New Quilt Shop in Ann Arbor!!

Welcome to Quality Quilting of Ann Arbor, Michigan!  Owners Jim and Rhonda Loy are excited to add this store to their already thriving machine quilting business that has been servicing the Dexter/Ann Arbor area for many years.  Ola, Mary, and Sabrina are looking forward, along with Jim and Rhonda, to meeting you and helping continue your ongoing quilting adventure.

The shop is conveniently located near the intersection of I-94 and State Street in Ann Arbor, 625 State Circle (State Circle is the first street just southwest of I-94 at State Street - just a few buildings down on the right).  Just inside, you are transported to a beautiful world of

inspiration.

This area features seasonal selections and new lines of fabric. 

In addition, the main room also features baby and kid prints, a color blender wall, and other lines.

Fabric, books, patterns, thread, notions, batting, kits,...it's all here...everything needed from start to finish.

The reproduction room is to die for...an entire room dedicated to the fabric of a time gone by, along with books and patterns.

 

And there's a room dedicated to stitchery and related arts, complete with a big table to stitch around.  

Lots of patterns, floss, trims, pearl cotton...and they carry Cosmo embroidery floss!  Crabapple Hill, Anne Sutton, Bird Brain...all your favorite pattern companies (and a few surprises) await you!

There is a wonderful classroom with good lighting, both natural and not.  I just arranged to teach two classes in January...hand-applique and hand quilting.  Give them a call and sign up...I'd love to see you there!

Here is co-owner Jim Loy, looking forward to meeting you and setting you on the path to quilt happiness.  He and his wife Rhonda bought the business that used to be Wendy's Simple Stitches in Howell.  They are excitedly ordering fabrics, etc. to add to and blend with the existing inventory.  And of course, you can drop off your finished quilt tops here for excellent machine quilting.  They also offer machine binding (can you imagine??).  Soon I would like to get pictures from their quilting facility in Dexter to share with you...there are no words for the excitement felt while standing in a room where 4 quilting machines are going!

Ann Arbor quilters are lucky to have great shops so close:

Quality Quilting - 625 State Circle, Ann Arbor, 48106, (734) 929-5169
The Quilting Season - 7025 E. Michigan Ave., Saline, 48176, (734) 429-2900
Leubu's - 1960 S. Industrial, Suite C, Ann Arbor, 48104, (734) 663-3033   (where I bought my fabulous
          sewing machine this year...)
Ann Arbor Sewing Center - 5235 Jackson R., Ann Arbor, 48103, (734) 761-3094
Jennifer's Quilt Shop - 147 N. Howell, Pinckney, 48169, (734) 878-6188
Lake Street Mercantile - 15 E. Lake Street, South Lyon, 48176, (248) 486-4411

Grab a buddy or two and take a road trip.  Make a day of it!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

"Crock Pot" quilt project...

Happy Monday!  I've been slowly finishing these Blackbird Design hand-appliqued baskets.  This is my "CROCK POT" project - it is a SLOW COOKER!!!  (get it?!?)  This quilt was inspired by the book "When the Cold Wind Blows" from Blackbird Designs.  I keep a number of the blocks prepped and ready to go in my magic box, along with thread, scissors, etc.  I work on them in meetings, in the car waiting for my daughter, and in small cracks of time.  The finished ones were piling up, so I decided it was time to soak the glue out, press them dry, and trim to the final unfinished size of the block, 5.5 inches...

...and COUNT them...

...I've finished 126.  I don't really know how many I am going to make.  I am going to make a bed-sized quilt.  I think the one in the book has about 300 blocks in it.  I'm encouraged that I had to fill my tables more than twice to photograph all of them.  I've been at this a while, and I will be at it a bit longer, it seems...

I am using only reproduction fabrics - basket fabrics appearing only once, each neutral featured more than once.  I started out cutting brown baskets, then gold/cheddar baskets, then black ones, then red ones, then green.  I've got more red, green and black ones prepped, then I will start cutting out blue baskets, then maybe the pinks and double pinks.

The quilt in the book only featured gold/cheddar, brown and black baskets, but I thought I would expand the pallet a bit.

I so love the fabrics!  I figure this quilt will be a snapshot of my repro fabric stash at this moment in time.  I love scrappy...it ALL works and I don't have to make any fabric decisions.

Thank you for all your suggestions on the free-pieced scrappy hearts that I posted about last time.  I've had a little computer trouble and not responded to your comments...I hope to do that soon now that things are working again.  I hope to devote an evening this week to putting the hearts together with my log cabin blocks to birth a completed quilt top.

I've also been making more blocks of the scrappy bright and black flip-and-sew project.  Don't you just love the fabric with the woman's head on it??  I think that was a Jo Morton fabric...

And "Boxer Rebellion" (a.k.a. the underwear quilt) is nearly completely hand quilted! 

Baby steps...

Lots of baby steps...on EVERYTHING!  Quilt projects, stronger lungs/health every day, return to the walking program and weight loss, original quilt pattern drafting...it's a good thing I am a patient person, in for the long haul.  Nothing in my life is accomplished quickly these days.

As much as I love the holidays, they are difficult on many levels.  There is a lot of need for fabric therapy in my life right now with the Christmas season and some difficult issues ongoing in my extended family.  But I'm sure I'm not alone and the only one thinking this way.  I'm trying to focus this December on the things about the holidays that make me smile...children singing, outdoor Christmas lights, handmade ornaments, jingle bells, seasonal music, candlelight, random acts of kindness, hot homemade soup, my daughter and husband, and my cat scheming to get the ornament with the peacock feather on it (I won't be smiling if he climbs the Christmas tree to get it...).  Me-OW!!

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)

Be still my crazy-patched heart...

Well, I've been messing around with strippy, free-pieced hearts.  I have 120 green/neutral scrappy log cabin blocks that I am putting into a quilt for our bed.  I thought adding hearts would personalize it a bit so it wouldn't be just another log cabin quilt.  And, after all, it is a gift for my better half.  (And no...not an apology for the snarky underwear wall hanging...)  The blocks are 4 inches square and will finish 3.5 x 3.5.

I like the idea that they are scrappy and haphazard at best.  Sort of reminds me of the human heart...our hearts are constantly broken and re-made as we go through life, stronger and stronger as we grow older.

                

Have you seen the movie "How to Make an American Quilt?"  When making a block to represent 'where love resides' in her life, Marianna made a crazy-patched heart and talked about love being represented by a "multitude of patches."  I loved that...

These are a little doinky and pointy on the sides, but once they are seamed in, that will 'round' them up a bit.

The thought of making enough of these to go around a queen/king quilt doesn't appeal to me.  So I made 18 hearts- one for every year we've been married.  Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate them into the design.

I'm thinking I will arrange them vertically, nine on the top left, nine on the bottom right...need to think more on that.  I need to piece those 120 blocks together...ugh.  I think that is my least favorite part of quilt-making...sewing all the blocks together into the top.  Because they are scrappy, I need to lay the the log cabins out and make sure I like the distribution of the scraps.  That takes up a lot of space, and this is going to be a HUGE quilt.

The first Valentine's Day card Steve ever gave me had a saying that I really liked and kept all these years..."Very fine is my Valentine...very fine and very mine."  I'll have to put that on the label.  (Or maybe letters in the borders????  I may NEVER finish this quilt as I add more and more stuff!)

In stitches (and still in love...),
Teresa  :o)

Thanksgiving stitches...

I am very excited to get back to the sewing machine and my scrappy blocks this week, but we went to Swarthmore, PA for Thanksgiving (near Philadelphia) to spend time with Steve's family so I was separated from my project.

I took this little wall hanging quilt along in hopes that I would get to work on it.  The hand-quilting of Boxer Rebellion is going well and I am very close to being finished...I hope to finish it this week!  This old threadbare underwear needles like butter!  My Steve is a really good sport...

I am quilting little details...like the "6-pack" abs, etc...ha-ha-ha!

It was a little awkward, explaining this quilt to my husband's mother...there I was, chatting with her while putting stitches through her son's underwear.  I'm sure it's not the first time I have seemed strange to his family...

Then I remember that my daughter is an only child...what will she think of this some day when we are gone and she is faced with a mountain of quilts, with this one on top??  It is a part of my quilt legacy.  I suppose I should put some thought into the label for this quilt...I should make sure I explain the story of how the quilt came to be.  Every quilt deserves that, but especially one with such a 'tongue in cheek' origin...

I hope you got some stitching done over the long holiday weekend!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Strippy, scrappy, flippy, happy, happy, HAPPY...

Welcome to "part 2" of the current scrapbusting project.  I started this while sick, thinking that the mindless chain-piecing of the scraps would distract my cough.  Well, it worked!  (It also succeeded in keeping me from packing and getting ready for our trip to the Philadelphia area...)  This initial portion reminds me of the fret board on the neck of a guitar.

The initial pieced strip of short, stubby chunks constitutes the central, diagonal portion of the 8.5 inch square.  Then I "contained" this strip set with black strips on either side.  Now, the fun continues as I just fill out the square on either side.

Each added strip needs to be shorter than the last, and I just roughly center the strip as I sew it on.  As I work, I have my 8.5 inch square ruler close so that I can check myself to make sure I am covering enough real estate with each strip.

I really do have a 100% cotton addiction...as I grab strips and chain-piece, I am like a kid in a candy store, trying to decide which piece to try next!  Yum-YUM!

I keep checking myself with my ruler as I go merrily along...

Eventually, I end up with these funky blobs of strippy, colorful eye candy.  I have been looking forward to playing around with all these scrappy, bright strips and chunks for so long! 

I like working with the bold bright scraps...I feel like there are no rules as to how they should go together.  It is very liberating to work with no rules, no pattern, no paper, etc.  I am usually trying to be so perfect, so precise.  I guess my only "rule" is that I insist on pressing well as I go so these wild and crazy beauties will lie absolutely flat and true.

As I work and handle each piece, I remember the project the scrap came from or the person that gave me the scrap...isn't that wacky??  Mary J and Barb F...do you see some of your fabrics??

Initially, I did try this as a paper-piecing project, but I quickly got lazy and realized that I could do this just as well without the paper, as long as I keep rulers close and check myself from time to time to make sure I am completely covering enough area to cleanly cut out my block when I've finished adding all the strips.  I only had to remove the paper from one blob to realize that I didn't want to do THAT over and over!

Next, using my Brooklyn Revolver (one of my favorite tools!), I carefully trimmed the fabric blobs down to perfect little 8.5 inch squares.  This is a rotary mat with a "lazy Susan" base.  It allows me to trim one side, carefully turn 90 degrees and trim, then continue turning and trimming until a square appears. 

Ta da!

So far I have 24 blocks ready to lay out and see how things will look.

Me likey!

When chain-piecing the "blobs" and adding the last small corner chunks, I did try and not use too skinny a strip.  That way when I start piecing all the squares together, I won't have seam allowances too close to the intersection of four blocks.

I'm going to play with the setting some...I wasn't real careful here, just wanting to see how all the blocks play together.

After our Thanksgiving trip, I can't wait to dive into this box of strips and chunks and make more blocks!  They are so quick and fun to make!  I was definitely tempted to play hookie from Thanksgiving and stay home and make more blocks.  I am looking forward to seeing Steve's parents and sister, and even looking forward to doing all the cooking in a strange kitchen, but this project is so FUN!!  It makes my heart sing!

(**added later**)  Here are 2 finished quilts using these fabulous blocks...

Happy Thanksgiving and I hope your heart is getting to sing a little bit on this long, holiday weekend!  I am so thankful for family and friends, and I am totally grateful to have a hobby that challenges and delights me, and occasionally torments me!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)