Hello out there! Do I have any readers on Oahu who want to make a few projects and learn some basic patchwork and quilting skills? Does anyone have a friend or two in the Waipahu area that wants to take a class?

Here’s the deal:

I’ll be teaching at Ho’ae’ae Community Park in Waipahu (Village Park/Royal Kunia neighborhood). Classes are Monday mornings from 10:00 until 11:00 (ish). Classes start on September 13th and run for ten weeks. The fee is a mere $20 though you should bring your own sewing machine and will need to bring your own fabric and basic supplies.

Registration will be on August 25th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm and on August 26th and 30th from 2:00 – 5:30 pm at the park. That’s next week!!

Any questions, leave a comment or call Ho’ae’ae Park at 808-676-8832. The address is 94-709 Ka’aholo Street, Waipahu for the map savvy.

What are we making?

We’ll warm up our rotary cutters and strip piecing skills with a fat quarter friendly tote bag that’s the perfect size for a small gift or just a few necessities.

Then we’ll learn and easy way to make triangles and put them together in a fun pillow cover. We’ll also use this project to practice machine quilting and to insert a zipper and add binding.

The final project is a Mod Log Cabin table runner. Log Cabin blocks are a quilting basic and these wonky ones are just the right amount of fun without worrying too much about accuracy. We’ll hone our quilting and binding skills on this project as well.

Please spread teh word if you know anyone who would be interested! Aloha!

Here’s the blue scraps to go with the green scraps of two weeks ago. I had lots of darker blue scraps too, but they are being dispatched in another project. The turquoise scraps still fill my little bin, but at least they have some room to breathe now.

Since I sorted all my scraps (and have been pretty good about putting new ones in the appropriate bins) I have also been slowly sewing the scraps to paper foundations. “String” quilts made from these sort of aggregate bits are pretty popular these days, and I have always been a fan of the scrappy look.

I started with green because I have a plan that uses greens, blues, and yellows. I am happy to report that my green bin is nearly empty! Now I will chip away at the blue bin.

Last spring I taught a sampler quilt class at my local park (Ho’ae’ae Park). In August I will hopefully teach another beginner class. This time I’m thinking that small projects featuring many of the same skills will work as well and give students a better chance at finishing them. To that end, I’ve been making up class samples to show off at the park office.

First will be a small lined tote, perfect for a Hostess gift. It can be made from four fat quarters (that are always so tempting at the fabric store, and often already bundled in nice color combos). Students will learn basic rotary cutting skills and strip piece fabrics to make the patched “piano keys” strip at the top of the bag.

Next we’d move on to an easy way to piece triangles and make this quilted pillow cover. If students have a pile of scraps, just one solid can pull them together — or the pillow would look great in two colors. In addition to making triangles, this is a good size project to practice machine quilting on, and the edge is bound just like a large quilt.

Finally, we’ll make my “signature” project, the Mod Log Table Runner. I love log cabin blocks and think that because of their versatility, every quilter needs to have at least a little experience recognizing and making them. This project needn’t be super accurate until the borders are added, and reinforces those quilting and binding skills.

So, if you or anyone you know is on the Central to Leeward side of Oahu and would like to learn to make these projects, keep your eyes open for the Parks and Recreation schedule in August.

I’ve had the most confounding experience (stitch-wise) the last few days.

I am planning on teaching a beginning quilting class at my local park again in August. This time, instead of a sampler quilt, we’re going to make three smaller projects. I’m making class samples now.

While in Spokane, WA for my MIL’s wedding (congratulations lovebirds!), I bought some really ugly fabric that was on sale and screamed for me to take it home and make it sing. Aqua was all it needed. Then I tried grey and white in an uncharacteristic moment of fashionable-ness. I liked both, so I sewed up two table runner tops. No problem.

But when it came time to quilt the first runner, the thread broke. This surprised me because I was using a “golden retriever” thread (a term coined by Superior Thread Bar Tender Cindy for threads that are very easy to use) and quilting in straight lines. I adjusted all my tension options to no avail. Then I changed to a fresher topstitch needle. Nope. I changed spools of thread, and it broke too (so it wasn’t a bad spool). I changed to a smaller, sharper microtex needle. Nope. Then I put in a brand spanking new topstitch (easy on the thread) needle and still the thread broke. I switched to a different type of thread and it broke too. All the while, I was noticing that the needle seemed to be struggling to get through the ugly fabric. I admitted defeat and picked out all my stitching attempts. I figured that the ugly fabric must have been on sale for more than just it’s aesthetic value and re-sandwiched my table runner top with a different backing (since I had so much ugly fabric, and I thought it was so bad it was cool, I used it front and back). I tried stitching the table runner  in cross-wise straight lines, but even with the new backing, the thread broke. Then, I only stitched on the non-ugly fabric parts — and it worked! I got brave and did a little stitching on the borders (ugly fabric) where I could take it out and it would still look OK. It worked and I didn’t have t remove any stitches! One table runner done.

After sleeping on my fabric problem, I had the brilliant idea to put a new back on table runner two and stitch it from the back, hopefully avoiding, in a way, the problematic ugly fabric. I had hoped to stitch in the ditch of my wonky log cabins, extending the lines out into the border, but that wouldn’t work from the back where there’s no lines to follow. Serpentine stitch is quite popular right now, and would look good with the simple piecing, but I really wanted to do something different. Since I was working from the back and couldn’t follow what was going on on the front, I figured I could take that all the way and do something completely in contrast to the piecing. I decided that since the piecing is tweaked traditional, the quilting should be too — simple feathers in a loose arrangement. I had no problems sewing the feathers, but since I’m not a great machine quilter, and my arcs were pretty large, I just wasn’t happy with them. So, I picked them out.

Again, I admitted defeat, and opted for the serpentine stitch. I wanted to make sure it was oriented relatively straight on the table runner though. I crossed my fingers and hoped that I could stitch one line from the front and then align the rest off that from the back. Guess what? No problem! So I sewed the next line on the front. No problem. So I completed table runner number two without further incident.

In the end, I have no idea what was making my thread break. Perhaps it was that two layers of ugly fabric was too much. I considered that it was the batting, but Runner 1 used scraps from a batting I had used successfully on another quilt, and Runner 2 used a completely different batting (which I don’t like, but not for stitchability issues). Perhaps it was some magical combination of the fabric and the angle at which I was stitching it (straight was bad, serpentine or free-motion met the fabric in an acceptable way). Perhaps it was the alignment of the planets and by day two things were back to normal. I don’t know. I do know that I won’t be using the ugly fabric for my other two class samples which are next on my to-do list.

You may remember that I bought this quilt as a top from Wanda about a month ago. I thought it would be weird  to quilt and finish someone else’s work, but it wasn’t at all. In fact, it was really fun and as soon as I started working on it, I couldn’t stop. Firstly, Wanda’s workmanship is impeccable. All the seams were even and all edges and points aligned. There were no poufs to “quilt out.” Basting was easy-peasy. The quilt is not quite twin sized, so I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it came together despite it’s being large enough to wrap oneself up in.

More significant though, was how the quilt revealed itself to me as I worked on it. Normally, I would already have a relationship with the fabrics from piecing them together. But since I didn’t piece this one, I got to meet each and every fabric and see how it interacted with it’s neighbor as I quilted. I enjoyed seeing how individual stripes modulated in color, and loved being surprised by each pairing that picked up on a hue in it’s partner. It was quite fun.

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I don’t know how many readers are relatively new to quilting and it’s associated gadgets. I may be preaching to the choir, but here are two of my favorites: my walking foot, and the bar thingie that came with it. Walking feet come in several varieties depending on your machine, but they are all variations on this foot-with-box contraption. The purpose of the walking foot is to move the top layer of the quilt sandwich at the same speed as the bottom layer and thus eliminate lots of frustrating puckering. I do all my straight line machine quilting with my walking foot. On this quilt, I kept the quilting simple, because really, with fabric like this, fancy quilting is just unnecessary.

Often, I just use the side of the walking foot as my guide for stitching parallel lines. That’s how I did the first round of quilting 1/4″ from the edge of each zig zag. I wanted to quilt a line down the center of each zig zag too, so I used one of the guide bars that came with the walking foot. It is L shaped and slides through a hole in the back of the walking foot and is locked in place with a screw. You can adjust it so the “leg” sticks out anywhere from right next to the foot, to about three inches away. I also have another guide bar for the other side of the foot, depending on what I want to line up with. (As an aside, my machine came with another two guide bars that fit into the back of many of the regular presser feet too.) Once you get the hang of it, there’s all kinds of uses for these guides. I measured the width of my zig zags (4″) and set my guide bar two inches from the needle. Then, off I went, quilting down the center of each zig zag, making sure the leg of the guide bar followed the seam line. In the photo you can’t see the lovely line of stitching behind the walking foot, but it is perfectly parallel to the edge of the yellow zig. You can see that I am about to pivot the quilt and sew the zag (this is where the needle-down function on many newer machines is also very convenient). I considered more lines in between these, but the quilt didn’t seem to need them. It’s for a kid’s bed, so it didn’t need to be quilt-show-fancy.

It’s been a big week or so. Twelve by Twelve has an exhibit at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne right now. All I had to do was mail my quilts to the appropriate place and Brenda took care of the rest, but it’s been great fun to hear her and Kirsty’s reports from the scene!

Closer to home, I have been working on the Hawai’i Quilt Guild’s annual show. I’m the show chairperson this year, though the real work has been done by all my great committee volunteers. The show is from April 30th until May 9th, so if you’re on Oahu, please take the time to go see it. The show has been getting rave reviews from guild members and others alike. Last Thursday was the opening reception which is always nice since one of our members always makes sure there’s a good spread of food and wine and entertainment. The challenge quilts are judged and ribbons placed, and everyone gets a first look at all the quilts.

This is not a juried show — it is a celebration of all levels and all types of quilts made by guild members. This year we had more quilts entered than ever, which we take to mean that members appreciate the venue and the opportunity, which is a good thing. Besides, we’ve got plenty of quilts to be proud of.

Me in front of the Art Center’s Linekona gallery.

A peek at the yummy food on the lanai from the first photo.

This year’s Featured Artist, Patricia Lei Murray, and I welcoming everyone.

The info table and the opportunity quilt (someone will win this at the end of the show).

Hawaiian style entertainment from the Murray ohana.

Local students played their music for the second hour.

Signing teh guest book and reading our quilter bio book.

Lots of quilts to look at.

And even more to see.

For anyone who might not already know, I belong to a wonderful online group of 12 quilt artists who challenge each other every two months to create a 12″x12″ quilt interpreting a new theme each time. This time, it was my turn to choose the theme. I knew I wanted to do something that related to my being in Hawai’i, and with the current twelve challenges, we’re focusing on color. So I chose the volcano Kilauea and gave a few photos and a palette as a jumping off point.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to interpret the theme myself, though I did know I wanted to go abstract as opposed to literal, and I always strive to connect my interpretation to works in cloth, if not quilts specifically.

Serendipitously, about a third of the way into our 12×12 timeline, I taught a class to my quilt guild on how to marble fabric. Bam! There it was — the undulating lines of cooled lava in a classically textile media.

For my first attempt I used the red, orange, black and two greys from my palette (and snuck in a yellow). Although the patterning was fantastic — looking both like classic european book papers and swirling, oozing lava at the same time, it didn’t have the richness I was hoping for. In my mind the fabric should have been black and grey with veins of red and orange running through in cracks as if it was just below the surface. I also found that after washing, the painted surface looked scuffed and faded and I didn’t like that.

I realized that I should have started with hot lava colored fabric and then marbled the cooled lava blacks and greys over it. Rather than start from scratch, I decided to try over dying my marbled fabrics as I had nothing to loose (they were pretty, but not what I envisioned for my Kilauea quilt). Great! Here was the rich color I needed, but it was too bloody looking and not lava-like yet.

To get more variation in my color, I tried discharging it. With hand dyed fabric, discharge can often uncover surprising hues. Not this time. Now my fabrics looked tired and washed out.

Starting from scratch now, I changed tactics and experimented with marbling using discharge dyes. The long story is here and here; the short story is that I made interesting fabrics, but none were quite what I wanted to use.

In the end, I went back to traditional marbling and used red-orange fabric s my base. Nearly perfect. I’d still like to go back some day and experiment more with dyes and marbling, but for now I have just decided to rinse, but not wash my painted fabric.

For the quilt itself, I used a simple traditional squares and let the fabrics speak to the types of lava and hawaiian setting. Onto that base, I added chartreuse triangles edged with french knots to represent the uluhe (false staghorn) fern so predominant at the Kilauea Caldera, and a few beads around the edge to symbolize Pele’s Tears often found near eruptions.

To see the whole quilt, and everyone else’s interpretations of my color theme, Kilauea, check out the 12×12 blog!

…is done!

I made this as a gift for a pair of tween sisters who’s mom just redid their shared bedroom in turquoise and white with a healthy girl dose of pink and chocolate brown. Well, maybe not JUST did their room — it has taken me over six months to finish this quilt and the room was nearly done when I started. Not being a priority quilt, it kept getting pushed aside, even though I thoroughly loved working on it when I did get a chance. I ran out of thread a few times too, and that slowed me down as well.

I also like the back – though white would get too dirty too fast in my house. But I figure if it’s OK on a back because no one needs to see the back. I tried to stick to fabrics in my stash (like the duvet covers that make up the white backing), but it was way too much fun finding pink fabrics with brown kitties, and the brown and white circles, and the pink and brown…. I confess I bought a few new fabrics for this just because I couldn’t resist. I used them all up though.

The Girl Quilt was inspired by this quilt by Lucy T. Pettway of Gee’s Bend (center). There’s quite a bit of Denyse Schmidt (far right card) influence as well in the center medallion and the back. I keep a pin board and sketchbook of things that catch my eye, and lots of scribbled notes. I never know exactly when or how they will show up in my work, but they are very important. I occasionally look back on older sketchbooks and still find informative things waiting in them.

Now I need to find the time to deliver the quilt. The girls live on Kauai and their mom is a long time family friend so I’m pretty sure we need to take this in person — because who wouldn’t want to spend a long weekend on a Hawaiian isle with friends?

One of the members of the quilt guild I belong to was asked by a local clothing company if she could organize some sewers to make pillowcases from factory scraps which the company  could then donate to deployed troops as a taste of home. Our “payment” would be all the scraps too small for the patchwork pillows. Of course I’ll sew for troops, and extra scraps are always fun, so I agreed to participate. As I was cutting out my 6″ squares, I was daydreaming about what to do with the oddly shaped  scraps. I pulled out the few hawaiian fabrics already in my stash. And then it hit me — a pineapple block! Has anyone made a pineapple log cabin quilt using aloha shirt fabric? If not, then why? It seems so obvious to me now.