Thimble Pleasures ~ A full-service quilt shop

If your family needs holiday Wish List ideas for your quilter, come by the shop and consider the following:

1.  A gift card  – Fabric, fabric, and more fabric is what a quilter wants and craves.  We know it is difficult to pick fabric for your favorite quilter. Let your quilter have a “free” shopping experience at our New Year’s sale (or whenever) with a gift card!  This is a dream come true, trust me!

2. Scissors – really GOOD scissors!  Some how we always need a new pair of scissors.  I want a pair of the Olfa Loophole scissors for applique work.  They are only 5 inches in length and perfect for traveling with your quilting!  If you can figure out how to put your quilter’s name on them, you are golden! 

3. A RollerTravel  Bag for Your Sewing Machine – this is definitely on my list this year.  I am tired of carrying my sewing machine to class or workshops!  Not to mention, afraid I will drop it!!  Please Santa, can I have a pretty roller bag for my Bernina this year?

4. Thread – Quilters love thread in lots of colors!  The shop has lots and lots of thread, pick out several spools in her favorite color for her stocking!

5. A gift Certificate to Three Cups – so that every time your quilter takes a class at Thimble Pleasures, her coffee is “free” next door!!  (Did I mention they also have doughnut muffins??)

6. A “walking foot” – I know it sounds weird, but if your quilter is just starting out, a walking foot is is essential to actually completing the quilt.  New quilters need a lot of basics and greatly appreciate these gifts (so they can spend their money on fabric)!  If your quilter is experienced, ask us to recommend a very useful pressor foot for her sewing machine!  There are so many different things a pressor foot can do – I love my 1/4 inch foot!

7.  Class Enrollment – Give your quilter a quilting class!  One year my daughter and I got gift certificates to take a quilt class together!  It was very thoughtful and that boyfriend who gave us that class is still in her life!

8. An Ott Light – sooo very nice to help your quilter see those stitiches!

9. A sewing table. If you want to go big and make your quilter really happy, or just get her sewimg machine off the kitchen table, buy her a sewimg machine table.  She will love you forever!!  They come in all sizes and prices to fit your budget and she will love, love, love you!  Not to mention her back will feel a lot better for it!

10. Embroidery supplies and programs.  (See thread above).  There are many beautiful patterns for embroidery that your quilter can use to enhace her quilts.  Books, thread, patterns, computer programs – we have them all!  The photos at the beginning and end of this blog entry are embroidery form a new set of Christmas designs.

11.  Time.  This gift is priceless in many ways!  Give her time to sew or take a class.  Maybe you can take the kids to park every Saturday morning for a month, or you do the dishes or laundry for her so she can sew (NOT do other chores), or babysit while she is in class – this is the best gift of all.  Everyone needs a hobby or activity in their lives.  Your quilter needs the self-expression that comes with quilting. You’ll have a happier quilter for it!

If you select a gift, big or small, that shows you took time to think of your quilters interests, you will rceive a lot in return!  Yes, a gorgeous quilt, but also love and attention for supporting her in her quilting!  Let us help you pick something out – we are great with  fathers, husbands, and brothers!  Even boyfriends!  So stop by the shop soon  and Happy Holidays from Thimble Pleasures!

Need a fun activity this winter with your quilting friends?  Try a charm swap!  Challenge your friends to to share 5 inch charms and then design a quilt around them.  A few rules to start:

• This is not the swap to get rid of your ugly fabric! (That’s another challenge!!)
• Choose a good quality fabric, preferably pre-washed
• Square up your fabric
• Cut one 5” strip from the width of fabric
• Do not unfold strip, cut off both salvages
• Sub cut into eight 5” squares. Set one square aside, for you.
• Place seven 5” charms in a ziplock bag and place your name and name of swap either on bag or on a piece of paper in bag ex: Janet Doe blue
• Only good quality fabric. Make accurate cuts. No fabrics outside of guideline
• Agree that the 5 inch charms must somehow remain intact (no cutting it up!).  This doesn’t mean that they have to be focus fabric, hint, hint….

Select one color or a set of colors:

• Blue – Overall color is to be blue but prints are allowed, lights to darks
• Green – Overall color is to be green but prints are allowed, lights to darks
• Red – Overall color is to be red but prints are allowed lights to darks
• Pink – Overall color is to be pink but prints are allowed lights to darks
• Gray – Overall color is to be gray but prints are allowed tone on tone allowed
• Pastel – Overall color is to be pastel but prints are allowed lights only
• Country colors – All colors allowed, prints allowed medium to darks
• Bright colors – All colors allowed, prints allowed, must be bright
• Floral – Use a small or medium print, fussy cut if needed
• Novelty – All colors allowed, small to medium print, fussy cut if needed
• Black – ALL color is to be black NO OTHER COLORS, tone on tone allowed and encouraged
• White/beige – ALL color is to be white or beige, no muslin, tone on tone allowed and encouraged

You may want to limit the list of possible fabric color, depending upon how many quilters are participating, eg. fewer colors for fewer quilters. Everyone then receives a mixture of 7 charms from what was collected. If you sent in blue, you will receive 7 blue charms back.  Remember, you kept one of your blue charms, so the total is 8.  It’s best if one person selects the mixture of charms and returns them to each quilter.  Give yourselves one month to make 8 blocks from the 8 charms (that’s 2 a week, easy!).  Then get together and discuss how to design a quilt around the blocks.  Sharyn Craig has several books on this topic, if you need design suggestions.  This is great fun for guilds to do!  If your sewing circle is interested, and the group has only 8 members, be more restrictive in fabric choice.  Pick one color and fabric type, eg.  red and novelty fabric etc.

You will be amazed at all the different blocks and designs your friends come up with!  Most importantly, have fun and enjoy each other’s fabric choices!

In the mid-1800s, Victorian quilters began a popular tradition of making signature quilts.  These quilts were signed and quilted remembrances to honor family members or friends. At a time when loved ones who moved away seldom, if ever, returned home to see their families again, these quilts served as precious remembrances. Also known as friendship quilts, many lonely women living on isolated homesteads cherished their signature quilt.  As a result of the special care these quilts received, many of them survive today and can be found in quilt museums.

In its simplest form, a signature quilt is one that is constructed using a single pattern block with signatures of family or friends inked or embroidered on each block. They became popular as gifts because they could be made easily from scraps and did not require a great deal of investment in materials. The signature area is often a solid light color so that the signature stands out.  Today, these quilts are often made as wedding shower gifts, where the women in the bride’s family each make a block, sign it, and one person assembles the quilt. Signature quilts are also nice for graduation, birthdays, retirement, anniversaries, and birth of babies.

Modern adaptations of the Victorian signature quilts include “awareness” quilts that are made to build awareness of a cause or to raise funds for charities, e.g. cancer or other serious illnesses.  Signature blocks can be also combined with photos or t-shirts to make memory quilts.  Another popular form of signature quilt is the celebrity quilt, where quilters send letters and blank pieces of fabric to prominent members of a community, politicians, film stars, or other celebrities, and ask that the block be signed and mailed back. Again, one person gathers the blocks and assembles the quilt.

So, if you need an idea for a special someone in your life, consider a signature quilt!  Special Note:  if you are using ink to sign the signature, please be certain to use permanent ink pens designed for fabric, so the signature is permanent and the ink does not run. A fine tipped pen is best. Your local quilt shop will carry these pens! 

The fascination with Jane A. Blakely Stickle and her quilt began when the quilt was displayed in Donna Bister’s and Richard Cleveland’s book, Plain and Fancy. The geometric designs in Jane’s blocks and triangles are amazing and Brenda Manges Papdakis was hooked!  Brenda is the author of the Dear Jane (EZ Quilting by Simplicity, publisher) book that is causing such a stir among quilters around the world. I bought my copy in Amsterdam.  The fabric in the quilt on the cover is reproduction Dutch chintz!

I have been looking for a special long-term quilt project to keep me busy this winter. There is something very satisfying about having a special project that you know from the outset will take a long period of time to make, and you relish the journey as much as the end-product!!  That special project for me will be a Dear Jane Quilt.  Are you scoffing that these quilts are “too traditional” for you?  Read on…..

Dear Jane quilts may be non-traditional, creative, innovative, and even avant-garde if you wish. Each block is different, new, and exciting, not only in the originality of design, but also in composition and fabric choice. From the smallest shape to the larger blocks and triangles, the block arrangement and color choices are pure heaven.

Brenda Manges Papadakis began drafting the blocks from the photograph in Plain and Fancy, randomly choosing a nine-patch or a variable star. The more she drafted, the more intrigued she became and her book Baby Jane quilt was born.  Brenda says that in her mind, Jane’s quilt became the ‘Mother’ – it is her quilt, the only one. All other quilts inspired by The Quilt are ‘babies.” Each is unique and belongs to its maker, but they are all derived from the ‘Mother.’

Jane A. Blakely Stickle was born Jane A. Blakely on April 8, 1817, daughter of Erastus Blakely (1786-1831) and Sarah (Sally) Rein (1776-1864). In the 1830 census, taken shortly before Erastus Blakely died, he had seven persons living in his household, four males and three females. Daughters Emily and Caroline died in 1823, one month apart, at the ages of fifteen and sixteen. Jane, who was twelve at the time, lived with her parents, her brother Erastus, age eleven, and her sister, Sarah Ann, age nineteen.

Jane’s marriage to Walter A. Stickle is presumed from the census of 1850, which names him as head of the household. It does not appear that Jane and Walter had children of their own. However, a search of the Shaftsbury school district records reveals that they assumed responsibility for at least three children.

In the 1860′s, Jane is listed in the census as living by herself. Her occupation is that of farmer, and she is forty-three years old. Her husband Walter is living with his brother-in-law Erastus, perhaps a temporary arrangement in order to help with the planting or repairs to farm equipment.  Whatever the reason for their separation, Walter and Jane were listed together in the 1870 census, with a farm and a domestic servant, Sarah Bump. Unfortunately, they were forced into bankruptcy in 1877. At the time of Walter’s death on February 19, 1883, he and Jane were living as boarders in the home of Georgia and Eveline Eddy.

What did Jane do for all those years without Walter or the rest of her family? We know that she finished “The Quilt” in 1863. Jane was still a boarder at the time she passed away on March 2, 1896 at the age of seventy-nine. She is buried with her brother and his family in the Shaftsbury Cemetery, just down the road from where she spent her life. Her original quilt is in The Bennington Museum in Vermont.

Dear Jane quilts have formed the basis of many a quilt circle.  The City Quilter shop in New York City has had an ongoing Dear Jane series for years.  It’s fun to look at all the variations different quilters have produced using Brenda’s patterns.  If you google “Dear Jane quilts”, you will find many blogs and history articles.  If you are looking for a new quilting challenge, give the Dear Jane quilts a look!  I’ll post some pictures of my blocks as they come together.

References:

 Dear Jane – The two hundred and twenty five patters from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle quilt by Brenda Manges Papadakis

www.dearjane.com

Have you noticed the nice bed runners that hotels are using to add color and style to simple bedding?  That “luxury hotel linens” look is so popular that my friends have started to adopt it in their homes by making quilted bed runners!  I recently changed the linens in our son’s bedroom and decided to use chocolate brown bedding (comforter, pillow shams) and add a blue/brown bed runner for a color pop. 

Bed runner dimensions are typically 24″ wide and the length is 25″-30″ longer than the width of the mattress, so that there is a 12″-15″ drop on each side of the bed. I have seen a few patterns in quilt blogs and magazines, but I decided to use a pattern I already had along with a pre-cut fabric bundle , leftover quilt batting, and some coordinating stash fabric for the backing. I sat down in my sewing room one Sunday and put this bed runner together in one day, including quilting it myself!  I added several pillow shams in blue and a few small accent pillows and got this very sophisticated look!

Quilters – are you thinking what I am thinking?  This is a GREAT Christmas gift idea that you can make very quickly for those stylish folks on your Christmas list. ‘Got some leftover fabric or jelly rolls, left over blocks, etc.?  You could easily make these into a bed runner and have a great gift in no time flat!  And, you will become the “fashionista” in your family!

Next door to the very traditional Den Haan & Wagenmakers quilt shop in Amsterdam is a completley different quilt shop, Bird Blocks (www.birdblocks.com)! 

Full of bright modern fabric, these two shops could not be more different and that’s probably why they finction successfully right next to each other!  The shop owner loves cats and I found lots of delightful cat fabric in this shop!  My favorite quilt in this shop was called “Little Amsterdam”.  Designed by the North Sea Quilt Guild in The Netherlands, this quilt is a celebration of all things Amsterdam – complete with Delft-inspired blue and white fabrics.  The buildings that comprise the focus of this quilt are replicas of the hsitoric Dutch architecture.  Members of the quild actually made this quilt for the Bird Block shop owner and if you look closely, there is a cat in the window of one of the buildings in her honor!

P.S. Delftware is that beautiful hanbd-painted blue and white china made only in Holland in the city of Delft (www.delftsepauw.com).  This little bundle of fabric is a nod to the various blue and white patterns used in this china.  Irresistable!

On a recent trip to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I had an opportunity to visit a very special quilt shop one afternoon, called Den Haan & Wagermakers!  A quick walk from my hotel in the city center, this shop was a wonderful introduction to Dutch quilting and Dutch reproduction chintz.  All of the quilts in this shop are designed with this fabric in mind and they are gorgeous traditional patterns. 

Den Haan & Wagermakers began manufacturing reproduction chintz about 25 years ago, using original designs imported from India in the 17th and 18th century and their collection has grown steadily over the years.  The fabric is printed in the Netherlands and is most suitable for patchwork (as they call it) and quilting, as well as for clothing and interior design. The width is 60 inches and fabric is measured in meters.  The colors were wonderful!  I especially fell in love with the golds, deep blues, and reds and selected several to bring home, including a stripe for a potential border. (P.S. the quilt on the cover of the Dear Jane Quilt book was made with Den Hann & Wagermakers fabric!!)

The woman I met in the shop was warm and friendly and we chatted a lot about quilting in Holland, comparing it with the US. She even let me take photos of the shop and quilts! Because fabric is quite expensive in Holland, most quilters make smaller quilts, hand piecing and hand quilting their projects.  She had heard of long arm quilting, but the small Dutch homes are too small to house a long arm machine, so it is not a common method of finishing a quilt.  She told me that there are 15,000 quilters in the Dutch quilt guild!  So the Dutch love quilting!

The owner of the shop, Petra Prins, has written her own book of patterns (Treasures from Holland) that provides quilt instructions in three languages, Dutch, French, and English.  (There are 181 different nationalities in Amsterdam, so English is the most common language.)  Many of the quilts displayed in the shop are in the book – which is a very good thing, because I couldn’t decide which ONE pattern I wanted to select.  The shop also has prepared kits in lovely flat boxes that are easy to slip into your suitcase!  Her is their website address:  http://www.dutchquilts.net

You know I like to visit a new quilt shop when I travel!  This summer I met friends from my freshman year of college in Cazenovia, NY for a reunion and had the opportunity to visit a great shop in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York state.  Located on Rte. 20 four miles from Skaneateles Lake, Patchwork Plus has over 9000 bolts and is a sponsor the well known Quilting on The Lake quilt symposium each year.  Much like Thimble Pleasures, these shop owners like bright, modern fabrics and quilt designs – in addition to offerin a gorgeous selections of knitting wool! 

When I walked in the door, I thought….”Where do I start?  There is so much here!”.   Of course, I went to the batiks first!  An entire wall of the shop was covered with batiks in so many colors and patterns.  P.S. there is a sitting/reading area for husbands and friends who are not quilters, so you can take your time to look and enjoy all the offerings.  Beautiful quilts hang down from the high ceilings and provide inspiration for fabric selection.  The owners and staff are friendly and helpful.  They demonstrated the new Christmas embroidery patterns from Bernina for me and they are awesome!

After a great rip through this shop, my friends and I drove to the quaint village of Skaneatles and had lunch at The Sherwood Inn, right on the lake.  Delicious food, bright sunshine, great friends, and 80 degree weather after quilt shopping made it a wonderful day!

Summer time, trips to the beach, special projects…….My sister and I and our husbands spend a week together at their beach cottage in Canada on Lake Erie every summer.  It’s a great time to relax, catch up, and have fun together.  We especially like to have a special project to work on together!  In years past, we have worked on a family cookbook using recipes from our mother, mothers-in-law, and aunts etc.  This year we decided to make out own barn quilt blocks!  That’s right, a quilt block painted on wood that could be hung on our houses (we don’t have barns….).  Here’s how we did it……

First, each of us selected a favorite quilt block. I chose the Carolina Lilly, because I love the block and the obvious connection to North Carolina.  My sister chose the Tree of Life.  We printed the blocks out and chose our colors.  The local hardware store prepared small cans of paint samples of exterior latex paint.  Very economical approach because you don’t need a lot of paint and you may need several colors!  We selected colors that would work for the block and complement the color of our houses.  Then we painted the entire block with a cream color as the background for the block, using two coats of paint.

My brother-in-law cut 3 ft X 3 ft blocks from I inch ply wood and primed the wood blocks for us. Next we planned the size of our block on paper and then drew the block pattern on the board in pencil.  A good eraser that did not smudge was helpful.  (Note: we decided to put a border on each block from the start, which in the end was a good idea because the borders really framed the blocks well.)  Then we started to tape off the sections to be painted.  Be sure the tape is tightly applied to the board, so the paint line is crisp and neat.  Paint all the sections of the block using a color at the same time.  We applied two coats of paint to be certain the color was intense.

Keep working color by color until the pattern is completed.  The paint dries very quickly, taking only about 30 minutes to dry between coats.  Go back and touch up the cream background, fixing smudges, pencil lines, or lines that may not be straight/crisp.  Let the paint dry over night.  Then paint a sealant/weather proofer over the entire block to protect it from the weather.  Note:  cover the edges and back of the wooden board!  Apply two coats.  Let dry thoroughly, then hang on the side of your house for all to admire!  We used very strong picture hangers and hung our blocks under the overhang of our houses, so we could hang them down in very bad weather (hurricanes for us, blizzards for my sister).  If you mount your block on the side of your house, it could easily be screwed directly into the siding for more stability.  Let wait for your neighbors to comment……and they will!

We had a great workshop with Annie Smith last week-end!  (More detail on that in another post!)  Sometimes when you are taking a workshop, you learn something completely unexpected and that’s what I want share with you, first.  Annie showed us how to use block-sized design boards to plan the use of color and value in our blocks!  We have all used design walls or smaller boards to mount our block pieces and plan our quilt layout.  But, Annie has developed 13 inch X 13 inch display boards that fit just about any sized block you may be working on. 

I loved the idea, so I stopped at my office supply store on the way home that day and bought foam core so I could make my own!  It was easy and here are some photos to prove it!

First, I cut out several 13 X 13 sized foam core pieces using an exacto knife and my cutting mat.

Then, I cut leftover quilt batting into 13 X 13 pieces.

 Next, I glued the batting onto the foam core and put my block pieces on the board.  I used a glue stick, but 505 spray could work, too.

Finally, I took the board with my block pieces to my sewing machine and started to sew my block.  It was great to be able to pick up pieces and not have them move all over my sewing surface!  You really need to try these block-sized design boards!  They are great!