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The Flip Side of Sewing

Ever wonder what it looks like around people that wear more than one hat?  Here’s my desk today.  It’s a paperwork kind of day.

Paperwork and writing…writing letters and making lists and menus and blog content and…. you get my drift.

I don’t mind it so much.  In fact, I like it.  And I’m liking it more and more the longer I blog.  You see, I’ve always wanted to write a blog.  And even more than that…I’ve always wanted to write a book.  Crazy, huh?  Maybe so, but why not?!  Lol…as if I didn’t already have more hats to wear than the average bear.  This crazy idea of writing a book started when I was in high-school and the theme always stemmed around my love of the old west.  Now, quilts are a big part of that theme…and mining…Colorado’s old west has a huge amount of mining history and I basically live in the middle of this amazing history that was lived by real, everyday people.

Let’s talk about my hats, cause I’ve got several, and not everyone knows about them all. 

I wear the hat of: A Judy Niemeyer Certified Instruction in-training.  This has been an on-going endeavor and truly what has inspired me to sit down and begin my blog in a serious manner.  I’m enjoying this aspect of growing my social media presence very much as I also begin to fulfill a dream that I’ve had for more than 45 years.

I wear the hat of: A quilting instructor.  This goes hand in hand with the previous hat.  But I enjoy teaching at many, many different levels.  I studied to be a music teacher and much to my parents’ chagrin, did not quite finish. But! My love of teaching has stayed with me through home-schooling our children; teaching 4-H students about quilting; holding an adult quilting class for 3+ years which met once a week; and now I’m teaching Quiltworx patterns as I work towards my certification.  It’s also a long standing and well established hat on my head.

I wear the hat of: A professional long arm quilter.  A skill that I have been honing for the past 8 years and will continue to do.

I wear the hat of:  Quilt restoration and repair professional.  This is a skill that I’ve been growing since I was a little girl and owe a debt of gratitude to my great-grandmother who first introduce me to needle and thread. It was a crochet hook and yarn, but from there I progressed over the last 50+ years to the skills I have today.   I spoke at length with another restoration professional several years back about how to find a way to gain some sort of certification for this skill set, and she graciously giggled and said there is none.  The best who do this have spent their lifetime acquiring their skills and there aren’t any programs to equal their knowledge.  We’re all self-taught.  Now that’s food for thought!

I wear the hat of: Director of the Great Escape Quilt Camp, which today looked like a big messy desk as I wrote letters, compared notes from my last off-site retreat, made lists and began to plan menus.  This hat is relatively new…maybe 6-7 years old or so.  But it is something I absolutely and completely love to do.  You see…I firmly believe that everyone has several gifts—or skills—they are innately good at without a lot of effort.  It’s something they just do naturally.  And without trying to toot my own horn too loudly…I’m pretty good at organizing events and being the hostess with the most-ess.  And when I combine quilting and teaching and hosting all under the same hat…or rather all on the same head…well, life just sings away and I’m a pretty happy camper.

Other hats that I wear are the hats of: Being a wife…Being a mother…Being a daughter and sister…Being a home-maker…Being a farmer’s wife….and the list continues on and on.

But suffice it to say, I like my hats.  I’m going to keep wearing them. I think I’ve finally found the right combination and don’t really need to add too many more.  There will be some that come naturally from others, but they’ll get here when the time is right.

Now…where was that Director’s hat again…. it’s here somewhere!

Until next time, may your bobbin never be empty.

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What a Great Week!

It’s been busy at my home studio/classroom.  This week I started Operation UFO at my home studio/classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It’s an open sew type gathering where quilters come for a day of sewing and bring their UFO’s (un-finished objects) of any type and have access to a teacher (that would be me); for as little or as much help as they need to get themselves going again on projects put aside for an indeterminate amount of time.  There is a nominal fee, but I’ve been told it’s more than worth the cost.  It hasn’t taken long for word to get out and interest to begin to grow.  So, if you are local to me, send me a private message and I’ll be more than happy to send you more information.  I’m thinking this will become a sought-after activity before too much longer.  Yay!

Here is Cindy, working away and totally comfy. She even brought her sewing slippers! I love it!!
Cindy is working on Hanging Gardens by Georgette Dell’Orco. It’s a great little pattern, being made with a sweet line of fabrics. We both wish we knew the name of the collection, but it IS a UFO. But we’re enjoying it all the same.
Jean is working on another quarter of her Prairie Star by Judy Niemeyer. She’s got a few stitches to release before moving on to the next step.
Here’s the first quarter of her Prairie Star all sewn together after the Judy Clubb on Sunday. She’s about to lay out two more quarters, using this as her guide for placement.

They were lovely days with lots of progress made along with lots of stories and visiting.

Another terrific day brought another small group of dear ladies, and I became the student!  Of course, quilting was a topic that threaded its way though most every bit of conversation, along with copious amounts of laughter.  But the main topic of the day was……how to make truffles.  Yes!  Those decadent, mouthwatering, melt in your mouth, wonderfully chocolatey wonders that only the best candy shops offer.  I can only say to those reading this blog…future retreats I hold might just be the time that I pull out the stops and introduce these amazing treasures to attendees.  Just sayin’…

This is step two—rolling the flavored truffle center into balls which will need to chill for 24 hours before they can be dipped and decorated to complete step 3. I think the funniest of comments is about to be made….
And here is the laughing, snorting and tears of too much fun! Oh my…we had such a good time. I love these ladies!!

These yummies are made with dark chocolate and flavored with caramel.  But I have it on good authority they can be flavored with jams and liqueurs of choice.  The combinations are endless…dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate— raspberry, boysenberry, orange, strawberry jams—coconut, rum, bourbon, crème de menthe and other spirits—oh…just imagine the possibilities!

No…I’m not a lush. LOL!! But these ARE the perfect size for flavoring truffles.
Oh! And who doesn’t love these??? I personally know each of these are wonderful….mmmmmm my mouth is already watering.

So, while I’ve not been as active on the blog as I’d like, it’s been an action-packed week with lots of content that I’m eager to share with you.  

Stay tuned, because there’s lots more to share.

Until next time, may your bobbins never be empty

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Becoming a Quiltworx Certified Instructor

Sitting at my desk this morning, I pondered what to blog about today…and it struck me the while I’ve been showing pictures about my work, and that of my students, I’ve not expanded much upon how I came to this adventure and the tasks this journey requires. Making samples of patterns for my portfolio is just the tip of the iceberg. A beautiful one to be sure, but there is so much more to the whole endeavor. Come along with me while I share a bit more of the journey.

Let me start by telling you how I came to love the patterns that Judy Niemeyer designs. The first time I ever saw a Judy pattern was in 2005. I was at The Great American Quilt Factory (which is sadly no longer open) just poking around and checking out the store. They had a red version of this on display and no joke, I stood there staring at it for 15 minutes! I was spell bound. And I HAD to have the pattern. I bought it with the thought that s-o-m-e-d-a-y I would be good enough to make this. I had never seen anything like it, and I knew nothing about Judy’s method of paper piecing. I had taught paper piecing before, but nothing to this degree. I went home and dreamt of this pattern many times for a number of years.

Here it is…the one that started it all. The store sample was of the red color way. Red just happens to be my favorite color, so of course it caught my eye. It was a love at first sight that still captures my heart. 2021 will be the year that I bring it to life. A 16 year love affair is long enough to wait.

Fast forward to 2015 when I was perusing the pages of the April edition of American Patchwork & Quilting and lo and behold…there was the Paddle Wheel. Another Judy pattern! I said to myself, “If it’s in the magazine, it must surely be easy enough for anyone to make! I’m going to give it a try.” I did, and following all the directions, and the pictures (which are always worth a thousand words), I gave it a go. And I was hooked.

Here is my Paddlewheel, fresh off the long arm from a few years back. Isn’t it silly that I’ve still not taken a picture of the finished one with the binding on it?? I used colors that reminded me of the ocean along the Australian west coast when my husband and I vacationed there for our 25th wedding anniversary. Both my paper piecing and my long arm quilting have improved greatly since then.

I decided to check out their website Quiltworx where I learned about Certified Instructors and retreats in Montana with Judy Niemeyer herself. I was intrigued by what I was reading and the idea began to percolate on my back burners. Over the next few years I made a number of different patterns and really found my groove. I finally found what I wanted to be when I grew up! (You can click on the underlined word and the link will take you to their website.)

In 2018 I bit the bullet and decided to attend my first retreat in Montana to venture into the world of becoming a Certified Instructor. It’s challenging to be sure, and it should be. To date, at my last count I’ve complete about 25 different patterns with an undisclosed number currently still in progress, lol. (Not everyone needs to know the extent of my fetish, heh heh heh.) There are some that I’m very happy with, and some that make my buttons pop. Here are a couple pictures of one of those.

This is my Vintage Compass, made from my stash of Asian fabrics. It’s the second pattern I attempted and attended a class with a certified instructor. My goal was simply to learn the techniques of the pattern. I had low expectations of how it would turn out due to the fabrics as I’d never seen an example made with non-batik fabrics. Imagine my amazement when I saw the finished product.
And here is the back. Don’t mind the wonkiness of the picture…IT is straight, quilt hanger (me) had a wonky time of it. This is also my long arm work using Quiltworx digitized patterns. I’m super proud of this one. I won my first ribbon at a quilt show with this one. Red is a good color, (it IS my favorite after all). Hoping for a blue and maybe even a purple some day.

So along with making quilts and learning patterns, there are a number of things that a CI-in training must do to reach certification. Things like teaching and getting in front of groups for trunk shows and demonstrations; learning about and introducing others to Quiltster and it’s amazing capabilities to literally color a quilt to see what your ideas for color and placement actually look like BEFORE you buy one inch of fabric! It even gives you the yardage requirements for each color in the quilt, as well as how to sub-cut it for the proper size needed in each component where it’s used. I’m telling ya it is genius! Go check it out at Quiltster You’ll be so impressed! Here’s a few pics to show what you can do.

This pattern is Clockworks. You start out with a black and white version.
Next…you begin to color by selecting different fabrics.
Then, you can make slight changes, or big ones, to arrive at a version you like best. For this quilt I chose to make my first rendition. The white of the sashing in this version was just too much. I felt the darker sashing of the first attempt was more cohesive and allowed the colors of the New York Beauty circles to shine more. Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Other things include developing an on-line presence. While there are many, many ways in which to do this, I’m starting with this blog. I’ve wanted to do this for a while, and have tried my hand at it a couple times, but never really got in a groove. They say to really do well and find inspiration you should write about what you know. And that’s how I got this little blog going again. 5 days in and I’m loving it. They say it takes 21 days to create a habit, but I think for this…it’s already stuck. I’m craving my blogging time.

There are more things on the “To-Do” list of the CI-in training, which I’m sure I’ll be sharing about as time goes on. But I wanted to touch on the highlights that are happening for me right now. Covid has thrown more than just a monkey wrench into the mix on trying to accomplish some of these things, so being creative about how to keep going forward is an important part of this whole adventure as well. I’ve always been a firm believer that it’s better (not easier, just better) to start with the hardest part of anything you want/need to do. After that, everything gets easier. But if the hardest part can whoop you, it’s worth finding that out sooner rather than later. This hard part–the Covid hard part–has jumped into the middle of my equation setting me to dig in and really work through it. IT will not be the deterrent it could have been if I were just beginning this journey.

It’s a big thing when you figure out what you’re meant to do in life. I’m not about to let a pandemic get in the way. Detours and alternate routes are definitely in order!

So hang on Vera! We’re gonna blast our way through this and get to the other side squealing and laughing the whole way through. Quilting really IS my life!

Until next time, may your bobbin never be empty!

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Another Fun Day at MY Office

What a fun day I had today. Just as much fun as I had yesterday. I love working with my students to help them create the living version of what they envision in their minds eye.

Today I helped another student layout her blocks for the quilt she’s making as a gift. Kenda is also working on a wedding ring pattern by Quiltworx, titled “Flowers for My Wedding Ring”. She selected the “Taffy” strip set byTimeless Treasures to create her arcs, and this is how they turned out.

Here is Kenda with the first rendition for setting her arcs. It’s looking really good so far!

There are several things to consider when setting the arcs for this pattern. Things like color placement and sequence across the quilt, corner stone placement for where the arcs connect to the next block…not to mention number of completed circles that go across and then down the piece to complete the layout of the body of the quilt.

Here’s the finished version of how Kenda set her blocks. She decided to add another column in order to have 5 circles, or rings across and 5 down. Now to sew them all together.

Once all this is sewn together, it will create the center of the quilt. After this comes a “Flying Geese” border, followed by a large outer border where she will place appliqué flowers. Every step of the way, her work becomes more and more of what she envisions of the end product.

We also spent a little time working on the turned edge method of appliqué that she will use for the flowers, leaves and stems needed to finish this beauty. I couldn’t be more proud of her progress!

Like everything in our lives these past several months, it’s been a struggle to find a way to continue moving forward. I’m so pleased that between us, Kenda and I have found a way to stay connected and continue making progress on her project. It’s been a struggle at times, but completely worth the effort. It’s definitely no small thing to be able to have a face to face class like we did today.

If you would have told me a year ago that some of the most important tools in my teaching arsenal would be my phone, iPad and laptop, I would have humored you and given a nonchalant nod. Now…they are vital tools.

Today, I use text messages and pictures to pinpoint a question area for a student. Phone calls and coaching happens several times through a project. And for those who either live too far away, or just plain feel more comfortable at home, services like Zoom and Google Meet have become necessary and common place to stay in touch and in front of each other. This is a skill set that I never expected to acquire. But in all honesty, it’s a good one to have and be comfortable with. I’m not really a “techie”, but Praise Be that I’m married to one who knows how to interpret my questions and help me fulfill the needs of both my students and myself. I’m grateful and appreciative these avenues are available for the everyday person to utilize in order to do the things we love.

Someone once said that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.

I whole heartedly agree with this sentiment. And these past two days have been evidence of that…because I call this playtime…..at MY office!!

Until next time…may your bobbin never be empty!