Summer Days

It's muggy and hot, slow and steamy here in Wisconsin.  Oliver and I have written another one of my columns for American Quilter Magazine, we're catching up on laundry and other put-off chores, relaxing in the big recliner with iced tea and a book.  Soon I'll be packing my bags for my trip on August 8 to Phat Quarters in Galena, IL for some classes.  Hope to see you there!

There is a new blog in town that you might like to visit.  I especially enjoyed Scooter the cat on the beautiful blue and white quilt, lovely.  The address is:  seehowwesew.wordpress.com and tomorrow the entry will be about the quilt auction of the exhibit quilts for AAQI.  Please visit, enjoy, please support the initiative.  Thank you!!!!

Continue to enjoy your summer days, and take some time off to relax and live in the slow lane.  If you can work in some fun quilting, that's good too.  Or you can just clean and oil your machine.....!

Diane

Quilt Auction!

We are in a heat wave here in Wisconsin, today going to 97 with high humidity so it will feel like 110.  Ugh.  I know many of you have it worse than this, so I hope everyone can stay cool. 

Oliver doesn't like the closed curtains, extra fans, sleepy days.  He is protesting by sleeping all day.  Soon he will be two years old and is becoming quite a cat now, no longer a kitten playing with abandon.  Now he is more purposeful, thinking out his attacks, waiting to strike.

He and I have not been quilting.  It is too hot.

The photo, above, is a detail from my quilt "Mourning Too Soon," made in honor of my mother, Erma Hinterberg for the "Alzheimer's:  Forgetting Piece by Piece" exhibit, organized and curated by the amazing talents and dedication of Ami Simms.  The exhibit travelled for five years and more than 300,000 people had a chance to see it, were moved by it, and were encouraged by it as well.

It is a strippy style quilt, chocolate and lilac silk dupioni, "almost" wholecloth as it is "all" quilting, with original designs and a cable design in the chocolate strips.  It includes a Mourning Dove, one of my mother's favorites, who cries for the sadness we all feel for losing our loved ones way too soon to this disease.  It is a beautiful quilt.

After the exhibit ended I donated my quilt for auction, along with other quilts in the exhibit.  Please go to:  http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltauction.html  to see the quilts. 

The auction is August 1-10, and the link is:

http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286

I hope they will raise many dollars to go to this cause.  This disease has touched us all, and continues to devastate families.  We need research, a cure, help.  This is a great chance for any of you who have wanted to purchase one of my quilts to get a lovely piece, with my heart in it, to have in your own life and support a great cause at the same time.

Please make a bid on my quilt. I am a huge supporter of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. They are an all-volunteer national charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. They spend no money on fundraising and all their profits fund Alzheimer's research. They have raised more than $550,000 for research...one quilt at a time. Help me help them.

And a very special thanks to SewCalGal for her wonderful write-up of my class!  It was an extraordinary group and experience, and the interaction in the class was terrific.  Everyone benefited and it made my job so much easier.

Hope you all are enjoying summer, the heat, and maybe just a bit of quilting.  And thank you so much in advance for supporting this cause.

Keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day,

Diane

My New Bag

With no ulterior motive whatsoever, really, I so admired this shoulder bag that Roberta, our sewing machine guru at Empty Spools last week was wearing as she toured our classroom in the Open House. 

I could see my designs on it from 30 feet away!  They are the digitzed quilting/embroidery designs that are built in to the Bernina 830, but similar ones and more are available on my OESD CD "Quilting Whimsy," available for all embroidery machine formats. 

She used them as outline embroidery to embellish this soft and drapey bag, made with some changes to wholecloth rather than piecing from the La Borsa Bag pattern. 

She used Metrosene red/white/blue variegated thread, #40, and the double stitching and overlaps of the thread made it shimmer and blur so that it has an entirely different look.  I probably would never have done one of my designs like this so it was a delight to see how beautifully it turned out, how muted and elegant it looked on her shoulder.

The design square on the bottom is  my "Bouncing Bananas" motif, and looks amazing as well in this thread.  What Roberta did so well was use her creativity with the digitized designs to create something new and fresh. 

After gushing over this beautiful bag to my class the next morning, who should stroll in but Roberta, with bag, and she totally surprised me by giving it to me.  I was open mouthed with amazement, and a hug and thanks were all I had in exchange.  Thanks so much Roberta, I shall use it often and love it each time.

The designs on the Bernina 830 and my "Quilting Whimsy" CD can be sized and combined, rotated, whatever, to get the effect you want.  There are two designs for a large hoop.  The creativity is up to you. 

Using them as quilting in the quilt sandwich and placing it in your embroidery hoop, then doing some simple free motion work or walking foot lines around them to finish up a very fancy quilt makes these designs a great way to quilt your tops, or try out on table runners or placemats to get the hang of it. 

Or make a bag like this!

Hope you liked seeing this project, and keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day......

Diane

Fronds, Feathers, Flowers, Froth, Fun....Home from Asilomar

Another fabulous class at Empty Spools Seminars, at the beautiful Asilomar State Park near Monterey, California!  Above, my intrepid and amazing students, 25 in total, who worked with me for 5 days to accomplish more refined and beautiful machine quilting, all done on a home sewing machine.  My table is in the foreground and this "chairs up" session at the front of our huge classroom/building covered one of many techniques included in the class.

This particular group forged out on their own to counter the next building's group, who chanted all day long and were interfering with our own Zen and the sounds of our machines.  Original chants were devised and performed, highlighting lessons learned and teacher foibles, ha. 

With all the class work, the other activities, the evening sessions, time to eat and sleep, who knows when they had the time to do this, and practice, and perform so very well!  This will be my "chanting" class in my memories, the class where all I had to do was hold out my arms, and a chant would ensue. 

Yes, we had fun.

Yes, we learned about doing beautiful motifs and techniques on our home sewing machines.  Podflowers grew, feathers flowed, gingko stretched our brain power.

My trip home was smooth, my last day there I spent in a fantastic new room far away from the woods, up on a scenic outcropping with a full ocean view.  A wonderful way to unwind, pack for the trip home, and relax.

Class, I never found the gingko handouts with the diagram.  They were not on the kitchen counter after all.  I may have unpacked them in my first night's hotel and left them there.  Who knows what some housekeeper might be practicing in her off time, and what wonderful gingkos she is quilting.....!

Thanks to everyone for making my last class so wonderful.  I will always remember my times at Empty Spools, the fun and talented people, the scenery, the buildings and charm.  Special thanks to Diana, Suzanne, and Gayle for making it all possible and for taking such great care of me and everyone, and for all those over the years who were my classroom assistants/hostesses and made it all go smoothly.  

Special thanks to Roberta for all her assistance with the machines and who provided me with a wonderful smooth familiar Bernina 730 for my quilting demos, and for the lovely bag, which I shall show in a future post.

Oliver was ecstatic when I arrived home, and is still checking out my luggage and interesting crumbs and exotic scents in my things.  There were even a few pine needles.  I think he grew while I was away, but is now so content and happy that I am home and doing fun things like laundry. 

More on what we learned in a future post.

Meanwhile, keep quilting....your work gets better every day!

Diane 

Thank you GLHQ! On to Asilomar....

I just returned from a wonderful trip to the Detroit, MI area where I taught classes and gave a lecture to the Great Lakes Heritage Quilters.  The weather was summery, food amazing, scenery lovely.  Special thanks to Diane and Joyce for taking such great care of me, and Linda for chauffeuring me in a pinch, and for sharing their time so generously. 

We had fun, we talked, laughed, quilted.  Everyone worked so hard in class, and the results were terrific.  Keep on quilting, work on those tops or make tops to quilt and perfect your free motion skills.  Remember to take breaks too.

Loved seeing all the cousins, uncles, aunts and other relations to my amazing Buick on the roads there too.

I returned to Wisconsin to find spring has finally arrived, the trees are blooming and the warm days are here.  I had a few hours rest and relaxation, some time to assure Oliver it really was me back again, but he knows I am not even stowing the luggage in the hidden room.  I must be going somewhere again, and he is right.

Next week is my last session at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in California.  I am busy shipping things and hoping they get there in time.  My silk thread cones arrived on Monday and I shipped off a box of them for class, but I am also bringing some with me in case these don't arrive in time.  When I dumped them all out on the kitchen table they were so pretty, like jewels in all the colors and shine.  Yum.

Those of you in class next week should keep in mind:

•  Prepare the project to quilt in class ahead of time.  You may layer it, and even stitch in the ditches first, with fine weight thread of your choice.  If you decide on marking something in the squares or border, that can be done in class after we get started and discuss options.  I will have some stencils for you in class.
• Be sure and have good markers - you need to see the marks.
• The on-site shop will have wonderful wool batt, Pellon Legacy, in case you'd like to try it. 
• Sew EZ tables are a great thing to have if you are driving.  There is plenty of room in our classroom.
• The chairs could use a small cushion if you are short. 
• Please do not wear strong perfumes, essential oils, or insect repellent to class as many of us are allergic to them....thanks from me, and all of us.

I look forward to spending this time with all of you.  I hope the class will have something for everyone so your quilting will improve and you will leave with new excitement about this amazing art.  Please email me if you have specific questions.

Back to packing, but do keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day.

Diane

 

A Black and White Tale

It's rainy, windy, sleeting, cold.  Oliver wanted to curl up with a good book, so he chose Ann Fahl's new one, A Black and White Tale. 

He didn't want another "how-to" book on quilting, because for him, that train has left the station.  Instead he wanted whimsy, delightful adventures, quilts yes, and not too much reading time, a simple poetic journey, something to slowly browse, and ooh and ah over the quilts. 

But, most importantly, he wanted a book about a cat!  Maybe a black and white cat named Oreo who lives near us, with fellow quilter Ann Fahl and who is the subject of many of her glorious quilts. 

Whether it's birds, flowers, cranes, things in her house, watching the night sky, having tea or a power breakfast for quilters (oatmeal!), Oreo has many delightful adventures that Oliver loved reading about.  He even seemed to catch her mysterious and exotic scent on the edges of the book...... oh my!

He sighed when he finished, looked at me and purred in contentment.  He definitely has given his "paw of approval" for this charming book, perfect for quilters or non-quilters, for animal lovers, especially cat lovers.  He thinks Grandmothers would love to read this to children.  It combines quilts and cats and some lovely verse.  It would be a perfect gift, or something special to keep and look through from time to time, just for yourself.

If you want a copy of your own, go to Ann's website to order:  www.annfahl.com

If you are going to the AQS Show at Paducah coming up at the end of April, this book will be available at two vendors, Artfabric and Quilting Books Unlimited.  Caryl Bryer Fallert will also have copies for sale at her Bryerpatch Studio store, plus some of the book's quilts on display.  It's very near the expo center, and if you've never strolled over, take the time to do so.  It's amazing!  Tell her I said hi. 

Hope the weather clears soon, and the birds are chirping again, with spring just around the corner.  Oliver is sleeping again, but he had a great evening with his book.

Keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day,
Diane

More Eggs

More Eggs! 

 

I thought I’d share some more Ukrainian eggs with you, from Carolyn Trout.  Above, a sample of her work, as well as below.  Carolyn explains the process:

“This is a hobby for me. I do not sell eggs, but I do give them away as gifts, to charity auctions, etc. I’ve been doing this for about 30 years, more or less. These eggs are Pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs. The process is a wax resist process, exactly like batik, only on egg shells instead of on fabric. They are not painted, but dyed.

The process requires successive steps of drawing with hot beeswax on the egg shell and then dyeing in increasingly dark colors, until the final color, after which all the wax is melted off to reveal the pattern underneath.  I’m not Ukrainian by birth or culture, but I do use many of the traditional patterns, some of which are thousands of years old. If you Google ‘pysanky’ or ‘pysanka’ (the singular form) you will find tons and tons of information. I learned to do this when my husband gave me a kit for Christmas many years ago. He had no idea that he was starting an obsession and that he was going to lose his wife to the siren call of the dyed egg.”

Happy Spring everyone; enjoy the eggs.

Diane