Category: Quilting in Maine

Quilting, mine and others

Turkey Tracks: Treasures From The Coastal Quilters and Georges Valley Quilters’ Auction

Turkey Tracks:  November 14, 2016

Treasures From The Coastal Quilters’ and Georges Valley Quilters’ Auction

This auction is our fund raiser.  Together with the Georges Valley Quilters, we do it every other year.

Coastal Quilters uses these funds to make a donation to the fabulous and generous Lion’s Club for letting us meet there and for bringing in speakers who have a connection to Fiber Art.

As usual, I came home with some treasures.

I have coveted Becca Babb-Brott’s quilted bag for months now.  This pieced bag is her own design.  (She has the Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.)

I begged, and she promised to make one for the auction.  And when another quilter also yearned for this bag, Becca made a second one in about a week!!

When I won the bag, I sat right down and transferred items from my present (and getting shabby) purse to this one, my heart’s desire.

Here’s one side.  Look at those terrific handles made from marine rope.

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Here’s the other side:

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The inside is deep and has lots of pockets.

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I’m all ready to go with my bag and my sewing machine.

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I discovered this weekend that the bag likes to go grocery shopping too.

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Margaret Elaine Jinno made us a whole stack of these see-through plastic, zipper bags.  They are PERFECT for carrying English Paper Piecing projects.  I got two of them.  AND I’ve got a new EPP project lined up–Katja Marek’s Millifiore Quilt.

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Megan Bruns appliquéd English Paper Piecing pentagons on to gorgeous, heavy flour sack towels.  And, embroidered some of them as well.

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Here’s 20 Riley Blake fat quarters–donated by a mystery person.

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Yummo!  You’ll be seeing these in my quilts soon.

And here’s a wonderful purse from Rebecca Hokkanan, who loves COLOR like I do.  I bought it for a birthday present for a loved one.

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There were so many lovely, clever handmade items at this year’s auction.  And I love having the work of other Fiber Arts people in my house.  All their good energy comes with their work.

Turkey Tracks: Quilt-let Quilt Done!

Turkey Tracks:  November 14, 2016

Quilt-let Quilt Done!

It’s “The Cat’s Meow!”

And, I LOVE it.

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I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it.  Would it be a wonderful wall hanging for my office?

Nope.  Not with this gorgeous low-volume neutral backing.

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How fun is this?

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Friend Becca Babb-Brott (Etsy store Sew Me A Song) is going to make one now, and she came up with the idea of doing the pearl cotton as one goes along, but doing the hand quilting in individual blocks when the quilt is finished.  Yes!  That would solve the problem of trying to make nice quilting stitches on a small quilt that does not really fit into a hoop that isn’t too small to work with hand quilting.  The stab quilting is very difficult as the layers shift so much as you sew.

I love every single block, but I wound up with TWO of the Cotton+Steel cats, so the quilt became “The Cat’s Meow!”

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I decided to use half blocks to fill in the top and bottom edges–I just cut the batting in half and folded the quilt-let in half and sewed the edges together before decorating with pearl cotton.

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This quilt is going to be a lap quilt in my living room.  It is so soft and cuddly!

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Yummo!!

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Quilts will tell you where they want to be if you listen to them while you work.  It just comes to you along the way.

THANK YOU Katja Marek for a very fun project that let me enjoy many hours of fabric love, color love, pattern love, quilting love!!

Turkey Tracks: Alewives Quilt Shop Low-volume Fat Quarter Club

November 5, 2016

Alewives Quilt Shop Low-Volume Fat Quarter Club

Each month I get a bundle of ten, low-volume fat quarters from Alewives Quilts in Damariscotta Mills, Maine.

Low-volume fabrics are those that do not have a lot of dye in them–so they are mostly neutrals.

The club lasts twelve months, so there are more bundles to come.

But here’s what was in my mailbox today:

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My goodness, aren’t they pretty?

Each month has had a color theme–this one is clearly an aqua blue.

Yummy!

Buying fat quarters in bundles is a great way to get a wide fabric selection, especially if you are working with small pieces and English Paper Piecing.

Turkey Tracks: “En Provence,” The 2016 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  November 3, 2016

“En Provence,”

The 2016 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I picked up the paint chips today.

Of course, Bonnie uses a wide variety of fabrics in each of these colors–which makes for a quilt with lots of hues.  Nothing is flat about Bonnie’s quilts.

In addition, there are about 3 yards of neutrals.

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You can get to this posting, which just came out, on Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville.com.   Go to the blog, look at the upper listing of sub-sites on the blog, for the mystery quilt, “En Provence.”

If you have any idea that you might want to make this quilt some day, which will start the day after Thanksgiving, print out the instructions each week.

 

Turkey Tracks: October Farmer’s Wife Blocks

November 3, 2016

October Farmer’s Wife Blocks

 

These blocks have been done since mid-October, but I have been…busy, busy.

No. 75, Nan

Cotton+Steel fabrics

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No. 76 Nancy

Cotton+Steel fabrics

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No 77, Nellie

Cotton+ Steel fabrics, but this one needed higher contrast in the pink fabric, which has some navy in it.  The center dark angles are not showing up properly.

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No 78. Old Maid

Tula Pink ladybugs and Cotton+Steel plaid

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No 79 Patience

Cotton+Steel

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No 80 Patricia

Cotton+Steel.  This one is subtle and probably could have used more contrast, but I like it.  I LOVED to play jacks when I was a girl.

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No 81 Peony

Cotton+ Steel

I was sailing along and then hit this block.  The hand piecing version in the book made much more sense.  In the foundation piecing organization, everything swirls around that tiny central square.  It was a nightmare to sew.  Half seams, y seams, odd angles, and so on.  I really think whoever did the foundation piecing for this book did not do a great job.  There are tons of needless difficulties and seams that do not abut, which makes the blocks too bulky in places.  I had to go back and toy with seams or clip into them over and over.

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No 82 Pharlemia

Here’s another very difficult block–needlessly made more so by the foundation piecing pattern.  I threw out the directions, but the way the pieces are combined in the foundation pattern is just plain ruthlessly difficult.

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Friend Becca Babb-Brott (Sew Me A Song Etsy store) threw her Farmer’s Wives blocks up on a design wall at the October retreat (more on the retreat later) to check out color choices.  These blocks just went up randomly to try to get some visual notion of what is going on with color choices.  She does not have them all “up” here, but aren’t they wonderful?  The grey background looks flat in this photo, but it is shimmery and lively in person and is wonderful with the blocks.  This quilt is AMAZING.

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Turkey Tracks: Quilt-let Blocks Done!

Turkey Tracks:  October 30, 2016

Quilt-let Blocks Done!

Here are the last quilt-lets.  I am sewing the individual pieces together now.

At the end of this post you can see all the blocks in the final layout.

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(Yes, I apparently liked this green Cotton+Steel print so much I used it twice!  It’s easy to get confused when setting up blocks.

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There are two Cotton+Steel cat blocks too.

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Turkey Tracks: The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

Turkey Tracks:  October 22, 2016

The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

We had a great time!

As happened in May, we want to go back soon, soon, soon…

And we will in May and October 2017.  AND we will add a day for those of us who want a bit longer time sewing at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk, Maine.  (This forty acre property sits walking distance to the town or the beach and the grounds themselves are lovely.)  We checked in Monday at 1 p.m. and left Wednesday around noon, but could have stayed until 1 p.m.

This time, we were in the gym.  Look at this awesome set-up:

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(That is Vicki Fletcher at the cutting table.  See her quilt below.)

We had lots and lots of ironing boards and design walls and a table full of snacks we had brought with us and coffee, tea, and water supplied.  We have breakfast every day, lunch on the full day, and dinner on the two nights we are there.

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Here is Vicki’s quilt–which is made from a four-patch of five-inch blocks that get sliced and resewn.

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Sharon Flanagan and Margaret-Elaine Jinno.  Margaret-Elaine had pre-cut Farmer’s Wife blocks and she made SIXTEEN of them over the two days.

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Sharon worked on hemming some curtains for her brother and left Saturday afternoon for a special high tea at MIT, returning early evening.  She and Margaret Elaine stayed up late, and when the rest of us came down in the morning, we found this quilt on the design wall.  It’s an “amazing” quilt.  Do you see why?

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Lisa Niles brought her friend Sandy Pushaw.

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Here’s Lisa’s quilt:

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Here’s Sandy:

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And here’s Sandy’s quilt developing:  a trip around the world.

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Nancy Saulnier, or Mac, is Jan Kelsey’s friend.  She came last May and is coming again, with or without Jan.

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A Christmas beauty:

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Tori Manzi was with us for the first time:

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Tori did a retreat with Pink Castle quilts (a good site to follow) up in Michigan.  The medallion and each of the borders were designed by different designers.  We had such a good time watching Tori make these borders.  There are more borders to follow I think.

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Here’s another project Tori is working on–a “sampler” type quilt of these big, intricate blocks.  This one is foundation pieced.

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Jan Kelsey worked on a number of projects.  There was a quilt with half-square triangles that disappeared from the design board before I got a picture of it.  Here Jan is working on one of the grocery bags made from feed sacks.

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Look at this cute feed sack!

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My friend Penny Rogers Camm came over from Burlington, Vermont, to join us.  You can see her FIRST QUILT in an earlier blog post.  Here she is with Becca Babb-Brott (check out Becca’s Sew Me A Song Etsy store).

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Penny fell in love with Amy Friend’s “Tell Me A Story” quilt and here are her first blocks for that quilt, which is FOUNDATION PIECED.  She is doing fine with that method.

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She went home with this many blocks made.  I am very proud of my student!

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Lots of sharing went on among everyone.  We really loved this unified setting we had–no middle aisle to separate us.

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Becca worked on the Jen Kingwell project she has undertaken–a fusion of three Kingwell quilts, using all Kingwell blocks.  Becca is creating a geographical “scene” in this quilt.

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See the sky, the town buildings, etc.

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Mary Sue Bishop finished her sweatshirt jacket.  Behind her is the beginning of her trip around the world quilt.

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Here’s the back of Mary’s jacket:

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Linda Satkowski worked on several projects during the retreat.

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Linda sashed blocks from the Bonnie Hunter 2015 mystery quilt, “Allietore.”  Isn’t this gorgeous?  She will add another row maybe and, definitely, a border.

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Becca wanted to see what kinds of colors she had in the Farmer’s Wife blocks, so she just randomly put blocks on a design wall.  The camera is making her grey background look flat, but that grey is all shimmery and glowy in real life.  This quilt will be so much fun.

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As I said, as we were driving away, we wanted to return.

 

Turkey Tracks: Penny Rogers Camm’s First Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  October 21, 2016

Penny Rogers Camm’s First Quilt

Penny Rogers Camm and I graduated from Bellevue High School in Bellevue, Nebraska, in 1963.  We knew each other then, but were not close friends.

Bellevue sits outside Omaha, Nebraska, and is the home of Offutt Air Force Base.

We are Air Force Brats.

Penny lives in Burlington, Vermont, in the summer, and we reconnected almost four years ago now as Penny comes to Mid-Coast Maine to sail on the windjammer Stephen Taber in September.  She called me, and we wound up spending several days together and going to the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association (MOFGA) Common Ground Fair.

Last summer she asked me to come to Vermont for the annual quilt show.  She had gone the year before and was intrigued with quilting.

I went, and Penny decide she wanted to learn to quilt.  We started this quilt in September when she came to sail–and now to quilt.

Here is her FIRST QUILT TOP–which is for a family child of about three.  The block is from Bonnie Hunter:  “Carolina Chain,” which is in her new book, ADDICTED TO SCRAPS.

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Cute border fabric.

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Here we are layering the top with the batting and backing.  That’s my Amy Friend quilt on the longarm, “Tell Me A Story,” which is ready to quilt now.

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Penny is going to hand-quilt with various colors of size 8 pearl cotton.

AND Penny decided last summer to go on the Coastal Quilters (Maine) October retreat to the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk, Maine, where she started her SECOND QUILT.

Folks, she fell in love with Amy Friends “Tell Me A Story” quilt which is FOUNDATION PIECED.

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Love her background fabric with these blocks, though it gave both of us fits for a time until we worked out the orientations.

It will be 7 blocks by 8 blocks, so she went home yesterday with a good start and other blocks cut.  This quilt is going in Penny’s den.

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Penny is coming back in early December to learn to do the binding on the first quilt and, maybe, to layer and start quilting the second one.

AND, she has visions of other quilts dancing in her head already.

Here she is at our retreat:

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More on the retreat in another post.

Turkey Tracks: “Winter Blue Jays” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  October 3, 2016

“Winter Blue Jays” Quilt

My oldest grandchild turned THIRTEEN in late September.

How did that happen?

Of course I sent him a quilt for his quilt collection.

One of my childhood memories is playing in the sandy, rock-lined paths of my grandmother’s Reynolds, Georgia, garden when some baby Blue Jays fledged.  They were beyond adorable, and, of course, I tried to catch one.  The next thing I knew, Mama Blue Jay was flying around my head, pulling my hair, beating my head with her wings, and making a terrible racket.

Up here in Maine, I don’t see Blue Jays much in the summer.  But in winter, they arrive in flocks at my feeders, and they are so pretty.  They like a flat feeder, so I have one for them.

I bought the backing for Bowen’s quilt a few years back because I instantly fell in love with it

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I put my childhood story on the label so Bowen would always see my deep attachment to the wonders of nature.

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This quilt came out of the four-patch journey I went on two summers ago where I sewed all the two-inch blocks into light/dark four-patches.  I also used the 3 1/2-inch strips I had already cut and stored to make the light/dark half-square triangles–with the Easy Angle ruler.  ( I use Bonnie Hunter’s stash management system, as I’ve written about many times on this blog.)  The block in this quilt is the classic Jacob’s Ladder block–a 9 patch.  I had some light shirting fabric that I thought went really well with this quilt for the binding.

The quilt is a classic, like Bowen.

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I used a soft blue thread and a gently curving feather pantograph.

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Turkey Tracks: September 2016 Update

Turkey Tracks:  October 1, 2016

September 2016 Update

What a glorious summer I have had!

And the fun continues as my life continues to be rich with experiences.

The sailing trip on the J&E Riggin was terrific, as I posted earlier.

Quilter Timna Tarr comes next weekend for a Coastal Quilters trunk show and workshop on making “improvisational” quilts.  She has a terrific gallery on her web site.  Take a look?

On October 17th, some Coastal Quilters of Camden, Maine, will make another retreat at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Attending will be my Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Nebraska, classmate, Penny Rogers Camm, who is making her VERY FIRST QUILT.  Messages have been flying between us about layouts and how to sew blocks together and so forth.  Her quilt is so, so pretty.  We will pick out borders, etc., when she comes week after next.

I picked what will probably be this season’s LAST flower bouquet the other day.

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Next year I want MORE cosmos and zinnas in my garden.  And I need to go out and cut the gorgeous hydrangeas to bring in side the house for winter decorations.

Friend Megan Bruns is in Texas with her family this week.  She took all the rosettes from her Millifiori quilt (see former blog posts for details), and her mother helped her decide how to put them together.  This picture is the last I received.  Megan used all Anna Maria Horner fabrics in this quilt.  Of course there will be borders and so forth yet to do.

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Horch roofers have been here for the past two days.  The new roof is so pretty.  Pictures of it later as the yard and house is full of men, flying roof pieces, and equipment.  I would take my life in my hands to go out there.  Besides, it is cloudy and overcast, so I’ll get pictures later.  I am loving the soft color of the roof though.

We still have had no appreciable rain.  I continue to worry about my well running dry.  I have stopped watering deeply outside.  The growing season is running down anyway.  I do not think we will get much fall color this year as drought-struck trees are just dropping brown leaves to, hopefully, save themselves.