Hello my friends,

Twenty more gray hairs, 5 bags of Cheetos, dark bags under my eyes.... but hey I DID IT!!. I made my goal. "Jingle Bells" is done and entered into the IQA show this year. These deadlines are called that for a reason. 

Now for the backstory. We always take a family Christmas vacation. This year we went to a lodge in Eastern WA. They had an old fashioned sleigh ride.  Over the river and thru the woods to a tent for dinner. The drover looked like he had been doing this for the last hundred years. Beat up cowboy hat, oilskin coat down to his boots, beard, and a gruff weathered look to his face. My grand daughters were the only kids on the sleigh. He turned to my petite little 4 yr old and asked her what she got for Christmas. "A bow and arrow", she replied. He did a double take and said, " Really, a bow and arrow? What are you going to shoot?" "Bears", she replied. At that he let out a big belly laugh. "Bears?"        "Well, just the mean ones", she said. That old red neck was roped and tied in seconds by my little mighty mite. "Do you want to drive the horses little missy, he asked?' "Well yes sir I do". He obviously was not familiar with Disney's newest Princess - Merida. 

Thread Embellishments.  Thank you to Carol Stocking for the great idea to do Sea Fans with thread. I apologize for not recognizing you last month. Love that idea! Check out the several new student project photos in my student gallery this month too.

Border choices. The majority of you chose our Rooster with the stripes all around.  Laura, (the artist and I) choose the dark strip on the left side. Competition with the main subject of the quilt was my problem with the stripes. They are so visually powerful. I felt like your eye went there first, instead of the Rooster. On Jingle Bells, I chose a dark colored border to frame in the dark horses. The lettering was done with machine embroidery on two pieces of tear away stabilizer behind the border fabric.  I did that prior to the quilting. There are real jingle bells attached to the little holly berry flourish.

News from Walrus Designs-

More than a Memory won an Honorable Mention at this years show in Paducah.

"Quilter's World" magazine has asked me to make a 18 inch block pattern for them.

 It will be coming out this fall with an article on my "Multiple Ways to Applique" approach to quilting. AQS has asked me to partner with them in publishing two more patterns. One is the "Dancing Cranes" pattern. I am pushing for a CD to accompany it with directions and photos, as it's a complex pattern.  The other is "Greeting the Golden Grandchild".

I am sometimes asked about how it works when you want to write a book or sell your patterns?  Did you know that it is standard for authors to receive 5% royalty on each pattern or book sold? It is not a great way to become rich.  Most of us do it out of our love for teaching and sharing our work with others. It often takes an author a year of work to make a book with all of the requisite samples and photos. Books generally cost $28.00. You do the math.  Authors and designers have to buy back our own books and patterns at the whole sale price, just like any quilt shop. If you want to thank teachers for writing books or making patterns, -  buy your books or patterns directly from them instead of the publishers. That way they will make a little more.

Great Gadgets.  

Combining pieced skies with the more curvo-linear shapes found in nature is a easy way to add interest to your quilts.  The contrast between techniques also adds a dynamic touch. It is a great way to change the color and brightness across the sky section. Use half triangles, or diamonds. 2.5 inch squares set on point look great. They need to be square! If you are a little off on one, you will be a lot of by the time you have sewn 75 together. I like this new ruler. Loc bloc. It has a groove in it. The seam allowance slides into that groove and then there is no rocking when cutting. The square can be firmly held down to your cutting mat. Sew them together in strips. Sew two strips together. Then another two. Sew the pairs together. If you just keep adding more strips to the side, the whole section becomes stretched and out of square.

Here's the link. 

http://shop.blocloc.com/Bloc-Loc-HST-Square-up-Ruler-25-BL-HST-25.htm

    Puffin pattern is available in my shop. Take me there.  63 x 50 sold.

Tips for trapunto -

  My favorite batting for trapunto work is Quilters Dream cotton. It cuts so easily and cleanly. No little feather tufts ! I use blue water dissolvable markers to mark my designs. The first layer of basting thread is lite weight dissolvable thread by Superior. Get the Vanish light weight!

www.superiorthreads.com/shop/product/vanish-lite-300-yds/

Heres the tricky part. Use only cold water to remove the blue marking lines. Hot water removes the thread better but you do not want to "heat set' those marking lines. Make sure they are totally gone before washing the remaining thread away in hotter water. If you want a faux trapunto look - (without the work of cutting away the extra layer of batting) - Use 100% wool batting. It inherently puffs better than cotton.

Remember to nurture your personal creative self this Spring too.

hugs Kathy.

www.kathymcneilquilts.com