Pets On Quilts 2010

SewCalGal is hosting a virtual quilt show featuring pets on quilts.  For all the information , click here.

"Rex the Hamster"

This is a quilt that I made for a shop sample at Stitcher's Crossing.  To see the whole thing, click here.

"Rosie the Ever-Patient Berner"

Rosie in her super-hero guise wearing another shop sample from Stitcher's Crossing.  I made this quilt in summer 2007, before I started blogging.

I finished the thread work on Flora.  Unfortunately, I guess she doesn't really qualify as a pet on a quilt for me -- we can keep chickens in our back yards here, but no cows.  Yet.  And  no, I don't have any chickens.

"Kool Kat House Quilt: with Apologies to Fons and Porter"

I made this from a pattern in a Fons and Porter magazine a couple of years ago.  I had a blast using all my brightly colored cat and music fabrics.

When my husband was trying to get me to marry him, "pitching woo" you might say, he used to sing "Our House" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young to me.  We each had a cat when we married and so it was especially apropos.

"Our house is a very, very, very fine house,

With two cats in the yard, 

Life used to be so hard,

Now everything is easy 'cause of you"

                                                                           -Graham Nash

Yeah, I know that they're leopards -- but I didn't have any lions and don't all cats think of themselves as big cats anyway?

I also want to take this opportunity to point out a few of my favorite animal rescue sites.  First is A Place to Bark.  This is a dog and cat rescue operated by Bernie Berlin.  I had the pleasure of meeting Bernie a couple of years ago at a quilt show and I was terribly impressed by her dedication to this cause.  She makes and sells her artwork to help fund the shelter, but she always appreciates donations.  Please take a moment to visit and make a donation.  

The second site I want to draw attention to is The Wisconsin Puppy Mill Project.  Sadly, here in Wisconsin, puppy mills are not against the law.  Dogs are raised in horrible conditions for sale to unwitting buyers and pet stores all across the country.  Unlike farmers with cattle, sheep, or other livestock, puppy millers have no incentive to breed carefully or even care for their animals.  Once a dog is sold, it's gone.  Dogs must be socialized properly and are uniquely people-oriented; puppy-millers do not care. I know that some of the pictures are gruesome, but please take a look and help.

The third is an organization that is near and dear to me, Bernese Mountain Dog Rescue.  You can find the local rescue organizations from here.  These dogs are not for everyone, so think carefully before you take one on -- or any dog for that matter.  It's a lifelong commitment.  It would be more fair, perhaps, for the dog to choose the person.  It's the best deal you can get: 

"Unless a man has a natural love of dogs he will never make a success of keeping them, for he must be willing to cheerfully sacrifice his comfort and leisure hours doing what is necessary for them. He must see in them something more than simply a means to an end. The best animals in the world have always been bred for the love of them or the love of breeding and caring for them, rather than purely for the profit they bring; and the person who does not like dogs had better not attempt to keep them at all." 

-Milo G. Denlinger, "The Complete German Shepherd"

To see the other quilts in the show, click here.

Bamboo Tiger is going to Des Moines!

I am thrilled to announce that "Bamboo Tiger" has been juried into the AQS show in Des Moines, Iowa!  The show takes place October 6th through the 9th at the Iowa Events Center.  Now if I can just figure out how to get myself there too...

Mag26 -- Cool Green Garden

Cool green in the garden
soft summer evening
the old stone wall rhyme
etched with mossy design

May I take your hand
as we walk alone together
under the darkening trees
in the cool garden green

No flowers here grow
those hothouse floozies
their raw fecundity immoral
in the garden's green cool

-kls 2010

This was written in response to a prompt from Magpie Tales.  Write your own and link here.

Pieceful Tigers is Finished!

"Pieceful Tigers"

64" x 64"

This quilt is adapted from "Pieceful Nights: A Sampler Quilt" by Lori Smith.  I swapped out the center star for a double feathered star from Feathered Star Quilt Blocks I: Really Hard Blocks That Take a Long Time to Make by Marsha McCloskey.

I think that the feathered star is the most beautiful of all the traditional blocks.  And they're not that hard -- at least not after you make a bunch of them.  Marsha's book is really good -- there are all kinds of tips and tricks that make them, well, if not easy, at least not terribly difficult.

I had this tiger fabric and wanted to showcase it in an unusual way, so I made templates for a lot of the blocks and used Paula Nadelstern's techniques for puzzle blocks to make many of the blocks appear different than if I had just rotary cut and pieced them.  I challenged myself to use some of this fabric in each block.

It will be displayed along with all of the other quilts from the 2009 machine piecers group that meets at Mill House Quilts in a special exhibit at Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin on September 9th through the 11th.  It will also be in an exhibit October 29th and 30th at the St. John's Piecemakers Quilt Club in Waunakee, Wisconsin.

Oh -- and just for the record -- I know that "pieceful" is not how it is spelled.

First Thursday Piecers Group

As I have mentioned before, the first Thursday of the month is the machine piecer group.  This month the blocks were:

"Treasure Chest"

Mine is the green and blue batik block in the center.  I did it in EQ7 to try out fabric choices before I actually cut up any fabric.

It turned out different for a couple of reasons.  First, I was using the fabric choices that come with the program rather than scan in my actual fabrics.  Also, I have two printers available to me -- one that I share with the kids and so is constantly low on ink.  Right now, everything that it prints is pink.  The other printer is mine exclusively, but I was too cheap to waste ink on a print of a block.  So, during the running up and down the stairs between computer and fabric, the choices changed.  Unfortunately, all that running didn't result in a changed (read: skinnier) me.

I have a big beef with the fabric companies and EQ because they used to  have a disk of fabrics that you could purchase.  Yep -- in addition to the fabrics you already paid for, you had to buy the disk if you wanted to use them with EQ.  There are some manufacturers that allowed free downloads from their websites, but the idea of paying for an image of their fabric just griped me.  I'd rather spend my cash on fabric and thread.

So I got in the habit of using the ones that came with the program.  That's all changed with the new version, but I like designing in black and white because it's easy to see if the value choices work.  I'm much better with the scanner now and there are some new tools in EQ7 that allow fussy cutting and realistic sizing of prints, but I haven't had time to play around with them yet.  Soon.  The other block for this month was:

"Star of Many Points"

And my EQ7 version.  My block is in the upper left hand corner of the group.  Again, they're different.  Partly because I get so excited when I get to play with the fabric, changes happen.  Also, the stuff in the box for this quilt is different from the choices available with the program.   I keep current WIPs in plastic boxes so that all the fabrics are together and easy to move out of the way when something new strikes my fancy (OK, yes, I have some really old ones in boxes too).  I really like the green in the cross pieces.  I'm hoping to find some time to dye next week.  Maybe I'll  see if I can match that color.

This group is a free class that meets on the first Thursday of each month at Mill House Quilts in Waunakee, Wisconsin (the only one in the world).  This year we're doing "Sew Many Blocks" by Julia Hale from Bits 'n Pieces.  

And I did have some stuff for show and tell.  Including the latest tiger quilt.  I haven't finished sewing down the binding yet (maybe tonight), but all the quilting is done.  And I'm still married and all my children are intact.  So... tune in tomorrow.  

A Great Deal

Now that I have your attention...

"It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature."

-Henry James, American author (1843 - 1916)

It takes a great deal of quilting to produce a quilt.  Not to mention the piecing, appliqué, cutting, dyeing, buying, hmmm.... did I forget anything?

I was going to have a quilt to show today.  I was going to finish this quilt today.   I was going to take it outside and photograph it in the sun.  

But there was little sun -- and when there was, it was too hot to go out.  And the saboteurs with whom I live conspired to prevent me from finishing the quilting.  I did pick out something for the binding.  And I did make a label -- it is really cool (even if I do say so...) --  I did it with Word and printed it out on my printer on some of that stuff you buy by the roll.  But I can't show any of that because (big sigh...) it's not finished.   

But I will share a couple of pictures. 

So...maybe tomorrow?

Mag25

 

A rusty old lock

on my rusty old heart

the good and bad secreted inside

together like gum stuck to my shoe

on a hot summer day.

Step, scwintch, step, scwintch,

trying to run through the minefield

that life has become

tossed from bash to blast

like children skirt the cowpies

in the baseball diamond out back.

A rusty old lock on a splintery 

sagging wooden gate,

missing its silver key --

all tarnished and black.

-kls 2010

This was written in response to a Magpie Tales prompt.  Write your own and link here to see the others.

I have been an AWOL blogger for a week or so now because I have been working on the tiger and cow quilts.  I've almost finished the tigers -- all the blocks and inner borders are quilted.   I have only the last three borders to finish -- hopefully tomorrow.  I'll post pictures when it's done.