One 2011 Goal Down – On to the UFO's

I completed one of my big goals for 2011 last week. My sewing room/studio is CLEAN and ORGANIZED. I can find everything. My fabric is sorted and folded. My patterns are all put away in notebooks. My books are organized by topic on the shelves. My UFO’s are packaged, numbered and boxed so I can find them. My laces, ribbons, buttons, threads, paints, and other embellishments are all neatly stored in boxes. I am giddy with happiness. I am actually SEWING in my sewing room now, instead of at a table in the living room or at the dining room table. I have a cutting station, a real ironing board that is not piled high with stuff, and all my rulers and other tools are where I can find them. It feels fantastic to accomplish this goal. Here are some before and after pictures so you get an idea of the scope of the task.

Pretty messy. Piles of stuff everywhere. Could hardly walk through the room.

Here are the "after" photos.

Here are a few of my storage/organizational tips. I store my fabric by color, theme, or type. I separate the envelope from the instructions and tissue paper pieces in my commercial patterns (McCall’s, Simplicity, Butterick). I store the instructions and tissue paper pieces in plastic baggies, numerically by pattern maker. I store the envelopes in notebooks by the type of item it is: dresses, home décor, purses, kids clothes, dolls, etc. This works really well for me. I organize all my quilting books by topic, labeling the shelves so I can go directly to the section I need a book from. I have over 500 quilting-related books so this is a necessity. I store all my precut fabric sets (charms, jelly rolls, layer cakes, fat quarter sets, along with accompanying yardages) in a large plastic storage bin. I have clear storage boxes for zippers, Velcro, cording, ribbon, rickrack, interfacing, fusible web scraps, and templates.

Bookshelves and pattern notebooks

Pattern envelopes and pattern instructions & tissue pieces

Now all I have to do is keep it this way!

If you have a organizational or storage tip please share it as a comment. We can all use new ideas.

Now on to the next goal! I've already finished four UFO tops in the last month or so. Now must get them quilted.

A Short Film Diversion

Today I saw this wonderful animated film on The Daily Blog (The Quilt Show's blog) and thought I would share it with all of you. It is a Canadian film made in 1996 by Gayle Thomas, an animator and director, and uses traditional quilt blocks in animation to music. Check it out: http://www.nfb.ca/film/quilt.

A Trip to Hemet for Valley Quilters' Quilt Show

Patty S. and I drove up to Hemet yesterday to attend the Valley Quilters quilt show. It was a very nice day and it took us about an hour and 35 minutes to get there. There were about 100 or so quilts, all very nice. Also, about 15 vendors, a boutique (sort of a quilter's garage sale) and a consignment shop. We saw all the quilts in about an hour and spent some time looking at all the stuff in the boutique. All kinds of crafting, quilting and other items, some 40 or more years old. I'd hate to have to store all of it in between quilt shows. Click here to view the photos I took at the show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karensphotos2011/collections/72157625916563121/

The show was in the gym or auditorium at the Valley-Wide Recreation Center. There is a large park with playground and some athletic courts for tennis and basketball. We ate our lunch under a big tree and then went back to see the vendors. I bought another cute "male hunk" fabric with an outdoorsman theme. After we left the quilt show we stopped at a new quilt shop in Hemet called Cotton Lane Quilting. I forgot to take a picture of it.

Outdoorsmen fabric

Before we left Hemet we walked through the Farmer's Market. Patty bought a Kubocha (Japanese for squash) squash and some asparagus. I bought some avocados and an Asian fruit called "jujube." And you all thought jujubes were just candy! It is a smallish, reddish brown, very wrinkled fruit (because it is dried) with a flavor similar to dates and a texture similar to dried apples. You can eat them or brew a very delicious tea from them.

Jujube fruit

We had a nice drive home so it was another great quilting experience.

Retreat Reflections

Retreats are the in thing nowadays. You can go to a scrapbooking retreat, a spiritual retreat, a nature retreat or any number of others. But quilting retreats are the best. Over the years I’ve attended many, from very informal with just a handful of people to very organized with 40 or more quilters. They are all fun because you are quilting, creating, and enjoying the company of other quilters.

Our quilt guild has had an annual retreat for the past 10 years. The first few years it was held at Camp Cedar Glen near Julian and the Cleveland National Forest northeast of San Diego. The camp was beautiful with rustic cabins, huge pines and a big lodge building where we shared communal meals and set up our sewing room. After a few years, the retreat was moved to Vina de Lestonnac in Temecula, which is a retreat center run by an order of nuns. Nice facility, more like a hotel, and surrounded by wineries. I have also attended a couple of retreats organized by the Tall Mouse, a craft store in Orange County. It was held at a hotel with a big room for quilting. The staff of the Tall Mouse presented mini-classes and a couple of projects. The smaller retreats I have been to include my quilting mini-group going to Rosarito Beach, Mexico (Anna’s beach house) to enjoy sewing and a glass or two of wine while listening to the waves and watching the dolphins surf. A group of friends and family also rented a big house in the mountains in Idyllwild a couple of times for several days of quilting. It was great walking around town, enjoying the mountain atmosphere, the crisp cool days, & hot cider. Another year we rented a condo in Oceanside near the beach. That one was a little cramped, but as usual we had fun. We ate on the deck overlooking the ocean, walked on the pier and sewed our little hearts out.

This past weekend my sister, my daughter and I got together for a little family quilting retreat at my sister’s home in Orange County. We arrived Friday afternoon loaded with sewing machines and all the other paraphernalia we require for our craft, as well as all the projects we were hoping to work on or complete. All those racing sewing machines work up a real appetite, so we had a delicious lasagna and salad for dinner. I worked on making backings for several quilt tops to get them off my UFO list and a flannel top that needed borders and some appliqué. My daughter, Kecia, worked on a jelly roll pattern making a couple hundred flying geese. And my sister, Leslie, worked on Cozy Quilt Shop’s Block of the Month and started an “I Can’t Believe It’s a Sweatshirt” jacket. We sewed each night until midnight or so, watching old and new movies as we sewed.

On Saturday the marathon continued, but my niece stopped by so we took a break for a fabric run to M & L Fabrics in Anaheim and lunch at Olive Garden. Then it was back to work. Kecia cut out her Cozy Block of the Month, but instead of one block, she made three—with more fabric to spare! Leslie worked on her jacket and I worked on a Nana’s Garden quilt I started at least 7 or 8 years ago at a guild workshop. More food, more sewing, more movies, more fun.

Emma and my sister, Leslie, and Emma with her potholder.
Sunday dawned cloudy and cool with a forecast of rain. Not problem for us. I worked on a batik stained glass style quilt project that was started some years ago as a project for my quilting class. Kecia worked on another jelly roll pattern, Akimbo, which sets the blocks akimbo or in a twist and turn orientation. Leslie finished the patchwork on her jacket and I showed her how to cut blocks for a Stack ‘N Whack quilt. Leslie’s daughter and granddaughter, Emma (age 11), stopped by and Emma was really interested in all our activity and decided she’d like to make her dad a pot holder. I had brought my little Brother backup machine so the three of us gave her her first quilting lessons—covering some simple basic principles like sewing an accurate quarter-inch seam, proper pressing techniques, safe rotary cutting, and pinning for accurate piecing. She was very diligent, listening and following directions, and her pot holder came out great! Her dad will love it. Hopefully, we can nurture her interest and encourage her to attend future retreats. We need her to carry on the family quilting tradition.

Kecia's projects--Akimbo & 3 Blocks of the Month (2 closeups).

Leslie's projects-Stack 'n Whack blocks, Cozy Block of the Month & ICBIAS jacket

Sunday night ended our sewing sojourn, but we had a surprise treat. My daughter left for home a couple miles away about 11:30 pm, and on her way she decided to stop at the newest night hot spot in Garden Grove, M & M Donuts. This donut shop is open from 10 pm to about 9 or 10 am, depending on when they run out of donuts. It is famous for their blueberry donuts and on Saturday nights there are about a hundred people there waiting for donuts. (Yeah, we wondered what they were putting in those donuts, too.) She had to wait 15 minutes for a fresh batch of hot, blueberry donuts and then she stopped back at my sister’s to deliver the warm treats to us. I can testify they are the most delicious donuts I have eaten in years, and no unusual ingredients other than maybe the blueberries!

Tops I worked on-flannel w/applique, batik stained glass, & Nana's Garden

Whatever the locale and cost, quilting retreats are great fun and opportunities to spend blocks of quality time quilting with friends and/or family . They are highly recommended at least once or twice a year for your quilting health.

A Road Trip to "Road to California"

Three friends and I took a road trip up the I-15 on Saturday to the Road to California Quilt Showcase in Ontario. Barbra S. was kind enough to drive the other three of us--Barbara L., Anna L. and I. It was a little bittersweet, as another friend was supposed to be in the 4th seat, but came down with a nasty bug and couldn't go, so I was able to take her place. Sorry Patty. Hope you're feeling better.

It was a gorgeous day and we arrived around 10:45 and went our separate ways to visit vendors and see all the gorgeous quilts. Pictures I took of the quilts can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karensphotos2011/. You can visit the show vicariously if you weren't able to attend. Click on the thumbnails on the right side to view the various groupings I organized. Here are a few pix to entice you. If you click on each photo, it will enlarge. The parrot was one of our favorites. It looked like you would feel real feathers if you touched it. Don't miss the pictures because they were fabulous. One group of pictures was an exhibit from the Rogue River Art Quilters in Oregon. They each took a section of the Rogue River to depict in a small quilt and all the quilts were displayed so the river ran through from one quilt to the next. I think there were more than 15 quilts. Be sure to look at those.

We met again for lunch and played photographer with another group of sister quilters from Fallbrook. We took their picture and they took ours. Here's the result.

The quality of the quilting seems to just get better and better every year. There were so many gorgeous examples of exquisite quilting. I didn't take pictures of every quilt, but tried to take as many as I could. Really enjoyed perusing the vendors. Cozy's was there. Here's a picture of Maureen. They were pretty busy.

I bought some really nice landscape fabrics at Cynthia England's booth. Some mountain, rock, tree bark, night sky and some other trees. Also bought a product called Retro Clean, which is supposed to remove staining and yellowing from old quilts and linens. And a handy storage box for buttons, beads or bobbins. It has individual little containers inside a larger box. Here's a couple of pix.

We left to come home around 5 and had a lovely ride chatting about the show, and how the world has changed since we all raised our kids 30-40 years ago. If you've never been to Rd to CA, you should really go next year. There are usually a couple of buses that take people who don't want to drive.

The Pros of Guild Membership

In a reader poll in the Aug.-Sept. issue of Quilter’s Home magazine, nationally-known quilter, Jo Morton, commented on the poll’s multiple-choice question about what type of quilting organizations the readers are members of. Jo was quoted at saying, “If you go to the guild meeting, you get jobs you don’t need or have time for.” I guess she has trouble saying no!

I have been a member of Kaleidoscope Quilt Guild, since 1987, the year it was formed, and have seen people come and go, experienced all the changes over the years and after 23 years I would not characterize this guild as an arm-twisting, threatening entity. Sure sometimes it is hard to get people to volunteer to help out, and the same people seem to rotate the main jobs year after year, but new people do step up and help to keep everything running smoothly. Others contribute in whatever ways they are comfortable with. No one is ever forced into doing something they have no interest in. Being a member of a guild is a good thing. A guild is a social and educational community of like-minded people, in this case with a serious interest in the art of quilting. For one who is new to quilting or the older, experienced quilter a guild provides opportunities for learning at workshops, seeing the work of other quilters at every level, participating in guild activities, and making lifelong friends.

A guild is multifunctional. It supports quilter education through monthly programs with speakers--well-known quilters and guild members. It schedules workshops allowing members additional educational opportunities. It organizes retreats to foster community within its membership. It encourages and supports philanthropic organizations with donations of quilts and other handmade items. Our guild presents a quilt show, free of charge, which allows members to exhibit their work to promote quilting in our community.

I would suggest that anyone contemplating joining a guild should visit that guild to see if it is welcoming and inclusive, if it is a place they would feel comfortable being part of. Don’t shy away from membership, fearing you will be forced to take on responsibilities you are not ready for. Go in with a positive attitude to make the most of your guild experience and you’ll find you will enjoy it. Visit http://www.kaleidoscopequiltguild.com/ for more information on what guilds are all about.

Here are a few photos of our last guild meeting—some member sharing and our program presented by member, DeAnna Kendall. Visit DeAnna’s blog at http://dkdesigns-creatingbeauty.blogspot.com/.

Lessons Learned From a UFO

We are having a UFO challenge in my class. For those of you who might not be quilters, these UFO’s are not the extraterrestrial type, they are UnFinished Objects—quilting projects that for one reason or another are unfinished. The challenge is to finish as many of your UFO's as you can by the end of this class session in March. Prizes will be given at the end based on the total number of square inches of the projects completed.

I thought I would work on some of mine, so I pulled out two bags from my hundred or so UFO’s, both of which are old Stack ‘N Whack projects. I started with one that is an 8-point pinwheel pattern in a quirky country fabric and green. The blocks that were finished had interest and movement to them, so I sat down and spent one day sewing the rest of the blocks together. Then I measured the blocks and it turned out they were all just “slightly” larger than they should have been. I couldn’t trim them down without losing the points of the pinwheels. If they had been less than ¼” too big, I may have been able to avert the fiasco that resulted, but they were more like 3/8” too big. The unfortunate part of this story is that I had already cut the setting triangles when I started the project several years ago, and now they were just “slightly” too small. Normally I wouldn’t have cut them until the blocks were all done, but years ago who knows why I did that. Well, to add insult to injury, I thought, “It’s just a teeny, tiny difference. I can just ease it in.” (ignoring the fact that 3/8” is not teeny, tiny) Big mistake! I knew better, but didn’t have enough fabric to cut new ones, so I thought I could MAKE it work. Nope, nada, no way. The quilt top will not lay flat because the triangles are too small. My only option is to unsew them, and resew them into the sides without stretching or easing, then trim the sides of the quilt even with the triangles. Luckily, I can do this without losing any part of the pinwheels. I should have done it in the first place.

The moral of this story is three-fold: 1) Even the most experienced of us make mistakes—stupid ones at that, 2) NEVER, EVER cut the setting triangles for an on-point setting before you finish the blocks, and 3) don’t try to MAKE something work, especially when it involves bias edges.

Here are a few pictures of the top. I fixed one triangle, but have to do several others to make this lay flat. Hope this doesn’t end up back in the black hole of UFO’s.

These show some of the wrinkles I need to get rid of.

Closeups of a couple of the blocks.

The triangle I fixed. Notice it doesn't meet the corners of the blocks. That's why I will have to trim the edges of the top.