Quilt Camp, Day #4

She did it! She quilted her quilt, on the longarm, by herself! 

Wouldn't the first thing to do, after it's removed from the rails, 

be to wrap up in your quilt that's backed with royal purple Minkee? 

You betcha!

💗

Each one of these snapshots is worth 1,000 words!

💗

Life is Good!

Quilt Camp, Day #3

Day three of Quilt Camp was a momentous one! As you can see by the clock on the wall, all twenty blocks were completed before 11:00 AM! This was reason for celebration, and a well-deserved break before lunch.

Today was a perfect day, weather-wise; jump roping and spending some time outdoors was a great outlet for expending energy. We had story time after that, time spent with my all-time favorite children's book.

She loves it as much as her Nana does!

Someone left a little surprise this morning. 💗

The afternoon was spent joining the rows together. She was unstoppable. 

She monitored her own progress, keeping track with this tablet parked beside the sewing machine!

In an effort not to tire her out too much, our afternoon break was a card game. That "poker" face! 😂

She finished piecing her top shortly after that, this is a portrait of pure,  proud accomplishment!

She couldn't wait to wrap up in it!

And what could be better to top off the perfect day than some backyard s'mores after dinner?

Life is Good!

The Future's Bright...

...for the next generation of quilt makers! Gregory was in the house today to quilt up his Star Wars top and get the binding attached. For him, to acclimate to the longarm and understand its workings were like a duck approaching a pond. It was 100% clear sailing all the way!

He used an easy beginner pantograph: "Loop de Loop"; he was done and off the rails by lunchtime. 

The binding was attached and basted down after lunch. He persevered with the hand finishing.

He'll get there. Admittedly this was his "least favorite" part. But, he did ask me about making a label for the back to contain his name and the date and "hand made by..."; we'll definitely get that done. 👍

Life is Good!

New Year, New Quilter

Gregory and his Star Wars quilt top

Our two local grandchildren have had an extra week off from school this week. Gregory (and his sister) spent the day with us yesterday and helped us to un-decorate the house. There's something about packing away the trees and all the decorations that makes everything look so bare and wide-open; it's sort of a clean sweep and re-examination of spaces that, just days before, were filled with greenery and treasured mementos. I love Christmas; but I love packing it away for next year all over again, too! 

Especially when I have such great helpers!

After lunch both of the grandchildren got to work! Gregory settled to a routine of sewing four-patches until he had completed his own 48" X 48" quilt top made up entirely of inherited Star Wars scraps. He loved moving his blocks around on the design wall and finally coming up with his final layout (above, left). He's learned a LOT during the process; he's a proficient ironer now and understands the importance of a consistent seam allowance. We'll load this top onto the longarm in the coming weeks and he'll quilt it himself, following a simple pantograph. 

While her brother was sewing Lynnleigh transformed our Christmas card fronts into gift tags for next year's Christmas presents! This is a great recycling project made even more fun by involving a young and eager crafter. The card backs and photo cards are stacked and bound together with a ring for our morning devotions. Each day a new family or individual comes to the top of the pile and they're prayed for specifically by name. This is a tradition that I've blogged about before here. The dear friend who started this tradition for us has long ago now joined the Church Triumphant but lives on through her shining example. The gift tags from the card fronts has sort of evolved over time. Lynnleigh did a great job! With this New Year firmly underway I am focusing on that chosen guiding word: "mindful". Stay tuned. In the meantime, help me to welcome another new quiltmaker into the fold. 

Way to go, Gregory!

Sometimes, when the house seems to be chaotic and full of boxes,

 and there's kids running around here and there, 

it might just be time to cuddle up, all warm and cozy-like, in front of the fire with a  good friend. 

Life is Good!

The Write Stuff

Back in the early days of my quilt making past I had very few tools with which to work and I collected them slowly and judiciously. My sewing space, when I was a newbie quiltmaker, was a semi-finished corner of our basement. I had a sewing machine down there, a formica-clad kitchen table, chair, iron and ironing board; it was everything that I needed to work for a few hours in the afternoons when our son was taking his nap and our daughter was in elementary school. Oh, how I recall the excitement of working on those first quilts in that dedicated, yet barren, space! I remember ordering this woven wicker utensil caddy from the Miles Kimball catalog, it seemed to be just the perfect thing in which to store and organize my quilting tools: #2 pencil, 1/4" tape, shears, sandpaper, cardboard for templates and ruler, I planned to place it on the back side of that worktable. Back in those days (1983) the ordering process was a bit more drawn out: filling out a paper order form, enclosing a check and mailing it off, then eagerly waiting weeks to receive the order in the return mail. It didn't take very long at all for my ever-burgeoning collection of tools (marking, cutting, gadgets and gizmos) to outgrow the wicker organizer and yet, it has stayed on the desk in all of my sewing rooms and quilting spaces ever since; faithfully organizing (sort of) this, that and an odd assortment of pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, scissors and junk that defies a space of its own-- the WRITE stuff. It has been falling apart, bit by bit, for years and I've been looking the other way. Last week I dropped a pencil in one the front compartment and it fell straight through to the floor! (See circled area above) It had served its purpose; sadly, it was time to move on.

Two days later I had a replacement (thanks, Amazon!): something sturdier and more reliable to hold essentials. So much has changed in the years since I began equipping a sewing space, it's almost mind-boggling; and, yet, the excitement for making quilts hasn't waned. I love thinking back to making those first quilts and how it all began. I'm grateful for friends that I've made along the way and how far I've come; but I wouldn't take anything for those early days and the road that got me here. This week, it simply took a piece of worn-out wicker to remind me. 

If you're interested in my very first quilt, and the story behind it, you can read an old post here. 

Life is Good!

Quilt Camp Wrap Up

I posted a week ago about the eager-beaver quilt camper that I had hanging out in the sewing room with me! A week ago-- where does all that flying time go? I am SEW very impressed by this young lady's enthusiasm and focus when it came to creating her very first quilt that I can hardly contain myself. She and I chatted earlier in the year about her wanting to learn and I agreed to help her get started. We all want to pass along the love of quilting to the next generation*; or, in this case, the generation after that! 😉 At almost twelve years old this young lady definitely had in mind what she wanted to do; "make a quilt that she could put on her bed"; she arrived filled with the determination to see her vision through! As her quilt camp counselor I truly wanted her to succeed and decided that she needed a project large enough to be usable and small enough to finish, promoting a sense of accomplishment that might fuel her love of the art. We used the Accuquilt cutter and made quick work of cutting tumblers, enough (323 - 4" tumbler shapes) to make a quilt measuring 52" X 64".  She chose all of her fabrics from my stash, she likes bright colors and strong contrasts, no pastels for this girl! I taught her what I could and from there she worked tirelessly laying out all the pieces, creating her rows and assembling the top, hour after hour.

By Friday morning last week her quilt was layered and loaded onto Snowbird for quilting. She took a few passes following the pantograph, just to get a feel for the longarm, before we turned the machine on. She's a quick study and was done with the quilting portion by lunchtime!

This shot is worth 1,000 words!

She made her binding in the early afternoon and got that attached in short order.

She is shown here learning how to fold over and finish the binding by hand on the backside of the quilt. She's a natural.

I took this picture just before she left out the door to go home on Friday afternoon. She vowed to have her binding all finished and stitched down as soon as she could; "by the end of the weekend" she stated.

Her Dad sent this photograph from their home a few hours later; my heart swelled. Isn't this absolutely the very best we can hope for? For this quiltmaker I am not sure much else comes close. 

Yep, it's a WRAP!!

A quilter is born; I'm calling this Quilt Camp an unqualified success!

Life is Good!

* For what it's worth-- I've posted about this before, the subject of passing on quilt knowledge from one generation to another: When I began quilting I tried to learn every. single. thing. that I could from my quilting "fore-mothers". They were just as eager to pass along tips and techniques as those like myself were to learn. I found myself soaking in everything they could teach me like a dried out sponge in desperate search of moisture. This next generation, those the age of my children, seemingly need nothing from us. We are happy to teach, to give back as payment for all that we received; yet this "YouTube" generation have charted their own path, they're learning on their own and happily designing and creating by themselves. This makes me incredibly sad, on several levels, but the greatest might just be that very basic need to be needed. And, SEW it goes... thoughts?

Dim The Lights...

... cue the soft music, it's nap time! Okay, so maybe it's not nap time yet, but it soon will be! My dear DIL teaches Pre-K, where students still nap after lunch. Once again the generous Miss BeeHaven quilters have joined me in the challenge to supply three classrooms with nap blankets for the coming year. I handed off eleven last evening, what a good feeling! More will continue to come in before the school year begins; and, according to my calculations, we'll meet the goal of forty-five! In fact, this year's "Blankie" award goes to LP; who has, single-handedly, sewn up fifteen and blanketed one entire classroom! YAY!

I have a large, designated, tote bin that resides in the bottom of my stash closet into which all appropriate fabrics, measuring at least one yard, are placed throughout the year. Fabrics are donated from friends and family, the bin is still this full after sewing eleven yesterday, (that's twenty-two yards out!) it has truly become a "loaves and fishes" box. The nap blankets are simply sewn from two one yard lengths, placed RST and sewn all along the edges, pillowcase style, then turned and topstitched around the outside edges and from corner to corner with a large "X"; there's no batting. They are lightweight and comfortable, the children love them!

One little tip that I learned recently (an online tutorial... what did we ever do without those?) is to secure the opening when doing the RST stitching with a backtacked line of stitching perpendicular to the stitching along the edge, it makes the turning, and pressing down of that opening, so much cleaner and better!

Here's the teacher, my deal DIL, last evening. She burned the midnight oil and powered through to get her quilt top done for little Lynnleigh; she goes back to school next week and her evenings won't be as leisurely as they've been all summer, her clock was ticking! Didn't she do a fabulous job? I am SEW proud of her! She has some yellow flannel (Big Bird motif) for the backing, she's not exactly sure how she wants to finish it yet; she may go batting-less, like the nap blankets for her classroom, she's still deciding. Whatever she decides though, Lynnleigh will rest comfortably under this quilt of love sewn especially for her by her own sweet Mama!

Life is Good!

 

Studio Stars!

I spent the day yesterday with three of my favorite people, in my favorite room of the house... the studio! My daughter in law came to sew and concluded the day with more than half of Lynnleigh's baby quilt top pieced! She did an awesome job! During Gregory's naptime I hung out with the girls and personalized a few T-shirts for little Lynnleigh on the embroidery machine;, here she is modeling one. Of course, Nana had to make her a strawberry shirt! I can scarcely believe how quickly she's growing, she was showing off her skills all day too... sitting up unassisted is her latest trick!
                         
I didn't get a photo of the flurry of paper snippets that covered the floor and rug after Gregory woke up from his nap. A pair of child-scissors and a sheet of paper provided oodles of fun for the longest time. If any of you are in need of hand-cut confetti let me know, I can put you in touch with a skilled craftsman!

Life is Good!

A Quilted Hug

Saturday was quilting day at The Strawberry Patch for Lady L. She arrived bright and early to try her hand at steering Sundance in loops over the surface of her beautiful chevron quilt made from her precious Grammy's fabrics.  Unlike the rest of us who would complete the quilting and then stand back to admire the finished product, Lady L. promptly wrapped herself up tightly in her first quilt! She did a phenomenal job start to finish, including her own awesome hand-dyed backing fabric!  This week she'll make her binding and get that attached, what a wonderful keepsake she'll have to take with her to college in August; a warm, quilted hug!

Well done, Lady L!
Life is Good!