Lunching with Lily

I had lunch today with my best 7-year old gal pal Lily.

Lily gets cuter every time I see her. I'm not sure how that is possible...

Not surprisingly, I made Lily a special 4th of July owl pillowcase. Lily's holiday pillowcase owl collection is nearly complete. I only have to make her an Easter owl pillowcase to finish the set. I broke down and bought this fabric on Spoonflower so I will be ready for next year.

In case you've never heard of Spoonflower, you can print your own fabric, wallpaper, and gift wrap. You can also purchase original designs from others. I haven't designed any of my own fabric yet, but I may enlist my brother Gary or my husband Mike for assistance...

Here are Lily's equally adorable parents, Dorothy and Jeff. They have special pillowcases too, but not as many as Lily does!

In June, I made a lot of pillowcases for birthday gifts.

My brother Gary got a Star Wars pillowcase and a Wonder Woman pillowcase. He chose the fabrics himself when Mike and I visited him in February.

Here is Gary's dog Giacomo taking a nap on the Star Wars pillowcase.

I made these pretty batik pillowcases for my Mom's birthday.

My baby cousin Angie turned four in June and I made her a Barbie pillowcase and a butterfly pillowcase.

Lily and I are having an all-day play date next month and she wants to learn to sew. We are going to make a pillowcase for her Mom (pink and purple flowers) and yet another one for Lily, probably owls, but she told me that she likes pirates too! Or perhaps, we can find Pirate Owls!

Thanks for visiting! Special thanks to Dorothy for taking these cute photos of Lily and me. Jeff is a professional photographer, but it was his day off.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

Kim P. Takes Prize at the Vermont Quilt Festival!

Our own Kim P. won the Best Pieced Award and Second Place at the Vermont Quilt Festival with her Omigosh quilt!

Kim, I'm so happy for you and so proud! My buttons are busting! I wish I could have been there in person to brag to everyone there that I know you!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

The Berkshires: Kim G. and Cordula Play with Color

Like all of the Brown Bag quilters, Kim G. and Cordula are also very talented. Both Kim G. and Cordula use a lot of Kaffe Fasset prints in their work. Cordula has been known to whip up some quilt tops made entirely of scraps from Kim G.'s projects.

Kim G. made two more Frida Kahlo quilts using her own original silk screens. You can see her first Frida quilt here. Kim made the first quilt as a gift for a friend. Her friend liked it so much that she commissioned Kim to make two more Frida quilts for each of her daughters. Kim even did a little silk screening in the hotel using her bathroom floor as a work surface when she needed a few more blocks. She is so resourceful!

Kim made two identical quilts for her friend's two daughters. I really like the lively colors that she used to print the silk screened blocks.

Here's another shot of Kim's quilt before the final border was added.

She also worked on an ancient UFO that she called Dresden Hearts. Read more about Kim G. here.

I really like Kim's Dresden Hearts, which of course, are made with Kaffe Fassett prints.

Cordula made another one of her favorite quilt patterns, this circle quilt. I do not know the name of the pattern, but I think it is the third time she has made it. I didn't get any other pictures of Cordula's projects, but you can see Cordula playing photo stylist in this Berkshires' post and hanging out with Sally and Joan here.

Kim G. has gotten some of the girls hooked on Mah Jong. Here they are in the hotel lobby, taking a break from quilting.

Here is Kim G. playing against the Pratt Dynasty of Karen, Caroline, and Kim P.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

The Berkshires: Jean and Cheryl, the Mother-Daughter Dream Team

Jean and Cheryl are Mother and Daughter and are original Brown Bagger quilt group members. In her heyday, Jean took many quilting classes and went on many quilt excursions. She was notorious for always buying two of everything--one for her and one for Cheryl. I think that between the two of them, they may almost have as much fabric as I do!

Both Jean and Cheryl are known for their meticulous work. They are famous in our quilt group for their pinning skills. And we should follow in their footsteps, because everything they make is perfect.

Jean diligently worked on her felted wool Easter bunnies. They are simply adorable. The bunnies are  so soft that you want to pet them! While Jean and Cheryl were out fabric shopping they even found some cute little Easter egg buttons to add to the bunny's basket.

Here is Jean showing off her lovely Easter bunnies.

Here are the bunnies at Jean's work table.

 Cheryl completed all of these wonderful batik blocks.

We used this pattern for our Birthday Block one year, but Cheryl made all of these batik beauties herself. I'm not sure if she is planning to add an outside border to her quilt.

While Cheryl (left, shown with her Mom Jean) successfully evaded my camera at the Berkshires, I have plenty of photos of her! This photo is from one of our Cape Cod weekends.

A few weeks after our Berkshires retreat, this adorable little guy came to live at Cheryl and Jean's house.

Meet Quinn! Isn't he cute? I think he will make another swell Brown Bagger Quilt Mascot! Romeo, Elvis, and LarryPug will be happy to share the lime light! Congratulations to Cheryl, Daniel, and Jean on their new family member!

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

The Berkshires: Sally and Joan Make the Difficult Look Easy

Sally and Joan both espoused Joanne's philosophy of working on one project during our Berkshires retreat. The projects they were working on were intricate, time consuming, and amazing.

Sally worked on her Christmas Pickle quilt, which is paper-pieced. Here's a link to the pattern. She's been working on it for a while, but she finally got her entire top plus borders assembled during our retreat. It is quite beautiful. And when she finished the top, she gave her pattern book away because she said that she was never going to make this quilt again!

Here is Sally auditioning borders. She also made the cool batik shirt that she is wearing. Too bad I only have her back!

Here's a close-up. The quilt is batik in a variety of bright colors.

Joanne and Sally at dinner.

Joan was not able to join us until Friday. She was working on a Jen Kingwell quilt called The Circle Game. Each block is different. Some of them are paper pieced, some of them are hand pieced. Joan was working on her quilt border.

This quilt is amazing.

Here's a close-up. Joan used all different types of fabrics in this quilt, from contemporary prints to 1930s prints, and everything in between.

Joan also celebrated her birthday. She chose Kaffe Fasset fabrics and alternated his shot cotton stripes with his bold prints. She also made her blocks a little larger.

Cordula, Sally and Joan admire her birthday blocks.

Here's another shot of Joan's quilt.

If you missed any of my other posts about our Berkshires retreat, you can read them here, here, here, and here.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

The Berkshires: It's Pratt-tastic!

This quilt isn't called Omigosh for no reason... keep reading for more....

You've met Kim and Karen Pratt in my blog before. Both are prolific quilters and frequent contributors to the Hoffman Challenge. In addition, Karen has her own line of quilting patterns, QuiltLily Designs, as well as a quilt retreat business, Berkshire Quilts, with business partner Kate Mitchell.

Karen is our hostess with the mostest at our Berkshires Quilt Retreat. She started the retreat for us 17 years ago. It began because Karen enjoyed coming to our Brown Bagger weekends (her sister Kim is one of the original Brown Baggers) and sewing with us in the Boston area, so she decided to set up a retreat in her neck of the woods.

Kim with Mom, Caroline

This year, Karen and Kim's Mom, Caroline joined us from Florida. Caroline surprised all of us with hand made coasters. We are definitely inviting her back next year!

Caroline kept busy working on a variety of projects. Below she is working on a crayon quilt challenge from her quilt guild. Each member chose two crayons from a paper bag and had to make a wallhanging using those two colors. Caroline got turquoise and orange.

Hard at work.

Here is Caroline with daughter Karen. I bet her quilt is a winner at her guild!

Caroline with her Lucy Boston blocks which are hand-pieced with paper foundations.

Caroline and Karen both worked on this beautiful table runner, which is Karen's original pattern, Trillium.

We were delighted to hear that Kim's Omigosh quilt will be exhibited at the Vermont Quilt Festival this summer. This pattern is by Sue Garman. Kim purchase it many years ago at the Houston Quilt Festival. Kim put the binding on it at our retreat. Some of the finished pieces in this quilt are half an inch in size! Omigosh, indeed!

This quilt is even more stunning in person!

She also quilted and bound her Row by Row quilt. Kim threw in a new twist by making her quilt in vertical rows.

Kim also made a bag but I didn't get a photo.

Last, but not least, Karen quilted two quilts, worked on her next Hoffman Challenge entry and finished another quilt top. And there may have been more projects, I lost track!

Karen's Hoffman Challenge in progress.

Karen's original zig zag pattern. I don't think this is available yet in Karen's shop.

The two quilts below were quilted by Karen. They belong to Karen's clients who coincidentally both chose to make one of Karen's original patterns. Who better to quilt them than Karen herself?

This striking grey and white quilt was a recent mystery at one of Karen's quilt weekends.

This is Karen's pattern, Tranquility.

Karen was really lucky and won the conversation print fat quarters.

Karen and Caroline also worked together and made each of us a pincushion using a variety of different containers. And they made us choose them Yankee Swap style! Marion got the best number and chose a purple pincushion in a Nantucket basket style cup.

I was very excited to go home with the purple flower shaped pincushion near the bottom left.

Still more to share with you about our Berkshires' adventures!

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy