Sue's House, Part Two

So sorry to leave you at Sue's house for so long! But really, there are worse places to be stuck for a week, aren't there? Like being stuck in your office working on taxes for your appointment with your accountant?

Like being stuck tying 362,098 little *&^% bows on a mountain of pattern orders?

Like being stuck with a king-sized quilt on your frame that no matter WHAT thread, tension, batting, needle size, silicone goo, tautness, and a thousand other variables that believe me, I've tried, keeps breaking your &^%$# quilting thread every two feet of sewing??

Like being stuck nursing a very torn-up kitty that got in a terrible fight a few nights ago and whose face is swollen twice it's normal size from an abcess? Like trying to administer pink amoxicillin to said kitty and subsequently having to wash pink spray off everything within a four foot radius of said kitty?

I digress. I also am using a lot of symbol keys, which is never a good sign of my mood.

On the other hand, I'm happy and in a VERY good mood because my new "Postcards from Hawaii" quilt pattern is selling like hot poi cakes! I've been so busy making and delivering patterns that I can't even get the new pattern posted on my website. Besides, my fingers are very sore from tying bows (Why oh why oh why did I ever think those bows were cute?)

And on yet another hand, I'm nervous because we've spent all morning under a tsunami watch because of a 7.9 earthquake somewhere out in the Pacific ocean. Nothing puts things into perspective like waiting to be washed out to sea--taxes, sick kitty, bows, thread-eating quilt and all.

So overall, it's been a good week...relatively. I didn't get washed out to sea.

Hard to believe that this innocent-looking ocean wants to climb up out of its bed and come eat all my stuff:

Gooood ocean. Just stay right there. Staaaaayyy....

So here we are, back at Sue's house, looking at her fabulous kitchen!

Curvy.

This one's a little blurry. It's a very long hallway, but I didn't go down it. I didn't want to seem too nosy.

More quilters are arriving and gathering in the living room. Notice all the windows and sliders!

Sue has a nice big table for entertaining! Since this was late February, she decorated for Valentine's Day AND St. Patrick's Day with a pink and green theme.

We always have a nice potluck lunch--we have many great cooks in our No Nene group!

Uh oh, another view picture. I never get tired of looking at it:

These quilters gathered on the lanai to eat their lunch.

Here's another scenic view: the dessert table.

Did I mention the view out the lanai?

Yes, we did do more than just eat and enjoy the view. Here's a peek of the quilt I'll show you next time:

Jenny's beautiful kaleidoscopic undersea quilt. And next time, we'll finally see the sewing room!

No Nene's Kauai Humane Society Quilt

I belong to a large quilt group called the "No Nene" group. We meet once a month on the North Shore of our island. It isn't an official guild, but we do manage quite a few fund-raising activities throughout the year. We don't have a facility at which we regularly meet; we usually meet at member's homes.

Recently, we met at Sue's house, which has several jaw-dropping features:

An oceanfront acre of Hanalei Bay. No kidding. Can you imagine? I'm giving you a peek at the front of the house as you walk up to it. On my next post, I'll show you more of the inside of the house and the views from her lanai. You will DEFINITELY want to come back for that, but today, we're going to talk about No Nene's fabulous quilt!

Continuing along with the "awesome" theme, this is the quilt that the No Nene group made for the annual Kauai Humane Society fundraiser:

Click to enlarge any of these pictures (it's worth it!). This quilt was a group effort. Many wonderful quilters worked hard on this quilt (sadly, I didn't attend much last year, so I can't take any credit at all). But I must mention Jeni Hardy as one of big contributors, as she set all the blocks together with the small mosaic sashing blocks, and also machine-quilted the quilt.

Fiber artist Lea Ingram designed the reef portion, hand-painted seabirds, and I'm sure was responsible for many more aspects of the quilt.

Various members made the creature blocks.

Many of these creatures were from commercial patterns. Barbara Bieraugel from the Big Island designed many of these blocks and her patterns are available through Kapaia Stitchery at 808-245-2281.

Some of these other blocks were from McKenna Ryan's Sea Breeze pattern series. I'm sure you can google that name and find a local source.


Fantastic machine-quilting, Jeni. You can't really tell in this picture, but the thread Jeni used was metallic sparkly thread and it gives the quilt a gorgeous shimmer.




I love the jellyfish! Well, I love the quilted version of the jellyfish. The real ones are not so great up close. My son and I had a run-in with a jellyfish when he was three and it was not pleasant for either of us. But they are quite beautiful from a distance!

I love the jumping dolphins! I can't figure out how they did that one. Broderie perse? Or Lea's amazing painting? I must ask next time.

Eileen Sanders embroidered the seahorses. Eileen does most everything by hand, so you can imagine what these look like up close.

I know some of the other No Nenes designed original blocks, but I don't have a listing of individual efforts. Besides, one of the meanings of "No Nene" is "No Name," so I guess that's appropriate. The group effort is what made this quilt so amazing.

Another view of the quilt, held by volunteers on Sue's lanai. I just love the colors in this quilt!

This quilt will be up for auction/ticket sales in May (I'm not sure exactly how they will be doing it this year.) For more information, you can call our Kauai Humane Society at 808-632-0610 Tuesday-Saturday. I don't think they know I'll be posting this, so early callers may get conflicting information. Our Humane Society is wonderful but small, so please be patient.

On my next blog post, I'll show you some more pictures of our meeting. You will not believe the view from the lanai. You just won't. I still can't....

Edited on 3/6/09 to add: Dr. Becky of the Kauai Humane society left this comment: "Aloha No Nene Quilters, Lisa Boyer and all, Absolutely stunning quilt and thank you so very much from all of us at Kauai Humane Society. Our annual dinner and silent auction is scheduled for May 9th at the Marriott with this year's theme, WOOFSTOCK. Go to kauaihumane.org for more details coming soon. Mahalo, Dr. Becky & the gang" Thanks for the info, Dr. Becky!

Kisses, At Last

"Little Boy Kisses" by Lisa Boyer, 2008

I finally finished my "Kisses" quilt. Remember that little boy quilt I needed to go with that little girl quilt? I'm so prepared now!



The fabrics in this one make me so happy. There are a lot of Piece O' Cake fabrics in here, I think. I don't really follow the designers, but I seem to end up with lots of Piece O' Cake's wonderful fabrics on my shelf. What isn't Piece O' Cake in this quilt is stash fabric and vintage, including an old apron. I LOVE string quilts. They're so exciting.







I rely heavily on my imaginary Grandma when I made scrap quilts. My imaginary Grandma quilted in the 1930's during the Great Depression, so she had to make do with what she had. I consult her a lot: "What Would Imaginary Quilt Grandma Do?" She tells me to use up what I already have, don't be too fussy, but don't be lazy either. She cringes when I hand quilt with a length of quilting thread that's longer than 18 inches, for instance (lazy!). She hates when I throw any kind of scrap away, no matter how small (wasteful!). But she loves it when I'm inventive--and of course, she's my biggest fan, no matter what I make.



I used two different fabrics for borders in this quilt. This is because I couldn't decide between them, so I used them both. My imaginary Grandma said it would be okay.


In a planned quilt, I often use the same strategy. If I can't decide between two or three fabrics that are similar and read only slightly differently, I alternate and use them all in the same position in the quilt. I think it gives the quilt more dimension and makes it more interesting. Besides, it saves me having to make a decision. I like that.




Here's the viney berry border I like to doodle:
I make berries when I don't leave myself enough room to make a leaf. Berries are just a little swirl ball. If I have a wide border, I make bigger swirl balls and call them rosettes.
See? You don't have to be an artist, you just have to be inventive with the skills you have. I can't make a rosette, but I can make a swirl ball.


Here's how I make my vine:

I put the quilt in my regular sewing machine and make one irregular wavy line around the whole quilt. This is my "vine" skeleton.
When I get back to the start of the vine "circle", I start up one side making leaves and berries.
I quilt leaves and berries/rosettes all around the quilt on one side of the vine. (This quilt has been rotated--I feed the quilt toward me and over my left shoulder while I quilt. The rest of the quilt is rolled up to the left of my machine.) When I get to the beginning of the vine circle again, I repeat on the other side of the vine, all around the quilt. It doesn't take very long at all, and the leaves can be big, small, short, long...nature is like that, so you can be too. Every leaf does not have to be perfect and uniform. At least, that's what Imaginary Quilt Grandma says.

That was going to be all for today, but I can't stand it when my posts are only one set of colors! So here is (yet another) box bag I made this week as a gift. I tell you, there is something addictive about zippers. They make me feel like a real seamstress.
Zipperific, eh? Oh yeah, and this:

Sweet dreams, kitty.

From Finland, With Love

I sniffled and snuffled all the way out to the mailbox today to find a wonderful surprise waiting for me! My sweet friend Anne in Finland sent me a "Happy Easter" package. It took almost a month to get here, so it didn't quite arrive by Easter, but that's okay by me. Look at all the lovely things she sent!

There are vintage buttons, a pincushion, a candle, some wonderful handmade ceramic buttons, a potholder, some chocolate candy, and a couple of adorable ornaments that deserve a close-up!



Aren't those cat face buttons the cutest thing ever??? This is a little Easter Witch:

Anne tells about the witch in her letter:

"When it is Good Friday night all the Easter witches take their brooms, coffeepans, and black cats and fly to the Blue hill to dance around the bonfire. This happens in Scandinavia, of course.

Usually in the Spring, little fairies return to Finland with migrant birds like finches, swallows and nightengales and they dance among all meadow flowers all the summer long."

Ann's English is beautiful, isn't it? Here's one of the little fairies now!

Is that charming, or what? I think if I lived in Finland, I'd like Easter and Spring a whole lot more. I like witches, black cats, coffeepans, and fairies quite a bit more than I like egg-laying rabbits, ham, and silly hats. Witches are waaaay cooler. Just sayin'.

Okay...now for one of the most wonderful things in the package:

This chicken was hand-sewn by one of Anne's students named Anna-Liisa, and she made me this pretty card, too. I love them so much. She worked hard on this (look at all those stitches!), and I am very proud to own it. Well...actually...Anne says that she made it as a cushion for my cat, Mr. Bigglesworth...so I guess I will share.

Thanks so much for this treasure Anna-Liisa. I wish I had two i's in my name like you do! Let's see how Mr. Bigglesworth likes his new cushion:

(Video here)

He loves it, Anna-Liisa! Luckily, I got it back before he loved it too much and put it in his regular sleeping spot for when he's feeling a little less frisky. I don't want him to tear any of those beautiful stitches you made.

Aloha and a belated Easter to my friends in Finland.

Stay tuned...I'm finishing up the binding on my quilt tonight! Quilt pictures are imminent...

The Best Laid Plans

I'd been trying to get into my sewing room for days now. But errands, appointments, oil changes, groceries, cleaning projects--the list is endless, as you know--had all conspired against me. So it was with great determination that I called my friend Anne on Tuesday night and asked her to come over and sew with me the next day. I knew that if Anne was here, I would be committed to sewing the entire day! We would do an all-day sew-a-thon! I wouldn't answer the phone or clean anything--I would sit down with Anne and sew for eight hours straight. It was gonna be great. Anne would be over by 9 a.m. Wednesday morning and we would sew straight through until 5:00 p.m. Whoo hoo! I would finish quilting the border on my Kisses quilt! I would finish quilting my UFO Friday flower wallhangings! Perhaps I could start on one of those skirts in my new skirt book!

On the set of Simply Quilts, with Alex and producers

Alas. It was not meant to be. Unbeknownst to me, while I was sleeping, my Simply Quilts episode re-ran. I didn't know it was going to re-run (no, no one lets you know) and it aired across the U.S.A. during my middle-of-the-night. This morning, right before my sew-a-thon was to commence--I opened my inbox to an avalanche of pattern orders!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE pattern orders. Well, except for the bow part, as you know. But I LOVE pattern orders! It's so exciting that someone is actually reproducing something I designed in Australia or Germany or Tilden, Nebraska! Thank you all so much for your orders--I'll tie bows for you any day! And thanks for all the pictures you send of your completed quilts. They make my day.

Unfortunately, though, instead of working on my quilts or a skirt during my sew-a-thon day, I worked on this:

These were just the orders that came in before noon! Afternoon brought a whole new batch of orders. And as quilters across the USA finally manage to watch the Simply Quilts episodes they taped during the week, more orders will be rolling in, especially this weekend.

The Simply Quilts show is phenomenal. Even though they stopped producing it, the reruns are still being watched and loved by quilters everywhere. We filmed that episode five long years ago, even before I wrote my second book! And yet every time it airs, I get a walloping batch of orders from all over the U.S.

If you haven't seen my slideshow of the filming, you really should click here or on the Flickr link on my sidebar and see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. All the pictures were taken by my sister, Jane Ann Munroe.

The experience itself? I'm still recovering. When I left the studio that day, I felt like I had been run over by a train. It was all very intense and I felt entirely out of my league, quilt-wise. But I survived, and I'm glad I did it, even though I can't watch it without cringing! Alex Anderson was such a sweetheart--I think the world of that woman.

So my sewing day with Anne didn't exactly turn out like I had envisioned it, but that's okay. Anne got some sewing done while I tied bows and stuffed envelopes. Remember this picture from last week of Anne trying to figure out her Japanese Puzzle quilt?

I'm happy to say that she got it together and added a border:
and she'll be quilting it any day. I, on the other hand, might be tying bows all week. But that's okay. You're totally worth it. But TOMORROW, I am DEFINITELY going to SEW. And tie some bows. But mostly sew. I hope.

Mini-Group Fun

I had a lovely Easter weekend. On Saturday, some of our mini-group got together and sewed all day. It rained a little bit in the morning, so we could only open the doors to the lanai part way. By afternoon, it was gorgeous again and we could open the doors and enjoy the breezes and this view:

Paige finished her Flying Geese circle. By afternoon, she was adding another blue print border after she trimmed the beige down a little. She was so happy with her compass!

I can't wait to see how she quilts it!

I must've had a really good time because I forgot to take pictures most of the day. We had a nice lunch at Nawiliwili Harbor (forgot the camera), Anne worked on a Pinwheel Wallhanging (forgot to take a picture), Roberta made a box bag because she missed the group last Saturday (oops again) and I made a four grocery totes (dang!). I'm sorry...baaaaaad blogger. Baaaaad.

The cat supervised. He sat near my left shoulder like this all day. When I looked at him, he would meow at me. I think he was saying: "Get back to work." That's what supervisors do, you know.

"At least you remembered to take a picture of me. Get back to work...NOW!"

What a wonderful day. I love my friends...even the bossy ones. Meee-ow!

Postscript: Kauai made international news today (!) with this story: http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpDxicG6Du5pjb8aUnH2aSJZ5U3g

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hawaiian Rainbow Basket Quilt, Red Version-tweaked to St. Patty's Day green with Photoshop. Hee hee...I never get tired of this trick!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Yes, I know to YOU it's already the day after, but here in Hawaii, it's still St. Patrick's Day. It's a good thing that Hawaii sees the last of every day, because while I'm still waking up in the morning, I get to see how the rest of the world spent the holiday. As a work-at-home empty-nester, I find it very hard to keep track of what day of the week it is. Holidays are especially hard to keep track of. Reading the morning news is usually my first clue that I've forgotten it was a holiday. I have NO idea when Easter is this year, for instance. But it doesn't matter because for me....EASTER CAME TODAY!!!!

I was the lucky winner of Moonbeams in a Jar Mary Anne's Easter giveaway--and look what came for me, all the way from Pennsylvania!

Look at all these Easter-y delights! I could smell the box when my husband brought it into the house--there are French vegetable soaps in those yellow wrappers that smell heavenly.

The background fabric was in the box, too. I love the little lambs.
This little guy is great. He's like the Easter Bunny jester riding on a lamb. Love the ears and bunny suit.
In the bottom of the box were these wool felt pieces! I'm so excited, because I haven't been able to find wool felt anywhere on the island. I can now make this pattern that I downloaded ages ago from Connecting Threads:
This little needlecase is a free pattern from Connecting Threads. Follow this link to download the pattern, or visit their "Free Quilt Patterns" section--it's a really good one. I just love this case and now I can finally make it in real wool felt. Thank you, Mary Anne!

If you haven't been to Mary Anne's blog, you simply must go. I think you especially need to read this post because she looks so cute in her jammies and blue sparkly mask that I just wanted to fly across the country and join her quilting weekend party. She's such a hoot. Who else would send me this:

"Hey Little Girl, you want some candy?"

Mini-Group UFO Day

There you are! Hey--you want to go to my mini-group UFO day with me? Great! Stow your stuff in my trunk here and let's get going! We need to stop by Starbuck's on the way, because I need some coffee! I can barely keep my eyes open in this picture....ugh...mornings...

No, Mr. Bigglesworth...you can't go today. And you're not fooling me by trying to disguise yourself as cargo. Give me a kitty hug and I'll see you later.

Here we are in the back room of Kapaia Stitchery (we got here fast!!! Must've been that triple latte I drank on the way...whoo hoo!). We usually meet at each other's houses, but today it was convenient to meet here.

Aren't these green and black Feathered Stars amazing? Guess who made them?

Herman! You've met Herman...he's my hair stylist! He's also an amazing quilter. He's making enough Feathered Stars for a king-sized quilt. That's a LOT of teeny-tiny half-square triangles. I think he said he already had twenty made--can you believe it? Look at his work...perfect. And I love his colors! I'm not really sure about this pose of his. I think I caught him in the middle of doing a Vanna White. He looks like his blocks are attacking him. Luckily, he survived.

This is Paige, who is working on her Mariner's Compass. Today, she's sewing the flying geese around the compass:
Wow...beautiful, huh? My friends are talented! This is Jo, who is working on a Japanese Jigsaw quilt. This quilt is a pattern by Tracey Brookshier, who just visited our island and taught the class.
Jo is a wizard with color. Isn't her quilt top beautiful? Her piecing is beautiful, too. So precise.

Anne is having a little trouble puzzling out her Japanese Jigsaw quilt. I guess the blocks didn't want to be transported. I hope Anne's blocks won't attack her like Herman's did. Believe it or not, she got her quilt top all sewn together today. Anne gets 'em done.

We'll work on our UFO's today, but we'll also take the time to make a few of these:
Box bags! My latest "I can't stop making these" item. I thought it would be fun to infect my friends with box fever. Looks like it worked.
Jo got some of her borders on today. This quilt is stunning! I hope we can take a picture of the finished quilt at the next meeting...but no pressure, Jo.

I hope you enjoyed meeting some of my mini-group friends. Sadly, Roberta was sick, so you didn't get to see her, but maybe you'll get to meet her next time. Feel better soon, Roberta!

Update 3/17 : Clicking on any light gray words above (links) will take you to any quilt pattern info or tutorial links. I've linked to pattern info on the Japanese Jigsaw quilt and a wonderful tutorial for the box bag by Dragon[knit]fly. I've made a few mods to the box bag pattern, but her tutorial is what I started with. Enjoy!