Meeting Time

Where does the time go!  Our monthly GR Modern Quilters meeting is Tuesday, October 6th.  Of course, we meet at Kuyper College on the East Beltline between Three and Four Mile Roads.  7pm

I just received an email from Kathy Nelson who is planning our retreat in October.  Since there have been a few cancellations, if you're interested in attending just go to the Facebook page for Grand Rapids Modern Quilters.  You'll never get a better price for a lakefront stay on Lake Michigan unless you own a property or a rich grandma!

Last Friday turned into an absolutely beautiful day.  After years of pining to be able to pack up and just go to the beach.....I did, with dogs in tow!  Enjoy!

 Normally these dogs hate the water, but they had fun this day.

 This picture shows Meg, my daughter's dog, drinking down the lake, the other dog, Bernie is the only that requires a pit stop on the way home.  He just thinks the lake is just one big water bowl.

 Kruse Park, Muskegon, MI

The envy of Chicagoans!

Beehive Time

We had our monthly meeting last night.  Kat was our Queen Bee this month.  She chose the snowball pattern.  However, since her family loves science, the top three snowballs were to be scrappy in teals and the bottom balls - scrappy in grays.  Her plan is to intertwine the blocks, 16", to represent the DNA molecule.  Here are some of the blocks she received.

 Becky is explaining something important to Kelly.

 Greta shows us her block.

Kat, being the queen wears her tiara from her wedding, relishing her blocks.

Kelly was Queen last month.  She not only had her quilt top assembled, she had it quilted as well.

I was Queen several months ago.  I had an inspiration delay as I changed the pattern a bit.  All in all, it turned out very cool.  

 I played with decorative stitching around each block.  I also utilized another QAYG method.

 To add interest the blue flanges were added in various lengths and in varying places on the blocks.

 My fellow beehive quilters make the most adorable signature labels.

Here's the  back:  a mixture of the circles, bright green and dark blue with matching sashing connecting the blocks.  Thank you everyone!

It's been a while, but have been busy....

The last week or more we have had beautiful weather in West Michigan.  It's hard to settle down and sew when the temps are in the mid 70's, dry and clear skies.  The Fallsburg Art Festival, sponsored by the Lowell Arts Council was held a week ago.  While the morning started cool, it was perfect for walking among the art booths.

The quilt shown is the raffle quilt for the art council.

 The stitching was just gorgeous.

The New York Beauties circled the entire quilt.  

While many beautiful works or art were shown at the festival I found this artist, Bechler Pottery,who specialized in ceramics and tiles.   The first two shown below are my favorites.  I would love the top ceramic greet my guests by hanging outside in my covered  front porch area.  I identify with this person....he said that his best customers are counselors....not high school kind but mental health types.  Oh my!

More of his work, created in Traverse City can be found here.

I can be inspired by his work.....

Follow this link for some beautiful modern Japanese Quilts

No Put on with Jenny Doan

I've tagged along with friends who have a membership in a guild group to hear a guru (gura?) on quilting or other hobbies.  It's always interesting to watch people and who have achieve a certain level of fame and how the person handles it.  I had the privilege to meet and have dinner with such a leader in a quilting movement.  I left the dinner thinking what a diva she is....granted she's done far more than I ever would do,but what an ego!  While her designs and products are leaders in the craft, she neglected to put on her game face.  Well, Jenny Doan, the face of Missosuri Star Quilt Company is quite the opposite.  You just want to hug her and bring her home to dinner, meet the family and pet the dogs.  The "game face" is an important belief of Jenny's.  They have several young people employed at a their now mega enterprise.  She teaches them no matter what is happening in your personal life, put on a game face not only for our customers, but just do it anyway.  What a great philosophy and life lesson for all of us!

The  Lighthouse Quilt Guild in Grand Haven, MI sponsored Ms. Doan's visit to West Michigan....they hit a grand slam as far as I'm concerned.  While I opted to not take classes either of the two days offered, I'd seriously reconsider classes again if Ms Doan were to visit anywhere nearby.  She started her presentation to the nearly filled auditorium of Lakeside Middle School (quite large for a middle school) at 6:30 after about 10 minutes of giving away gifts.  Jeny's formal presentation stopped at 9 pm.  Then she took questions from the audience for at least another 15 minutes.  If that wasn't enough she promised to stay on stage to answer questions personally and sign books "until the last person leaves".

Oh my goodness!  What a story of a company forming and GROWING from the ashes of the Great Recession to being named the Best Small Business in America.  She referred to the company, started by her children, to keep mom and dad out of their basements - since they had been literally wiped out in 2008!  Six of her seven children own and operate the Missouri Star Quilt Company.....all from a simple comment from her techie son:  Hey Mom, you should do a tutorial on quilting for You Tube" seven years ago.  Apparently, You Tube is about 8 years old! Below, I've referenced a couple articles explaining the company's story

Jenny Doan's You Tube tutorials are absolutely the best!  From the tutorials came The Block, their quarterly magazine (sans subscription cards flying out and advertisements), then came the connection that any quilt can be made form pre-cuts, to having five quilt stores in western Missouri with five more opening soon and five more in design!

After relaying much of this amazing story she and Ron-a Vana, her husband, demonstrated her quilts, all from pre-cuts and how their templates are incorporated.  For those of you considering a either a road trip west or even to Kansas City (a world series will be playing soon at the Kaufman), their home is about 45 minutes north.

A hearty thank you goes to Around the Block Quilt store in Portland, MI for bringing MSQ books, templates and other goodies to the presentation.  Neighbor Judy and I arrived at the school around 5 p.m. and the cash register was already cha-chinging.  Those ladies definitely had lighter boxes to take back to Portland.

Oh, in case you're wondering about more take away info from the presentation:
            a) trust the fabric combinations in the pre-cuts, don't pull out fabrics you may not like
            b) all of MSQ templates, unlike other company templates, are designed especially for pre-cuts.
            c) check their website for the combos on pre-cuts and how many make the various size quilts....

Jenny's presentation was just too packed with information to relate all of it....you just had to be there.....

Oh, and after all the laughter - she knows quilting and quilters and of course family dynamics, she had us almost in tears at the end.  When her first video went out she thought her audience would be working women.  Little did she know the impact she had on persons confined to their home for medical or mental health issues.  She turned that compliment she received unto us...and all at the good we inadvertently do.  She says there is no better and far reaching hobby or career than quilting.....golf doesn't do that, now does it....she told us.  Our quilts and the pillowcases touch hearts far and wide.  She too, was almost in tears!

Wall Street Journal article:  Wall Street Journal article
White House Visit:  Visit to White House

We were first!

Some times in life you have to make your own good karma.  Last week when I receive an email from my friend Caroll about going to the Stitched Studio side walk sale on Monday morning I was shocked!  Of course I'd help her maneuver on the east side of the river to East Paris, south of Cascade!  Well. lo and behold we were first.....!  Oh what fun we had.  Some of SS fabric was 70%, yes 70% off.  Well, those fabrics we bought a yard of more!  The remaining and most of the fabrics were 50% off, but what a selection.  We saw our new friend, Polly, who is one of our Beehive Block of the Month friends.  Soon we had a crowd and how Michele and Kat kept track of who had which fabric was amazing.  The sale goes until tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept 15....oops....quarterly tax day.  Do you think Uncle would mind if my payment came in old fabric?

 I have been drooling over these Moda solids with texture.  The decision on which to purchase and how to use them pushed me away as I never had a plan.  Still don't have a plan but they are so gorgeous.  We were all amazed that they had been in the store at it's grand opening!

 These three fabrics are begging to be made into a satchel similar what I had made in 2014.  Caroll keeps telling me a woman can never have too many bags.

 Last year Stitched Studio had a Marushka doll fabric that was going to be my flight bag for Russia.  While the trip was great, the bag never happened.  The above fabric make a great lining, even though it's not a Russian theme, but playful like the dolls.

Michele indicated that this remnant, a good filler fabric, is organic.

The staff had just finished the quilt top for the appliqué block of the month, very, very modern.  Check out their website for other cool BOM's and the new fabrics that helped out by emptying the shelves.  Carolyn Friedlander's block of the month is here.  The screen shot below is only one of the cool blocks to be completed.

Swirling Lone Stars and One Block Wonders

You all must click on this link shown.  Vicky S teaches at The Attic Window.  This link will explain why I become over committed on my swirling lone star quilt. ( I couldn't copy the pictures from Caroll's blog).


http://westmichquilter.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-real-one-block-wonder.html



Vicky does amazing work.  Did you see the peacock and her holding her swirling star?!


Anyway, I was unable to attend the full sessions of Happy Scrappers, where she taught several of us the technique needed.  While I kind of knew I was in over my head, I opted to push myself.

 The above came after several pains taking decisions and a required preparation time.

 The strips all resulted from choosing eight different fabrics offering good contrast.  While I could have purchased better fabric, I had accumulated all this fabric from several fabric hunting adventures while visiting the Bahamas several times over the last 28 years or so.

 These pictures resulted when I cleaned up the stash for this project.  The partial strips are leftovers from the main points.  For some reason, I made two sets of main points.  Since I mis-cut something, one of the points actually saved me a lot of work.  The colors are put together in strips, numbered 1-8.        Vicky provided all the templates and instructions all of which were explained on wonderfully clear story boards.  See my mock ups below.  The colors had to contrast but also flow....

 The New York Beauties paper piecing was also internal to the pattern taught.

 A knife from subway was found in the fabric box....many salads from Subway provided sustenance.

 Well, after making the strips, after all the mock ups, sewing them together, all seams open, the star must be measured ACCURATELY.  One little slip up can grow sooooooo big.  Above is the measuring tool created to properly measure and place the completed NYB.

oops!  found a pattern piece that was missing from its envelope!  yeah!

I'm satisfied with my my project  but more satisfied that it's off my list.  It will make a nice summer time table cloth for either my kitchen bistro table or the patio table outside.



Heard a great reason for not feeling guilty about have too much fabric:  Stamp collectors collect stamps, but never use them!  Think of all those coin collectors!  Bye for now.....

Happy End of Summer and beginning of fall......

Man Sewing is a hoot!

Have you seen these videos?  Oh my gosh, they're good and interesting - I don't really care to watch videos on my computer - but Ron Appel is interesting, funny and most importantly clear and informative.  Enjoy!

Man Sewing

I do not need to say anything more.....