Every year the DH Dana puts some fat quarters in my stocking. (Yes, he’s a very good quilt husband.) This year, as I mentioned, he was in Oslo on a business trip in mid-December, so what should I pull out of my stocking but these beautiful things!

The apple fabric turned out to be an Alexander Henry, which he was bitterly disappointed to learn is a California fabric company LOL! I didn’t care, I love it!

He did better on the other two. I consulted Dr. Google and found that the Tilda fabric is designed by adorable Oslo native Tone Finnanger. Isn’t it gorgeous? Tone has a whole line of things that she has designed and it’s all to drool over.

Dana didn’t remember the name of the shop where he found the fabric, describing it as “sort of a craft store.” Luckily the label on the fabric enabled me to track it down to being Panduro Hobby in downtown Oslo.

And here’s what else I got for Christmas. You remember the Cavalcade of Kittens? And how I said there was a followup? You remember the very last batch, the ones with the sneezy noses?

A few days before Christmas I started getting a queasy feeling… queasy because I was terrified by it but still it was there… of thinking that maybe Max would stay. (He’s the one in the middle with the smush-face.) I brought it up with Dana and he was delighted! He was all for it, but understood my fear of commitment. After losing Willie and before that, three aged cats one by one, I felt like a widow enjoying the dating scene but not ready for a long-term relationship.

But truly, Max had all the qualities we would want in a cat, so I kept thinking about it. On Christmas Eve we turned out the lights at about 11:30 p.m. and Max came and draped himself purring over my neck and laid his face on my cheek for a pillow, and suddenly my heart opened up and the fear washed away, and I knew that he was a keeper. It had to be about midnight on Christmas morning.

Dana named him for his favorite childhood TV character Maxwell Smart. Max is a velvety soft, squishy, floppy five-month-old who loves to be picked up, held, hugged, kissed, turned upside down, draped over the shoulder, etc., purring all the while. He’s ours now, all officially adopted through the shelter, and fits in here like peas and carrots.

This cat knows how to relax.

Did I mention that he's floppy?

Under my ironing board.

Willie used to sleep at the base of my stash.

Max has chosen his spot, about four feet higher.

Face plant in the batiks.

To quote Dr. Seuss (and Anne Sutton, who recently told us the heartwarming story of Bitsy Button Sutton), “It came without ribbons.” I didn’t want a kitty for Christmas, but it’s the very best present I got.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

P.S. BTW the other two kitties recovered well from their colds and I took them back to the shelter. Within 10 minutes of getting them set up and settled in the adoptable area, one of them was already requested for a meet-and-greet. Out the door he went with his new family. About 45 minutes later, the other one went! That’s gotta be a new world’s record, even for the Kitten Flipper (as they call me at the shelter)!

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Pennies From Heaven: Celebrated Quilt and Companion Projects by Gretchen Gibbons.

The title of the book and cover quilt comes from the old term “penny rug,” so called because of the circles, usually wool, that are blanket-stitched onto a base in decorative patterns. As Gretchen says, this style is “primitive, colorful, and funky all at the same time.”

Gretchen enjoys working with wool, and calls it the easiest appliqué technique, for several reasons:

• There are no edges to turn.
• There’s no right or wrong side, so you don’t have to reverse patterns.
• You don’t have to use fusible web (though you can if you want to).
• Cutting on the straight of grain or on the bias works equally well.
• The blanket stitching can be done by hand or machine.
• Hand-dyed wools come in yummy colors.

The book starts out with instructions for felting wool, which is the process that shrinks it, mats the fibers together, and eliminates raveling. Then there are complete instructions for wool appliqué, a color guide for the motifs used in the book’s projects, and information on needles, threads, and beads, and embroidery. There’s good advice on batting, mixing cottons and wools within a project, quilting considerations, and attaching a hanging sleeve.

Besides the cover quilt with its 10 beautiful blocks, there are instructions for eight more smaller projects, each one cuter than the last.

Enchanted Pennies

Joyful Pillow

Pennies Window Valance

Circle of Life Table Mat

I just love their primitive, folksy look. If you admire it too, and would like a chance to win this book, please leave a comment here on this post before 7:00 p.m. California time on Thursday, January 5. Contest open to U.S. and Canada mailing addresses only, and remember to click over to the blog itself instead of replying to your email feed.

Thank you, That Patchwork Place, for providing the book!

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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Thank you so much to everyone who posted and sent me nice birthday wishes. The DH Dana was away in Norway for a week prior and arrived home that night sick and jetlagged, so I put him to bed and we are still catching up on the bday celebrating LOL, whilst I’m doing my best not to catch his cold!

Until Christmas Day, when I subject you once again to picture of cute kittens in the second annual roundup of foster felines.

Enjoy this time!
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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Unless you’ve been living in a cave, if you’re a quilter you know Sunbonnet Sue. That simple little girl in a simple little frock and great big bonnet that conveniently hides her face. The first appliquér to come up with that concept was a genius!

Christine Porter and Darra Williamson collaborated “across the pond” to create a dozen small quilts to see what Sue gets up to through the seasons.

A Year in the Life of Sunbonnet Sue

The book starts with a section of “Sue Basics” that includes materials, frames, borders, backings, bindings, assembling the wall quilts, and how to add the appliqués. The method that the authors used was raw-edge fusible finished with a machine blanket stitch. They’ll take you through it step-by-step.

I’ll take a moment to say here that the illustrator for this book is the same one who is working on my new book, and the illustrations are fantastic. Kudos Robin!!

Sue decks the halls.

Sue tiptoes through the tulips.

Sue has to go back to school. Bummer.

If you’d like to win a copy of this book, courtesy of That Patchwork Place, please leave a comment on this blog post by 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 18. U.S. and Canada mailing addresses only.

Happiest of holidays to you and yours!
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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During the fall, at the quilt show in Reedley, somebody sent a friend to come see me in my booth and to look at all my appliqué quilts, but I had stepped away for a moment. Later they came back and this friend pronounced that she couldn’t find me because my booth had no sign. (This despite the appliqué quilts hung everywhere LOL.)

It got me thinking. Well, the larger shows often provide signage, but the smaller ones usually don’t. Hmm, I said to myself. Other vendors have really cute quilted signs, maybe I should have one too. So I sat down and sketched out an idea for something simple but graphic. I’ve been working on it the last couple weeks and just finished it up.

That oughta fill the bill, don’t you think? And, maybe it will pre-answer the question that I often get, which is, “Did you do all these???”

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

P.S. The $5 off any order of $10 or more is still on at the website, through December 10! The code is 5OFF.

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I just love the soft, mellow feel of this book. Not only that, it has a cat on the cover! Very cool.

Bloom Creek is the name of Vicki’s pattern company, hence the name of the book, which includes 14 of Vicki’s most popular designs. She has included a variety of projects: smaller, larger, with appliqué, without appliqué, traditional, contemporary, some made with precuts, and a few brand-new designs. What a great combo platter.

The book starts out by covering quiltmaking basics, including working with precuts, freezer-paper hand appliqué, fusible machine appliqué, bias vines, and half-square triangle units. There’s also infomation on preparing for machine quilting, making a hanging sleeve, binding the quilt, and making creative quilt labels. Her labels are very cute.

Here are just a few of the projects in the book.

Brandyvine Tote Bag

I love this bag! The combination of red and white toiles plus the simple appliqué put it right up my alley.

A Pack of Posies

Here’s that soft mellow look again. This table runner is made with one charm pack and a half yard of fabric.

Home for the Holidays

Since ’tis the season, I thought I’d show you this darling Christmas tree complete with cardinals.

Also included are the Blooms pillow and bed quilt shown on the cover (under the cat) more bed quilts, wall quilts large and small, and sofa quilts suitable for snuggling under in the living room.

Courtesy of That Patchwork Place, I have a copy to give away in a drawing. If you’d like to win this attractive book full of very doable designs, leave a comment here on this post before 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 4. U.S. and Canada addresses only, and remember that replying to your email feed won’t enter you in the drawing. Go the the blog itself and leave your comment there.

Many thanks for your readership, and remember that if you haven’t used it yet, the $5 off any order of $10 or more is still on at kaymackenzie.com, through December 10.

Until next time,
Kay

www.kaymackenzie.com

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Elizabeth came up the winner of a copy of my book Dolls & Dresses to Appliqué. The cool thing is, Elizabeth said in her comment, “Thanks so much for the opportunity to win the book Dolls and Dresses. I have wanted to get it.” How cool is that? Sometimes random.org knows what it’s doing.

Until next time, with a couple of reader questions.

Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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I just got home from the Pioneer Quilt Guild show in Roseville, California. It was a lovely weekend and I got a nice surprise! Hanging in the show was a beautiful basket sampler quilt made using the designs in my Baskets to Appliqué.

What's in Your Basket? by Clareen Bolton

I read on the label that Clareen made this quilt during a class with Betty Kisbey at the Quilter’s Stash. The shop is closed now, but while it was open Betty used to teach appliqué using my patterns, which I appreciated so much. Thank you, Betty and Clareen!

Another quilt that grabbed me with strong magnetic attraction was one using my favorite pattern in the whole wide world, Fairmeadow by Jeana Kimball.

Fair Meadow in Lincoln by Clareen Bolton

And it turned out to be by the same quiltmaker, with the same teacher! Fun.

Until tomorrow, with the start of the 100 Blocks blog hop,

Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Cheryl Almgren Taylor, a quilter and designer who specializes in fusible-web appliqué. In certain quilting circles, making this admission is like admitting you feed your kids hot dogs and goldfish crackers for dinner every night! However, I find this method to be very user-friendly and it enables me to create fabulous, intricate shapes with ease. It also incorporates thread as a design element which gives me the opportunity to add more color and texture.

I have a brand-new book just released by Martingale & Company / That Patchwork Place: Inspirational Applique: Reflections of Faith, Hope, & Love.

The book is a collection of scripture-inspired quilts, wallhangings, and small projects. I am a pastor’s wife and as a person of faith, I enjoyed being able to create tangible objects that express my beliefs through my quilting. That is one of my favorite things about quilting—our ability as quilters to convey our thoughts and beliefs through the medium of fabric and thread and color.

As I worked on the book, I felt a connection to the quilters of past generations who also used their quilting skills to express their beliefs and dreams. If you study the Baltimore Albums of the 19th century, most of those beautiful creations give us glimpses into the lives of their makers. Even the plainer, patchwork quilts from the past sometimes include tantalizing personal insights left by the quilter. And one of the common practices in historic quilts was to include a deliberate mistake to express their religious faith, the belief that nothing is perfect except God. I’ve never had to create a deliberate mistake in a quilt—I’m quite proficient at providing numerous mistakes without any extra effort, but I enjoy this tradition and the significance it held for the quilters who did this.

I am happy, though, that I have access to the wonderful world of quilting that we live in now, with rotary cutters and electric irons and fabulous computerized sewing machines. I own several sewing machines and like a man and his car, I am bonded with my machines.

As I mentioned before, my favorite technique is fusible-web appliqué. I always recommend using a lightweight fusible web and the “doughnut” method of construction, which has you cut out the center portion of the web from large pieces before fusing it to the back of your motif fabric. This makes the quilt soft and pliable rather than stiff, which is a common complaint about quilts made with fusible web. However, when using a lightweight fusible web, you must sew a finishing stitch around each unfinished edge in the appliqué design. I prefer a very small blanket stitch, but it is possible to use a satin stitch or zigzag—it just gives a slightly different look to the finished piece.

In creating the quilts for the book, I discovered a new technique that I think a lot of people would enjoy knowing about. One of the designs in the book, “Daily Bread,” features a neg done in gold and blue tones.

A neg is a bundle of wheat that is set out in wintertime in Scandinavian countries for the animals. Because the design featured a number of strands of wheat bundled together, there are a large number of overlapping wheat kernels to be appliquéd. All of them needed to be finished with a blanket stitch. If you are a fusible appliquér, you know that sometimes as you sew around overlapping pieces, you do not end up in the right spot for the next shape. Then you have to stop, trim your threads, move the fabric, and start over again. By accident, I discovered a traveling technique that makes it easy to move from piece to piece.

I discovered that after finishing the blanket stitch on a piece, I could change the machine setting from the blanket stitch to a straight stitch and travel to the next piece along the edge of the pattern pieces. (The pieces do have to be overlapping.) This can be done before or after using the blanket stitch on the design. If I traveled before finishing the edge, the blanket stitch laid over the top of the straight stitching and couldn’t be seen. If the blanket stitch was already sewn along the edge, the straight stitch went on top of the edge stitch and still couldn’t be seen. Of course, you must be using the same color of thread on the next piece, but for my overlapping wheat kernels, it was an outstanding technique.

I used traditional bias strips for the border vine in “Birds of the Air.”

But, in two other projects I used another trick — cutting fusible web-backed fabric pieces rather than creating bias strips for vines. For the tablecloth “I Am the Vine,” I traced the vine shapes onto fusible backing, fused the vines to the background, and finished the edges with a blanket stitch. It looks great and was much easier than fussing with bias strips.

I hope these tips will help you in your quilting journey and, for those of you who have never tried fusing, I hope you will become inspired to try this wonderful and easy technique!

Happy quilting!~Cheryl

Kay here — Thanks a million Cheryl for those two fabulous appliqué tips! The traveling straight stitch to another shape is something I been playing with myself. Thank you for legitimizing it!

Courtesy of the publisher, we have a copy of Inspirational Appliqué to give away to a reader. If you’d like to enter the drawing for the book, leave a comment by 7:00 p.m. California time on Sunday, November 5. U.S. and Canada addresses only, and remember to resist the temptation to hit “reply” to your email subscription. Instead, click over to the blog itself.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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The first time I heard the following, I laughed so hard. Then I kind of got used to it as it happened a few more times. Passersby, especially men it seems, would look at a little quilt that I hang in my booth and say, “Hmm… Baked Potatoes.”

This is what they’re looking at:

Baked Potatoes or Plum Pudding: The Great Debate.

At my last show I heard a new one. A teenaged girl looked at one of my quilts and said, “Oh, Prairie Dogs.”

You be the judge.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

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