Stray Threads Show

Last month, I was the featured artist at the Stray Threads quilt show "Hollywood Encore", here in Woodinville, and I thought that those of you that couldn't make it to the show might like to see what my space looked like.  My area was in the front entry of the old Woodinville schoolhouse, so quilts were split between the two sides, leaving the center open for the quilters to pass through to come or go upstairs.  While it seems strange to have it split this way, it worked out very well!

Some friends in the guild helped me set up and we tackled the challenge of working around the furniture, because we weren't allowed to move it.  Luckily, I brought some of my baskets to hold patterns, as well as a hinged quilt ladder and pop-up shelving.  The guild let me use some of their standards, but we even used the stair railing, piano and other furniture, fitting quilts and products everywhere.  It's a good thing my table wasn't any larger!

Ready for quilters...

Thank you Stray Threads and everyone who helped and visited my booth, it was a fun show!!!

How it all began

Somehow when I say "yes" to something that sounds like it would be simple, the project always seems to grow into something larger than I had expected. There are those times I've been asked to make a quilt, and once I've said that magic word "yes", I find out that the project isn't what I had really envisioned, but much more.


One time it was a baby quilt, that ended up being two, because they later found out they were expecting twins. Yeah, I know there was no way to know at the time I was asked, but this is the way many things happen in my life.


I used to just quilt for family and the occasional gift, or helping finish up quilt projects with the kids at school. Then one day a quilt shop opened that was just down the hill from me less than 2 miles away! That's when it happened. I was asked by the friendly shop owner what I did, and of course answered that I did many different things, listing a few, including quilting. She talked me into bringing some quilts down to show her (I'd never taken a single quilt back to a shop to show them what I'd made), and said "ok". When she started looking at my work, she said I should be teaching, or writing, and I thought "who, me".


I began teaching, and then when it came time to design a block for her first shop hop, she asked me to design it. I was flattered, and said yes, figuring I'd just design it in EQ (Electric Quilt), and hand it off to her. We learned the rules together, and when the block was designed she looked at it on my laptop and asked what it would look like as a small 4-block quilt. When I showed her, she requested that I make the sample for her, which I did.





Then there was another remark "if we had a pattern, we could kit it up." Soon I was off getting a business license, researching to find out how to print, package, price, and all those necessary things to produce and sell a pattern. Finally it was ready, and off it went, into her shop, and my pattern company was on its way.

holly quilting patterns

After playing around in the EQ6 program, I was able to to come up with these holly block and border designs. The designs have been traced onto template material from my local quilt shop, and I've used my sewing machine with a thick topstitch needle to perforate the design so that I can transfer it to dark fabrics with the ultimate quilt pounce. I'm hoping it will also show up on the toile, but if not, I'll probably have to use a purple or blue dissapearing marker.