Northwest Quilters show #2

I hope you enjoyed the photos from my last post from the Northwest Quilters Guild show. Here are the rest of my favorite quilts from that show.  Enjoy and be inspired to quilt!

The colors and setting in the quilt on the right is quite different to me but it really spoke to me!

Have a pieceful day!
Michele

Northwest Quilters Guild Show

“On the road again…..”
for the start of the 2010 quilt shows, and we were at the Northwest Quilters Guild Show in Portland, OR on March 12 – 14.
As always, there was a plethora of wonderful quilts on display, and friendly plus helpful guild members and quilters.

I had to stop these customers to take a photo of them for my blog. They’re called the “Necktie Sisters” as they are really sisters, and created their skirts and purses from old ties.

Here is one of the most creative quilts I’ve ever seen! The guild asked their members to create quilt blocks that featured fabric with bugs and insects, and then they sewed a VW cover with screen mesh for the windows! Very “hip”! There is one block though that features “Bugs Bunny” which was fun for the kids to look for. Hope the guild sends photos of this quilt to  Volkswagon!

This was a spectacular quilt by the featured quilter, Anton Haas, Sr. The notes said he was inspired by a mosaic floor in Italy. You just never know when you’ll be inspired to design!
I loved the pieced border and center on this scrappy batik quilt.

This was an interesting scrappy stripped quilt when the light strips have autographs. Even though I’m a symmetrical person I liked the setting on this quilt.

I wish I had been able to take a photo of this quilt straight on as it was very interesting. The rings are all pieced and scrappy and then appliqued to the quilt top. I wonder if the quilter was inspired by the Olympics at some point.

This was also a spectacular quilt of color, piecing and multi-colored thread for quilting!

More quilts to follow from this show next time. Have a pieceful day!

Michele

Quilting Friends are the Best

Being a quilt designer with a home-based business makes it hard at times to make friends in the industry. These are our friends, Sue and Art Capello,  of the Suzy Q Quilter, a home machine quilting system that Art designed; and they personally manufacture. Sue and I met at a North Idaho quilt guild meeting about 4 years ago. She and Art started vending at quilt shows before we did, and were very helpful in getting us started on the show circuit. We support each other between shows with phone calls and emails, and have dinner at least one time per show. They just came to dinner at our home on Saturday night, and it was a fun evening! We talk shop a lot, but also our personal lives.  Please click on the Suzy Q Quilter above to visit their website and view their quilting frames, and machine quilting templates.

Here’s the quick and easy dessert I made for them that night:

Dump Cake
1 yellow cake mix
30 oz. can of fruit pie filling (cherry, apple or ?)
3/4 cup of butter (melted)
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
* Optional: 1 cup of diced fruit: apple, pears, strawberries, blueberries or ? (your choice if  you have it on hand)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spread the can of pie filling evenly in the bottom of a 9″ x 13″ pan. Sprinkle the other cup of fruit on top (if desired).
3.  Sprinkle the cake mix evenly on top of the fruit.
4.  Pour the melted butter evenly on top of cake mix.
5.  Sprinkle the nuts on top.
6. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes until golden brown.
7. Serve warm with Cool Whip or vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Have a pieceful day!
Michele

Isn’t life just ducky?

My last post was that I was going to be a grandmother. I never would have dreamed that my latest design, “Baby Love”, would be published right after I found this out! Coincidence? Only God knows. This quilt is in the May issue of The Quilter, and the kits (pink or blue) are available on my website. Below is what it looks like in blue. This fabric collection is by Susan Branch for RJR Fabrics. 

I love offering quilt kits in different colors as it is FUN to do! Not everyone can “see” a quilt in their head in different colors or fabrics. The blue is a virtual quilt that was created by my graphic designer, Staci, in CA. She is a whiz at scanning the fabric and digitally piecing the fabric together in Photoshop so it looks like a real quilt!

If you look at a variety of quilt patterns and/or ads for quilts, you can tell if the quilt is a virtual or a real quilt. Check out the borders and see how perfectly straight the borders are. It’s a great way to show new fabric collections to you, the consumer, before the fabric hits your fabric store; and while it’s being printed, too. Oh, what amazing technology we know have at our fingertips!

It’s the end of February so it’s still SOUP TIME here at the Crawford home. Here is one of our family’s favorites that is quick and easy to make. Enjoy!

Spaghetti Soup
1 pound of ground beef
1 cup of chopped onion
4 cups of canned beef broth
Two 14 oz. jars of Prego spaghetti sauce
14.5 oz. can of petite diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 cup of finely chopped green bell pepper
1 cup of thinly sliced zucchini
2 teaspoons of dried Italian seasoning

*Optional: 4.5 oz. can of sliced mushrooms; or 1 1/2 cups of uncooked rotini
1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, brown the ground beef and onion; drain.
2. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat;  simmer 15 – 20 minutes or until the rotini and vegetables are tender.
3. If desired, sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top before serving.
Makes ten 1 1/4 cup servings.

Now back to finishing the “Flutterby” quilt for the July issue of The Quilter…..

A note from my husband, Tom who wants you to know that when you purchase quilt kits and patterns from Flower Box Quilts that you are supporting a small home based “Made in America” business, and we appreciate your business very much! 

Piece,
Michele

I’m going to be a Grandma!

There are definitely days in your life that I like to call “Banner Days” which are defining moments in your life be they happy or sad. Being a parent of four kids means I had thought at some point that I might be a grandmother some day. And, that day is coming in September as my oldest son, Myk, and his wife, Marnie, announced that they are expecting! Since their names both begin with an “M”, M&M’s were used in favors at their wedding. It was very “appropriate” for them to have specially printed pink and blue M&M’s with “Baby Crawford”, and “M&M +1” printed on them. What a wonderful surprise!

After googling, “First Time Grandparents”, I lots of sites that related to this new title-to-be of mine.  One article said that this is one of the only times in your life that you actually get to decide what you want to be called. In my family, “Grandma” was the only name used for this honor, yet Tom’s family had an Oma, a Nana plus an Ama; and my children call his mother “Mimi”. My mother was “Grandma” to my kids, but unfortunately she died in 1988 so really only Myk remembers her.  And, there are so many variations or special names that will just be invented because the grandchild will pronounce it they way she or he will do it.

What is a grandparent? My paternal grandmother died before I was 5, and I don’t remember her at all.  The memories of my own maternal grandmother are of course unique to me, but my grandma was 75 years old when I was born, blind in one eye, and in a wheelchair because she had had polio. No memories of being read to, playing in the park, making cookies, or just being held like I hope to do with my own grandchildren. Tom has wonderful memories of his grandparents; and I was grateful that I got to know them. What will my grandchildren remember of me? That’s what I want to think about and pray about during the next months while waiting for Baby Crawford to arrive. Babies are definitely God’s way of telling the world that life goes on!

Piece,
Michele

Super Bowl Sewing Sunday

I wonder how many of you out there are snowed in, and are happily sewing today. You might be watching the Super Bowl or not. I will be doing hand sewing while watching the game at my oldest son’s home. I’m not really cheering for anyone, but it is a way to be out and about with other people. And, I baked which Tom appreciates. It’s just frosty and foggy here which is good compared to having piles of snow.  Elizabeth Anne, is my latest quilt in the March issue of The Quilter, and is available on my site. It is definitely a breath of spring with the purple, teal, blue and lavender.

I’ve been working away designing kits that we’ll post on the site soon. I have a new piecer named Pat who is piecing a new quilt, and redoing 2 of my quilt patterns with new fabrics.  It was really nice to be actually sewing yesterday instead of working on the computer. I will be embroidering a Halloween table runner today. It “seams” a little odd to some people to be working on Halloween when the next holiday is Valentine’s Day.

Michele’s Sewing Tip: When you are rotary cutting your fabric, “square up the fabric” first before you cut your strips. And, the old adage of “Measure twice and cut once” is not only true for carpenters but also quilters. Also, change your rotary blade often. When you cannot make a clean cut, and the blade gets “caught” in the fabric, you know you  need a new blade! Accurate cutting is the first step towards accurate piecing.  

Have a pieceful day!
Michele

Beth Ferrier came to our quilt guild

Yesterday the 600+ members of the Washington State Quilters Guild here in Spokane were fortunate to hear  my friend, Beth Ferrier of Applewood Farm Publications, Inc., speak at our guild meeting. She is a wonderfully knowledgeable  and humorous speaker with great stories to tell about herself and her fabulous quilts. The quilt on the left is from her Moondance book.  She is teaching two classes while she is here  in Spokane, and her lucky students are learning her machine applique and quilting secrets! The photos below are ones I took of her when we went to dinner at The Rusty Moose between the afternoon and evening meetings yesterday.

Above is Beth with “Larry the Lumberjack” outside the restaurant.  What will her husband, Kent, think? Below is Beth sitting in the carved bear chair. As you can imagine, this restaurant has a very Northwestern lodge look to it. Great food!

New Fabric Collection! This is called “Happy Haunters” by Red Rooster. I like these particular ones from the collection because it’s not overly “Halloween-y”.  Fall colors, but I LOVE the purple with the other colors! I will be offering two different kits with this collection including  redoing my “Smilin’ Jack” and the “Autumn Interlude” patterns. I’ll let you know when these kits will be available later in the spring.

Michele’s Sewing Tip: Strive for as accurate a 1/4″ seam allowance as possible when piecing! Having an accurate seam allowance does make a difference in how the pieces in your blocks, and the blocks themselves butt together with a quilt. Measure your seam allowance to see if yours is an exact or a scant 1/4″ (or not at all – yikes!). There are different sewing machine feet and products that will help you achieve a 1/4″ seam. You can also use a ruler to measure a 1/4″ from where the needle goes in the fabric, and then place a masking tape guideline at this point. If you are a beginning quilter, practice sewing 1/4″ seams on scrap fabric first.  

Piece,
Michele

New fabric and sewing tip!

                                                                                                                                                
Oh, the silly photos we take on vacation! Tom wouldn’t let me take his photo like this so I’ll just embarass myself. It’s the last week of January, and it doesn’t feel like winter here in Spokane. We’ve had very little snow so I’m posting this photo of me in Florida last month. I’ve been working frantically on designing new quilts with digital images of new fabric collections so I can write the directions, determine the bolts we need, and then order the fabric waaaaaay ahead of time.  In 20 1/2 years as a quilt designer, I have never worked on fall or Christmas projects this early in the year.
This is called “Sweet Liberty” by Pat Sloan for P&B Textiles. This company does print fabric ahead of time and sends out fat quarters to design with which is great!  LOVE this patriotic yet Americana collection! I will be creating a pieced and appliqued banner for the July issue of The Quilter; and also a lap quilt exclusive to my web site with the great new collection. I’m a sucker for collections like this with lots of variety to choose from, and with great contrast, too. I’ll keep you posted on what I’m doing it with this later in the spring. Hurrah for the red, white, and blue!
New Collection:

Michele’s Sewing Tip:
I am a quilter that cuts the pieces for blocks and borders as I go through each step instead of cutting everything out all at once. I base my border strips on what they should be mathematically, but your quilt may not come out exactly like the size of the sample (for various reasons). This is why I recommend that once your quilt center is done and you are ready to cut the borders,  measure your quilt to determine what size your quilt center is for the borders. Measure at three different points horizontally on the quilt top. Take the average of these numbers as the width of the quilt. Measure at three different points vertically on the quilt top. Take the average of these numbers as the length of the quilt. All the borders and binding for your quilt will be determined from your measurements from this point. The amount of fabric strips noted in my directions will be more than enough for these borders. Measure twice, cut once!

Have a pieceful day!
Michele

 

Keeping my Resolution

Yea for me! I’m posting again for 2010!  I love to collect houses of all sizes, and this one on the right is my newest! It is hand carved, and the quilt is hand painted on canvas. It lights up, and looks great above my kitchen cupboard. I have lots of the Cat’s Meow small flat houses (if you collect those)!

Here is part of a new
fabric collection called “A Stitch in Time” by Red Rooster. There is a red tonal that goes with this collection also. I designed a 44″ square quilt called “Star Power” that features these fabrics in 4 different quilt blocks. This is a patriotic table topper or wallhanging that can be used all summer. You can view the quilt that will be in an ad in the May 2010 issue of The Quilter.  A pattern and kit for this project will be available on my site at the beginning of March. There are other pieces to this new collection but most are already sold out.  The rule of thumb these days: “If you see fabric that you like, buy it when you see it” (as it probably won’t be around the next time you go to look for it).

Sewing Tip: Always start a new sewing project with a new sewing machine needle (in the correct size of course).

” Crescent Caramel Swirl” – a Crawford family favorite!

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
3 cans (sometimes called “tubes”) of Crescent Rolls in the dairy case

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter (cut from the stick); and grease the interior of a Bundt pan with the butter. Sprinkle the interior of the pan with three tablespoons of nuts (from the 1/2 cup).
2. Remove the rolls from the cans (do not unroll). Cut each section into four slices. Arrange 8 slices in the bottom of the Bundt pan. Set the other slices aside for now.
3. Add the remaining butter, nuts, brown sugar and water in a small pan. Stir; heat to boiling. Remove from the heat.
4. Spoon half of the sauce over the slices in the pan. Arrange  the rest of the slices in the pan; pour the rest of the sauce over these slices.
5. Bake for 25 – 35 minutes until the crust is a deep golden brown. Cool the pan on a cooling rack for 3 minutes. Invert the pan on a serving tray to remove. Let cool. Enjoy!

Time for dinner. Tom’s making a pork roast tonight! Then back to work. Sew  many blessings, and sew much to do!

Piece,
Michele

Oh, my, it’s been a long time since I posted.
Ok, it’s my New Year’s resolution (even on Jan. 21) to make sure I post several times a week starting now.  Our kids were home for Thanksgiving but they were with their other families for Christmas so Tom and I went to Florida to spend the holidays with his parents. An entirely different Christmas for us to not be at home, not to decorate, and to be in FL! His parents live in a wonderful golf cart community called The Villages which is about 1 1/2 hours north of Orlando. We spent 3 days at Disney World which is kind of a “strange” place to be if you don’t have kids. It was in the 60’s which was fine for us being from WA, but not so much for others. On one side there were people in shorts, short sleeves and sandals, and on the other side were people in boots, hats, gloves, scarves and winter coats!  We went to their Hollywood Studios, and Epcot. We watched a program on HGTV on how Disney plans for and decorates for Christmas. Disney works on Christmas for an entire year! Ever seen
poinsettia trees?
We were at a part of the Hollywood Studios where it looks like a city for a movie set, and the buildings were covered in 5 million lights! The lights were timed to wonderful Christmas music, and fake snow was being blasted from the top of the buildings.
Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom was certainly amazing with a web of lights over the entire castle which could be changed into a variety of colors timed with music and fireworks (which were the best we’ve ever seen)! The  parade that night was a fabulous array of floats with all the Disney characters of course, but lights, lights and more lights! Worth the price of admission for sure!

The third day we were there we spent time riding the boats all over the lake and checking out the other Disney resorts including the fabulous Grand Floridian resort. This gingerbread house is really made of gingerbread and filled the entire lobby. There were demonstrations on making gingerbread houses, and we bought cookies there which were so good. Lunch there was incredible, also.
This picture made me laugh as it seemed to be a strange representation of Christmas for me but not for Florida. I saw a LOT of plastic light up snowmen in people’s yards, but some how snowmen on green grass just doesn’t do it for me at Christmas.  We got a GPS for Christmas, and instead of making Christmas dinner (as my m-in-law wouldn’t let us help since we were on vacation), Tom and I drove around The Villages in a golf cart. Did you know that a GPS will show golf cart paths?? We had a nice Christmas, but decided to do some touring for a couple of days. We went to Mt. Dora for a day which is a cute city on a lake, but how different for us to eat lunch outside in December in the sun?

Here is what I thought was a funny sign that I took on the side of the road while waiting for traffic to move!

We did go to a wild life park in Homosassa Springs and saw native animals including manatees, black bears, flamingos, birds, eagles plus a Florida panther. It was the warmest day of our trip with the temps being in the low 70’s (and still there were people with winter coats on). Yikes!
A fun place to walk around in a wooded area that you might not think of as Florida. We also went to St. Augustine, saw the Atlantic Ocean for the 2nd time, and visited a wonderful lighthouse. There were 130+ steps to the top of the lighthouse so we opted not to go. I would have loved to have taken the trolley tour of the city but it was an open air trolley and it was too cold for my in-laws. Wonderful old Spanish style buildings, and yes, we did see the Fountain of Youth. We ate lunch at a place that had a Carribbean theme; and when the tide is in the water goes right under where we were sitting. I stopped at a quilt shop there that had this sign in the window: “Parking for Quilters Only. All others will be basted and tied”! Quite funny, and a great store full of bright and whimsical fabric. All and all a fun trip but I missed being at home with my kids. After a couple of days being home, I decided to put out my snowmen collection so it feels like winter here in WA. I love their smiling faces!

Now it’s time to get back to work…. check back in a couple of days as I will be offering sewing tips, and showing new fabric collections. Sew much fabric! Sew little time!

Piece,
Michele