Peas In A Pod

Bonnie Hunter Cathedral Stars

Earlier this week, I had the great fortune to take a class from Bonnie Hunter.  I have long admired her, her work, and her energy!  She came to Kalamazoo for the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilter's Guild.

I took her class on the quilt Cathedral Stars.  (Click on the name of the quilt for the free pattern.)  We had 38 people in class, and Bonnie really knew how to command the classroom.  I knew I would enjoy the day, but quite frankly, I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would.  I really enjoyed her personality!

One of the things I enjoyed most about the class (other than Bonnie's friendly personality) was how many tips she shared.  I learned some great skills for improving my cutting, my seam allowance, and efficiency.  This photo illustrates her personality. I  was trying to take a photo of her while she demonstrating strip cutting, and she caught me.  She paused, posed, and grinned.  I loved it.  It was too funny!  (And don't you love how the bunny ears on the gal behind her look like they are on her head?!)

Here are my blocks that I made in the workshop.  As you may know, I have a hard time with scrap quilting--and Bonnie is all about using your scraps!  I'll get there someday. I didn't use scraps for this, but everything I did use was in my stash.  I am using Alison Glass' new Sun Prints line for my fabrics.  I had purchased a fat quarter bundle a little while back, and they came about a month ago.  So, I was happy to dig into them (and proud of myself for cutting it up right away!)  I'm also using Kona White and Kona Ash. 

You may notice I substituted solid gray squares for the half-square triangles.  I did that because (a) I wasn't organized to plan far enough ahead to have enough fabric of two colors for the half-square triangles, (b) I wanted to challenge myself to change up a pattern (also hard for me to do), and (c) I wanted to make it modern.  I am really liking it.  I love Bonnie's quilt, too, but I am also happy with this look!

Here is another valuable tip I learned from Bonnie.  I gave her one of my gray squares to sign for me.  I'll incorporate it into the quilt.  I asked her to sign it with one of my skinny tip black markers.  She wasn't happy with how it wrote.  She asked if she could sign it with her own pen.  I gave her a new pen, and she signed with it.  See how nice and black it wrote?  It's fantastic!  And permanent.  I'm totally buying some of these for signing my bee blocks!  She said she gets them on Amazon.

Another reason the day was so wonderful is that I got to spend it with my good friend, Lisa.  We don't get to spend much time together these days, between my work and her busy work/home life, so that was a real treat!  We gabbed the entire day!  Her blocks are so beautiful!  I love all the blue with the green stars.  And the orange will be a great pop. 

After the workshop, Bonnie came to our guild meeting and gave us a fantastic trunk show and lecture.  She has so many great tips for using scraps, and her quilts are truly amazing.  She must have brought over 20 quilts for us to see.  She has something like six books out now and tons of free patterns on her blog. She also does a free quilt along every year, around Thanksgiving through Christmas.  You may want to check it out if you have never seen it before.  It's amazing.

The guild meeting was also extra special, because my other good friend, Holly, was back in town, after being gone all winter.  I was so glad to see her.

I went home higher than a kite!  Life is good!

Now, I need to stay on this so it doesn't become a UFO, right?!  haha.

See ya' next time,

Mama Pea

Stephanie

(brevity in action again)

 

 

 

Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Part 3

Hi Everyone,

Well, it all finally caught up with me.  I'm home sick today.  I feel okay as long as I'm laying down, but I feel dizzy whenever I stand up, my throat hurts, I'm sneezing, and I feel completely wiped out.  So, I'm staying home to rest.  In between naps, I'm getting work done on the computer (thank goodness for web-based instructional support, so I can grade my exams online!).  I thought I'd use one of my breaks for blogging.

This will be my last post about our Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters retreat in Shipshewana about a month ago.

On Saturday, Cheryl and some of the gals asked me if I wanted to take a field trip to another town to visit a little quilt shop.  I said, "Why not?!  Let's go!"  So, off in the car we went.

Oh, yes, everyone was all smiles and excited!

We ended up in Rome City, Indiana at Caroline's Cottage Cottons.  It is a pretty neat building.  It was built in 1870.  Caroline and her family restored the home when they turned it into a quilt shop.  It is very neat.

Here we are before going in.  When we got inside, Caroline gave us a history of the house.  She told us the step I'm standing on had a particular name....Maybe a burglar's step?  I can't remember now.  But the step is built taller than the first two steps to trip a would-be burglar trying to sneak up the steps in the night.  The idea was that he'd trip on the step, fall on the porch, and make such a ruckus that the people in the home would wake up.  She shared lots of little historical details about the home with us.

This was one of the first displays inside that caught my eye.  I certainly was in paradise.  :-)  See the wallpaper on the wall?  You can tell that there was a lot of attention to detail in Caroline's restoration.

There was a shop hop going on in Indiana at the time, and this was the shop's pattern.  Even though we weren't on the shop hop, Caroline gave us all the pattern as well as the discounts that were being given to shop hoppers.  In fact, she even gave us some special discounts.  I thought that was really nice when she heard we were retreating in Shipshewana.

I loved this little display of "Tea Cakes."  They were little fat eighth bundles.  Very cute.  That's Caroline in the background.

Although it is a somewhat small shop, her selection was absolutely amazing.  I really like her taste in fabric and patterns.  Here is her selection of wool bolts.  Wow!

The little kitchen in this house was simply adorable.  When they have classes, they hold them in this room.  The classes are necessarily smally (like four to six people), due to space.  This room was filled with 1930s reproduction fabrics.

Here is a close up of that hutch against the wall.  I loved all the red and white fabrics.  Love this display and how the fat quarter bundles are tied up.  In hindsight, I wish I would have picked up one of those bundles for my red and white quilt group projects!

This is what's on the opposite wall.  More great 1930s prints.

I saw some rugs in the room with the wool and really liked how they looked.  I have been wanting  to make some sort of rag rug for my foyer, but I haven't found a technique I like the look of enough yet.  But I really liked these!  It's using a technique called locker hooking, which I've heard of but didn't know how locker hooking was done.  At that, Caroline whipped out a sample and started demonstrating it for me.  She took 1" strips of torn fabric and this hook that looks like a crochet hook on one end and has an eye on the other end.  There was a special string threaded through the eye.

She began by hooking several loops of the fabric through the mesh with the crochet hook end.

Then, she pulled the eye end through to thread the string through the loops.  This is what keeps the loops from pulling back through.  Neat!  I liked the technique, and I liked how the rugs look.  I bought some of the mesh and string.  She ordered me a hook, because she was out.  That came a couple of weeks ago.  I ordered a book on locker hooking from Amazon that she recommended, because she was out of them.  I think this will be one of my winter projects.

Here is the front room.  It was full of civil war fabrics and other very traditional fabrics.  Lots of good stuff in this room!  Love the Edyta Sitar quilt on the wall to the far right.

This sign was by the front door of the shop on the way out.  I really loved this idea.  This would motivate me to stay on my weight loss plan!  Isn't that fun?!

There were also some cute little primitive ornaments on the wall.  I liked this one a lot.

Karen found lots of goodies (you can see some of the bolts of stuff she bought behind her).  She spent enough money there (I won't say how much to protect her innocence, LOL!) to earn a crown!  I love this!  The store gives you a crown if you spend a certain amount in one trip.  How great is that?!  Good girl, Karen!

All in all, this was a really great shopping trip.  Caroline is one of the nicest shop owners I've met, and her store is just as cute as can be.  She has a wonderful selection of fabrics, and I will go back there to shop again.  I might even make a special trip to Rome City, just to go there.  Rome City was about 20 to 30 minutes away from Shipshewana, so if you're in that area, I would highly recommend you stopping at this shop.  It's great!  Please tell Caroline and her staff (who were also wonderful) hi for me if you go there.

When we got back to Shipshewana, we went to the Bread Box Bake Shop for lunch and had great sandwiches.  I snapped this photo, because I loved all the variety of bread boxes they had on display.

What a great weekend this was.  So relaxing and fun.  Like I said, I got some sewing done, but I didn't want to stress over how much I got done.  I shopped a lot, walked around some, went for runs, and did some knitting at night with knitting buddies.  It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend.  I can't wait for next year's retreat!

Hope you enjoyed the summary of my retreat.  I got a wonderful package in the mail the other day.  can't wait to share it with you!  I am so spoiled!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Part 2

Hi Everyone,

Taking a break from my busy, busy day at work to compose a blog post.  It is 2:16 pm, and I've been going nonstop since 8:00 am.  (I have to teach tonight until 9:00 pm.)  So, I decided I deserved a little mental health break to compose a post.  Next I need to find time to get out to all your blogs and the fun I'm missing there!

Back to my recent quilt retreat.  Today, I thought I'd tell you about what I was working on, as well as others.

Let's start with what I was working on.  I already showed you this:

It's a little doll blanket for Sweet Pea for Christmas.  I'm going to blog about it more, too, with links to how to make it and my instructions for finishing.

But here is what I spent the majority of my time working on...

I did not have a single cut or stitch done on this when I arrived at the retreat, and I totally finished it!  Right before leaving on retreat, I had seen Lynn's post about this technique.  (In this post, she's further along.  And here's her post where she's a little farther along.)  Then, Caroll posted about how she was making a table topper using this method.  (Check them out.  They rock!)  And I thought, "That would be a good project to take on retreat!"  It is pretty mindless sewing, which I need, because I chatter too much at these things.  I bought one BaliPop (a package of batik strips that were 42" long and 2.5" wide; there were 40 strips in the package).  I used the technique shown in this video, by Missouri Star Quilt Company (don't you just love them?!):

 

I love this technique.  I also stayed with four strips.  I cut them as shown in the video, and I got 100 blocks out of it!  They are a little odd sized...something like 5.5" but not exactly.  Doesn't matter, they are all the same size!  I had them done in about a day's worth of sewing.

Here is an example of the 8 blocks I got out of one set of four strips sewing together. 

I had one square left from each strip set after cutting the above.  I took those leftover squares and sewed them together (so the squares were from different strip sets).

Here is an example of the four blocks I got from sewing two mismatched squares together.

I started playing with block layout ideas, by taking four of the blocks cut from matching strip sets.  I liked this one quite a bit.  A nice pinwheel effect.

This one was good, too.

This was probably my favorite.  But I realized I needed my blocks to be all identical to do this.  And I hadn't been careful when I sewed my two sets together to always turn the stripes the same way before sewing around the perimeter.  So, all my blocks wouldn't spin nicely like this one did.

Sorry, this photo is a little blurry.  I took my old camera to retreat, and this is the problem I had been having with that little camera and caused me to buy the good one!  But I didn't feel like lugging the big camera along.

I thought it would be fun to do one of these patterns for the whole quilt but I only had enough blocks to do another 1/2 of a long column.  This would have made the design weird.  I needed it to be wider than this and wanted to use more of my blocks.  So, I abandoned this idea.

I ended up going with this random layout.  Then, I went to Lolly's (which I blogged about yesterday) and bought some batiks for the borders.  I used four of my remaining blocks for cornerstones for each border.  I have one block left that I'll use for a label or something.

One tip for you if you make something like this.  Be aware that ALL of the outer edges on these blocks are bias.  So, be careful when you are sewing them together.  I wasn't as careful as I should have been, and my center is a little wonky.  The center measured about 1" less wide in than the top and bottom.  Ouch!  I squared it up with the borders and am hoping it all quilts down okay.

I made this for our guild's service project this year.  We are making quilts for the Sieta Scholars.  Seita Scholars are kids who come to Western Michigan University from the foster care community.  They are kids who have aged out of foster care and often show up on campus with the clothes on their backs and a couple of bags full of stuff.  They are not well equipped with bedding, towels, lamps, alarm clocks, and all the stuff most typical kids get for graduation.  They simply don't have that kind of family support.  So, we are making quilts for their dorm beds.  I am thinking of trying to recruit some quilts from some of you bloggers for this project, if you are interested.  I will try to post all the particulars (like size) if you are interested.  We are also collecting blocks (and I can give the pattern for those) if you'd just like to donate a block or two.  Our guild will sew them into quilts.  But anyway, that's where this quilt will be going.

I asked one of the guild members who's a longarmer if she'd be willing to quilt it for me.  She said, "Yes, but better yet, why don't you come over to my house and quilt it yourself on my longarm?"  Hello!  I jumped at that opportunity!  Thanks, Cheryl!  I can't wait to do that!

So, both of my projects for retreat were made from jelly rolls (the 42" by 2.5" strips of fabrics).  I found this was a REALLY good idea for a retreat project.  They worked up fast, were fun, and didn't require a lot of concentration.  Believe me, concentration was in short supply between the shopping, chattering, eating, looking at everyone else's work, etc.  (At least for me!)

And speaking of everyone else's work, here are some completed or in progress quilts that were happening at the retreat:

This will be another quilt for the Sieta Scholars.

Look at all these quilts being laid out in the hallway!

Here is a close up of one I particularly liked.

And who doesn't love Santa?!

I have a soft spot for simple, elegant design like this.  Especially when it involves batiks.

I just love all the designs by Crabapple Hill Designs.  Love.  Them.  All.

And some lovely Dear Jane or Farmer's Wife going on.  Not sure which one, but I'm thinking it's Dear Jane.

That's a pretty good summary of retreat.  I'll do one more post about the road trip we took to a local quilt store one morning.  It's a wonder I got any sewing done at all on this retreat!  :-)

My cousin is being buried today.  I am feeling a little blue.  I wanted to be there for my aunt, uncle, and cousins, but I coudn't make another trip for the burial.  (He's being buried in another state from where the funeral was.)  But I am thinking of them and trying to think of happier days with my cousin.

See you tomorrow!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Part 1

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your condolences on the passing of my cousin.  It has been a difficult thing and has given me lots of cause to reflect.  I'll share a little more about that later.

Right now, I'd like to try to get back in the saddle a little again.  I have so much to get caught up on!  You may remember that a while back I went on retreat with my quilt guild (the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters).  This was toward the end of September.  Yes, that's how far behind I am!  We went to Shipshewana, Indiana for our retreat.  That's only about an hour from my house, so that was great.  Shipshewana is a very Amish area, so it's very quaint and a wonderful place to hang out.

Here is a picture of the room we were in.  It was HUGE, and the lighting was great.  We had 100 people from our guild come to the retreat.  We stayed at the Farmstead Inn.  It is like a conference center, so they had this big room for us, and we all had hotel rooms down the hallway.  It was just great.

Here is the view from teh other end of the room.  I was sitting down near the windows, but it really didn't matter, because the light was great everywhere in the room.

When we first checked in, there were these little goodie baskets for each of us.  They were gifts from teh local fabric stores.

This was from Lolly's, a pretty awesome fabric store.  More about that in a minute.  A neat new ruler.  Always love those.

And inside, a fat eighth, some chocolates, and a coupon for the store.  Yay!

And this coupon from Yoder Department Store, another pretty good fabric store (as well as awesome shoe store and anything else you can imagine....it's a true, old-fashioned department store!)

We went shopping right off the bat.  We started at Yoder's, but for some reason, I neglected to take photos there!  We then hit Lolly's.  Oh, my.  This is a great store!

They have almost every kind of fabric you can imagine.  I made a bee line for the civil war fabrics.  (But they also had batiks out the wazoo, moderns, 1930s reproductions, you name it!)  Loved these pin cushions.  Simple, yet effective!

Loved their wool.  Loved this sample block made up from the book Pennies From Heaven.  I have been eyeing this book every time I go into a quilt shop.  I mean for months now.  I finally caved and bought it.  In part, it's because I've loved watching what Sue is making from this book.  (Sue, since you moved your blog, I can't find it again.  Something is messed up in my reader and it just goes to your old one.  Please leave me a comment with your blog address so I can find you again!)  I need to make this, but it's going ot have to wait.  LOVE IT!

EDIT:  Sue e-mailed me and here is her URL if you want to see the lovely things she is making.  Thanks, Sue!

I wanted one of every fat quarter in this display, but I was a good girl.  I only chose one.

 

Lolly's is so big, their store spills into the lower level, too.  We each got to pick a free fat quarter from this boat.  That was fun to rifle through!

I did really well in this store, until I saw this.  It's one of Edyta Sitar's patterns.  It's called Eldon.  You all know I love her.  I fell in love.  Bought the pattern.  Bought the acrylic ruler to cut the star diamond shapes.  And yes, bought the fabric to make this, too.  I'm going to make it for my bed in our bedroom.  I just love it.  I will need to add another border to make it big enough, but this is going to be awesome.  I need to finish some other things before I allow myself to start on it, though.

This is a really awesome shop.  I mean like, destination quilt shop shop.  The whole town is.  So, if you are ever in that area, it's definitely worth the stop.  Plus, there are other quilt stores, antique stores, good Amish bakeries, etc.  you should check it out sometime!

Well, that's about all I have time for now.  I'll do two more posts about retreat, I think.  Next, I'll show you what people were working on.  Then, I will show you another cute shop we visited.  It was a really great, relaxing retreat.  I'm ready to go back right now!  :-)

Hope you are all well.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Frieda Anderson Trunk Show

Last week on Tuesday was my quilt guild meeting (Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilter's Guild).  Our guest was Frieda Anderson.  She is a national teacher from the Chicago area.  She's a member of the Chicago School of Fusing and does some amazing fused and quilted pieces.  I forgot my camera, but my friend Holly was kind enough to take photos and share them with me so I could show them to you.

Frieda gave a trunk show, where she showed us a powerpoint presentation of her quilts, showing the evolution of them over time.  She also passed around a lot of samples and had a ton of samples on her sales table as well.  These pictures are a conglomeration of them.  I'll intersperse little things we learned about during her presentation as I show you the photos.  Buckle your seatbelt, because this is going to be a fun ride!

This is one of her recent "signature" pieces.  I believe this or something very similar to this was what they did in the all-day workshop the next day (which I was unable to attend).

I enjoyed her use of color and her quilting.  These fabrics are all her own hand-dyed fabrics.  She does not have a "stash," because she starts with all white fabric.

I loved this black-eyed Susan one.  She said her quilts all start from a photograph she has taken.  She showed us that she even uses some of her blurry photos.

Also, do you notice the binding on this one?  She often fuses her bindings on.  A very interesting technique.

I liked the trees in this one and the rows of plants in the fields.  She uses a lot of the decorative blades in her rotary cutter to get this effect.

Beautiful quilting on this one.  And another example of the fused binding.

She said she uses all Rayon 30 wt. thread for her quilting.  The larger thread makes the quilting stand out more.  I really liked the effect.

This is an homage to her cat, who recently died.

I like this one a lot.  Interestingly, she outline quilts (with a straight stitch) her fused pieces right next to the fused line, not right on top of it.  It does help give the image more depth.  Then, she will go back and add some detail on top of the fusing, like the veins in the leaves.

I asked her what kind of fusible she uses for her work.  She said she prefers Wonder Under 805.

This one appealed to me quite a bit.  Interestingly, she said she makes at least one pieced quilt a year, too.  She will often make a fused and a pieced version of the same quilt.  She showed us both the fused and the pieced versions of this one.  I could tell them apart when we were at the meeting, but I couldn't tell you if this is the fused or pieced version right now, to be honest!  I think it's the fused version.  My friend Jackie and I decided we liked the fused versions better.  They seemed "free-er" than the pieced versions.

As did this one.  I think I enjoy the bright colors and the "free form" nature of things.

This was her table of goodies.  She had a lot of hand dyed fabrics, including these velvets, silk ribbon, etc.  Also, she had her books and patterns for sale, as well as some kits.  See that chartreuse green?  She mad a joke that chartreuse is the "new neutral." I love it.  That is one of my favorite colors.

Of course, I had to check things out.  I've had a hankering to do some more fusible work.  So, I did pick up a project that will make a nice housewarming gift for a friend....

The Jack in the Pulpit pieces were my friend Jackie's favorites.  She loves that plant.

Here is another version.

I like this piece a lot.  The greens were very nice.

And here is a picture from the workshop.  Holly sent this to me.  As I said, I didn't get to go, but she did.  I can't wait to see what she made.

If you want more information on things, you can visit Frieda Anderson's website.  It's as bright and colorful as all her quilts!  Hope you enjoyed this little parade.  This was a very enjoyable and informative guild meeting.  She was a very good speaker.

We had a very busy weekend.  I have a ton to share with you again!  I had Friday Night Sew In and the Michigan Fiber Arts Festival.  So, I'll share all about those events throughout the week!

If you haven't signed on for the Little Forest Quilt Along, please consider doing so!  You can get the details here!  Hope to see you!

Until next time,

Mama Pea