Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 5

I am so excited and honored to have a block featured in the upcoming Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from today's top designers, Volume 5!

And I am so honored and gratified to have another block featured on the cover! Can you guess which block is mine?

Please join me and the other designers April 30th through May 4th for the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour, where each designer will be giving away copies of the new Volume 5 issue. In addition, if you go to the Quiltmaker blog, they will be have loads of giveaways all of that week! If you aren't one of the lucky winners, be sure to pick up a copy when they go on sale beginning May 8th!

My Blog Tour day will be May 4th, so I hope you'll stop by and I'll show you my block - it's one of my favorites!

See you on the 4th!

Martha

International Quilt Market 2012 in Kansas City

The Spring International Quilt Market, a trade show catering to retailers in the quilting/needlecraft industry, will be held in Kansas City Missouri May 18 - 20, and I will be there too!

Yet this won't be my first time in Kansas City -- far from it! I grew up in the area and have spent most summers there with my boys visiting family. We have had a lot of time to explore some of the wonderful museums and historical sites that the area has to offer.

So...if you, too, will be in Kansas City for Quilt Market, I hope you'll have a little extra time to visit a few of the spots I'm going to tell you about -- AND I hope you'll visit me, too-- in Booth 3132!

International Quilt Market will be held at the Kansas City Convention Center in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Just a short drive north of the convention center, and also in the downtown area, is the Arabia Steamboat Museum. This museum houses the excavated cargo of the steamboat Arabia, which sank in 1856 after hitting a snag while traveling on the Missouri River. The restored relics include beaver skin hats, barrels of beautiful buttons imported from France, bolts of wool cloth, bottles of perfume, tools, clothing and much, much more - a perfect snap shot of life on the American frontier.

My son and nieces in front of the paddle wheel at the Arabia Steamboat Museum

To get an up close look at the Missouri River, travel a little farther north to the charming town of Parkville, Missouri. Parkville was once an important landing spot for riverboats traveling up and down the Missouri River. Historic downtown Parkville has shops and restaurants and is a great place to spend the day. One of my favorite places to visit in downtown Parkville is Peddler's Wagon, a quilt and gift shop. Check out this blog for some great pictures from their shop: http://quiltshops.blogspot.com/2009/01/peddlers-wagon-parkville-mo.html. Just a short walk down main street takes you to the English Landing park, where you can walk right down to the Missouri River. Imagine for yourself what it must have looked like with all of those riverboats going up and down the river!

My sons at English Landing Park in front of the Missouri River

Approximately 45 minutes north of Kansas City and outside the town of Kearney, Missouri, more frontier history awaits at Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site.  Here you can tour Watkins Mill, an 1860"s woolen mill, and the last fully equipped 19th century woolen mill in the United States. Guided tours are also available for the Watkins house. Ang Lee's "Ride With the Devil", a movie starring Tobey Maguire and loosely based on the Kansas/Missouri border wars, was filmed on location at Watkins Mill, so be sure to look for the Watkins house and mill in the opening scenes if you rent the film!

The boys with Watkins Mill in the distance.

The boys in front of the Watkins house.

Last summer was my first visit to the National World War I Museum, also located in the downtown Kansas City area and just south of the Kansas City Convention Center. I was incredibly impressed with this museum and its comprehensive exhibits. My grandfather participated in many of the major battles in France, so it really meant a lot to learn about the realities of the war.

My son and nephew outside the entrance to  the World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial

South of downtown Kansas City is the Country Club Plaza area. Here is located The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which I once read was ranked as one of the best art museums in the mid-size city category. It has definitely always been a favorite of mine! And, on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is the Toy and Miniature Museum, which has rooms and rooms filled with dollhouses, miniature furniture, dolls, marbles and more from many different eras. Lots of fun!

I think I just covered about a week's worth of touring! 

Until next time,

Martha

How to Mark Wool Applique

Marking on wool can be tricky -- because it is opaque, in most cases a light box won't work in order to trace any lettering or embroidery designs added to the wool shapes. And the marking itself is difficult because it has that fuzzy nap!

I'm going to show you the technique I came up with to mark letters onto wool. And I am offering my pattern "Love Note" to you for free so that you can practice using this technique. Enjoy! The free download for my pattern can be found at the end of this tutorial.

 Here is what you will need to start:

1. You will need an embroidery hoop in a size which is slightly bigger than the applique piece you will be tracing. You will also need nylon tulle (like the kind used in wedding veils). Cut the tulle 2" larger than your hoop. For my example I am using a 4" hoop and a 6" square of tulle. You will need a Black Sharpie fine point for tracing onto the tulle, and a Pigma Micron 02 archival ink pen for marking onto the wool.

2. To begin, place the tulle in the embroidery hoop so that it is stretched taut. Place the hoop and tulle flat side down over your paper pattern and trace over the outline of the shape and the letters directly onto the tulle using the Black Sharpie pen.

3. This photo shows the tracing on the tulle.

4. Now place your marked hoop and tulle over the wool shape.

5. Trace the letters using a Pigma pen, using an up and down motion, creating a series of dots on the wool.

6. Here is the wool piece showing the marking. Stitch over the marks with embroidery thread.

To download a Printable PDF with instructions to make "Love Note" CLICK HERE

The Beginning

I watched my mother at the sewing machine sewing dresses, Halloween costumes and Barbie doll clothes for as long as I could remember. I developed a strong desire to start sewing myself, and started begging my mother to show me how to sew on her machine. Fortunately for me, Mom signed me up for a garment sewing class at the local Singer sewing machine store when I was 12 years old, and after making my first dress in that class, I was on my way! Not only did I want to sew my own clothes, but I desperately wanted to make a quilt!

When I was 14 years old I started and finished my first quilt - a double bedspread size quilt made up of 4" squares. I completely obliterated my mom's scrap supply!

But this wasn't quite the type of quilt I was really interested in making. My grandmother's double wedding ring quilts made up of those charming depression era fabrics was really what I was after.

I became a frequent visitor to the Singer shop after taking my first lesson, and it was on one of my visits that I was ecstatic to find a magazine on how to quilt! Wow! What a discovery! Pictured below is that magazine, "McCall's How to Quilt It!", which was followed by another issue, "McCall's Quilt It! Book II". This was probably around 1972 or 1973. Notice the price of $1.00 in the corner of the magazines? These magazines didn't have the best instructions, but I was just happy to have pictures of quilts to look at - especially the antique quilts, of which there were a few.

.... And then along came 1976, America's Bicentennial, and here was another magazine! But this time, antique quilts were the focus! By this time  I was 18 years old, and my love affair with antiques of all kinds, including antique quilts, had officially begun!

This magazine is falling apart from all of the page turning it has had over those early years of my quiltmaking. Here is a page with a few of my favorite quilts from that magazine. In fact, revisiting this magazine and looking at that bottom "Squares-In-Squares" quilt (circa 1855) gives me that itch to make something just like it. Hmmm..........