Author Archives: catherineredford

Still catching up on April…

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We had a good turnout for our Quilter and Child class at Pieceful Heart Fabrics. Everyone quickly set to work on Upwardly Mobile, a Patrick Lose pattern.

Pattern pieces were traced onto WonderUnder,and fused onto the back of the chosen fabrics.

They were cut out and arranged onto the background,

before fusing in place…

to make some lovely finished wall hangings.

There was a bright one,

and a spotty one…

One in pastel colors,

and another bright one with the ladybug exactly where its young artist decided she wanted it to be…

and a pretty one made by a happy grandma and her granddaughter.

Well done everyone! Our next class is a pieced lap-sized quilt in July.

 

And then it was wedding time!! Just a couple of pictures…

“The quilt” with beautiful flower columns and candles,

and an up to date look at the whole Redford family, complete with the new Mrs. Redford…

We had a wonderful time with lots of family and friends. I do have more pictures but you will have to ask to see them!

 

My dad stayed for a week afterwards to make sure I didn’t go straight back to sitting around doing nothing.

Between Quilt Bee, Afternoon Needlecrafts and breakfast appointments we squeezed in a trip to the zoo. In honor of the next family wedding here is a picture of Joanne’s favorite animal, a giraffe, sharing the grass with the Canada geese.

April was a fun month, the focus was on the wedding, certainly not quilting… we shall see what delights May will bring.

April… part one

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Having baked a lot of cakes, life progressed…

Riverwalk Quilters enjoyed a philanthropy sew-in for our April program. We hadn’t held one on a regular Tuesday meeting night for a little while so we really didn’t know what to expect but we had a great turn out.

Heidi and Lydia did a wonderful job getting us organized and soon everyone was hard at work…

  

We had a whole clothes line full of finished pillowcases by the end of the evening.

It was a fun time. Everyone worked well together!! There were lots more pillowcase kits in various stages of completion by the end of the evening. They were taken home and will come back for our admiration in May before going to their new homes.

 

The next weekend it was time for our road trip to Cincinnati for the International Quilt Festival show. Cheryl was once again a most excellent traveling companion. We did a little shopping, enjoyed the Friday night party with friends and viewed some quilts…

Here is my shopping, beautifully displayed in a basket from Mali…

Note the fabrics from Marcia Derse and wools and embellishments from Sue Spargo. I was really quite frugal? It was just a quick trip, only one night this time but we packed a lot in!!

 

I finally got my sewing machine back from the shop and got to work on James and Sarah’s quilt. I added  a wool batt and lots of quilting… about 10 hours in all. Then a simple binding and it was finished…

We went outside for pictures…

All ready for the wedding…

 

It was a hectic month so I will leave my catching up there and hope to get back to it very soon… I do have wedding pictures…

 


O the places we’ll go….

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Staying at home is definitely overrated…

The second weekend of March found me on a girl’s weekend starting out in Madison. We were there to check out Joanne’s wedding venue but first things first… We (I) really needed to visit the Sewcial Lounge, a modern fabric and sewing lounge I found on line one day…

Surprise, surprise I found something I needed in the bright and cheerful shop and everyone was smiling when I checked out.

We did go and approve the Madison Club for Joanne and John’s wedding and reception and after an excellent meal at a Ramen restaurant and a good night’s sleep we moved on the wedding dress…

… then it was time to look for suitable garments for the girls to wear to James and Sarah’s wedding… I’m pleased to report we were successful and the Julia and Joanne will be clothed on their brother’s special day!

I was allowed to recover at home on Sunday before setting off again…

Next up was the PAQA retreat in Racine. When I reserved my space back in the Fall I had no idea what I was booking and consequently no expectations for my 3 days away. I guess that’s one way of being sure you won’t be disappointed?

The Siena Center is on the shore of Lake Michigan and has beautiful grounds. We drove up in the rain but the sun soon came out and we were able to appreciate the view.

The retreat workshop was led by Jane Dunnewold and entitled “Making Art : strategies for transformation”.

There were no details on Jane’s website for a class by that name so packing suitable supplies was a little tricky… “a shoebox of craft materials we would be willing to share and give away”. I loaded up with batik scraps, odd bits of yarn, excess beads and a few other interesting items I found lurking in my studio…

It’s hard to describe our time adequately. We talked, we wrote, we talked some more… I came home with lots of ideas I need to work through…

We did actually make one “thing”. Starting with a selection from everyone’s shoebox of stuff we were invited to construct a vessel depicting ourselves as an artist… I’ll let the pictures tell my story…

                      

OK? Enough said… Not exactly inside my usual box …

Jane was a super facilitator, allowing everyone to work at their own pace and be the person they wanted to be. We have communicated since I got back… Like I said I have some work to do.

Back to wedding preparations…

I have spent some time making a quilt for the happy couple. It’s just a top at the moment. I was waiting to see if my 820 was going to return home in time for the quilting. I am about ready to give in and see how the 550 manages….

Sarah chose the fabrics and I designed a simple setting, according  to her request. I have some ideas so maybe I will get to quilting it later this week.

Then it was time to celebrate Benjamin’s birthday. I was too busy enjoying myself to take many pictures but here’s one of Benjamin with his Aunty Joanne.

It was a wonderful warm day, as witnessed by the deck thermometer…

The warm weather means that the daffodils have already bloomed. We are at least 6 weeks ahead of last year. These are the bulbs my dad and I planted last year…

The next weekend Matt was busy studying so we had a surprise visit from Ruby, together with her mum and brother. She is a happy little girl!

And that brings us nearly up to date.

Saturday found me at NCTV in Naperville for the recording of the studio discussion for The Ladies Room with Hilary Decent. Here is the set before filming started.

The episode focuses on crafts in Naperville. The other guests were from the Newcomers’ Club which has both a knitting and a quilting group. We had a fun discussion on why ladies like to create, amongst other things. The show won’t be aired until July. I don’t think it will be the start of a new career….

So to today!

More wedding stuff… baking cakes… lots of cakes, from scratch Martha Stewart style.

The proof will be in the eating!!

Fiber All-Sorts

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Saturday began at a reasonable time with a trip to Salt Creek Quilt Guild’s quilt show in Hinsdale. My quilting buddy Cheryl drove and we had a good few hours taking in all the quilts on display at the Community House. As usual the challenge was upstairs on the walking track. It was based on a nursery rhyme theme and was a lot of fun to look at. Some of the entries will be going to the AQS show later in the year.

 

 

We stopped by the boutique where members had all sorts of interesting and unusual items for sale, including little top hat fascinators….

Cheryl found one she needed to take home with her, quite fetching don’t you think?

 

 

We returned home by way of Panera for a quick lunch and then set to play with some of my Stewart Gill paints… Cheryl brought her gelatin plate and made some lovely layered pieces while I got to the final round of the fabric round robin I signed up to last summer….

Here’s Cheryl working out what to try first while my fabric is waiting for me in the bottom right of the picture.

I was adding layer 5 to this piece that had been stencilled, over dyed, stamped and painted…

I set to work in fear and trepidation with my Tsukineko ink pens and added an all over freehand swirl design. The pen just about lasted the whole half yard of fabric. I hope Sydney likes it.

Next we will have to decide what to do with our pieces…

 

I did finally get round to taking pictures of my finished Block 1 from this year’s Sue Spargo Block of the Month, Earth ‘n Twigs…

I changed up a few things, adding a button and some brown ribbon.

                      

I will add some beads once I’ve got a few more blocks done and I get a better idea of where we are going…

 

I am off to the PAQA retreat in Racine Wisconsin next week and decided I will need some trading cards/business cards to take with me. Since the children changed my web site they also redesigned my business cards so I went with a blue color scheme this time. I made two sheets of embellished fused fabric collage, added the printed out business side, cut them apart and satin stitched (on the loaner Bernina 550 which is still working very nicely) and here we are…

 

I stitched an open grid all over the surface of this set and then filled in with the couched yarn. Each card has 2 or 3 crystals added for a little sparkle.

 

 

I added swirls to the second sheet…

 

I thought there was enough going on on these ones. I’ll save my crystals for another time?

 

 

 

Here is the reverse side of the cards…

I’m still looking for speaking/teaching engagements. Apart from those wedding obligations my schedule is wide open.

And talking of weddings..,. I’m off to Wisconsin this morning to check out the arrangements for Joanne and John’s happy day and then to see how my MOG dress is doing… Julia and Ruby are coming too. Never a dull moment?

Challenges…

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A life without challenges just wouldn’t be the same but some challenges are more fun than others…

I always finish one blog entry determined not to leave it so long next time but then life interferes… This morning my dad pointed out that it has been a while and I promised to get to it… so dad, here is my life up to date, just for you!

Riverwalk Quilters Guild issued a challenge to its members last fall and entries were due at the February meeting. I finally got to my 10″ square blocks and finished two little quilts. We were to illustrate Naperville’s streets in any way we chose – as long as the finished product was quilted and bound and measured 10″ in each direction.

First up is Fairoak Road… Three wool oak leaves appliqued onto a silk background and embellished with embroidery, beads and buttons…

My second entry represents Whirlaway Avenue. This one has a collaged background of batik scraps, a fused silvery swirl and Swarovski crystals…

Two very different little pieces but both do a fair job of representing both my style and Naperville?

There were over two dozen entries on display at the meeting ready for a single Viewer’s Choice Award…

Yvette won the prize with her very pretty Noriko Endo style confetti trees but everyone who got an entry finished was a winner in my eyes. We are hoping to have the the quilts displayed at the Naperville Art League later in the year.

 

It was time for another It’s a Wrap class at Pieceful Heart Fabrics and after 5 hours we had some lovely bowls to display. Everyone certainly rose to the challenge…

I took the opportunity to do some work on my red circles table runner. I got all the individual pieces made and laid them out on the table. I had had problems when I was putting the green one together so I needed to do something different this time… Blue painters’ tape is such a wonderful thing! As you can see below, I put small pieces of tape across each meeting place (still a few to go in this picture),

and labelled each piece. It was then easy to cut the tape in two, move it out of the way and zigzag the pieces together.

Here is the completed table runner, looking quite splendid on the dining room table.

I just need to decide what color family to try next!!

 

We had a busy “wedding weekend” last weekend. Julia, Ruby and Joanne came to town… We went wedding dress shopping on Saturday morning for Joanne and in the afternoon enjoyed a Bridal Shower in Sarah’s honor. I had 3 cardigans nearly finished for Ruby. I just had to sew some buttons on… and she was all ready to have some fun…

In between times I have been knitting up a storm and have scarves ready to go to England next week. Bridget will be selling them at Dream On shortly…

I took my Bernina 820 in to be mended a couple of weeks ago after a spring flew off the pick up arm and disappeared inside somewhere… A challenge I did not want to face… When I called Gentler Times on Tuesday I found out it had been sent back to the factory but I was offered a loner…

I collected a 550 Quilters Edition on Wednesday morning and if I was looking to buy a new machine I think I would be saving up for this one… I set it up in my cabinet and spent a few very happy hours this morning.

I was making some new trading cards, ready for the PAQA retreat coming up soon. It had no problems sewing through lots of layers, couching fuzzy yarns and was great on some free motion quilting. I will be trying out the satin stitch next. It’s not got the space that the 820 has but it is making the loss more bearable!

 

One last challenge…

After doing so well at keeping up with Imperial Blooms last year, my Sue Spargo 2012 BOM has been suffering with all these other distractions. I have actually finished block 1 but haven’t taken pictures yet. Perhaps I will be ready to post them soon?