2 Quilters – Maddie of Girl Scout Patchwork Promises and Ann L. Petersen

Maddie from San Jacinto who started the Patchwork Promises program.

As a senior Girl Scout from San Jacinto, Maddie created Patchwork Promise’s Sew Awesome program for scouts age 11-17.   The outline covers quilting skill builders, technology, and service projects.

This is the 100th Anniversary of the founding of Girl Scouts by Juliette Gordon Low from the state of Georgia.  There was a fabulous float in the Rose Bowl Parade to celebrate the centennial.

In Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan when I was growing up we had Camp Fire Girls, a similar organization, and it was so much fun.  Mrs. Mackie and Mrs. Harma were our leaders for many years and my mother Mrs. Jacobson taught the sewing portion.  We always referred to our mothers as Mrs.  We didn’t learn any quilting but had fun making aprons.

When my daughter’s Girl Scout troop needed a leader, I stepped up and volunteered.  We learned machine applique of a teddy bear on a sweatshirt and matching pedal pushers for an outfit for the talent show where all ten girls performed to Aretha Franklin’s Pink Cadillac.  While on  our trip to Glenwood Springs, CO they performed the show for the ice cream vendor who gave them all free ice cream, an exciting bonus.  The next year we made green knit dresses with zippers.  Andrea’s mother Donna Mraz who chaperoned on this trip has since become a quilter.

Troop performing for the ice cream vendor in Glenwood Springs, CO and wearing the applique sweatshirts and pedal pushers they made. Olivia is 3rd from right.

To supplement our cookie earnings we stuffed quilting patterns for the Great American Quilt Factory founded by Nancy Smith and Lynda Milligan in Denver, Colorado.  It was sad to see their store close the end of 2010 since now I was a quilter and they had been a part of our Girl Scout Troop’s success.   While visiting Nancy in 2010 I met Ann Petersen who designed patterns, worked up fabric line samples, and taught classes.  Ann is an AQG member, who winters in Arizona.  We were practically neighbors in Aurora, Colorado.  At the AQG Awards Ceremony this month she won a Blue Ribbon for this darling monster quilt she made for her grandchild.  It is interesting how lives intertwine.

Ann L. Petersen wins a blue ribbon for "Peek-A-Boo Monsters" at AQG 2012 Quilt Show.

Design – Embassy Suites Hotel Carpeting

Even the room number plaque has the flower design. Guess I'll remember my room number now.

Hallway carpeting on each floor is cheerful and colorful.

Embassy Suites Hotel is part of the Hilton chain.  In 2011 I stayed here while attending the Houston International Quilt Festival.  It is practically across the street from the show which allowed me to take purchases back to my room and lay down on the bed for just a little bit, quite refreshing, then empty my bag and start all over again.  The carpeting design in this hotel isn’t as fancy as the one in the Hilton across the street but perhaps in-house designers were used.  Certainly this was not Paula Nadelstern’s inspiration.  Though not as complex it is still quite pretty and the flower motifs are used on upholstery, wallpaper, and even the room number plaque.  How this applies to quilting is that you can take inspiration, change it up and make it your own.  Work in small sketches, bits of paper, bits of cloth, pencils, scissors, until you find something pleasing that you want to make into a quilt.  After the show my friend Jeannie Rogers said that she would love to go with me next time so we made reservations on the spot.

Wallpaper down hallway coordinates with carpeting.

A mixture of flower shapes is very interesting. This design is less complex than the Hilton carpeting but then the rooms are less expensive too.

Inspiration – Nadelstern vs. Hilton

Skywalk from Hilton to Convention Center

It’s been a few years since I read about this story of design infringement.  Most of us know the famous Paula Nadelstern and her fabulous kaleidoscope quilts.  Lots of people, non-quilters, go to quilt shows and take photographs of quilts they like.  One of these  folks took a photo of Paula’s quilt and long story short, the design ended up in the Hilton Hotel next door to the Houston Convention Center where Houston International Quilt Festival is held.  Quilters saw the carpeting, photographed it and showed the pictures to Paula.  They said “isn’t this your quilt”?  Yes it was and Paula brought suit against the parties that had stolen her design.  The settlement was for an undisclosed amount of money.  It would have been better to ask up front, a lesson to all of us who derive inspiration for our quilts, our art, or in this case, our custom woven carpets.  When you are next attending the quilt show in Houston be sure to walk the skywalk over to the Hilton and see the fabulous carpeting which continues into the hallways and ballroom.  Absolutely spectacular!  It’s exciting to see the quilt designs spread everywhere.

Dancingstitcher Dances Video

The Roundup Quilt Show in Payson, Arizona was a fun day with Jeannie Rogers, Terry, and Deborah.  The quilts were inspiring along with a DJ playing songs from a time period when this quilter was much younger.

In the 60’s while in high school I was a business owner with a dance studio in my parents’ basement teaching ballet and tap every Saturday morning.

While a student at Michigan State University I danced on a local TV show and another one in Windsor, Ontario as a go-go dancer and met some artists of Motown fame such as Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.  Also danced on a platform behind Kenny Rogers.

My chiropractor suggested that I dance every time I feel low in energy because the activity would move my muscles and perk me up for more quilting.  He also suggested better posture of head up, not tilted forward, and shoulders back, not hunched over.  Quilting seems to put me in bad form for my body.  I even displaced a rib from leaning on the longarm front bar.  A little dancing is a good thing.

Your assignment for today, should you choose to accept it, is to put on some music and join me in a dance.

For the YouTube video  http://youtu.be/AmQN_SJQAYk

January Planning with iPad Gift from Olivia

Olivia's gifts of an iPad to help with my website and fresh scones.

Olivia did arrive on Christmas day and brought gifts including this new iPad to help me with my blog writing and to make it easier to travel lighter.  She helped me establish some categories for my topics.  My goal is to write more often and provide some inspirational stories that relate to quilting and my path for the year.

First order was to list quilting projects that are already on the decks and ones for which I hope to bring further along this year and perhaps even finish.  My friends actually cheer me when I finish something since I tend to get involved in too many things, work on something until the bloom is off the rose and put it aside.  Sharon Schamber said that it is perfectly fine not to finish somethings.  She said once you get from the exercise what you wanted, put it into a box with a ribbon and gift it to someone else.  What a revolutionary idea!  I actually did that last year and new energy emerged for the quilt because the recipient finished it and enjoyed it or gave it to our community service quilting endeavors.  Plus I was uplifted and could focus on something to which I placed more value.

For the entire year of 2010 I made a monthly list of all the quilting obligations, meetings, travel, deadlines, and project by doable sections that I wanted to accomplish.  This was a busy year since I volunteered to be our Daisy Mountain Quilters’ President and I wanted the group to be inspired, invigorated, and invested in quilting.  List making is something that organized people do and I have always thought of myself as being random order.  Actually it was fun to run a yellow marker through the item and check it off.  I posted it on my design wall where I could see it and hopefully find direction for the day or the week.  To my surprise, I actually got a lot done.

List of quilt projects and tasks on iPad reminder pages.

For 2011 I started out making a monthly list and then abandoned it thinking that I knew what had to be done and my list of items wasn’t as many as the previous year.  Then my friend Todd and my husband Bill both agreed that I wasn’t being as productive so I went back to monthly list making and rounded out the year with some significant accomplishments.

For 2012 I’m going to try both a hand-written monthly list posted on my design wall and an iPad list of all the projects that are currently in the works, something too overwhelming to have staring at me on a daily basis.  The long list is one that I will use as reference to gauge how I’m doing as refers to long-range planning and to perhaps kick start something into either a finish project or one that is further along.

What is interesting to me is that once I have an idea for something, the excitement about getting to it someday remains.  Rarely do these quilt projects go out of fashion.  I tend to collect ideas, buy some of the supplies, then add to it over time, percolating the idea until I can resolve what to do with it or have a purpose to finish it for an exhibition.  So many of my quilts have history in that respect.  This is why I cannot usually answer the question “how long did that take you to make”?  I seem to have no problem letting a quilt sit unfinished until I get more inspiration or find a solution or technique.

My friend Wanda Dix told me about an article she read that focused on a technique for finishing projects.  She said to get out ten projects and put them on a table where you can see all of them.  Start working on one for three hours, then switch to another project and do that one for three hours, and keep rotating among the ten projects until one of them is done.  At this time, insert a replacement project and keep rotating until another one is done.  Wanda and I both have difficulty with finishing the UFOs and both of us tried this approach.  We both got stuck working on one project for a longer period of time than three hours since we found that we had built up momentum and didn’t want to break the movement or dedication.  Question is – did getting ten projects out actually help us finish one?  Maybe we didn’t spread our time over all ten projects in three-hour increments, or even touch some of the ten but the result was great in that both of us had success in completing something.  I think that the object of the 10-projects method was to keep us interested in quilting.

Currently I have five quilting projects on which I’m focused.  Last night I finished the six applique poinsettias for a 2007 Birthday Block APQS Chat quilt and need to put that project aside until the end of the month since it is handwork I can do on the Road to California bus trip.  I finished marking the feathers in the numerous holly motifs on a Christmas quilt and have set that aside for the moment. ‘Spiky’, an English paper pieced quilt now has the full design done for custom quilting in 12 weight thread and will make further progress on that next week, an ‘Arabesque’ AccuQuilt pillow project will wait, and the fifth project is the ‘Arizona Valentine’ I need to get quilted in order to enter the Arizona Quilters Guild show by next Friday.  Mom has already asked “how’s my boots quilt coming along”?  The ‘Boots’ quilt is one we both started in 2003, one of my first quilts that I finished and Mom didn’t.  I only made 30 boots and Mom was going for 60.  With her failing vision I offered to finish making the blocks and give her the quilt this winter.  Where should I rank the ‘Boots’ quilt?

So let’s see how I do today.  I really need to focus on ‘Arizona Valentine’ since that one has a deadline and my new rule is “don’t enter a quilt that isn’t done or on the home stretch of binding, sleeve, and label”.   ‘Arizona Valentine’ is a wholecloth quilt that I designed from drawings I made of places, things, critters, and symbols of Arizona to celebrate the centennial.  Then I bleached the black cloth using a resist of freezer paper.  I already pre-washed the batik fat back print and good thing I did because it bled dark purple and three rinses were necessary.  Squared it up and got it mounted on my longarm machine (Millennium model by APQS).  Today my goal is to get the top and batting on and do some testing of threads.  There is a DMQ meeting this afternoon and I’ll bring the poinsettias to talk about Martha Nordstrand’s technique of preparing the appliques before securing them to the background.  You can Google Martha Nordstrand Quilter and read about this remarkable woman.  One day I will write about her on my blog as her applique flowers are fabulous and I am so grateful to her for sharing her technique.  She also helped me with a difficult quilting decision years ago and for her great enthusiasm and encouragement I will always be thankful.

Quilt Artist – Gail Thomas

Gail Thomas with 'Someone Found' at Houston. Note the little baby at the woman's feet.

If you have ever been hugged by Gail you’re a lucky person.  Each time I see her at Houston International Quilt Festival I look forward to chatting with her since she is filled with so much radiance that you don’t want to walk away from her and when you do your spirit is uplifted.  Her long flowing curly white hair helps you spot her from a distance.

I first learned of Gail who is from Vernon, BC, Canada (Vernon was my father’s name so easy for me to remember) when I saw the magnificent quilt called “3 Sisters” that won the group category at Houston in 2007.  She told me of the story of how she met Annette M. Hendricks of Illinois (I lived in Chicago area for four years) who liked coyotes and Helen Godden of Latham, ATC, Australia (I lived in Woden Valley, ATC back in the 70’s) who liked dragon flies.  Gail has always liked dragons and there is a wonderful Indian tale on Gail’s website gailthomasart.com that you can read that ties these three together.  There are photos of them underneath their winning quilt.  Gail is also a watercolor artist so you can see how her talent marries well with fabric to produce quilt art.  Several pieces are pictured on her gallery.

Ty Derw Art is at the top of her home page and when I did a Google search I found that this unfamiliar word is tied to Mid-Wales, United Kingdom in a mountainous region around Snowdonia National Forest.  I’ll have to ask Gail how this is so important to her and perhaps she has Welsh heritage.

Gail printed this cloth for the back and made a special label.

Pictured here is Gail doing white glove volunteering near her own quilt “Someone Found” at Houston 2011.  It depicts an Irish woman who was captured by Indians, incorporated into their society where she married and had a child, then was later found.  The colorful blocks around the central figure of the woman reflect her Irish heritage.

Since Gail enjoys painting so much, she created the fabric by printing the motifs in three layers of value and intensity.  Even her labels are special and such a treat.  You’ll enjoy seeing the wonderful play of color when you get a chance to view her quilt in person and maybe she will be there and you can ask for a fabulous hug.