Gloria Loughman in BC, Announcing my new quilt challenge, Fall Sale day announcement, New and reduced silk batting prices, Print

Hi to all of you! Lots of fun stuff to talk about today. I’m rested after recovering from two trips to Edmonton inside of 10 days. My niece was married the long weekend in September, and then we flew home, loaded a cargo van, and drove back to Edmonton for the Creative Stitches show. I had missed that show last year due to Vic’s new hips, and so it was fun for me to find that there were customers who were happy to see me again:-). We had a lovely few days, although tiring… and I’m back now and all recovered.

Gloria Loughman… the Fraser Valley Quilt Guild’s workshop and programs committee, specifically Wilma Brock, worked very hard to arrange for Gloria Loughman to travel from Australia to speak and teach here in Vancouver. Here’s one of her many famous quilts:

This week I heard Gloria speak at our guild and I have to say she is the most educational and clear speaker I have ever experienced at a guild meeting. I am aware that locally Gloria is also going to be speaking at the Boundary Bay guild Tuesday September 20 (http://www.boundarybayquiltersguild.ca/meetings.html) , and the Sunshine Coast guild (September 24). So I’m writing this note to say that if you have a chance of catching one of those meetings, you will be delighted with what you learn. Thank you Wilma for getting this ball rolling!

Announcing my new Challenge!!!! Many of you know that I have been in the habit of having a challenge once per year, generally over the summer. This year we are having the challenge NOW!!!! I am becoming increasingly aware of the richness that variation in fabric texture can bring to any quilt. Recently I completed a new bed quilt for us that combines batik, printed cotton, yarn-dye cotton, cotton-linen, dupioni silk and kimono silk. I used the blue dupioni that I talked about texturing myself in a blog a couple of months ago. The variations in textures makes the quilt simply scrumptious, no matter how simple the design. And so…..

For my new challenge I am putting together coordinating packages of fabrics of various fibres and textures… these will include some silk, some yarn-dye, some printed cotton and some batik. Your job will be to make either a table runner/topper or a small wall hanging that celebrates texture. As in the past, all the completed entries will be displayed in my house for a day during a sale. Everyone who comes and views the quilts will be able to vote for their favourite and the winners get both bragging rights, a beautiful and useful quilt they created themselves, and a gift certificate for my store.

Here’s the specifics…

1. If you wish to participate, please let me know by email before Saturday September 24.

2. Packages will be ready for pickup Saturday October 1, (Fall Sale and Challenge Kickoff day.) Challenge entry fee includes the package and will be $20. Packages will also be available for mailing out on that day.

3. You will have until Saturday January 7, 2017 to complete your table runner/topper quilt or wall hanging quilt and deliver same to my studio. You must use some of all the fabrics provided in your package, and may add whatever other fabrics or materials you wish.

4. Saturday January 14, 2017 10 - 5 -- Quilt viewing and voting, and New Year’s Sale Day from 10-5 at my studio.

5. Wonderful prizes will be gift certificates of 1st place -- $100, 2nd place -- $50, 3rd place -- $25.

6. Winners will be announced Sunday January 15.

I hope that we will have lots of you willing to take up this challenge and show us what can be done when we pay attention to texture in our quilts!

YAY… New and reduced pricing on silk batting… Thanks to the somewhat strengthened dollar, I’ve been able lower the price of Hobbs Tuscany Silk Batting. Many of you who have tried the batting have become just as committed to it as I am. The lightness, the wonderful thermal properties, its ease of quilting either by machine or hand, and the soft drape of the finished quilt (none of the stiffness that comes with other battings) all combine to make it my favourite batting. The prices were unfortunately high for a time, but are now reduced and that is a happy thing. New prices are: King $105, Queen $75, Full $61, Twin $55, Throw $34. The wool batting prices are also reduced and those new prices are: King $82, Queen $62, Full $49, Twin $43, Throw $24. I still prefer wool for bed quilts because of the loft that is so nice when I’m curled up in bed.

About printing quilt labels… I’ve had some customers ask lately about how I print my quilt labels, which I have recently started to do after many years of not labelling my quilts. Now that I have an easy way to prepare an attractive label, I’m much more inclined to put a label on my quilts. Here’s an example of a simple label I made…

So here’s how you do it just as long as you have an ink jet printer…

1. The product that I use to make the fabric absorb the ink from printer is a product specifically intended for that use, Bubble Jet Set, and it is pictured above.

2. I take about 12” x WOF of the fabric that I want to print the labels onto… this will give me 4 or 5 sheets of size 8 ½” x 11”, and I get 4 labels from each of those sheets.

3. I soak the fabric in a glass pan into which I have poured the bubble jet set product. Once it is soaked for 5 minutes, I wring out the fabric, and pour the liquid that comes out back into the container for use the next time.

4. Then I dry the fabric either in the dryer or by leaving it to sit.

5. Iron the fabric when it is dry.

6. Cut an 8 ½” x 11” piece of freezer paper and iron it on to the back of the fabric you have just ironed. Cut the fabric to the same size as the freezer paper. Place the remaining fabric in a zip-loc bag and store until the next time you are making labels. It is ready to print on, and you want to keep the chemical in the fabric.

7. Prepare a Word document with a bordered label, including the text you want… I prepare four such labels in one document and set it up to print 4 pages to the page.

8. Print the Word document onto your freezer paper-backed label fabric. I then iron the printed label fabric, believing in heat setting… although it’s not called for.

9. After 30 minutes remove the freezer paper and wash the fabric in a mild soap. Then dry, cut out your labels and sew them onto your quilts… this is all so easy you’ll be happy to make labels!