My Grandpa

Paying tribute to my wonderful Grandpa, Alvin K Mach who passed away yesterday at age 94. We called him "Superman." He was a dentist, and the one who fixed my front tooth when I chipped it in 6th grade. He was a gentle soul with sparkling eyes. He will be missed by all who knew him. My brother's wedding is next weekend, so the funeral is being post-poned a week. (I think Grandpa would have gotten a kick to know that we were talking of "putting him on ice" for a while so we could get our ducks in a row!)

Speaking of ducks...Grandpa loved ducks. And when we used to go fishing, or out and about wherever we were..he'd shushshshhhh us and tell us "shhhhh! you'll scare the birds!" or "Shhhhh! you'll scare the fish!" All of these memories are just flooding back, and I'm sitting here with a lump in my throat the size of Australia.

I'm not scheduled to be anywhere else between the 8th and the 17th of June....so I'm hoping they will plan the funeral in that window so that I can head to Minnesota to be with family. Those family heartstrings are so strong, aren't they?

When my mom told me this morning...and said that she wants me to be there, needs me to be there, I tell you, there is no where else on earth I want to be.

He's been in the nursing home for quite some time. It's not a shock that he has passed, it's an acknowledgment of the life he has lead, and how he filled it all the way to the end, until his body was just so worn out it just needed to rest.

I'll miss you Grandpa!

Love,

Questions on fans...

There have been questions on how I go about doing this, and I thought I'd take some time this morning (At HOME...sitting with a cup of tea...in my JAMMIES!) to show you how I work things. The pic you see above was a photo I sent to the Quiltville page on facebook, sitting there on the plane, quilting away, waiting to take off from St Louis to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta home. I quilted the whole way, and am making huge progress on Dreamsicles!

I started hand quilting fans when I lived in Idaho, oh....many moons ago! The first one I did was a block swap through interquilt, and the blocks I got were called "wind blown square." It was the perfect quilting pattern to add motion to this quilt. I still have it somewhere, and i know I quilted this at least 12 years ago? I know because it traveled with me on the plane (yes I've been doing it this long!) to Connecticut from Idaho to visit my brother....and he hasn't lived in Connecticut for over 10 years or so. Where does the time go?

That first batch of quilts with fans, either in the border, or over the whole surface of the quilt, I used stencils. I tried lots of ways to mark them, from blue marker, to purple marker, to schoolhouse chalk....it was a pain to mark them, really! I also once went so far as to take a strip cut from a sheet of plastic canvas grid...Mark the holes that I wanted to use to measure my arcs with a sharpie marker...and used that strip of canvas like a compass. It worked really well, but again I was still marking.

And let's face it. If you have to lay something out to mark it...it's not going to be that user friendly in a small space like an airplane seat. Being able to quilt without marking is my method of choice!

It wasn't until I got Gwen Marston's book "Quilting With Style" that I even thought about free-handing them, and my first few attempts were...ehhhhh??? And I gave up. I just wasn't that ready to go wonkily liberated yet....until I met Tonya!

I think the thing about free handing fans is that we forget to think about the whole surface of the quilt...we are just sitting there looking at one crooked one, next to another not so crooked one, and comparing them to each other, and we think it won't work. But you have to keep going! It's the texture and motion of the WHOLE SURFACE that matters, not how perfect each individual fan is.

One of the first things I figured out was that I was trying to make my fans too big with too many arcs to them. I limit mine at 5. In fact, 5 arcs gives me the perfect number to keep them moving continuously.


I start my quilting in the bottom right corner, working right to left because I am right handed. Lefties would probably do better working left to right from the bottom left corner.

I *DO* use a hoop. But my quilt is very loose in the hoop. When I quilt, I am not holding the hoop in any way...I have one hand on the underside of the quilt, feeling for the needle, and my right hand on the top doing the stitching. The hoop just rests in my lap and keeps me from having to grab and hold the quilt flat so I can stitch. Some prefer to go completely hoopless, so try it both ways. I'm a hoop girl.

Also...quilting from the OUTSIDE IN toward the center means you have to be basted VERY VERY VERY well. I baste my quilts by longarm with a huge stitch in a meander pattern. I remove the basting threads in each area as I quilt.

If you look at the corner of the pic above...you can see the first fan that started the whole process. I also thought it might help if I drew this with pencil on paper. You can draw it on paper too so you can get the feel of how things work, and how the fans just run off the edge in the direction you are going...and THEN you turn the corner. Like this:

The arrows show you the direction I am stitching. I go DOWN the first inner 1/4 circle, up the second, down the third, up the fourth, and down the 5th.

At this point...I travel my needle up through the layers so I can start the next fan in the same way...down the inner 1/4 circle, and repeat! Don't you love my Casper Wyoming twig pencil!! LOL Fun picking up souvenirs from where I've traveled! I think this one can only be sharpened by whittling...hehehe.

Here we are working toward that next corner..just keep repeating fans until you run off the end.

After I have gone off the side I've been working on....it's time to turn the corner and just start again where the last row ended!

Here I've reached another corner...straight off the edge. Sometimes I need to add another little line as if it were the "top arc" of the one that ran off the edge, just to fill in the space. Then head down the third side...are you getting it now?

At this point, I'm just going to keep going until this whole first round is completed. Once I've gone all the way around once, I start the second round, then the third, and on....until I've filled in the whole surface of the quilt. When I reach the middle, the fans are going to end where they end...just quilt to fill!


This is the BACK of the Dreamsicles quilt...it's a yellow toile! Can you see the pattern with the red thread? Quilting with contrasting thread is so fun. I mean, who wants to put in all this work if the quilting is not going to show? I'm in love with color, and quilting this orange quilt with red thread just makes me happy!

So...are you ready to try? Get out a piece of paper and just start drawing. I'm sure mine are different than some, but that's okay. Oh...and my stitching lines are about 3/4" apart. I just measured. You can make them as close together or as far apart as you like, again there are no rules....just texture texture texture! I like to think of fans as one of the "earliest" pantographs out there......seconded only by clam shells, and cross hatching that went over the entire surface. Quilts that were quilted this way tended to last a bit longer I think...because the stitches CROSSED the seam lines and that anchored them, adding strength. Well, that's my theory anyway. I've also seen applique quilts that SHOULD have fallen apart..but they didn't because the fans marched right across the applique holding it down. Yay fans!

Meet Me In St Louis!

But you'll have to be quick about it, because I'm leaving in about an hour! :c)

I've had a great time with the Decatur Quilters Guild of Decatur IL! I love learning things about different areas I visit. For instance, did you know that Decatur IL is the SOY BEAN CAPITAL of the US? Maybe the world...but I know my shuttle van driver said it was the SOY BEAN CAPITAL of somewhere. :c)

I get so excited to see landmarks like this!
This pic was taken as I rode shot-gun in the front of the shuttle van from St Louis TO Decatur last Monday. The van guy was really nice and invited me to sit up front and of course I took him up on it. I could see the arch come closer and closer as we drove toward it....it was SO GREAT to come so close to it that I could get a good pic! The last time we were in St Louis was Thanksgiving of 2000.....and we watched my son Jason play in his high school marching band in the Macy's Parade in NYC from the living room of our friend's house......that is....until the tv station pre-empted the NY parade in favor of a local one and we lost coverage!

He remembers vividly that road trip, and how he got to tour the twin towers. Little did we know at the time that less than 10 months later they would be gone.....

Our Pineapple blossom class on Tuesday went really well....we had an experience with the "body bags" of quilts, though. I had fed-exed them from Lawrence because I wasn't going to be able to take them on Delta Airlines (My bags fly free on United, but not on Delta and these are over sized $$$$) and I couldn't take up ALL the luggage space for the other passengers on the shuttle, so we mailed them.

They arrived WET. At least one bag was anyway....like they had sat it in a puddle or something. Now I mailed these last THurs and they arrived Friday...and sat damp until I unlocked them on Tuesday..so you can imagine how they smell faintly like a load of laundry that has sat in the washing machine forgotten for a few days. Phehhhewww!!

At this point I realized that I was really REALLY glad that I make bed quilts, quilts to cover people, quilts that are meant to be washed. I can't imagine what I would do if these were "art" type quilts, or the kind of prize winning quilts with $9,000.00 worth of crystals sewn to them.

We draped the quilts out to dry! By the time evening rolled around for the evening guild lecture, most of them more more dry than damp. After the lecture we spread them out again, and by morning, all was dry. I'm still going to have to do some washing to get some of the musties out though. I'm going to have to rethink how I ship body bags if I ever do this again!

One of my favorite things about visiting other people's guild meetings is the show and tell! I have to show you this lovely. If I remember the story correctly, it was pieced by the grandmother and aunt (or further back) of the owner, the lady shown here in the black blouse:

What a lovely 30's postage stamp variation! I really love how the print postage stamps are separated by the rows of white and blue squares. Again, it's a great use of solids to give boundary to the busy-ness of prints. I love antiques that mix the two, prints and solids, together. And this blue is just great into the border too..

It was a great quilt for studying up close...all those wonderful old prints..you just wonder about the story behind them and where the scraps came from. Were they dresses? Aprons? Skirts? Blouses? All of the above? We may never know..but these kinds of scrappy quilts are the ones that make my heart leap for joy!

I have more I want to share with you, but I've gotta go stand in line and get my seat assignment for this flight. Another reason I don't like Delta..they wouldn't let me make my seat selection online!! Grrrr! And....even at the gate here, they can't assign the seat for my connecting flight either..I've gotta do that at the next gate. I'm a United Girl...all the way!!

Another Shredded Lovely...

Whigs Defeat!

How many times does this name bring to mind a quilt pattern, but leaves us wondering what really happened at the event this quilt pattern was named after?

I typed Whig's Defeat into google...and the first few entries brought up QUILT related topics, but didn't even take me to the real event until way down the list!



This is a screen capture, not an ad, and not anything you can click...so don't try :c)This is what I got in my google search!

(Btw, I am typing this while on hold with Delta. There is a reason I fly United..just sayin! Delta won't let me choose my plane seat on linem I can only do that at check in time at the airport? I need a right side window so I don't poke anyone while quilting! >_< )

A little history lesson thanks to Wiki:

The Whig party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction successfully prevented the nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott. Its leaders quit politics (as Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The voter base defected to the Republican Party, various coalition parties in some states, and to the Democratic Party. By the 1856 presidential election, the party had lost its ability to maintain a national coalition of effective state parties and endorsed Millard Fillmore, now of the American Party, at its last national convention.

I just find it really interesting that such a political thing could spawn such a GORGEOUS well known quilt pattern!

Sharon and I found this one while in the attic of a lovely antique store. It is SHREDDED...which is a shame because it was so heavily quilted....the stitching was awesome.

The applique almost looked raw edge, but I tend to think that it is because the applique stitches came undone over use, and the only thing holding the applique pieces in place are the quilting stitches :c)

The variations are many! Here's one dating from 1870:

I just know this is a pattern I will never ever piece/applique myself. Not in this life time, no how! But oh how lovely.....makes me wonder what the original maker of the shredded quilt above was thinking while she was busy needling away. How did this quilt end up in Kansas? How many people over the decades did it cover as they slept, because this quilt WAS USED TO DEATH....we will never know!

Booth Sighting from Quilt Market!

I wasn't able to make it to Quilt Market, but my quilts did! In a long round about way, the gals from Kansas City Star came to my lecture in Lawrence, and then spirited the 3 quilts you see here away to Minneapolis for Quilt Market...how cool is that? I can't believe how nice it worked out.

What you see are Crabapples, Bowdacious, and Nine in the Middle!

I wish I could have been there, but it turns out that Randy was meeting some other friends there, and I sent her with a specific mission to get a photo of the booth for me!

I'm really kicking myself because I was born in Minneapolis, I have aunts uncles, cousins and a grandfather still living there! I would have loved to have had a chance to visit with everyone, and hopefully that opportunity will come round again...

I'm post-dating this post....if you are reading this on Monday, I am on my way to Decatur Illinois for their Spring Party! Two lecture/trunkshows and a Pineapple Blossom class are scheduled...Throw the world "PARTY" into the mix, and I'm raring to go!

Antique Fever!

You know me and antique hunting....always on the look out for elusive lovelies!

This last trip did NOT disappoint as you saw in my last post, all the goodies that came home with me!

This Ohio star did NOT come home with me, but that didn't mean it was not photo-worthy! It's a 20's 30's quilt...Just LOVE that solid red especially set with pink and blue! I really love quilts that are not "too much white".

Great indigos...mixed with those lovely 30's prints!

Who says pink can't go with red? I love it!

This photo is a bit blurry, but I wanted to show that she also included some muslin star points mixed in with her pink print ones. Definitely a scrap bag project with some rhyme and reason thrown in. The setting squares are a blue/yellow/pink feed sack. I can imagine she had to hunt to find enough feed in the same pattern of sacks to get enough to set this quilt!

Sharon and I had a great time going antique mall to antique mall from Kansas to Missouri last Thursday! She even found a great little Spartan 128k to bring home....for $45.00! It works super. What a darling machine. If I didn't already HAVE one, it would have been mine..lol!

I DID find this lovely 6 point star with a pink background....is it not sweet? I get to love on it for a couple of months, and then it is going to my friend Randy who has had me on an antique quilt finding mission. Her reasoning? I have too many and I need to share the finds! *LOL* I do love 6 pointed stars, and I'll get to visit this one when I go to see her, so it works for me. Truth be told, I AM kind of out of room here :c| Of course, it is quilted in my favorite hand quilting pattern, all over fans...BIG ONES!

And I just noticed....two great quilts...that didn't require borders to finish them off! More and more I love quilts without borders.



Here's one that was great to look at, but out of my price range. That didn't stop me from oohing and ahhing and taking pics too! From far away I couldn't tell if those gingham squares were pieced in or appliqued..but to me it looks like they sewed a bunch of regular string blocks together and appliqued those gingham squares on TOP to give the blocks a snowball appearance.

Nowadays we would just do sew and flip corners....right? Who wants to inset those seams or applique them down? But I still love the look of unity it gives to this quilt. What a great selection of fabrics in it too!



Even if we don't find anything...even if nothing comes home....it is still a great day to be on a treasure hunt! You just never know what you will find out "junking". Keep your eyes open, what you see just might inspire you, even if it's just colors, or ideas for a border, or even just giggling at WHO would piece a giant grandmother's flower garden out of the ugliest double knits on the planet!! (Yes, we saw that too...more than once!)

And while all this hilarity was going on, I got to thinking...WHICH of my UFOs are going to turn up at an antique mall of the future, and who will be shaking their heads wondering who this crazy quilter was!? Maybe it's best...not to label everything after all! ;c)

A Walk Through Lawrence, KS

I love old historic areas of towns, houses especially! So imagine my delight when I found that the Kaw Valley Quilters Guild was putting me up at the Halcyon House B&B for my stay with them! (Can you hear me squealing from here?!)

It was lovely. I'd never been to Lawrence before....and I spent the early mornings prowling the quiet historic streets before my pick up time to go teach for the guild.



A Walk Through Lawrence, KS

There are SO MANY neat old houses down there! Many have been converted into apartments for college students, because Lawrence IS a College Town, home of Kansas University..

A couple blocks away tho, it's all single family homes and manicured yards and just had my mouth GAPING as I went down row after row of gorgeous old beauties.

The one church you see has been turned into 4 apartments.....I cracked up when I saw the 4 mail boxes labeled as "Matthew, Mark, Luke & John!"

You'll have to click to my page to view the slide show. And I think the slide show only holds so many, so you might miss some if you don't click the link below the window to go visit the actual webshots album.

I also love weird yard art, so this photo cracked me up:

Look at those eyes in the bush...hehehehehe!!!

I had a great time, and can't wait to head back to Kansas City in August!

I got lots of quilting done on the plane yesterday....my flight out of Chicago was delayed an hour, and then after we were all boarded and taxiing over to our runway (seemed to take 1/2 hour to taxi there!) we came to a halt and stayed there parked on the taxi way for ANOTHER HOUR because of weather and winds. I'd rather be safe than sorry, so it was fine with me..but you know it's not a good sign when the captain turns OFF the seat belt sign, tells us we are free to move about the cabin and use the rest room while ON the taxi way!

I did get into NC about 7 pm or so last night...just beat. Soup for dinner, and off to bed.

I'm getting caught up on mail order...and then plan to spend the weekend SEWING in my basment! I need some machine time, and there is a quilt calling my name that needs a border. Picture a productive Bonnie with her book on MP3 playing in her ears, making a complete creative mess at her own "at home" retreat for the weekend!

Come monday, I'm flying off to Decatur, IL....and we do it again!

Living Life Near Lawrence (and MO) Too!

Its been a few crazy busy days, and I haven't even had time to tackle much email, or even THINK of updating this blog..but let me tell you, the quilters in Kansas are incredible!!

But before Quilt Granny Sharon brought me to Lawrence, we had time to run around and visit a great Antique place where many goodies were found.

This little shed was just TOO DERN CUTE!! It reminded me of the little house in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...remember the grandpa goes in, and gets carried off by the bad guys in the blimp? I so would love this in my back yard!


These are the goodies I found....can you believe it? The bricks top was all of $28.00 and the little octagon one with the inset squares was $35.00!! I knew I was never going to want to hand piece an octagon one like this, and the selection of fabrics in it is so fabulous...30's & 40's!

I also lucked out and found two rug hooked chair pads....BOTH for $12.00! Those sunflowers are my little bit of Kansas to take home with me.

And I love redware, so this deep dish plate just had my name on it too....there were some other goodies, but I'm saving those for a special occasion coming up so I have to keep you in the blind side for that for a bit ;c)

Here is a fun pic of me and Sharon just before my lecture....what fun! We've known each other for at least 15 years, have seen each other from time to time and it is always a blast. All because of this INTERNET thing...look how much it enriches our lives!


I want to show you this one fabulous show and tell...just look at this string quilt! It was made with the trimmed off Margins from squaring up regular string blocks! Is it NOT FABULOUS?!??? Oh...I am so inspired by this one. It was huge, used everything, and weighed a ton. My kind of quilt!

Here is the piecing detail..can you see all the bits? WOWWWW!!

Sharon is on her way to pick me up at the B&B where I've been staying in Lawrence, and we have plans to hit some more antiquey places today, as well as some quilt shops, and when i have more time to fill you in on more details, I'll write a bit more! As it is, I've barely showered, I'm sitting here typing frantically with wet hair and a half packed suitcase! Oh the excitement of life "on the road!" as a traveling quilter!

Kansas Quilting....

I'm having a wonderful time visiting with QuiltGrannie Sharon on the first leg of my trip to Missouri/Kansas!

Sharon and I have known each other for at least 15 years and have spent time doing quilty things from time to time as our paths cross.

When I travel, it is so wonderful to get to spend time with people in their homes. I love seeing how they display their quilts, what their sewing space is like, and seeing what life is like where they live. Let's face it...the inside of one Days Inn is much like another, and even though it is fun to sit in the center of a hotel bed, eating Chinese food from a box with chopsticks and watching Girly TV to my hearts content, it is really much MORE fun when you hit it off with other quilters and can talk a blue streak, see their quilts, share stories, laugh, and have someone even cook you a home cooked meal!

So this is what has been going on since I arrived yesterday! We even had a lovely dinner, family style, as Sharon's son and his two teen aged daughters, and her daughter's also teenage daughter, and one of their cousins-from-the-other-side-of-the-family joined us. Family dynamics are fun to watch...and I loved the sense of tradition of "Sunday dinner at Oma's house" followed by a wild game of Mexican Train Dominoes on the dining room table after dinner....

I was blissfully relaxing, finishing up the binding on "Love, Thy Name Is Mud" (Do I need to change the name of this quilt? LOL) while Sharon worked on some red work embroidery and Kevin clipped coupons from the Sunday paper.


Here it is, laying out on the kitchen nook floor..the sun was coming in the window just right to show the quilting detail!

You know, even though I love machine quilting...there is just something so satisfying about the texture of hand quilting that even machine quilting can not duplicate. I think this is why I am such a schizophrenic quilter...I want it both ways...Sometimes this way, sometimes that way...love it all, want it all, can't get enough of either! So traveling with something I can hand quilt takes care of one side of my brain, while zooming through something with a big machine at home for something that will fit the bed satisfies the other!
Later in the evening, after everyone left, I celebrated the finishing of the binding by pulling out Creamsicles (The orange quilt from yesterday has a name!) and commencing on the hand quilting on it. This is as far as it went as we watched the finale for Survivor....

I just LOVE quilting with this Hobbs wool. It needles so easily, and I can really tell the difference between the Love quilt and this one, because I was quilting on them both in the same day. I LOVE THIS WOOL! Even though it is more lofty, my stitches are so much smaller and so much more even even with the same needle/thread....I'm a wool batting lover!

What a great day!

Today my chaos starts. I'm meeting with my editor from Kansas City Star for lunch. I have a lecture/trunkshow tonight....so we are going to head to Lawrence early enough that I can set up for that before meeting the other ladies-in-charge for dinner at 5:30.

I'm really excited to be here, to meet people I've been working with for the past 2 years from a distance....putting faces to voices and names and strengthening friendships new and old!

It's a Quilt Emergency!

So, if you read my last post, you'll know that I've been scrambling trying to get another hand work project together, because *tada* My flight leaves for Kansas at 6:25am Eastern time...TOMORROW (Sunday) ACCCKK!

AND. I've been having fun since my son and his significant other showed up last night..around 11pm!

I looked through what tops I had....all too big....or boring. :c|

I was going to give it up and just take the hexagon thing, until I woke at precisely 4:15am this morning in a tangle of sweaty sheets and hot flashes...bleehhhh. My tummy was also hungry, I was thirsty, and in the midst of taking care of everything,I found that I was fully awake. So what's a girl to do...but go down to the basement studio!

Remember these blocks? You all sent them to me after we did Orange Crush mystery I think....all these 6" blocks with orange in them, do they ring a bell to you? Look closely! You just might find your block!

I had this all set aside as a PIG. Project In Grocery Sack! I was going to sash them, I was thinking of alternate blocks, put them on point, something..and nothing would jell!

This is an inspiration from sleep deprivation! A little voice told me to stitch them block to block to block as is....and put a border of strings around them from the bin of leftover 3.5" string blocks...because that would help unify the different shades, and pull in REASONING for why some of the blocks had other really-not-orange colors in them!

I had the whole top done by 9am...just in time to join the family for french toast!

It just seemed to come together SO QUICKLY. So this is maybe why some projects need to "percolate" a while before we know what to do with them.

After sewing the center together, I chose a yellow inner border fabric from my stash.

The little string blocks have anything and everything in them, and you know what? I have decided that there is NO COLOR ON EARTH that does NOT go with ORANGE!

I pieced together a backing, loaded it in the machine with a wool batting, and basted it all together, it is ready to travel!

Does anyone recognize the corners of the border as 9 patches from their Carolina Crossroads quilt? They fit perfect there too, and I was happy to have a place to use up goodies you've sent me over the past couple years!

I'm going to quilt it with red thread....it just seems like a good compliment, plus the red thread was already in my travel bag from the crumb sampler that I'm still finishing up....I'll finish that first, 1/2 of the inner border left to quilt...and sew the binding down (which I also put on today)and I'll have plenty of projects to keep my hands busy during the next week.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go *singing John Denver*....The alarm is going to go off stinking early at 4:00am, so I better get to bed.

Kansas, Here I come!