Trunk Show at Springville Art Museum

On Tuesday I went to a sleepover for a local quilt group.  It was held at Brenda's family cabin up Fairview Canyon.  The cabin is at close to 9000 feet elevation.  It is beautiful up there!  They have a wonderful swing.

Tractor Swing up the mountain

On Wednesday afternoon I drove to Springville. My good friend Florence and I were invited to show our quilts at a trunk show held at the Springville Art Museum.  It was in conjunction with their annual Quilt show.

Good friends

Florence beside her  "Firebird"

I just love this quilt!  I had dropped it off for the show.  I knew when I saw it that she was going to win a ribbon! And she did!

My first quilt

I showed my first quilt. Funny how it looks not too bad from a distance!  We still use it camping.

My Pepto quilt

I showed some of my hand quilted pieces.  I still love this quilt!  It is one of the ones I hang in our bedroom. I rotate quilts on that wall whenever I get bored with the quilt that is there.

Salt Lake Album

This quilt is featured in a book.  Jeana Kimball's "Forget Me Knots" book.  I really should get it finished.

Dancing Rings

I rarely make two of the same quilt.  I needed a class sample so my daughter could have her quilt back, so I did the same layout, but the fabrics are a bit different.

Double Wedding Ring

I have always wanted to make Double Wedding Ring.  This is a wedding quilt for my daughter and her husband.  I ended up making it smaller than I had planned, so I have a lot of extra pieces.  Maybe I will make a smaller quilt out of them.  I don't think I have another full size DWR in me.

Collaboration quilts

Last year I did a collaboration with my good friend Anne. (she is the person standing at the back of the room in the Dancing Rings photograph)  We each pieced a top and then switched.  We had to "expand" from within and quilt the piece.  I don't have photographs of the "before" handy.

My Desert Quilt

This is my most ribboned quilt.  It won "Best Use of Color" at the Utah Quilt Guild show (probably 2003, it might have been 2004). It won a ribbon at the River City Show in Sacramento.  Also two ribbons at the Dixon Mayfair.  And two years ago it won viewers choice awards at both of the local little shows (I only entered it as filler, we were shy on quilts)

This is my Off the Wall post for the week.  Check out what everyone else is up to at Nina-Marie's blog.

20 a day

So I missed sewing on Monday.  I was driving down to Ruby's Inn near Bryce National Park for a quilt retreat.  I did knit for at least 20 minutes (probably an hour or more) so I am going to count that.  And since I have been at the retreat I have sewn quite a bit every day.  I finished the binding on the t-shirt quilt last night!

SNOW!

The best design wall ever!  You layout the blocks by the pool area
and then go to the 3rd floor to preview.

Pool area.

Pool area, another view.

My good friend Anne's daughter Aliria is going on a medical volunteer mission in May.  If you are interested
in helping fund her way, please donate and you could win a wonderful art quilt donated by Anne.

This is my off the wall post for this week.  Also my THIFF!

20 minutes a day- how hard can that be?

How hard is it to hold 2 fabrics together?

Coming along

I made it through the first day of the Drop and give me 20 challenge.  I sewed for at least an hour.  When I wasn't picking out seams or rewinding bobbins.  First seam I sewed today was not a success.  How hard is it  to hold the fabrics together while feeding them through the machine?  Apparently quite difficult.  And how hard is it to wind a bobbin?  Well, when you don't pay attention and the thread jumps out of the gauge and winds itself under the bobbin, yeah kinda difficult.  I persevered and made it past the little hiccups.  I have most of the blocks ready.  There are 3 more to go and then I can puzzle in the spacers.

Monday I am heading to a quilt retreat that is held at Ruby's Inn just outside of Bryce National Park. It is always a good time!  The first two days is the pre-game show.  We go early and just hang out and sew.  Sometimes wine is involved.  Ok, most times wine is involved.  Wednesday evening is the official start of the retreat.  There are classes and lectures and a vendor mall.  We also like to do some walking and snowshoeing.  The drive through the park is fabulous this time of year.  The red rock is lovely during the summer, but even more so with the snow.  

This is my off the wall post for this week.  Next week I will be reporting in from Bryce!  Check out what everyone else is up to at Nina-Marie's blog.

Monday to do list

Dad's quilt on his bed

T-shirt blocks

Pile of cut shirts for more blocks

Scout uniform

2 new bowls

Dad loved the quilt and he put it on his bed right away!  I am pleased with the way it turned out!

Now back to the T-shirt project.  I got quite a bit of it worked on yesterday.  I still have some more shirts to stabilize and add the fabric strips.  For the Scout shirt I am going to remove all the badges, cut a large square from the back of the shirt and then sew all the patches onto the square.  I really need to get a lot of it done today. It needs to go into the mail Wednesday to make it in time.  I have a feeling it might have to be a day or two late.

I also got two more bowls sewn yesterday.  They are for my Etsy shop.  I love making these bowls.  It is always fun to see how the fabrics look while it takes shape.

This is my Design Wall Monday post.  Check out what everyone else is up to.

Side tracked yet again.

Pin Basting away

Oops!  We have a problem

Adding another strip of backing 

I should have left off  some pins

Finishing the center seam

All better

Ready to pin baste the last section

Somehow the easiest things are always way more complicated than they need to be.  I have blogged on that before here.   So last week I was going to charge ahead and get a t-shirt quilt made for my nephew.  Well, I couldn't find my fusible interfacing that I knew I had on hand.  Rather than wasting a long time looking for it I chose to go the store and buy more.  So of course when I started to work on the project I found the old interfacing.  Right underneath the 2 large cuts of fabric that I was using for the t-shirt quilt!  I got two blocks made and then I got side tracked.  Again.

I decided that I needed to make a quilt for my Dad for his birthday on the 27th.  Since it is such a short time line, I needed to go with some quilt top that I had "in stock".  I had made this plaid 9-patch that is a large lap size.  And I had a backing purchased as well. I also had a chunk of batting that I had intended for the t-shirt quilt that is large enough.  Perfect, let's go.

Well I forgot that I hadn't pressed any of the seams during the process of putting all the blocks together.  That took much longer than I expected.  I folded the unpressed, pre-washed  backing in half lengthwise to make sure it was long enough.  Pretty close, I think it will work.  So I clipped the selvage and tore it into two pieces.  Sewed them together.  Wow, there is almost a 3 inch gap.  Oh, I am sure it will be fine.  NOT.  I got most of the top pin basted and realized that where the gap was it was about an inch short.  I was not willing to take out all the pins and start over, so I spliced in a strip (after having to straighten the cut edge, which was about 2 inches off grain, UGH) and of course it was tricky because I didn't leave enough unpinned area to work easily.  Heaven forbid I take a few pins out.  Spliced and finished pin basting.  

I was able to get about a fourth of the quilting done.  I am just doing cross hatched wiggle lines.  But the first direction takes longer because I have to remove the pins as I am sewing along.  I hope to get more quilting done today.  

This is my Design Wall Monday post.  Check out what everyone else is doing at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday

Hexagons, ready to quilt into table runners.

Box of t-shirts

Quite the pile of shirts

Fabrics for the background

I am still trying to get back into the swing of things after being on vacation for 2 weeks over the holidays.  On my agenda this week is to get some table runners finished for my Etsy shop. I ran out of time before vacation.  I also have another T-shirt quilt to make for another nephew.  His birthday is the last day of this month, so I really want to get it finished by then.  I was surprised to see how many t-shirts he crammed into the box.  Might end up with a two sided quilt.  I will try to photograph the process and put together a tutorial on t-shirt quilts.  

This is my design wall Monday post for this week.  Check out what everyone else is doing at Judy's blog.

Getting some things Off the Wall

Mini Mystery Fabrics

All cut out and ready to sew.

Box of T-shirts

Just need to tack the binding and embroider the
balloon strings.

Need to tuck the threads.

I forgot that I told my local group that I would do a mini mystery at the meeting on the 26th.  I was going to use the one I taught at a retreat in California in January.  But then I decided it took too much time for the sewing and so I designed a new mystery.  Of course, now I need to get a sample sewn.  So that is what I need to work on today.

I found a box on my porch yesterday.  I didn't hear the doorbell when it arrived.  It is a full of T-shirts.  I am making another T-shirt quilt for another nephew.  His birthday is the end of January and I hope to get it done in plenty of time.  I was hoping to be able to cut out the shirts today if the sewing goes well.  But then late last night I broke a tooth.  I was able to get an appointment with the dentist this afternoon.  So we will see how much time that takes up.

I got the binding on the birthday runner, just need to tack it down and embroider the strings. 

I was able to get the little quilt from Monday quilted.  Still need to tuck all the threads in.  I was thinking about it as I quilted, I am a tucker rather than a tiny stitch then clipper.  I feel like it looks better in my quilts.  And maybe it is just the way I don't have a lot of control over my free motion quilting and I tend to get really big clumps when I try to do tiny stitch and clip method.  What is your favorite way to handle starts and stops?

This is my Off the Wall post for this week, check out what everyone else is doing at Nina-Marie's blog.

The Most Important Quilt---Blogger's Quilt Festival

T-shirts are prepared.

Working on the layout.

The finished front of the quilt.

The back of the quilt.

On display at the Memorial.

The 40th birthday quilt.

Me, my Brother and Peaty, hiking in the snow.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : approx 80″x 90″

Special techniques used : Fused interfacing to stabilize t-shirts, wiggle quilting. 

Quilted by : Sylvia B. Lewis

Best Category : Bed Quilt, Home Machine Quilted Quilt

The most Important Quilt that I have ever made was for my Brother, Tom Borschel.  He had requested it.  He was a trail runner, snowshoe racer, bike riding, adventure seeking man.  He had a vast collection of event t-shirts and asked if I would turn some of them into a quilt.  Some of his friends had sent away for one and he thought that I could do "better".  Of course I said yes.  He brought a bag full of his favorites and we sorted through them.  I wanted to make sure to include the most desired ones in the quilt.  As we looked through the memories, the smile on his face will be forever etched in my heart.  My brother had been recently diagnosed with ALS and I knew that there would be no more t-shirts.

It was very difficult to work on this quilt.  Every time that I opened the bag of shirts I would start to cry.  Finally a friend had come over for a visit and with her there I was able cut up the shirts and get the project going.  I rough cut the designs, then fused some lightweight interfacing to stabilize the knit fabrics.  I cut the prepared shirts into sizes that were divisible by 2" plus 1/2" for a seam allowance. I had cut a bunch of strips in varying widths and colors, browns, blacks, greens, golds and whites.  I used the white strips to surround the colored shirts and the others to surround the white background shirts.  This way there was white on every block to tie them together.

I had worked on the layout at a quilt retreat in California. It was a puzzle to get all the shirts in. I used the border fabric to fill in all the spaces. I was able to get the top and back together that weekend.  A week later I was at another retreat at Ruby's Inn near Bryce National Park.  There I was able to get the machine quilting and the binding finished.  I used big chunks of various fabrics for the back.  I tried to include all kinds of novelty prints that represented things that were important to Tom.  There was one leftover t-shirt block from the Power Bar shirt, so that went on the back as well. I also made a pillowcase to put the quilt in for gifting.  It went via our sister since she lives halfway between.  The message from my brother when he saw it was that it was the most Awesome quilt!  Way better than he expected it to be. Some of his friends had been disappointed with the ones that they had ordered.

My brother died late December of 2011.  The quilt went to the hospital with him.  At the Memorial it was hung as a backdrop to some of the displays that  were set up by his wife and sons.  I had dozens of his friends come up to me and tell me how much they loved the quilt and how much my brother meant to them.  They would talk about the races that they had ran/snowshoed/biked with him that were represented in the quilt.  The small wall hanging that I had made for his 40th birthday was also on display.  

Yes, it is just a T-shirt quilt.  It will never win any ribbons or awards.  It is the most important quilt I have ever or will ever make.  And I didn't really make it.  My Brother did.  He earned those shirts.  He made those memories. I just sewed the seams.

This is my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out the other entries.  It looks like it is going to be a great show!

Quilting in Wales

Tada!  The T-shirt quilt!
Just need to tack down the binding

Lisa's Red and White quilt.

Charlotte's interlocking rings quilt.

I belong to a fun little group in the small town of Wales.  It is about 15 miles northwest of here.  Very small town, not a single store, cafe or post office.  Nice group of ladies.  I meant to take more photos, but it is what it is.  I did get the quilting finished on my T-shirt quilt.  I am hoping to get the binding tacked down tonight, I want to wash it tomorrow and then give it to my nephew on Saturday.  So I am off to make a pillowcase to go with the quilt.

T-shirt Quilting

Interfaced and labeled with measurements.

Pile of blocks that have strips added.

Larger pile of blocks that don't have strips added.

Fabric for the strips.  

I am making progress on the T-shirt quilt for my nephew.  I have all the blocks fused to interfacing, cut to size and labeled with the size.  I want to have this quilt finished in time to give it to him when we see each other on the 21st.  Wish me luck!

By the way, does anyone think that a T-shirt quilt pattern would be a good one for my pattern store at Craftsy?