A very scrappy Flower Garden

You know how it is, when people find out you make quilts, they bring one to show you. This is our friend Cheryl in Yankton, South Dakota who showed me a quilt I knew you would love to see too!

It's probably the happiest, scrappiest Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt ever. It has fabrics dating to the 1930s (lots of feedsack fabric) - there could be some '50s fabrics too. I always like to imagine quilts like this being a handwork project for a long time. Cheryl acquired this top from an aunt who bought it in Salina, Kansas.

It has been well cared for and is in great shape. It is large - there was a label on the back with a size of 101" x 80". Seems like it was hand pieced. My advice when i see a quilt like this is if you love it and want to use it, go ahead and have it quilted. Sometimes machine quilting is a real help in holding older quilts like this one together. Enjoy it and love it! And thanks to Cheryl for sharing it!

My Made Fabric

I was so busy posting photos of my fellow classmates in the last blog, I thought I'd do a separate post for my made fabric from Victoria Findlay Wolfe's workshop last week.

I've been making my own fabric from scraps for a long time so I was eager to hear a new perspective on it. I often start with squares or strips - Victoria had us start with 5-sided shapes, aka pentagons.

I've decided to use this technique in a sawtooth border for a t-shirt quilt I'm working on for my daughter. This will certainly jazz up the quilt!

If you can't take a workshop with Victoria soon, you can get her book and learn about made fabric! It's 15 Minutes of Play, I highly recommend it.

Victoria comes to town

Victoria with Mary Kay Fosnacht and her block.

We had a wonderful time with Victoria Findlay Wolfe, who visited our guild this week.

I "met" Victoria several years ago through this blog so spending a day in her company yesterday IN PERSON was a real treat. Her lecture was great: she is warm and personable and fun. Her quilts were dynamite, the ones that make you want to drop everything and SEW. She is on a summer drive through the country's midsection, talking and sewing.

Kelly Cline's block

An afternoon in her workshop taught me these things:
For made fabric, sew with a tinier stitch so the ends don't come apart.
I will consider using made fabric in all my future quilts.
Victoria does not categorize herself as a modern quilter, rather a quilter influenced more by quilts of the past.
Quotes:
"I'm basically being a fabric designer (while piecing together scraps)."
"Think of scraps as made fabric."
"When I cut out fabric, things happen that I could not have planned."

Suzy Anderson is making GREAT made fabric using her husband's ties interspersed with silk.

An evening together on the porch taught me these things:
We like the same quilts.
She bought one of my wonky quilts in the antique mall booth!
We both have a ukelele player in the family.

Victoria is a lovely guest, good listener, very brave, exciting and adventurous, and a truly nice person. Come back soon!

I love the block Carol Ingenthron made.

A perfect spot for Rosemary's mini

My friend Rosemary Cromer made this delightful small quilt for me a while back. Yikes, almost 10 years ago!


I was going through the quilts in my closet recently and there it was, in a pile. I decided the perfect spot for it was a narrow wall in our living room. I just love the colors - it measures 8" x 30".


I met Rosemary a decade ago - she had just retired and was loving her work in our favorite quilt shop. Her story is included in my 2005 book, Quilters Stories. Her thoughts on creativity were exciting then and she has continued to be very creative in the years since.


She still teaches at Harper's. For years, she has led a creative forum that meets there called the Fractured Fabric Society. She recently posted a photo of a group from that club visiting the Kemper Museum of Art.


Go Rosemary! Check out her Facebook page for a photo of the happy group!

Turquoise sewing machine

My friend Reta Ousdahl downsized last summer and I ended up with her mother-in-law's White Zigzag sewing machine. It matches my house and is so dang cute. I had fantasies of setting it up in the living room to do 15 minutes of play a day, sewing on the porch with it.

The machine needed servicing to I took it to the local shop. The owner oohed and aahed over it. All metal, he exclaimed! So much better than the plastic machines that followed ...

AND it comes with all the accoutrements: manual, accessories ...

Not to mention nice table and the cutest chair on the planet, with storage in the seat ...

Well! Reality has caught up with me. I have enough machines already ... so I'm offering this one for sale. If you know of someone who needs a nice machine, send them my way. I'm asking $125, mainly to recoup the cost of the servicing, and I can be flexible ... I'd just like it to have a good home.

Off to the quilter

This top went to Kelly Cline this week to be quilted. (You can follow Kelly's quilting adventures on Facebook.) It's a simple top I purchased recently - I love the colors, and I love how it looks on our bed.

We're thinking of using red thread to quilt it. I'm also thinking that instead of trimming the edges straight, I will leave them spiky, for a long-time binding project. Kelly thinks I should use red binding - what do you think?

Special thanks to Barkley for modeling on the top. Pets love to lay down on whatever you spread out of the floor, don't they ...