The Quilt Show Blog

Hi Everyone,

As good as my intentions are, I still am not blogging as much as I hoped. Today I got a message from a friend, letting me know that a quilt I made for my grandson is featured on The Quilt Show Daily Blog. I used a laser cut fusible phoenix motif and fused it to a radiating fabric panel. It was fairly straightforward, but the real fun was in the quilting. I added borders to make it rectangular for a lap quilt and then loaded it onto my HandiQuilter. I had tons of fun quilting radiating lines and border motifs. The best part was using a zigzag motion all over the feather areas to create texture there. You can see a close-up of that work here.

I have spent some timesince the new year cleaning closets, lightening my load and re-organizing stuff. Next post will be to show the knitting needle roll I made one afternoon to capture all my needles and knitting supplies in one place. It took me only 2 hours to complete and that included the design process. How nice to have everything at my fingertips now instead of searching in drawers and boxes to find just the right size needles to begin my next project.

Here is a photo of the basket weave knit scarf I made last week.

I learned these skills from my Mom and beloved Nana beginning at about age 7. Since they owned a yarn shop once upon a time, I inherited lots of tools and notions. It's nice to finally have them in one place, instead of having to search drawers and boxes for just the right size needles.

I'll be back tomorrow to post photos of the needle roll. Happy Friday!

A New Year & A New Start

I've had some interesting experiences this year that are helping me to better define my direction. That is my word of the year - "direction." I have spent lots of time trying new things and being very scattered in my work. This year I hope to find better direction and please myself a little more rather than always working to please others.

To help me with this fresh start, I have joinewd the Sketchbook Challenge to experiment with media such as pencils, markers and paint in addition to working with and manipulating fabric. I have dabbled a little, but now want to focus on a quilt that has been brewing in my mind for years. It's time to begin designing it and I believe that I will be using mixed media in addition to fusing, embroidering, sewing and quilting. I'm hoping that the Sketchbook discipline will help me with the progress. I will be posting my journey here as I continue trying to define my inner muse.

The other pledge I have made to myself is to finish some of the many quilt tops I have made or purchased on eBay. Over the past two years I have been collecting vintage linens with the intent of finishing someone's treasure from years past. I've been lucky to acquire some really interesting pieces and hope to make some of them part of this year's experimental journey. I loaded a small wall quilt on my HandiQuilter last night and have almost finished the quilting.

Wishing for a very Happy, Healthy & Creative New Year to all of my quilting friends. Here we go into yet another year!

Quilters Can Make a Difference

Quilters Raising Money to Cure Alzheimer's

It has been a very long time since I've posted here. I had a neck/spine fusion surgery early in November and am still recuperating, but making good progress, I think.

I couldn't wait to post this fantastic news. I've been working with lots of other quilters on raising funds and awareness about Alzheimer's disease with the amazing Ami Simms and her Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. The good news can be read here http://wp.me/pZ0C5-5r. One of the grants from the money raised by quilters donating small quilts for auction has seen a very successful outcome. Read all about it and then visit Ami's non-profit site http://www.alzquilts.org/. All the profits from the donations, auctions and sales of AAQI merchandise are helping to fund grants such as this one described in the article above.

A big high five to all who have helped get the word out and help the cause. Too many of us have family members who now have or who have died from this insidious disease. Let's help to find the cure before it takes more beautiful souls and erases their memories.

I had a quilt in the traveling exhibit "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece." It was titled "Remember When." My mom lives in an assisted living home nearby and is in early stages of Alzheimer's. The little quilt had fabric showing postage stamps which would have been used around the time my mother met my father and corresponded with him during WWII. I quilted words into the piece as reminders of the things she loved to do. Most of all, I hope that she will always remember me.

Color Mastery

Have you seen Maria Paegler's Color Mastery blogs? Her book won the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Best Craft Book Award. Maria blogs once a month on her Quilts and Creativity blog about a "color of the month". She invites designers to submit quilts or other project that illustrate how to use that particular color. I have a quilt featured this month for her blue/green topic. If you search the archives, you can see the previous color choices and her suggestions about how to think about using color in your work. You can see the slideshow here:

8 Beautiful Ways to Use Blue-Green in Your Color Palette

View more presentations from Maria Peagler.

Enjoy the show and let me know what you think about her concept. It's always fun to share ideas.



This month I have finally begun serious work on a 1930's fabric exchange and challenge from my Wednesday Needlers group. Below is a picture of my first completed block. I purchased some unfinished vintage solid color Dresden plates from eBay. The blocks were a challenge to use as they all had different sizes and numbers of petals. I deconstructed and then reconstructed them as best I could to have them lay flat. Then I sewed them to fusible woven interfacing, turned them right side out and fused to the background squares, with an extra piece of batting cut to the shape and stuffed inside for extra dimension. Using a blanket stitch on my machine, I stitched them to the white background.




Next step was to "texturize" some fabric for the round centers. I used Texture Magic - a new product from Superior Threads. After steaming and shrinking, I cut the circles and sewed them to the centers, again with a blanket stitch. I'm using the fabric exchanged for the centers and the pieced sashing. Four blocks done and twelve more to go! Then it goes onto my HandiQuilter for some computerized quilting in the white areas. The plates are already stitched in the ditch to the background. Mid-September is our deadline. Wish me luck!

New Quilts & HandiQuilter

I've been a busy bee this summer - I finished and mailed off a little patriotic wall quilt that will appear in the November issue of The Quilter Magazine (on newsstands in September). A perfect project to make for Election Day. I used a digitized eagle in the center of the quilt and some patriotic designs for each square.

Another quilt finished on my HandiQuilter is Twinkle Stars, using Yolanda Fundora's "Twinkle" line for Blank Textiles. It is an ombre with four shades of color running across the width of fabric. It is fun to work with and looks like I used a lot more than seven fabrics in this design.

Here's a close-up of one of the blocks showing the swirl quilting done on my HandiQuilter.

I just love having my HandiQuilter with the ProStitcher computerized system. I can use digitized designs along with hand-guilded quilting to finish all my quilts in a fraction of the time it used to take on my domestic sewing machine. It is such fun to choose designs, manipulate the size and rotation of them, repeat them to fit specific spaces and watch the magic take place. Even my granddaughters love quilting on Nana's "big machine!" This photo was taken last year before the ProStitcher was added. Caitlyn was doing free-motion applique and quilting at the same time on her undersea quilt.

Evening Star Quilt Guild

I spent a most enjoyable evening last night with a presentation to this guild in Belvidere, NJ. The title was "My Unplanned Journey" and I showed some of the quilts I have designed over the past 10 years. I emphasized the fusible techniques I have used over the years (and included in the "Fuse It and Be Done" book I co-authored with Yolanda Fundora) and the dimension and texture I love to include in my projects.

The group seemed to enjoy my show & tell and had plenty of questions. Finding them quite a delightful group of ladies, I am sending in my application form and membership fee to join this guild. Though it's about an hour from home, I have a cousin living only a few minutes from their meeting place. Sounds like a pajama party one night a month to me.

Raising Little Critters

OK - so my daughter-in-law emails a few days ago that my son unwittingly disturbed a chipmunk nest in his garage. Mama ran away and they have spent the last couple of days nursing the abandoned two surviving babies. Every 3 hours they feed with droppers and massage their little bellies to help them digest. My granddaughters have fallen in love (this is a real animal loving family) and named them Acorn and Peanut.

When she sent me the picture above, I phoned to speak with her and the continuing story is below. Get ready for a chuckle.

"Ok. So My MIL called earlier tonight as I was rushing around to get Juliet out of softball gear and get both girls showered and to pick out their outfits for Field day tomorrow. She just called to say hi and that she got the email and how the little chipmunks looked liked mice and how funny that was. My response was broken by questions from the girls but I just laughed and said 'yeah, that would be funny . . . me nursing mice back to health.'

Well, needless to say, this sat with me and I waited until the girls were tucked into bed and I looked online with Brian. When we googled baby chipmunks . . . they all looked a lot like CHIPMUNKS . . . I was getting a little nervous. I decided to google "field mice". . . and there were my little babies on the screen. They are what I have been nursing back to health this entire time. MICE!!

Apparently, my little Animal Planet loving daughter thought a Chipmunk ran out of the chair bag...when, in fact, it was a mouse! We are now nursing two field mice. I would tell you that I will stop, but I can't . . . I love them. So they were not what I thought . . . they still need to be loved.

Brian does not seem to share my love for the creatures that he has spent the past 7 years trying to keep out of our house. He'll come around. :)

I share this with you all because this is my life. Enjoy. "
Diane