Barnful of Quilts

The rain stayed away, and the 2008 Barnful of Quilts was wonderful! Here are some of the photos I took today.

Quilts – many of them for sale — hang on the fence outside the barn:







The barn is really amazing:



Ellen Guerrant was this year’s featured contemporary artist. Ellen is a very talented quilter, artist, teacher, photographer and blogger. And a warm, caring person to boot!



Aimee Griffin is a big supporter of the Charlotte-area quilting community. She has a darling quilt shop called Overall Quilter in Indian Trail:



Karen Wilson McWhorter and other UCo Quilters (Jane Beamer, Rose Giacchetta, Judy Jewell and Joyce Walker) made this sophisticated quilt to raffle at this year’s Barnful of Quilts. I bought $5 worth of tickets… and WON!!! Isn’t it beautiful? I was really thrilled. I am sure that I have bought hundreds of quilt raffle tickets over the years, and I have never won a quilt… until today!



These llamas were a big hit with the crowd. Check out those eyelashes!









Sara Furr offers “fine fibers for your projects, therapy for your soul” at Cottage Yarn:



Alisa Deshields (below) of The Prim Merchant makes wonderful primitive dolls and holiday decorations. She has an Etsy shop that is empty right now, but she told me she'd be restocking soon. I bought the cute angels she is holding.



Catherine Hawley crafts ”“artful, functional carry-alls” from recycled billboards for The Things She Carried shop on Etsy.com.



Pam Wittfeld of Constructive Designs creates wonderful contemporary silver jewelry that had me drooling:



Stephanie Quattrini’s business card says she is the “Resident Guru” at The Fibre Studio at Yarns to Dye For. And they were. Check out the beautiful collar she is wearng:







Fuliva Luciano was in the stall next to me. She creates spectacular fiber art that is painted, printed and stitched. She also spins and hand-dyes yarn and creates fluffy batts that look like cotton candy. Here’s one of Fulvia’s pieces, “Which Way to Rock Hill,” which is for sale on her website:



I bid on (and won) a shawl at last year’s silent auction made by Susan at Cowan Welch, and was glad to see her again. Her she is with some of her elegant woven wraps:



Willa McNeill makes one-of-a-kind purses, totes, quilted journal covers. Here she demonstrates using Shiva Paint Stiks:



A beautiful quilted jacket by Willa:

Setting up for Barnful of Quilts

Friday was the day to set up for Barnful of Quilts, a fabulous one-day celebration of quilting and fiber arts in Waxhaw, NC, south of Charlotte. Valerie Fox hosts the event at her family’s farm, and the proceeds of the ticket sales benefit Waxhaw Presbyterian Church. This is the second year I’ve participated in this fun exhibition. (To view the flier below, which contains directions, double-click on it.)



My good friend DeLane Rosenau helped me set up my stall. Yep, my stall. The horses moved out (temporarily), and the quilters moved in. Here it is, ready for the big day:














Women in the stall next to mine were busy setting up their space:





This is Deborah Langsam (below), a fellow member of the Charlotte Quilters Guild. Deborah’s company, Barking Dog Fabric Art, donates all profits to SupportWorks, a nonprofit organization in Charlotte that helps people find and form support groups and research medical information.

Her mosaic quilt, “Under the Eyes of Queen Charlotte,” is composed of thousands of tiny photos of the city of Charlotte, superimposed on an image of the "Queen Charlotte" statue that stands in uptown Charlotte. It is so cool!



The barn is spectacular. Check out Valerie’s lovely roses, still blooming in October:



I have a great view from my stall of one of the horses we bumped outside:



Ellen Guerrant is this year’s featured artist. Here she is with her husband hanging some of her work:



This is one of Ellen’s best known pieces:



After we had finished setting up, DeLane and I drove into Waxhaw to check out the bead shop, The Bead Merchants (wonderful, tempting stuff!) and talk with owners Van and Gayle Eyre, and then into a new quilt shop, The Quilting Nook, which is right on the main drag at 103 West South Main Street. What a darling shop! It’s in the old grocery store, and has wonderful light and very high ceilings that give it a wonderful, spacious feel.



Co-owner Beth Suerdieck is only too glad to help a customer with a selection:



The classroom is spacious and filled with light:


Co-owner Kim Profitt fields a phone inquiry from a customer:



The shop carries more than just fabric. They have beautiful ribbons and lots of notions and books.





Downtown Waxhaw has managed to keep many of its old, charming buildings. It has lots of antique stores, and is a fun place to visit and linger:

Mary Jo’s Cloth Store

I’m very fortunate to live about 45 minutes from Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC. If you live on the east coast and sew, quilt or make crafts, there's a good chance you already know about Mary Jo’s, a mecca filled with quilting fabric, specialty fabrics, drapery fabrics, thread, tools, notions, patterns, and pretty much anything you could want or need if you sew.

Looking for 25 different shades of dupioni silk? Civil War reproduction fabrics? Drop-dead gorgeous fabrics for prom or wedding dresses? No problem. Mary Jo’s has it.

Don’t believe me? Check out the “360-degree virutual tour” on their website! This place is so huge and has so much stuff that I practically start hyperventilating when I get about 10 minutes away.

Mary Jo (Margaret Colien Cloninger) has been selling fabrics since 1949. That’s her in the photo above. She’s still going strong, now in a 40,000 square feet space in the Gaston Mall. Customers regularly drive from 250 miles away to shop there.

Mary Jo’s now has a website, so even if you live far away, you can still scan and purchase the fabrics they have in stock. They’ve also just launched a blog, which shares the stories of Mary Jo’s customers. Today, they posted about me, and Barnful of Quilts! Thanks, Mary Jo’s!

C&T Publishing launches a blog

I just found out that C&T Publishing has launched a blog! C&T has published some of my favorite quilting books, including those by Piece O’ Cake Designs, Rayna Gillman, Elin Waterston, Jane Davila, Valori Wells, Mary Lou Weidman, Mark Lipinski, Carol Doak, Frieda Anderson, and too many more to mention here.

According to C&T, the new blog will feature free quilting and crafts projects, behind-the-scenes views of the publishing process, news about C&T authors, and information on events in quilting, fiber arts, needle arts and papercrafts. It is just getting off the ground, but promises to be a great resource and a lot of fun. Check it out at ctpubblog.com and stay tuned for fun!

Denyse Schmidt raffles one of her quilts for Obama campaign

"Yes We Can Quilt" by Denyse Schmidt

Denyse Schmidt, quilt designer, fabric designer and author, has designed and stitched an original design that is being raffled off to raise funds for the Obama presidential campaign. If you make a $10 donation, you get one chance to win; if you donate $20, you get two chances, and so on. You can purchase chances to win on Obama's website if you make a donation between now and midnight on election day, Nov. 4.

I’ve long admired Schmidt’s contemporary designs and clean style. This quilt is a good example. The quilt fundraiser page on Obama’s site notes, “Long before women had the vote, they created quilts with political and commemorative themes. We are proud to participate in this honorable tradition.”

The 50" x 52" quilt is 100% cotton, hand appliquéd and machine quilted.

NOTE: The day after I wrote this post, a woman who reads my blog regularly wrote to tell me that she was “dismayed to see a message with a partisan political theme.” I really appreciated her writing with her opinion. She said that she enjoyed reading quilting blogs as a "safe place" away from the political fray, and I can understand what she means. Sometimes we all need to just get away from the craziness surrounding the election and our dire economic situation. But I meant this post to be informative, and not partisan or divisive. If I heard about a well-known quilt designer doing a quilt for the McCain campaign, I would post about it as well. (Let me know if you have and I'll write about it.) This is simply interesting quilting news, and I try to include interesting quilting news on this blog. Let me know what you think.

Halloween Countdown

If you are looking for some tasty new recipes to try this month, check out The Armchair Chef website. Tink, the woman who runs the website, is featuring recipes by quilt designers and fiber artists this month in her “Halloween Countdown,” and my recipe for Perfect Pumpkin Pancakes was on her website yesterday! Each recipe this month comes with a fun Halloween reminiscence from the contributor. Bon appetite!

A funny thing happened today…

I got a call from Patti, a woman in California who wanted to purchase my Polka Party pattern. She said she had seen it in a magazine in an ad for HandiQuilter. "What?" I said. "Where did you see it?" I wanted to make sure it was my pattern she wanted before I sent it to her. She told me what magazine (American Patchwork & Quilting) and what page (page 7 of the December issue) and I ran to my bedroom, dug through my magazines, and found it, flipped to page 7 and saw this:


Yes! It was one block from my my Polka Party pattern. That's it, to the lower left of the machine! Here's the front cover of the magazine:



Here's a photo of the small wallhanging I made for the "Polka Party" pattern:


And here's a photo of the larger king-sized quilt I made using the same block. I used up my scraps on the border (which is not part of the original Polka Party pattern). Sorry, this is not a great photo... this baby is so huge that it is hard to photograph!



Patti had liked the design so much that she had gone to the trouble of calling HandiQuilter and tracking me down. I was thrilled! Thanks, Patti!

A new vest

I just finished making this vest, using Virginia Robertson's “Long Vest/Jacket” pattern, this weekend. I used mostly Lonni Rossi fabrics (I simply adore her designs; they are really arty) that I had been hoarding for a few years. I don't usually work in brown, so this is a bit of a departure for me. It really is long – about mid calf, but it would be just as cute shorter. These photos show less than half the length of the full vest.

Here’s the back, showing the details I added with little bits of dupioni silk and threadwork:





My eight-year-old daughter has declared it “too weird for me!”

Halloween is coming!

Hoorah! It is finally October, my favorite month. I'm already decorated for my favorite holiday, Halloween. (I have more boxes of Halloween decorations than Christmas decorations... probably because my birthday falls on Halloween, so guess what people get me for my birthday?) The photo above shows one of the displays in my kitchen.


Today I had fun stitching up a trick-or-treat bag using RJR's “Hallowe’en Night” panel and an extra fabric for the lining. The panel has six panels you can use to make three bags. Or you can make 6 bags, if you use another Halloween print on the back. I just love the retro look of these designs!

Round Red Barn

Here’s my third new pattern that will debut at Fall Quilt Market in Houston. It is called “Round Red Barn.” This is the first in a series of small art quilt patterns I am designing based on some of my photos. This piece depicts a fabulous barn at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont that my family visited last August. The Shelburne Museum has several quilt collections, including an amazing exhibit of very old American quilts.

The pattern contains a full-sized template with stitching guidelines. I’ve taught several classes for guilds using this photo, and it is a hit with people interested in art quilting but not sure where to start. Several have learned the technique from me, and gone on to turn their own photos into works of art in fabric and thread.

The retail price for this pattern is $10; it will be on my website soon.

Melinida’s in Studios!

My friend Melinda Schwakhofer is in the 2008 issue of Studios, a special issue of Cloth Paper Scissors! The issue is stuffed full of inspirational artists’ studios, and there are tons of great organizational and storage ideas to steal. It is fun to see how the artists’ personalities shine through in the work environments they create.

I met Melinda last summer, when she was in the States visiting family. (She's back in Great Britain now.) To see more of Melinda’s work, go to her website, www.melindaschwakhofer.com.

To order a copy, go to the Quilting Arts website.

Congratulations, Melinda!

Banana Layer Cake

“Banana Layer Cake” is another pattern I'm printing this week to go to Fall Quilt Market in Houston.

It is 51" square, and I made it with one Moda Layer Cake of Urban Couture (by BasicGrey) and 1-1/2 yards of yellow fabric, plus 3 yards of green for the back and bindings. The Urban Couture fabric line comes out in November.

It goes together super fast, and is very easy to piece. This pattern will also be up on my website in a few days.

Three Cheers!

Here’s a sneak peek at my 25th quilt pattern*, “Three Cheers (for the red, white and blue).” I just finished the pattern today. I started this quilt in early 2008, when Minick and Simpson's red, white and blue “Prairie Paisley” line came out. I had it all pieced and partly quilted in the spring. And then, something happened… I got really busy, and distracted by other things … and the kids got out for summer vacation. (Darn them!) This quilt got pushed aside, and I just got back to it this fall, when the kids went back to school.

Plus, it is really big. King sized, 105" square. The biggest quilt I've ever quilted (I have a regular home sewing machine, not a long arm.)

I'll be printing the patterns in the next few days, and will have them up on my website soon. There are two other patterns in the works that also must be ready to send off to Moda/United Notions (one of my distributors) next week for Fall Market.

Three cheers, indeed!

* If you don't count all my block-of-the-month patterns separately.