Kristin Shields Quiltmaker

November Stitches :: This Week

This has been a busy month (are there any that are not?).  Here's a sampling of what's going on this week.  I am taking a once a month wool club class with Tamra at the Stitchin' Post. It's based around Sue Spargo's Bird Dance pattern.  I already have plenty of wool and embellishments, so I started a new project!  Silly me.

I taught my own class: Whimsical Journal Covers on Wednesday. It was a small, but very fun class.  Above is my fox I stitched on as a demo.  Below is Jeannie's dog, my pattern inspired by Scrabble.  So cute!

Lindsey was excited to make a cover to fit a different sized journal. Isn't that pretty fabric!  I forgot to get a picture of the other student's journal, but she did a pieced strip version that was really pretty.My fox is done and when I get a chance I'll be finishing up all these other journal covers to put in the shop.

Above is the quilt that's been my nemesis lately.  I got really, really tired of putting together all those little squares.  I will love the final product, but not the process.  Below is the little project I nearly finished while avoiding the one above.  This one is created from demo pieces from my Portland guild Improv class.  I love it!  And, best of all I love the process too.  If I know one thing about myself, it's that I need variety!

Lastly, hand quilting has been my nightly project for several weeks.  I am making good progress on this one and will update when it's finished!  So, what are you stitching on this week?

Modern Improv, May 2014

I had a good time teaching my Modern Improv class last Saturday.  Each of the students worked tirelessly all day and came out with a good start on some pretty cool quilts!  Throughout the day, their pieces changed as they tried new techniques and moved pieces around.  I love how these are coming along!

These next two are my own, can you tell by the color?  I am considering how to finish this small teaching sample right now.  I don't have any other teaching plans until September, when I'll be teaching at NW Quilters in Portland.  I'll post to my teaching schedule if anything comes up between now and then.

A Little Something for Victoria

For Victoria Findlay Wolfe, author of 15 Minutes of Play.  If you'd like to make one too, click here!  This will be such a fun project.  To see how it's coming along, click here.

Liberated Baskets

I had so much fun teaching liberated baskets last Friday!  I had only two students, so they got extra attention and I got time to sew too.  I picked a very limited palette (for me) and used the black and white feature on my camera to check the value.

I got a chance to try some basket shapes that I've never made before.  Isn't this print a hoot?  It's an old one that I had a 1/2 yard of.  It's perfect for this.

This one was fun to do.  My students requested a lesson on spiky triangles, so I used my demo pieces to make this basket.  I also thought I'd add some stems for flowers and showed them that you can get the block together and do the handles later if you want to hand applique.

These are the two fabulous pieces that Susan (above) and Sandie (below) are working on.  Susan brought some great Hawaiian prints she picked up on Maui.  Love it!  Sandie came with a huge stack of blocks she made during a class with Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran.  I helped her get them organized and then she started making baskets to fill it in.  Wonderful!  

My next class is Modern Improv on May 10th at QuiltWorks. I'd love to have you join me!

Unplanned Show and Tell

At the March meeting of the Mt Bachelor Quilters' Guild, I was suprised to find some of my work on display.  Joanne brought her wonderful SOQS 2013 block contest quilt.  She got my trailer block and it was very nice to see how it turned out!

Our speaker was award winning framer, Myrna Dow, owner of High Desert Frameworks.  Myrna does all sorts of charitable work in our community, including framing over 80 fabric postcards for the Wish Upon a Card project for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  Last summer she bought one of my small fiber pieces for herself and this was the first I got see of it since.  Myrna framed it beautifully!  What a treat it is to see your work once it's gone out into the world!

Girlfriends

Our guild retweet (thanks Mom!) was so much fun.  Most of the ladies will remain nameless to protect the innocent, but I don't think my girlfriend Erin would mind me sharing her photo.  She was hard at work finishing her son's quilt that was started at a retreat several years ago.  We had our snacks and required reading (mostly Gwen Marston!).  Happy smiles when the top was done!  

I worked on this project (Girlfriends) first of all.  In preparation of the retreat I went to my UFO stash and looked for things to bring.  These two birdie blocks were done and ready for something (anything, really).  I decided to do a medallion quilt, a la Gwen Marston.  First I added the wild print border.

Then I made a bunch of little 4" liberated shoo fly blocks.  I made over 20 of these, not knowing for sure what I was going to do with them.

I thought about them going all the way around, but then realized that there needed to be another border between the shoo fly blocks and the wild print.

I made some wildly bright string borders of mostly Kaffe Fasset prints.  Then I realized that it was mashing up the wild border print.  So, I needed something in between.  I almost thought I didn't have anything when I found some of the solid green.  

That was just the thing.  At this point I decided the thing was getting to be too wide, so I added the shoo fly blocks to just the top and bottom.  it's not done yet though.  I want to add one more border and bring in some more green.  Then I think it will be off to a machine quilter to finish so I can get on with other things.

We had three days of nearly non stop sewing, meals that magically appeared, door prizes and games. I worked on two other projects, but will reveal them in time.  Meanwhile, I may or may not confirm that we had a humping iron (oh the hilarity of a pop up iron gone crazy), several versions of the chicken dance and a world class jump roping demonstration among the entertainment.  What a great weekend with my girlfriends!

SOQS:: Block Contest 2012

I finished my contest block last week and got it turned in a month early!  There's still time if you'd like to join the contest.  Just check out the info here.  When I got my fabric pack, it took a while to come up with a design, but the orange print really begged to be bird tails in my mind.  All the other parts fell in to place easily and I had fun adding some embroidery embellishment.  This is my 6th year participating and it's always fun to see what others come up with.  

My current work includes my guild challenge quilt, based on children's literature and my book club quilt, based on Jane Kirkpatrick's Love To Water My Soul.  I had a terrible time choosing a children's book to do, but I finally chose my book and came up with a design concept last week.  I spent all last Saturday preparing a background and cutting fabric for applique.  Now I'm stitching down those pieces.  Unfortunately, this one needs to be a secret until July 16.  I'm also doing Jude Hill's latest class, Contemporary Boro 2.  It's all about remaking clothing or creating something new. I'm working on a vest and hope to have something to show soon.

With a busy summer coming up I am not sure how much I'll be able to post, but hope to check in every week or so.  I hope you are all enjoying the coming change of season!

10,000!

Wow!  My quilt, "Shhhh..." was the 10,000th quilt registered for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative!  I just found out today when I got a call directly from Ami Simms.  What a treat!  When I picked up the phone I was really wondering why AAQI would be calling, even though I knew the 10,000 milestone was approaching.  The quilt is already in the mail to Ami and there are hopes it will be able to get some extra publicity for the charity.  

In fact, some of you will recognize this one as a piece that I made during the Patchwork Beasts class with Jude a couple of years ago.  I finished it last year and put it in my shop, but I hadn't sold.  When April 1 rolled around I realized I had nothing ready for AAQI this month, I decided to remove this one from the shop and registered it right away.  Well, now it's on a whole new adventure!  Ami is keen to see some local and national publicity, so I'll post here if any of that comes about.

A day in the life of SHS

Yesterday was a great day here in Stitching Hands Studio. First of all, I finished the stitching on the Long Necked Beast (aka llama).  I still need to back and quilt it, but it's coming along.  

Second of all, I got out the quilt blocks I won last year in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show block contest and started work on getting them together.  It turned out I won 21 blocks, plus my own.  Twenty-two blocks isn't quite the right number so I decided to add 2 more blocks to make it a 6 x 4 arrangement.  They had sent me leftover fabric from the block packs so I had plenty to work with.  I also decided to choose the dark green for sashing.  It's actually a lovely two-toned green shot cotton. 

Isn't this a wonderful collection of blocks?  Mine is the third one down in the third column from the left.  The two I designed to make up the difference are the fourth and sixth down in the second column from the left.  I'm still stitching them.  The block arrangement might change before they get sewn together, but so far I'm happy with this.  This is after much rearrangement.  Once I get this all sewn together I'll go look for a good border fabric.  

That little stack of fabric tacked on the board at the right is the block pack for this year's block contest.  Wonder what will become of that?

Today I've been running errands, getting together the guild newsletter, packing, doing laundry, cleaning up. Tomorrow we are off on a little trip to the coast.  I'm sure we'll see rain, but I'm hoping the sun will make an appearance too.  I'll be happy for some time away to clear my head, ramble, take photos, and enjoy my family.  Have a great weekend!

Continuing

I've been working on many things this week and feel in a bit of  whirlwind with so many things I want to do.  The chores and have-to's keep getting in the way.  I'm finishing up a couple of these samples from Jude's classes (Patchwork Beasts and Cloth to Cloth). I had originally intended to put several of these pieces together into one big piece, but have changed my mind and will make small wall hangings that I plan to offer for sale in my shop.  I'll post here when I do that.

Meanwhile, my new design wall is getting a workout with this quilt for Chloe!  This was meant to be her graduation/going to college quilt.  It's  bit late, but will come just in time for the cold weather.  I decided to make two design walls and the other one isn't up yet.  This one is behind the door and so will be somewhat hidden, but it's a great use for a wall that really wasn't good for hanging artwork.  My pinboard is up too, but photos of that will have to be another day.  Must get going!