FABRIC PAINTING CLASS

You can tell that our students were having entirely too much fun in their Fabric Painting class. It was a great day for heliography ("sun painting"); earlier in the day, you may have seen several treated pieces of fabric lying on the sidewalk in front of the shop, "soaking up" the sun. And it was a great day for showing off some of the other techniques which the students explored; many thanks to Linda Nystrom for sharing this picture.

QUILTS OF VALOR at FIRST FRIDAY SEW-IN

Carol and Eldora brought two quilt tops, pieced by the Quilts of Valor Sewing Group at La Vida Llena, to our December First Friday Sew-In. The group meets regularly in the fiber arts room to create quilts for presentation to Service men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Shortly after this picture was taken, the quilt tops were taken to Taos, where Ron Olson has dedicated himself to quilting quilts for this cause - 1224 quilts, and counting. (If you donated patriotic fabrics to the shop for our charity quilts, you might see some of them in this picture.) Other sewing groups at La Vida Llena make clothing protectors LVL residents, and pillow cases for the UNMH Pediatratics ICU.

THE ART OF SEWING?

We also thought of titling this item "Pfaff in Camo." Jane Ann's sewing machine, with walking foot in place, would be hard to spot in many different environments. But, in a quilting class, it, ...well..., sort of stands out. An older machine, and a gift from her sister, Jane Ann's machine was beginning to turn a bit yellowish. At the same time, Jane Ann had a lot of extra toe nail polish (She has very small toe nails). As they say, "the rest is history." And now, the Pfaff in Camo is an integral part of Jane Ann's creative quilting experience.

WE SHALL MISS YOU, MARILYN

Marilyn Dolan died 2 August 2011. We had the good fortune to find this picture in our archives. It was taken at the 5 March 2010 First Friday Sew-In. Here, she was sewing on one of our charity quilts, and we captured for all time her infectious smile. We can not say it better than it was said in her obituary on page C3 of the 20 August 2011 Albuquerque Journal: "Sewing and quilting were some of her passions in her life. Anyone who watched her work in her sewing room witnessed unparalleled determination, as well as a lesson in West Texas slang. Her quilts, produced with immense love and imagination, will be cherished by friends and family for generations." Thank you, Marilyn, for sharing your life with us.

THE DUKE CITY APPLIQUE SOCIETY CHRISTMAS TRADITION

The December meeting of the Duke City Appliqué Society, earlier today at The Quilt Works, was very special. Each member contributed one or more hand-appliquéd blocks - that she has made during the past year - to the "pot." Then, as coffee and decadent sweets were shared, two names were drawn, and two gals took home the sets of blocks as starting points for wonderful quilts. Lillian Rozelle is shown in the left-hand picture with a set of blocks for the Cranberry Album Quilt, from Jeana Kimball's book entitled Old Voices, New Impressions, published in 1997. In the right-hand picture, Olive Murray smiles with her set of blocks for the Sally Post Quilt, for which patterns are available on line at www.sentimentalstitches.com.

“… and an Experience is worth a thousand Pictures”

The box of 2-1/2 inch squares of fabric was to the right of our sewing machine in the Creative Arts building at Expo New Mexico. It was the 2010 New Mexico State Fair, and we were located in the middle of the competitive quilts display, demonstrating a variety of quilting techniques. The box contained hundreds, perhaps thousands, of squares of fabrics from projects on which we had worked over more than 20 years. There were so many different fabrics that it was an ideal source of squares for the scrappy split nine-patch blocks we were making.

The little girl was about 9 years old, or perhaps a bit younger. As she reached for a square of fabric that caught her eye, her mother gently reproached her: “Don’t touch.” In a flash, I recognized that this was yet another opportunity to grant a person an experience, the memory of which might last a lifetime.

“Pick two squares that you really like,” I said, as I pushed the box to the edge of the table. “Now, let’s sew them together.” As the little girl stood at my left, as close to the table as she could get, I pinned the two squares right sides together, raised the presser foot, dropped it along the right hand edge of the squares, and took two stitches. Then I pushed the foot feed to the left so that the little girl could operate it with her foot.

“OK. Now it is your turn to sew. Push the foot feed down gently until the sewing machine begins to sew.” As I guided the squares under the presser foot, worst case scenarios briefly flashed through my mind: What if she stomps on the foot feed and my finger gets stitched into my perfect quarter inch seam allowance?

The little girl gently pressed the foot feed, and the squares moved under the needle just as they should. At the end of the seam, I removed the little girl’s first project, pressed it, and presented it to her.

The smile. What a magnificent reward!