I love stripping - strip quilting that is!

I found a new love for using up

scraps - strip quilting.

So much fun playing with so many different colors and textures in a quilt. The ease of making a block gets an A+++ for simple construction with a huge impact for a quilt. I made this for my new nephew who will be turning 1 soon. Happy Birthday Johnny!

• A quilt top can be made in one day as you play with so many fabrics. I made a rule when playing with the scraps and that was one half of the block would have a black strip in it and the other half would not. Many times when I am playing with my scraps I create a rule for how I will use color in the quilt to make the assembly fun and to create dimension to my quilts.
• The quilt is happily with my new nephew but I did send it with a warning. Please limit a baby to only 15 minutes on his belly as he might be overstimulated by all of this color!

My two Loves - quilting and travel

I have been so lucky in my life to have traveled to so many incredible places. This little girl was sitting at a market in Northern Vietnam in a village frequented by the Flower Tribe people and the Chinese selling and bargaining their wares. She clearly was bored with having to wait for her mother at market. The beauty of her face and her clothing made for a perfect snapshot taken by a good friend, Mitzi. Vietnam was a magical place of beauty, incredible food, bargains and culture.

I have so many wonderful memories of all of the majestic places I have traveled to - Borneo, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland and Turkey. Beauty is everywhere I travel whether it be to all parts of the world or in United States.

For me, traveling is about being out of your comfort zone and experiencing the culture and meeting new people. It is not the destination but the journey. May all of our journeys continue!

Empire Quilt Show-New York City

A trip to New York City vitalizes you but a trip to New York City for a quilt show is pure heaven. This past weekend a good friend and I took a trip to NY City to the Empire Quilt Guild Quilt Show. My husband and daughter's Christmas gift to me was a trip to NY City to hear Paula Nadelstern, world-renowned quilter, speak and share her quilts and techniques. Paula’s style is to capture in fabric what you would see in a kaleidoscope. Her lecture included information about her technique and process of her creations. Each kaleidoscope block she makes is an unknown creation until it is fully assembled giving the same thrill with each turn of a kaleidoscope – the unknown and beauty of each design. Her process involves looking at each unit and asking questions about the symmetry of each pieced component and the lines it will create in the pie shape before assembly – if up on one side, it will go down on the other. Her goal is to blend the seam lines in each unit so upon assembly of the block, the pieced seams will appear invisible and the contrast of the colors and texture of the fabric will dominate the block design. Here is a photograph of the star struck fan with Paula. She has connections to the State of Maine as her brother lives here. I knew I liked her for a reason. Paula will be showing her work at the Museum of Folk Art in NY City starting in April. If you get a chance, go see her work. She is amazing.

The Empire Quilt Guild’s show showed such diversity in their talent and entries. Here are a few of my favorite quilts from the show.

Thank you to my family for giving me a Christmas gift that created memories. A New York City trip would not be complete without a Broadway show or shows in my case. Linda and I saw Susan Sarandon in Exit the King – incredible. It was Susan’s first Broadway appearance since 1972. The play was a dark comedy with political metaphors that had each actor shining in their roles. We also saw the play, Impressionism with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen, a mature intelligent love story. Our trip to New York City was full of creative inspiration restoring our souls for many more masterpieces.

Helping our communities

I have been working on two raffle quilts these past two weeks. What better way to share your quilting talent than to create quilts to be used for raffles to raise funds for a non-profit organizations. Our Fair Association had a block contest last year for contestants and I am now putting the blocks into a quilt top I designed. The theme of the blocks are blueberries. A friend of mine, Linda Trickey, helped with the design of this quilt. The top is done and now waiting for it to be machine quilted. Here is a computer design of the quilt created on EQ6, an incredible software program that can do it all. A real picture will soon follow as soon as I find two people tall enough to hold the quilt for a picture. It is a huge quilt.



The second raffle quilt is a major fund raiser for my quilt guild. Friends and Needle Quilt Guild www.friendsandneedle.org. The colors are in the beautiful tropical colors, turquoise, purples, greens, blues and red violets. Here is a computer drawing of the quilt sampler for our Guild's 25th Anniversary which will soon be made into fabric. Our group is 80 members strong with many talents. In 1984 our founder, Karen Gallop, started a small group of quilters who wanted to get together to share their quilting passion. To date we have grown from 10 members to over 80 members in our 25 years. Our guild sponsors a chapter of Project Linus, a non-profit organization that creates and gives blankets to children in need in their communities. To date we have given over 500 hundred blankets. This past month, our membership sponsored a Make A Blanket Day and made over 170 blankets to stock our cupboards for those wonderful children who have suffered a tragedy in their family, a loss or under medical care. Quilt Guilds have the ability to change lives and our guild proves that. I am honored to be part of a group of women who love quilting and make positive changes in our communities.

A New Quilter is Born

During the holidays, I taught a beginner quilting friend who designed and made this table runner in one afternoon. She was very proud of herself and it is now part of her decor in her living room. I love to teach quilting especially to new quilters. It was great fun watching her creative process while she designed her quilt and sewed her quilt. Here is a challenge to all quilters - share your skills, inspire a new quilter. The average age of a quilter is 56 and we want to start a new generation of a quilters to sustain this beautiful craft and the quilt shops. It is important as an experienced quilter to share your skills with aspiring quilters. My daughter still does not understand why I cut up fabric to put it back together again but it is a huge puzzle to me - one of my other favorite pastimes. Congratulations to Sheena for her friendship and what a great job she did. I am proud of her workmanship.

I worked on my PhD's this past weekend in Textiles

An incredible group of quilting friends and I had a quilting retreat this weekend overlooking Katahdin mountain. So I was working on my PhD's (yes plural PhD's - Projects Half Done) and now have many AFT - All Finished Tops. Five of them completed in one weekend and enough inspiration to keep me sewing day and night for some time. My face is still hurting from all of the laughs during the weekend of quilting.

This quilt will be for my granddaughter's new bed - queen size made of beautiful greens, lilacs, periwinkle, and white. I can't wait to see her face when she sees this quilt. She is one of my biggest fans. Each quilt I make she asks if I am making it for her. She loves to help me in my studio and has started playing with fabric making up mock blocks. She may grow up to be a quilter.




Quilt Name - Lilley's Peary Winkle Quilt - Size 83" X 83"
Quilt stop started January 2008 - finished January 2009 Will be machine quilted with an all over pattern.


Ahhh Daiwabu fabrics from Japan - I am in love with the colors and textures of these incredible taupe fabrics. This is a wonderful pattern created by a dear friend of mine. I taught this at a retreat in CT a few years ago and am now finishing the quilt top. I will have this one custom machine quilted by an quilt machine artist in CT. This one will hang in a place in my home. The colors are subtle but so sophisticated. The pattern includes two of my favorite things - trees and stars.

Larisa Key made the original pattern.

Quilt Name - Tree of Life - Size 64" X 64"
Quilt top started in Nov 2007 and finished Jan. 2009
Will have it custom quilted by machine



Give me a jelly roll in exquiste colors and a quilt appears. This quilt was made from forty 2 1/2" strips of fabric from a collection from Moda. This is a pattern from a book called Churn Dash. It is a scrappy quilt which is one of my favorite things to do. I cannot do a quilt with just a few fabrics.

Not sure who this quilt is for but thinking of giving it to my sister-in-law who deserves a quilt to cuddle under. She is a very special sister-in-law.




Quilt Name - Churn Dash with a Twist - size 72" X 84" (Perfect lap size for a warm cuddle on the couch)
Quilt top started May 2008 and finished Jan. 2009
Will be machine quilted with an all over pattern.



What is her name going to be? We are expecting our third granddaughter in June. I made this as a quick quilt at the retreat and also prepared a boy quick quilt and found out this week we are having another granddaughter. So what else do you name a quilt when you find out you will be blessed with a new granddaughter - What is her name going to be? This top was made from 5 1/2" squares and three borders. As the snow keeps falling here in the North, it brightens the spirit to play with bright colorful fabrics.





Title - What is Her Name Going to Be? Size 37" X 52"
Started top January 24th 2009 and finished on January 25th 2009 (I said it was quick and so much fun to make)
Will be machine quilted with an all over pattern

This is a variation on the traditional block as you make the dark side of the log cabin block skinnier giving the appearance of a curved pattern. Why do I love this block - the ease of construction that gives a huge visual impact. I taught this quick at a class at Quilter's Dream in Willimantic, CT (incredible shop with over 5000 fabrics). Unfortunately the camera does not do this quilt justice. It is made of different shades of blues and tans, which fabrics give the illusion of gradation of color. I apologize for being unable to color correct the photo but this quilt sings with richness!

Quilt Title - Feeling the Blues Quilt size 60" X 60"
Started in 2000 and finished January 2009