanes and one for ConKerr Cancer. It won't be until tomorrow til I know if I want to do some quilting, but it felt good to do something for someone else.

Bitty Kinnas

My friend,Nancy, was spending a day with her husband in Lancaster, PA, back in May.  She stopped in a newly opened quilt shop, met the warm and welcoming owner and was brave enough to mention that her friend (that would be me) was coming out with a new book.  The owner thought that maybe we could do a book signing during the Lancaster quilt show.

Finally, Nancy and I did a road trip to Lancaster to visit Bitty Kinna's, right in the heart of the town of Intercourse on Philadelphia Pike.  It is an exciting location with many fabric stores and finished quilts for sale also.  It is right in the heart of Amish country and you can often see the Amish clip clopping down the street in a buggy.

The shop is bright and packed full of a variety of fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gina, the owner had some pretty cool tools too.  

I had 2 favorites.  There was the Bohin marking pencil.  

It comes with white lead, which is great for marking your quilting lines on a dark fabric. 

There is also a gray lead that is available that looks just like pencil.  That's for marking dark fabric.   The darker markings can be removed with the eraser.  The lighter one is more like chalk.  Gina was actually marking a customer's quilt with this tool using her templates for an Amish woman to quilt.

The other cool gadget she had was a magnetic pin holder.  I had never seen one like this before.

The bottom is weighted and the pins like to hang around the rim.

Bitty Kinna has its own parking lot behind the store, which makes it very convenient, because this town can get very busy.  In the back of her parking lot there is a cozy looking building.

Gina plans on holding classes in this building.  It has its own powder room and will be outfitted with cutting tables and sewing tables.  The most exciting news is that anyone will be able to rent it for sew-ins for $5/day per person.  So that means if you have a group of friends that would like to spend the day quilting , here's a place for you to go.  One day, heck, you could go for 5 days at that price.  And I'm sure Gina would be happy to let you know where you could stay and eat.  I bet she wouldn't mind if you frequented the shop for anything you may have forgotten.  (wink, wink).

So the good news for me is that we are going to do a book signing during the Lancaster Quilt Show and a Fiesta Quilt workshop is in the works.  Thank you Nancy.  And when you make it to the shop, ask Gina how she came up with the shop's name.

Everybody's Quilt Guild

Last week , I was the guest speaker at a quilt guild located in Westminster,MD called Everybody's Quilt Guild.  There's got to be a story behind that name, but I forgot to ask.   I presented a trunk show called "One Quilter's Journey".  It's really like a retrospective starting with the first quilt that I ever made. 

These lovely ladies were a great audience.  I did go on a bit long, but nobody left the building.  What a relief.

The night I spoke they were choosing the winner of their raffle quilt.  The quilt was a stunner and it had won a couple of ribbons.  The winner was not in the room, so they decided to call her using the phone number on her winning raffle ticket.  She must have lived nearby, because she was there in a matter of minutes, still with her slippers on!  What a lucky gal.

Foto Friday

Thank you Ann Davis for the photos.

Don't Just Slap On A Border

That's what we as quilters are told.  "Don't just slap on a border." The border should enhance the design of the quilt, not just make it bigger.

So it was with lots of trepidation, that I slapped a border onto my homespun braid quilts.  But I had worked on the two twin size bed quilts for 2 of our quilting getaways.  My goal was to use up my homespun stash.  I thought they would make great quilts for our place in the Pocono Mountains. Frankly, working on the 2 quilts at once and sewing piece onto braid and piece onto braid, over and over again, I was just so bored.  When I sewed the braid strips together, I had this sinking feeling.  The quilt tops were just too short.

What I wanted to do, was just drop them off at my long arm quilter, Susie Racobaldo, and be done with them.  But I knew they were too short.  I couldn't bring myself to doing a little seam ripping and then lengthening the braids.  So I slapped on a 10" pieced strip of fabric along the top.  Now I did a little bit of machine applique.  On one quilt I added "Our Cabin"  and on the other I appliqued "In The Woods".

At least the quilt was long enough now, but I was still a bit concerned about this slapped on border.  Susie recommended this amazing quilting pattern of pine needles and pine cones.  She used an olive green thread.

I intentionally used a flannel backing and Warm & Natural batting to make the quilt heavy, because that's what my family likes.  I tried to use up a bit more of my stash making a bias binding from a black homespun.  I love a plaid fabric on the bias for a binding.  But before I could sew it on, I had to move my helper.  You would think she would know her place was on the Princess pillow.  (Maybe I have to make one out of pink velvet!)

 After putting the binding on the quilt, I thought it looked really good and I was very happy.  The bedroom with the twin beds was going to look perfect.

And the best part was that I did not regret slapping on that border.  The machine quilting with the dark thread looked fabulous on the tan pieced border.  It was the perfect solution to integrate the border with the quilt. Now I could say that I knew that would happen, but I would be lying.  I am just relieved.

We're Hanging

I belong to a great art quilt group with a group of women who have become my best friends and a wonderful support system.  We had this wonderful opportunity to hang some of our quilts in a delicious sandwich shop in West Chester,PA called The 3 Little Pigs.  And they serve a delicious chocolate cake.  (Ask me how I know.)

 The 3 Little Pigs showcases local artists and the exhibit changes monthly.  When we arrived, this is how the restaurant looked.

 And when we were done, this is how it looked.

So if you're in West Chester during the month of November, stop by, check out our quilts (they are for sale) and have a piece of chocolate cake.