Tag Archives: quilting

Tu-Na Quilts: Preee…senting Tu-Na

or how about this one: The Spotlight is On—Tu-Na; Turn Around and Take a Bow

or this one: (cue the music) Shine, Tu-Na, Shine

The title, it’s about all that a reader sees as they scroll down their blog list on a blog reader. It’s what captures the reader’s attention and makes them click to read more since they can’t possibly read every blog that they’ve subscribed. As a writer you only have 5–10 seconds to make an impression. Shakespeare wrote: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. However, try sticking your nose in a window or a floopjabawink. Nope, not the same. And there you have your blogging tip; Titles are important.

Welcome to Tu-Na’s day to shine on the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop! Thank you to my hive leader Stephanie @Late Night Quilter as well as to the other two hive leaders Yvonne @Quilting Jetgirl, and Cheryl @Meadowmist Designs. Be sure to visit their blogs to enter the big giveaways found there and also to find more new bloggers.

I discovered quilting blogs about two years ago and have been talking about starting my own for a while. Two months ago I closed both eyes, took a deep breath, and finally jumped right into blog land. I wanted my blog to document my journey of adventures and misadventures doing the things I enjoy: quilting, traveling, and eating (well, actually cooking and baking but that didn’t sound good in the title of my blog).

I love waterfalls but I have to travel to see them since North Dakota doesn’t have any. I took this pic on our 2010 trip to Niagara Falls.

I thought about a blog name for a long time and then it just hit me and it was perfect—a real light bulb moment. Read a shortened explanation on my sidebar or the full explanation here.

I also love visiting lighthouses, again, more travel. I’ve been to Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota twice.

I’ve been surrounded by quilters all my life: my grandmother, my mom, and even my mother-in-law. I’ve taught my daughter to sew and now she makes quilts too.

Here’s a look at some of my quilting/sewing past, present, and future projects.

Visions of Quilting Past:

I learned to sew from my mom and through 4-H and made my first quilt at the age of 16 but, sadly, I have no pictures to share. Read about what happened to it here. I mostly sewed clothing and even made my husband a shirt as a gift for our third wedding anniversary. When our daughter was born, I began making her dresses and hats and even made a few matching mother-daughter dresses for us.

With 5 children, I wonder how I ever had time to sew! I remember starting a baby quilt for my second son before he was born and finally finishing and giving it to him when he was 21.

Throughout the years, I’ve made a number of quilts but I really became more interested in quilting about ten years ago. According to the 2014 study by Quilting in America, 9% of beginning quilters are age 64. Quilting is gaining in popularity as there are now more than 16 million active quilters in the United States; this equates to 1 in 20 U.S. citizens are now busy sewing quilts. Those are just a couple of facts I included in my winter writing project.

Pictured below is a quilt I made last fall for my best friend’s 7-year-old granddaughter in celebration of an answered prayer. Every night since this little girl began talking, she prayed for a daddy (her mom was single). This prayer was finally answered last fall when her mom married and there was a surprise adoption blessing as part of the wedding ceremony. She loves the Little House book series which made this quilt perfect for her.

The Little House quilt is a free pattern found on Amy Friend’s During Quiet Time blog. I emailed her a pic of my finished quilt and she featured it on her blog last October.

With my mom’s help, I was able to complete it in eight days. She hand embroidered the writing on the chalkboard and satin stitched the ABCs on the blocks as well as added several other embroidered elements.

My first experience with free-motion quilting using my Pfaff Creative 1475CD machine (I love that 20 year old machine!) was last summer when I made this pixilated giraffe quilt pattern from Bean Counter Quilts. I enjoyed sewing that pattern so I made another one. Both are backed with Minky and I wrapped the backing around to the front for the binding.

There’s 714 squares of pure cuteness here. This is the one I gave my granddaughter who now loves giraffes. I wonder why?

Visions of Quilting Present:

My mom and I are now working on a quilting project together. It’s been her dream to cut and sew into quilts those two or three boxes of leftover double-knit scraps, yardage, and clothes she sewed and saved. I hear you all gasping; really, they are beautiful and will wear like iron.

We’ve finished this snowball/nine-patch quilt and have a yellow/green/brown rail fence top ready to tie. There is something special and comforting about a tied-quilt made with love which contains fabric scrap memories and good poly loft batting.

Mom and I are very proud of our accomplishments and I’ve enjoyed spending time with her. However, she’s informed me that she wants us to sew several more quilts before the end of the year. I anticipate some upcoming posts about those projects as well as the quilt above which has some jaw-dropping history behind one of the fabrics we used.

I am presently quilting another Little House Quilt top for another Little House on the Prairie fan—my 5-year-old grandson. His parents took him to DeSmet, South Dakota last summer and they stayed overnight in a covered wagon. So, like every good grandmother or Tu-Na would do, I replaced one of the blocks from the original pattern with a covered wagon block that I designed. I also stitched my first paper piecing project of a kitten and mouse (pic below) to represent another of my grandson’s favorite stories from the series. I will post pics of the completed quilt in an upcoming post.

The free kitten and mouse patterns are designed by and found at Maartje Quilts in Amsterdam. After it’s all quilted, this kitten will have button eyes.

I started a postage stamp quilt last summer and recently posted about it here. It’s an ongoing project which will probably take several years to finish.

postage 1a

Visions of Quilting Future:

Here’s three bed-size quilt projects I’m planning for this fall/winter.

Applecore quilt with Repro 30s fabrics. Bonus–I probably have enough fabric for a Dresden Plate and a Grandmother’s Flower Garden too.

I want to try sewing some curves. When I bought this crazy curves template, I didn’t read the pattern well enough as it also requires a 3.5″ template; I just discovered that as I was laying out this fabric to photograph. Back to the store I go or I may decide to just use the one size. And there you have your quilting tip: Read requirements before purchase.

Since I’ve been collecting black and white fabrics for a couple of years, they’ve aged enough and are ready to be cut and sewn into a king-size quilt using this Candy Store quilt pattern from the May/June 2012 issue of Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine.

Just for fun here’s some Tu-Na Trivia:

I like the colors orange, yellow, gray, and purple. I am not much of a reader. I am not much of a singer and I don’t play any musical instruments. But I love art! On three separate trips, we unexpectedly found Chihuly blown glass art exhibits. It was incredible.

Here is Chichuly’s Summer Sun at the 2014 Chihuly In the Garden Exhibit in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve also seen Chihuly exhibits in Las Vegas and Chicago.

I enjoy taking close-up pictures of flowers—Georgia O’Keeffe style. Some of them might find their way into my posts.

yellow flower 1a

What I learned today:

Go take a nap when having a difficult time coming up with something to write; It works wonders.
Be passionate about what you do but don’t let it consume you or all of your time. There’s lots of other things to do too such as stopping to smell the roses (or the poppies taking over my flower bed).

poppies 1c

Be sure to visit these new bloggers from my hive:

Nicole @Handwrought Quilts

Pamela @ Sew Crazi

Mary @ Briarystitches

Thanks for taking the time to visit Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats. I hope you’ll return and join me as I learn quilting techniques and share the quilts I’ve made, find new highways and attractions to explore, and experiment with new and traditional recipes and share some mouth-watering pics (and may-be some burnt offerings too).

Question to comment on: In the reply section, leave a link to your best, most interesting, or most favorite titled blog post so I and others can go read it. If you don’t have a blog, share a book title that really grabbed you and said “read me.” Other comments are also appreciated.

Karen

Linking to:

http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/2016/06/great-big-giveaway-day-3-and-lets-bee.html

http://www.cookingupquilts.com/mcm-26-i-finally-organized-my-stash/

Tu-Na Quilts: You’ve Got Mail

16 Replies

There is still nothing as thrilling as finding something (not counting bills, requests for money, or political flyers) in the mailbox.

My quilty friends from my new quilting group at my orange house (in Arizona) sent me a scrappy care package filled with lots of fabric scraps for my postage stamp quilt.

At one of our meetings during the winter, I put out a plea for their fabric garbage (the little pieces they were throwing away anyway because they wouldn’t be using them). I received an envelope stuffed full of fabric goodness from one friend a couple of weeks ago and now this box came. They are determined to keep me stitching all summer. Thanks friends!

Do you see those adorable penguins and the elephant? I think they call for some fussy cutting. They sure crammed a lot of fabric into one box.

Last summer I started a postage stamp quilt hoping to finish at 70″ x 80.” I’d seen one like it the year before when I was traveling on the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop and thought I was up to the challenge. My plan is to have most of the squares in each 8.5″ unfinished block start out at 1.5″ but somewhere in that block I will use a 2.5″ square for interest. Since I wanted to challenge myself even more I decided to also include four 1″ squares within each block.

Paris! I know that after it is sewn, it will read aris. Even with trying hard some of the seams just wouldn’t match up. But from this distance it doesn’t look too bad.

Sewing with 1″ squares makes the 1.5″ squares seem huge and I’ve really had to work hard at making the scant 1/4″ seam allowances accurate.

Gotta love those golf tees!

I haven’t actually figured out how many pieces I need yet but I think it is around 5, 600 or so. If at all possible, I am trying not to duplicate fabrics but I am able to cut multiple squares from some prints if the squares look different. Surprisingly, I haven’t had too many duplications which attests to the large variety of fabrics available. If I can count accurately, I’ve already acquired enough 2.5″ squares. Last year I joined an online swap through The Curious Quilter as a newbie and received lots of fun prints.

Picnic ants and Spot! The 4 blue squares on the bottom right corner show I cut multiple squares from prints without duplicating. I’m limiting myself to 4 squares cut from one piece of fabric though. I make my own rules: I can also break them if I want.

Last fall I cut about a thousand 1.5″ squares before we left for AZ, packed them, and sewed most of them together in long chains in November. I was busy sewing on another quilty project in December which I will share soon.

I am finding a tangled-up-banner-mess after unpacking them.

I see lots of ironing in my future. Poor little puppy; only gets his bottom end on the quilt. I am sure one of my grandsons will find the humor in that.

I sewed some into groups of four.

Let’s have a little I-spy game. Can you find the iron, spider, and owl eyes?

That’s where this postage stamp project stalled and my big winter writing project began which I wrote about in a previous post. Now I am back to cutting and sewing those little pieces. I expect it will take a few years to accumulate the fabric scraps and complete this project but it will pop up on a post every now and then to show I’m making progress.

This postage stamp quilt is only one of the projects I am working on right now. I have several others “in the pipeline” as well. Oh, and a few in “hiding” too that like to play hide and seek. Do you work on multiple projects at once or are you a “sew one and get ‘er done” person?

What I learned today?

It is really important to know what a scant 1/4″ seam allowance is when sewing itty bitty pieces.
Squaring four 1.5″ squares sewed together to 2.5″ is very important for maintaining one’s sanity.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be nice.

Thanks for visiting.

Karen

Linking to

Tu-Na Travels: Unexpected “Music to My Ears”

7 Replies

“Happy Anniversary, Honey” my husband said as he started his iPod shuffle. We were driving to visit the kids and grandkids and I had just settled in for a very long 16 hour road trip. Our trip had been delayed a few days and we were leaving the day of our 42nd wedding anniversary.

wedding pic

I breathed a deep sigh as I recalled hearing hours and hours of Money Girl, Sixty Second Science, and Sci-Fi Podcasts on our last several trips. I love road trips but there really is a limit to how many money tips or how much scientific information a brain can absorb in one trip. Let me not forget the uncountable miles I have also spent listening to Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” which isn’t really so bad to listen to if I can stay awake.

So imagine my surprise when I hear a voice coming through our car stereo system saying, “Welcome to American Patchwork and Quilting’s Podcast. I am your host, Pat Sloan.” What a guy!

Tu-Na Quilts: How I spent my winter

24 Replies

Actually, the title should read “Meet Karen: The Newest Member with the Biggest Mouth.”

I spent most of this past winter in sunny Arizona sitting indoors at my computer. However, that’s what I get for joining my village’s quilting group at my Arizona home and opening my mouth.

This donated Pfaff Grandquilter would make a good starting machine for our group. We are fundraising and saving for a Gammmill to eventually replace it.

The group had just been donated a Pfaff Grandquilter machine and most of the members were opposed to accepting it. “Are you kidding me!” I exclaimed as Marie told me at aerobics. So I attended the next meeting in early January, opened my mouth, and ended up chairing a committee to research if other retirement villages have a quilting/sewing room or a longarm. To make a long story short, I gave my report at the following week’s meeting and convinced the membership to vote (62 to 14) in favor of accepting the machine contingent on us securing an area from the HOA (Home Owners Association) to put it.

This quilt was made by a member of the group. The pic was included in the presentation.

I must have been rather convincing or naïve since I ended up chairing the committee to write the proposal and a power point presentation to present to the HOA board of our village. Approximately 400 hours later I handed the village manager a 7 page proposal (complete with research and footnotes) with 11 attachments (including three floor plans which my interior designer daughter did free for us) plus two manuals detailing all the information necessary for starting and operating a longarm quilting program and (drumroll, please) a Textile Arts Studio. Now, it had been no small feat to get a group of 9 women together weekly to talk about how we wanted to run these programs, agree about it, and stay on task. Needless to say the 14 members against this proposal made life rather stressful for me as I would return home from our weekly quilting meetings having felt like I had been used for target practice.

quilts d2a 2016

The quilting group presently stores their machines and supplies in cabinets in a small closet in one of the meeting rooms that they get to use twice a week for a few hours. My naiveness continued as I was given the honors of presenting our proposal to the April HOA board meeting. With about 100 people in attendance, I made our plea and ended the power point presentation with “We ask you to consider bringing the quilters out of the closet and into a room that our village can be proud of.” They tabled it.

Each year our village holds a quilt show and displays over a hundred quilts made by members. This pic was included in the presentation and shows two quilts made by members.

And so we waited. Three weeks later we were informed of a room that would be big enough for the longarm machine but not much more. We were hoping for a much larger room so we could create a real studio where we could hold a variety of classes to engage quilters of all levels and interests and house other sewing machines. But at least we can begin the longarm program. We felt appreciative but disappointed. I’ve since heard rumblings from the membership stating “We’ll have Karen do it again next year asking for a bigger room.” But I think Karen will want to quilt next year if she can keep her mouth shut.

Linking to Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts

and SoScrappy

http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2016/05/scraphappy-saturday-ready-for-summer.html

and Lea Anne at Podunk Pretties

http://podunkpretties.blogspot.com/2016/05/podunk-pickins-33-country-tea-party.html

Tu-Na Quilts: My First Quilt

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Several years ago, I wrote the following story about the first quilt I ever made as an entry in a quilting magazine contest. Sadly, no picture exists of it; after you read the story you will know why.

My heart yearns for that which I no longer have. I was sixteen when I made my first quilt. Yarn tied in the center of each puffy blue or white square secured a nylon stocking. Having begged nylons through a country magazine’s correspondence column; I received love letters, a proposal of marriage, necklaces, and a bounty of nylons. I machine and hand stitched the squares together to resemble a heavy, warm biscuit quilt. I used that quilt for many years but due to its heaviness, it needed constant repair. Finally, I made the decision for its future.

“Your old quilt sold first at the rummage sale,” my sister exclaimed thirty years ago as she handed me a dollar. It seemed a fortune then for what is a priceless lost treasure today.

What I learned today:

Think twice before acting.
Even a good story doesn’t win.

P.S. I did not reply to that marriage proposal. But am happy to report that I have been married for 41 years to a great guy who supports and encourages my creative passions. His favorite is my cooking/baking skill; probably because it is the least expensive and produces immediate results. I do not have any cooking UFOs laying around.

Tu-Na?

25 Replies

April 22, 2016

The story behind Tu-Na originated last fall when I asked my five year old grandson, “What do you call me?” “Nana” he replied. I turned to my four year old grandson, seated across the table from him and asked “What do you call me?” “Tutu” he replied. “So,” I asked, “What should the new baby call me?” as I pointed to my newest grandson being held by his mother. After a couple of seconds, my five year old grandson’s face brightened and he exclaimed “Tu-Na.” It was priceless!

While none of the boys call me Tu-Na as they each have their own names for me, the name is cute because of how it started. I wasn’t ready to be called grandma when the oldest was born so Nana seemed like a good idea. When the second grandson came along his mother didn’t want him calling me a name that is so close to banana that most kids say nana for anyway. Since my husband and I had just returned from a trip to Hawaii and learned that Tutu is Hawaiian for grandmother, that word seemed like a good idea.

This blog will be a document of my journey as Tu-Na and will feature the things I love. Although it will mostly feature my quilting experiences, I plan to sprinkle in some of my other life passions such as traveling and cooking/baking.

Having spent years raising four sons and a daughter in the lovely state of North Dakota, I rejoined the work force only to decide to retire and concentrate on doing the things I really enjoy. Join me as I quilt, travel, and eat.