Quilting the Map of Oz

Emerald City: greens -- check. Winkie Country: yellows -- check. Munchkin Country, Quadling Country, Gillikin Country: blues, reds, purples -- check, check, check. One gigantic quilt for the backdrop for the play - Check it out!

This summer I adapted the book The Lost Princess of Oz into a play for daVinci Arts Middle School. The Lost Princess is one of my favorite Oz books; Patchwork Girl of Oz is a close second. I worked with a friend of mine, who is the school's costume designer and show director, to help shape the play into a fun performance piece for the students. During our working coffees she talked about making a Map of Oz quilt for the backdrop of the play. I loved the idea and offered to quilt it for her when she got the top put together.

For you Ozites out there, the map of Oz first appeared on a glass slide for L. Frank Baum's traveling show, Fairylogue and Radio Play. When it landed on the pages of the Oz books, it was illustrated in reverse: West to the right and East to the left. There is speculation that the glass slide was reversed, which led to the switch.

When the quilt top was finished it was 170" long and 118" wide. I called up a friend of mine, Jolene who just opened her long arm business, Good Knight Quilts this summer. She wasn't sure it would fit on her set-up, but she was willing to try and also willing to let me drive her Gammill! I was so excited to get to work on a long arm machine and Jolene was super generous to give up an afternoon (six hours, to be exact!) to help with the quilt.

The show opened last night and it was a blast! The kids were brilliant and the quilt looked amazing. Such a fun and rewarding project. My daughter Lili was cast as Scraps and I got to make her funny bloomers. She loves being the crazy Patchwork Girl and I am super proud of her. (Mushy mommy moment, but that's the way I roll!)

I also hand lettered this sign for the Truth Pond. I went to see Faythe Levine talk about her new book and documentary, Sign Painters, and was inspired to paint the sign by hand. Not too shabby for 'winging it!'
If you are in Portland and have young kids come and see the show! It runs this weekend and next, Shows at 7pm Friday and Saturday and a 2pm matinee on Saturday. Let me know if you are going to be there so I can be sure to say 'hi!'

Stitch Gifts + Travel Trio = Yay!

Happy Happy Joy joy! I have a new project to share in the new Stitch Gifts magazine! Can you tell I'm excited? This is my second project for Stitch (my Go-Retro Wool Quilt was in the Winter Wool Issue). I love this magazine and I am still pinching myself that my project is in it!

I didn't even take the time to take a nice photo of the cover -- the issue was sitting on Julie's desk at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store. She could barely get the words 'I got the Stitch Gifts Mag ---' out before I grabbed it and turned to the page she had marked with a yellow sticky note! The best surprise? My project shares the spotlight with a darling embellished cardigan sweater project designed by Susan Beal!

Susan has two projects in this issue. I'm tempted to post the other one, but I think I'll wait because I don't want to completely steal her thunder. I will say that I have to make it because it is super pretty and will be great for the holidays!

So, my Travel Trio, an easy drawstring bag, tissue case and portfolio, were inspired by wanting something useful and fun to take with me when I travel. I go to Washington DC a few times a year and I have been thinking about a way to organize my travel swag for a while now. I wanted something that I could slip into my purse or computer case that would be easy to find, stylish and have room for everything I tend to collect when I'm on the road. Since my last project for Stitch was vintage-inspired I thought I'd stick with that theme.

I created a tea towels Pinterest board when I was searching for the perfect Vintage towels for this project. This made it easy to communicate with the editor and it was easy to see what would work together as a collection. Don't worry, I didn't buy them all so you can hop over there and shop away!

There are some amazing projects in this issue. I can't wait to make some of them. If any of you do make the travel trio please let me know and tell me where I can see photos of them! I think everyone in my family now knows what I will be making them for their holiday gifts... I can't wait to pick out special tea towels for all of them!

PS I did all the illustrations for the instructions too. I am just as excited to see those in print. Most of my illustrations usually go to factories. But mums the word - I will have some in a book coming out this spring. Stay tuned!

Tear-able News!

I am so excited! I get to share a new free quilt pattern with you today! I designed this project for the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store. They put together fat quarter sets with some gorgeous new menswear plaids and gave me a bundle to play with.

Working with these fabrics was so much fun and inspired the name for this quilt - tear-able - because, well the fabric rips perfectly on grain! I tore all the strips and then sub-cut them to the sizes I used for the blocks. I like the pun on the word terrible/tearable so I decided to use that for the project name.
Here are the project instructions: I can email them to you as well. Just send me a note that you'd like me to do that.
Tear-able Quilt
This is my fourth free project I've designed for the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store. You might remember the Tree Poncho that I designed for them last November. That was featured on Craft Gossip and the Woolen Mill Store blog!

There are so many ways to layout this quilt. The fat quarter sets are 8 different plaids and are larger than a regular fat quarter because the width of the fabrics are sixty four inches. The set I used is called the Alberta Set. And all the fabrics are sold by the yard so you can get any of them for the back. I can't wait to see what you make!

PS Got a great shout out over at Craft Gossip for this project! Thanks guys!!!

McCalls Quick Quilts + Fast Fun Flannel

Autumn has arrived in Portland, Oregon! The leaves are starting to turn, it is cold in the morning and it is getting dark earlier. This is my favorite time of the year. I love the light, the colors and the transition. What is your favorite season?

I am also happy to celebrate fall with the publication of my quilt design, Fast Fun Flannel, for McCall's Quick Quilts October/November 2012 issue.

And guess who quilted it? The fab Nancy Stoval of Just Quilting! When I asked her to work with me on the project with a super tight deadline she rose to the occasion. McCall's is offering this as a kit, which is so awesome!

This opportunity came about last January when I met Judy Livingston at a PMQG meeting. She told me they were always looking for folks to create designs using their fabrics and I jumped at the chance to give it a try. I worked with several collections, the first project I designed for them was a winter themed quilt called Snowball Frost. They have this as a free download on their website. After that they gave me a challenge of working with a new Maywood Studio flannel collection called Flowers of The Forest. The colors felt very early-fallish to me, and I started to play around with some compositions. I liked the idea of playing with a traditional basket weave block and thought the heavier weight of the flannel would lend itself nicely to this technique. I added my twist, using shades of light and dark and a black floral to create depth. As I started to sew it I realized it reminded me of the green cherry tomato baskets from my childhood that I used to collect from my grandmother and take home and weave ribbons through!

I am super proud of this design, and am happy that it is going to live with my sister-in-law Kim. Let me know if you make this quilt. I'd love to see your version!

Modern Quilting, Bright and Early

"It's 4:00 in the morning. Do you know where your Quilt is?"
Why yes, I do! Hanging out with 500 other quilts at the NW Quilting Expo in Portland, Oregon! There and well, there was the one covering me up until my alarm scared me into getting out from under it at 3:45am... But it was worth it! I got to be on KGW morning show with Heather and Jolene and talk about the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, Modern Quilting and joke with host Drew Carney for his Out and About show this morning.

That is me (left) and Jolene Knight (Good Knight Quilts) standing with Drew in front of Petra's (Sew Paint Create) lovely quilt. PMQG VP Heather (Joy of All Crafts) was taking the photo (Thanks Heather!) We were on for about thirty seconds, but it was fun to get to talk about Modern Quilting and promote our guild. One of our guild members, Cherri Langley won a ribbon for her 'How Many Stars?' quilt, quilted by the talented Nancy Stovall.

Her quilt was inspired by Elizabeth Hartman's Sparkle Punch Quilt and is just wonderful. Speaking of Elizabeth Hartman, you can still get a 25% discount on her Inspired Modern Online Quilting Class by clicking on the link. I had the opportunity to review her awesome class and am working on finishing my second project based on her Low Volume Tiles quilt.
I have a quilt in the show this year. 'Doll Quilt Revisited'. It was a super fun summer-long project that I look forward to writing about soon! Here is a photo of me standing in front of it.

And now for that second cup of coffee...

More Craftsy Goodness and Good news

This just in! I just saw a facebook post for Craftsy's Endless Summer Sale All classes are on sale for $19.99! Did I say ALL CLASSES? Wow! The sale ends Monday, September 17th at midnight so don't wait! I think I might have to take Wendy Butler Burns Machine Quilting: Free Motion and More class. Which one do you want to take?



The other good news is that I just got my quilt back that I designed for the McCalls Quick Quilts October-November issue. I am planning to blog (as in brag!) about it next week. You don't mind, do you? I am really proud of this design and a little nervous to share it with you. It is what I like to call 'traditional with a twist.' It is not what I would consider modern or post modern for that matter, but I am excited to talk about my design process and get feedback.

For now I am going to enjoy this gorgeous day, pick some figs and apples from my trees and sneak in some sewing.
Michelle

Inspired Modern Quilts with Elizabeth Hartman and Craftsy

What a treat to get up this morning, take my daughter to school. take my dog for a walk and then take Elizabeth Harman's Inspired Modern Quilts class on Craftsy! The best part? I got to take this class on my computer at home with a latte and some fresh chocolate zucchini bread (courtesy of my good friend Tanya.) Life is good!

Many of my fellow PDX quilters have taken classes from Elizabeth but I never have. I have followed her blog, Oh, Fransson! for a few years now and have been in several presentations she has given for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I always learn something new from Elizabeth and this class proved to be no exception!

The length of the video is around three hours. During each 20- 30 minute class I found myself thinking (more than once,) "but wait, there's more?" There is so much packed into those three hours! The ten lessons, including how to create a design wall and pressing board, great information on how to select fabrics for your projects and the seven patchwork projects are worth every penny (I seriously think this class should cost more!)

My favorite project by far was the Low Volume Tiles Quilt. Two friends of mine are having twins this winter and I thought this would be a great project to make for the four babies. With this clever design I could highlight a different color solid for each child. I also just got a package of low volume fabrics from the Big Ten Inch Swap run by Monica Nauart who blogs at Button Counter. The only challenge was that these fabrics were all 10" x 10" cuts. I decided I could change the measurements from Elizabeth's original pattern which used a larger size to start with. There were a few math problems to solve before I cut into my stack, but I made some quick design decisions and went for it. Here is the layout I decided on.


If you take this class you will notice I also eliminated a row. I didn't want to make the strips smaller than 1 1/2". This was a tip from Elizabeth from a different project and I thought it was sound advice. I also planned to work with a few less fabrics than Elizabeth's original design which would yield three less blocks in my finished version. It didn't take long to cut the pieces -- Elizabeth gives very thorough instructions in her class and it was fresh in my mind from just having watched it. Also, once you take any class on Craftsy it is yours forever. This is really cool - it never expires! I could watch it again as many times as I needed to. The written instructions are clear and easy to follow as well. They are in a downloadable pdf format and I had them up on my desktop to refer to as I worked.



I got as far as cutting all the pieces and laying them out on my design wall. I am really excited to finish this project and make it's 'twin'. I love how the low volume green and blue fabrics do their job and make the solid blue really vibrate in the composition. I was worried that they weren't neutral enough to get the same effect as Elizabeth had in her grey and yellow sample, but the beauty of Elizabeth's designs is that there are so many ways to create variations! She does a great job of showing this concept in her class, which is something I enjoy about her books as well.



One thing I will add about the Inspired Modern Quilts class is that it is somewhat cumulative. Elizabeth shares so many useful tips and techniques through out the class but if you start in the middle you might miss some really great stuff. One of my favorite things I learned today was a technique she showed for cutting matching angles during her Wonky Log Cabin Quilt. And she introduced a product in the Clementine Applique lesson that I had no idea even existed. I won't spoil it too much, but she does get points for saying the word 'lubrication' in a quilting video (sorry, had to go there!)

Well, if you have made it to the end of my super long post (seriously I could write another thousand words on this class!) I am happy to remind you that you get 25% off this class if you sign up from the link at the beginning of this post. This will be available until the end of next month, so I hope treat yourself to this class. You will be happy that you did!