Wiksten's Jenny Gordy: A Stitch magazine profile

 I just got an email saying that the Fall issue of Stitch is coming off the press soon, and it reminded me that I hadn't mentioned the profile I wrote for Stitch with Style, the special issue of Stitch that came out in May.

I'd heard that Jenny Gordy of Wiksten fame had moved to Iowa City and pitched a profile to Amber Eden, Stitch's fantastic and very enthusiastic editor. Though I turned the profile in last fall, Amber thought it would be great for Stitch with Style, which focuses on sewing clothing and accessories, so it wasn't in print til this May. But the great thing about that is that since the interview Jenny and I have gotten to be friends, which is a lovely outcome! (She was part of my Quilt Market posse in Portland.) So many of my profiles are written from phone interviews, rather than face-to-face talks, and I rarely get to follow up in person.

A quick bit about Jenny: she started by sewing a line of clothing herself—yup, designing clothing and then stitching an average of ten pieces of each style. As you can imagine, it wasn't easy, but she did it quite successfully for several years. Though she still sews and sells occasional pieces, she's turned her focus to creating a line of patterns to accompany her Tova and Tank tops. (We called them "nearly iconic" in the Stitch story, but at Quilt Market I realized we could have omitted the "nearly." It seemed that in everyone's booth there was a Wiksten tank stitched up in their latest fabric line.) Not only do I admire Jenny's determination in making her business work, but I've learned that she's got a great sense of humor.

At any rate, there are lots of great things in the issue. I, for one, intend to use Jenn Mason's "A Shirt that Fits...Finally!" article to make adjustments to my Sorbetto top. I am feeling kind of excited about sewing clothing...just need to find a little time to do so. So if you haven't yet checked out Stitch with Style, now's the time!

Double-cross Quilt

My 8 small cross blocks

I'll hold off on sharing my shirt, because it needs some size adjustment (just learned the acronym FBA—full bust adjustment—which is what apparently I need to do to take in the excess under the arms while still making it fit across my chest).

Erick "squaring up" my blocks—a relative term for this quilt

But I'm happy to share the finished quilt top I made for my class with Erick Wolfmeyer at Home Ec. I was having one of those days when my brain just wasn't firing on all cylinders and Erick helped me out—cutting and ripping.

Emily and her scrap quilt—she's wearing a skirt stitched from one of the quilt fabrics

We all arrived in class with our 8 small crosses (and a few of us had 9 and had to decide which one to omit). Then it was time to decide on fabrics for the big crosses and how to arrange the 8 small ones. All of this required a lot of shifting and standing back and squinting. But each of us (save one person who had to leave early) finished our tops. It was a great lesson in color and in loosening up, as the quilt's so wonky. I love how differently they all turned out! And once again Erick was terrific—and even stayed late so we could go home with finished tops.

Maureen and her butterscotch and blue quilt

Lisa and her neutrals—she's going to make 4 more for a queen-sized quilt

I still feel a little like I've made a quilt for a clown (baby), but Erick said it reminded him of the alebrijes I have all over my house, and that made me feel that perhaps I have a consistent (highly colorful) aesthetic.

My finished top

It Never Rains but It Pours

That old saying certainly applies to Iowa City weather just now. I don't think I've ever seen the roses as beautiful as they are this year and it suddenly dawned on me that it's because the climate is mimicking Portland's (aka The City of Roses) to a tee—cool temps, cloudy skies, and plenty of moisture. This rose was climbing up a trellis at a friend's home.

But the phrase also applies to my current forays into sewing. I'm still working to finish a many-pieced quilt, but couldn't resist taking a pair of Home Ec classes. On Saturday I attended the first session of a quilt class taught by Erick Wolfmeyer, about whom I've had the opportunity to write a couple of times (here's one of them). He taught a pattern by a designer whom I was unfamiliar with, but whose work I'm loving—Pam Rocco.

Erick's got a terrific color sense and having him help sort through our fabrics was fantastic. I somehow had far more fabric than anyone else...now how could that be possible?

Here's a shot of each of our first blocks—one person's working in neutrals, one in all prints, one in batiks. Guess what? I'm working in brights. At one point I said I felt like I was making a quilt for a clown. We'll see how it shakes out. Session two is next Saturday.

On Thursday I took a class in which we made the Colette Sorbetto top. It's a free, downloadable pattern, but it's been so long since I made any clothing (especially any that fit, save the bias skirt I made at Home Ec), that I wanted help with that aspect of things. I'll post more on that next time, but suffice it to say, I'm loving it. Forget cooking, gardening, exercising, and working...Can I please just sew all the time?

Twofer: Baby Sewing Machines

So a few posts ago I mentioned being smitten with a collection of children's sewing machines that I saw at a quilt show. Out of the blue, I had the chance to bid on one at an auction. There were actually two available, and because I was bidding remotely I decided to bid on both, in the event that I missed the first one I'd still have a chance at the second. Well, lo and behold, I am now the proud owner of  a pair of these cuties.

They came in sturdy cardboard boxes, one with the photo of an elf, the second in a plain box. It seems they were made in the USSR but sold in the Netherlands, as the language on the box and the instructions still with one of them are in Dutch, while the little gold plaque on the front reads (in English) "Made in USSR". How they work is a mystery to me and I admit that it doesn't really matter. I haven't been able to learn anything about them either (except that they must have been made before 1991, when the USSR ceased to exist), but honestly I am just enjoying gazing at them in complete admiration. One will go in my sewing room and the second will be hanging around for just the right moment to either sell or gift it. What worries me is that this could be the start of a bad addiction!

Spring Quilt Market Update #2

The adventure continues...

By the time we got our act together to organize our trip, hotels near the Portland Convention Center were full. But Greta got us a lovely condo across the river and each morning we got to cross this bridge. It enabled us to see geese, rowers, bicyclists, and a section of the Portland marathon. (The biggest challenge was crossing the morning of the Heartlandia walk. Literally thousands of people were walking in the opposite direction, but we managed to part the sea of humanity and cross over.)

Here's more of what I saw at Market:

Echino bags in the Seven Islands booth

Loved the subtle piecing on these Seven Islands aprons

Neons from Michael Miller. I was standing next to one of the women from the Portland Modern Quilt guild who had stitched two of the quilt's blocks but never seen the completed top. She was so excited to see her work on display.

Tula Pink's booth

Super-excited to meet Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life. We both blog for Moda's Cutting Table, but had never met in person. She's a real sweetie and was helping Camille Roskelly with her booth (and had sewn some quilts for her, including the one she's standing by, above).

Fig Tree Quilts booth

Each fabric collection shown in Free Spirit's booth included a piece of clothing stitched from the collection—garments were a true trend at Market.( That's Amy Butler on the left, checking out a visitor's bracelet.)

And not exactly part of the garment trend, but this incredible selvedge dress was the star of RicRac's booth 

Iowa, represent! We join our other eastern Iowa buddy Vanessa Christensen, in her Simply Style booth (and check out her dress—she added a strip of her fabric to the bottom of a Target dress—she's not just cute, she's' clever). 

Loved the big stitching on this quilt by Jen Kingwell

The garment theme continues at Monaluna's booth

Butterflies flit across the walls of the Art Gallery Pure Elements booth

Nobody uses color and pattern quite like Sandy Klop of American Jane (for Moda)

Another Market trend was pink and orange. Here, Kanvas fabrics did it up with festive tissue-paper flowers.

When Market ended, we treated ourselves to a day-and-a-half of play in Portland. One of our first stops was Cargo, in the Pearl District, which offered an incredible array of Asian antiques and imports, with prices that ranged from less than a dollar to thousands.

Cargo whistles

We sampled the beer at a couple of brew pubs, including Deschutes, where we stopped for lunch.

We stopped at Front Porch, which has a sister store in Des Moines, and ran our fingers over the blankets.

The next day we had some fantastic Indian food at Bollywood Theater

And we ended our day at the Rose Garden.

Thanks, Portland, for a lovely week! And thanks, too, to the folks who work so hard to make Quilt Market happen. It was great to go, and great to be home.

Spring Quilt Market update #1

Thanks for waiting! You may have seen similar photos elsewhere, but I'm sure I'll have a few that are unique, so I hope you enjoy them.

My Quilt Market entourage has expanded since the days when Codi (center) and I went to include the super-talented Greta Songe (on left, who's gone with us the past two Markets) and this time Jenny Gordy (right) of Wiksten. Since I interviewed Jenny for the current issue of Stitch with Style she's started working at Home Ec and we've gotten to be friends and she was ready to check out Market in relation to her patterns. Greta had some great conversations regarding her fabric designs and Jenny was a veritable celebrity, as shop owners told her how much they loved her patterns and her Wiksten tank showed up in numerous designers' booths.

Our arrival was delayed by a day due to tornadoes in Texas. Our night in the hotel-from-hell could be a post in itself, but I'll spare you the drama. Suffice it to say, we were darned happy to make it out the next morning, but it did mean we missed most of Schoolhouse. Got this one photo of this Quilt Market's "it girl," Tula Pink. She has definitely hit her stride—the session was SRO.

The first booth that caught my eye was Deep South Fibers, a knitting pattern distributor that was looking to move into the sewing pattern world. The owner (I think Donna Higgins, but not 100% sure) had some examples of things knitted with Deep South Fibers patterns, including these adorable kids clothes of her own design. If you knit, check them out. Really elegant items.

Next up was a stop at Penguin and Fish (mentioned yesterday). I covered Alyssa for True-Up, so check out lots of photos here.

Just across the aisle was Carolyn Friedlander, talented designer of Architextures fabrics (for Robert Kaufman) and very cool quilts (and we spotted her teaching at Portland's Modern Domestic when Market was done). I love the quilt behind her.

I had the pleasure of talking with people I've interviewed for past and present stories, as well as meeting with editors, including Amber Eden of Stitch. She took this photo of us all (who have all appeared, or will appear in the pages of Stitch), along with Stitch contributing editor (and a former American Patchwork and Quilting profile subject of mine) Kevin Kosbab. (You can see a shot of Amber here.)

Now, in no particular order, are more Market photos. I'll be breaking this into two posts. In addition, over the next few days True Up will be including my coverage on Cloud 9, Rashida Coleman Hale, and Camelot, so I won't duplicate them here. (Except for these fabulous ties, below, from Sarah Watson's Dem Bones line for Cloud 9—love 'em.)

Riley Blake's cleverly titled "Gingham Style"—love the varied sizes of checks

Deb Strain's fabrics for Moda

Kaari Meng's mood board

Not a great photo, but the only one I managed to snap of the vibrant Heather Ross. We'd "met" via phone when I interviewed her for Stitch, and she was kind, complimentary, and a great story-teller.

Jennifer Sampou's stripes

Minnick and Simpson's fabulous ikats for scarves (Moda)

Cluck Cluck Sew offered more great patterns

One of the loveliest booths belong to Leah Duncan for Art Gallery. She was also extremely lovely, herself. Check out the two photos below for more.

And then we ended the day—yes, ended rather than started—with a trip to Voodoo Doughnuts. Everyone raved, but I for one was not going to be taken in by doughnuts that featured bacon or cereal...seemed gimmicky. But I was so wrong. The plain ol' chocolate glazed doughnut and blueberry cake doughnut I managed to eat were amazing. Plus, we got a great trip phrase out of our visit. When Greta was contemplating trying the maple bacon doughnut, the cheery server offered "Zero reasons not to!"which quickly became our Portland motto.