Recent Finishes, 2012-2013 Retreats

Cat ISpy Quilt. Someone asked how many different cat fabrics are in this quilt. I have no freaking idea! But it's more than 100! There are 500 individual hexagons in this quilt and all are bordered with triangles with little muddy cat paw prints. I ran out of this great print when I did the last few rows that made it long enough. I plan to border it in a black print and paint more bigger muddy cat prints on the borders. If I take it to the next retreat I will easily get it done. It's such a huge quilt that need the table space available at retreats to do it. Can't do it at home, not enough space.

Japanese Circles This was a hand applique quilt. I'm not sure if it's finished. I would have to find the exact right fabric for it if I were to add a border. Not sure it needs it. I am taking opinions!

Haunted Log Cabin Another in my long line of Halloween quilts in my effort to declutter my stash of Halloween fabrics. I am almost there!

Mended Purple Hearts One of the designs from Quiltlynx Designs. I got this quilt finished and set it in shop in order to sell some of the patterns. People started noticing it and wanting a class in this technique. So now we have an on-going Block of the Month class where they make the heart block the first month and then each month after that they machine quilt two or three of the hearts using a different free-motion fill in stitch from Leah Day's Free-motion project blog.

Embroidered Halloween Quilt I found this cute little quilt in a magazine and needed to do it at once. It also used some of the Halloween fabric stash, but the fun part was the hand embroidery using Pearl Cotton number 8. Hadn't done that in ages!

Batik Lady of the Lake Another quilt I've been wanting to do for a long time. This uses those watery colored batiks to perfection. So much fun to make. I now wish I had made it even bigger. I need to add borders to make it into a full sized bed quilt.

Mended Heart of Sandyhook At a gathering of some quilting friends recently we all commented on how deeply we were struck by the tragedy at Sandyhook Elementary. We decided to make this quilt for them. They are going to be using it as a fundraiser for their school.

Zentangle Families "150 Sister" is a tribute to my friend Karen who died of Ovarian Cancer. When she told the nurse who was allowed to come see her in the hospital she told her to just let everyone through because she had 150 Sisters. She meant the 150 members of our Quilt quild! Zentangle Families is another Quiltlynx design available at Interquilten. (See my links at right)

Tangle BOM Last and probably least, is this Thangle Block of the Month. This was the first BOM that we did at the shop. We have learned a little more about it now! I liked this color option so I added some colors of my own to make it more mine. But I got it done! That's the important part.

I will post again as soon as I am able to get pictures taken of what I did in February.--Cindy

Copyrights: Attitude is everything!

I've been doing some thinking about the issue of copyrighted material.

I ran across this article on a Blog that I frequent and it expresses my own opinion on this topic.

I've run across the issue of someone "stealing" one of the techniques that I teach and selling the results, and I have always thought that it was a good thing. I was happy that someone took an idea of mine (that I may or may not have gotten from another source) and made it there own enough to sell it and make some money for themselves off of it.

There is a woman in town who was giving tatting classes. I originally taught this woman how to tat when I was working at Erickson's in the last century. She apologized to me for teaching Tatting as if it were taking away from something I was doing. I had moved on so I didn't mind, but even if there had been strong feelings involved, I would have to ask myself, what right would I have to corner the market on tatting lessons? I didn't invent tatting and nothing really innovative has happened with tatting in the last 100 years. It was practically a lost art, so if she was able to master the technique through practice and became proficient enough that she could teach it to others then maybe this art will not totally be lost. I say teach it to as many people as are interested and keep encouraging them to teach it to others as well so that maybe in time there will be some more innovations and the younger generation will find the joys of tatting and keep teaching to more of the generations to come. Once the last person who knows something dies they take that knowledge with them to the grave and then it will take hundreds of years to get it back through the normal progression of experimentation, practice and innovation.

The world of quilting is different from other forms of creative expression in that quilters are natural sharers and nurturers. That is the trait that got us in trouble in the first place and led to debacles like the Schlep bag controversy where we all grabbed a hold of a fairly easy technique and didn't bother to go buy the pattern. It has now passed from quilter to quilter so many times that most of us don't even know that it was a printed pattern to begin with let alone who the original designer was.

This is the worst case scenario on the topic of copyright, and yes, it is wrong. This is why the board of Rumpled Quilts-Kin quilting guild has deemed it necessary to stress the importance of not copying patterns for our friends.

But this does not apply to things that are taught. It states in the article that if you teach a technique that you have innovated, you then must accept that your students are going to use that knowledge to their own benefit if they can. You have no right to claim benefits from what your students do with that knowledge. I designed a bag that I call the "Wild Log Cabin bag" and eventually I will have the pattern ready to sell. I've given it to my students in the free-mo classes that I've taught and it's come back to me several times that my students have made these bags and started selling them at local bazaars and craft shows. That's great! Maybe someone who buys one of their bags for $30 will eventually see the pattern on sale for $8.00 and buy it so they can make their own. Or it could end up being another Schlep bag, because it's so easy that you don't really need a pattern for it, and that would be good too because it would give me bragging rights. Eventually I could go anywhere in the country and say, "You know that Crazy Log Cabin bag? I designed that." It would add to my expertise. I'm not going to get stuck on that one item and keep fighting with the idea that I need to be compensated from every person who ever made one. Life is too short. I give my skills to the Universe and the Universe blesses me with more new ideas.

This attitude of sharing ideas and innovations is the whole reason that quilting has had such a resurgence in the past 40 years. I have always maintained that quilters are the best people on the planet because we know the secret to life. To learn and create as much as we can and to share what we know with other like minded people so they can also learn and create and in this way we love each other with our creativity. This is what makes us happy and full of life. This is what makes us quilters.

I applaud Leah Day and her wisdom, her ideas, and her creativity. I applaud that she has the strength of purpose and the giving nature that allows her to give her creativity so freely. She too has been triply blessed by the Universe (read deity if you must) because she has even more to share as she grows in her craft.

Keep in mind that the copyright laws were written to protect the publishing industry, not to curtail creativity. Most quilt designers know this and truly wish to share their techniques with others. As a quilter I say, give the designers their due. As a designer I say, go forth and create!

See Leah’s post on this subject at:
http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-free-works.

Cindy Koch-Krol
Quilting Teacher at Interquilten
Quilt designer
Artist and Author

Decluttering the Stash (Part 3): Special collections!

If you are like me, you have several of these special collections of fabric. Orientals, Civil War or Depression Era Reproductions, Christmas, Halloween, I spy's, hearts, Metallic, Cats, etc. All of these are considered special collections, especially if you have them in a separate area of your stash. Some people might consider Batik's a special collection. I don't because, well just because and I don't want to discuss it, OK? I love Batiks and I'm not getting rid of any of them. I've been collecting them for more than 10 years now and someday I will have ONLY batiks in my stash because I love them so much. Their colors and designs are simply luscious and I'm never going to get rid of them. So, just, get off my case, OK?

If you feel this way about one of your collections then by all means, keep it. It probably means that that's how you see color, design and yourself as a quilter. I know someone who is so into Halloween that she has a stash of Halloween fabrics to rival none other. She would never get rid of them in a million years. But for me, it was just more clutter.

I recently tried to make quilts to get rid of all my Halloween stash. I kept cutting and piecing and then found a way to make smaller and smaller pieces go further and further. I now have a Haunted house quilt, a haunted attic window quilt, a haunted log cabin quilt, a witches hat quilt, several Halloween wall hangings, and I still haven't gotten rid of all of it. I think the rest is going to pieced into backs. Same thing happened a few years ago with my Christmas stash. I wanted to make one Christmas quilt and when that was finished I realized I had enough fabric to make about six more full sized Christmas Quilts. so I set about doing exactly that. I did the same for my Depression Era Reproductions, and ended up giving the rest of them away to my dear friend and co-worker Sues Simpson for Christmas last year. The Civil War prints went to another friend, Sharyn Woerz who edited my first novel. I just stacked them all in a box, and mailed them to her. Feels good to give something to someone who wants it when you don't. It's freeing. Try it and see.

Again, as you go through these special collections try to remember why you bought the stuff in the first place. Do you have all these Civil War prints because you wanted to make an Underground Railroad quilt or Dear Jane? Did you finish the quilt you wanted to make with them? If so then maybe it's time to get rid of the leftovers. If not then maybe you need to put them in a box or package marked, "save for Dear Jane". This might give you the incentive needed to pick up that project again, knowing that once it's done you can then get rid of those fabrics. Did you buy every bug fabric you could lay hands on because you wanted to make a bug jar quilt? Did you make it? Is it done? Then pass those bug prints on you someone else who hasn't made one yet. Give them the pattern you used to, kill two birds!

One of the things I did to get my stash down was to find these collections and the patterns I still wanted to do with them. I did all the cutting for the project I wanted to do and then put all the pieces into a 2 gallon Ziploc bag with the pattern. These are called kits! You can store these in a box or old suitcase. I put them in my suitcase and then take them with me to quilting retreats. If all the pieces are cut then you know that all you have to do is start sewing them and retreats are perfect for this because you're being entertained by gabbing with friends.

Oh and BTW, there is no such thing as the phenom entitled: "Fabric too Pretty to be Cut."

If you think there is and have pieces of this in your stash then here is what I want you to do before you do anything else:

1. Go get it out of your stash and see how much is there. If it's more than a yard then cut off a one yard piece of it.
2. Take this yard and cut it into two half yard pieces. If it is less than a yard than cut in half. If you have 27 inches cut it into two 13 1/2 inch pieces, etc.
3. Go to your stash and find fabrics that go with this fabric. Use it as a focus and pull other fabrics out of your stash that go with it. You will need more than 5 of these and less than twenty.
4. Go to your block library or to this website http://www.quilterscache.com/QuiltBlocksGalore.html and find one or more blocks that you like or just make a quantity of blocks that you like to make. Make enough of them so that you have at least three rows of blocks that are about 40-42 inches long.
5. Put one strip of the blocks between the two nice pieces of fabric and one on either side of them.

6. Now just border it out until it's the size you want. Voila! Instead of beautiful fabric that is getting no use in your stash, you now have a beautiful quilt that you can use as a throw or a bed quilt. Because it's more important to have a beautiful quilt than beautiful fabric! Right?

OK, so go have a look at your stash again, and declutter those special collections and those special fabrics. You won't be sorry you did!

Decluttering the Stash (Part 2)

If you are following this Blog, you now have a box of fabric that is old and/or ugly and you have probably been berating yourself for spending money on it. So what do you do with it?

Get rid of it. If you are like me, you can't just throw it in the trash, but hopefully, you threw some of it in the trash already, the little bits that were cut into and ragged with frayed edges or the ones that had big seams going right down the center. As quilters we would buy those bits if they gave us a discount on them because we knew we were going to cut tiny pieces out of them anyway--had we ever used them at all. Well, so What now? If we can't just throw them in the trash what?

How about taking them to guild and offering them to other quilters who will pick through them and take the bits they like. This is good for fabric that is not Quilt Shop Quality (QSQ) fabric. If it is QSQ then you might offer it for sale to people at a substantial discount and make back some of the cash you spent on it. Or you can donate it to any number of groups that make quilts for charity. I can't stress more highly the idea of getting rid of fabric that isn't going to get used in your stash.

OK, now that your rid of the old/ugly fabric, presumably all you have left in your stash is good, new, beautiful, useful fabric. It is now that you have to ask yourself an important question. Is there still too much of it? Yes, no? Maybe? Count a maybe answer as a yes. If the answer is yes, than more sorting is required.

Your first purge should have let you see how much fabric from any given piece you are in the habit of using. I used to always buy a half yard of anything that I liked. I bought a yard if I really liked it and thought it would be nice to use as a major part of a quilt such as the background, or sashing, or as a major theme of a quilt. For the most part though I have found that I usually use less than a 10 inch square of any given fabric. There are exceptions to this rule for sure. But for the most part, if I don't have a particular use in mind for a fabric, I have to assume I will only use a 10 inch square or less. So what does this mean? It means, dear reader, that I only need to keep a 10 inch square of whatever fabrics I have. Not the full yardages that I seem to acquire. Again, there are exceptions to these rules, so as you go through your stash a second time, use your judgement. Did you buy 2 yards of this bright purple because you had it in mind for a project? Are you still going to do that project or have you lost interest in it? Could you get by cutting off a half yard of it to keep and getting rid of the other 1 1/2 yards? If so then do so.

You have a half yard of fabric and a 4 inch square was cut from one side of it. How about cutting it along the fold and selling the other as a fat quarter on E-bay or at guild. I took a bunch of fat quarters that I had cut this way to my guild's retreat and ended up making more than the cost of the retreat.

You're new assignment is to go through your stash again and downsize it by cutting off saleable parts of it and then keeping what is left over for yourself. The idea is to only keep what you will use, and only the amount that you are apt to use in the future. You should be able to reduce your stash by half this way.

Once you have done this, come back and I will give you the next installment in how to declutter your stash.

Decluttering the Stash--A how to moment

How many of you have uttered these phrases?

"I have so much fabric at home, I can't buy any more fabric!"

"I need to finish some of the stuff I have at home, so I can go out and buy more."

"I just inherited a huge stash from my (whoever) and I just don't know what to do with it all."

Don't tell me you've never said at least one of these phrases, I've heard you. I work at Interquilten and these are the three things I hear most often and usually it's an excuse not to buy any more fabric from our shop.

So let me tell you something about the fabric industry once and for all.

Number one, no matter how much you love the fabric that you are buying right now, later on down the road there will be another one that you like better.

Number two, the reason you need to buy more fabric is because the fabric in your stash is: (choose however many apply)
__ Too Old
__ Too Ugly
__ Too Bright
__ Too Dull
__ Just not right
__ Just tired of looking at it
__ Doesn't fit current project needs
__ Not this one in my hand right now

Number three, face it right now and take the pledge: You are addicted to buying fabric and your quilting has become unmanageable. You need a power greater than yourself to restore you to quilting sanity.

Well, I'm here. I've been there, I've done that, I've bought the T-shirt. (It's pink and it has a bunch of ladies in a car with fabric flags flying out the window and it says, "Road Trip".)

So your first assignment from me, your higher power.

Go through your fabric stash and pull out all the old and ugly fabric that is over ten years old and that you are tired of looking at. Put it in a box. That's all. Next week I'll tell you what to do about it.

More projects finished!

I am finishing projects again. Just wanted you all to know. I am no longer obsessing over my lengthy UFO list like I used to. Now I am simply asking the question, is this something I really want to do? If the answer is yes, then I do it. If the answer is no, I trash it, give it away, or re-purpose it. If the answer is yeah maybe, but not now, then it goes into a box on the back shelf. Simple huh?

Here are a few Applique blocks that I've finished over the summer while my arm was in a cast and trying to heal. I rarely let anything stop me from doing crafts but having a broken arm slowed me down a lot.

The Scottish Thistle. This is a block from Baltimore's Country Cousin, the book we are exploring in our guild Applique BOM. This is one of the alternative blocks. I now have six of these blocks done out of 12.
The Fantasy Flower Block, this one is from Hearts and Flowers. I liked this color combination so much that I decided to do the entire quilt of 12 blocks out of this color way. So you will undoubtedly see more of these. I also have a scalloped heart shaped frame pattern that I intend to use on these. It's going to take a lot of fabric but I think it's going to be a beautiful addition and make it into a truly spectacular quilt. All in good time.
My mother has a Christmas Cactus that is almost 50 years old in her house. The thing is huge. I remember when she rooted the slip when I was in grade school and watched it grow all through my high school years. So when I saw this applique pattern I had to include it in my Baltimore Album.
I was told by my birth mother "Sweetie, you're mostly Irish!" So I've been connecting with that side of my heritage ever since. This Celtic Cross that I designed from a picture I saw of a gravestone is part of that connection.

I am still working on heart blocks for another heart applique quilt. I am also working on circle applique blocks for a larger version of Japanese Circles using up most of what was left of my oriental fabrics. It's looking very cool! I am nearly finished with the applique. A few more nights should have it done!

Thanks for viewing, more to come!

Cindy K.-K.

I Won the UFO Contest!

Dear Terise! I have announced it in my Blog. I have no pictures to share about it though except this. One of the prizes I got was this little wall hanging that I immediately put up on my wall and will view it daily as I iron out my unfinished projects! I also won a huge amount of Fat Quarters which I at once put into my ever growing stash. Well, here's the thing. Even though I managed to finish more projects than anyone else in the group of 18 people, I still have way more than I want.

Recently I decided that I no longer want to do multiple projects. There will always be a certain amount of multiples but even still I need to rid myself of the things that have been dragging me down lately. I have updated my goals for the next year and a half and one of them is to finish the multiple projects and stop doing them. Here is a pictorial inventory of the multiples that I've been up to lately.

The Bead Knitted Bags

Each of these little bags takes 10 hours to complete. They are made with size 8 pearl cotton and size 10 or 11 seed beads, on size 0000 knitting needles. It's rather like trying to knit hair on wires. I have made at least 60 or 70 of these little things, and possibly as many as 100. Here are five that I haven't sold yet, I think there may be more of them somewhere, probably in the box of stuff I take to sell at craft shows.
Anyway, I had several more that I had strung and ready to knit. I spent the whole of this last week knitting them. One more day and should have another dozen of them to add to the collection. These are the new ones that are unfinished as yet. Each one now has to be sewn together, which takes longer than one might think, and then a beaded necklace added to each one. So even when the knitting is finished there is still at least one to two hours of work left on each one. For any of you who would like to buy one, they retail for $30. Yes, I have done the math and I am only getting $3.00 per hour for my work! It's even worse because that doesn't include the cost of materials.

UPDATE: These beaded bags were something I was making to sell in my booth. I still have several that I am trying to finish. All the ones in the photos above have been sold, so they are very worth while to make. Each time I finish a batch of about a dozen of them, I say, that's it, no more. Then I start to sell them and next think you know, I have collected the materials for a dozen more. I will add an updated photo when I can.

Socks

One of the things I love to make is socks. They are nice small projects. They don't take a lot of yarn. In fact about $10 will get you into a nice pair of socks. Granted it does go up to $30 at times. But when you consider the hundreds of dollars you could be spending on yarn to make sweaters, socks are kind of a bargain. And socks are also something that you really can't have too many of.
I have gotten to the point though where I only buy shirts and tops that go with a pair of socks I have made, and I only buy sock yarn that matches tops that I have. I usually pair my tops and socks with a neutral colored pair of tight legged knit pants for my signature look. After all, why bother making these beautiful colorful socks if your not going to show them off?

However, as you can see, I probably have enough socks. In fact, I have so many that there are a couple of pair I haven't yet worn. And I have yarn for 8 more pair. Once I finish these I will have 25 pair of hand knit socks. I wouldn't have to do laundry for nearly a month! Enough already!

UPDATE: I have not now, nor ever will stop making socks. Sorry, but that's one piece of handwork that I refuse to give up. I have however taken to giving socks away as gifts to friend, co-workers, and family members. Here is a picture of my active sock collection, meaning these are the ones I wear. Actually, I haven't worn at least three of these pair YET! On top of that, I just counted the balls of yarn that I have for socks and I have enough for 27 more pairs. That's not counting the ones I can make from leftovers. So all totalled I could probably, without buying another ball, make about 40 pairs of socks.

Plarn Bags

Plarn, or Plastic Yarn, is made from those annoying plastic grocery bags that you never quite know what to do with. They are flimsy and break when you're carrying things into the house and once in the house, you have the perplexing question of what now? Do I just pitch them and let them try to biodegrade for the next millennium in a landfill, or do I save them and try to re-use them, or do I take them back to the store and trust the store to re-cycle them in a proper way, when we really don't know what they do with them? What to do? Some people use them as trash bags thus saving themselves some money. Others use them to collect animal wastes. Others don't ask these questions and just use their cloth bags when they remember to take them into the store with them.

I make Plarn out of them. Many people have made rugs our of Plarn. I make grocery bags out of them and I actually use them, when I remember to take them into the store with me! They reside in my car which is why this picture is set in my hatchback!
But the problem is, even though I have enough of these bags to handle my most heavy shopping days, I still have this mess next to my TV chair of unfinished Plarn bags. The reason why I wanted to dedicate this Blog to my multiples is to show that I really don't need all of these things and to count how many I have in the works. But I have no idea how many Plarn bags I have in the works. I have 4 of them started. The yellow one is waiting for me to collect more yellow bags to finish it. The others just need to be crocheted. But part of the problem is, I have plarn pieces cut and stored in various boxes and containers waiting to be formed into Plarn, a very labor intensive task.
I have plarn balled up in various colors that I could make a striped plarn bag out of and I have bags collected and waiting to be cut into plarn pieces. It's a never ending process! And it's a real mess! I have to get rid of it. But I can't see my way clear to throwing it all out because well, that wouldn't be ecologically PC. It's why I have the mess to begin with. So I have a goal. I will put a sign on my rear view mirror that says, "Take bags" to remind me. I will not get any more bags from the grocery store. I will finish the Plarn I have and make weird looking striped bags with whatever I have left and I won't worry about it. I'll take the ones I never use and put them into my box of things to sell at craft shows. Then I'll put a nice end table in that spot next to my TV chair, and that will be the end of it.

UPDATE: SUCCESS!!! I no longer have bags, plarn, or half done Plarn bags. I use my Plarn bags as shopping bag and the only time I make plarn any more is to fix the bags I've already made. So that is one thing totally off my list!

Pattern Models

These are two of the projects that I've designed patterns for. Designing patterns for me is a sideline, kind of akin to my writing. I use these patterns in my classes and eventually would like to publish them and put them on the market. But in order to do it, I have to make several versions of the thing so that I have a number of them to photograph for the cover art. Also, since I use them in the classes I teach I make a new one for nearly every class, so I have a lot of them. But I need to go ahead and finish the patterns and package them so that I can sell them somewhere other than Tawni's shop.

Those are my multiple projects and my goal now is to finish them all before fall! If I can get all that done, then this fall I plan to build up my shoulder muscles as I machine quilt about 20 projects in preparation for the quilt show next year.

Wish me luck!
Finishing Multiples,
Cindy K-K

UPDATE: I am still designing as a sideline, but there has been a distinct change in my circumstances. I am now a full time writer. Designing is part of writing and I have several design patterns out. I need to try to sell them to shops. But all in all it's not a business venture per se, but a sideline which I might make a few extra bucks doing. There is a lot to selling patterns and I so far have not wished to put in the effort it takes. I just wanted to clarify this to whomever might be reading through my Blogs. Thanks, Cindy K-K

Wow!

How long has it been since I Blogged?

I have not given up on my goal of finishing something everyday for a year. I've just given up on blogging about them all! LOL! So maybe it was pretty unrealistic to find one thing I could finish everyday. But TRYING to find one thing everyday to finish put me in a particular state of mind, that being one of striving toward a goal of finishing. With Quilting there are times when you can often get something done in one day, finish a paper pieced block, or finish putting the binding on a top. There are also times when you can work away all day at something and not get it done, such as doing the machine quilting on a large quilt, or putting 15 pieces on an applique project. There is just no way to finish some of these things in one day. Two days yes, maybe three, but I found myself not bothering to work on some of these more lengthy projects in order to get something else shorter done so I could blog about it. Soon I ran out of things I could get done in less than one day.

Then this whole Sookie Stackhouse thing happened and I thought about giving it up entirely. But I still have to finish things! So I calmed myself down and I started working on some of these longer term projects, and here are the ones that I was able to finish entirely.

First the quilts:

I got the blocks for this one a few years ago at swap. We were swapping fabric and blocks that we no longer wanted to finish and I think I swapped a shoebox full of scraps to this woman for the blocks for this quilt. Anyway, the blocks weren't made very well, I had to cut off most of the points in order to get them into a quilt top. But the top turned out nice and I practiced this greek-key type of football quilting on it. It turned out great, except, my husband, a Lion's fan, complains that the quilt isn't big enough even for a lap robe. I figured it could be a chair hanging or a wall hanging and maybe a bench warmer for the games.

This also started as fabric from a swap. I must say that this is one of the most effortless quilts I've ever made. The fabric with the bears on it is from a collection called "A Quilter's Gift", you may have heard of the story book with the same name. While I was cleaning out my stash several of these fabric came out and seemed to just go together. I put them aside and then one day as I was looking through the kitted projects I saw this thing and decided "today is the day!"

I pulled it out, gathered a couple more fabrics and started cutting, before I knew it the top was together, Easy peasy! I layered it at the library a few weeks ago and then this past month quilted it, it only took the better part of one afternoon to quilt. That night I sat watching TV and hand sewed the binding. OK, totally finished with very little effort! WOW!

This picture is only here to prove that when you see me display one sock that is finished on this blog, the other one is not far behind. Some people only make one sock and the second one never gets finished. I'm just the opposite. It takes me forever to do the first one but once that's done, I can't wait to get the second one finished!
While I was still in the winter mode I wanted to get some more knitting done. I finished this shawl in record time and then I used the leftover yarn to make a nice thick scarf. I used to have lots of leftover yarn, but these days I don't want both a stash of fabric and of yarn so I try to knit up whatever yarn I have leftover from a project into something useful. As a result, I have a huge number of scarves. I'm going to have to add them to the box of stuff I sell at craft shows.

Speaking of which, I probably should add these bags to that box as well. I now have about half a dozen of these I've made. I wrote the pattern for them and I need to take pictures of them to put on the cover. One of these days I will be able to really start working on my pattern design company and maybe making some interesting extra money. But for now that's in the future still.
Another thing I like to do is pick up the odd needlepoint project when I find them at thrift shops. I love to do needlepoint and have ever since my Aunt Joyce gave me a needlepoint kit when I was in grade school and I figured out how to do it. I made a mistake though. She saw that I was having fun doing the project and asked me what I was going to do with it once I finished it. I told her I would probably give it away. She misinterpreted it to mean that I didn't want the thing. And I never got another handwork kit from her. I wish now that I had told her that I didn't know what I was going to do with it after it was finished but that I was having a great time doing it and I loved the gift. That's the information that she really wanted anyway. I finish the needlepoint projects I do these days into the pockets of bags or purses that I design around the needlepoint.

I finished this quilt top for the store. We're having a class in how to do this quilt and how to use the ruler that this quilt was made from.
and another quilt that I finished for store use. This is a paper pieced pattern and I've taught two classes now from this pattern. It's so cool, I want to keep it. When it's run it's course at the shop I'm going to redecorate my living room around this piece! LOL!
Here's an applique block from the Country Cousin's book that we're doing at guild. I finished it and it's residing with the rest awaiting more blocks to make an album quilt.
this one is the Breadfruit Hawaiian style applique. I did this one for the Interquilten Applique BOM.
Last but certainly not least is a face quilt depicting my friend Anne Nelson. I took this picture when we were on a picnic after the bridge walk with a group of friends. We were eating cupcake's because it was Anne's birthday. Anyway, I was searching my coffers for a picture that I could use to make a face quilt. I tried taking one myself and found that if it's an indoor picture with a flash it won't work because the flash fills in all the cooler shadows and flattens everything out. The picture has to be taken in sunlight and it has to be at an angle so that part of the face is in shadow. After coming up with this little piece I was brainstorming with Tawni (proprietor of Interquilten and my employer) we thought about finding a photo of someone famous who will be performing at Interlochen this summer and making a face quilt of that person. If the person isn't too famous we thought we might try to approach the person into making an appearance at the store while they are here to see the quilt that we make. So Now I'm searching out images of either Garrison Keilor, Lyle Lovette, or Foreigner. Sheryl Crow is in June, which doesn't give me much time to finish a quilt with her face on it. She would have been my first choice. And a face quilt featuring the three talented men from the Moody Blues with a backdrop of a Knight wearing white Satin is just the thing I could sink my teeth into except having that ornate of a project done by June 26th and generate enough publicity to attract their attention? Might not happen.

OK, so these are the thoughts I've been having this past month. Was it worth the wait? I'll try not to wait so long to blog again. Maybe even later tonight if I get this one applique project done. I better get it done, it's due tomorrow!

Cindy
Still finishing even though you don't know about it!

Falling through the cracks

Yes, there are things that are falling through the cracks. I have been finishing projects this month. Not as many as I should. In fact I came up with only these two that I could actually show.
This first one is a sock that I finished from yarn that was purchased in Ludington when my friend Pam from Australia was up to visit. She bought the same yarn (I was copying her not vice versa) and now I'm finally getting to finishing them 6 months later. I'm never without a sock to work on these days.
This one finally got finished and off my design wall! I call it,
"Deconstructed Star". It was a piecing nightmar . . . er I mean challenge! I managed to do only about six partial seams to put the top together. When I get finished with the big sale this weekend I plan to explore some more embellishments. Oh and the Border Babes are swapping Batik charm squares for a new project that some of them are interested in doing. I'm not necessarily doing the project, but I'm always interested in getting my hands on new Batiks!

Cindy K-K
Getting back on the finishing wagon.

Sookie Stackhouse is to blame!

If any of you have been a fan of the HBO series "True Blood" then you know Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse is the heroine of a series of books about Vampires in rural Louisiana. They are very original (despite the whole Anne Rice phenom) and ultimately intriguing. If you enjoy a good mystery/romance/scary vampire story then you will love Sookie and her cohorts!

That's my excuse for not posting for the whole month of February. I read my way through all 9 books and most of the way through another collection of short stories staring Sookie. Yes, I'm on a first name basis with her for a reason.

Anyway, so today I am starting fresh on my goal of finishing one thing per day. Here is what I managed to get done during Feb.

I got this bear finally once and for all finished and it's now hanging up at Interquilten. It was a very fun project to do and I hope this will inspire some of you to delve into the possibilities of trying some of these techniques.

This is one Paper Pieced block of a wall hanging called "Majestic Fir" which I did for a class. The class was very successful and I can't wait to finish the rest of the wallhanging. It too will hang in Interquilten and we will have more classes based on this pattern.

This is the latest of the Applique BOM's, also for Interquilten. (Are you beginning to sense a theme here? Yes, I finished all the projects I should have for the shop but none of my own?)

Oops, how did I manage this? I finished this block which is going to be a page for my embellishment book. Eventually I will have a whole booklet of these wonderful idea pages. Yes, even at my age I have hope for the future!

Oh look! A project that I didn't need to do for the shop! This is the center to my latest Round Robin. It's going to be slightly different than most RR's. This one I'm asking for textures rather than colors and shapes. I found this little project at Goodwill in a kit that I paid $.53 for. I finished it in one day. It was for a little sachet type pillow with a lace edging. I put that lace on and then added another border. It's about 6 inches square at the moment and I'm hoping it will only get to be less than 18 inches total. But we shall see. Round Robins are like children, you put them out into the world and trust that they will come back to you as fully realized individuals!

Now I'm caught up to yesterday! Yesterday was March 1. I managed to finish something else in time for the guild meeting. I showed this project at the meeting so I present it here.
This is how it starts, as a yellow bead and button "Stew". The recipe for this Stew is in the book pictured here, Quilting Arts Book, based on the magazine of the same name. My take on the stew was to add certain charms, lapel buttons, and costume jewelry.
Here's what I made out of it. I began with a circle of a beautiful yellow and orange batik. I fused it to a piece of Peltex and then put another backing of fusible onto it. I then place a small layer of yellow and gold Angelina fibers onto the front with misty fuse and once that was attached I trimmed the entire piece the shape of batik. I peeled off the paper backing of the fusible and began to sew. I sewed the beads on in circular lengths that stood up from the backing. I also did kind of a bead fringe technique where you string on a row of beads and then skip the last one and go back through all the others. I tried to fill as much space as possible on the surface of the moon. I wanted to leave the outside edges free so that I could do a satin stitch around it to attach it to the finished project. This is just one design element in a larger piece. Also, the watch on this project is a dead watch that I had, I set the time to a significant time the time of my birth and that of my son's. I was born at 10:30 am, and he was born at 10:30 pm. My idea to finish this project is to commemorate the island of Kynthia where Apollo and Athena were born. Athena is the goddess of the moon. Kynthia is the derivation of my name Cynthia.
Side view showing the 3-D effects of the bead fringe technique.

More later!
Cindy K-K
Finished with Harris' novels; now on to more of my own projects.

Geese weekend!

I spent the weekend doing geese. Yes, geese. I've been wanting to do this project for a while. I know how to do at least five or six different methods to make geese, some handy, some simple, some dimensional. So I did them all weekend. I got the blocks for this top finished and on the design wall. I'm loving it. It's the first time I ever designed a quilt like this one. I had fun fun fun! And I had some blocks left over to make the sample for the class I'm having in the same technique. This is one of the blocks for that sample.
I also finished this applique block for a demo that I did at guild Monday night. Then I finished it yesterday after I did the demo. I know! I only had five more little tiny pieces to put on it, but I just ran out of time to do before the meeting on Monday. It's finished now though!
Today I went off and layered this bear quilt top. I have to go to the library. One of the tables on the second floor is the perfect size for this size quilt, so I didn't have to reserve a room or anything. Now I am free to work on Machine quilting. I figure I'd better get set up for that and get some of it done. The machine quilting is beginning to pile up around here. That's all that needs to get done on several projects. I could show about five or more projects next month if I spent just a week machine quilting. OK, so I will! LOL!

Talk with you later.
Cindy K-K
Still finishing.

Another top completely finished!

This one is like I said, over ten years in the finishing. But here it is! Now all I have to do is layer and quilt it! But I need to wait until I can find some batting on sale! Meanwhile, I'm going to a friend's house tomorrow to do some sewing. I also did some knitting and needlepoint today to get going on some other projects.

Stay tuned.

Cindy K-K
Finishing really old stuff.

Another 12 year old project finished!

This is the last block which I got finished today. I decided to do this beautiful star block instead of that silly Noah's Ark block with all the appliqued Animals! So I got it done today, doing the last of the applique while I watched a movie. Then I worked the rest of the day to get the top done.
This was a piecing nightm . . . I mean a piecing challenge! There were more partial seams in this one than any other project I've ever done, and I did a heart quilt for my friend Char where every single block had a partial seam. Anyway, the top is done except for the borders. Now I have to figure out if I want it to be a bed quilt because the instructions have a series of borders that take it from the lap sized thing it is now all the way up to a King sized. But I'm thinking definitely Lap robe. Two borders and I'd be able to use it for laying around the house at Christmas time.

I plan to use tomorrow to do some machine quilting. I know, I know, I seem to get stuck on that segment of quilting. But I made a goal and well, I need to do it.

OK, so I'll report back to you tomorrow!

Cindy K-K
Keep up the finishing!