by Karen on May 20, 2007
in quilts
Recently I remembered a post that I read on a mailing list for quilting about removing pencil marks from fabric. I had bookmarked it but never got around to trying it. Well it works!! I tried it the other day and it worked. Here is the recipe for it:
3/4 cup rubbing alcohol
1/4 cup water
7 to 8 drops of palmolive dish soap
place all in a small spray bottle. Spray the pencil marks and saturate it good, use a soft toothbrush and lightly brush and brush. The mark will fade a bit, when you think you have gotten as much out as you can – rinse the fabric with cold water. I thought my mark was still going to be in the fabric a little but surprise, surprise when it dried the pencil mark was gone.
Here is a link to the original article where I read about it:
http://www.claudiasquiltshoppe.com/tipofthemonth.htm
by Karen on May 15, 2007
in quilts
When I was at the Territorial Fair in Little Rock this past weekend quite a few people mentioned how their grandma or aunt or whoever would have a quilting frame hanging from the ceiling. I had heard about these quilting frames and thought they were mainly used in the 1800′s but from the way it sounds in Arkansas anyhow people were still using these frames in the early 1900′s to 1930 or so. Here is a link to an article about them.
http://www.texasescapes.com/DelbertTrew/Quilting.htm
by Karen on May 13, 2007
in quilts
The Historic Arkansas Museum invited me to participate in the Territorial Fair this year as the quilt demonstrator. Here I am set up with my small log cabin quilt with an applique border on two corners. The two last pictures here are of my quilts that are selling at the gift shop at the museum. It was a fun day, lots and lots of people stopped by to chat and admire hand quilting — I have found out for sure that it seems that us hand quilters are a dying breed of people!

Click on any of the following thumbnail image to view larger version (opens in a new window):

11 rows completed on my Dear jane that I think I might change it’s name to “insanity” How Jane Stickle came up with all these patterns back in the 1860′s is beyond me! The work has been slow of course as I have worked on numerous projects over the last 2 1/2 years since I started the first block of this quilt. To date since I started this quilt I have made and completed 13 baby quilts, 2 wall hangings, 4 couch size quilts (about 60″ x 70″ est.) and 2 larger quilts. That is a lot in my opinion — now of course if I just concentrated on Jane I would be done with it by now!

by Karen on May 8, 2007
in places
We went to Little Rock last weekend and walked across this pretty bridge that was made specifically for walking, biking and roller skates. It is a nice walk and the trail and access to the trail are handicap accessible.
Big Dam Bridge web page
Big Dam Bridge photo gallery

by Karen on May 7, 2007
in quilts
I finished this quilt last year. It is very bright – the fans are made from the batik fabrics called “Keywest”. It is hand pieced and hand quilted and it is a queen size quilt.
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by Karen on May 6, 2007
in quilts
Here is a quilt that I finished 5 years ago I guess. It was pieced by hand and needle turn applique. This quilt was from Judy Niemeyer’s paper piece pattern — but what the heck why do it the easy way when I could make it much more challenging to do it by! I had fun making it and I took the Best of Show ribbon for it at the County Fair in 2002
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