Sunday, December 30, 2007

A NEW QUILTING PROJECT

Our poor little Chow Chow "Bailey the Bear Dog" has been suffering miserably with hot spots which he scratched and turned into a skin infection. There is nothing worse to deal with when a dog gets this condition. Causes of hot spots can be lots of different things.

Poor Bailey has had a lot of stress in his life since we lost Beethoven last August. It was his first time ever in his life as being an "only" and he really missed Beethoven in spite of how much they fought. Our being gone for Thanksgiving with Eryn in Alabama brought everything to head and the hot spots really began to grow and multiply.

We've been nursing him along and I'm happy to report he is gradually getting better and is clearly on the mend. However with all those cold days we've had with snow on the ground, Bailey hasn't been much interested in going outside since his fur has been trimmed away from the affected areas. It's mighty cold outside for a dog with very little fur. When Eryn's little Frankie Bean (a Daschund) comes to visit he always has his sweater and his fleece for when he goes outside. Bailey just needed me to make him a coat.

I thought to myself, "That shouldn't be too hard to make Bailey a coat. I know what shape it should be after taking care of Frankie Bean. I just need to put some scrap fabric and batting on the machine, add some quilting, and then cut the coat to fit him."


And then ... I remembered the scrap quiltlets I have left from testing designs and trying out different threads and techniques! What a great idea for a Bailey Bear Coat. He is now the somewhat dubiously proud owner of three coats to keep him warm while his skin heals and his fur grows back.

I measured Bailey from his neck to the base of his tail to get a length. Then I measure from his right side across his back and down over his left side to get the measurement that would form the sides of his coat. Interestingly, his measurements were 18" long and 18" wide. He doesn't look like a square dog!


Oh well, then I added the details ... a cutout for his neck area and straps to go around his belly and to form a closure under his chin. You can see his patriotic coat - he looks very spiffy in this one - being used as a master pattern on the scrap muslin quiltlets I used for cutting out two more coats for him.


I don't have any Velcro right now so we're just using safety pins to connect the straps keeping the coat on him. Actually, if he had his way, he would probably prefer to shake it all off, but he stays much warmer at night and when we go outside.


Tuesday, December 25, 2007

A PIANO KEY BORDER

A while back Jennifer asked me a question about how I set up the stitching of a piano key border on a quilt. I was unable to answer her at the time as I was deep in preparing for International Quilt Market in Houston. But, I thought of Jennifer and her question the other day as I was quilting a brown and cream log cabin quilt using a piano key border.

As you can see, the blocks are set apart from the border with a darker framing inside border. I used a wiggly serpentine stitch to define that border. After finishing the framing border, I measured the outer border length to help in determining the width of the piano keys. As a rule of thumb, I like this measurement to be no less than 1" in width but no wider than 2". I also planned the stitching pattern for the corners of the border. Ultimately, the corner pattern and the inside connection between the keys are your biggest decisions.

I marked the key interval and stitched the curved line for each key for this particular quilt. Normally, I don't have the curved stitch line but it fit with the straight line stitching pattern in the blocks for this quilt. I used P2P Curve 1 setting the Pattern Height at .25 inches stitching with the Record Sew Pattern function.

For the key lines, I used the Record Sew Path function clicking on the inside border first, then out to the outside, across the outside edge for the width of the key, and then back into the inner border. You can see in the picture where I have drawn chalk lines as a guide for my clicking points.

I had to do each key separately because I didn't want to have threads to clip after the quilt was all finished. Using the needle-off function creating no-sew lines means there will be threads to clip. Also, I didn't want to have a double stitching line every other key along the inside border. Very tedious work ... thank goodness for the book on my Ipod. It took all day to do the border around this quilt (95-103) and I listened to the first half of my book (which I highly recommend) The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant.

This is just one way I've done the piano key border - not my favorite stitching pattern, but very effective in design.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas celebrations happen at our house on Christmas Eve beginning with a large soup bowl full of our traditional Oyster Stew. When the dishes are cleared and the kitchen clean it's time to get ready for Santa to come. That was the one night either as a kid myself or with our own children, an early bed time was never a problem. Everyone knows, the earlier you go to bed the earlier Santa is likely to arrive.

It's a little different now since most of our Christmas celebrations are much more relaxed affairs at home with just Mike and me. We've had wonderful times traveling to the Chicago area to celebrate the holidays with Toby and Andrea. Last year was especially wonderful because it was the first time we had all of the kids home for Christmas. Our walls echoed last night with memories of a houseful of family sharing the love, laughter, joy and warmth of the season. And, I must admit, it's just as nice, quieter and more relaxing, when there is just two of us. Our cell phones have been fully charged and ready for long calls as we all make connections with each other via the air waves.

The melding of family traditions, the search for keeping those traditions alive and meaningful as our family grows and changes over the years whether near or far is part of what helps strengthen the family bond and helps keep the "blood thicker than water."

My family always had a hearty Potato Soup for Christmas dinner. Mike's family always celebrated with Oyster Stew. So, it was an easy leap for me to switch to the Oyster Stew for our family after Mike and I were married. Last year we needed to make some changes in the recipe after Eryn and Mike were diagnosed with celiac disease, a genetic lifelong condition which makes them gluten-intolerant. We've had quite a year changing recipes and finding the "good" foods and the foods to avoid. Eryn came up with the following recipe to help keep our family tradition of Oyster Stew on Christmas Eve alive.

So gather up a cuppa of your favorite holiday libations ... wine, egg nog, hot buttered rum, or even a seasonal favorite of mine ... HOT APPLE PIE (cider, tuaca, a cinnamon stick, topped off with whipped cream - YUM ... dessert in a glass!) and get ready for a simple hearty meal.





ERYN'S OYSTER STEW (for two ... two heaping bowl each!)

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon salted butter
  • 1 cup chooped leek
  • 2 ribs celery chopped
  • 1 quart whole milk
  • 2 jars extra small oysters (In our houseful of oyster lovers ... we use 3 jars)
  • salt & pepper

Saute the leek and celery lightly in the butter. Heat the milk gently to scalding in a saucepan. Be careful to make sure the milk doesn't boil. Add leek/celery mixture and the oysters (including the liquid) to the scalding milk. Keep the temperature at scalding giving a stir every now and then. Season to taste with salt and pepper. It will not take long to cook the oysters ... maybe about 10 minutes depending on how cold they were when added to the milk.

Ladle into soup bowls and serve with a small dollop of butter on top. Serve with crackers ... gluten free or regular oyster crackers depending on your dietary needs.

Wishing all of you out there a safe and happy holiday season
as you share love and laughter with family and friends.
MERRY CHRISTMAS from Damascus OR
where it is snowing great big fat fluffy flakes right now!!!




Monday, December 24, 2007

Vintage Moments



When I first saw this pattern several years ago in a magazine ad I had to have it. My firend Juanita and I have made two of them together; I've taught it as a class several times; my version of the quilt has won awards in several local shows. I've quilted three of these quilts for customers, each one differently, and now I have another coming up in the January schedule.

Time to start planning, dreaming, and warming up the digitizing mouse!


You can get the pattern at Marsha McClosky's website http://www.marshamccloskey.com/vintagemoments.html

Saturday, December 22, 2007

A QUILTER'S CHALLENGE

It's not infrequent for those of us who make our living as longarm quilters to get several quilts in that are pieced from the same pattern. Be it a club quilt, a class quilt from the local quilt shop, or the current favorite pattern out on the market, such repeat quilts create a special challenge to us encouraging us to keep our creative juices flowing as we give each piecer a unique stitching pattern to enhance the top and fit the recipient of the quilt.

Chris's mother is a customer of mine who has pushed my creativity. She's found a pattern that works for her and has made it several times. In fact, according to her daughter Chris, I think this is the only pattern her mom uses. Each quilt is made with different fabrics according to the favorite color palette of the person receiving the wonderful gift or what she has in her stash that will go together, ...but, she always uses the same pattern. The pattern is by Terry Atkinson and is called Shooting Stars ... http://www.atkinsondesigns.com/patterns/patternDetail.asp?productID=119 and as Terry says, "All of your star points will be perfect because the stars are "floating" - the star points do not go out to the edge of the block."

I've quilted about six of these quilts for Chris's mother. Three of them have been E2E designs and three have been custom. I thought it might be fun to put each of the custom quilts up to compare designs. The challenge with this quilt is the way she has used different fabrics in the sashing strips creating an interlocking design where the blocks meet. And other times she set the blocks so there is an obvious star block and a double sashing all through the middle of the quilt top but only a single sashing on the outside edges. Definitely not your run of the mill click on the four corners and drop in the block. You can see from this picture the challenge created with the setting of the sashing around the blocks.

For the first quilt (back in 2005) she wanted me to do something with feathers. I remember having her quilt up on the design wall for almost a week waiting for inspiration - waiting for the quilt to "talk" to me. After much pondering I came up with the following patterns from Legacy Quilting (Designer:Anita Shackelford and Digitizer: Todd Brown) http://www.legacyquilting.com/
  • Blocks: #650 Wild Rose
  • Sashing and Outer Border:" #657 Feather Border
  • "Faux" Cornerstones: #443 (a little open feather flower)
What a nice surprise the way everything went together! I like the way the Wild Rose block fills in the corners opposite of the star points, and I love the way the Feather Border looks when the design is flip-flopped back and forth. I chose to drop the Feather Border into a pre-determined space as a rectangular block. This created what I call a "faux" cornerstone block in the sashing which was a perfect space for dropping in the little open feather flower.












The next one ... love the colors with the greens, blues and purples. This was the quilt I decided to try the P2P function for real. No more practicing. Just keep track of which way you think the machine is going to go and hope it actually goes that way! Whatever did we do without Point-to-point!

I used the designs from Kim Diamond http://www.sweetdreamsquiltstudio.com/index.php

  • Blocks: Juanita from Kim Diamond
  • Space filling: Holly 1 from Precision Stitch
  • Borders and the open spaces between the blocks: P2P Peak and a resized repeat of Juanita.



When I go back and look at these pictures couple of years later, I wish I had done more quilting in the open areas of the border around the outside edges of the curved diamond. Just goes to show, we're always learning and growing in our skills.


And now for the POSIES quilt ... the quilt I just completed this last week. Her request for quilting was feathers and flowers. I digitized all of the designs for her quilt. I call it the "Posie Collection." I wanted to create the look of a flower garden with a trellis. I eneded up digitizing three different designs for the border to come up with a good balance of density and size across the quilt top from the blocks and out to the border. The final result with the posies trailing through the trellis was a good idea ... and I have a couple of Posie E2E designs as a bonus. I'm really pleased (and so was Chris and her Mom) with the results.



And of course we always love to check out the view from the back!



AN EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT

What a big day at our house! Monday morning was just like any other morning during breakfast - Mike has his gluten free cereal with a banana and I have my "fake" coffee drink, almonds and a banana. He reads the paper and I work the crossword. It's a quiet, relaxing time together with chatter about our plans for the day, catching up on conversations with the kids ... just normal every day stuff that gives meaning to the routine of our lives together.


I didn't know that as Mike read through the paper each day ... the sports pages, the comics, checking up on the local news ... he had added to his agenda to check the classifieds in the puppy section. Well, you guessed it- there was an ad for Great Pryennes puppies about an hour from our place. Some of you may remember meeting Beethoven, our first Great Pry who beat all of the odds for survival after having to have his right front leg amputated due to bone cancer. Unfortunately, last August the cancer returned in a more aggressive form and we had to have Beethoven put down. Beethoven was Mike's dog all the way, and it's been a rough last 4 months for both of us.

We still have our little chow Bailey, but he has been out of sorts, too. He has never been an "only." He was raised as a puppy by our Golden Retriever, Hank, who we lost about 4 years ago. Bailey didn't seem to be too affected by the loss of Hank, but after Beethoven was gone, he looked all over for him, he talked - something Chows never do much of - and just seemed really sad and stressed. It's tough being the only dog and in charge of keeping your house, your people, and your goats all safe. That's a lot for a little Chow Chow to do all alone,


So back to Mike and his classifieds. He made some calls to find out more details regarding the puppy. We have had misgivings about getting through the puppy stage with Great Pry puppies. They are quite the excavators (diggers) and they love to chew. Are we ready for raising a puppy? This definitely means the Christmas Village will have to come up off the floor from under the Grand Piano! Oh dear ... what to do. And then he called the vet to find about fees for neutering and shots.

"Funny, you called today, Mike We've been think about you."

"You have?"

"We have a dog down here we think you should come take a look at. He might just be the ticket for you. Have you ever heard of an Otter Hound?"

Oh my, time for some internet research! Let's find out all we can about Otter Hounds and then go down to the Vet's office to meet Big Guy. Can you imagine two dog lovers ever saying "no" to a rescuing/adopting a dog? So here's Big Guy's story.


He was running loose near the vet's house so she took him in and cared for him while running ads in the paper, nailing up posters, and letting everyone she know that she found a lost dog. Lots of pictures posted ... but no response. He is about 5-6 years old, clearly well-loved, well-fed (could stand to loose a few pounds LOL) very well-mannered, and looking for a good home.


So, Big Guy came home with us. He loves to ride in the car. In fact, when he rode with Mike to the feed store today, he didn't think the ride should have been over quite as soon as it was. He preferred to just stay in the car in hopes Mike would take him for a ride some where else.
He hasn't quite figured out the morning routine yet with feeding and watering the goats, checking the water ponds, feeding the barn kitties, and getting the morning paper. The electric fence has him totally stumped. Mike has walked the fence line with him to show him where it is, but, unfortunately, Big Guy hasn't put everything together yet. So he and the electric fence have has some prettty serious tangles. Poor guy.
He and Mike have a morning walk every day. Big Guy is strong and loves to really "haul the mail" down the trail. Mike just goes along with him as fast as he wants to go. The morning walk tires Big Guy out for the rest of the day so then he comes home and sleeps in front of the heater in my studio for the rest of the day. And Mike is a smiling guy with his early Christmas present.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Darlene's Quilt

Darlene left a quilt with me to finish for her before Christmas. The quilt is to be a gift for her handyman and as we all know, guy quilts can present challenges in terms of design choices. Darlene looked through the catalog of my designs and made her choices ... for the blocks 1030 Vintage Lily and for the strips and the borders 1082 leaf curl border. We also decided using a wiggly line to "faux ditch" the framing border would be adequate and help keep the cost of the gift within reason.


I love the piecing pattern of the quilt and the fabrics. Darlene told me she purchased the quilt top as a kit from a magazine - not sure which one. Isn't it a great collection of fabrics and I love the simplicity of the repeating pinwheel blocks.


The blocks were easy to drop in beginning with a 45° rotation of the block and remembering to reset the block margin back to a 1/4" all the way around. When I was working with the wholecoth repeating designs I had changed the margin to 1/16" - almost touching but not quite. Too close for a block margin on a pieced quilt. Isn't it great how easily blocks can be re-sized with a computerized quilting system. The blocks in the quilt body were about 9" and the border blocks were about 6".



I'd forgotten how easy the leaf curl border was to set up using the P2P function. I designed the pattern so the start/end falls on the mid-line. This means all you have to do is establish the pattern height according the amount of breathing space you decide to leave from the edge of the quilt and/or the adjacent border and then determine the number of repeats needed to fill the space. Measuring was needed for the borders but the strips were super easy because I was able to use the block intersections as a guide for the pattern width.

Darlene loved the results - so do I. I think this would make a great QOV quilt ... great size and easy pattern that would look great in the country reds and blues.


BATTING: Warm Bond 80/20
THREAD:
Top-King Tut 954 Shifting Sands
Bobbin-Signature 100% Cotton ... Fawn

Monday, December 10, 2007

Holiday Wholecloth Snuggles


This last week I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the holiday have-to's, want to's, traditions, and expectations. It's the year for cutting back and simplifying - taking joy in celebrating our blessings as we honor our family traditions in a more simple form.

Last year was our turn for the kids to be home for the holidays. It was the first time in several years. What a treat and so many great memories to sustain us through this year when it will be just the two of us again. And, on the positive side, having just the two of us makes it much easier to scale things back a bit. And to that end ... I mentioned to Mike that we might not bother with a tree this year ... "Let's just have a few things up and not go crazy with putting up Christmas all through the house."

Later in the day I noticed he had his new train set boxes out and was pulling the sousaphone out from beneath the grand piano for "just a small" set up. Then I heard him making several trips down and back up from the basement arms filled each trip with Village boxes. Okay, I thought ... we could do a small village set-up. I'll just watch and see where this goes. Meanwhile I kept quilting the wholecloth design I was working on from my new collection ... Anniston Iron.

Now this wholecloth has had a mind of it's own from the very beginning. Things can always look very simple on the computer screen. I must continually remind and ask myself ... "But can and how will you stitch this out, Miss Kay?"

Suffice it to say ... after much monitoring and adjusting, my beautiful throw size wholecloth is now a 2x2 block wall hanging, a table runner, and very long skinny throw (probably will be changing that one yet) and the left-overs from cutting the original wholecloth into smaller units has become the "snow" under the village/train set-up.

Actually, I think I've hit upon a great idea for all of you quilters out there. The houses, the train, and especially the people do much better in the wholecloth snow than they have done on batting in the past - much more stable. And the quilting design looks like swirling snow all around the figurines. So now I'm going around making mental notes to myself regarding sizes of buffet tops, desk tops, table tops, and display shelves that may need a "dusting of quilted snow" for the Santa collection to rest upon next year. And everything will all be in place for the snowmen to take their places in January.

Oh, and Mike said he would be bringing in the tree later this week since we finished up with Mistletoe Magic 2007 on Saturday. (more on MM07 to come.)