Victorian Stitchery Retreat

This week I have sent out around 120 invitations to a Victorian Stitchery Retreat that I am hosting. I am very excited about this retreat. For the past two years I have hosted Carole Samples and both times everyone had a wonderful time. This year I am going to host a larger retreat. The teachers for the retreat will be Carole Samples, Judith Montano and Betty Pillsbury. The retreat will be here in Wichita, Kansas November 6, 7, and 8th. The classes are already 1/2 full but if you are interested, you may email me for more info. I can hardly wait for the retreat to come!

See you later,

Val

Return of Happiness

I don't usually post to many things that I am teaching currently, but I really like this project. It is a square that I am teaching this spring. It is a lily of the valley square. Lily of the valley meant a return of happiness to the victorian women. I was inspired to do this block, because of the lily of the valley trim and button that I had purchased from Susan Clarke.

See you later,

Val

MCC Quilt is Done and More to the Story!

Well, the journey with our MCC crazy quilt for 2008 is almost done. It has been quite a week for me and finally I have time to tell you about it. I decided we needed a calendar for this quilt since we are giving it away to charity and we probably won't ever see it again. The members of the group who have seen the quilt completed have been quite moved. It is just beautiful! Last week our group was contacted by some women on the MCC team in charge of the quilt sale. This year is the 40th anniversary of the MCC sale and they had already chosen a traditional quilt to commemorate it. When they saw the pictures of the crazy quilt that we are making on my blog, they decided that our crazy quilt would be chosen as a non-traditional quilt to commemorate the 40th anniversary. To say I was moved even to tears was an understatement. For me this quilt was just something I have wanted to do for several years. The 7 of us became closer through this experience since the quilt was done as a round robin. For me the quilt was done to help MCC and give God the glory. The quilt will be auctioned in April at the sale in Hutchinson, KS.

Back to my calendar story. I didn't know that getting nice pictures of a crazy quilt to publish was a task. I had a couple of friends try to take pictures and even with using Photoshop they were marginal at best. So...last Thursday, there was a bad storm in Wichita, and it occurred to me that the local professional photography place..would not be very busy! Sure enough, I had 4 photographers helping me for over an hour. The pictures are beautiful! The proceeds from the calendar are going to help us make another crazy quilt for 2009. You may purchase these calendars from my website at www.valeriebothell.com

How to Inside Tie a Crazy Quilt-Pictures

As promised, here are some pictures of my quilting group inside tying the crazy quilt that we are donating to the MCC Quilt Sale. You can see how we have the quilt folded over and are tying the knots on the inside of the quilt.

See you later,

Val

All of the Rest of the MCC Blocks

Well, I have all 12 of the MCC blocks and I am going to sew them together today! So here are the final pictures of all of the squares. We have such a talented group of ladies and they did a beautiful job! It has been a wonderful experience sewing these blocks together and who knows, maybe we'll decide to do it again next year. All the corners of the fans were done by one particular member to keep them all consistent and they are also beautiful. Thank you to all of the ladies that helped. Enjoy the eye candy!

See you later,

Val

How to Inside Tie a Crazy Quilt

A couple of days ago, I said that I would be taking the crazy quilt that we made for the MCC sale to our quilting group at church and they would help me inside tie it. Susan has asked me what that is....so I will try to describe to you how to do it and if I remember, when we tie it next week I will take pictures.

To inside tie a quilt what I do first is pin my backing fabric to the floor(right side of fabric facing down)..the fabric should be cut to the size you want it to be. I make my backing fabric large enough to make a self bound quilt. When pinning the fabric to the floor measure both diagonally, vertically and horizontally to make sure everything is square. The reason I want to do the quilt at church for this quilt is they have large quilting frames that we can pin it to instead of the floor..plus I'll get lots of help. Then I lay my crazy quilt on top of that right side up. Make sure the crazy quilt is centered or placed where you want it on your backing fabric. I then take very large safety pins and pin vertically down the exact middle of the quilt. I fold back one side lets say the right side...fold it back all the way to the safety pin. I take a needle threaded with strong thread(pearl cotton #5 or #8) and I take a very small stitch of both the backing fabric and the front...don't pull the thread all the way through. Tie a nice strong knot in the middle of the quilt between the two layers. Clip the ends of the threads to...maybe 1/2 inch. That's all there is to it work your way down vertically tying where it will be seen the least and as often as you feel is necessary. Fold your quilt top back out and pin down vertically over to the next spot that you want to tie. Keep doing this until you have worked to the outside edge and then start on the left side doing the same thing. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me and really I will try to post pictures of the process when we do it next week.

See you later,

Val

MCC Block Number 8

Well here is another completed square for the MCC crazy quilt we are making. I have 11 blocks turned in and ready to stitch together. We are doing 12 altogether, so we are really close! In the next week or so, I will start sewing the squares together. The ladies in my quilting group at church have agreed to help me tie the quilt. We are going to inside tie it and it is easier to do on the big frames at church. Enjoy the new eye candy and I will try to post the other 3 squares that I have that I haven't shown you. The deadline to turn this quilt into MCC is in March, so I am kinda of getting nervous about getting it done. It is hard to believe that we started this project 10 months ago. It has been wonderful working with other other 6 ladies in the round robin to make this quilt and their creativity and imagination on these squares is awesome. Their generousity in the things they stitched on this quilt on awesome too...Enjoy!