Modern quilter Katie Pedersen

Introducing Katie Pedersen -- modern quilter extraordinaire who spoke at our Gig Harbor Quilters Guild last month. She was fantastic, fun, and her quilts were fabulous! Can you tell that I liked the program?

She's only been quilting for seven years, but she founded the Seattle chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild and already has a book under her belt. She also blogs and just did this blog post about her talk at our guild:  http://sewkatiedid.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/stepping-out/

One of her simple square quilts.

Her book is "Quilting Modern -- Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts," written by Katie and Jacquie Gering. But more impressive than the book (which is great) is that she lives and works in a 640-square-foot home with a husband and son along with her fabric stash!

Improvisation is a big theme with her, and she started by showing us some simple square patch quilts that were made improvisationally.  

Then she explored half-square triangles ...

... and other triangles ...

... and showed us some wonky blocks with a lot of solid background to showcase the quilting. She likes to use Osna cloth, a type of loosely woven off-white nubby cotton that almost looks like a rough linen. She also backs a lot of her quilts with flannel.

She used old phone book pages as the foundation for this strip-pieced star:

This red quilt shows her "magic numbers" design. You basically cut squares 2 1/2", 4 1/2", 6 1/2", and keep adding 2" to the size. Allowing for quarter-inch seams, the blocks all fit together nicely into improvisational units.

She also showed some more intricate designs:

The backs often carried over the design from the front.



One of the quilts using Osna cloth as the background.

Improvisation

Here's what Katie and Jacquie say in the book's introduction: "Improvisation has various interpretations, but for us it means creating in the moment and reacting to ideas and our environment to make something new. Improvisation energizes our creativity and fosters an inventive spirit."

Free yourself

Also: "Free yourself. We ask ourselves on a daily basis, what might happen if? Ideas are free for the taking. Grab one and take it where you want to go."

Have a colorful day

Forgotten Kokopelli-tipi quilt

I was reorganizing some sealed bins that I had stuck under my cutting table five years ago when we moved here and I found the pieces to this quilt that I had TOTALLY forgotten about. They must be 15-19 years old, because I made them when we lived in the desert.

I think I gave up on it either because:

   1. The green flying geese strip curves and I can't iron it flat and I will NOT redo it.
   2. I decided it was too big (60x80 inches) for me to want to quilt it.
   3. We had to move to Illinois and I forgot about it in the ensuing three house moves.
   4. After we left the Southwest, Kokopelli wasn't so compelling anymore.

Kokopelli the flute player.

 You can read about Kokopelli here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokopelli

I can't believe I did all that meticulous applique -- a tiny blind hem machine stitch with invisible thread. Pretty soon these fabrics will be considered vintage. My color palette has changed so much since then that I don't know if I want to finish it or put it all back in the bin. However, I do like the running horses.
 

Maybe I'll just throw out the green flying geese -- they're too dark for my tastes now and there's no way I'll pick them apart and resew them straight.
 

Strangely enough, when we moved to Illinois, one of the first things my husband did was erect a tipi in the backyard. Our property was totally wooded and backed onto a wooded park and wooded section of a little college, so it looked natural. I think our son slept in it a few nights, and we saw the occasional college students staring at it and probably wondering who lived there. Once I heard someone singing/chanting near it in the snow.



I couldn't find any digital photos of the tipi, but this shows our yard near where it was. I sure miss that sunny studio spot in the livingroom

The best thing about the tipi was that it caught the attention of a new couple in the neighborhood who became some of our closest friends until they moved back to Ireland. If they hadn't stopped to ask about the tipi, we might never have met.

So, the verdict is still out on what to do with it but I thought I'd show it to you because it was such a surprise to resdiscover it!

Have a colorful day

Wordless Wednesday

Have a colorful day

Color in Paula's garden

I haven't been making many quilts this summer, but I am soaking up color inspiration now that summer has arrived in the Northwest. Today I want to invite you into my friend Paula's spectacular garden. That's her above (orange is her favorite color) with my husband under one of the trellises made by her husband.

Like I said, orange is her favorite color (mine too), and it's sprinkled liberally throughout her gardens, along with vivid pinks, glowing yellow and hydrangeas ranging from soft pink through lavender. I am totally in awe, since I'm a black-thumb gardener and can barely manage a few pots with annuals.

Besides the gorgeous blooms, her gardens are filled with trellises, decorative bird houses and other surprises at every turn. (In the spring, her yard is carpeted with thousands of daffodils.)

  

 

I don't think Jake the dog appreciates the posies, but he likes to chew on logs.

And for dessert: Homemade ice cream topped with blueberries picked right beside the bonfire.

Have a colorful day

Cancer, strength and the garden tour

Yesterday afternoon I helped staff the Gig Harbor Quilt Festival booth at one of the lovely gardens on the Gig Harbor Garden Tour. All proceeds from the booth go toward providing mammograms for women who can't afford them.

There were many beautiful, peaceful, lovely and unexpected treasures in this secret garden:

But the most beautiful of all was the smile (after the tears were wiped away) on this woman in orange, Sheila, when she realized that it was our group that made the comfort quilt she received last year while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Smiling beside her is Carol Arnold, who started the Comfort Quilt Project (an offshoot of the Quilt Festival) after her treatment for breast cancer. That project makes quilts for local patients undergoing cancer treatment and has donated more than 1,100 so far.
 

Carol, left, and Sheila.

We were so touched by Sheila's story and of how she treasures that blue quilt that we all teared up a bit. Then I snapped into journalist mode and asked to take a picture and put her in the blog.

Before we discovered that she was a cancer survivor, she had mentioned that going on the Garden Tour was one of the items on her bucket list and that she was checking off a new item every month. "Next month is piano lessons," she said. She jumped right into the Garden Tour and served as a docent at another garden.
 
Then we got her cancer story, and the bucket list made sense. We should all embrace life like that, but without waiting for cancer or some other setback to strike first. 

You can read more about her story here in local Gig Harbor Patch: http://gigharbor.patch.com/groups/breast-cancer-awareness/p/gig-harbor-woman-fights-back-breast-cancer-seeking-heaca485bd80
 

A quilter's ferry!

We heard other stories from survivors, and I was so touched by their strength. I've never had cancer and often think I would just fall apart if it happened to me. I may be physically strong from my yoga practice, but I'm a mental wimp. One woman told of how hard it was to hold together her teaching job while undergoing chemo and suffering from chemo brain. Others simply said they wanted to buy something from us because they had gone through breast cancer. 
 

I made two garden scarves and sold them right away and talked the buyers into posing for the blog. Here I am with Carol wearing one, and here are the nice women who bought them. I made the scarves light and airy so they would be comfortable in the summer.
 

Note the mola on her shirt.

 

Here are more items for sale at our booth, interspersed with garden photos:

 

 

 

Raffle quilt, "Summer Album"

You can get tickets for the raffle quilt and learn more about the group through its web site: http://www.gigharborquiltfestival.org/

Fun pincushions by Janet.

 

The fan says it all. It was HOT, and people gratefully stopped under the shade of our canopy and then wandered through the dark, mysterious, shady garden areas behind the house. Many wide-brimmed straw hats were worn, in contrast with umbrellas that were needed for part of last year's tour.

Have a colorful day