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Meet the Twilight Stitchers Quilt Guild!

July 20, 2019 / The Bee

The Twilight Stitchers Quilt Guild of Blue Springs, Missouri hosted me as their program speaker and teacher.

Twilight Stitchers -their name is intriguing and their guild is a lot of fun! One of my many new friends, Vickie, made the trip extra special for me with her care for details and accommodations. Thanks, Vickie!

I love to see how other guilds operate.

Initially, the venue of the meeting can be a big variant from guild to guild. Also, the personality of the guild can be portrayed by how they run their meetings and what committees are reporting (involvement in the community, etc). Lastly, how the guild members interact with one another contributes to the enthusiasm and fun of a guild meeting.

It’s fun to note new ideas like “Quilt Angels” (an appreciative title for the members who sacrifice seeing the fronts of a speaker’s quilts because they’ve volunteered to hold the quilts for the guild to see).

A special thank you to my Quilt Angels for the night!

To begin, here are some pics from our opening selfies – they appear to be a rowdy group!

Image of Twilight Stitchers Quilt Guild Selfie

The “Grace” quilt class the following day was exciting. I give LOTS of pre-class guidance for choosing fabrics to bring and I was so delighted to see that they were all well prepared AND sew creative!

Classroom Set-up for the Grace Quilt Class

In this class, each quilter brings one or several unique focus fabrics. First, they learn how to audition and choose a focus fabric. Secondly, they audition background fabrics and accents strips from the variety they’ve brought to class. Oftentimes, quilters will share opinions and fabric with their surrounding quilters! (“I thought this would look good in my quilt, but it would work really well in yours!”)

To summarize, you can see in these photos that they chose varied fabrics. As a result, their bouquets were unique, even presenting the quilters’ personalities! In addition, one quilter used men’s’ ties and other out-of-the-box fabrics and was going to design her own vase to fit her bouquet!

Image of Three Twilight Quilters with Quilts

I wish I’d gotten a pic of my first husband/wife duo – but she slipped off before I could snag her pic – busy lady. Their quilts have “related” but different focus fabrics and will hang together in their home! Hope they’ll share them with us using…wait for it…#usebothsides !!!! Yes, they all learned about hashtags during the program!

Now that you’ve looked at the focus fabrics (bouquets), scroll back up to note the clever background fabrics they chose!

I hope to get to see the Twilight Stitchers again soon! You just never know where quilters will cross paths! See Quilts at the Beach to see how I bumped into a quilter, from Warrensburg, Missouri (a hop, skip, and a jump from Blue Springs) at Pensacola Beach!

A hearty THANKS to my new friend in Blue Springs!

image of quilt pattern taught at Twilight Stitchers — **Grace** Quilt Pattern

See “Grace” Quilt Pattern at my Etsy shop: Creative Bee Studios #usebothsides

Summer Books & Quilts

July 12, 2019 / The Bee

Summer books and quilts are a part of my life. It’s just not summer for me without a good book to read and a good quilt to enjoy.

My all-time favorite summer book is this one:

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

A Reese’s Book Club selection.

When I read this summer book (while snuggled under my quilt), I feel like I’m learning more about nature while being entertained and intrigued with the storyline. I yearn to be outdoors, to breathe in the sounds and smells of nature and to study my surroundings. I’ve read Where the Crawdads Sing numerous times as well as listened to it while on trips.

When I first read it I was at a loss for words for more than 24 hours after finishing it. I hadn’t planned on sharing the quilt shown below yet, but I need to – I guess it’s my feeble attempt to thank Delia Owens for the insight into a habitat I knew nothing about while enjoying a fantastic and enlightening book.

Summer quilts are also a favorite!

This guy was hanging around me at sunrise on Pensacola Beach. He might have been disappointed that I wasn’t a fisherman, but he let me grab some awesome photos. I found the feather focus fabric later that day at A & E (Pharmacy) Fabrics.

Making use of “value”, the light on his face and throat is made using the REVERSE side of the feather fabric. The borders are, too!

Image of Great Blue Heron Quilt — Lord Stanley Quilt Pattern

Lord Stanley got his name for several reasons: 1) He’s a Great Blue, 2) We are big fans of the Blue Angels 3) The Saint Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup (Lord Stanley) that year!

See “Sunrise Quilts”, too!

Shop Creative Bee Studios Etsy Shop HERE for all the #usebothsides patterns!

Image of Sally Quilt Pattern — Sally is made with both beautiful sides of a seashell bouquet motif.

Quilts at the Beach

June 17, 2019 / The Bee

Give me a good beach quilt in the midst of winter!

Why do I love a good beach quilt? We lived in Pensacola, Florida – twice! The first time (as newlyweds), my husband was a student pilot. The second time, with two little ones, he was a flight instructor. When he left the full-time USMC life, we moved to Missouri. We’ve spent many vacations going back “home” to Pensacola (also home of our favorite: the Blue Angels).

Location, location, location. It’s the key. As you can see in these pics, Sally, Sandy, Fiona, and Bubbles are right at home on the beach!

This weekend we attended a wedding to attend in Baton Rouge, so we decided to grab a couple of beach days on the tail end of the trip. I debated whether I should even bother to take quilts along to photograph…I’m SO glad I DID!

Image of Sandy Quilt on Sand. — It’s Sandy on the beach. 🙂

My favorite name for a beach quilt has to be this: Sandy! Doesn’t she look happy in the sand?

Sally the seahorse was flying high in the morning light. She’s made with both beautiful sides of one of my all-time favorite KFC fabrics: Shell Bouquet by Philip Jacobs.

Fiona the friendly flamingo helped me spot a friend at the beach:

It’s hard to spot another quilter at the beach. Therefore, when I passed a gal on the walkway who was wearing a MSQS shirt, I HAD to speak to her! It turns out she’s from Missouri, too! She had just bought fabric from the pharmacy (now A & E Fabrics) to make some #usebothsides quilts! See my blog about her guild HERE: Inspired Quilters Inspire

Image of Karla and Cheryl, quilters at the beach. — Cheryl helped me take evening pics. Quilters are so nice!

My husband came up with the name “Bubbles” for this happy guy! See The Marine Behind the Quilts to learn more about his role (my husband’s, not Bubble’s).

You might wonder how those quilts just seemed to hover in the air above the beach…You can see in this blooper: thanks to his quick reaction, my hubby saved Bubbles from a big one! I thought he hid quite well on that little beach chair behind the one-yard square quilts!

Patterns for each of these quilts and MANY MORE are available in my Etsy shop: Creative Bee Studios

Read more at Summer Books & Quilts.

Home Sweet Home

June 10, 2019 / The Bee

Travel with me, back to my home town, to teach a class of wall hanging quilts!

Early on, the Memory Maker Quilt Guild of Perryville, Missouri invited me to teach a class of wall hanging quilts. I was trilled to drive down memory lane, where I had memorized every crack in the sidewalks around my neighborhood.

First, the quilters chose from a variety of patterns that finished as 36″ square quilts. You’ll see in photos below that they picked a variety of patterns, including the bee, butterfly, seahorse, and even the cauldron.

Quilters learned how to audition both beautiful sides of their fabrics by using value as their guide.

Learn more about VALUE here.

Their unique focus fabric choices reflected their maker’s style in the finished wall hanging quilts.

In addition, the stitchers used fusible applique and broderie perse techniques for these patterns.

After making their fabric selections and cutting and piecing the background fabrics, the students began the fusible applique and broderie perse phase of class.

A softy for nostalgia, I like to drive down my old bike-riding routes and good, ole Church Street.

Whether we were riding bikes or just playing outside all day long, I enjoyed a carefree childhood. I remember taking turns rolling down our terrace, wrapped in a quilt (what was my mom thinking?), playing “Penelope Pitstop” (only Peppermint Patti would understand), and putting on plays and magic shows in our yards. Those are some of the warm memories of my childhood.
Karla

We had a great turn-out of quilters and I couldn’t have been more happy with their creativeness when using my patterns. See just a few of their wall hanging quilts below.

Image of wall hanging quilt — ***Belle Quilt Pattern***

Image of dragonfly wall hanging quilt — ***Martha’s “Lilly”***

Use Both Sides Category at Memory Maker Quilt Guild’s Show

Imagine my delight to learn they were having a Use BOTH Sides category of their class quilts in their next quilt show!

Image of wall hanging quilts being hung in quilt show. — Quilt show setup, view from my booth!

Setting up a booth as a vendor, I was even more delighted to see them hang their class quilts right across from my booth!

Similiarly, for my home town guild to arrange a whole quilt show category on my behalf was quite an honor! Below, you see many of the class wall hanging quilts entered into the judging.

Whether it means anything to anyone else in the world, this means the world to me.

My thanks to the members of Memory Makers Quilt Guild. Hope you enjoy seeing their very creative quilts from class.

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Creative Bee Studios patterns have been featured in AQ Magazine, Hancock’s of Paducah, Nancy’s Notions, Connecting Threads and quilt shops across America.

Shop Quilt Patterns HERE

Monochromatic by Nature

June 2, 2019 / The Bee

Even choosing a monochromatic quilt color can be a challenge!

First, you know I like to use nature to help choose a color palette for quilt projects, right? (See Nature’s Color Wheel for more information.) For this color challenge, I decided to take my cues from a beach walk. I didn’t expect to find black seashells on this particular white beach! So, I ended up with a monochromatic theme from nature.

However, I think using a single fabric for a one-color quilt can make the quilt seem “flat”, in regards to interest. (We do strive for flat quilts!) However, when you add more shades of one color, you can add interest to a single-color quilt design.

Its amazing how difficult it can be to choose fabrics for a quilt, especially for a new quilter. I distinctly remember the kind teacher helping me choose fabrics for my first quilt class at The Sewing Basket many years ago. It was for a patriotic quilt, so even though that palette was obvious, I had a lot of fear of choosing the wrong colors!

While, technically, a two-color quilt isn’t monochromatic, we often refer it is as so, especially when the second color is a neutral. If not a neutral, the second color should allow the “focus” color to steal the show.

I found these seashells on the beach and realized that even nature can be monochromatic.

The varying shades of black in these seashells are interesting. Don’t you love the contrasting shades of beige, also found in the shells?

Makes me think of batiks. You?

Generally, I love to mix “whites”. Therefore, finding these light shells with so many shades of white was really fun for me!

Here are two monochromatic quilts of similar colors:

Click picture for link to Amy’s Creative Side.

Click on link for Beech Tree Lane Handmade

Below is a fun use of value in a monochromatic quilt! See The Tricky Traits of Value HERE.

Image of Monochromatic Quilt — Click on picture for link to Craft Paper Scissors pin.

Also, see Sunrise Quilt Colors for more on using nature as your palette guide.

Do you make monochromatic quilts?

How do you choose your quilt palettes?

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Finally, enjoy your quilting journey, Karla

Read more at Shades of White in Quilts.

Quilt Week Faves

May 3, 2019 / The Bee

Quilt shows are packed with fabulousness!

One artist, Mary W. Kerr, had a featured spot during quilt show week in Paducah, Kentucky. Her fantastic quilts, featured in her book, Twisted, hung in the Rotary for Quilt Week.

First, its difficult to know what quilts to share when it comes to quilt shows. There are just so many! Therefore, this time, I chose to focus on an artist. Mary W. Kerr’s collection was outstanding in concept and variety. Here are just a few that made me stop, take out my phone and grab a shot. Hope you like them, too!

Mary likes to use vintage fragments in her quilts.

She’s always been drawn to antiques and orphaned blocks. Mary also likes the colors, designs and quilting of the modern era of this craft. In her book, Twisted, the culmination of the two styles are on beautiful display.

Oje De Dios by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Candace West was featured with Mary’s whole series at the Rotary. She takes pieces of old quilts, blocks, or parts of quilts and incorporates them into new works with a modern flare. She gave each quilter freedom to do whatever they wanted for the quilting.

Below is Homespun, quilted by Donna Ferrill James. The wonky star was made from a worn quilt with lots of various designs in it. Mary was able to salvage parts by hand-piecing the star points. She used other workable parts as part of the backing.

***Homespun*** by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Donna Ferrill James

Similarly, Fan Flower, shown below, is a combination of individual vintage blocks made modern through quilting. Vicki Maloney quilted this piece. Mary purchased three fan blocks at an antiques shop and came up with the flower concept. Vicki worked her magic using those three blocks!

***Fan Flower*** by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Vicki Maloney

Additionally, I like how Mary combines the old with the new. Not only does she combine old blocks with new fabric, but also the color selections and techniques, too.

With this in mind, I recall having a book about how to combine hand and machine quilting. Seems like another interesting concept to explore!

See Mary W. Kerr’s work and get her book Twisted HERE.

Maybe I should take a look at it and see where it takes me. Quilt show aren’t just about prizes, ribbons, and vendors, are they?

Without a doubt, quilt shows are about inspiration, aspirations, goals, achievements, sparking ideas…and happiness.

Learn more about Kate’s Bouquet HERE.

Enjoy your quilting journey!

And…quilt by the light of the moon.

April 15, 2019 / The Bee

It certainly is a wonderful life when you can dance by the light of the moon.

This bison quilt makes me want to dance by the light of the moon because I couldn’t help singing along with characters George and Mary from It’s a Wonderful Life with those very words!

Sharing a quilt pattern is ALWAYS wonderful! Learn about this unique way to use both sides of fabric and the story behind this design.

The quilt, Buffalo Moon, is made with both sides of a light focus fabric on a starry, night-time background!

Image of White Buffalo quilt. — Buffalo Moon Quilt Pattern

This Buffalo Moon quilt is a creation that has a lot of meaning for me – which is interesting since I have never lived “where buffalo roam”!

We enjoyed a visit to South Dakota for the first time the summer before I designed this quilt. Our youngest daughter was playing the role of Laurie in OKLAHOMA! at The Black Hills Playhouse in Custer, South Dakota. See South Dakota Quilts & More , OKLAHOMA! Backroads in South Dakota, and Quilting – Dakota Style.

Image of Bison — The bison were aplenty as we first entered the park!

Image of Final Show Scene — OKLAHOMA! at the Black Hills Playhouse

Buffalo Moon is made using BOTH sides of a fabulous focus fabric (say that three times fast!) on a scrappy, nighttime background. Spotting the bison roaming the Black Hills was an incredible experience. Having also learned about the Legend of the White Buffalo, saying YES to this focus fabric was easy! Unlike most of my other patterns, the difference in value between the front and reverse of the focus fabric are subtle, but still noticeable. This motif that reads as moon craters makes one want to dance by the light of the moon! Choosing dark background fabrics was a change of pace from my previous designs and a lot of fun!

Notice the ombre trees, the twinkling stars and the barbed wire fence fabrics?

We got a second round in bison country the following season, when Jacq played Annelle in Steel Magnolias and, one of her bucket list roles,…Sophie in Mamma Mia!

Needless to say, she was quite excited to be able to work again in such a beautiful place–but, even more, she was very happy to be able to work at what she loved to do.

My husband and I watched both of our girls struggle to work at what is their passion – and wondered at times where they got such courage. Yes, I make jokes that we let them play too much dress up and not do enough science fair projects, but truly I am glad they had the will to give it a whirl…and, in this case, go where the buffalo roam.

Jacq as Violet Bick in **It’s a Wonderful Life**

Buffalo gals won’t you come out tonight…

Image of Turtle Quilt — Dakota Quilt Pattern

Image of Bison Skull Quilt — Tanka Quilt Pattern

Reach for the stars…lasso the moon, or

…maybe just dance by the light of the moon.

#usebothsides

Image of Tucker Trimmer III and LEDGLE Book Light

Totally Cool Quilting Tools

March 18, 2019 / The Bee

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

I learned about some totally cool quilting tools at quilt retreat – thanks to friends who like to share!

For the first year EVER, I had my retreat projects planned, cut, packed, and ready-to-go to retreat one whole month before we left. What I didn’t plan for were some unexpected opportunities to pop up! I had not brought two totally cool quilting tools that became highly necessary. The new opportunities took priority over all that great planning of mine! But, who cares!

I didn’t even get my projects out of their neat, organized cases!
Me, under duress

First, you can see the outcome of these opportunities in the following link:

One Block Quilts

Next, in spite of all my planning, I wasn’t prepared!

While shopping for fabric one day, Justin (Hancock’s of Paducah), who understood the concept of using both beautiful sides of fabric, suggested we collaborate on some quilts!

While I was super excited about this opportunity, I hadn’t brought the right rulers to do the tasks at hand. Back at the cabin and with only a few days to vet my ideas, this led me to ask (frantically), “Does anybody have a squaring ruler?”

The Tucker Trimmer ruler became my new best friend!

These new projects included lots of half-square triangles, quarter-square triangles, and flying geese. I quickly fell in love with this ruler! Thank you, friend, Nancy, for introducing me to this trusted sewing tool! Click HERE or on the picture below to see more of Deb Tucker’s tools.

Image of Ruler on Block — Notice I #usebothsides of the fabric in this block?

Here’s another view of the ruler.

The second tool I find indispensable I borrowed from friend.

Retreat roomie, Peggy introduced me to the LEDGLE Rechargeable LED Book Light.

What makes it so great for me are the re-positionable arms which let you guide the light to any angle. It rests around your neck so it is hands-free and perfect for hand-stitching in a dimly lit room. It also works great for reading in bed or even walking back from the neighbors or feeding the dogs in the dark! You set the light to shine where you want it and it stays until you move it. And best of all, I’ve used mine every day for more than a week and I still haven’t charged it once! Click HERE for link to book light.

Image of Ohio Star Quilt Pattern — ***“Ohio Starburst”***

Image of Variable Star Quilt — ***“VariLovable Star”***

To conclude, these two totally cool quilting tools saved my retreat and collaborate on two new quilt patterns with Hancock’s of Paducah!

Popular Vintage Machine Quilt

March 12, 2019 / The Bee

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Aria ahr-ee-uh quickly became a best-seller! She’s is a quilt pattern for any vintage machine lover!

Aria ahr-ee-uh quickly became a best-seller! She’s is a quilt pattern for any vintage machine lover!
- So why call this vintage machine pattern Aria? Take a look at her…she’s definitely a singer!
- Shop for Aria and all the #usebothsides patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeBeeStudios.

Arias evolved from simple melodies in the 14th century and became a means to tell a story in a more emotional way, allowing a musicians (and later, vocalists) to display their talent. Arias are mostly associated with opera today. Aria is a good name for this vintage machine singer!

So why call this vintage machine pattern Aria? Take a look at her…she’s definitely a singer!

First, you should know that I haven’t always known what an aria was. And, had my oldest daughter not studied opera, I might still be in the dark. Because she began learning arias in high school, I soon learned the definition. Here she is as a senior at Eastman School of Music, singing “Emily’s Aria” from the opera, Our Town by Ned Rorem.

Click here to hear “Emily’s Aria” from Our Town by Paige Kiefner

Here I was in Rochester, NY, on an unusually warm, sunny day, binding her graduation bow-tie quilt made with a fabric line called…wait for it…Our Town!

While the traditionalist might cringe at the thought, fun things are happening with featherweight machines. Tables and inserts, custom carry cases, and bright new paint jobs are indicators that these little work-horses will be around awhile.

As I mentioned HERE, I’d love to someday own a colorful featherweight. Here’s a Tula Pink quilt version until “some day” arrives!

#usebothsides of one focus fabric for the machine, binding, bunting (reverse), and scissors and thimble (both reverse). Choose fun, scrappy background fabrics and accent strips – all the while learning the nuances of value! (Click here for more about value.)

Shop for Aria and all the #usebothsides patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeBeeStudios.

Inspired Quilters Inspire

February 27, 2019 / The Bee

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to share my quilting journey with a group of women whose enthusiasm for quilting was truly inspiring to me.

Image of Inspired Quilters Guild — Inspired Quilters of Warrensburg, Missouri

The Inspired Quilters of Warrensburg, Missouri invited me to speak during their guild meeting. It was a cold, wet, and somewhat icy night. I expected a lower turnout of members due to the weather. That was my first surprise.

One of the interesting things I see when speaking to quilt guilds is the uniqueness of each group.

As quilters notably are, everyone was welcoming and helpful – helping my friend and me carry in 50 quilts, bins of patterns and fabric, and set up the power point.

After the presentation, Nancy and were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic quilters who lined up, waiting to purchase patterns and kits. It’s so fun to see people excited about something you’ve designed – and it is quite humbling.

Image of Presentation with Something's Brewing quilt.

What I noticed next, while Nancy and I spent the next hour repacking quilts and patterns, was how excited and involved the quilters were in their guild meeting. I was wishing I could sit and watch, especially when it came time for Show and Tell. It seemed like each quilter did more than showed her quilt, she told the story behind her project – who or what it was for, how it came about…the details that make a quilt more than just a quilt.

These quilters truly inspire me – to tell the details, to let people know the stories behind the quilts.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Whether the quilts we make are for special people in our lives, for hurting people we don’t even know, for veterans and service members to be honored, or even for learning something new alongside friends – it’s the people in the story that make quilting worthwhile.

A heartfelt thanks to the quilters in Warrensburg for sharing their quilting journey with me!