Cary Quilting Company Visit

At the end of April, at the start of a one-week visit with my sister in North Carolina, she and I went the first day to a quilt shop in her town, Cary Quilting Company – first things first, after all. It is a large, beautifully laid out store in a spot on a corner location with natural light streaming in huge windows from two sides. Yes, there were indeed quilts displayed on the other walls, but what I loved is that in amongst the bolts and near the associated pattern, were quilt samples draped and tucked in for close-up viewing and inspiration.

Conveniently there were two comfortable white rockers near the entrance/exit. My sister, Maxine, was grateful for one of these rockers since she claims I spent two hours in the store. I claim only 1½ hours. Either way, it is a long time for an octogenarian to stand uninterrupted. I am fourteen years younger than my sister, so fortunately my enthusiasm for quilting still endows me with (temporarily) boundless shopping energy. There was lots to shop as the depth of the store stretched out behind those rockers.

When I started perusing the shop, I informed the staff that my suitcase was already at 38 pounds and so I had to restrict myself to 12 pounds of purchases. I was drawn to a bright striking print by Tula Pink. To get a feel for this designer you can check out her home in this 2 minute long YouTube Video Wouldn't that make a splendid backing? (It also came in a cool tone color way that I did not find nearly as striking.) It is from the fabric line Tiny Beasts by FreeSpirit with this specific print named Deer John. I found it too beautiful to cut up into small pieces. Strange though, it is printed in an unexpected orientation. In the following photo, the selvages would run horizontally, on the top and bottom along the length of fabric. My sister's eagle eye caught that feature and pointed it out to me, making me recalculate how much yardage I would need to for a hypothetical backing. I bought 4 yards to accommodate a 6 feet width twice; two lengths side by side about 40"-42" WOF each, would sum to about 80" tall. What a bargain! It was 35% off!

I have a self-imposed philosophy about novelty print fabrics. I tend to avoid them now, since my stash is so overflowing, and I claim that every novelty fabric I buy is another quilt needing coordinating fabrics to complete. I try to restrain myself. After this purchase, though, it occurred to me. Every backing is also another quilt! My reasoned restraint had gone down the drain. But adjacent to the Deer John fabric, also on 35% sale, was this layer cake of other Tula Pink fabrics also from Free Spirit but from a different fabric line called Daydreamer. Many of them were large scale, too precious to cut up, and in a selection of animals... jaguars, macaws, butterflies. There were also some cheerful filler prints of rainbows, cloud, small tropical fruits. The colors all went so well with the Deer John backing fabric, I caved and bought the layer cake assortment too. Now I would have fabric for a quilt front to go with the backing fabric. Oh well. What can I say? I am a weak-willed quilter with a love for colors and fabric.

I bought three pattern that called to me. The first one, Stitch Happens finishes 37"x 40" and takes mostly ¼ yard pieces of fabric. It will be a nice wallhanging to intersperse with larger projects in progress.

The second pattern, Wave Pool by designer Sherry Shish was striking both in the combination of patterns and color gradations of blue and green. It finishes 72" x 84". Our California King bed mattress measures 6' x 7' and my husband is continually urging me to make a quilt that is wide enough and long enough to fit it. I can see adding some more wave borders on either side of Wave Pool will do the trick.

My third pattern purchase, perhaps my favorite, is Dave's Coming Home. It includes two sizes : 91” x 100” or 62” x 74”. Not uncommon in quilts is color gradation from upper left down to lower right. This pattern does one better. There is a block pattern gradation from one corner diagonally to the other that I find mesmerizing.  The printed pattern illustrates two color ways. When I was checking out, the clerk said she really liked the purple/yellow one and found the teal/olive one dull. I found the purple/yellow/black option ghastly. Everybody has their own tastes.

This was one of the quilts draped and tucked in among the fabric bolts. The fabric choices were truly to my taste. I liked that the white had a whimsical circle/bubble print to it and that the teal also held some delicate detailing. I cannot quite make out from the photo nor recall from my memory if the chartreuse was more than a pure solid, but I like how all three fabrics worked together. When I make this, I will pick the white subtle print first and then decide two other colors to go with it.

While wandering through the aisles I spotted this note on one set of shelving advising caution when using digitally printed fabric on the back of a quilt that is longarm quilted. White dots could appear. I had never heard this, and so I will be aware. I am not too alarmed though, and suspect the dots will retreat and disappear upon washing. I wanted to pass along this info to my readers who are meticulous and could be concerned.

All in all it was a great visit to the shop, and I look forward to returning on my next trip when I visit my sister in North Carolina.

Dan's T-Shirt Quilt

My son turned 40 and so I thought it was time to send him the T-shirt memory quilt I'd made him from when he graduated high school, class of 2001. The main categories were 

SPORTS: swimming Sunset Sea Serpents, water polo, life guarding, wrestling, baseball buddy
ACADEMICS: Mendenhall Middle School, Granada High School, MathCounts
CAMPING: as camper, as a CILT (camper in leadership training), at Ravencliff, at Loma Mar

Most T-shirt quilt patterns I have seen cut all the T-shirts the same size and then add uniform sashing in between. This was my first time and I cut out each shirt with minimum border around the image. This made it difficult to assemble with all the varying sizes. I scratched my head a lot with the math for the sashing sizes, colors, and quantities. Also for my first time, the quilting is minimal.

Most images are easily interpreted as sports, academics or camping. One block in the lower portion of the upper left quadrant stands out though – "BAGELS are DONUTS on Tuesday". What does that mean? That shirt commemorates when Dan was in leadership training at a camp. A truck had gotten stuck in the mud and Dan stood at the back pushing to get it free while someone else rev'd the motor to rock it out. One rear wheel kicked up a stone that flew up and hit Dan on the forehead. Although never unconscious he was being watched for a possible concussion. He did babble a bit and one of the phrases he uttered was, "BAGELS are DONUTS on Tuesday". The staff, once the concern had evolved to amusement, had a T-shirt made up for him to remember the incident.

Here are closeups of the remaining three quadrants of the quilt in clockwise order: upper right, lower right, lower left.

When it came to choosing a color for the backing, I left the choice up to Dan. Since he would be going off to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, he chose green because the college's school colors were green and gold. The backing fabric also has gold stars scattered throughout.

The quilt never went off to college. At the time, Dan hedged that he did not want to risk it on his bed. Maybe he was just headed off for bigger and better pursuits. But the T-shirt quilt is a good retrospective gift for a special 40th birthday. A wife and four kids later, he is smiling for both the past and the present.