While I was in Houston for International Quilt Market, I saw a special exhibit of pin collections sponsored by the Pin Peddlers called “EVERY PIN TELLS A STORY…Celebrating 25 years of Pin Collecting with the Pin Peddlers.”

The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Billie Sue Henry, the original “Pin Peddler.” Each collection of pins was beautifully displayed on a small quilt.  After seeing this exhibit, I need to put making a quilt for my pins higher up on my priority list!

Here are a few of the quilts in the exhibit:

The Pin Tree, made by Sandi Irish

From Dawn to Dusk, made by Gyleen X. Fitzgerald

Lynn's Quilt Pin Collection, made by Lynn G. Ellis

Pinned to the Past, made by Michal "Tammy" Wachsmann

The Show Pin Quilt, made by Sandi Irish

Do you have a collection of pins? What have you done with yours? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

It felt like Christmas on the day when History Repeated arrived in my mailbox. If you admire antique quilts, if you stroke reproduction fabrics, or if you adore vintage scrappy quilts—this is a title you need.

Authors Betsy and Carol sign books at Lone Star House of Quilts in Arlington, Texas.

Authors Betsy Chutchian and Carol Staehle are Texans in an exchange group called the 19th-Century Patchwork Divas. The 22-member group has been exchanging blocks based on traditional designs in reproduction fabrics since 1997. History Repeated uses 10 blocks and showcases them in a multitude of quilts with a variety of settings and fabrics to inspire you.

Carolina Lily, made by Marilyn Mowry of Irving, Texas. Quilted by Sheri Mecom of Bedford, Texas.

This is the kind of book I just wouldn’t be without. I’m finding it useful in several ways:

• It contains great patterns for traditional blocks (some were brand new to me)
• Each block is shown in numerous settings I can use or adapt (one setting is patterned and the others give enough information to emulate the setting if I want)
• Hundreds of reproduction fabrics make for great eye candy
• I’ll be studying these quilt photos closely to learn why they are so appealing
• I’ll refer to the Divas’ guidelines next time I’m involved in planning an exchange (they’ve thought of everything!)

Spiraling Flying Geese, made by Arlene Heintz of Waxahachie, Texas. Quilted by Dana Goyer of Euless, Texas.

And if all of that isn’t enough, I think you’ll be inspired by the group’s statistics found on page 9:

Prolific Patchwork
Since the start of the 19th-Century Patchwork Divas, our members have participated in 45 block exchanges…the result is a potential 530 exchange quilts, which all begin with a bag of blocks for each participant…we have completed 275 quilts and pieced 87 quilt tops…for future years, we have 158 bags of blocks just waiting to be made into quilts.

Now if that won’t get you sewing, I don’t know what will.

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Here’s a blog post from Be*mused about the 19th-Century Patchwork Divas and their amazing quilts. Take a peek at more of the quilts on flickr.

Colorado State Capitol

A fun fact about our beloved capitol: Finished in 1908, the Gold Dome was created using 200 ounces of pure gold leaf.

Paula and I visited the exhibit one afternoon last week and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The quilts are hung from every available space all throughout the three floors of the building. These pictures show what it’s like to look up from the first floor.

Some close up pictures of quilts on display:

Stars for a New Day by Bev Gallegos, Littleton, CO

I really like the creative design of this flag quilt.

Flag of Valor by Alison Dale, Lakewood, CO

I also have great admiration for Hawaiian applique quilts (mostly because I will probably never make one!).

Awapuhi (Torch Ginger) Hawaiian Quilt by Jean P. Krause, Walden, CO

The description of this one says she started it in 1975 and finished it in 1992. It has over 2000 squares in it!

Cathedral Window by Anna Thacker, Denver, CO

Cathedral Window Detail

Check out the quilting on this one!

Detail of Sunny Sunflowers by Stephanie Patterson, Windsor, CO

This one is made from lots and lots of feedsacks. I wonder how long it took to make that!?

My Feedsack Friends by Kathy Chamberlain , Durango, CO

The bright colors in this one caught my eye.

Jesse’s Quilt by Freda Nickell, Denver, CO

We also wanted to see the quilt I had on display. It was my first time entering a quilt and I was very excited to see it hanging. It is an original design that was created to recognize financial donors to the Women’s Crisis & Family Outreach Center’s capital campaign to build a new shelter for victims of domestic violence.

A Future for Families by Denise Starck, Highlands Ranch, CO

A Future for Families Detail

The exhibit is over for this year but if you are going to be in Denver, CO in the summer of 2013 be sure to make plans to visit the Colorado State Capitol and check out this unique display!

Italia!

I recently spent 2 weeks in Northern Italy with my family and my parents. We flew into Milan and spent time in Varese (near Lake Maggiore), Venice, Maranello (at the Ferrari museum), Lucca, Pisa, and Florence. Yes I know, you are jealous and it was FABULOUS! Interspersed with all of the beautiful scenery and fantastic historical sites, I found some amazing quilty inspiration halfway around the world.

I saw this paper placemat when we were having lunch in Venice one day. I think the flowers would make a wonderful applique design and I found the color palette really interesting.

Paper Placemat

Also in Venice, at the Santa Maria della Salute, was this beautiful tile floor.

Santa Maria della Salute, Pisa, Italy

Tile

I can now see how Norah McMeeking got her inspiration for her Bella Bella quilts. Maybe I’ll get motivated to get back to work on mine!

This wrought iron would make a great quilting motif:

Window Grate

At the request of my almost 11 year old, we spent a day in Pisa to see the tower.

Pisa, Italy

First, let me just say, it really is leaning and you can feel it when you climb the spiral stairs to the top. Not for the faint of heart or those who fear heights (not that I know anything about that!) Around the base of the tower was this square in a square design.

Base around the Leaning Tower

Around the exterior were these wonderful quilt blocks.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, is the Duomo (cathedral) attributed to Santa Maria Assunta. I found some very familiar patchwork designs in the architecture.

We spent the better part of our second week at a renovated farmhouse in the hills of Tuscany, near the walled city of Lucca.

La Sorgente, Lucca, Italy

With beautiful views into the valley below, this farmhouse had it’s own quilty vibe. Look at this tile that was in the kitchen.

Sink Backsplash

Stove Tile

And this ceiling:

Ceiling

A quick stopover in Paris, France on our way home found these fabulous window displays at the Hermès store. They are spools of thread arranged to create various objects.

Bracelet from Thread Spools

Hat from Thread Spools

And my favorite – a shoe!

Shoe from Thread Spools

Next time you take a trip, near or far, keep your eyes open. You never know where you may find quilty inspiration!

These blocks come together very easily – just be sure that you are attaching the correct units to the correct sides of the four patch. Ask Carolyn how she knows about that! Here are mine:

Block X

Block Y

For the Unit 7’s, I used the alternate technique and foundation pieced mine. I much prefer to foundation piece than cut templates, and find that I am more accurate. If you don’t care for either templates or foundation piecing, you might choose to use the Tri-Recs Tools by Darlene Zimmerman & Joy Hoffman to cut your fabric, as Carolyn did. Our quilt-along hostess, Sandi, has some great photos of how to use this tool at our online quilt-along over at Quilter’s Club of America.

Unit 7

As an added bonus, if you would like to foundation piece your Unit 7’s, click to download this file, QM_SecretWindow_Foundations, with multiple foundations on it – it’s much quicker to print out multiple copies and get to work sewing!

It’s been so much fun seeing how the online quilt-along has been going. Everyone has such different and interesting fabrics and I love to see all of the parts coming together. I can’t wait for Part 3!

How is your Secret Window quilt coming along?

Background info: The QM Scrap Squad is making scrappy versions of Spinout from page 46 of the July/August issue of Quiltmaker. Spinout was designed by Barbara Cline. Here’s the original Spinout in Art Gallery Fabrics:

Today’s featured Scrap Squad member is Ruth Wasmuth from Indiana. You’ll want to check out her blog.

Ruth Wasmuth

Ruth shares this about her project:

“I first drew the grid in Illustrator and then began playing with colors. I went from very organized to random and back several times, finally settling on an organized scrappy.

“I used six different colors, and six different fabrics in each color. I rough cut the pieces for the paper piecing.

“They were numbered 1–6 in each color and were pinned on my design wall, sorted by color.

“Then I used colored pencils to mark each of the 264 paper piecing units, using my Illustrator chart as a reference.

“The papers in each column A–K were paper clipped together. One column at a time, I placed the 2 fabrics for each piece on top of the piece and paper clipped the entire column together.

“Now the fun begins! I chain pieced each column and then trimmed and removed the papers. The pieces went on the design wall in columns.

“I stitched the columns together as I went along and it went together rather quickly. I loved how it was turning out.

“I ended up with lots of extra rough-cut pieces, so I stitched them together to make the corners of the outer border. The inner border is 4 different reds and the outer border is 4 different blues. My quilt uses 40 different fabrics, including the backing and the binding.”

Didn’t she do a beautiful job? There are so many wonderful things about this quilt. It’s just a very interesting piece to look at! The various fabrics in the Spinners create lots of movement. Your eye keeps moving around to see what else is there!

The different values work to create some lighter areas and some darker areas. There are very light fabrics and very dark fabrics, which can be tricky when working with ’30s prints, because they tend to all be mediums. There is considerable variety in the scale of the fabrics which helps a lot—and again can be hard to do with ’30s prints.

I love the use of four different fabrics in each of the borders. An out-of-the-box decision that reaps big rewards! The pieced corners add interest and used up leftovers too—how’s that for green quilting?!

And the final crowning glory is the allover Baptist Fan quilting. So much texture! Who wouldn’t want to cuddle up with this quilt?

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Still five more Spinout quilts to be revealed in the days to come. I hope you’ll join me and the QM Scrap Squad!

Read more about the Scrap Squad’s projects on QCA.

See the first Spinout we revealed here.

See the second Spinout we revealed here.

Today’s featured Scrap Squad member is Donna Amos from Arkansas.

Donna Amos

The featured pattern is Spinout from page 46 of the July/August ’11 issue of Quiltmaker. Spinout was designed by Barbara Cline. Barbara blogs at quiltingal.xanga.com, where you can see more of her intricate designs.

Spinout, patterned in July/August '11 Quiltmaker. Art Gallery Fabrics.

Now look below: I wonder if Donna was thinking ahead to autumn when she planned her colors. Aren’t they stunning?! One of the things that makes this quilt work is the variety of fabrics within each color. See how the greens differ? Donna wasn’t afraid to throw in some interest. And the reds and oranges don’t “match,” which is a good thing.

There are a few fabrics that dip into the next portion of the color wheel, like the orangey-gold on the quilt’s left side. Not every blade in a Spinner is from the same fabric. All of these were brave choices that paid off mightily for Donna.

Donna's Spinout top before quilting

The quilting adds texture and pulls the whole piece together.

The quilt is also interesting to look at because there are areas of both high and low contrast in the quilt. This works well in a design where the same shape is repeated many times over. The variety in contrast breaks up the repetition of the shapes to add “zing.”

Donna's finished Spinout

Did you notice how Donna arranged the background fabrics? This adds another spark to the quilt.

Not only is Donna’s quilt lovely from the front, it has a special surprise on the back! In Donna’s words, here’s what happened:

When I…was thinking about a backing, I really didn’t have a matching piece of fabric large enough. But I had so many leftover Spinout blocks, I thought there must be something I could do…for a pieced back. To tell the truth, I was driving down the road and the idea of a Spinout Tic-Tac-Toe game just popped into my head. So instead of a one-fabric backing, I decided to piece mine.

Donna's pieced back

I had some leftover pieces that were 10″, and that became the size for the Tic-tac-toe board. I added green and brick-colored borders around the center, then sewed some of the triangles into rows to make the backing longer. I added green and neutral border pieces to make it large enough.

Tic-tac-toe pieces and their drawstring bag

For the game pieces, I sewed one of the “A” pattern pieces to a paper pieced triangle, right sides together,  leaving an opening at the bottom for turning. I clipped the corners, turned, stuffed with fiberfill and slip-stitched the opening. (I made 5 pieces with red for the main color and 5 pieces with green for the main color.)

Then I made a small drawstring bag for the game pieces.

Tic-tac-toe anyone?

I’m betting Donna will have fun with some special loved ones and her game of Tic-tac-toe.

Incidentally, I wanted to share with you that Donna is 77 years young! I asked her to share some thoughts with us:

I am quite fortunate to be well and able to be busy all the time…never enough hours in the day to do all I want to. My husband, Clarence, and I will be celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary the 22nd of this month. We have always lived in NW Arkansas. Have two children and four grandchildren.

I have always loved to sew, mostly making my clothing with a few baby quilts added through the years. When I retired in 1999, after 41 years in Information Technology, I discovered the joys of quilting and have never tired of it. When I first decided that I wanted to learn to make a quilt, I watched all the TV quilting shows, Alex Anderson, Eleanor Burns, Fons & Porter and so on, subscribed to all the quilting magazines I could find, searched the internet for quilt block patterns, and was pretty much “self taught.” The part of quilt making I like best is choosing the pattern, then selecting the colors and fabrics to make the quilt. Most of my quilts are machine quilted, as I am too impatient to do hand quilting, and there is always another quilt that needs to be made.

There is so much that changes from year to year in the tools, fabrics and all that is available to us. I think that as we grow older we have to adapt to that change or be left behind. Learning to use a new ruler or another tool seems to let me be more productive. I have always loved a challenge and have always been one of the first in line to see if I could conquer it. Locally, I have many friends, in my age group, that enjoy making quilts for others, taking classes, finding new patterns. Always something to look forward to.

This year, being in Quiltmaker’s Scrap Squad has been very exciting and rewarding to me. All of the members are so nice and so talented. It is such fun to get an email or a picture of what they are working on. I love seeing how each of us get such different results from the same pattern.

Donna sounds like someone I could be friends with!

Seven more Spinout quilts to share with you in the days to come, along with an alternate method to replace the paper foundations and a fabric giveaway. Stay tuned!

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Read about the Scrap Squad!

Visit the Scrap Squad on QCA.

See an earlier Scrap Squad project.

Today we present the remaining projects by the QM Scrap Squad; they are scrappy versions of Raspberry Dessert by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. Here is Julie’s quilt which appears in the brand-new May/June issue of Quiltmaker.

Ruth used a striking color recipe! The teals and browns play together in a way that is rich and full.

She added voluptuous quilting which further enhances the design.

Ruth gave this quilt as a wedding gift. What couple wouldn’t be thrilled?!

Carol went with a multi-colored recipe for this project.

To me this version says “autumn campfire” or “back to school.”

And here is yet a different look, again with many colors but oh-so-unique from Linda:

And last but certainly not least we have Jane’s quilt. She rotated the design so it is no longer on point. What a great idea. And look at that braided border! So much fun.

The Scrap Squad has more pictures and comments of its own at the QM Scrap Squad Group on Quilters Club of America. You’re invited to visit there. To post your own photos and further participate on QCA, just take a minute to register (it’s fast and free).

Read more about the Scrap Squad here.

Let me tell you about the retreat! Diane and I are part of a group that travels to Liar’s Lodge Bed & Breakfast in scenic Buena Vista, Colorado twice a year for a long weekend of quilting, friendship, yummy food, and a massage thrown in for good measure!

We have been visiting Carl & Connie (who is also a quilter!) Bauer in their wonderful home for about 8 years now and we love it! The modern log lodge is big and spacious with a huge stone fireplace.

The well-lit sewing area in the basement has plenty of space to spread out. Everyone can sew in the same room and chat and see what each other is working on. Check out those quilts-in-progress on the design walls!

Here’s my machine where you can sneak a peek of a quilt you will see in an upcoming Quiltmaker issue.

After dinner on Saturday night, we always have show and tell. Everyone shows what they have finished since our last retreat or what they are currently working on. It’s so much fun and so inspiring to see all of the different quilts.

Diane Harris, It Takes a Village

As any quilter worth her weight in fabric will tell you, there must be food. And lots of it!

And that doesn’t even include the delicious home-cooked meals provided by Connie and Carl. We always go home about 5 pounds heavier it seems!

I always return from retreat with new ideas, new friends, and a renewed love of all things quilty. If you’ve never been on a quilting retreat, treat yourself sometime soon. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make.

Tomorrow I’m leaving for my annual quilting retreat at the foot of the Collegiate Peaks near Buena Vista, Colorado. There will be no shortage of scenery. No shortage of great food, talking, laughing, piecing, quilting, show-and-telling and general all-around good clean fun. It’s something I look forward to all year.

But I always have one major problem getting ready to leave.

I can never decide which quilty projects to take along.

?       ?       ?

There are so many choices! I go ’round and ’round with myself for days. My thoughts go something like this:

• I should take some UFOs.
  But those are no fun and who wants to work on an old project?
• I should take some really challenging blocks.
  But what if I get stuck and get all frustrated and waste the luxury of a retreat?
• I should take some really easy projects.
  But won’t it be a waste of time if I don’t make something more interesting?
• I should take a charity quilt to finish.
  But a retreat is something you do for yourself. Why don’t I sew for me?
• I’ll get started on some Christmas gifts.
  We just had Christmas! No way.
  

You get the idea. I’ve come to think of the time as so valuable, nothing seems worthy of it. And that’s a problem because this is supposed to be about fun and relaxation and time with friends. Keep. Repeating. Fun, relaxation and time with friends.

Here are the candidates so far but more will undoubtedly be added.

This is a UFO I love but have never gotten back to. I loved it so much that I made blocks in two color recipes but didn’t finish either one. Remember Jan Mullen and her Stargazey quilts? She was way ahead of her time with improvisational blocks like these Daisiez.

Or maybe I should pursue the idea of adding this yellow Kona cotton from Robert Kaufman to some feedsacks to reproduce a vintage quilt I once saw:

I could start making Ferris Wheel blocks, like I saw over on Twin Fibers which led me to Q is for Quilter, which I am dying dying dying to make.

This is Martha’s quilt made from Ferris Wheel blocks. (Martha is the blogger behind Q is for Quilter).

Martha's quilt, shown at Q is for Quilter (used with permission)

The pattern is from Aunt Martha’s Quilt Designs: Old Favorites—and New.

Jessica’s Ferris Wheel looked like this:

(used with permission)

And then became this pillow:

(used with permission)

Now you see why I’m dying to make it. That is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. But I digress.

I could rev my engine by working on this improvised project started in a class with Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran last year at Empty Threads at Asilomar.

I love the little ladies and their hats. The ladies are from Material Obsession by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke.

How could these be anything but fun?

I could work on my Roll Roll Cotton Boll, Bonnie’s Hunter’s latest mystery quilt.

Luscious, right?

I could make something with my new, clean, white fabric and this pile of Westminster yum:

Or I could be really really good and quilt this UFO string quilt I basted recently.

Making this list has reminded me of a couple other possibilities. What’s your pick? Leave me a comment please, because I could use some help deciding. Come back next week and I’ll show you whatever I accomplish on retreat. Maybe I can do it all.