My family tells me I make them buy me text books for Christmas presents – guess I’m a bit of a lame duck when it comes to the variety of books I read. I like history, more specifically textile and women’s history, how to’s (always looking for a new technique), biographies, and on a rare occasion fiction.

Here’s my latest read – history, although not all of it is textile, but with most any textile history you’ll find women’s history. Did you know the very old (early 1700’s and earlier) embroidery samplers that include letters and/or phrases demonstrated a family’s wealth by the shear fact that it revealed a female member of the family was literate?

This book covers myths about homespun, women’s role and economics and history, with artifacts (not just homespun) that support that claim. It brings in a lot of personal history from specific individuals.  Many of the artifacts can be found in the North East – possible road trips in my future???

Super interesting and come to find out the author, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, also wrote the book the TV series A Midwife’s Tale is based on.  Maybe that’s my next book!

I love finding things new homes, from scraps, to orphan blocks, to pincushions. For those of you who’ve seen my booth, you know I love making fun little (some not so little) pincushions.  They are 100% wool (lanolin lubricates the pins) beads combined with oddities I find here and there that are crying for a new purpose that will find them a new home.

Last show I brought the Atlantic City Camel, this guy was cute as a button with a hundred old pins – three people were very interested and he found a good home. An elephant I had been holding on to for a while finally

had the right color wool bead (sometimes what’s in my head doesn’t work out with the finished piece) – his trunk was up so he’ll bring lots of luck to his new home.  And, this beautiful egg for which I made a wool bead with sparkles also found a new home.

Just for fun, here are some of the others in the menagerie.

Please don’t think this is a sales

pitch, I learned the hard way long ago not to buy anything I didn’t want to ultimately own – I can show you a couple quilts I’d rather not own (expensive lesson). This is just a fun little tour of some of my menagerie.

By the way – Gavin the Dragin found a home this morning.

It’s supposed to be unbearably hot and humid this weekend, part of a heat wave, and even if you love summer, it’s not the kind of weather you want to be outside in. So what, may you ask, am I doing this weekend?

Greater Hartford Quilt Guild http://www.ghqg.org/ is having its Quilt Show at Rentschler Field, a few hundred quilts in great AIR CONDITIONING and lots of other quilting pretties to look at. What more could one want on a hot summer day?  Oh, did I tell you there were Vendor Demo’s also – bonus!!! (mine’s on fiber art machine quilting)

Since my Mom and I are vending (we’ll be on the 4^th floor – good thing there are elevators) I got a preview to one of the activities.  There’s a Scavenger Hunt going on and when you check off all the items on the hunt list, the list is then your entry to a drawing – not such a bad idea.  And who doesn’t like a free prize!!!

I’m bringing newly dyed velvet, cotton and clothes and my Mom is felting soaps – she was working with lavender soap last night and it smelled W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L-L-L !! If you come to the show I’ll hope you’ll stop in and say Hi!!  –  Hope you can make it!

You might be wondering what I’ve been up to – a combination of real world job overtime, as a result the ridiculous hours, a touch of bronchitis (I think, too stubborn to go to the Doctor) and two quilt shows. The Ugly news – due to a corporate buy out, there’s been a

management change at my real world job = lots of extra hours.  The Bad News – yup, been sick for about 3 weeks and still coughing too much.

And quickly on to the Good News – my Mom and I vended at the Eastern Long Island Quilt Show (ELIQS) for the second year.  Lots of friendly quilters to chat with, did a couple demo’s so I have a scarf almost complete, went to dinner with Oh So Sally and friends which was great!!

Two weeks later, and still sick it was off to Vermont Quilt Festival (VQF) with my Mom and my Aunt to see the show and have a mini-quilt retreat. We stopped at an antique shop on the way up and , since I seem to be addicted to the history of textiles (from chintz manufacturing, to whole cloths and crazy quilts, and beyond) I was excited to find a book on 500 years of Samplers.

Did you know the Samplers were more intricate in the 1600’s & 1700’s because sewing skills were considered more important than writing or math in the classroom for women? Society actually thought women would die young from the stress on their brains of learning what we take for granted now.  So, successful shopping at the antique shop and at the show where I purchased an antique tape measure I’ll write about another time.

As for the quilt retreat – I’m working on a “contained” crazy quilt for my lecture and got 15 blocks done – YEEAAAHHH!!! We finalized the sashing, which – thank you Aunt Wendy – became three pieces of sashing instead of one (but  it does look better).  I bought the revised sashing fabric at the quilt show, however I am on the hunt for another yard of the additional fabric for binding.

For those of you who ordered clothes, sorry I’m behind I’ll be finishing the dyeing up this weekend and will send pictures shortly. More project pictures to come, back to my three – four seams each morning –  it takes me a while but this way it gets done.

What a great quilt show last weekend!! The people at the show were so friendly and fun to talk to, it’s always nice to visit with kindred spirits – it’s inspiring!

I had lots of snowflake and starburst fabric to choose from but my most popular item was the hand dyed silk linen velvet. I brought the hand dyed clothes for a second time and they were well received, took a few orders and some people went home with new clothes.  Ordering more clothes this week so I can restock and fill those orders.

Jennifer O’Brien was showing everyone how to free motion quilt on her feather weight which always gets a second look. She also had her Twinkle Star and Square in a Square rulers with all her beautiful samples.  https://www.sew-craft.com/shop/Rulers-by-Jennifer-OBrien.htm We had a great time in the booth, it was really busy!!

The quilts were beautiful, I especially enjoyed the large amount of fiber art. The variety of vendors was well balanced, I didn’t find the fabric I was looking for but I did find the kimono and sari fabric vendor so I definitely didn’t go home empty handed.  If you didn’t make it this year – I’d definitely recommend adding this to your must visit show list next year!

Want to get better at something? – search out knowledge or when it presents itself in say a show or shop, just sign up for the classes. MQX is just that opportunity.  Is it a great show with wonderful vendors – yes, but it’s also a great opportunity to attend classes with very talented instructors.

When I started going to MQX quite a while ago all the classes were about long arm quilting (not so now includes piecing & fiber art). I would  take six or more classes in the course of a couple days and by the end of the show it felt like the new knowledge was oozing out my ears.  One instructor (I think it was Jamie Wallen) told us – if you don’t set aside time when you return home to practice what you have learned then you’re losing out, letting the knowledge you obtained slip away like a memory.  After he said that, I started keeping the next week or so of my machine quilting time open so I could practice and retain what I had learned.  I’ve learned a lot over the years, and he was right practicing after increased retention of what I had learned.

So, better late than never, what did I learn at MQX this year? I didn’t realize it at the time but I signed up for two classes with the same instructor, Bethanne Nemish (she’s great).  One class was on her free hand edge to edge machine quilting technique which is beautiful and almost as important – doable design.  The other class was on some of her specialty knife edge bindings.

We made four styles in four hours – that was a marathon class. The bindings are beautiful, incredibly detailed and time consuming but something I’d be crazy enough to use in one of my quilts.  For perspective,

Time consuming = regular binding time for a quilt X 20 but I love a good challenge.

Above are pictures of the sample bindings I made in class. So, go out and learn everything you can in classes, books or videos and like that instructor said – don’t forget to “do” what you learned or it will slip away.  Happy stitches!!

Apple Valley Quilters were great hosts and what motivated members – their charity quilts and walker bag assortment were amazing. We covered the Never Truly Traditional lecture with a focus on Creative Muscle reviewing different ways to expand your creativity.  It was great fun and they asked some great questions.  Thank you for having me.

This weekend I dyed clothes, sky fabric and some tone on tone grey / black. Still ironing the 30 yards from the last batch so the 6 yards and a few shirts did not truly give my shoulders a work out during the multiple rinse process (LOL).

Dyeing tree fabric this coming weekend but only after spending Saturday with Ginny at Lost Acres for her 70+ Quilt Happening. This is a great event with a free lecture, items for sale like orphan blocks, tops, quilts, fabric, and she always provides snacks, not to mention all the goodies available in the Farm Kitchen.  My Mom, Grandmother and I always enjoy Ginny’s Quilt Happenings,  lots of people sharing a camaraderie of quilt interest and friendship.  Hope you can stop by, I can’t wait to go!!!

Ginny’s website for directions, event starts at 9am this Saturday, 4/22/17 (website has an old date, it’s this Saturday 🙂 ).

http://www.lostacres.com/index.html

As one of the Galleries on my website shows, I love working with orphan blocks and unfinished old quilt tops to help them find a new home (Antique Orphan Fun). If it’s really scary looking (beyond-only a mother could love) or has lots of holes I like to take tops apart and put them back together, or I just put a bunch of antique orphan blocks together.  I was so inspired when I stumbled upon this video, this is Mary Ornish upcycling old quilts that are BEYOND REPAIR into clothing I just had to share it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ2bhohM70k

As the disclaimer states, please don’t cut up perfectly good quilts to do this, there are plenty of orphan blocks and broken bits and pieces to play with. There are generally lots of orphan blocks around in need of a good home, in fact, one of my favorite things to do at a show is go on a hunt for, “The Ugly Orphan”.  I then challenge myself to use it in a quilted item.  My 1830’s quilt began from one ugly orphan that was incredibly crooked and has orange and grey plaid in the block.

Please consider finding orphan blocks a good home, a sampler style quilt is just one way to find them homes as donation quilts for those in need.

That said, Mary Ornish is incredibly talented, what beautiful and inspirational clothing – what’s old is new again – YEAH!!

Been so busy, didn’t tell you about my Mom’s bus trip to Keepsake.  Seats are selling quickly and it’s just around the corner – here are the details:

KEEPSAKE QUILTING BUS TRIP 2017

As soon as you enter, you’ll be greeted by a spectacular array of thousands of bolts of cotton fabric, our famous fabric Medleys™, kits, books, patterns and notions

ALSO INCLUDES STOPS AT:

Patternworks  for knitters – specialty yarns, patterns & tools

Old Country Store – kitchen gadgets, collectibles, candles & candy (and more)

When:    Saturday,     April 8, 2017                       leaving at 8:00 a.m.

All-inclusive package:

• Bus to Keepsake Quilting & Patternworks (in the same plaza) and the Old Country Store (Moultonboro, NH)
• Dinner at Harts Turkey Farm
• And Driver’s tip
• Lunch can be purchased at grocery deli next to Keepsake or brown bag your own
• We’ll be having contests with prizes

Bus will pick up at Enfield, CT (behind Macy’s) commuter parking lot, (exit 48 off route 91) and Ludlow, MA at Big Y/Ocean State Job Lot parking lot

Price:           $70.00                         Deposit ASAP, first come, first serve

Contact:  Marcia Testa            860-749-9026           Fyrework4@cox.net