A Blunt Question to Ponder

Posted on January 31, 2015 by zippyquilts

Today I’m “re-blogging” a post by friend Melanie because I think it’s relevant not just to quilters but to anyone with a hobby–which is most of us. So click through to her site and see what you think.

Catbird Quilt Studio

Do you have a plan for your stash? Not for while you’re using it, but for when you are not?

I’ve heard the old joke, “She who dies with the mosts stash wins!” But it’s not really true, is it? At some point, all of us will be done quilting, whether that comes because of a loss of interest or ability, or due to death. Be prepared for that day.

Will your family look hopelessly at your shelves, cupboards, closets, bins, and tubs, full of fabric and kits and unquilted tops, wondering what to do with it all? I have read too many stories of people whose stashes were discarded because family members were not interested and had no idea of the value. Sewing machines are expensive. Here again, family members may have no idea of value. Would you like your $1,000 sewing machine sold for $75? It might be able…

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Meet Lee Monroe of May Chappell Patterns

Posted on January 25, 2015 by zippyquilts

Images for this post are the property of Lee Chappell Monroe, May Chappell and used with permission.

Lee Chappell Monroe

Lee is a North Carolina quilter, designer, and teacher who came to my attention through her blog, which is titled May Chappell. Like a lot of other people, I initially thought May Chappell must be her name. Here’s her explanation of where the name of the blog actually came from:

Why May Chappell? There are always loads of questions about why the company is May Chappell and not Lee Chappell Monroe. You can read all about it here. The short version is that it is named for an awesome lady, my great grandmother.

Lee designs quilt patterns and sells them through quilt shops. She went to quilt market for the first time last year, hoping to give her patterns a wider audience. In addition to quilts, she designs pouches and “loves all things fabric”. Like many modern quilt designers, she is trained as a graphic artist. Here’s one of her quilt patterns:

All Strung Up, a May Chappell design

And here are a few questions Lee was kind enough to answer for me, as well as pictures of more of her patterns:

Here’s a tote bag Lee designed to use mini-charm squares

Q: Where do you think the quilting field is going?

A: This is a toughie. I usually see trends in the questions that I get from my students. I’ve had a lot of students lately that are self taught and they’re interested in learning more about precision. I’m a big believer that there is more than one right way to do things in quilting, but there sure are some wrong ways!

Q: What about your personal quilting future?

A: I have new patterns coming for Spring Market that I’m really excited about. I’m a terrible secret keeper so I usually want to put out the design right as I draw it!

Q: I know you took your patterns to quilt market, but where could I buy them? I don’t see them on your website [Note: They ARE on her website, at least now. Silly me 😉 ]

Eye Candy, one of Lee’s quilt patterns

Lee’s Designer Star Quilt. If you go to her website/shop you can see a picture of the whole thing.

A: I love designing patterns and the printed patterns are available through local quilt shops. Because I also teach quilting at local shops, I’m a huge advocate for supporting local! Quilt shops are a huge resource for the sewing and quilting community. If your shop doesn’t have my patterns, they’re available through the distributors. You can also purchase PDF patterns through my website here. I teach all over North Carolina and I’m starting to expand out across the country. Teaching is my favorite part of my job; I’m passionate about quilting and I love sharing that. You can see my teaching schedule on my website, too.

Q: Show us something pretty you’ve made lately!

A: This is a table runner I made for my brother using my Blue Ridge pattern.

Table runner by Lee Monroe

This post ran longer than usual, but that’s because I just HAD to explain a little about why Lee Monroe has a blog named May Chappell 🙂

A Toddler Quilt and a “Finish”

Posted on January 18, 2015 by zippyquilts

One of the things I like about Aunt Marti’s UFO challenge is that I get to decide what constitutes a “finish”. With that in mind, my January “finish” consisted of sending my Charley Harper quilt off to the longarm quilter. Lest you think that just means handing it over, I had to select backing and make binding so that when it comes back I’ll be all ready to bind it. So here it is ready to go:

Turning Twenty Again, Charley Harper fabric

Binding is ready for when the Charley Harper quilt is returned to me

I started making the binding when I finish the quilt top for two reasons: I already have the fabric right there, so it saves time later. And I don’t accidentally use that binding fabric for something else before the quilt is ready for it 😉

My other finish this week (and this one is really, really finished) is a toddler quilt. It is 42″ x 52″ and is backed with Minkee Dot fabric. It has no batting. (Yeah, I know, that means it’s “not a quilt”. Right.) This makes it both soft and light, so a toddler can carry it around with him. He can use it to make a fort, take a nap, have a picnic, or whatever else. Here it is, from start to finish:

Toddler Quilt

I think this simple design would be good for a donation quilt, as well. It was quick and easy to make, and I think it shows the cute fabric to advantage.

2015 UFO Challenge

Posted on January 11, 2015 by zippyquilts

Last year I participated in Aunt Marti’s UFO (Unfinished Object) challenge over at 52 Quilts and found it helpful. I did NOT succeed in finishing a UFO every month, but there were several months when I wouldn’t have gotten even one done if it weren’t for the challenge.
So this year I’m not only taking the challenge, I’m (gasp!) publishing my list here so it’s public! And I’ll post about the finishes as I do them. Here’s the list, some of it in picture form: If you hover over the picture you can see its caption.

I made this quilt years ago in a class at Tennessee Quiltfest

Charley Harper top needs to sent to quilter

Pink and green orphan blocks need to be made into a donation quilt

Storm at Sea needs to be paper pieced

Need to finish piecing Triangle Quilt

Will need to bind Charley Harper quilt when it comes back

Maple Leaf donation quilt

Need to design a quilt for this wonderful fabric

Flower fairies need to be made into a quilt

Need to either make Amazon Star or not!

There are two more to be done, but no pictures yet:

11. Rework the Under the Sea top

12. Quilt a practice piece I made for a magazine project.

Aunt Marti’s UFO challenge goes like this: You gather up 12 of your (many) UFOs and number them. Then, each month Aunt Marti posts the number of the UFO to be done for that month. (By the way, the project for January is #2).

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. If you want to play along, here’s the link to the “rules” at Aunt Marti’s site.

Hope you have a good week at get at least one UFO finished even if you aren’t doing the challenge!

First Finish

Posted on January 4, 2015 by zippyquilts

Metro Hoops quilt made by Allison at Cluck, Cluck, Sew

Inspired by the beautiful Metro Hoops quilt Allison showed over at Cluck, Cluck, Sew, I mentioned the Quick Curve Ruler as something I wanted to try in a recent post. Here’s a picture of her quilt so you can see what inspired me.

My clever son-in-law gave me the ruler for Christmas, and as soon as we got home I tried it out. As always, I learned a lot. Certainly the Metro Hoops pattern is a nice modern alternative to the traditional wedding ring quilt. What I wasn’t prepared for was the fudge factor required to make it work.

My first Metro Hoops block

It made a really cute block, but then my inner perfectionist kicked in 😦 The block required a lot of “easing in” along the seams to make the points match up. *(You can skip to the reason why at the end of this post, if you like.)

Luckily, I almost never cut out a new quilt completely before making a test block. After making one block for this quilt, I decided 5 hoop blocks was my limit. The blocks really are quicker and easier to make than they look, so I got the 5 done in a few hours. They are nice big blocks (finish 15″) so I had a good start on a baby quilt.

I drew an approximation of the block with my EQ7 program and came up with this layout:

My EQ7 layout for the Metro Hoops blocks

Another half day to make the alternate blocks, then a day to put it together, make a back, and quilt it–and voila! The first finish of 2015!

About the Quick Curve ruler: the women who designed it have lots of cute quilt patterns on their site, so it’s worth checking out.

*BUT, if I make metro hoops again, I’ll modify the directions to make it more to my liking. I think the basic issue here is that the single curve provided by this ruler is used for both the concave and convex curves in the quilt. That means there is no seam allowance to make the curves match nicely. The project is “saved” by the fact that the curve is less than a quarter circle, so it’s possible to fudge the sewing to make it go together without adding seam allowances. It does work, but don’t think it’s going to fit the way pieces cut from most curved templates do. If you decide to do it, be forewarned to relax and get rid of the inner perfectionist!

Happy new year!

Year End Review

Posted on December 28, 2014 by zippyquilts

For better or worse, I published goals at the beginning of the year, so here’s the review of my progress:
I met all the goals! (Does that mean I didn’t set them high enough?) I retreated with my buddies THREE times instead of just two! I attended 3 big national shows as well as 2 local ones (all were excellent). I took a couple of fun and useful classes, one of which I still need to write up here so you’ll know about it. I submitted several quilts to shows/contests and 3 were accepted. The one I donated to the Quilt Alliance even won something, and sold for $300 to benefit the Quilt Alliance! And I had lots of fun, which was really the point of it all.

Here are pictures of a few of my projects from the second half of the year. The pix of projects from the first half of the year are in this post.

Spring Sun, a design by me, using blocks paper pieced from a totally different Judy Niemeyer pattern! It took about 2 years, but it’s now DONE.

Zippy Star Quilt and Pillow as shown in Modern Quilts Unlimited, Summer 2014

Packet of Posy Seeds, done for the Michael Miller spring challenge

Zippy Star I, which sold at the Asheville Quilt Show in September. This was my “practice piece” for the MQU quilt shown above.

Donation quilt for Ronald McDonald House. I’m going to work more on using up orphan blocks next year.

And, despite the risk, here’s what I plan for the coming year:

1. I’ll retreat with my buddies at least twice, probably 3 times again!

2. I’ll attend one big national quilt show, maybe two. I’ll attend at least one local show.

3. I will limit much more strictly the shows and challenges I enter. It takes too much time and effort that could be spent on making what I want to make 🙂

4. I’ll continue to make donation quilts, including one for the Quilt Alliance. Please consider making one for the Quilt Alliance yourself. You can read about their mission here. Click on “2015 Quilt Contest” to learn about this year’s challenge.

5. I’ll continue my blog, and I think I’ll put up instructions for a few easy donation quilts just in case somebody is looking for ideas.

What’s coming up for you?

5 Favorites of 2014

Posted on December 21, 2014 by zippyquilts

1. Favorite quilt show I attended: Vermont Quilt Festival. You can see some quilts from it here and here. And here again is a detail of one of my favorites:

Detail of Fill the Void by Cinzia Allocca, at Vermont Quilt Festival 2014

2. Favorite thing about blogging: Meeting new friends, both in person and online. Read about a couple of them here and here, if you like.
3. Favorite modern quilt trend: some textures and low-volume prints (those that show more background, having the prints smaller and farther apart) to get us away from all solids, all the time. Some of my favorites include these from Carolyn Friedlander:

From Carolyn Friedlander’s Architextures collection

and these from Alison Glass:

4. Favorite new (to me) quilt tool: Frixion pen. It comes in lots of colors and erases when you iron over the markings. Only drawback I’ve found is that you can’t see the mark on dark fabric. For that I still love my chaco liner with yellow chalk. Show below: chaco liners on left, frixion pens on right.

5. Favorite lesson learned: I’d rather see my designs in print than at quilt shows. Yes, I entered several shows and contests, and I won something. But my favorite quilt of the year (from those I made) was the one that was published in Modern Quilts Unlimited. So here is a picture of it again.

And what were your favorites of the year?

Eye Candy x 10

Posted on December 14, 2014 by zippyquilts

I’ve been saving this treat, and today is the day. For those of us who want to escape for a few minutes from holiday-themed anything, here are 10 of my favorite art quilts from this year’s Vermont Quilt Festival.

Coves & Islands by Carol Anne Grotian

Torrid Dwelling by Molly Upton

Suntreader III by Michael James

Aspens Reaching for Bluebird Skies by Ann Schubert Turner

The Getty by Katie Pasquini Masopust

Remembered Vistas by Jo Diggs

The Wall, by Pamela Druhen

Double Wedding Ring #2 by Mike McNamara

Color Waves by Pamela Druhen

Detail from Leaves on Klee, by Mabry Benson

Now, get back to work on those holiday gifts 🙂

Beads on Quilts

Posted on December 7, 2014 by zippyquilts

I was waaaay into beads before I got waaaay into quilts, so there are lots of beads in the studio. Thank goodness they take up less room than fabric 😉

A few of the bead drawers

I’ve read a bit about using beads in quilts, and I took a class with Mary Stori a few years ago.

Here are a few of my uses of beads so far. Most recently, I added a row of tiny silver-lined glass beads around the edge of a star in my quilt for the Michael Miller challenge. It took most of a day to get this done! YIKES!

I outlined the focal point of my Michael Miller challenge quilt with beads

A while back I made this little wall hanging as a shop sample for a friend, and put beads both on it and hanging from it.

There are beads on the sun, and that’s how I learned that sewing on beads can distort the quilt! I used techniques from jewelry making to create a beaded fringe for the bottom of the piece with larger beads.

And beads were used to give Overall Sam a fish in one block and a toy airplane to fly in another block when I made this wall hanging from a few years ago. The blocks are based on a pattern from Eleanor Burns.

Finally, I used beads to make fancy zipper pulls for some of my pouches.

Give beads a try! And if you don’t have enough beads, let me know…

A Puzzling Legacy

Posted on November 30, 2014 by zippyquilts

My Grandmother’s quilts are among my treasured possessions. I remember her sitting by the window and piecing them by hand. I remember the quilt frame hanging from the ceiling in the “front room”. My sister and I played under it while she quilted.

Sunbonnet Sue quilt by my Grandmother, Mary Lee Ownbey Kimsey

And then there are the unfinished bits and pieces I inherited. Granny had a series of little strokes and gradually lost the ability to sit still and concentrate on her quilts. I have some pieced sections that I’ve been carrying around for years. My Mother wasn’t a quilter, so she carried them around for years before leaving them to me.

They’re old. And they’re lonely, because somewhere along the way somebody threw out the uncut fabric that must have gone with them.

Some of the pieces I inherited

What should I do with these? I’ve come up with a variety of ideas for making them into a finished quilt, but I haven’t quite found one I like. Because there are several pieced strips that appear to be done for diagonal set, I wonder if she was doing something similar to this:

Another of Granny’s quilts

This piece may have been intended as one side of a square set on point?

And then there’s the question of the seams! She pieced all this by hand with seams that are barely 1/16″!!! Will that hold up? Or should I re-work it all???

I’ve about decided the solution to the seams is to press as best I can (Granny finger-pressed!) and the back the pieces I have with batiste. From there I can add strips of muslin, which she always used for “background”, and see what I can come up with.

Any other ideas? Anybody dealt with a similar situation? All suggestions welcome!

Zippy Quilts

Modern Quilts With A Twist

A Blunt Question to Ponder

Meet Lee Monroe of May Chappell Patterns

A Toddler Quilt and a “Finish”

2015 UFO Challenge

First Finish

Year End Review

5 Favorites of 2014

Eye Candy x 10

Beads on Quilts

A Puzzling Legacy

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