I’m going to take a brief rest and recharge time. I will be back on September 6 with more opinions and news of new projects. In the meantime, here is what is coming up for me in the next couple of months.

September

Sept 1 (edited to correct the date): virtual lecture with the Puyallup Valley Quilters in Puyallup, WA. I will be doing my lecture “The Famous Century of Progress Quilt Show”. It starts at 6:30 PM

Sept. 8 and 9: I’m flying down to Southern California to do my lecture in person “Quilting Superstars of the Past” for the Surfside Quilters Guild in Dana Point, CA. It starts at 9:30 AM. And I will be doing a workshop the next day “Make a Japanese Rice Bag, Komebukuro” from 9 AM to 3:30 PM

October

Oct. 14 is the Northern California Quilt Council “Meet the Teachers” virtual Zoom meeting. I will be presenting a 3 minute talk. If your guild program members are attending, ask them to take a look at the list of teachers and what they have available to book in the upcoming months.

Oct. 21: Another in person lecture for the Peninsula Quilters Guild in San Mateo CA. I will be doing my “Crazy Quilts Through the Ages” lecture starting at 7 PM.

Oct 24 and 25: The All Star Sampler Platter is running that weekend. It is a virtual presentation of teachers from around the US and they will be giving 15 minutes of tips and tricks for all levels of quilters. I will be talking about “Embroidery Makes Quilts Shine”. More information will be coming about the list of teachers and workshop subjects.

November

Nov. 2 and 3: I will be at the Pioneer Quilt Guild in Loomis, CA doing my lecture “The Famous Century of Progress Quilt Show” at 9:30 AM and a Workshop the next day teaching “Beginning Embroidery” from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM.

I hope I will see some of you at any of these events. Spread the word. You know I love to lecture and teach. What a nice way meet everyone and to voice my opinions about quilts and quilting.

We quilters in San Francisco do not have a local quilting goods store. We have one in Berkeley, New Pieces, across the Bay Bridge, which is an excellent store full of everything a quilter needs, and another store, Bay Quilts, even further away that is also an excellent store. But nothing closer that you can just get in the car and go to when you discover you are missing that extra piece of fabric, or spool of thread, or some fusible to finish up a quilt that needs to be ready the next day. Or maybe you are inspired to make some pattern you dreamed about as you slept and only have your lunch hour to get the supplies. Now we San Francisco quilters have one.

City Made Quilts opened its doors on Saturday with all the pomp and circumstance needed to welcome current and future quilters. When I was done with my errands this morning, I drove there, not exactly sure where it was located, but I heard some loud music nearby and followed a crowd of familiar looking middle aged ladies and I knew I was in the right place. After I found a parking space (which is always priority in San Francisco), I walked a couple of short blocks towards the smell of Mexican food and the sound of the Jefferson Airplane. There was a party going on.

Of course I had to spend some money and here is what I got.

Probably the first of many purchases. Remember this store is a 5 minute drive from my house.

If you noticed something in the above photo, an explanation is needed to readers of my Substack Notes. Sarah Cain, the owner, was the lecturer at our San Francisco Quilters Guild meeting last month and selling her patterns. I was smittened by her quilt pattern called Haight Quilt, a very Art Deco looking quilt, and lined up to purchase it until I remembered I am genetically unable to follow patterns and stopped just in time. Well I have thought of nothing else but that quilt for the last month so I gave in and bought it (Edit: I was reminded by friends that I got the pattern at the EBHQ free table last Tuesday. I apologize for my slippery memory.) along with some solid navy and blue fabric. I’m going to give it the old college try and make a test block to see if I can read a pattern. I even read through the pattern today during lunch and it seems doable.

By the way, Sarah’s patterns are named after neighborhoods in San Francisco. The Haight is near Golden Gate Park and is famous for the Flower Power brigade during the 1960’s, along with its Victorian houses. Tourists flock to Haight and Ashbury streets to pay homage to that era.

Another strange, but very welcomed thing happened this week. My collection of Ruby Short McKim quilts grew with the addition of this quilt.

It was gifted to me from a fellow quilter who said her mother made it for her and she was looking for a good home for it. A mutual friend told her I should have it and I agreed. It is the Mother Goose Quilt and I made a version of it without the rhymes. I called it the Nursery Rhyme quilt.

It is joining the collection located in the drawer under my bed and will be displayed at my lecture “Superstar Quilters of the 1930’s” lecture as soon as I can get a sleeve on it. What a honey of a quilt it is. It will also be a nice addition to the lecture I’m working on now, “Quilts and Embroidery A Match Made in Heaven”. More about that later.

I seem to have lucked out into something fantastic. A customer walked into New Pieces, our local quilt store in Berkeley, with this wall hanging. It was made by Roberta Horton.

Roberta Horton is famous in the quilting world. She and her sister, Mary Mashuta, have published many books and patterns over the years, taught many workshops all over the world, and passed on their knowledge of quilting to hundreds and hundreds of quilters since the 1970’s. I have seen her lectures at various guild meetings but never was able to take a class with her. By the time I started quilting, she only taught at prestigious art retreats and quilt shows that were out of my league both creatively and financially. Roberta and Mary lived in Berkeley (remember my declaration about the San Francisco Bay Area being the incubator of quilting? See my Substack Link located in my archives). Roberta passed away a few years ago and Mary recently downsized and moved to Texas. This wall hanging was probably purchased at the recent sale of her quilts. It was brought to My Friend Janet at New Pieces to see if she knew anyone who could finish the hand quilting on it.

Of course Janet brought it to my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters. It is going to one of Roberta’s nieces. It took me two seconds to raise my hand and offer my hand quilting services.

I immediately recognized it from the cover of one of the books I have.

Maybe this was the inspiration for my own Amish Quilt.

Yes the same cake stand block set on point in the same jewel colors, with the same black background. For more about this quilt, see the “My Amish Quilt” Substack located in my archives.

I can’t believe my stitches will be in the same quilt as Roberta’s. I am going to finish two of the blocks and do a traditional Amish cable in the borders.

Can you believe it?

Summer weather in San Francisco is a subject of much talk. A typical day starts out chilly and overcast with fog. Usually the fog lasts until about 4 or 5 pm because that is when the wind kicks up, blows it away and you see some sunshine peak through. Then the fog comes back “on little cat feet”1 and the whole thing starts over again the next morning. Summer in San Francisco is not for the faint hearted. It is for lovers of temperatures in the 50’s F and it might climb to the 60’s F if you’re lucky.

Last year all summer was even colder and even foggier and even WINDIER. My garden did not produce and I had to replace some of my perennials because they just gave up and died. But this summer has given us the gift of sunlight. I am constantly amazed to see the sun come out about 10 AM and stay out until after bedtime. Vegetables are setting fruit and ripening and flowers are blooming. I feel like I have been dropped into a different part of the universe.

What does this have to do with quilting you may ask? Really not much. But when my various stitching groups get together, it is the most talked about topic of the day.

This is leading me, admittedly in a convoluted way, to my Dorcas Embroidery Ladies (and sometimes Gentlemen ) gathering this week. The last Thursday or Friday of the month, we gather at a member’s house to stitch and eat and talk, not in that order. This month we were in the East Bay enjoying the hospitality of Judy A. Not a big group this time as many members were on vacation, but we still talked each other’s ears off and the weather was the main topic of conversation. The members attending were a cross stitcher, a freeform embroiderer, an appliquér , a tablecloth embroiderer, a Hana Fukin stitcher (me), and a Chicken Scratch embroiderer. And we all marveled at the change in the weather.

What is Chicken Scratch Embroidery? This may be new to some readers, but it is a type of embroidery pattern that is as old as the hills. You use gingham fabric and stitch patterns on it that are not marked on the fabric. Instead you use the gingham checks as a type of graph paper and outline them, or fill them with stitches, or weave thread around them to create the patterns. The gingham becomes a very different patterned fabric depending on the color of thread and the weaving pattern. This technique was used back in the 1920’s and 30’s to decorate primarily aprons but also curtains and linens.

Now it is used to transform gingham fabric into modern quilt blocks.

My Friend Janet, the person who always seems to introduce me to new stitching techniques (like Sashiko) started doing this. Earlier she brought her samples to our Dorcas Hand Quilting meeting and passed them around at Show and Tell time, but I was gone that day. I asked her to bring them to our embroidery meeting so I could see what she was doing now. I was flabbergasted. I expected to see some attractive old fashioned patterns, but I was not prepared to see how the stitching transposed the gingham fabric into new colors and patterns. Here are some of her samples.

Notice how the stitches have changed the red gingham into pink on the photo on the left and the red has changed into burgundy in the photo on the right.

Janet joined a block on the month program from Blair Stocker at Wise Craft Handmade Link. These are the block samples with Janet’s own choice of colors done in the way only Janet can do it. Needless to say she is a master at taking a technique and giving it the Janet twist to make it a breathtaking work of art. She always manages to take me along with her.

I also brought my Farmers Wife Sampler quilt to show everyone how it is coming along. I am very proud of it.

I think I see chicken scratching in my future. If this scratches your itch, make sure to use evenly woven gingham, 1/4” checks are recommended. If you use printed gingham, the design might be askew or not an even size.

It is time for me to come up with some new lecture and workshop topics. I have been keeping this thought in the back of my mind all this month, hoping I would wake up some morning with a fully formed idea, and just get out a pen and paper to write it all down. Of course life doesn’t work that way for quilting teachers and lecturers so I finally just had to sit down with my stitching and say to myself, “Self, what do you enjoy in the quilting world that you haven’t opined to death?”. The answer came pretty quickly. And that answer was EMBROIDERY.

New ideas came rather fast. Embroidery and quilting have gone hand in hand forever. Quilts have always been embellished with embroidery. There are autograph quilts with names embroidered on them, crazy quilts that celebrate embroidery, Redwork quilts with embroidered pictures of everything under the sun, and many, many more types that include a combination of the two skills. I am happy to say that now embroidery has been adopted by all styles of quilters, not just Traditionalists. You can see it used by modern, contemporary, and art quilters.

It is a marriage made in heaven as one definitely enhances the other. Embroidery on quilts gives added texture and forces the viewer to come up close to the quilt to see the details used in the embroidered stitches and how it adds to the beauty of the quilt itself. This technique has been adopted by Japanese quilters and you can see it on many of their quilts which win ribbons in all the major quilt shows.

If you have something to say on your quilts, you can use embroidery to write the words, maybe a slogan or just a prayer for a better world. Quilters use embroidery to celebrate a loved one’s life, or express happiness (think baby quilts) or sorrow (like a goodbye to a beloved friend or family member taking a chance on the Oregon Trail). Embroidery also shows up in the winning quilts at QuiltCon in new and unusual ways.

So someone, namely me, should give a talk about that. Also, someone should show quilters how to do the beginning stitches so they can use embroidery to level up their skills and add that certain something to their new designs. That would also be me.

I think quilters would be surprised that learning just two stitches could add so much interest to their projects. Backstitch and stem stitch (it’s also called outline stitch) are the two that are used most often on quilts. These two can also be changed up by just weaving threads amongst the stitches to give more variety as in the QuiltCon winner shown above. Add another stitch, maybe fly stitch, and you have all the skills you need to do a crazy quilt. Then add one more stitch, I would say chain stitch, and you can do flowers with the lazy daisy variation and create a garden on your patchwork. If you have some beautiful threads that won’t withstand the stresses of pulling through the three layers of a quilt, you can couch them very simply to your quilt top. These stitches are so easy to do and don’t need a lot of practice to master them.

So crack open a beginning embroidery book. If you get hooked on this beautiful handwork, you can always ask your guild to hire me to give my lecture “Embroidery and Quilts, a Marriage Made in Heaven” that is sure to inspire you to use embroidery on your quilts. I can show you examples from the past and present along with the simple stitches. I am available both in person (with a trunk show of my own embroidered quilts new and antique) and over Zoom. Take a look at my website for more info Pattiehandquilts.net.

Try it. I think you will fall in love.

PS: A quick thank you to my fellow Dorcas Hand Quilter, Regina, for lending me her EPP blocks to embroider and use for the above photo.

When I am interviewed, I usually get asked about why I do handwork. Of course I go on and on about how beautiful it is, how it produces a different and individual beauty from machine work, how it connects you to quilters of the past, etc. But at the end of my bombastic diatribe, I am stopped cold by the usual comment that it is so portable and you can do it while waiting for appointments or during commutes. Yes it is that of course and this is one of the reasons to do handwork, but does anyone ever bring up this fact. When you look at the project you worked on during those waiting times, does it bring back the memories you might want to forget?

For me it is this quilt.

Last week, our family went through a time of medical appointments requiring emergency room visits and too many doctors with too much driving thrown into the mix. Don’t worry. All is well and the outcome is good, but this incident has reminded me of a time when I worked on the embroideries for a quilt because I had to sit at the bedside of a hospital room for extended lengths of time. During this time I worked on the above Nursery Rhymes quilt embroideries created by Ruby Short McKim. I worked on it because it was the only handwork project I could just pick up and stitch without too much thought or energy. I would arrive at the hospital in the morning to do my best at an accommodating bedside manner. I would sit and calmly embroider the blocks, then drive home and eat some takeaway and prep another block. Then get up the next morning and do the whole thing all over again. This continued on repeat and repeat and repeat. I did twelve blocks for that quilt until I wasn’t needed at the hospital any more. The blocks got shoved into a shoe box and lived in the Bookcase of Dreams (bad dreams in this case) until I could look at them again without my stomach clenching or the memory of the way the hospital smelled. It was then that I put my big girl pants on and finished the quilt.

It actually turned out to be a beautiful quilt. I was very happy with the sashing and quilting design and it won a ribbon in my guild’s show. But the memories lingered. It now lives in the cabinet of finished quilts and I rarely use it to cover a bed or hang it on the back of a couch. When I get comments on its beauty, I can only say thank you but I can’t talk the commenter’s ear off by declaring how much I love it. I love it but I can’t stand it if you know what I mean.

A lesson was learned. In this last bout of hospital waiting I chose to take some Sashiko with me. A small Hana Fukin kept my hands busy. It was easy to pick up and put down and when it is finished, I can give it away or let it co-mingle with it’s friends and cousins in the drawer of dishtowels along with it’s bad memories. (See more about my Drawer of Dishtowels in this Substack Link.)

But my feelings about this quilt are very different.

I hand pieced these blocks during the Covid times. Yes that was a time of stresses but I was able to shrug them off because my family and friends came through it safely. The only remembrance I have regarding this quilt was that I ordered the sashing fabric on line intending it to be an old fashioned cheddar color. When it arrived it turned out to be more American cheese than cheddar but I grew to love it anyway. Now I can get to do the hand quilting part and enjoy the process of finishing it without bad memories flooding my mind. Yes I was disappointed in the color but every time I handled the blocks, a feeling of peace and safety would wash over me and it quilts like butter.

A small promo: If you are local to the San Francisco Bay Area, My Friend Janet is teaching her class on binding on Saturday August 1 and Monday August 3 at New Pieces in Berkeley (two separate classes) Link. This is one of the best classes I have ever taken and Janet will teach you to bind quilts that will gain approval from even the pickiest judge. She only teaches this twice a year so make sure to call the store and sign up 510-527-6779.

And finally, I hope you take a look at a Substack by Francis O’Roak Dowell. She has brought up some interesting points about the quilting community. I restacked it into my Substack Notes so you can see it there along with some interesting comments.

Any long time reader of this Substack might remember my very first quilt. It was an oak leaf reel with a swag bordered all appliquéd. I had never sewn a quilt before in my life but I had embroidered since I was a kid and thought “I can do this” after reading the directions. My version of the appliqué stitch was based on hemming garments. To me it looked like just folding down the fabric and hemming it to another piece of fabric. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. Needless to say, I made the stitches so far apart that as soon as I washed the quilt top (which was another big mistake) the needleturned fabric decided to unturn. End of round one.

When I was ready for round two, I decided I was in over my head and took an appliqué class at my local quilt store. We did a block from a Piece of Cake book on four block appliqué quilts and I realized you had to take small stitches close together to keep the needleturn under control. I also learned how to follow appliqué instructions and how to use templates. We used a plastic overlay method to place the pieces rather than transferring the pattern to the background fabric. I remember realizing that I couldn’t get the pieces to line up correctly underneath the plastic due to the fact that I forgot to reverse the templates when I traced them on the wrong side of the fabric. Other small but frustrating mistakes caused me to come to the conclusion that appliqué was not for me. I did finish the quilt and every time the seasons turn to autumn, I put it on the back of my couch to remind me of a very hard slog in my quilting journey.

In all these years and all these quilts I have created, the closest I have come to appliqué is sewing down bias tape to create stems and branches on embroidery blocks. But now has come the time I am going to be an appliquér.

So I turned to an expert for guidance. My friend Judy has won numerous awards for her mandala quilts and other appliqué patterns. I thought that if she couldn’t get me pointed in the right direction then I was a lost cause. I signed up for one of her classes but when the time came, I had to call out sick. Out of the goodness of her heart, she volunteered to become my consultant and told me about all the various appliqué techniques like raw edge, needleturn, fusible, prepared edge and many others. We settled on back basting.

Where have you been all my life? Not only was I able to do acceptable looking appliqué, but I enjoyed doing it. Yes the appliqué was a very simple pattern but it looks good and isn’t lumpy or misshapen. I feel like I’m on the right path.

Now I have to advance to a more difficult pattern, doing circles for the other side of the embroidery. May the appliqué gods bestow a good outcome upon me without the cursing or tantrum throwing I quite often resort to when I can’t do a new technique perfectly the first time. I also seem to become a whiny baby because I forget that quilters need hours of practice before new skills turn out an acceptable product. And thank you Judy for holding my hand through this arduous process.

I have written many, many Substacks about quilt shows and have many, many opinions about them.1 The opinions vary from positive to negative about the shows themselves, but I have never written about my personal experience of entering a quilt into a show for the very first time.

My first entry was back in 2015. I had become a serious quilter, meaning a lot of my time was spent in creating quilts, talking about quilts, and socializing in the quilting world. I don’t remember what propelled me into entering my local guild’s (that’s the San Francisco Quilters Guild) show. It might have been my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters urging me to give it a try. Whenever the subject came up, I demurred and said I didn’t think I was good enough. My quilts would stand out like a sore thumb against all the other quilts that were meticulously designed and constructed. The quilts I made were block of the month patterns or something I had made in a class. They weren’t original designs and my construction techniques were a mixture of pretty good and shoddy. And my binding, I shudder to think about how it looked. To even be considered for entry, I thought you had to have a quilt that had impeccably pieced patterns with all the points sharp and the seams meeting at perfect 90 degree angles. My quilts were an example of really good hand piecing (with a few points cut off) and passable hand quilting. Also my quilts were not original. They were either copies of patterns made by others, or our local quilt store’s various block of the month programs, also made by other guild members.

I ended up bowing to the pressure. What helped me decide was back then, SFQG had a category for first time entrants. Figuring that my Black and White Sampler Quilt fit into this category, I took a photo of it, paid the entry fee, and blithely sent it on its way. Part of me just wanted to nudge the welcome door to the guild open just a little bit with this entry and show the other guild members what I could do with a block of the month pattern. I hand pieced it and hand quilted it when the majority of the entries were machine made, so that might make my quilt stand out a little bit more and be accepted for the show.

The anticipation of seeing my quilt hanging with the others was exciting. I felt like a Quilter with a capital “Q”, not someone who just dabbled haphazardly in the craft. A lot of thought went into this quilt. Yes it was basically sampler blocks that many of the other block of the month quilters constructed every month, but I decided to use up the left over fabric to sash the blocks in a Garden Maze setting. Then I hand quilted it in an overall clam shell pattern so the quilting design wouldn’t overwhelm the sampler blocks. I thought I made some good design decisions by putting some red in it for the “pop of color” I read about in quilting blogs. I came up with a decent looking entry but never thought I would be in ribbon contention. That aspiration never even entered my mind.

Walking into the show started my head buzzing. Because my quilt was included with such outstanding work, I felt a part of our SFQG community. I couldn’t wait to see where my quilt would be hanging just so I could get a photo of me standing by my creation like all the other quilters who posted photos of themselves on line. On the way to finding my quilt, one of the guild members stopped me and said “Congratulations”, and I was so thrilled that she saw my quilt and liked it. What quilters would notice it? Who would actually know my name?

Other guild members congratulated me as I walked up and down the aisles trying to find it and each acknowledgement was like a great big hug and welcome to the quilting community. When I finally got a good glimpse of my quilt, my eyes got so big and I turned red as a beet. It had a first place ribbon on it! I had won first place in my category.

And the judges liked it too.

I guess that was the day I became a Quilter with a capital Q.

(For full disclosure: Later, I found out there were only two entries in the category. But that didn’t dull my excitement one bit. I got a ribbon!!!)

It was bound to happen sooner or later. This is why.

I possess one of the smallest sewing rooms1 I have ever seen. It is the sun room of my house. I have never measured it, but if I stand in the middle, I can reach out and touch the wall with one hand and the windows with another. It was an add on to our house, done many years ago. It might be tiny, but it is mighty. The light is exquisite and it overlooks the back yards of my neighbors along with a giant eucalyptus tree that houses the flock of crows that plague me when I plant anything in the garden.2 So I am highly entertained by all this when I sit and ply my needle.

Another thing I love about my sewing room is that it keeps me from acquiring the bane of any quilter’s existence, stash beyond your use. I have only two rolling Elfa carts with drawers that hold not only my fabric, but also various patterns, samples both finished and unfinished, and embroidery threads. When they get too full and I have a hard time closing them, I know it is time to get rid of anything I might not need or use. And that time has come.

I think I haven’t culled the stash in maybe three or four years. I don’t really buy much fabric, but I belong to two quilting guilds and two sewing groups. The members of all these organizations are constantly getting rid of their own excess stuff. Free tables are the source of most of my fabric. I constantly find something I’m looking for, or think I’m looking for, on the free tables. Quite often it is not exactly what I want so it goes back to the next free table, but sometimes I mistakenly think it is something I might need in the future. This is where my plans go awry and the fabric, or thread, or a notion gets put into a drawer and is discovered when I next clean out my stash.

Another downfall is my forehead which has a big “S” emblazoned on it, S for sucker. If someone approaches me with fabric, or batting, or needles, etc. saying “I know you are the perfect person for this”, I don’t have the heart to say no. I just can’t get the word out of my mouth. So I take a big gulp, swallow and plaster a smile on my face with a whispered “thank you” and add the garish yards of cloth to my stash while waiting for the requisite amount of time until I can take it to the free table in order to not hurt that person’s feelings. This happens too often to count.

Then there are the times I grab something not realizing I already have the fabric or notion in my drawers. Or the times I see something on the table, say “Oh I love that” then grab it and end up taking home something I just brought to the free table. Thinking about that makes me blush and cringe inside from outright embarrassment.

So my vow of culling one drawer a day during this week has yielded more room in my sewing room than I thought. My fabric drawers are noticeably more roomy. All the well meaning donations foisted on me have been taken out of their hiding places. They are all going to new owners this weekend for our San Francisco Quilters Guild free table. This hard work has given me permission to bring things home and start refilling those drawers. I hope it will not be something I just brought from my stash.

On March 5, 2027 I’m going to be getting up early and looking out to a beautiful ocean landscape. I’m going to be breathing invigorating lungfuls of that salty and foggy air you find on the Pacific Coast and making my way to the dining hall at Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove California. After a light breakfast, because my stomach will be slightly queasy (due to the attack of nerves I get before each class), I’ll hike over to an area set up just for me and greet the quilters who will be my students for five days of Slow Stitching. These ladies and gentlemen will put themselves into my hands and become hand piecers, hand quilters, and they will discover the joy of handwork.

This will be the start of my time at Empty Spools Seminars Link, a time I have been dreaming about ever since I paged through one of their catalogues and said, “Self, you can do this. You can teach a week long class at a prestigious gathering of the best teachers in the quilting community.” Never have I reached so high in my teaching career and not been shot down with a snort and head shake and pitying look given to quilters who create with just a needle and thread. Why don’t you use a sewing machine? Who do you think you are?

Wendi and Suzanne from Empty Spools had other ideas. They read my class ideas and looked at my samples with appreciation. They saw the skill that went into a handmade quilt and nodded their heads at the distinctive beauty handmade quilts possess, a beauty very different from machine made quilts but just as jaw dropping. They also saw the way the quilting community was leaning, towards a simple way of creation that can be combined with modern techniques and give quilts a new and inclusive look. A look that is being embraced by both prestigious shows and quilters, even though some may say it is too old fashioned and time consuming.

I have the privilege of teaching quilters these skills, along with fulfilling my dream of combining four different classes into a week’s seminar. After years of knocking my head against the wall of opposition built by quilt show operations who tell me quilters are not interested in handwork, I can bring the skills of our mothers and grandmothers to a new group of sewists. This group consists of both Modern, Art, Contemporary, and Traditional quilters who now compliment their work with handwork that can enhance their quilts and tell the viewers “Come closer and see the detail you miss standing far away. See these skills that make this quilt special.”

So sign up at Empty Spools Seminars starting today. You will learn to hand piece traditional and improv blocks of your choice to make into a sampler quilt. These hand piecing techniques will give you sharp corners and not cut the tips off your half square triangles. You will learn how to hand quilt with the rocking stitch and do both Big Stitch and traditional hand quilting. Then I’ll show you how to hand bind or hand face your quilt. There will be even more skills for you to discover including how to hand baste the three layers together, and how to make a pressing plan so your block will lay flat, along with how to square up your blocks to produce a top that will pass inspection at a quilt show. Then we will go over how to decide what quilting design to use on your creation and how to mark it on your top (this is my specialty). So many of these skills have been lost through the ages but I learned them from other hand quilters and now use them to make award winning quilts. You can learn them too.

So sign up at Empty Spools Seminars Link, leave your sewing machine at home and rediscover the Joy of Handwork.

A long time ago it was summer vacation. A little girl made her weekly bike ride to the local library, parked her bike, and took an armload of books out of her bike basket. She was really looking forward to this trip. It was hot and the air conditioned coolness of the open door, along with the smell of books, greeted her. She plopped down the books into the return bin and headed to the stacks. So much awaited her. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa Mae Alcott, Lucy Maude Montgomery, not to mention the section containing the Girl Scout instruction books on various crafts like sewing, knitting, crochet, weaving, and embroidery. This was the summer she was going to learn to do the things she had only read about in those books. She was going to become a hand worker.

Yes this little girl was me. And this was the summer I became a handworker. I had already made a trip to our local J C Penny store and used my babysitting money to buy an embroidery hoop, some DMC floss in bright colors, and a preprinted pillow case. The Girl Scout embroidery book showed me how to take the 6 strands apart, how to set my pattern into a the hoop, and how to do the lazy daisy stitch. I already knew how to thread a needle and tie a knot at the end of the floss. Making some Barbie doll clothes had taught me how to do a running stitch, but I wanted more. I wanted to make something beautiful with my needle and thread. I wanted to create a flower garden on that pillowcase so I could lay my head down on it at night and dream I was the poor orphan girl in Prince Edward Island, or the girl with three sisters in New England, or the girl roaming the Prairies in the Dakotas. I wanted to emulate these girls who were forced to sit down with her mother, or aunt, or guardian and stitch on her handwork every afternoon so she could learn the arts that would set her on her path toward womanhood.

I was one of a lucky few who possessed a mother who learned all this as a child and became a very skilled tailor. But she was also a mother of 5 children with a thriving tailoring business who had little time to sit with a precocious daughter. I relied on my mom to be there to answer my questions as I delved into the joy of handwork and she showed me how to do the difficult stitches, like a French Knot, when I couldn’t understand the book directions. She showed me how to turn a heel on my first sock, and how to use a crochet hook. Other than that, I was free to investigate the crafty arts all by myself.

As time passed, these skills were always there for me to indulge in. In high school I began making embroidered peasant blouses for myself and ended up making them for my friends’ mothers at the price of $20.00 each. In college, I made embroidered tablecloths and napkins for a needlework store. I used my skills to custom embroider jackets and shirts. When I became a mother, I was the mom who helped the school needlework teacher in class and cajoled the boys into casting on enough stitches to make a knitted potholder for their craft project. Handwork was always there for me to spend time with in the evening while the Partner and kids played games and did homework. And I was blessed with a daughter who turned up her nose at any mention of a needle and thread.

Little did I ever imagine I would be a person who stood in front of a group of like minded people and tell them about my passion for handwork. Having the privilege of teaching others the handwork skills I learned from books never crossed my mind. Writing a weekly newsletter about my quilts and embroideries, let alone having it read by hundreds of other handworkers was beyond imagination. However I have found my people and my people have found me.

Thank you all for the privilege of passing on my mother’s, grandmother’s, and other ancestors’ Joy of Handwork to you.

If you are a long time reader of my entries you may remember that I have a three o’clock appointment every day. (See My Three O’Clock Appointment. ). This means I sit down at that time and pull out my quilt, hoop, and between needles to put stitches into a current hand quilting project. For company, I also turn on our local NPR radio station to catch up on the news.

It’s been a while since I have been able to do this oh so satisfying activity. Lately I always seemed to get my priorities screwed up so three o’clock was spent doing other essential things. Also I couldn’t get anything on my long list of “tops to be quilted” to the hand quilting stage. My Farmers Wife Sampler was the chosen one. However it is a large quilt, too large for me to baste on my dining room table. It needed to be put on the floor frame by my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters and thread basted by them. To do this I had to slip it in during a time when we were done with one quilt while waiting for the next project in the queue to be delivered. That sweet spot finally hit this week. For a visual on frame basting, take a look at this Link.

Today I spread out the basted quilt on the dining room table so I could mark the hand quilting pattern. But first I had to put the ideas in my head onto paper and make sure the measurements worked. Out came my graft paper tablet and lines were drawn, erased, and redrawn until I had it right. Then I was able to use my Hera marker to make a start at actually marking all the quilting lines.

What is a Hera marker you say? It is a device that creates a crease in the fabric that hand quilters (and probably machine quilters too) can follow with their needle. I think in the olden days quilters might have used a butter knife to do the same thing. The crease will remain in the fabric until you wash the quilt. By using this, you can avoid the heat erasable or wash out pens that are currently on the market. Hera markers are very good to use for straight lines. Curves can be marked this way also if you have the skill to do so. Currently I am not very good at that.

Also in my head, I wanted to use the thread I bought 2 years ago at the Houston Quilt Show. Usually I use YLI hand quilting thread, but one of our Dorcas members had used the Wonderfil Spaghetti threads for her hand quilting with good results. I loved the colors they had available so it was a no brainer. These threads kept calling to me every time I started a hand quilt project and I vowed this one would be it.

So three o’clock rolled around and I got started and ran up against the same roadblock I always seem to hit. Namely the second guessing of one’s self and the option of too many choices. I marked the lines with a certain design in mind. But as I stitched and listened to the San Francisco Giants slaughter the Chicago Cubs, my mind wandered off to the what ifs. What if I change the pattern to do this? Or this? Or this? Too many choices were dangling in front of me.

So I found myself stitching away on something different. Self, just give it a try, I’d say. You can always pull the stitches out if you don’t like it even though I hate to remove stitches. These thoughts lead to the Danger Zone. I stopped myself and covered everything up and said Self, you need to sleep on this before you get in the Deep Waters of Regret.

It seems I didn’t even need to sleep on it. I made the decision while cooking dinner. Self, you are a fool. You love the original pattern, just go with it. So when three o’clock comes around today, I will pull out all those wayward stitches and not be lead astray by too many choices.

If you recall, I have recently returned from a family event that required me to spend an inordinate amount of time in airports. Flight delays mounted one on another and I was exposed to not only airport food, but airport germs.

A few days after arriving back home, I started blowing my nose. I had subscribed this activity to allergies which have descended upon me lately even though I never had them before. Plus I was recovering from an excess of party activity including partaking of restaurant food which throws me off my usual home cooked fare. This always seems to make me feel a tad unwell.

However, by the time my anticipated appliqué class rolled around, I was also coughing and sneezing. I texted my friend Kristy to warn her I had a cold (she was the carpool driver) and said I would wear a mask because I thought I was contagious. Bless her heart, she was in the same condition so we decided we would we would sit in the contagious corner of the classroom and warn everyone to stay away. But life got in the way.

Yes I woke up to more extreme symptoms on Saturday morning and had to call out of class. So, I threw in the towel and spent the day laying on the couch with a box of Kleenex for company and binge watched some Britbox . Today my nose is bright red but I feel I have “got the turn” as Anne of Green Gables says when someone on their death bed survives.

Just an update on my projects: I am very happy with my progress. The Farmers Wife quilt top is trimmed and ready with the backing and batting all housed in my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters hands. It will be basted on the frames this coming week. Then I will get started on the long awaited hand quilting pattern that has been in my head for some time.

Also, I started a Kantha embroidery pattern using some pastel Perle cotton threads and the humble running stitch. And three, yes three, Sashiko stitched panels are ready along with the lining and tabs all cut out to stitch into Japanese Rice Bags. Another accomplishment is that I prewashed all the fabric I have collected since December and the pieces have been crammed into the drawers containing my fabric stash.

My Sacred Geometry Redwork top is still sitting until I spend some time learning to do decent appliqué. Judy*, the teacher of the class I missed, has offered to spend some time with me and help me get all the bias tape made so I can do some appliqué decorations on it. My current appliqué sewing does not pass inspection. I am not trying for perfect applique, just decently hand stitched bias designs. Judy will be my muse for this. Her quilts are the ones that win the ribbons at our San Francisco Quilters Guild biannual shows so I know she will lead me to the right combination of well made stitching that still looks handmade. It’s a tricky row to hoe.

*Yes this is the same Judy that coined the phrase “the humble running stitch”.

I’m back from my family celebration and entirely sick of airports. Both flights were delayed, one 3 hours and one 1 hour. Yes I did bring things to do while waiting and did some interesting people watching, but enough is enough. I think I have had my fill of airports for a while. And airport food sucks.

Lectures and workshops are slowing down for the next two months. I am taking a class at the end of May on Bias Applique Knots and Braids taught by my fellow Dorcas Hand Quilter, the fabulously talented Judy E. (Here is the link if you are interested Link ). The skills I learn will be applied to my Sacred Geometry Redwork quilt top. If you remember, I tried to do some appliqué on it at my guild’s retreat back in March, took one look at the result, and ripped it off as fast as I could. My decision is that this quilt deserves the best possible work I can give. It has told me only superior hand work will be allowed. No more slap dash workmanship will be tolerated. Everything else will be ripped off like a peeling sunburn. Go beautiful or go home.

Then on Monday, June 8, 10:30 to 12:30, I will be filling in for My Friend Janet, at her monthly Sashiko Meet Up. This takes place at New Pieces in Berkeley. Janet holds this get together for her Sashiko buddies just so they can stitch and chat. Janet said I could just hang around to help everyone with their projects or introduce a project of my own. I’m thinking of this:

A Furoshiki or Japanese wrapping cloth. It’s a simple Shippo design to stitch on a cloth that can be used to wrap a gift. The Japanese tradition is that when you receive a gift wrapped in a Furoshiki, you return the favor by giving another gift wrapped in the same cloth. Here is a link for class info Link. Call the store at 510-527-6779 to sign up. By the way, Janet is currently occupied leading a stitching tour of Poland. I wonder what she will be bringing home from this one. If you recall, she was the person who got me started stitching Sashiko when she went on a tour of Japan and brought home Sashiko samples and supplies. Janet always leads me down the garden path of new techniques. She just crooks her finger and I seem to always come running. I can’t help it. She is a superior stitcher and has excellent taste.

Now to get to the subject of threes. I am going to work on my own projects for the next three months. Number One will be finishing the Sacred Geometry Redwork top, of course, so I can get it in shape to baste and mark. I am determined to slow down on this so the top can begin to talk to me regarding its quilting design. No more will I force myself to come up with designs. I am just going to finish the dang thing and let the design evolve into what it will become.

Number Two will be the Farmers Wife Sampler. It is in line for basting by my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters. This weekend will be devoted to squaring it up, trimming the batting, and prepping the back. We are between quilts on the frames, so it can be installed and basted hopefully in the next two weeks. Then I can start the hand quilting. Yes, I have been given the go ahead by my surgeon to start sewing again and I can’t wait to begin the process of the Three O’Clock Appointment time. See this Substack for the explanation Link.

Number Three is to start a new quilt. What that will be is still to be announced. I have many collections of fabrics waiting for their turn to be rotary cut and hand pieced. I also have a thick Binder of Inspiration to page through. The two will be clapped together like thunder and lightening and produce the next project. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know the result.

Of course I will throw in some embroidery, probably a Kantha design and a Hana Fukin, and a dishtowel or two, just to keep me happy. It’s a full summer ahead and I’m looking forward to it.

Off this week to gather with the family and party. My granddaughter is graduating from high school and we will celebrate her hard work and perseverance. Believe me it was hard work for her as school is not her bag. We will cheer very loud for her.

Next week’s Substack will be filled with my summer plans and my opinions on guild quilt shows, both the positive and negative. Be there or be square.

This is what I will be working on during the plane flight.

Yes another Hana Fukin.

A big thank you to all the new subscribers who made their way to my newsletter through Making Zen. I hope you enjoy my scribbles and make sure to take advantage of all my past Substacks (over 200 of them) in the archives. I have a lot of opinions about the quilting community, some good and some on the negative side. But as my mom always said, “Opinions are like noses, everyone has one.” I have added this tag line to her wisdom, “But sometimes you have to blow them and that can get messy.”

My opinions have been truncated this week due to my recovery from Carpal Tunnel hand surgery. Everything went well and I’m healing up fine. However I am restricted from sewing for two weeks. The two weeks are up on Tuesday just in time for my monthly meeting of the East Bay Heritage Quilters (EBHQ) open quilting. We members get together and sew and eat and talk and our San Francisco contingent carpools over the Bridge to the East Bay meeting place. I am looking forward to the car ride as that is the time we all get each other caught up on our news. I have been absent from my social circle for almost a month due to work commitments, family visits, and my surgery so I am in dire need of news. I plan to take a Churn Dash block to hand piece and a Kantha embroidery pattern I want to get started on. But I have to remember to take it easy. Just because my sewing restriction is lifted, it doesn’t mean I can sew for an extended time. It just means I can do SOME sewing.

But my tongue is not restricted so I can share some news of my own. I will be presenting at the All Star Sampler Platter sponsored by the Global Quilt Connection on Saturday May 16. I’ll be doing hand piecing and you can learn how to hand piece a Churn Dash Block.

I will show you how to properly pin pieces together, do a hand piecing running stitch, quick piece half square triangles, stitch the block sections together to get your corners to meet perfectly and how to press the block. All this will be demonstrated in 15 minutes including time to answer questions. I’m hoping to get this to fit in before they get the hook and haul me off the stage.

Here is the information to sign up. EBHQ has purchased a pass for all its members so you have to go to the EBHQ website to register. Others can use this Link. I’m not the only one, there are more teachers with their tips and tricks to share on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17.

In the meantime, here are some goals I’m hoping to meet in the near future.

1. My Farmers Wife quilt top is calling to me. I finished this top quite a while ago and one of my friends dropped a very broad hint about how appropriate it would be to use it as a sample in my upcoming Empty Spools seminar “How to Make a Handmade Quilt”. (Scroll down to the very bottom to find it.) I need to square up the top, make the quilt sandwich and take it over to have my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters baste it for me on the frames. I already have the quilting design in my head. Marking the top will be fast and I can get started hand quilting it. It is all hand pieced so it will be a good example of what you can do if you want to make a quilt entirely by hand.

2. I am not forgetting about my Sacred Geometry Redwork blocks. They have been occupying space on my design wall so I can sew the them together into a top. Then I have to decide on a hand quilting pattern. I have been flip flopping around on designing this because I want the quilt to start talking to me. I keep saying to it “What should I do?” If it is giving me an answer, I can’t hear it. I hope if I sit down and clear my head, it will tell me what it wants while I finish hand piecing the blocks together.

   In the meantime, I will be off to see my granddaughter graduate high school and party with the family. Tune in for more opinions.

   Thanks for reading The Joy of Handwork! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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My advice to any beginning hand quilter is to practice, practice, practice. This is a new skill you are learning and any new skill needs you to spend a certain amount of time in the practice stage. It’s funny how most quilters forget about what it is like to be a beginner in any skill you learn. They only seem to remember that they are a skilled quilt maker, or embroiderer, or sewist in general and automatically think they will be a skilled hand quilter as soon as they pick up a needle. It just doesn’t happen that way.

First a hand quilter uses a needle called a between. Between needles are the smallest needles I have ever seen. They come in sizes from 7 to 12, 7 being the biggest size and they are a little over an inch long. I start beginners out on a size 9, the medium size of betweens. These small needles are hard to get used to. As sewists, we are used to hand sewing needles called “sharps” which are the ones seamstresses use to sew on buttons, etc, and they are a bigger size. Also some students struggle with trying to thread the small eye until they use hand quilting thread which is a tight twist cotton and has a glaze covering on it. This makes the thread stiffer and stronger to resist fraying. The glaze also helps you get the thread through the small eye of the between needle.

Then there is the struggle with the thimble. A good fitting thimble is essential to doing the rocking stitch and you must have the correct thimble for hand quilting. Namely a flat top thimble with deep indentations. If you try to hand quilt with a rounded top or domed top thimble, you can’t do it. See my Substack “Thimbles” Link for an explanation.

(Just a short tangent. I always take a little time in class to mention the proper way to thread a needle. Mainly, you bring the needle to the thread and then poke it through the eye. It seems there is always someone in the class that tries to push the thread though the eye instead of placing the eye on the thread. My mom always said “You needle the thread, not thread the needle”. If you are one of these sewists you can thank me for this tip when you see me in class.)

After you have the proper needle, thread, and thimble, you can begin. I always have a two session class for hand quilters and ask them to try to do a little practice at home during the break. And this is the reason why, hand quilting requires you to take the rudiments of the rocking stitch and make it your own version. I will elaborate on this.

But first a few observations.

I was back on Wednesday morning with my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters, sitting around the frame and catching up on all the news I had missed last week while I was lecturing and teaching, and doing a presentation at the Meet the Teachers gathering. While everyone was catching me up on the latest news, my attention was caught by all the different ways each quilter used the fundamentals of the rocking stitch. Each quilter had taken the motions and adapted them into their version.

Some of us stitch with a traditional curved hand using the thumb to guide the length of the stitches. Some of us don’t use the thumb at all but just push the needle in and out with the thimble and rely on the finger underneath the quilt to get beautiful, even stitches. Many of us use different thimbles. See note below. Some of us don’t use a thimble at all. Yes that’s right. Some of the Dorcas Hand Quilters use their extremely strong finger or thumb nails to push the needle. Excuse me while I take a moment to fan myself so I don’t get the vapors.

When I teach beginners at our Dorcas meetings, I encourage them to observe and question the Dorcas members about how they hand quilt. Members all have good tips to give and you know we all have suggestions, probably too many for a beginner to absorb. Many students come to a second class with their own version of the rocking stitch and I let them keep doing it their own way. As long as you can get an even stitch and you don’t miss stitches on the back of the quilt, your way of doing the rocking stitch is fine with me. Some even decide to forgo the hoop and leave the quilt loose on the table while they stitch. To me this is taking the rocking stitch and making it your own, meaning making it your way of doing the technique.

Note: I use a combination of a Roxanne thimble and a flat top thimble. There are two reasons for this. It will help to keep you from developing a repetitive motion injury. But also I can get a better stitch on straight lines versus curved lines if I change thimbles.

Self Promo Time: I am going to be part of Making Zen, a virtual stitching retreat next week, May 4 to May 8. You can sign up to take 40 classes FOR FREE at this Link. My class is Make a Japanese Rice Bag Komeburkuro and it is scheduled for Wednesday May 6 at 11 am Eastern, 8 am Pacific. It will be available for 24 hours. There is a VIP pass available to purchase if you would like access to all the classes for an extended time. Take a look at the list, there are some intriguing classes and some special gifts available also. I hope to see you there.

Every morning for the last week I have been checking the Zen Stitching website to see if my interview with Kate Ward was posted and today it was there. Link. Kate is the engine behind Making Zen and was kind enough to include me on the roster of 40 teachers participating in Making Zen. The retreat will be on line from May 4 to May 8 and you can sign up FOR FREE here.Link.

We chatted over Zoom about my Make a Japanese Rice Bag Komeburkuro class. Kate is so easy to talk to. We talked about my beginnings in handwork and I told her the story about my first childhood endeavors in embroidery so I could be just like the heroines of the books I read growing up. Then we groaned when I told her the story about my first quilt and the rookie mistakes I made on it. This lead to the story about how I found my people in the quilting community, namely my beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters and I told her about finding them and how they made me the quilter I am today. Of course my opinions surfaced when we hit on the subject of talking quilts and creativity. See the whole thing here Link.

My surgery went well and I’m gaining more and more use of my fingers as the swelling goes down. My hand is all wrapped up and pretty much immobile. I’m spending my day with my hand elevated on pillows and have never seen my sewing room look so neat and tidy. The pain level is low or maybe it’s just because I tolerate pain well. Doses of Tylenol at night helps me sleep. The Partner is taking exemplary care of me and lectures often about doing too much. He gives me that arched eyebrow look and I stop whatever I’m doing to make sure he approves. Believe me this acquiescence will not continue for long as I can only tolerate his “looks” for a certain amount of time. But for the time being, peace will reign in our household.

I missed my self imposed deadline this morning due to hitting the wall. One of my unfortunate tendencies is to go, go, go until I run out of gas and have to call it a day. Yesterday was one of those days. After teaching a hand piecing class at New Pieces in Berkeley in the morning, I did some grocery shopping, dragged all the bags upstairs to the kitchen (San Francisco homes are built with the garage on the ground floor and the living quarters over it) and didn’t even unpack everything until I sat down and called The Partner with directions to pick up some to go for dinner. The wall was hit.

So I just put my feet up and watched the Giants play baseball then went to bed early. It was a good decision as I woke up to a cackling bird telling me the sun was out and to greet the day.

Upcoming this week:

Making Zen: starts on Monday, May 4. If you haven’t investigated this retreat, take a look here Link. This is a five day event with 40, yes 40, teachers showing videos of their crafts. I am showing “Make a Japanese Rice Bag Komeburkuro “. Once you register FOR FREE, you will have access to free patterns along with podcasts featuring the teachers, including one with me that tells you about how I started The Joy of Handwork and the story about my first disastrous quilt. Kate, the host of this retreat, is a Sashiko Master who has studied with the best in Japan. I first found her at my East Bay Heritage Quilters guild who hired her to do a workshop. I quickly signed up for her monthly patterns and access to her library of Sashiko patterns. She helped me to make the jump from a Sashiko beginner to someone who is on the road to stitch like a professional. When I found out she was sponsoring this virtual retreat, I applied right away and was so happy she accepted my video class. It’s like being included in her circle of friends.

I will be showing you not only how to sew the bag, but also how to stitch a beginning Sashiko pattern called Shippo. We will transfer the pattern to your fabric and then stitch it using traditional Japanese Sashiko thread, needles, and thimble. This bag is much easier to make than you think. It was originally used in Japan to carry rice to shrines to be blessed for a good harvest. Now it is used for anything from purses to project bags. Here are some examples of bags I have made.

I am definitely going to watch Kate’s video on how to make her Sashiko coin purse along with Blair Stocker’s video on Chicken Scratch embroidery (she used it to make a pin cushion) and Ruth Woods’ spiral basket. These are two things I have always wanted to do.

Another thing coming up this week is my Carpal Tunnel surgery. If you have read my newsletters, I originally scheduled this back in January but hit a snag when I can down with the flu. My schedule did not align until now. I am told I can start sewing again in two weeks and will have full use of my hand in four weeks. This will take some adjusting by me. I will have to give myself a very firm talking to so I can follow the doctor’s rules post surgery. This is not the time to be my usual stubborn self and think I know better. Self, don’t be a snotty, whinning baby, just do it.

So don’t think my opinions will be held in check for then next couple of weeks. I can type one handed and will be spewing forth some interesting and singular newsletters during my recovery period. I hope to see you at Making Zen and the upcoming All Star Sampler Platter in May. More on that later.

Yes, some quilters create a work of art that is intended to hang on the wall. In the past, you would see a lot of these quilts at shows. They were so encrusted with beading and crystals that they would make little clinking sounds when you lifted them to see the back. These types of quilts would come out of hiding and be displayed at the Pacific International Quilt Festival every year along with any SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association) exhibit that happened to come to town. Can you imagine sleeping under a beaded quilt? I have to admit they are not my cup of tea.

In the past I may have mentioned my dislike of making quilts that are intended to be wall displays. To me a quilt is something you sleep under or put on the back of the couch waiting for a cold night when you need your legs covered up. It might be laid on the floor to keep the baby comfortable while she/he kicks and practices rolling over. Maybe it would cover the stain on the chair back when visitors are having tea in the living room. In other words, quilts are made to be used, not hung on the wall. My beloved Dorcas Hand Quilters always said that a quilt is not truly finished until it has been slept under. I have to admit that the sleeping under part is fudged a little in my household as sometimes the quilt is covering me up while waiting for the binding to be sewn down, or it still needs it’s turn in the washing machine to get the markings out. But no matter what the condition, it does the job of keeping me and The Partner warm on our cold spring evenings.

Laura Shaw wrote a Substack about photographing your quilts in the rumpled stage of bed making Link. This peaked my interest. Seeing my quilts all gathered up in this morning condition was a revelation. It caused me to notice the way the light played with the colors and the way the geometry of the blocks changed. It was so captivating to see this that I was able to put aside my urge to straighten them up and smooth them down, kind of like soothing the savage breast. Also, the quilting design seemed to show up with more fortitude than a flat quilt could give it. I liked it.

Even though I have preached about quilts belonging on beds, I have broken my own rule. Back in 2023, I actually submitted one of my quilts to hang on a wall in a small museum exhibit called “Stir Crazy Quilts, Quilting During the Pandemic” (see my Substack about it here Link ). I had stitched this quilt during the lockdown portion of the Covid pandemic and thought it would fit the theme. Also, I was committed that year to saying yes to anything that would be considered self promotion as I was pushing myself forward in the quilting world and saying “Look at me” while also trying to get more recognition for handwork in quilts. To my surprise I passed the jury and they accepted Going Crazy in Lockdown. It hung at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley exhibit right next to the air conditioning thermostat.

Originally when I made this quilt, I planned it to be a vehicle to show off my amazing embroidery skills. I wanted to cover it with stitches that made you look at it and remark about the difficulty of executing these designs. But the plan changed. For the reason, see my Substack from that period Link.

(The introduction photo at the top of this newsletter is the stack of my quilts waiting to be put away after coming home from the Valley Heritage Quilt Guild in King City, California. I presented a trunk show and my lecture “The Joy of Handwork” which told about how I got angry at a quilt show. This in turn caused me to decide to go on the guild lecture circuit to promote handwork in the quilting community. All these quilts will be put away when I get around to it.)

Self promotion update: I hope you will take a look at Making Zen. It is a retreat that offers 40 different craft makers and will help you expand your crafting abilities along with practicing Slow Stitching. I am doing a video on how to make Japanese Rice Bags called Komeburkuro. I will show you how to do a beginning Sashiko pattern and assemble the bags. Remember we all need more project bags and this will fit the bill. You can register FOR FREE Link and view the classes from May 4 to May 8 and then extend the time by purchasing the VIP membership if you wish. I hope to see you there.