Have you ever wondered what a distributor Open House looked like? It’s pretty crazy!

I worked at the big Checker Distributors Open House event just outside Toledo, Ohio last week. This is an event where the Quilt Shop owners can actually go in and shop the Checker warehouse. And let me tell you, these folks know how to shop!

The Open House is a huge event for the Checker staff, and they do an amazing job. They invited 30 vendors (people like me) to do demonstrations for the shop owners and answer their questions. It’s kind of like Quilt Market, just on a smaller scale.

Now I have to admit that I left my camera at home, and I was so crazy busy that I forgot to attempt any photos with my new iPad. (Silly me!) Fortunately, the roving Checker photographer took a pile of pictures and gave me a disc before I left. Really, they thought of everything!

Here are a few photos from the event.

This is the view from behind one of the demo tables. We were busy from start to finish both days. My demo stand was straight back from the lady in the pink shirt, but with so many people there, there was no way to see it from here!

Here’s my friend Joan Ford (check out her Scrap Therapy book) showing off one of her quilts. Busy, busy, busy!

The shop owners could shop freely in the fabric warehouse. It wasn’t unusual to see someone dragging 3 carts like this to the checkout area — we’re talking about serious shopping! I talked to one woman who drove up from Florida for the event. Holy buckets, Batman!

Clara’s Calling

The highlight of the event for me was meeting Master Seargent Clara Vargas. (She’s the tiny lady in pink.) While she was serving in Afghanistan, she started a program to help Afghan women learn to sew in order to support themselves and their families. Rob Krieger, owner of Checker Distributors heard about her efforts and signed on to be one of the key sponsors of the Clara’s Calling efforts.

You can read more about Clara’s Calling at this website. This is an amazing effort — not just to help the individual women — but to help us win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and to prove to them that Americans are their friends. Check with your local quilt shop to see if they are accepting donations for Clara’s Calling. If they are, by all means, do everything you can to help.

By far, the most touching event of the weekend came at dinner Sunday night. A major award ceremony for those who have made the Clara’s Calling efforts such a success was held in Virginia. Rob Krieger, owner of Checker Distributors, could not attend as he and his staff were putting the finishing touches on the Open House event.

So Clara brought all of the awards and certificates to dinner and presented them to Rob in the company of his staff and all the Open House guests. It was quite a moment — I was thrilled to be there to share it with them.

Enjoy the rest of August. I’ll be back next week with more news from Cedar Canyon.

I’m really bad at keeping secrets, especially when I’m excited about something new! I drove up to visit our rubbing plate company yesterday to see the prototypes of our new Doodles plates. They’re absolutely gorgeous!

When I make this trip, I take along a supply of fabric and paintstiks so I can test the designs right from the molds. It’s not a perfect substitute for the end product, but it’s enough for me to know whether or not the designs will work as they are — or whether we need to make changes. (It’s far easier — and less expensive — to make changes before the machinists start drilling the thousands of little vacuum holes in the molds.) Here’s a picture of one of my rubbings and the mold that we use to make the plates.

If you are familiar with Zentangles® or zen-doodles, you’ll understand the inspiration for this set of rubbing plates. (If not, do a search on “zentangle” and discover a fascinating way to spend your time!)

I had to switch back to engineering mode yesterday to review the designs. When I made rubbings from the molds, I discovered that we had the design elements on a number of the plates too close together. One of the engineers brought in a pair of calipers and explained the finer points of mold making and plastic forming and the ideal measurements for getting successful patterns. It was really quite interesting.

The bottom line is that we need to update our drawings and send them off for a new set of molds. (I hate when that happens!) But that’s part of the process. It has been a while since we did a new set of plates. I guess I’m a little rusty. The good news is that they can turn a new set of molds pretty fast and we should still make our release date in October. And that makes me very happy.

Stay tuned for updates on these fabulous new plates. They will be a great addition to your toolbox!

That’s all the news for this week. By the time you read this, I’ll be off visiting family and winging my way to Toledo for the Checker Distributors Open House event.

The Sunflower Quilt featured in our ads was featured in Fons & Porters Love of Quilting back in 2006. The commission to do that article was the highlight to my very first Quilt Market in the fall of 2005. The years have flown by, and I’ve had a ton of amazing adventures, but this little quilt still gets rave reviews whenever I show it.

Here are the instructions. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Download the PDF

It was a dark and stormy night… Oops! Wrong story. Let me start over…

On a cold and snowy Friday in April, I ventured up to Fargo, North Dakota to teach a Design Magic class to a room full of adventurous quilters. We had a wonderful day! Here are just a few of the the designs created by this talented bunch of women.

As the morning progressed, I became fascinated by one of the designs materializing on the work tables in the room. Stephanie Lacher, a long-arm quilter, created an incredible design on her very first try. (Now why can’t I be that lucky?) Here’s a photo of Stephanie arranging the paper versions of her design into a 9-patch repeating pattern.

And a second photo of her design painted out on fabric.

I was impressed! When I asked Stephanie about her inspiration for the design, she said she simply doodled on the black square of paper we use to create Design Magic images. As a long-arm quilter, she does a lot of doodling to train her brain to follow a certain pattern as she quilts. Whatever the process, all I can say is the result was impressive.

When Stephanie arrived at the lecture on Saturday morning with this painted sample in hand, I knew this design was something very special. I asked her if she would be willing to sell the design so we could make stencils. I’m delighted to report that she accepted my offer and the new Split Leaf DesignMagic™ Stencils will be available in just a few weeks.

The moral of this story is that you should never skip class because the weather is lousy (unless you’re totally snowed in!) and you should always allow yourself to doodle! Who knows — you might be the next Design Magic star!

Sue Kelly joined me for the trek to Cleveland to film some segments for the Quilting Arts TV a couple of years ago. We traveled on one of those winter days when we really would have been much better off snuggled up in front of a fire at home. The weather was miserable, the flights delayed, and that was the good part… After a very long day, we made it to Cleveland and put on our happy faces for the camera.

Sue is from St. Cloud, MN. She is a professional machine quilter who loves to dye and discharge fabric and play with all kinds of embellishments, including our Shiva Paintsiks. After seeing one of her quilts, I asked Sue if she was game to film a segment for Quilting Arts TV. Sue graciously agreed, interrupted her work to get some samples ready and got an inside look at TV production. Here’s a photo of Sue and Pokey as they discuss Sue’s segment with producer Kathie Stull.

Sue’s segment is all about painting a quilt AFTER it has been quilted. In the photo above, you can see two pieces of fabric with light wavy lines. The first is one of Sue’s discharged fabrics (the black fabric) before quilting. The piece on the corner has been quilted and then painted with Artist’s Paintstiks. Here’s a close-up of that piece.

Sue takes her inspiration from the fabric she is quilting or at times from a photograph. She quilts each section of the quilt with a different pattern and then paints various sections of the quilt with iridescent paintstik colors. The results are amazing! One of the samples Sue worked on for the TV segment has a bunch of overlapping circles. These were inspired by a piece of fabric that Sue’s mom dyed for her.

Here is a detailed image from this quilt. You can see how Sue has changed her quilting pattern in various sections of the quilt. The different motifs are really highlighted after the quilt is painted.

Here’s the basic process if you want to try this for yourself.

> Layer backing, batting, and top fabric into a quilt sandwich.

> Quilt by machine (or by hand if you wish).

> Paint various sections of your quilt using different paintstik colors. Use the paintstiks directly on the fabric, using a light touch. This allows you to apply color to the raised areas without painting the stitching.

> Allow the painted quilt to air dry for at least a week.

> Cover the quilt with muslin or some type of press cloth (Sue uses an old t-shirt for a press cloth) and heat set the paint. (Set your iron to the appropriate temperature for your fabric, and press each section for 15-20 seconds.)

> Bind your quilt and enjoy!

Before I finish, I just have to show you the quilt that Sue made for her husband. It was based on a design by Robbie Joy Eklow (and used with Robbie’s permission). It is simply stunning.

Sue’s Quilt It, Then Paint is segment is part of the QATV 400 Series DVD. You can order any of the DVDs from the Interweave Store.