Top Ten Reasons to Keep Your Man Out Of Your Studio

1.      He will, without doubt, step on the needle you lost last week.

2.      He will be able to count your works in progress and ask why they aren’t finished.

3.      He will discover that the cost of your quilting ‘tools’ rivals the cost of his power tools.

4.      He will wonder why you need an entire library of quilting books and patterns.

5.      He will want to know when the fabric bomb exploded in your studio.

6.      He’ll want to know why a grown woman needs crayons, felt markers, coloring books and a felt board. Men just don’t understand the creation of applique.

7.      He might discover your hidden supply of chocolate and hot tamales and want to share.

8.      Or God forbid, he might discover how big your stash really is.

9.      He’ll want to know how you can work in that mess and won’t understand that you know exactly where everything is. (More or less.)

10.  He’ll start touching stuff and moving things around and you might have to kill him. (And digging a hole in the yard big enough to bury a man is sooo much work.)

This is all tongue in cheek of course, except number ten.

Hugs

Cathy

MQS Kansas

Well, I'm arrived in Kansas safe and sound. It it a beautiful city, all green and growing. Its a far cry from the early spring I left in Calgary. When we arrived the  humidity was stifling and way too hot. Without the humidity, it would be quite lovely. Let me tell you this, I know why the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz melted, the humidity did her in!

My first day was spent setting up the booth. I have worked shows before but kits and patterns are a whole lot less work than  individual spools of threads. Yikes. We were kept busy running about, talking thread and quilting with customers. I hardly had time to view the quilts. But let me tell you this ladies, they were fabulous. I've never seen such a variety of technique assembled in one place.



Aunt Polly's Porch
Quilted by Marilyn Badger.
Painted by Claudia Clark Myers.
3rd Place: Art/Pictorial.



Machine embroidery, hand embroidery, piecing, whole cloth quilts, wool quilts, machine and hand applique and what I can only call mock-applique. Quilters are taking whole pieces of cloth and quilting them with intricate designs and coloring them in too look like applique. They use pens, ink, markers, water colors, pencil crayons and special pencil crayon designed to blend with water. Irena Blume does fabulous work in this area and gave me a demonstration of how it works. Check her out at http://www.irenabluhmscreations.com/.

There was also a ton of fabulous quilting. Much of it was done by computerised machine which did not, in my opinion, even come close to the beauty and diversity that was created by hand guided machines. The majority of quilts that took prizes were quilted by hand guided machines using custom quilting.


I have never been so inspired and depressed all at once. I couldn't wait to get home and practise my custom freehand quilting and at the same time worried that my skill would  never match that of these masters. I've decided that while I will likely never match them that I am going to practise and give it my best shot.



Magical Mermaid's Castle by Claudia Pfeil. Winner: Best of Show. Fabulous detail
quilting with hundreds, maybe thousands of crystals for accent. WOW!

  


Detail of Magical Mermaid's Castle

  
 








Detail of Magical Mermaid's Castle



Red Letter Daze by Janet Stone.
This quilt also took a prize by the detail
photo did not turn out. Apologies to Janet.



Detail of Red Letter Daze

Applique

I love applique. I don’t care if it is hand applique, freezer paper, needle turn, fusible machine or anything else. I just love the pictures you can create. Don’t get me wrong I love traditional piecing and foundation/paper piecing, but I really love applique. About the only quilty thing I don’t care for is art quilting. I love looking at those art quilts, but they are so far out of my box that I can’t seem to do them.

I took an art quilt technique class once. Yikes! It was a two-day seminar at a local store. Great teacher! Betty Blais from Embellishment Village teaches a fabulous class and is very entertaining and informative. Worst weekend I ever spent. I loved Betty, but the painting and stenciling and working with Angelina, eeks, I shudder just to remember it. Everyone else had a great time, but it was all I could do not to run screaming from the store.

Don’t ask me why, I just felt like someone was shoving splinters under my nails. I stuck it out and really learned a lot of new techniques. That said, I don’t think art quilting is for me. I’m much more traditional than that. Of course, I am trying to teach myself thread painting right now, but don’t hold your breath waiting for huge successes in that avenue. I enjoy doing it, but man do I suck. I’ll plug away and see what I can come up with. They say practice makes perfect, but I’m not sure it doesn’t make for plain old irritation.


Calendar Critters



I think what I really need here is a drawing class. If I could learn to draw what is in my head, maybe I could transfer those images into fabric. It takes me hours and hours to create the images for my applique patterns. Calendar Critters was a long time coming. Drawing those animals was very difficult for me. Which brings me back to applique …

When I do fusible machine applique, I prefer Wonder Under for my fusible web. It is lightweight, flexible, simple to use, and doesn’t gum up my needle.



Things to consider when choosing your fusible web include, flexibility, melting point, cost and final usage. Steam a Seam Light is great. It is flexible and does not gum up your needle, but here in Calgary, it is costly. I don’t like the heat and bond products for things I plan to stitch on, but love them for crafty purposes. Heat and bond is great for fusing fabric onto plain craft paper bags to make Christmas gift bags, but it is low temperature melt and when your sewing machine needle gets hot, it gums up really badly.



Remember that these are heat-activated products and your dryer produces heat. So, if you EVER plan to wash that project, you must stitch around the appliques or they’ll come off in the dryer. Just ask me how I know! Oh yeah, one more thing. Read the fusible web’s directions carefully. If you overheat them, most webs will lose their grip and will not ever stick on.

My advice to you is to purchase a small amount of as many fusible webs as you can find and test drive each one. I found about 10 to try. One had no label and no instructions. It was plastic backed and it was almost impossible to get that plastic off. Some don’t have backings such as Misty Fuse, but I prefer a product I can trace my shapes onto.



QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you have a favorite fusible web? Why do you prefer it?

Fall into Fall

So the blog hop continues. It is great to have you all popping in, and wonderful to hear from new visitors and from old subscribers alike.

Check out the last two postings for September for details on how to enter to win! Fat quarter bundles, patterns and …

Love those fall colors.

Fish Creek Park

Hubby and I try to walk in the local park a couple times every week. I love the fall. I find the pretty colors, the crunching of leaves and the rustle of dry tree branches very peaceful. I’m busy blanket stitching a fall table runner. It is fairly small, but then my coffee table is small. And, I don’t want anything too large on the kitchen table as that just encourages the cats to sleep there.

I finally heard from APQS. The computer boards from my longarm are finally back in the mail. It is only two weeks late. I guess there was some trouble with the servicing of them. But I am glad they are coming back. I’ve got stacks of customer quilts to get finished. The Christmas quilting rush is due to start any day and I want to fit in the projects I finished while the machine was down. I might be putting in some long days in the studio. But, that’s okay. I love my work. It is time consuming, occasionally frustrating, the pay isn’t all that I would like it to be, but I love it. It allows me to be creative, to set my own hours. I can work early or late as I choose. Really, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Tonight I shall hit the studio (after a day of fence building) and work on my fall table runner.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you like applique? What is your favorite technique? Hand? Machine? What is your favorite edge stitch method? If you had to choose a season, what season would you choose and what types of things would you applique onto a table runner to celebrate that time of year?

Quilting Weakness

Fall into Fall Blog Hop Continues. Wecome all you new readers. Good to have you with me.

My weakness is quilting. I love it, I live for it and I can’t live without it. A day doesn’t go by without me stitching away at something. A couple of years ago I even burned the potatoes on Christmas day. The family was busy playing games and I was puttering away in the kitchen. I decided that I had a few minutes while I waited for the spuds to start boiling. So, I snuck into my studio. My studio door is beside the kitchen as my studio is the old formal living and dining rooms of our house. I popped into my room and resumed stitching on my current project. I was sewing away, listening to the ruckus sounds of everyone playing and before I knew it I could smell something hot. A flew back into the kitchen and darned if the potatoes hadn’t boiled dry. I caught them in time that they were usable, but it was a real close call.

I love when I get lost in my work like that. Time flies away and I’m having nothing but fun. And really, is there a better sound than your family having fun and playing together? I’ve learned to be more disciplined now, and don’t allow myself to sneak into the studio while I am cooking. Well, unless the timer is set anyway.
Even over the past few days I’ve found time for a bit of hand-work. We’re building a fence between us and the neighbors. We’ve had a fence on two sides ever since we moved in eight years ago. The final piece of fence had never been built. But, as the neighbors (three different ones) didn’t really care, we didn’t either. Our new neighbors are great, but they have two wee little dogs. They don’t like chasing them to keep them in their yard, and we don’t like the puppy presents they leave behind. As much as we like the dogs, the compromise seemed to be a new fence.


Our fence is much more complicted
than this one. But, I'm too lazy
to haul out the camera. I'll
post pictures when it
is finished.

 This fence is the most complicated fence in the universe. Holes and grooves, pickets, cross stringers, headers, caps, pickets and more. We wanted to match the existing fence, but underestimated how complicated it is. It took a full day to build the first section. We’re faster now and hope to have all but two sections finished today. These sections will require some engineering as we have to go around a transformer and a window box.

Back to the point of this. Hand stitching. I love it! I’ve managed to slip in a few minutes of work each evening after it is too dark to fence. I am working on a hand applique wall hanging. Its about 36 inches square and all Baltimore album style blocks. I’m hand stitching the appliques onto the borders now. It’s slow work, but relaxing. It relaxes me and helps me unwind. I think I might even hand quilt this one.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What is your favorite type of quilting?
Don't forget that you get one entry for our prize draw for every comment you post.
See my September 30th posting for details on how to enter the draws.

Party Like Your Hubby's Turning 50!



Darling Hubby playing lacrosse
 in Manchester Uk.



Its crazy how things go. I’m busy like a one armed paper-hangar trying to organize my husbands 50^th birthday party. We’re having three. Yup, I’m nuts. First is his choice, a two-hour game of semi-contact lacrosse with all his buddies. Second the full extended family and a few close friends for a family dinner at my daughters. Third, on his actual birthday will be dinner with the immediate family. Just us, our girls and their men. I cannot even decide what to feed the ravaging horde. I waffle back and forth. I’m thinking ham, but one sister-in-law doesn’t eat pork. Surely she doesn’t know what she’s missing. Then, I’ve got to provide something for those veggie-vore relatives. Personally, I’m a carnivore and will eat most anything. Oh well.

What does all this have to do with quilting? Well, nothing at all and everything. All my time is going to this (and stinking accounting) and taking away from studio time. It is hard sometimes to fit everything in. Especially when one is feeling lazy and unmotivated. I live for quilting, but sometimes I just want to sit on my backside and read my book. Unfortunately, the one I’m reading is really good. I’ve read it before, but that doesn’t slow me down. Or rather speed me up. I’m reading Diana Gabaldon’s "The Fiery Cross". It is riveting, but does require concentration. Often, I read trashy romances I love them, and they are a nice quick read and easy to put down. After all, you know there’ll be a happy ending.

My current quilting projects include a simple quilt of doggie fabrics for Cousin Marnie. She gave us some lovely paintings (okay I forced her to give them up, she doesn’t think her work is worth sharing). She’s a great dog lover, and I thought a nice cuddly quilt would warm her up in that drafty old farm house, and at the same time it would show her that we appreciate her work.



Neapolitan



I’m also trying to finish up the piecing of a few projects I took in the past. One from Eleanor Burns’ Magic Vine book. I’m also trying to write the directions for my Midnight Blues quilt. All blue and white with many points. I think I’m in my point block phase. I did a queen size quilt phase….many were started few were finished. I did a table runner phase. I always love hand applique, and am finally getting good at it. I’m working on a quilt with fish on it, that I designed about three years ago. It needs a lot of thread painting, and my skill just isn’t up to it yet. I keep practicing, but I’m not to the point where I want to try it on the real article. I am getting close though. I’ve got several small wall hangings designed, but not yet started and I am working on a table runner design. There are two simple bases to choose from and a number of different appliques to embellish with.

I’m also trying my hand at writing an article or two for submission to some Canadian quilting magazines. Some day it seems that there are just too many irons in the fire and too many ideas in my head. But I plug away, happy in the knowledge that I’m doing what I love.

Oh yeah, let us not forget about blogging, playing around on Facebook, housework, cooking …

Okay, skip those last two, because we all know I only do those when I must. Hubby’s birthday is even at my daughter’s so I don’t need to clean the house. Mwa Mwa mwa. (That being the sound of my evil laugh.)

Keep on Quilting

Cath



Dazzling Diamonds