Cabin Fever

What's the best way to get over those cabin fever winter blues? Why, quilt those blues away, of course. Every quilter knows that. I just got back from teaching at the Cabin Fever quilt retreat in Waterloo, Iowa. Such a fun time! Everyone I met was so wonderful and welcoming. I got to reunite with some friends I met the last time I was in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and also meet some new quilting friends. AND see the Civil War  Commemorative Quilt Exhibit, which I will talk about more later this week.

The drive from my home in Illinois to Iowa was strange - dense patches of fog almost all the way. Luckily, we left late in the morning and arrived before nighttime. Lots of fog pictures, I know, but it was all so eerie I couldn't resist showing you.

You couldn't see anything on either side of the road at times. Then the sun would come out and it would be fine.

Crossing the Great Mississippi River

I'm not fond of bridges . . .

Setting up.

 

Choosing your fabric and playing around with color is sometimes the best part of beginning a project and we left plenty of time for that.

 

Unlike a class, a retreat is good for working on other projects too. Carolyn brought along her pile of little house blocks.

Karan made this cute little pincushion and thread catcher for Shelly.

Karan made one for me when I was sick last year. 

And now a thread catcher too. Thanks, Karan!

Sheri brought her Dear-Jane-in-progress. Only a few more rows left and then she'll get to the triangles.

Karan made this quilt for her granddaughter from Jo Morton's Peppermint Twist pattern.

Beautiful, isn't it?

I gave a presentation after Show & Tell on Friday evening.

I knew you'd like to see this Schoolhouse quilt (from my Prairie Children book) that Marge made for her mother. In the center is a photo of the actual school her mother attended as a child.

The retreat was a great chance to make some headway on other projects too. Karan is also working on a lovely quilt from another Jo Morton pattern. Love that border print!

Chris brought in a few antique doll quilts to show me.

You don't see many appliqued doll quilts. This one was really special.

Robin's quilt was reproduced from an antique top she found and she tried to match the fabrics to the original. So cute and quirky.

Then, on the second day, everyone worked on the Album quilt from The Civil War Sewing Circle.

The retreat was held at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, which also housed the Civil War Commemorative Quilt exhibit everyone is talking about. Robin, the museum curator (above), allowed me to take photos so I'm working on putting together a slide show of the exhibit for you to see and I will get that up on the blog as soon as I can, maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. It was a good trip and I hope I get a chance to return to Iowa soon. And perhaps take all of you along with me! Wouldn't that be fun?

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In the meantime, are you still working on the Broken Dishes quilt for this month? Cut your pieces and prepare to sew them together this week.

February Small Quilt Challenge

If you are joining me in mid-stream, here's the small quilt scoop. Some of my followers are committed to having fun making a small quilt a month from some of my books this year. Just think, if you join us, you will have 12 little quilts made by the  end of the year.

January's project was the little Mourning Crosses quilt from Prairie Children & Their Quilts. This month, we are using the same book and making - a Broken Dishes quilt! This pattern has always been one of my favorites, ever since I saw this little antique Broken Dishes doll quilt in one of my favorite quilting history books, The American Quilt  by Roderick Kiracofe.

My version is a little different - I used lighter prints and added a red and white check border plus a blue inner border.  

So, if you decide to join in on this month's challenge, your options are to either make this little quilt on page 22 of my book or, using the same directions, skip the blue and make it in a smaller red and white for a Valentine's Day project -

If you carefully arrange your half-square triangles as you make your blocks, you will come up with a star motif in the center.

Yes, it's the same block as in the Prairie Children book. The redwork instructions for the center block can be found in the Files section of my yahoo group Small Quilt Talk. Either way you make it, it's a darling little project and No. 2 on the road to making 12 small quilts this year with me. 

This week - Week 1 - all you need to spend time doing is picking out your fabrics and cutting your pieces. Sewing them together will be next week's task. 

Skip ahead if you like, but make sure you leave time for quilting and finishing sometime this month before we begin another one for March. You don't want to end up with a bunch of unquilted tops, do you?? One down, only ELEVEN small quilts to go!

Have you seen the video Martingale & Co. created for this book when it first came out? Very sweet.

I am leaving tomorrow to teach at The Cabin Fever Quilt Retreat at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, for a few days and so will not have time to start this quilt with you this week. Even though it's very simple, I love the little redwork design I made up and hope to get going on that after I come back. Have fun!

Clarissa's Garden Quilt

Some of you may remember this little quilt from The American Schoolgirl Club, a series of patterns I designed about a year or so ago. It's one of my favorites. One of my goals is to have another pattern series like that sometime, perhaps later this year. Good idea? The American Schoolgirl Club - The Sequel, LOL. More darling scrappy little quilts with an antique touch. Maybe a little bit of applique too because, you know, I'm doing a little more applique these days and it seems that many of you like that in your little quilts. I'm going to be travelling around to guilds doing lectures and workshops quite a bit this spring, so we'll see if I have time and energy to actually do this.

This particular pattern was very popular and sold out quickly after I ended the Club and had a few patterns left over. Some of you have asked me if I was ever going to reprint the pattern. I'm happy to say it's now going to be available again. I was going to get it printed up last week, but, well, you know how it is - things happen, I get busy. Or, I work out and then have to lie down and take a nap, LOL. Sheesh, remind me to stop getting older . . . . I promise it will be printed up shortly though. If not this week, then early next week for sure. So keep watching my website. It will be up there soon. Get your scraps ready!

Oh, and don't forget - I am also teaching a workshop to make this little quilt at the Grout Museum Cabin Fever Quilt Retreat on Feb 3 in Waterloo, Iowa. I am not organizing this, just teaching, so check with the museum, not me, to see if there are still spots available in any of the classes. I know this retreat is going to be a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it, assuming the weather is good enough that I can actually get to Iowa in February . . . .

Week 4 - Quilting Your Little Quilt

This is the week you should be working on finishing your little Crosses Mourning quilt. I started quilting mine over the weekend and hope to finish before we begin another small quilt for Feb, sometime next week.

 

I really love the look of a little doll quilt that is quilted very simply. In this quilt I quilted in the ditch around the inside of each block, then quilted inside the black part and just a simple stitch through the center of the colored cross part of the block. The sashing will be quilted with a few straight lines and I have not decided what I will do on the border yet.

If you have not tried hand quilting, now would be a perfect time. If you do not like using straight-line quilting,  here's a great place to buy quilting stencils that are easy to use with a water soluble marking pen. They also have stencils for small quilt borders so check out the border page. This little wavy one is one of my favorites and I admit I use it often.

My favorite quilting thread is YLI quilting thread. I'm very partial to the light brown as it gives a nice antique look when stitched on both light and dark fabrics.

I'm clearly not an expert and my stitches could be a little smaller and straighter, but it sure is fun and I love the look of a little quilt that's hand quilted. If you haven't taken the time to do any hand quilting, try it out on a small quilt. It doesn't have to be heavily quilted--just try stitching a straight line or Xs in the blocks to get yourself going. Even a little bit of hand quilting gives a special look to a quilt. And, don't forget, if you make a mistake, it will only add to the charm.

If I use a simple quilting design, it usually takes a couple of evenings or a week at most to finish a small quilt and is very relaxing for me. If the stitches are less than perfect or a little quirky, oh well. Antique doll quilts were not perfect either. I'm not interested in making them perfect specimens or trying to win prizes. Just having fun. I hope you are too.

Drama in the Big Backyard, No Time to Quilt

I became very upset one day last week. I love watching the beautiful cardinals that come to my backyard feeder. I think of them as MY cardinals. Well, the dog started barking at the window and I turned around just in time to see a huge hawk swoop down from the tree, snatch a cardinal at the feeder and fly away with it. I felt so sad most of that day. Call me silly, but I hate witnessing this predator-prey aspect of nature. For goodness sake, I live in an URBAN area. We pretend things like that just don't happen.

The week before last, the dog was barking at the window and I thought it was just a squirrel - but when I ran to the window to shoo it away so she'd stop making so much noise, there, skulking between my house and my neighbor's house, was the biggest CAT-like animal I have ever seen. It was not an ordinary house cat, but something much larger and more sinister looking. The squirrels and birds started making a LOT of racket and then it ran away. I was pretty shaken and thought it may have been a bobcat or something. It was that big. I looked it up and saw that bobcats are spotted and have short tails. This cat-creature had a very lonnnng tail and was a pale tan color all over. This will make sense after you read the next paragraph. Besides, what would a bobcat be doing here, in the Chicago area?

After talking to a few neighbors who have dogs, I decided to call the village police to see if anyone else had reported seeing anything like it roaming around. I sure didn't want to run into it while I walked the dogs at night. They said no, are you sure it wasn't a fox? Sheesh, I know what a fox looks like and I was wearing my glasses. This was as big or bigger than my 48-lb dog. Apparently no one had reported anything but the police told me that there had been several COUGAR sightings in a nearby suburb, near a wooded area, and they were on alert. COUGARS??? In the Chicago area?? MY yard?? I remembered that a couple of years ago a cougar was killed by police right in the city proper so I know it's not impossible. Jeepers.

I hear there's also a coyote roaming about the neighborhood. My neighbor's dog walker said one approached him within several yards when he was walking her dog the other day, just a few blocks away. So now we have to be extra careful with our little dog. She doesn't understand why I've been keeping her on a leash and going out there with her every time she needs to pee. Brrr! Seems like 12 times a day . . . More when it's cold, of course.

Dog paw prints? No, I went out there first, before I let them out, right after it snowed, so they hadn't even run through the snow yet. Squirrel tracks? No, much bigger than a squirrel's foot.

You don't think it's BIGFOOT, do you??

So now I'm afraid to let either dog out alone and I spend a little time every day on COUGAR patrol, looking for suspicious tracks in the snow . . .  I won't rest until the neighborhood canines (and I) are safe! Wonder why I'm not getting any quilting done, LOL?

You can tell she's on alert too. Ears perked, adrenaline pumped, ready to rumble . . .  Bring it on, Cougar/Coyote!

The other dog is not quite as nervous. Tells me to relax, figures he can take a coyote any day. LOL, he's a typical male, did you guess? No drama for him. He's much more interested in the ordinary day-to-day stuff that goes on in the big backyard . . .  . What's cooking, good looking?

What Inspired Me Today

I woke up feeling kind of yucky this morning, with a scratchy throat, like maybe I was coming down  with a cold. Did not feel like doing much, even though I had a lot to do. Ever have one of those mornings?

I fed the dogs, made myself a cup of  tea, took some Tylenol, and sat down and checked my e-mail. There was a message from the Dear Jane e-mail list I'm on that contained a little note from Karan Flanscha that I wanted to share with you. I know some of you are making your own Dear Jane quilts or have already finished one.

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Greetings, Sticklers!!
I have exciting news . . . I have finished my big Dear Jane "In Time of Recollection" . . . started 1-1-1997 and finished today, on my birthday . . . 1-18-2012. It will be part of an exhibit "Covered By Glory: Civil War Commemorative Quilts" at the Grout Museum of History & Science in Waterloo, Iowa. The exhibit will be open from Jan. 27 - September 1st, if any of you will be traveling in the Midwest. There will be around 50 wonderful Civil War era quilts, and reproduction quilts shared by quilters like Barbara Brackman, Brenda Papadakis, Mimi Dietrich, Kathy Tracy, Judi Rothermel, Fons & Porter, and many others.

When I started my Dear Jane, I knew it would be a 'long term project'. . . I didn't think 15 years, but a lot has happened over those years!! My quilt is sewn entirely by hand, even the binding (front & back) was sewn by hand. That actually worked really well... no anxiety or hassles trying to fit the big quilt under the sewing machine and pivoting the scallops!! My personal challenge was to stitch my quilt as much like Jane Stickle sewed hers, as I could. A column in the local newspaper stated 'women today could not make quilts like the very old ones' (we just couldn't do work with wonderful applique, piecing and quilting!!)

My colors are not all like Jane's . . . when I started, I planned to make 49 blocks, but then I found more of my background fabric, and by that time I had learned that Dear Jane is not a quilt . . . it is a lifestyle VBG!!

Here is a quote that sort of sums up my Dear Jane experience:

"My whole life is in that quilt. It scares me sometimes when I look at it. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces . . . I tremble sometimes, when I remember what that quilt knows about me." (Credited to "an Ohio great-grandmother reminisicing to Marguerite Ickis".)

There are so many wonderful memories associated with my quilt, and some sad ones too . . . quilters who have 'crossed over to Glory' ahead of us. For those of you working on your blocks . . . a 'Tilde thread' a day will keep you moving forward . . . most of my blocks were stitched in 'found time' . . . little bits of time here and there that have added up to so much more. Thanks to all of you who have been part of my journey!!

Happy Stitching

Karan

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This is just what I needed to motivate me. How exciting it must be to finally complete that quilt! I felt so proud of and happy for her. Before long, the Tylenol kicked in and I started to feel better. Or was it reading Karan's inspiring message that made me feel better? Probably a little of both. So, in honor of Karan's completed Dear Jane quilt, I decided to take some time today to finish another block of my own. Thanks, Karan! Wonder if I'll be able to finish mine in 15 years??

Not a difficult block, true, but still - lots of tiny pieces.

This makes 39 blocks finished since 2010 . . . . Don't worry, I'll catch up.

I first saw Karan's almost-finished quilt in 2010 when I taught a workshop for her guild.

Every time I look at these photos I become inspired. I will be in Iowa  again in less than 2 weeks to teach at the Grout Museum Cabin Fever Retreat and to see the Covered by Glory quilt exhibit Karan talked about. And Karan's Dear Jane quilt. Can't wait. I hope she lets me take more pictures so I can show you. I'll bet you'll be inspired too.

Small Quilt - Week 3

If you are following along with me you have already pieced the blocks for this month's little quilt from my book Prairie Children & Their Quilts - am I right? Yesterday, I put the sashing and borders on mine and that's your task for this week. It will only take a few hours, maybe less. If you're just joining us, scroll down the blog to see the quilt we're working on that was posted a couple of weeks ago.

Take your time choosing your sashing and borders. I always audition tons of prints before I choose which print I want to place next to the blocks (for the sashing) and which ones for the inner and outer borders. The quilt in the book uses the same print for the sashing and inner border but I used a different one for each for this quilt.

Take time to choose your outer border carefully as well. Look at the quilt in Prairie Children. This is a great way to use up a large floral print you may have been saving. If you do that, make sure your sashing and inner borders are not as busy as the  border print. Pick a smaller pattern perhaps so the border stands out and doesn't clash with the inner border or sashing. For this quilt I'm making along with you, I chose a small tan floral for a very different look.

These were a few of my other border choices and I hope I picked the right one. Which one would you have picked? All of them would have looked cute.

As you can see, I made the four-block version so it did not take me long at all. Since the original quilt was very dark with dark blocks, sashing and borders, I chose to make this little one in lighter tones, keeping the dark blocks.

Ta dah! The top is done after only a few hours. Choosing fabric took the longest time. I almost chose one of the other blue and tan floral prints but then decided on this subtle print primarily because when I quilt it I want the quilting to stand out a bit. Also, I don't have very many quilts with a light border.

Have fun and show me your quilts -  either in the Yahoo group photo album or on Flickr. Next week I'll try to motivate you to quilt it before we begin another small quilt for February.

I Swear the Dog Needs a Job

You know your dog visits the vet a little too often when he gets his own Walgreens prescription card!

The big puppy or "Big Rig" as we like to call him, recently had another bout with illness (tumor on his spleen, turned out to be benign) that required more surgery but is recovering nicely and anxious to get back to work so he can help pay for all of his $$ medical bills $$.

He was recently laid off from his longtime job of waking the teenage girl in the house every morning because she went off to college and now has to find someone else to do that for her. Chasing squirrels doesn't really pay much so if you know of any part-time positions available for a sweet, friendly, hard-working, conscientious Wheaten Terrier, let us know. Just send an application to the house because, look, he gets junk mail now too.

Only a matter of time before his voter registration card arrives. This is an election year and we live near Chicago where every vote counts . . . sometimes twice.