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The “Big Challenge” for the ThreadBenders this year had a very interesting theme and color palette. Here are the rules:

The quilt must be made in the style of the travel posters from the WPA of the 30’s and 40’s. The place is up to you- it could be someplace you’ve visited, or your backyard or wherever, but in the style of the posters. The idea is not to recreate the existing posters, but turn a place of your choice into a quilt “poster” in this style.

You may only use 6 colors, which means only 6 fabrics.  In addition you may use black and white (gray is considered a color).  If you look at the old posters for inspiration, you will see they only use approx. 6 colors.  Colors must be “tones”, like the colors used in the old posters – no brights. 

The location title must be included on the quilt, either straight across the top or bottom.  You can choose any font, but the title must be at least 80% of the width of the quilt.

The resulting poster quilts were spectacular (if I do say so myself 😃) and they have been posted to our site. I think you’ll find the variety fascinating. To see them all click here!

Typically with these challenges I take the opportunity to share my quilt’s story in a blog post – so here it is!

My mom’s family had a cottage on Pewaukee Lake, and both of my parents loved the water. My grandfather sold that cottage many years ago, so in my early teens my parents decided to purchase a speed boat. They wanted Kurt and me to love life on the water too. We all enjoyed the boating and skiing, but my parents disliked all that goes with towing a boat around on the weekends. Within a few years they decided the boat needed a home and it was time to buy a cottage of their own. They found a small cottage on a lovely lot on Lake Sinissippi (which has grown over the years).

It was less than an hours drive from Milwaukee and we spent most of our weekends there.

After over 50 years of fun on the lake I decided I needed to commemorate this important part of our lives in a travel poster quilt. Here’s the photo I took of the shoreline specifically for this project:

I chose to leave off the pontoon boat, and add a great blue heron to the quilt (in a spot I’d seen one recently, but didn’t take a photo). Once I raw-edged repliquéd the quilt top It occurred to me that this scene could be from just about any lake in Wisconsin (or many other states for that matter). What makes this shoreline special to me is the memories of all the wonderful times we’ve had there with family and friends. So I began going through photos from the past 50 years. I chose my favorites, copied them by photographing them with my phone, and placed them in Photoshop™ in an arrangement that would fit a yard of fabric:

I uploaded this entire image to spoonflower.com, and for $18 I had the perfect backing for my poster quilt. Amazing!

I finished the quilt in time for Mom and Dad’s July birthdays (Mom turned 87 and Dad 90 – and they gave me permission to share that 😊). We had a huge family gathering at ~ you guessed it ~ the cottage, and we gifted the quilt to them from all of us!

Everyone wanted to find themselves in the photos on the back, especially the kids!

The adults got in on the fun too!

Now the problem is ~ how to hang it??? At this point it’s hanging in their living room “right side out”, but I’m pretty sure it will be flipped to the album side pretty soon.

I hope you will visit the ThreadBenders site and see all of the wonderful posters!

Our most recent challenge in my Fiberistas group had a unique twist. Each member grabbed an old magazine from Barb’s overflowing pile. We then turned to page 38 (that number was chosen at random), and we challenged each other to make a quilt inspired by some aspect of our page. Here’s mine:

I wasn’t excited about the block on my page, but I found the circle inside the star intriguing. We picked our pages back in December of 2019, and ideas began to rattle around in my brain. Then I went to Japan! For my newer blog readers, you can read all my posts about that wonderful quilting adventure by typing Japan into the search box on my blog’s homepage 😁.

Way back in April of 2020, with my trip to Japan fresh in my head and loads of time to quilt “at home”, I decided it was time to make a memory quilt of the trip, and started by piecing a background to display some of the pieces I made in the classes with our Japanese teachers. (Click here to read about the inspiration for this “background”).

You may have noticed I included my hand-stitched sashiko sampler in the piecing above. My next “what if” idea was to make the class samples into circles and “bounce” them over the surface of the quilt. These bird and flower samples are from the Yuzen painting class:

I loved the shibori dyeing class – and the color too!

I also included some other pieces I purchased on the trip, but I didn’t have enough circles to make a really interesting design. Then an idea struck – those circles on page 38! I only had a copy of that 1 page, and there were no “how-to” instructions, so how would I create those pieced circles??? As most of you know I’m always looking for an easy way to accomplish a task. After a bit of pondering I realized those circles could be cut from pinwheel blocks. After making pinwheels in different sizes from some of the Asian fabrics Evelyn gave me (thanks Evelyn!), I marked the circles, cut them out and added them to the collection.

It took awhile to find the right layout. I find it helpful when I’m doing this type of designing to take photos with my phone and then swipe between the options until I decide on the one that tickles my fancy. Here are three of the options I came up with:

And here’s the one I finally decided on:

I think it’s pretty, and such fun to snuggle under. I love being covered with all those wonderful memories!

All of the challenge quilts were fascinating and we finally have them posted to our Fiberistas site. To see all of the magazine pages and the quilts that resulted please click here! You’ll notice that most of us used only a small aspect of some portion of our page to inspire our quilts. I think that was part of the fun. Enjoy!

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When I was noodling on ideas for the lampshade project in the Top Stitch competition, and doing a repliqué landscape entered my thoughts, a particular tree popped into my brain. I’ve used this tree image in 3 previous quilts and it continues to intrigue me. I wasn’t sure if anyone would recognize it this time, and I was pleased when my dear friend Barb commented to the lampshade post:

“I recognize that beautiful tree. I think that should be your signature tree. All in all I love the shade.
Hugs Barb“

Thanks Barb! (click here for that post)

I came up with the tree image while designing a quilt for an Autumn challenge. I’ve stitched mariners compasses into many different shapes over the years and I’m always looking for unique options (like umbrellas 😊). But could I make maple leaf compasses? And what should the background be? I was able to make the leaves and, while googling trees, I found an image of a hooked rug which ultimately inspired my tree (I tried to find the creator of this beautiful work, but it was one of those images someone had pinned with no credit given).

What resulted was “Which Way Does the Wind Blow?” (click here for a post about this quilt):

By the time this quilt made it into one of my blog posts, I’d already made a second “tree quilt”. This one was called Autumn Dusk, and I used a pointillism fabric to achieve the reflection of a sunset (click here for a post about this quilt):

A few years went by until another competition brought my tree back to mind. In 2018 the National Quilt Museum chose Oak Leaf and Reel as the traditional block quilters were asked to do something innovative with. There was no question that “that tree” needed to be front and center once again. I call it Oak Leaf and Swirl:

This quilt was a joy to make. I loved every minute of it! And it was accepted as one of 18 winning quilts in the competition. For those of you who have joined my blog recently, I actually did three posts about Oak Leaf and Swirl and you can link to them by clicking on link 1, link 2, and link 3:

Many years ago I remember saying that I’d never “work in series”, as that would be boring. Then I’d make a quilt that left me wanting to explore the technique or idea behind it more and… a series was born. When I made my first non-pictorial art quilt, Parallelisms,

I had no idea it was the beginning of something that would end up being a series of over 20 quilts. It also inspired a workshop I’ve taught many times, and a book – “Where Do I Start With Fiber Art” – praise the LORD!

I was wondering where my “signature tree” would appear next? And thinking perhaps a Spring quilt in Spring 😁?!? Well, last week I had a wonderful adventure ~ and “that tree” ended up being a part of it. Stay tuned for next week’s post to find out what happened!

Do you have a theme or image that continues to reappear in your quilting? Please let me know – and send photos!!!

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And one more thing! Mary commented on my vest in last week’s post, asking to see the back. Thanks for asking Mary!

Before I get to today’s topic, I’d like to welcome all the quilters/sewists who have signed up for my blog after watching my “You Can Quilt as You Go” lecture at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. Doing that lecture and the question and answer session afterwards was a wonderful experience and, you may not be aware of this, but all of the lectures from the show are available to watch on YouTube. You can find those links on their FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/WIQuiltShow/.

And now ~ on with today’s topic! In my past 3 posts I shared the idea behind the Top Stitch competition I was a part of, and a recap of the first 2 days. Click on these links to view those previous posts: Introducing Top Stitch, Day 1 and Day 2.

Here’s the scoop on our final day of this exciting event!

By now we were quite comfortable choosing fabrics at the Bungalow ~ and today’s project was a quilted vest. I caught Jill deciding on her pallette for the day.

Then I hurried to the back room to grab the colorful bolts I was captivated by way back on the day Mike and I visited Judy’s shop. Mine was going to be an artsy vest (surprise, surprise!)

I was grateful to have had a direction in my mind for this project and brought along a pile of yarns and threads for embellishing.

My plan was to create a bunch of long, wobbly “quilts” in all the bright colors. They’re each made from backing, batting and front fabric, envelope style, and then quilted with a line of couched yarn down the center. These pieces are then overlapped and top stitched along the edges. The “Top Stitch”ing connects them to each other in a layout that fits the pattern we were given. Here is the pattern with some of the completed strips laid in place.

I have a background in garment sewing, but I threw most of that knowledge out the window as I made a piece of wearable art that broke many of those rules.

At this point I took a little break to see what my long time friend Jill was doing.

Jill Repp is one of the most talented and driven business women I know. She is the Vice President of sales and marketing for June Tailor, Inc. That’s a great title, but it doesn’t begin to cover all she does for this amazing company based in Richfield, WI. Jill is also in charge of product development and holds 15 US and International patents for the creative tools she has invented.

Over 20 years ago I was introduced to Jill when June Tailor was looking for someone to demonstrate their products at Nancy’s Notions Sewing Expo. I love their products and was thrilled to work with Jill. Over the years we traveled together to Quilt Market and other shows. I learned so much about a completely different side of the quilting world in my association with Jill. I also did a bit of product development for June Tailor and a number of their products are my design. We’ve had a great relationship over the years, but I never actually saw her sew and create. Top Stitch gave me that opportunity and I discovered she is also fun to create with! I love June Tailor products and am so grateful to have had a relationship with Jill all these years.

Sew, as I continued to quilt and embellish the strips, my workspace got a bit disheveled. At one point I looked down to see that Quiltina had been neglected. I actually think she was enjoying being part of the hubbub!

I pulled her out of the pile and continued sewing, and I’m pleased to announce that I actually finished on time! The vests were each unique (again), and reflected the personality of the maker. Today the judges announced a 4 way tie 😊.

I was very pleased that my crazy garment idea worked ~ and I look forward to wearing it to future quilting events!

When all the points were finally tallied the scores were very close. Deanna and Jill tied for first place, while Mary and I tied for second. We all agreed that Top Stitch was a huge success and the real winners are the quilters/sewists who will enjoy watching our crazy creative process and learning about the techniques we used when Top Stitch is made available online. I will let you know as soon as it’s available through C&T Publishing.

As promised I want to share the websites of all of my Top Stitch friends.

Judy Gauthier’s site is https://www.bungalowquilting.com/. Her patterns and frames for the umbrella and lamp projects are available there, along with a lot of fabric!

Mary Hertel’s site is https://madebymarney.com/. Be sure to scroll down and see the back of her vest. Delightful! (and yes, I think she did win Miss Congeniality – scroll farther for that pic)!

Deanna Springer’s Stitch It Sisters can be found on their FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/stitchitsisters/ and on their blog: https://nancyzieman.com/blog/stitch-it-sisters/

Jill Repp’s site for June Tailor, Inc is https://www.junetailor.com/. They have oodles of innovative products to drool over.

Thanks for joining me on my Top Stitch adventure. It was a blast, and I am so grateful to have been a part of it. And to have 3 lovely momentos to use/wear, and enjoy!

Quiltina and I are ready for our second day of Top Stitch ~ Hanging Lampshades!

We started once again at Bungalow Quilts to choose our palette. Then we took the bolts back to the college and jumped right in. I decided to use my Repliqué technique and make my lampshade a winter scene (in contrast to the 86 degrees outside the door), so my fabrics were much more subdued today (note the metal frame rings at the bottom of the image. Judy has these specially made by a man in Arizona for her fun and funky lampshade pattern):

I’d drafted my scene at home and reversed it in preparation for Repliqué:

Once again, in my mind, this was going to be a quick project. And once again, I found I sew much slower than I think I do. The process wasn’t difficult, but there was a lot of stitching, trimming, and tearing away of paper.

and by 4:30 I was nowhere near done.

Instead of dwelling on that here – let me introduce you to my dear friend Deanna.

Deanna Springer was Nancy Zieman’s right hand woman, and now continues Nancy’s legacy as one of the Stitch It Sisters! Deanna and her sisters, Dana and Denise, are part of the Nancy Zieman Production team – and this is what they do:

“Nancy Zieman Productions (Team NZP) is honored to carry on Nancy’s legacy and love of sewing and quilting through sharing Nancy’s time-saving sewing techniques at the Nancy Zieman Productions Blog, developing sewing notions for Clover Needlecraft, Inc., fashion garment patterns for The McCall Pattern Company, fabric collections for Riley Blake Designs, creating quilt patterns for QuiltWoman, and co-managing The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show with PBS Wisconsin.”

Deanna told me Nancy treated her like a little sister and taught her so much. During Top Stitch she often spoke about different techniques she learned from Nancy, but she is definitely a creative talent in her own right. I’ve worked with Deanna at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show every year (the show is next week!!! click here for the show’s site and to sign up for my lecture 😊).

Top Stitch gave me the wonderful opportunity to get to know her better, and what a blessing that was! We had many giggles together over the 3 day event.

This day, when the judges arrived, Mary and Jill were ready for them while Deanna and I were still stitching away. Judy was joined by Professor Rafael Salas. He has a Masters in Fine Arts and teaches at the college. Cindy Joyce is a former sewing teacher at Fox Valley Tech. Each day we would share the story of our creation with them before they deliberated. Afterwards they would give us each a helpful critique and announce that day’s points. Is was a great learning experience. 

In the image below I finally just pinned what I had into the frame, even though it wasn’t where I wanted it to be, (what a blessing we weren’t downgraded for not finishing in the amount of time allotted)

and joined the others to help Deanna “get ‘er done”. What a great group of ladies! We were all cheering for each other!

And here we all are with our lamps!

Mary’s paper pieced design was made to match a quilt in her bedroom. Jill’s was also made to match the decor in a room in her home. Isn’t sewing great?!? We love to do it and we create useful objects! Deanna chose a layer cake of Tula Pink™ fabrics to make her pieced design, and mine was made to hang in our log home 😊.

Since returning home I did finish my lamp and was finally happy with it. I’d planned to do the entire piece with raw-edged repliqué, but the fabric I chose for the deer frayed quite a bit, so my first order of business after unpacking was to unpin the shade from the frame and satin stitch over those raw edges.

Then I figured out a way to put it back into the frame and have the moon look like it extended off the top edge. I was pleased with the result and again… I learned a lot!

I think the tulle shadows were very effective, and one of my favorite parts of the design.

I lost points on my score for day 2 because of a number of things (don’t we always know our own problem areas?), and deservedly so. But there was one comment the judges made that I have to share. I used an ombré/gradation fabric for the sky and placed it so the light area was at the top, near the moon. The judges commented that the lighter portion should have been along the horizon. You probably knew that, but I drove back to the lake house debating this in my mind. The moon was the light source in my design and the lighter area should be near it ~ right?

Once “home” I googled images of “a full moon on snow”, and the judges were right! Then it hit me. The moon only reflects light, so it wouldn’t brighten up anything behind it! There’s so much to learn in this world. I’ll do it right on the next lamp ~ but I’m not going to change this one 😁.

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And one last comment. I’ve written two books on Repliqué, and both are out of print (although I still have “Snuggle and Learn Quilts for Kids” available on my website, in case you’re interested in adding words to your quilts). If you’d like to learn to repliqué photos or drawings you may be excited to know that I’m in the editing stage of my fifth book and all the instructions for my original technique are there, plus step-by-step instructions for adding tulle shadows, and a whole lot more:

Please stay tuned for the grand appearing of book #5!

Top Stitch? What’s that all about?

I can’t wait to tell you!

A while back I received an exciting email asking if I wanted to participate in a sewing/quilting competition on the order of the Great British Bake Off. Judy said she was in the beginning stages of putting this project together and that it would probably evolve. I enthusiastically said YES!

I’ve taught Open Lab classes for a few decades now. In those classes students bring in their projects and ideas they need help with, and I guide them as they problem solve. Sometimes they want to fix something that’s gone wrong, or find a simpler way, or even design a project from an idea in their head. I love this type of puzzling problem solving, and it felt as if these classes were preparing me for this competition. It didn’t matter what happened – I wanted to be a part of it! As time went on the plan took shape:

• Instead of making it an elimination competition, it was decided there would be judges giving points each day. This way all participants could be a part of the entire event.
• Since all the participants were also teachers, the focus was placed on education – not “winning”.
• Four “sewlebrities” were invited, and the time frame was changed from 5 days to 3 (Praise the LORD – 3 days was exhausting enough!)
• A project was chosen for each day that hopefully could be made in the allotted time.
• The participants were given the patterns for the projects ahead of time so we could do a bit of planning. Also, not finishing completely did not result in points taken away – hooray!

Sew – who came up with this brainstorm? Judy Gauthier is the owner of Bungalow Quilts in Ripon Wisconsin.

She is also a quilter’s version of the Everready bunny, a well-spring of creativity, and the author of four books. Her books have been published through C & T Publishing and she is a part of their Creative Spark online educational platform. Here’s the description of Top Stitch in her own words from her blog:

“Top Stitch is a competitive program that incorporates TONS of learning. I will be selecting superstars that can teach you lots of fun and interesting techniques amidst a competition show.

We are filming in Wisconsin first. Of course. We will be moving on to other states with other challenges. The winners will meet at Quilt Market and film the final episode or episodes, as we see fit.

We began our first day at Ripon College. It was me and a whole bunch of “sewlebrities” from Wisconsin. We met for a creative challenge. We will meet for a total of 3 days. In these 3 days we will be making an umbrella, a hanging lampshade and a vest. These sewlebrities are making these projects according to a pattern, but making them their own. They will individualize them however they wish.

As they are performing these tasks, they will be instructing. They will be sharing tips and techniques for sewing, and there’s where the education comes in.”

The plan was to meet at Bungalow Quilts this past Monday morning and choose our fabrics, then head over to Ripon college and begin to sew our umbrellas – finishing around 5!!!

The week before the competition a case of nerves set in. I live an hour and 20 minutes away and I had no idea what the fabric selection would be like. So Mike, Koda and I took a ride up to Ripon. Koda got to meet Judy’s new puppy Duncan, and a good time was had by all.

I loved the fabric selection in the shop and appreciated being able to scope out the perfect choices for all three projects. I spotted a rainbow print called Effervescence by Robert Kaufman that inspired me for the first. The colors were exciting, and I came up with the idea of combining it with a white background to make the umbrella from just two fabrics:

When I got home I began making up my pattern. My plan??? The umbrella pattern had 8 wedges – perfect for a mariners compass! In the past I’ve drafted them into circles, diamonds, triangles, hearts and even maple leaves using my paper folding techniques, but I’d never done an umbrella. Would it work? Well first I needed to get a visual. Using Photoshop I dropped the colors from the fabric into an umbrella shape on my computer and tried a number of placements.

Which one do you like? I’m keeping my choice to myself until next week’s post. Next I drafted the wedges using Judy’s pattern.

The paper piecing pattern pieces were fun to draft and I had it all ready for my trip north the day before the contest began.

While we were visiting the shop Mike was concerned that making the drive back and forth every day for three days, while being mentally and physically tired, could be a bit stressful. So I asked Judy if she’d recommend a motel nearby. Instead she offered to have me stay at her lake home. I of course said yes. What a blessing!

I had this lovely “cabin” all to myself!

It was charming and comfortable – and filled with quilts!

I was close to the action – and the view was spectacular.

Waking up to this the first morning was a joy. And very inspiring.

This adventure was so much fun that I couldn’t contain it all in one post. Next week: Day 1 – Umbrellas!