I meant to post a few more Market blogs last week, but I was a little busy trying to finish up a very special quilt.  For the past few years, I have been volunteering in our elementary school library and have had the opportunity to get to know a very special lady – Mrs Luccaro, the school librarian.  She is a most amazing person!  Obviously as an elementary school librarian, it is her job to know the books.  But Mrs. Luccaro knows more than just every single book in the library, she also knows every single child like a book!  Casting off all stereotypes of a dull librarian, her fancy high heeled shoes and sparkly jewelry reflect a dynamic personality which casts its spell over her domain.

It is my fourth grader’s last year at the school, so when I spotted a pattern from www.BlockPartyStudios.com a few months back to make the perfect library quilt, I grabbed it.  Although it’s the first quilt I’ve made from a pattern in a long time, I managed to put my signature spin on it. 

The pattern came with a pre-printed panel meant for coloring and a bit of fusible applique.  My son did the coloring and my good friend Cathy used the occasion as a perfect opportunity to practice using the embroidery function on her new Baby Lock machine.  Cathy also supplied the most perfect dolphin fabric that I fussy-cut and appliqued to represent the school’s mascot.  The books are paper-pieced (on the left) and pieced (on the right) with scraps from both mine and Cathy’s collection.  The lamp was supposed to be just paper-pieced, but with a little help from a scrap of Timtex, I managed to make it 3-D.  (Light chain included!)  A piece of re-known children’s author Eric Carle’s licenced print made a perfect backing.

Despite some end of school year craziness, I finally managed to corner Mrs. Luccaro in the library and present her with the quilt.  A gift from me on behalf of my son and the other fourth graders.

Thank you for all you do, Mrs. Luccaro!  We love you!

Helle-May

One of the things I love about quilting is the people you meet.  Quilting cuts across gender, age, race, nationality, and even profession(past and present).  Everyone has a story and most are willing to share it!  Quilt Market is just another great opportunity to meet people with some amazing stories!

We didn’t meet Samantha Caffee until we were on our way back to the airport to go home.  We got to sit with Samantha on the shuttle ride to the airport and as luck would have it  – she was also on our flight to Chicago.   So we had a nice long opportunity to get to know this amazing lady. 

Samantha is the owner of The Handmade Dress.  (www.TheHandmadeDress.com)  She designs and sells patterns for the most adorable little girl dresses.    The more we listened to Samantha’s story, the more we were amazed at how much this soft spoken young woman from Alabama was able to accomplish in any given day.  (In fact it made us question whether or not we were using our daily 24 hours to the fullest!)  Samantha has three kids, ranging from 4 to 8 years old, and is awaiting two more young ones that she is adopting from Bulgaria.  In addition to taking care of the kids, a large garden, an assortment of chicken and goats and baking her own bread, Samantha also home-schools all three children and intends to do so for all five through high school.   To here her tell it, it is all very achievable and very fulfilling.  Her blog is full of stories and pictures of her happy family. 

“Given all that you do in the home, when in the world do you have the chance to design and make your patterns?” we asked.   Turns out that her office area and classroom space are adjacent and so after she gives her lessons and the kids sit down to complete their assignments, Samantha also sits down to do her work.   “Besides”, she said “unlike a quilt, it only takes me a couple of hours to sew up a dress and the pattern instructions are pretty simple.”  She says that she is lucky to have “live” models of varying ages and sizes which allows her to easily size her patterns. 

Please be sure to check out her website and blog, especially if you have little girls in your life!  As much as I love my boys, it makes me wish I had little girls!   

Helle-May 

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day and has enjoyed a long weekend with family! 

My boys marched in the parade this morning with the scouts.  As we applauded the veterans, both young and old, I admit I got a bit teary eyed.  We must always remember and honor those who have given of themselves to defend our freedom and especially those who have fought in wars that haven’t been so clear cut.

More blogs about what I found at Market resume tomorrow!

Helle-May

The first time I attended Quilt Festival in Houston in 2004, I fell in love with Susan Cleveland’s work.  Her quilt, Spangled Star Banner, hung in the In the American Tradition III special exhibit.  I loved how the perfect tiny piping, mini prairie points and bead embellishments gave this quilt perfect pizazz.  Afterwards, I bought her tool to try my hand at the piping, but admittedly never got my act together to try it.

Fast forward 6 years to spring 2010.  Before I left for market, I designed several new quilts based on the Double Card Trick block I created for Driftwood.  One of my favorites included a border with prairie points to mimic the paper-pieced triangles in the main blocks.  Mind you, I’ve never made prairie points before!  Anyway, as we were walking the aisles, suddenly we were in front of the “Pieces Be With You” booth with none other than Susan Cleveland, herself!  She was demonstrating her Prairie Pointer tool!  Do you believe in Kismet??  Of course I had to have one!  This time, I wasted no time trying out my new tool!

Here are my very first Prairie Points!  Not bad for a beginner!  I sewed the green and purple ones to the black fabric, but the pink/green one is just sitting on the black fabric.  I tried using a stripe as Susan suggested – neat idea!  The tool really does make it easy and Susan has some great ideas about how to make the Prairie Points fun and special. 

Check out her website to see all her great products and ideas:  www.piecesbewithyou.com     Be sure to take a look at her beautiful award winning quilts!  Susan’s booth as well as her quilts are just like a party! 

A great pillow project using the Prairie Points will be featured in the August issue of McCall’s Quilting, due out in June. 

Until the next edition of “What I found at Market!” …

Helle-May

As promised, here is the first of the must haves – the new EQ6 upgrade from Electric Quilt Co. – EQ7!

Shortly before going to Market, I had heard the upgrade was going to be available in June.  As you must know by now, EQ6 has been my favorite tool ever since I started designing my own quilts.  I had started with EQ5 and upgraded to EQ6 in 2007.  That was a significant upgrade.  The differences between EQ6 and EQ7 are not that dramatic, but if you are a serious EQ6 user the improvements are definitely worth the upgrade!

At Market, I ran into an old friend from my Chicagoland days, Barb Vlack.  Barb is an expert in all things EQ.  She is a technical advisor, has written a few books for them, teaches, and does much more, I’m sure.   Way back when in my Program Chairperson days for Pride of the Prairie Quilters, I had contracted Barb to do an evening program for us.   That’s when I learned that even though I used EQ extensively, I hadn’t even scratched the surface!

Anyway, Barb gave me a feel for a few of the great new improvements : 

• The ability to edit and manipulate photographs, almost as well as Photoshop Elements without having to leave the program.  This includes the ability to manipulate scanned images of fabrics.  This sounds very efficient to me.  I hate toggling back and forth between the two programs.  Plus it opens up a whole new world of easily creating images/fabric with photos as I have seen done by other designers with much more complicated software.
• A graph paper grid on the Custom Set Layout.  I love designing on Custom Set Layout, but it can be a pain to have place blocks on an empty piece of paper and have to do math in your head to get everything in the right place.  I think this was Barb’s idea!  Thank you Barb!
• The ability to click and drag objects onto the layout.  This will give EQ more of the same feel as most other drawing programs out there.

I know there’s more, but these are the improvements that struck me.    Check out www.ElectricQuilt.com  for more information and to order yours today!!!!

I was lucky enough to pick up my copy while in Minneapolis, but, alas, carrying my laptop from here to there evidently jostled something on my DVD/CD drive and I couldn’t load the upgrade disc.  It was less expensive to order an external drive than to get the computer fixed – so here I wait!  What a tease to have the CD in my possession and not be able to play!  Hopefully, I’ll get to play real soon and upload some images of what I was able to create!

More Market must-haves tomorrow!

Helle-May

I am so lucky to have been connected with the great people at Island Batik for the last year or so.  As promised, the next quilt in the Scandinavian Quilt Series is Scandinavian Sky.  Here I am, with Island Batik owner and designer, Moira Dewar, showing off Scandinavian Sky.   Although the designs in this series are pretty traditional, I loved using the batiks to give the quilts the appearance of texture.  Of course, that’s not to say they wouldn’t look great using some of the other great fabrics out there.

 The quilt measures 35″ x 48″ and just like Scandinavian Christmas, the top red border is also a rod pocket.  Keeping life simple and easy – there is no binding!  Get your pattern to see how it’s done!  Available June 1 from www.QuiltWoman.com

Helle-May

Here we are at the entrance to the 2010 Spring Quilt Market in Minneapolis.  That’s my friend and pattern editor, extraordinaire, Connie, on my left!  Connie lives in Chicagoland and so now I only get to see her about once a year.  What a fabulous time we had spending the weekend looking at all of the new products, patterns and fabrics coming into the marketplace. 

We were also both very inspired by all of the beautiful quilts we saw.  I have lots of ideas spinning in my head!  The challenge will be where to start!

Over the next few days, I will blog about some of the things we saw and the new products we just had to have!  Stay tuned!

Helle-May

As you know by now, I am very proud of my Estonian heritage.  I am also very intrigued and inspired by the designs and color of the traditional handwork and folk costumes.   Last summer I posted pictures from our vacation in Estonia, including the colorful costumes from  the Dance Festival and the beautiful handwork from the island of Kihnu.   Much of my work to date has been influenced (albeit subconsciously) by these designs that have surrounded me all my life.  This spring, however, I decided to very consciously interpret these designs in my quilting. 

I have just finished two of a three quilt series that I am calling my Scandinavian Quilt Series.  Although one of the designs is taken directly from a traditional knitted Estonian vest, the patterns are what most people would associate with Scandinavian knitted sweater design.  In my opinion, Estonians are most closely associated with the Scandinavian peoples and their designs are very similar. 

In somewhat of a paradox, I chose to make these quilts from Batiks, created in a part of the world that could not be more opposite, Bali.  However, I really like the way these hand-dyed fabrics simulate the texture of the hand-dyed wools that are used to create the beautiful knits. 

Scandinavian Christmas is the first in the series.  Ironically, the green fabric which inspired this quilt was from a line called “Jungle Bean” from Island Batik, Inc.  However, rather than jungle foliage, I saw evergreen boughs.  Although, I colored the sashing the same as the star “backgrounds,”  I added cornerstones of yellow, reminiscent of candles burning on an old fashioned Christmas tree.

The pattern (HMD-105)  is now available at www.QuiltWoman.com.  Coming soon:  Scandinavian Sky

Got back from the AQS show in Lancaster, PA on Saturday night.  What a great town to hold a quilt show in!  You couldn’t look in any direction without seeing something quilt related!  Hats off to Lancaster for being a wonderful host city!  The show was held in their brand new convention center in downtown Lancaster.  Evidently we were their guinea pigs as the first big show.  I think they passed with flying colors!  Everyone was as friendly and as helpful as they could be.  Even on Saturday morning as I was looking for the right building for my lecture, the police crossing guard looked at my puzzled face and imediately knew where to direct me.  They must have had some town meeting before we came and everyone was briefed!

I stayed at the Days Inn just on the outskirts of downtown (about 2 mi.) and took the shuttle to the Convention Center which was also connected to the Marriott Hotel.  Most of the show was located in the Convention Center, but there were also some vendors located in another building which you had to take a shuttle to.  There were also some classes in a building across the street.  But all in all, it was pretty compact.  The Centeral Farmer’s Market was across the street.  I had a delicious and inexpensive lunch over there – it reminded me of the Reading Terminal Market (for you Philly people) except in miniature.  Actually, the whole town reminded me of a miniature Philly.    I also got a chance to visit the Lancaster Quilt Museum, which is definitely worth a visit.  Beautiful collection of Amish and Mennonite quilts.  The funnest part of the museum was there display of living rooms decorated for Christmas through the decades.  A neat journey back in time!  Lancaster claims to be the location of the first decorated Christmas tree in America.  (I think I have that right.)

No ribbons for Driftwood, but I was very proud to have her displayed along with the other amazing quilts that were in the judged exhibit.  You can go to   http://www.americanquilter.com/shows_contests/lancaster/2010/quilt_contest/quilt_winners.php     to see the winning quilts.

The show is booked for the next two years.  Next time I hope to explore more of Lancaster and  visit more of the shops in the surrounding area.  It’s a neat little city and worth the trip!

Helle-May

Mennonite Quilt from the Museum

 Driftwood and me