It’s official….I’ve finished the “Krista Quilt” and it’s been photographed by Craig Howell and Krista has taken it home to live. Yippeeee!!!!

The kitties love to watch their Bird TV. (I want my, I want my, I want my Bird TV…)

While in Medford, I really could have used one of these gadgets in order for Luke to help me with a computer problem. Back home, Luke texted me with “blue, red or silver just pick don’t ask”, so I picked red. A few days later an envelope arrived at my door by UPS. Inside: my very own key chain thumb drive. I love it. (Oh, and a Foodie Flash Card is also a nice thing to have.)

In 2001, I spent most of the year finished U.F.O’s going back several years. Since then, I’ve been really good about not accumulating any new UnFinishedObjects. Until now.

I’m currently working on this crib quilt for my sister-in-law’s nephew’s first baby boy. It’s a pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, from her book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork, from C&T Publishing (ctpub.com; check our Elizabeth’s blog at ohfransson.com). It’s her version of a snowball block- and I have to say, it’s so much fun to make. This quilt is terminally cute. Exactly what you want for a baby quilt.  (And I promised a second small wall quilt with literal frogs….)

But I’ve been deluding myself that I don’t have any new U.F.O’s. I’ve tried to convince myself and others I just have projects that I started and haven’t finished yet. Okay, so that might be the definition of U.F.O. but, BUT, if the projects are moved around and touched once in awhile, they haven’t truly been abandoned, right? Wrong. Who am I kidding?

Eleven years later, in 2012, I’m making a new resolution to finish those Projects I Started But Haven’t Finished Yet (aka U.F.O.).

One is a pair of quilt tops from one block: the Bamboo/Pinwheel Pattern by Laura Knownes and Diana McClun (one block, two quilt tops-it’s magic! Buy it at http://patternspot.com/products/570). Here are the “pinwheel” blocks, all 100 of them. It’s a new quilt for my mother-in-law’s bed.

But wait, there’s more! I have the “bamboo” quilt top (the other 100 blocks from the Bamboo/Pinwheel pattern) which is just about ready to quilt. I just need to finish the reversible black/white/hot pink second side of the quilt to proceed. (No photos yet.)

Don’t forget the next zipper quilt: a coral reef with stitched critters and zipper coral. After all those daisies, I should be warmed up to stitching critters. I just have to carry on.

I started this Sawtooth Star quilt around 2003/4 for my fourth book published in 2006. The complexity of the block multiplied by 64 blocks made me abandon this project back then. In 2011 I got serious about finishing this quilt. The black/white blocks are all ready to go: precut, 32 different solid colors, stacked and boxed and easy to pick up on the fly. I have more than half of the 32 scrappy fabric blocks finished. I’m also planning a reversible pieced back for this quilt, in a personal challenge to “keep it simple”, an antidote for the busy Sawtooth Star blocks.

I hear Tim Gunn whispering in my ear: Make It Work!

P.S. It’s Winter Here!

On January 1st, at 12:30pm, I stitched the LAST daisy on the Krista Quilt. Yippee!

Next, I stuffed the monster quilt into my 1984 Maytag washer. I had to let it soak to make sure the water got into all the nooks and crannies, melting the water-soluble basting thread, and shrinking the quilt evenly.

Into the dryer to get “almost” dry. I took it out and repositioned it many times- so it would dry evenly. Then flat on the floor to dry the rest of the way. Of course, the kitties wanted to “help”.

After all the wrangling with the quilt and my Bernina 155, I thought this might be the quilt that wobbles, but hey guess what? This quilt is flat and square!!!

Before washing & drying: 103 1/2″ by 115 1/2″

After washing & drying: 95 1/2″ by 105 1/2″

This is why I wash & dry before squaring-up and sewing on the binding. When allowed to shrink all across the quilt, from the middle to the raw edges, it shrinks evenly and a lot. It’s my belief that the binding interferes with shrinking along the edge, so the middle shrinks more than the outside edge area. I should test it some day with identical quilts, one washed & dried without binding and one with. But I always have too many projects to do that!

The first photo, taken from an angle, shows this monster quilt heaped in a pile- fully supported by the table. The second photo shows what I see while I’m quilting a daisy: that small area around the needle, a bit rumpled and free to move. After the daisy is finished, I raise the presser foot and move to the adjacent spot for the next daisy. Over and over again, I keep stitching until the borders are filled with daisies.

When I first tried free motion quilting, putting together motor speed and hand motions and control interfered with breathing. I held my breath, stitched at full speed and hoped for the best! I took workshops and practiced. The final piece clicked into place in a workshop with our own Barbara Copeland.

Yes, you have to practice. No way around that.

Yes, you have to match your motor speed with your hands, but different motifs require different speeds (it’s not all pedal to the metal all the time).

Yes, you have to make sure the weight of the quilt is supported- gravity is not your friend while free motion quilting.

Yes, you need to breathe instead of holding your breath. Relax.

But here is the secret: you only need the small area around the needle free to move. This area should be a bit rumpled to allow for movement. Touch the quilt with a light hand and the basted quilt will want to feed under the needle.

Don’t think of all the daisies left to quilt- just breathe, relax, listen to public radio, watch the fabric fall under the needle as the daisy forms- and soon, one foot in front of the other, one daisy after another, the job is done.

The Monsters love climbing my design wall- the special fabric currently features claw marks, now covered up with the Krista Quilt. I’m ready to add and quilt the final two borders!

Here are two close-ups. You can see the area that is not quilted with daisies. After “squaring up” the edge, the water-soluble thread basting gets ripped out- about 3″ down from the edge. This frees up the quilt top and the quilt back for sewing on the border fabrics (see previous directions).

Now that the border (front & back, with batting) has been added, it’s time to machine baste with water-soluble thread. Stitching parallel lines (or a grid) with water-soluble thread secures the layers like no other method. It takes some time (what method doesn’t?) but the pay off is that you can handle the quilt like crazy. It’s worth it! (I use Superior brand “Vanish” or “Vanish Lite” water-soluble thread.)

This quilt is now about 99″ by 120″. It’s huge. But the bulk of the quilt sits supported by the table. Only the small area around the needle/presser foot needs to be flat- the dirty little secret of machine quilting with the home sewing machine. (I have a Bernina 155 for all of my machine quilting- I love my Bernina.)

Here are the borders, front and back, ready for quilting. As before, the bulk of the quilt sits on the table. The daisies are about 3″-4″ across, meaning that I just need that small area about 6″ in diameter around the needle to move around with the free motion quilting. Since each daisy is isolated with starts and stops, I am free to move and adjust the quilt top before starting the next daisy. It goes really fast- sort of- like most things, it takes longer than you think.

I’m so close to being finished….yet the final goal posts seem to move farther and farther away. It’s that trick of the mind, similar to the long drive to relatives for the holidays- the closer you get, the longer it seems to take to arrive.

Here is the monster quilt- in a heap, from the front and the back. Pretty!

Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 35,000 interviews from more than 70,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our broadcasts on our Listen page and on public radio.

This year, StoryCorps dedicated the annual “National Day of Listening” theme as “It’s Never Too Late to Support a Teacher”. This is the time to thank a teacher- give them a call, write a letter, or just publicly thank a teacher in conversation with your family, friends and colleagues.

I’d like to thank my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Williams. She gave me a great start with her classroom filled with imaginative play and academic activities. We learned to love books, learned to spell, earned books to take home (purchased with her own money of course), made broom handle ponies with mop manes, played house with small furniture (including a kid size toy iron and ironing board).

I’ve been lucky to have a number of inspiring teachers. I remember my second grade teacher, Mrs. Ford, for her jars of dead creatures and other science exhibits on her long counter at the back of the room. Mrs. Layne, in third grade, also combined motherly and scholarly curriculum in her supportive classroom environment. We thrived. Mrs. Birkenbuel, my sewing teacher in high school, held us to high standards while inspiring our creativity. (Okay, we did call her “Mrs. Birkenbitch behind her back. But I went back to thank her when I was about 25. She taught me everything I needed to know about sewing.) In college, a math teacher inspired me to love mathematics, a subject I’d come to loathe in high school.

Sadly, Mrs. Williams, the Kindergarten teacher that taught me a love of learning, died in 1972. In the newspaper article, it says that she retired in 1959, about 3 years after I’d been in her classroom. How amazing that she loved teaching every bit as much at the end of her career as she must have in the beginning. Her son died in 2008, but I think I might have found a grandson. If he’s Mrs. Williams grandson, I will be able to tell him how much his grandmother meant to me!

I’m ready to add the borders in the “quilt-as-you-go” method. I started with one of the vertical sides by trimming through all the layers, leaving about 1/4″ of batting beyond the edge of the fabric (shown contrasted against the back of the quilt).

“Un-sew” (rip out) the water-soluble thread. Peel back the quilt top fabric. (I used 505 Spray Baste product- it releases just fine.)

Sew the quilt top border to the quilt top, right sides together. Press seam open. Stitch seam in place with water-soluble thread (shown here).

Repeat with the back of the quilt. Sew the back border fabric to the back quilt top, right sides together (shown pinned here). Use a 1/2″ seam to offset all those seam allowances on top of each other. Press seam open and stitch seam in place with water-soluble thread.

Cut a piece of batting longer than the quilt top and wider than the border (by a couple of inches). Layer the batting over the quilt back border fabric, so the edge of the batting slightly overlaps the batting in the quilt top. Whipstitch the batting edges together nice and easy- no pulling or puckering. All this is easier to do than to read these sentences!

Smooth out the quilt top border over the batting. I hand basted with water-soluble thread- just enough to be able to handle the quilt and machine stitch parallel lines through all the layers with water-soluble thread. (I use Vanish Lite by Superior, because- it is superior.)

Now, some people “quilt by check”. This frees up more time to make quilt tops and keeps our talented long arm quilters in business. But I like to do my own machine quilting on my little Bernina 155. Even though I am tall and have a big lap, I could never quilt this monster in one piece as a finished quilt.

You might argue that all the pesky little steps is time consuming. Hey, any time you make a quilt it’s time consuming. There is usually some sort of trade off with time vs methods.

I love this method- now, only 3 more borders to go. and when I’m done, I’m really really done!

Georgia Bonsteel is credited with launching the original “quilt as you go” method about 30 years ago. She wrote about quilting a block a time, leaving an inch or so around the outside edge unquilted. With that inch, you could connect the top to the top, the batting to the batting, and the back to the back….but you had to go back and quilt those blank strips.

I fooled around with other (less tedious) ways to quilt as you sew- then I learned many others had too. Great minds think alike! Check out Quilters Newsletter, August/September 2009/No. 411 for my article with Crys Kyle of Bend, Oregon (Quilt-As-You-Sew Three ways).

But now, I’ve gone back to Georgia Bonsteel with a twist: I quilted 4 large panels (about 40″ by 48″), leaving a whopping 5″ swath unquilted. I used my stop & start single daisies (with triple petals, inspired by Elizabeth Hartman, ohfransson.com), with faith that I could go back and fill in that swath with more daisies.

I’m pleased to announce: it works!

Here are the raw edges of two quilted panels. Each panel has a different floral print (which will make a giant four-square patch on the back).

Step 1: Sew the “top to the top” right sides together. I peeled back the batting and backing fabric, placed RST, pinned and sewed the seam.

Now you can see the seam before pressing and after pressing. You’ll probably notice white thread stitched in straight lines- that’s Vanish Lite by Superior, a water-soluble thread. I stitched this seam (and all the others) open with Vanish- worth the 2 extra minutes, I tell you!

In this series, you can see going from connecting the batting from each panel to marking, trimming and folding the edges of the two backing fabrics. I will blindstitch the edge…fill in the daisies and go on to the borders.

It’s been a busy Fall Season here in beautiful but cold Central Oregon. The new additions to the family (aka “The Monsters”) are cute when asleep. In the tent, Izzy, the sweet little girl, is on the left, and Cooper, the all boy cat, is on the right. Although they get bigger everyday, they still love to be stuffed inside a vest or a jacket (Cooper-left, Izzy-right) to sleep.

A new book from C&T Publishing has hit the shops- “Modern Blocks, 99 Blocks From Your Favorite Designers”. I’d recommend it even if my original triangle block was not included…but it is, on page 18. The blocks are fun, fresh, original or modern adaptations of blocks in the public domain. Check out the Modern Quilt Guild online (themodernquiltguild.com), or check out Elizabeth Hartman’s blog (www.ohfransson.com), or look for a “modern quilt guild” group in your area. Yes, I love modern blocks.

If you are near or driving through Medford, Oregon, stop at the Rogue Gallery & Art Center (40 South Bartlett, downtown)  to see their wonderful Holiday Boutique selection. While there, browse the last of my Limited Edition 2011 Skinny Scarfs- once they’re gone, they are gone-baby-gone.

Happy Birthday to my favorite people, Bob and April!

While I criss-crossed Oregon and enjoyed “urban” things in Portland, my quilt “Daisy Doodle” went to Tacoma as a juried quilt in the Pacific West Quilt Show (apwq.org). So close but so far- I just couldn’t cross the river to Tacoma that weekend- but a friend took this photograph for me.

Meanwhile, I’m about to ship this quilt, “Happy Magic” to my favorite quilt show, Pacific International Quilt Festival, in Santa Clara. Get there if you can: October 13-16.

When our group exhibit “Color Cascade” was invited to be on display at Alex Anderson’s “Quilting in the Garden” annual event at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore, California, Pat Pease took on the challenge to get it there. Another venue where this group of quilts intrigued and captured the imagination of quilters and non-quilters alike.

They are a handful! I mean the two new kittens in our household: Cooper (held by Luke) and Izzy (held by Colleen). Luke and Colleen visited in September for almost a week- lots of cooking and eating and doing “rural” things.

Blame it on David! He stopped by the Humane Society of Central Oregon on the way home and fell in love with these two kittens. He had to sit in front of their cage until I got there so we could agree and adopt. Cooper loves playing in front of the mirror and both love snuggling and sleeping. Oh, and turning our house upside down while they are awake!

What’s Next? It’s a big Six-Oh (my!) Birthday in ten days. Hopefully I’ll be doing some sewing. And getting good news. I love good news.