https://www.etsy.com/shop/StillQuilting76

Still Quilting, 17612 W Boone Road, Medical Lake, WA (2026)

11/04/2023

It’s been almost a year since I posted anything. I am not sure what algorithms are in play, but I have accumulated 178 new followers in the last month! Any ideas about what is going on? Thanks for joining us, all you new people!

I recently completed five t shirt quilts for Dawn. This was a life time t shirt collection, from high school, Air Force Academy, and early career. They were a lot of fun to put together as Dawn included some swim suits (she has been on one swim team or another most of her life!) and tons of patches. I think parches are such a great addition to a quilt and that way you get to show them off instead of letting them sit in a drawer!

With the completion of this last commission, I have decided to close my business. This means that I will no longer be quilting for customers. It was taking longer and longer to get customer quilts finished and I don’t like things hanging for that long. In Dawn’s case it took almost a year to get her quilts completed and in that time, she had changed duty stations! I have gotten very involved with our local Charity Quilt organization and I am having a blast! Being the astute business woman that I am, why should I get paid for quilting when I can do it for free! Makes sense to me!

To follow my current quilting adventures, go to the Washington State Quilters Charity Central page. I post there the exploits of the Charity Central Committee and what i am currently working on. I will post here every now and again the quilts I am making for Charity. Thanks for you support!

Kathleen

11/29/2022

It’s been awhile since I posted anything but I have been busy! I am happy to say that I got my FIVE t shirt quilts finished in time for Christmas! Family is coming for most of December so Christmas is coming early for me! I already have EIGHT t shirt quilt commissions for 2023. It will be a busy winter as well!

I have decided to close my Etsy Shop. Etsy has changed their policies once again and now require payments to made through a third party. I don’t have many sales through Etsy and I am reluctant to give away my bank account information to anyone. Since I can no longer get paid through Etsy, it doesn’t make much sense to try and sell there. If you would like a t shirt quilt, contact me through Facebook or email- [email protected]. Thanks!

I have been very busy working on a Charity Quilt project through Washington State Quilters. We even have our own page through the WSQ page called Charity Central. I am posting every week about making and donating quilts to various organizations around Spokane. It is a private page, but anyone can join. I hope you find your way over there (Washington State Quilters-Spokane Chapter- Charity Central), see what we are up to, and join in the fun.

I wish you all the joy of the season! We are getting ready to weather yet another snow storm. It looks to be a good winter for lots of piecing and quilting and shoveling. I plan to try out for the Olympic Snow Shoveling Team and I think I have a good chance of making it! I have a “herringbone” technique that works from the middle to both sides and results in lighter shovel fulls. Try it, you’ll like it!

Merry Christmas, one and all!
Kathleen

07/17/2022

I recently finished these two commission quilts for Christina. The “Woodland Creatures” was a fairly simple one, the fabric did all the work! Such cute baby animals just perfect for a baby quilt. The “Race Cars” quilt took more time but was a lot of fun to do. Christina went through my stash and put together the car combinations she liked. I did the machine appliqué with embroidery thread and a very small zig zag stitch. I have a lot more colors of embroidery thread than anything else I was able to get a very close color match. Both quilts are keeping their new owners warm and snuggly!

06/13/2022

I recently finished this quilt for Mary Lou Donahue Weidman. It’s called “Garden Party” in her signature style. I always love detail and bright colors of her quilts. So much to see and study! I managed to empty a lot of bobbins because the back was so busy I didn’t really have to match top and bottom threads so lots of shades of green got used on the back with different colors of green on the top. Mary Lou’s quilts require lots of texture rather than breath taking precise quilting. I used two layers of batting, Hobbs 80/20 on the bottom and poly down on top. Mary Lou likes this combo as the folds come out easily when it is displayed. The backing is lots of wonderful Kaffe Fassett fabric in a riot of color. It was a joy to quilt during a very gray and rainy Spring.

The rainy gray weather continues but this quilt gives me hope that summer really will come, it always has. In the meantime, I am getting lots of quilting projects taken care of and will be ready to play outside when the time comes! Happy Quilting!

05/30/2022

I have finally finished my last customer quilt (for now!) and decided to see what I could pull out of the Charity bin to make in honor of Memorial Day. I no sooner opened the bin when these pushy old broads leaped out, arranged themselves on the design wall, and said “Make Me!” I said “Ladies, I was going to make something patriotic because it’s Memorial Day.” They said “We are the wives, the mothers, the sisters, and the daughters of those who gave their all for our country. We deserve some attention too!” Well, I couldn’t argue with that, especially if I wanted my design wall back, so I sewed them up.

Then I thought I would try again in the Charity bin and a second group of pushy old broads said “Our turn.” So in two hours I had two tops done. They still need borders but that should happen today.

So, here’s to the families of the fallen, their sacrifice is on going. Thank you for all you have given.

Strong women (or pushy old broads), may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them!

Kathleen

05/09/2022

I managed to sneak in some work on Charity Quilts when I should have been working on customer quilts, but it was so much fun! Other people’s scraps are always so much better than your own! I have the UFO bin for WSQ Charity Central in my possession and I can not resist looking to see what is in there. It’s like opening “Pandora’s Box”! I will only take a quick look and suddenly it’s several hours later and stuff is scattered all over the floor! I promise I will work this week and play again next week.

These quilts are a couple of gleanings from the box. The first one I am calling “The Hunting Cabin”. I love the little house blocks and the trees! It started with the center panel and went on from there. I usually measure stuff and sit down with my graph paper to make a plan. This one was much more organic and improvisational. I put the center panel on the design wall and let the quilt dictate the design. I put stuff together, measured where I wanted it to go, then either added a spacer piece or whacked off the ends to make it fit. I loved the process and am already in the middle of my next one. All the bits came out of the UFO bin except the Friendship Braid border. I had two projects I thought could use the braid so I cut up a bunch of homespun and started building. I did them two at a time so I could leader/ender them with each other. When they got to be about 70” long, I cut off a piece for a border and continued building. I used up a lot of fabric.

The next one is “The Fishing Quilt”. This one was a kit I had made and I pieced it in February. I decided that it needed to be a bit bigger and could use the Friendship Braid border as well. I have used up just about all of my wildlife/hunting fabric now. My current dilemma is, do I quilt these two myself or pass them on so I can open Pandora’s Box again?

The third quilt was a flannel panel I found in the box. It just needed a border and there were just enough pre cut flannel strips for the border. The last one is also flannel and was mostly put together. It was short four blocks which I promptly cut out of the yellow flannel and finished it up. These two I will send on for quilting.

I have been enjoying working with Washington State Quilters Charity Central. I have been making posts on the WSQ page since January about my exploits. WSQ has now started a new closed group for Charity Central so that members can post pictures and talk about the quilts they are working on. I post pictures of the Charity quilts that have been given WSQ and where WSQ has donated them. It used to be that once you donated a quilt, you never heard about it again. I am trying to give some feed back and encouragement to the process. I also offer ideas on what to do with your own UFOs and orphan blocks. Charity Central is one of the most important community activities we do. Everyone is invited to join, we just want to be sure you are a real person. If you are interested, go to the Washington State Quilters-Spokane Chapter page, look under the “Groups” tab, and request to join. You will be glad you did…and so will I!

05/01/2022

I recently finished one queen size and one king size t shirt quilts for a customer. I always forget just how big those sizes are and how long they take to complete. These quilts are for the young adult children of a Dad that passed away way too soon. We discussed whether they should be “bedspreads” (meaning they would be on top of the bed and reach to the floor) or “blankets” (meaning under the bedspread and tucked into the mattress). My recommendation was for blankets because I think they will get more use that way. You can use a blanket for the rest of your life and it won’t dictate how you decorate your bedroom. A t shirt quilt is wonderful and very sentimental, but it is not very pretty and you may want to change your style sometime along the way.

These two quilts are made entirely of t shirts on the top with minky for the backing. The customer divided up the t shirts into color ways and it was fun to have so many orange t shirts for one and red for the other. It was a challenge to come up with a piecing design that was big enough and graphic enough to use the heavier fabric in a striking design. The t shirts will be centered on the bed and the pieced parts will go down the sides and tuck into the mattress. These took some time to complete and they are heavy. I hope they will provide a big, warm hug from their Dad for these two young people.

I have been working on this so long that now that they are finished, I feel like I have been set free! I have a few more customer quilts and then I will have the time I want(need!) to work on my own and Charity quilts. I am really enjoying piecing again!

04/14/2022

A couple of little quilts and an extra large one! The two wreath quilts are by Mary Lou Donahue Weidman and are for an upcoming class, I believe. I feel like I didn’t do much quilting, they are so little and there is so much going on. I was going to do a lot of thread color changes and intense quilting in all the motifs on the purple one, but when I started outlining every thing in purple thread, it said “That’s all I need” and what quilting I did in the bigger motifs, I did in purple. The quilt really will tell you what it wants if you listen. The black wreath is made of wool and was very thick so I couldn’t quilt in those motifs without dragging and distorting them. I can see the ones that need more quilting, like the bird wings, with big stitch hand quilting in some gorgeous thread and maybe some more beads. It would look great!

The National Parks Quilt is queen size. It is for my daughter and son in law and best collaborator, Dustin. We went to Yellowstone together last summer and we were staying in West Yellowstone. There is a wonderful little quilt shop there with lots of National Park panels and custom made batiks that say “Yellowstone National Park”. Well, someone let Dustin go into the quilt shop by himself and he bought lots of things. This is a blanket for their bed, wool batting and wool backing, very warm and heavy. You might think it’s too late in the year for such a quilt but there is snow on the ground now and it’s supposed to continue to be cold. I think they will get good use out of it yet.

We are off to celebrate Easter with them and to hand deliver this latest commission finish. There is still quite a list to get through, hopefully there won’t be anymore commissions this weekend! I wish you all a very Happy Easter and the warm Spring weather that is supposed to go with it!

03/22/2022

I am back with the promised pretty customer quilt! This is Vintage Tin by Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill Designs and made by my customer Sue. Sue’s stitches are incredible! So tiny and so precise! I was very nervous about getting this right. The big blocks needed earth and sky but what does that look like in lines and texture? The smaller blocks have so much detail in the blocks that there isn’t really room for quilting. I made my decisions, held my breath, and went for it. Quilting the pieced parts was easy after that, I knew I could do that! I was happy with the way this came out and Sue was too. It has been hanging in my closet since last July. This is why I am retiring, I can’t seem to get anything done in a timely fashion any more. I have about 6 more quilts for Sue, two for Barb, two king size t shirt quilts for Colleen, and the continual string of projects for Dustin, my son in law. He is very happy to have a quilter in the family. The problem with taking so long to get Sue’s quilts done is that she always brings me a bunch more by the time I get one finished! I think Sue and Dustin will always be my customers, retired or not!

I have gotten involved with the Washington State Quilters (WSQ) Charity quilt project and I am really enjoying it I have taken over the bins of pre printed panels and the UFOs (unfinished objects). The last several years we have gotten donations of the entire stash of several quilters who had passed away. Their families have no idea what any of this is so they pack it all in large garbage bags and bring it to us to do something with. We are currently overwhelmed with fabric and will have to find a different way to deal with it. It’s a time consuming process and my part is to figure out how to finish what was started and to use all the individual blocks. I am looking forward to the challenge and to the chance to do some piecing. I have not had much chance to sew since I took up longarm quilting. I am looking forward to getting some of my own projects done as well. There are lots of weddings and babies in my future!

I have company coming the next couple of weeks so not much quilting will be accomplished. I hope to finish all my customer obligations in April and May (they were supposed to be done by April 1) and then move on to yard work, hiking, and biking. I will enjoy the last of the cold weather in my studio and then burst out with the Spring flowers. Happy Spring everyone!

03/13/2022

I have been playing hooky the last few weeks. I spent two weeks at my daughter’s house taking care of the animals while they went on a tropical vacation. I kitted up some commission quilts to piece but I also brought some UFOs from the Charity Central bin. I love taking bits and pieces and finding ways to make them work together! I have inherited the UFO (unfinished objects in quilt speak) from WSQ Charity Central and am having a lot of fun putting things together. I am having trouble shifting focus from playing with scraps to getting back to the customer quilts I have waiting. Why is it so hard to behave myself and get work done before play?

Enjoy some pictures of scrap quilts. I hope to have pretty pictures of customer quilts soon!

01/28/2022

I finally managed to get a couple of quilts done for Quilts of Valor. These two came out of the Charity Central panel bin with additional fabric donated by Shabby Fabrics. Someone had great plans for these that they never got to. Quilts of Valor is a cause that I have long wanted to participate in. I started these last Memorial Day and tried to work on them every patriotic holiday over the year with the goal of having them done by Veterans Day. I don’t think I quite accomplished that but they are done now and on their way to honoring an Army vet for his or her service. My husband had a twenty three year long Army career. It was quite the adventure for both of us and we are very proud of his service and my support. Thank you to all who have served or are serving, you are much appreciated!

01/10/2022

I have been doing some Charity quilting the last two weeks. I managed to get ten done all together. It has been fun to charge right through them, using scrap batting, easy pantographs, and blending thread colors. I also managed to give away 14 Precious Moments quilt kits to the Inland Northwest Machine Quilters Guild for their annual machine quilting challenge. That brought the level in the “to be quilted” bin down to where I can now see the top of the bin. Progress by whatever means necessary!

Back to work tomorrow and Charity quilting will once again take a back seat. I will be working on designing approximately seven t shirt quilts this week. The plan is to get them designed this week, shirts processed/stabilized next week, and start sewing them all together over the next couple of weeks. I plan to quilt them all in March. It has been fun to obsess over the Charity quilts and see some real progress being made. They have been collecting in my closet over the last year or so, waiting patiently until it was their turn. I also went through the UFO bin and have some great piecing to do so that I will be able to keep the level up in the “to be quilted” bin. It’s like the post office, no matter how much goes out, more comes in.

Still Quilting

11/04/2023

11/29/2022

07/17/2022

06/13/2022

05/30/2022

05/09/2022

05/01/2022

04/14/2022

03/22/2022

03/13/2022

01/28/2022

01/10/2022

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