Pens Instead of Pins

Are We There Yet?

This morning the last stitches were sewn on the binding and the “Map” quilt was finished.  This quilt was made up of blocks I received from the quilting bee Snip.Sew.Send. Thanks to Lisa, Zonnah, Adrienne, Kris, Rebecca, Heather, and Gretchen for the truly creative blocks they sent.

The photographs were taken at the North Alabama Railroad Museum.

The colors were inspired by Alexander Henry’s “This Land is Your Land” fabric which was used in the border and for the back.  Kona Gold is the solid that was used in the front.  The back also includes information about the blocks that each person made either from notes they sent or from the description on their blog.  It was printed on Printed Treasures printable fabric.

It has been a fun adventure doing the bee with my Snip.Sew.Send. friends and this will be an amazing remembrance of the year we spent sewing for each other.

And now, I’m going to take a little break from the quilting world (except for commitments I’ve already made) and spend some time enjoying the cooler weather and catching up on some of my other hobbies.

Like meeting my friends at the art museum to sketch. . .

Or sketching at the Botanical Garden . . .

Or out sailing with my husband enjoying what’s left of summer.

Quilting Bee Blocks

Here’s the first block that I made for the “Math Curse” quilt.  Can you see the math symbols?  It’s “Greater Than, Less Than, Equals To”.

When Elizabeth was home, she sketched out a design for a block for the Map quilt to fill in for some of the empty spaces.

Her design was a compass rose.  Rather than doing a lot of piecing, it seemed like a good opportunity to try trapunto and and extra quilting for this block.

When this quilt started, I chose a King Tut variegated “sand” colored thread for the quilting since it seemed like it would go with all the blocks.  I’m ending up not loving it because it kind of just looks like the thread got dirty in places, but it is too late to go back now.

This week, two more blocks came in for the Map quilt.  The top one is by Lisa of Chemistry Couture and it was so exciting to see.  There is a lot of meaning behind this map and you should read how she made it on her blog.  The design came from a book called “Mapping the Mind” and is a map of brain function.  She did the amazing embroidery freehand and just marked her lines by folding it here and there.  I really love it and have a great idea for how to quilt it.

This block came from Gretchen of Lazing Petunia.  It is a map of the “T” in Boston.  Gretchen didn’t know it, but right after we got married, we moved to Boston, so this map has a great personal touch, too and I really wanted a subway map somewhere in the quilt!  Thanks, Lisa and Gretchen!

I hear thunder in the distance.  Maybe we’ll get some rain and break the 100 degree heat we’ve been stuck in for two weeks.

Product Review – Quilt Halo and Supreme Slider

At the recent AQS quilt show in Knoxville, I got a chance to try out two products – the Supreme Slider teflon sheet and the Quilt Halo. They seemed like they could be good tools for free-motion quilting, but it is always hard to tell when it is a different machine than your own.   Leah Day, who has the blog 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting, had given a positive review to the Supreme Slider, so I decided to take a chance on it and since my Mom was with me, she treated me to both items.

Today was the first chance I’ve had to try them and I’m happy to report, that I really like them.  The Supreme Slider sits on the sewing machine bed and helps the fabric slide without friction when free-motion quilting.  The Quilt Halo is a way to free-motion quilt without gloves.  Today, I was working on my quilt-as-you-go map blocks, so haven’t tested these with a big quilt, yet, but I found the blocks to move easily with the teflon sheet in place and I really loved having not to wear gloves with the Quilt Halo.  It is basically a big hoop with a bit of weight to it and a rubbery surface that you set on top of your fabric.  To use it, you hold the edge of the Halo with a little pressure and basically just “steer” your design.  It was great for doing fine detailed quilting and good for larger areas, too.

The only two drawbacks with it was that in the large areas  you do have to stop for a second and move it over to a new area as soon as you’ve filled up the area it covers and also that with a small harp on my old Bernina, it occasionally bumped up against the side of the machine.  With a little more practice and awareness, it shouldn’t be a big problem.  Of course, with a new machine with a wider harp, it would be fantastic!

Another thing that I learned at the quilt show was to set my machine to 1/2 speed for free-motion quilting.  That might be obvious to most people, but I didn’t know to do it.  It really helps keep the stitch length more even, especially when you start and stop (which novices like me tend to do a lot!)

Crafting with Friends

Thursday evening, my blog friend, Jean of Patchwork and Pug,  invited me to her house for craft night.  It is something she does periodically with her daughter, Shannon who works for Sew Beautiful magazine, and a few other friends.  Walking into her house is better than walking into a lot of quilt shops.  There are gorgeous quilts beautifully displayed throughout, including a stunning one that is hung above the stairs.

The evening started with a delicious dinner and then the crafting began.  If the quilts weren’t amazing enough, Jean has made some gorgeous needlebooks and had all the supplies there for us to make one for ourselves.  I fell in love with her elephant needlebook, so I copied her design and just made it in different colors.  There is a link on Jean’s blog to a PDF of how to make these.

I lined the inside of mine with the “too small to send back” snippets of fabric from some quilting bees I’m in.

One of Jean’s needlebooks had a scissors keeper, so I incorporated that using some measuring tape ribbon from my stash.

There’s a little pocket to hold extra supplies and I made a removable thread holder out of a ring, a hair elastic, and a button.  This was a really fun project to top off a great evening.  The other ladies there were wonderful to visit with and had great creative spirits.

Today, was too hot to be outside, so I made another needlebook.  For this one, I used my Sizzix machine and the camera die cutter.  It is a simpler needlebook, but kind of cute!

Another blog friend, Rene’ of Rene’ Creates, mentioned an article she had about a map quilt and that she was going to send me a copy of it.  When the copy arrived, so did this fantastic map fabric!

Aren’t blog friends wonderful?!

Happy Mail!

What a great mail day!  This block for my map quilt came from Adrienne of Hermione J. Schwartz.  She is the leader of our Snip.Sew.Send. group.  Isn’t it wonderful?  Adrienne mapped out a “road trip” that one would take to visit all of the Snip.Sew.Send. members and this is what it would look like.  Then, she added the dear little VW camper with a girl holding a map!  We have a little Eurovan camper, so this is just perfect – and who knows, maybe someday I can take that road trip and go see all my bee friends!

She also sent me this wonderful handmade dishcloth which I have declared is too pretty to be used except as a coaster in my sewing room.  Thanks, Adrienne!

Also, in the mail was a package from Janice of Prytz Family.  She is not only a quilter, but loves books so much that she works part-time at Barnes and Noble.  A week or two ago, she had a multi-book giveaway to celebrate her birthday, 200th post, etc.  One of the books was “City Quilts” by Cherri House.  It was on my “must buy” list, and I was lucky enough to win it from the ever generous Janice.  Thank you so much!

The third package I opened was this:

Yep, it’s more yellow, gray, black, and white fabric.  It is part of the Bridgewater line of fabrics that I’m using for the “Math Curse” quilt and a design that I hadn’t seen until a few days ago, so I ordered enough yardage from Hawthorne Threads to hopefully be used for the backing of the quilt.

Last, you have got to see this block that my friend Zonnah just made for Snip.Sew.Send.

Zonnah's Addictions Wonky Star Ring

Didn’t she do a fantastic interpretation of a wonky star block?  She was gracious enough to put up a tutorial of how she made this block.  Wouldn’t it be a perfect block to consider for quilting bee?  It has been definitely moved onto the “must try” list.

The Math Curse Quilt

August is my month to send out fabric for The Stitchin’ Bee.  The fabric is this yellow, gray, black, and white fabric.

The theme for this quilt is “The Math Curse”.  The name comes from a book by Jon Sciezka and illustrated by Lane Smith.

photo from Amazon.com

It is a great children’s book and is especially apropos in our family because my husband is a mathematician and our daughter is a math major, but I confine my knowledge about math to what I need to know for quilting and cooking!

I would like the blocks to pertain to  math symbols – plus, minus, equal, greater than, less than, divided by, square root, etc.  The style is for this quilt is preferably clean, modern, and not wonky or overly fussy.  Please make the blocks 12.5 inches by 12.5 inches (finished size 12×12).

I can’t find a quilt that has exactly what I’m looking for online, but here are the closest things I’ve seen, and a list of some math symbols to think about:

1. latex_math_symbols, 2. plus and minus block #3 (common threads), 3. the plan! (for common threads vqb), 4. Busy-bee-quilt

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Brace Yourselves!

There’s a lot to report, today.  First, just when I think I can’t be any more astounded by the great work of my Snip.Sew.Send. bee friends, another map block comes and it takes my breath away like the ones I’ve already received.

This block is from Robin of Crafty Musings.  It is a map of her childhood neighborhood.  Doesn’t it just tell quite a story of a happy time as a child?  Robin used pen, crayon, applique, embroidery, etc. to make this amazing block all while taking care of a toddler and a brand new baby!  I have been touched so deeply by the blocks my quilting bee friends have made that I can’t even begin to thank them enough.

In the meantime, some of the other blocks I’ve already received are getting quilted in the “quilt as you go” method that I decided to use for this quilt.  Here’s the adorable block from Rebecca of Lula Dahl.

I did some pretty heavy quilting on this one because I wanted the dear little hexagons to really pop when you looked at it.  The water part of the map was done in swirly waves and the land areas were done in curved shapes with some tiny stippling and kind of a branch-looking quilting.

I used King Tut variegated thread for the top and white for the bottom.  The quilting designs were inspired by Leah Day’s 365 Days of Free-motion Quilting Designs.  Here’s the back:

So far, the plan is for the back of the quilt to be this Alexander Henry “This Land is Your Land” fabric.

The block Heather, of Quiltin’ Like Crazy”, sent was a great map of her home, so each “room” was quilted differently.

If that weren’t enough excitement, I went to the AQS Quilt Show in Knoxville, TN yesterday.  That’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here, so it seemed doable in one day.  I sent an email to my blog friend Jean, of Patchwork and Pug, and asked if she wanted to go, too.  We had not had a chance to meet in person yet, so we figured 7 hours in the car should give us plenty of opportunity to talk.

It was great fun to meet someone I had only known online and the driving time was a piece of cake because we had so much fun talking.

My Mom also came over from Asheville, NC to meet us at the show.

What we learned about this show was that one day was not enough, even without taking any classes.  Our original plan was to walk through the vendors kind of quickly to scope out what all was there, go see the quilts, then go back and spend the rest of the time shopping at the vendors.  That didn’t work.  There was so much to see and long-arm machines to try out, vendors doing demonstrations, etc., that it was pretty late before we started looking at quilts.

For vendors, there were all the major sewing machine dealers, a number of thread companies, eg Superior Threads, Aurifil, etc., some fabric stores with cut yardage and patterns, books, notions, and a lot of long-arm machine dealers.  It was a blast trying out the long-arm machines.  If there were space and dollars to spare, I can see that it would be fun to have one.  There was one vendor with a machine quilting frame called Easy Quilter.  It works with a regular home machine and costs about $450.  It was an intriguing concept and I found it pretty easy to operate, but I was a little concerned about the build quality of the system with heavy use.  When we went back to take a second look, I asked my Mom to give it a try and it was not as intuitive to her.  The vendor was rude and pushy to my Mom, so much so that I could not consider purchasing from him.  Here’s basically what it looked like and it allowed you to free motion quilt in all directions:

AQS does not allow you to post photos of the quilts online without the quilter’s permission : (    So, all I can offer are my impressions.  There was a LOT of heavy quilting on most of the quilts.  And, a lot of very tiny micro-stippling filling in spaces.  The winning quilts seemed to be more traditional in style and tended to have beige backgrounds.  There was a lot of metallic thread used in quilting and lots of crystals applied to the quilts.  My Mom and I agreed about our favorite quilt – it was a gorilla mother and baby.  It didn’t even get honorable mention.  You kind of wish they’d have a little guest book by the quilts so you could tell the quilter how much you liked their work even if the judges didn’t see what you saw.  I won’t be entering a quilt anytime soon!

It was a little bit of sensory overload in one day, so I didn’t come home with much.  I bought this fabric:

It is to send out for my month for the Stitchin’ Bee along with this fabric:

(Edited to add:  Several people have asked me what line the fabrics are.  In the top photo, the paisley looking fabrics are “Eclipse” designed for Exclusively Quilters.  The gray and white geometric is “Mingle” by Robert Kaufman.  In the bottom photo, the solids are Kona Cotton, but I don’t remember the color name (maybe Kona could add that in the selvedge!).  The gray, yellow, and white fabrics are a line called “Bridgewater” by Camelot Cottons and were purchased at a store called Quilters Refuge in Decatur, AL.)

And, thanks to my Mom, I also brought home the Supreme Slider silicone sheet to use for free-motion quilting and a Quilt Halo that helps with free-motion quilting without gloves!  We won’t mention what my new friend, Jean, is bringing home (but it starts with Bern______ and has a stitch regulator, etc!)

Are you still reading or have you said, “Enough already!”?  The last bit of exciting news is that I am learning how to knit!!!!!

A couple of my neighbor friends have started a bi-weekly coffee and knitting/crocheting/painting get-together.  It is really fun to just sit and chat and learn something new and in a short time, I’m already seeing how addictive knitting is!

Whew!  I’m done, now!

Snip.Sew.Send. Round #2

A few members of Snip.Sew.Send. were interested in keeping our bee going for a little while longer, so round 2 has started.  Rebecca of Lula Dahl had July.  She sent summery aqua and orange fabrics and requested 10 inch wonky stars blocks.   For one block, I made a star within a star.  For the second one, I pieced together some of the other oranges  that Rebecca sent and cut a square for the center.  Wonky stars are very addictive and these fabrics were fun to put together.

The same day those fabrics came, I received another addition to the map blocks I requested for my turn.

This block came from Heather of Quiltin’ Like Crazy.  She described it as a map of the rooms of her house.  It should be a fun one to do some more elaborate quilting on.  I like clean and modern and Heather’s block fits that really nicely.

And finally, yesterday, I opened the mailbox to find a little surprise from Kris of Summer at Grandma’s House.  I had commented on some fabric in a gorgeous block she had made and when I opened the envelope, there were two pieces of that adorable little polka dot she had used.  Thanks, Kris!

A”Maze”ing Quilt Block

If you’ve ever wondered why being in a quilting bee is so much fun, take a look at this block that I just received.  June was my month for Snip.Sew.Send. and I requested blocks with a theme of “maps”.

This block came from Zonnah of Zonnah’s Addictions.  Isn’t it a”maze”ing?!  She took the title of my blog and incorporated it in this block.  It is hand pieced!  I would have loved to watch how she put it together, because even though it is a complex block, it isn’t bulky at all.  My husband doesn’t usually pay much attention to quilting things, but he commented what a great logo this would make and said I should frame it instead of putting it in the quilt!

Putting this block together with the other two fabulous blocks that I received from Kris (Summer at Grandma’s House) and Rebecca (Lula Dahl) , and the two that I already made, will make the start of a wonderful map-themed quilt!