Celebrating quilting through unifocal lenses

Yeah, I have no idea if that is a word or not either.

I'm here today to announce that at 6:30am tomorrow, 5/25, I'll be the guest blog post for the week at www.quiltinggallery.com. And that blog post celebrates the joys of discovering quilting at a younger age, something that many of us, even if we are a bit past being able to firmly place ourselves in the younger quilter realm, can relate to because we were there once. So whether you are currently a quilter under 45, or under 35, or under 25, or once were a quilter under those ages, please stop by Quilting Gallery (either click on the link above or on the image in the left sidebar) and check it out!

As part of the fun, I'm giving away a kit for my "Funky Tree Farm" quilt, which is featured in the post. You just have to post a (kind) comment on the Quilting Gallery site under my post to be entered. You are always welcome to post comments here, too, but they won't be entered for the drawing.

I'm off to enjoy the waning days of my pre-bifocal life, myself.

The family who quilts together...

....is in the case of my family, being forced to do so by one wacko person, and that would be me. Thankfully they humor me.


So excited to participate in another of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festivals at www.amyscreativeside.com. I was all set to show you all three of the quilts my extended family helped create for each of my three children, but then I actually read the rules and determined I was only allowed to show one quilt. So because everyone worries so much about my daughter Greta being in therapy someday due to her not having her name in my company like the other two, I chose her quilt. Plus it just really shows some clever creativity on the parts of my non-quilting family members (ie everyone but me).

Greta's Love Bugs

I got the idea to have our families welcome each of our babies with a group quilt from my husband's cousin, who had had all of her family members decorate teddy bear quilt squares to suit their personalities. The result was adorable, so when my twin daughters were born in 2002 I had all of our family members decorate not one but two penguin quilt squares. I provided the square with the penguin all appliqued on it (you know, because I had nothing better to do while pregnant) and sent out care packages to all our family members with the squares, some random fabrics, some fabric paints, buttons, beads, jewels, etc and the explicit instructions that they had to deck their penguin out in some manner to reflect themselves and send it to me by 3 months before the babies were due so I could put them together OR ELSE. Only the pregnant can use OR ELSE as effectively as all that. I truly had no hope that my father in law or three brother in laws would do this at all, and had serious doubts that my mother in law and sisters in law would do it either, but I prayed they might take pity on me. My own family members got together at my parent's dining room table a month before my mom died of cancer to create their blocks all together. Really a great memory.

Suffice it to say the entire family, father in law included, shocked the heck out of me, and every square came back on time and completely adorable and creative. But you don't get to see those quilts unless I get a lot of begging in the comment section.

Three years later we were expecting a third baby, and I had no idea what theme to use for this one's family quilt. I feel certain many family members were hoping I would not come up with one, but eventually I determined that this time everyone would work even harder. (I do tend to use pregnancy to get my way, as all women should do.) This time, everyone got a square of green fabric and the instructions to "create a bug that reflects your personality, something you like to do, etc." I don't even want to know what was said behind my back. Again, fingers crossed, I went about my business and prayed for results.

OMG did I get them. "Greta's Love Bugs" came in by the truckload (since we had some more family members by then) and every one of them was knock down drag out creative. Here are some of my faves:

My dad, known to my children as Poppa, likes to (or more accurately, is often called upon to) fix things around the house and is quite handy. He came up with the idea of making a carpenter ant, and, as we can see, totally ran with it. The ant is some black fabric I provided, the overalls were part of some of his old jeans, and the tools were from a Christmas ornament he had had for years and sacrificed to the cause of his new grandbaby's ultimate happiness. The pencil was a little stick whittled on one end and painted to look like an eraser on the other. I just love my dad for being so awesome; I love picturing him at the table working on this and coming up with all these ideas and being proud of himself, and he should be.

Poppa's Carpenter Ant

Next we have my husband, exhibit B in the "But men who aren't quilters can't possibly be creative enough to do this, can they?" rebuttal. I apologize that the photo doesn't do the block justice, but he chose to make a Daddy Longlegs. How freaking cute is he? On the block he wrote "Daddy doesn't have long legs, but he longs to meet you." Yeah, he's pretty cute.

Daddy's Daddy Long Legs

Next up we have my daughter Paige's block for her baby sibling. Paige was three and a half at the time of the quilt block creation and even then was my most creative and crafty child. She wanted to make a bee, and did so with some fabric scraps, sponge paint stamps, and fabric paint. She even made some little button flowers. She's really quite fabulous. My favorite part of this block, though, is where I wrote the little message she wanted to tell the baby, and I do quote: "I hope you are a baby brother because we already have girls here." We did not know what kind of baby we were having, but Paige had always been steadfast in wanting a baby brother, and I felt it really did need to be documented on her square. (We were slightly concerned that she would be bitterly disappointed by a baby sister, but as it turned out, she was the one running around the house screaming "We have a baby sister!" when we called to let them know. So it's all good.

Paige's Bee

Last but not least I would like to highlight my sister's block, because again, the choice of bug is so creative. Alison is a book editor, working mostly on children's books, and chose to make a bookworm. She used some marketing materials from her work to make little books on the square and wrote "Aunt Alison will read to you." I'm not really sure of the significance of the pink bow, but overall it is just too darn cute. And again, just way more creative than I ever expected.

Aunt Alison's Bookworm

Thanks for checking out my post in the blog tour. I'd love to hear what you think, and would love to hear if you have ever made such a quilt in your family!

Trick or Treat! I'm dressed as a Technologic Wonderkind.

It is a well documented fact among everyone who has ever met me, even briefly on the street, that I would have been an excellent 1950s housewife. Not, mind you, because I keep the perfect home, keep my children stain-free, mannerly, and unrumpled, and greet my husband each evening precisely at 5pm with a martini while wearing pearls. Hardly. More because my level of technological awareness and understanding is more suited to a typewriter and adding machine than iPads and Nooks (0f which I own neither, although the former is on the horizon and I believe the latter should be outlawed, but that is another post for another time). Thankfully, I married a man who was raised by a lovely couple who still do not have cable television and only recently got a tv with a remote. So he gets me.

"Syncopated Ribbons"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

(Side note - our local grocery store is currently running a "Recycle your Electronics" campaign - Give us your old electronics, we'll give you a gift card. Joe and I just about needed Depends while we were reading the list of things they would accept for recycle, because every one of them was way more fancy than anything we own. You know that commercial where the family comes home and the house was robbed but the thieves left the computer? That's us. We're actually quite hopeful that we will be the charity to which all the recycled electronics will be donated.)

"Greta's Kaleidoscope"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

So taking all of this into consideration, most of you should be sitting down when I make this announcement: I've not only had a quilt in a downloadable magazine this month (http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/ if you missed my previous post) but I now have three of my patterns available from PatternSpot, a downloadable pattern marketplace run by C&T publishing. I know. I too worry that I have actually been taken over by alien beings. www.patternspot.com/users/127 - there I am, with my three patterns.

Traditionally, I've been wary of the downloadable pattern. Not only does it rely soully upon the t-word, but for someone like me who likes to actually touch and feel my books and patterns on paper, it was way too bizarre to think about actually keeping them on a computer file. Or making a consumer print out their own pattern. The horror. But hey, times, they are a-changing, and it is time for me to move into the 20th century. (Not a typo, btw. :) )


PatternSpot.com is a gorgeous website full of fantastic patterns for all different skill levels by tons of designers all available at the press of your enter key (and a few other keys, like your paypal account access and/or cc for payment, but really, that's just details). I love the way the designer photos are all in B/W, too. Not only does it look classy, but it really hides a myriad of skin and/or brassy hair color imperfections. Speaking for myself, anyway.

"Confetti Toss"

Now available for download from Patternspot.com

The patterns I chose to include for starters at PatternSpot.com are three from either my "holy cow this is so easy my four year old could do it (or at least pick out the fabrics)" collection of designs or my "wow I am letting loose and having a ball without having to worry about matching any points or making my seams exactly 1/4 - are the quilt police banging on my door yet?" collection of designs. I choose these three because they are fun, they are relatively quick, and they don't contain any templates, so they were easy for me to upload and know the directions should be just fine. When I get braver I'll add some from my collection of "easy machine piecing and embellishing - lots of wow with little fuss" designs.

Please visit the PatternSpot.com website, even if you don't look at my page. But hey, while you are there, check that one out too just to humor me. Happy downloading!

Road trippin' with NEQDC

NEQDC, or New England Quilt Designers Cooperative for those of you just joining us, is packing up and moving out in just a couple of weeks as we will be vending once again at Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Quilt Festival, June 3-5 2011 at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY. This will be our second consecutive time at the show and we are very excited. Come along as I attempt to excite you as well!





Quilt Festival is the biannual show for Genesee Valley Quilt Club, a huge club from Western NY that really knows how to put on a show. It's three full days of non stop action, including fashion shows, auctions, special lectures and exhibits, a chance to sew a pillowcase for charity, and of course about 900 billion quilts. The ladies, and I would imagine a few gentlemen, of GVQC are not only prolific in and of themselves, but they also secure travelling exhibits for show at their event, so the floor is just amazingly full of gorgeousness. I spent three days there and couldn't see it all. Granted, I was supposed to be helping in NEQDC's booth, which cut into my show viewing, but as anyone who has worked with me in the booth in the past knows, I tend to wander off and hope no one notices.

Add to all the fun the vendor shop hop. This is such a great idea and I wish more shows would adopt it. Perhaps it only works for GVQC because the vendors are so fantastic (they truly are!), but here's the deal: As you shop, save your receipts. Then head on over to the shop hop booth. Volunteers with calculators will add up your totals, and for every $100 you've spent, you get a ticket to put in a Chinese auction style basket raffle. Baskets feature products donated by the vendors, from patterns and notions to alpaca sweaters. It's truly fantastic and a win win for the vendors, the show, and the shoppers.

This year's special guests are George Siciliano, Pat Pauly, Rami Kim, and Carol Ritter-Wright. Carol will be doing a live auction with some of the proceeds to benefit Gilda's Club of Rochester, a support system for women with ovarian cancer and their families. As a daughter who lost her mom to ovarian cancer almost ten years ago, I absolutely love that I can be part of a show that supports fighters and survivors in this way.

NEDQC will be in booth 610/611 - oh yeah, we sprang for the double! - and we'd love to see you there. Myself, Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs, and Cary Flanagan of Something Sew Fine will be there in person. We aren't George Siciliano, but we think we are pretty awesome, so please stop by!

Quilt Pattern Magazine and my Sally Field moment

Several months ago I received notice from someone, somewhere, that there was a brand new online magazine, http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/, coming out and they were looking for designers. Being one to jump on new magazine bandwagons before they realize I am a relative nobody, I immediately contacted them for more information and within a month had sent them two new designs, one of which had been soundly rejected by one publication already. But I'm not bitter. If I were bitter, I would name names. (In all seriousness, I am not bitter at all and totally get that rejection is part of this business and am actually quite good at not taking it personally. Just in case people were worried. :) )

Anyway, off went my two designs, and off I went to go about the business of living my life for the several months I expected it would take to hear that they likely were going to go in another direction. Which was fine. They make wine, I am happy to use it to soothe my weary soul. Props to Folie au Deaux and Jerry Lohr (who went to high school with my father in law, BTW - my own personal "Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon/ Tom Helfter" ).

Imagine my surprise when 6 HOURS later I was innocently checking my email to see what stellar products Overstock.com was trying to sell me when BAM! Two acceptances in the same day as a submission! Holy crap. Does this mean I have talent? I commenced to running around the house yelling "They like me! They really like me!" while my children ushered their friends out the door so as not to be permanently embarassed by my behavior.

Enter May, and it's time for Quilt Pattern Magazine to run the first of my patterns - "Night Owl". It's right there on page 12 for you subscribers. The photo is not the best and I am not terribly proud of that part. So here's a close up of part of it that shows the cool fabrics by Adorn-It and the really cute ruffled bias strip part.

Part of the reason my photo stinks is my mad non-skills as a photog, but mostly it is that polka dot fabric. LOVE the fabric, DO NOT recommend polka dots on something you plan to photograph. Cameras hate them. What do cameras know? They are awesome. But unfortunately, if the cameras hate them, they can screw you. And the camera did so. Are we loving my "It can't possibly be MY fault!" attitude?

Anyway, questionable picture aside, it's a great little quilt. Quick, simple piecing and way fun to choose fabrics for ultimate wow factor - the simple design makes it a true "the fabrics make the quilt" quilt. And that applique bias strip is to die for. So cute, and a simple way to make a fairly plain quilt a whole lot more interesting.

Here's another close up of my quilting. I'm quite proud of it and believe it needs to be highlighted because it took me about 900 hours to do. That's an exaggeration. Probably more like 600.

I love that QPM included so many alternate ways to do the bias strip, including a photo of one of the tester quilts. Great minds together can make even a simple quilt something special.

If you aren't a subscriber to QPM, I encourage you to check it out. It's one of the best bargains out there and comes out monthly! We all need more quilting ideas on a regular basis, after all! June's issue will feature my second submission, which if at all possible I love even more than this one just because it is completely unique, practical, the perfect gift for any child, and beyond adorable. Not that I am biased.