A Stitch in Time

From left, Linda Hahn, teacher extraordinaire, and Dana Jones with Linda's "Castleton Corner" quilt full size and in a mini version that can be made from scraps from the full size quilt. No waste here. Photo by Janet Messanelli Bozzone.

Stitching heaven is the best way I can describe today. Linda Hahn's "Castleton Corner" class was the perfect mix of a learning new techniques while creating a charming quilt. You'll have to take a class with Linda to learn her "stomach" approach to foundation piecing. It works, and you'll be richer as a quilter for getting this idea in your toolbox. For those of you who know my usual snail's pace in class, I'm happy to say I kept up today even as I enjoyed Linda' unique, slightly raucous sense of human and storytelling.

I found I was happy with my fabric choices, which are subtle but working because of the value contrasts. This afternoon, Linda did a mini trunk show through which I learned our versatile this block is. You'll find examples on her website and in any of her many books.

Her company is Frog Hollow Designs. Her quilts that incorporate her brand — frogs, lily pads and such — were cute and her many spins on this block inspiring as they provided ideas for going further with it.

My New York Beauty block from class.

It's so interesting to see how different the same block can look when you change up the fabric. My friend Janet Messanelli Bozzone chose a lady bug fabric (see below) as her focus fabric then built her color palette around that fabric. So while my color palette is limited to blues, mauves/purples and white — a rather calm and narrow range — Janet's palette is teaming with energy. Others in the class had a variety of approaches making each block beautiful in its own way.

Block by Janet Messanelli Bozzone, White Plains, NY

Check out the lady bugs on Janet's focus fabric, which will appear in other parts of her quilt.

Before I Sleep

Half-done binding on "Out on a Limb" designed and pieced by Dana Jones and quilted by Rita Meyerhoff.

Finding the right fabric to bind "Out on a Limb" proved challenging. When I finally settled on one of Moda's Grunge fabrics, I was surprised. It is often the last place you look that proves the best choice. In this case, the touch of blue throughout the otherwise dark brown fabric complements the blues and browns of the design. A bit of fussy cutting ensured there was enough of the blue showing. I've not used Grunge much but am learning why so many quilters keep multiple cuts of this fabric line in a range of colors in their stashes. Now to finish binding this quilt tonight.

Detail of the binding on "Out on a Limb."

Yet Another Winning Quilt

From Houston Show

"Soul of the Southwest" by Debbie Corbett with Mike Corbett

"Soul of the Southwest" by Debbie Corbett with Mike Corbett won the top award for Machine Artistry sponsored by Gammill. The makers said of this quilt: "Our love of Native American artwork inspired us to recreate an authentic serape quilt. The process began with selecting the correct quilt pattern, fabric colors, quilting designs and thread colors. The quilt consists of 2,426 one-inch pieces, 12 thread colors, and over one million quilting stitches. The 28 custom quilting designs were created from traditional vintage pottery artwork from the Acoma, Zuni, Hopi and Navajo (Dine) People."

Lady Bug, Lady Bug ...

Janet Messanelli Bozzone's fabric choices for tomorrow's class.

I begin teaching here in Houston Tuesday but first I'm taking a class taught by Linda Hahn to make her "Castleton Corner" quilt. My friend Janet Messanelli Bozzone from New York selected this class for the two of us to take together. You saw my fabric picks a few days ago. Here are Janet's. Check out the charming lady bugs. It will be fun to see how much our quilts look the same and how much they look different.

Janet enjoying dinner at Ninfa's on Navigation.

This will a short blog tonight. I'm tired after a day of catching up on email and binding a small quilt that's a class sample I use in my "Demystifying Design for Foundation Piecing" class before heading to the Houston airport to pick up Janet. We enjoyed dinner at Ninfa's on Navigation, a restaurant that figures in my lecture on the International Honor Quilt, a lecture I'll give later this week. I'll tell you more about Ninfa then. She was an amazing woman. Her legacy lives on with some of her original recipes and variations on them featured on the restaurant's menu.

Another Winning Quilt

"Blue Basket" by Roberta Lagomarsini

Roberta Lagomarsino's "Blue Basket" won the top Contemporary Artistry Award, sponsored by eQuilter of Boulder, Colorado. (Go Luana Rubin!) Roberta's original design was inspired by baskets in the book Scrape the Willow Until It Sings by Deborah Valoma. A description of the quilt says: "Inspired by California and Nevada Piute Tribes' winnowing baskets, this is a deconstructed version to allow viewing of the weaving. The vibrant colors show the beauty of the rituals involved in creating the baskets, and a hand-painted background fabric suggests the seeds, leaves and other debris that falls through the basket. Quilting is in the basketweave pattern."

Best of Show is Foundation Paper Pieced! Yes!

"Beyond Reason" by Angela Petrocelli is Best of Show at this year's International Quilt Festival in Houston.

Wow! Wow! Wow! There's really little else to say about Angela Petrocelli's Best of Show, show-stopper entry into this year's International Quilt Festival show.

Detail of "Beyond Reason"

Each one-inch square of this amazing quilt is foundation pieced with many tiny pieces that total 226,576 for the whole quilt. Angela Petrocelli says of the quilt: "Some accomplishments are beyond reason. This quilt is the embodiment of a dream ... not of a finished product but the journey and completion of a process. I believed I could, I thought I should, I said I would, and I did."

Did I say, it's foundation paper pieced? Once again, WOW!!

BTW: I only had my phone today for photos. I'll try to get a better close up with my "real" camera to share with you.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

I wandered the floor of International Quilt Market today having interesting conversations with some of the sellers. I'll share a few of those but for the most part, the joy of Market is in the colors and textures and images. I hope you will be as inspired as I was.

Down under colors and patterns from M&S Textiles of Australia

Friend and amazing quilter and tool developer Debbie Wendt took a minute to wave a quick hello. We had just a moment to connect as her booth was busy throughout the day. Debbie's best-selling products include her Hex-a-ma-jig and Brilliant Bindings rulers, patterns, kits, and long-arm project books. Check out her website.

While on the Wendt Quilting site, take time to learn more about Debbie. She has a fascinating story. BTW: She's a great speaker and teacher. Let your guild know.

Debbie Wendt staffing her Market booth.

Kristen Balouch is founder and CEO of Little House Cottons, a new organic fabric company, an endeavor she launched with experience as a fabric designer for Birch Fabrics, also an organic company.

Kristen Balouch has combined her talents as fabric designer and author of children's books in her start-up Little House Cottons organic fabric company. She's launching with reasonable prices to encourage quilters to go organic, an especially great idea when they're quilting and sewing clothes and toys for their grandchildren. The fabric designs parallel the book illustrations. They are stunning. You'll want copies of her books too.

Ask you local quilt shop to get Kristen's fabrics. You will love the hand, which is soft and smooth and oh so touchable.

While we're talking organic, I was interested to discover Scanfil organic thread. I'm eager to try the sample 30 and 50 weight threads they gave me. The thread is made from pima cotton and is GOTS certified. I hope my sewing machine loves them.

Talking thread, I enjoyed meeting Nancy at the YLI booth. She recommended I try their Select thread, a 40 weight, 2-ply thread designed for hand stitching. Select is thinner than YLI's Hand Quilting thread but shares its characteristics of smoothness, no knotting or tangling, and ease of pulling through fabric. Nancy suggested I try it for my next binding. I'll be doing that. I love YLI's Hand Quilting thread for English Paper Piecing. Nancy said I may like the Select even better. We'll see.

Quilt shop owners and fabric company reps work hard at Market. This is where many decisions are made in terms of what your local quilt shop will carry. Above, shop owners meet with folks from In the Beginning Fabrics.

A Promise: I'll share more images for International Quilt Market in the next few days.

Check Out What Bonita Accomplished

Bonita Nance really wanted to take my "Demystifying Design for Foundation Piecing" class. So much so, she recruited friends to sign up so I'd schedule a session just for them. Wifi issues meant I had to reschedule the second three hours but never fear. Bonita and friends rolled with the punches, and we finished up the class a few weeks later than originally planned.

Bonita designed and pieced an amazing block. Like so many busy women, she doubled up on assignments. After showing her block to our class, she donated to a community quilting project serving others. She's marked the block that's her original design in the photo at the right. Check it out.

Bonita, seeing this makes this quilt teacher so happy. Thanks for sharing!

What in the World Was I Thinking?

High school classmate Jim Purdy snapped this shot of me thinking about something while my class and the class a year behind mine toured our high school during our recent reunions. The building is at least twice the size it was when we were students. There are more than a half dozen gyms; we had one. There's a brand new swimming pool, the second for the school, both being constructed after we graduated.

I just may have been thinking what a difference Title IX has made for girls who want to be athletes. There just may be a quilt design in those thoughts. Time will tell.