Crazy Quilt Class...
   Today was the first of four Thursday classes...don't know why I was so nervous....but it was so much fun.  I just love seeing the excitement on their faces....
I got to the classroom at NKA a full half hour early....well, after I ran across town and got a Pumpkin smoothie from Jamba in hopes that would settle my nerves!
My wonderful friend and facilitator, Angie showed up at the same time and helped me lug everything up to the second floor. We immediately set up the room in a "U" shape with the tables, so that I could use the middle to walk around in, actually cutting down on the walking for me and my healing knees!
  While Angie set up the greeting table with handouts and baggies for them to choose from, I began on my demonstration table.

  I set up two irons and my handi-dandi ironing carry bags...had two irons going all class.

 Some of my early projects...along with the pillow that they are designing their pieces after.  Each week I will bring in more of my own projects to show the progression of my personal Crazy quilt journey.

A couple more samples of different size squares, which I often use to demonstrate a stitch for them.

Here are some Crazy Quilt Gatherings magazines, the new 2015 calendar, along with my Under the Sea that is a feature in the calendar.

 A couple antique Crazy Quilts for them to see the variety available from the past.  And now the students are arriving.....

 Well, time to get to work...a few pieces of Halloween candy to give them energy and we all dove in.
After a few minutes of housekeeping and introductions, began by opening the baggies and bringing out the fabrics and foundation piece. And before we knew it, the 2 hours were over, and most will have only half completed their squares...Next Thursday we will pick up where we left off and finish the squares before we begin with embroidery stitches!

As for me...I will be spending the weekend getting ready for the first Tuesday of four Tuesday classes!!! I try to keep the classes to no more than 10, and we had 9 show up...Tuesday has 12 on the list and there were still 11 on a waiting list!!!! I have already signed up for classes in January-March. It will be two classes of 4 weeks back-to-back!

 My Crazy Quilt Journey...
As I am preparing for my two classes coming up, I am collecting "show and tell" items, like books, samples of my work, etc.  I have also been reminiscing about my personal crazy quilt journey.  I pulled out an old Penny McMorris book to see when it was published (1984) and found this inside of the book....didn't even remember it was there!!! This article is from McCalls dated 1969-1970!

The thing is, the next two pics are copies of the same article, I have had since back that far...I had always enjoyed embroidery since I was about 12 or so...but got bored with doing only pillow cases!!!! When I first saw this article, I was completely in awe... I knew that there was something else I could embroider...and this was my first introduction of a crazy quilt....took me years to finally do my first crazy quilt....

In fact, it was in the middle 70's, when a new puppy, Yankee, decided to chew up holes in my sofa, and not having money back then for a new one...I crazy-quilted it!!!

  

 Once I did the love seat, I went back and did the full couch, tops, and sides...had those couches for a number of years. Yankee is the black and brown shepherd above,  Charlie is the white one below.

  

Well, after a divorce, and then remarriage, both dogs having passed away, my husband and I were care givers for his mom for 3 1/2 years in the mid 1990's.  When she passed away in August of 1997, we discovered quite a bin of crazy quilt squares that she had made, a huge box of fabric remnants and some full quilts that each family member received.

Maybe these were on my mind one evening watching TV with hubby in September 1997...  maybe my copy of the article above flashed in my mind....I don't know how....but I got up from the couch and dug a big box of fabrics from the closet, pulled a handful of fancy fabrics, and sat down and put a crazy quilt piece together.  Pretty basic compared to what I do today...

When my husband saw what I had created and asked what it was...I showed him the article. He couldn't believe this just came out of the blue!
 Not a single book to help me, no internet to study....nothing but the memory of one article!!! Then my husband says why don't you make each family member a stocking out of mom's big stash of fabrics!!!!
 Now this is going into October!!!! And I hardly knew what I was doing....but...

I no longer know who got which one, but they became the family's favorite that year. Grand-children could remember blouses, shirts, etc. from clothing that Grandma had made! And I had no idea that they would remember the fabrics!

Quite a few stockings for a Newbie!!!! Well the next year I made a couple more for my sisters....

As you can see the embellishing of these two, a year's difference shows up...more fancy fabrics, more stitches....

Maybe it's time to make more stockings!!!!! Next post will be about setting up my students for their first day of class....stay tuned!!!

With two classes coming up in a couple weeks, I have been really busy putting class supplies together for them. They each get a baggie with a muslin foundation piece of 11" by 11", about 12 or so fabrics, a color palette developed from an inspiration piece of fabric. They get some cottons, duponi silk, satin and moire fabrics; along with threads, beads, buttons, sequins and lace.
I will explain more about the class in my next post after the class has started with pictures of the ladies and their projects.
Today, I want to describe the pillow I am using as a demonstration piece for this class. My pillow is a 10" by 10" square foundation piece with jewel tone fabrics. This is a color palette I chose to build my colors with...

Then I chose a sweet picture of a lady, printed on fabric, and backed it with a stabilizer....

Now I am ready to choose fabrics. Normally, I would attach the picture to the foundation piece and attach fabrics to it as I went around her. But I learned a tip from Pamela Kellogg  of how to place all my fabrics down first, and then applique her on top...I found that with the stabilizer and the extra fabric it  really gave the silkie more stability.
So I started playing with the fabrics...always one of my favorite parts...

 Here the fabrics are coming together, pinks, purples, black velvet, moires along with black velvet and a velvet from an old vest.

 The fabrics are all in place in a crazy quilt pattern, placing the lady over them, and adding trim and a piece of corner lace, dyed,  from Barbara Nicki Seavey and a purple piece that I dyed. 

I added a couple more pieces of lace dyed laces, and now I am ready for some embellishments and stitches.

 

I decided to add silk ribbon embroidery flowers coming off of the corner piece of lace. Using two different colors, added some glass leaf beads and pearls inside of the flower buds. Below is a close-up picture.

Next I added a gold thread, lazy-daisy chain off of the flowers along with green silk ribbon leaves.

With more flowers, pearls, sequins and leaves added to this lace piece, I think it was finally finished. Now buttons were grouped off of the left side, and beads decorated the second lace grouping. The bottom lace has stitches and beads to decorate it. The blue trim was rouche down with pink beads to offset it.

The square was then put together as a pillow with a pink moire as a backing. Taking another tip from Pamela Kellogg, I crocheted a green hairy trim into a chain stitch and then attached it with a matching green thread all the way around the pillow....

I really love the way the hairy green trim contrasts with the pinks and purples, but pulls the green from the trim around the picture. Oh, and don't forget her pearl necklace...those are antique pearls I bought from an elderly lady who apologized that the necklace was broken when I bought it from her...but I didn't have the heart to tell her I was breaking it down anyway!!!  The pearls have a nice "old" look to them.

Here we have the finished pillow, which I will be teaching the students how to do the techniques used to put this project together...with different color palettes than what I have used here. 

Back of the pillow is pink moire, one of my absolutist favorite fabrics to work with. Stay tuned in a couple weeks, you will meet my two classes, and we will see what the creative works of art they come up with. Thanks for visiting!

This past August we took an 8-day trip to Klamath Falls, Oregon. We have been to several areas of Oregon and have always had days of rain. But this trip was different...not one day of rain. Temperatures we in the upper 70's and lots of sunshine.
One place we knew we wanted to see was Crater Lake National Park  http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm
It truly is, like no other place on Earth!

Crater Lake is truly one of the most beautiful blue lakes you have ever seen.  It was breath-taking.
 We checked into our room at the Worldmark  Running Y resort and settled in and unpacked.

Our view from our room was spectacular with lots of trees, golf course, and lake and mountain in the distance.
Everyday meant a car trip in one of the many different directions to search for adventures. My husband knew that one of the trips would take us by the Quilting Sisters store on Rocky Point Rd. going into Klamath Falls.  What a wonderful time I had there. Jean is the owner and a wonderful creative quilter. She has tons of fabrics to choose from, Moda, Hoffman and many more. She has classes and will give you a cup of coffee and coffee cake to keep your energy up while you shop!
Her motto is, "We Go For The Olde-Time Quilting." But what grabbed my attention the minute I stepped into her classroom, was the crazy-quilted stain-glass quilt still in progress hanging on the wall.

Thanks, Jean, for a wonderful cup of coffee and good times. The blue fabric was used in my beach picture with the sky in last blog.  I will be back, and love you, too.
Another day took us to the coast which is about 5 hours south and west of Klamath...no easy straight road to the coast! We had to go down to California on the coast and take Hwy 101 up the coast of Oregon. Oh, but was it worth it. Again the absolutely best weather you could ask for, and the beaches were heavenly.

The next day we were in Klamath Falls, and I knew there was a bead store I definitely needed to see and get my bead fix!

"Indigo Beads opened its doors in March of 2008 in the heart of downtown Klamath Falls, OR. Indigo Beads is owned by Angie Britton, and operated by herself, her mom Nancy, and aunt Debbie. Her dad, Jim custom built most of the bead displays, and is the "store maintenance guy"."  A quote from her web site: http://www.indigobeads.com/index.html   They are also on Facebook. Needless to say, I was in heaven...so many beads to choose from. And if you know what you are looking for, they will ship.
The next stop a couple days later was a quilting store in Merrill, which is south of Klamath Falls, less than an hour away.
Tater Patch Quilts...on Front street in Merrill.... http://www.taterpatchquilts.com/   and Oh, what a store...one of the biggest I have been in and lots of projects to keep any quilter busy...even classes were going on while I was there...

Fabulous store, fantastic service, but where I spent my money was in a Crazy quilt section. Of course, I already had all the books that she had for sale, but the threads and embellishments....oh, my!!!

You must go to their website and sign up for their newsletter.  Oh, and they also are on facebook.
So I never take a trip anymore, without googling before we leave, for the bead stores, fabric and quilt stores in the area.  You just never know what treasures you will find.
  Well, it's time to get prepared for teaching a crazy quilt class at the end of the month. So my next blog will be about the class and what they learn to make. Thanks for visiting!