Please join me in welcoming another Guest Blogger to the Quilting Gallery. If you’re interested in being a Guest Blogger, just drop me an email to discuss.

Hi Michele

Thanks for inviting me to blog on your website. I started making ribbon shirts for Aboriginal drummers and dancers about 4 years ago now.

After teaching sewing, quilting and many other applications of sewing for decades (including designing lingerie), I found a new love and appreciation for my skills: custom-made shirts with applique & beading have become my passion. These are worn by Aboriginal drummers and dancers during ceremony and at cultural events.

It started with one shirt for a friend who is a two-spirit fire keeper. I listened to her story with my heart as well as my mind. I was fascinated with learning what the different colours meant to her as well as what animals and birds represented to Aboriginal people. There were also shapes and other symbols important to her personal empowerment.

Now that I am familiar with the basic symbols of local Aboriginal people, I can focus more on listening to the life stories of my clients, and create a visual representation of their life.

Sometimes this process can take several sessions as they tell me about their culture, their spirit names, and their role in the Aboriginal community.

The exciting part to me is to hear their personal stories and interpret the meanig onto a very special garment they can wear with pride.

Strictly by word of mouth, I have women call me to make an appointment to start the process. I have been told by a grandmother that I am very gifted in this area and am starting a second shirt for her. Many of my clients are repeat customers.

I am proud to know that my shirts are worn by some amazing women, and that my work is appreciated by so many people. One of my early shirts was worn by Beverly who drummed the Governor General into Parliament.

It is a pleasure to share my skill with such a great group of women, and I am proud to know they are treasured by those who wear them.

Lois Smith
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

P.S. If you would like to get in contact with Lois, please send me an email and I’ll put you in touch.

Please join me in welcoming another Guest Blogger to the Quilting Gallery. If you’re interested in being a Guest Blogger, just drop me an email to discuss.

By Tracey “Halyma” Vibert

With everything that is going on these days, the busy, the frantic, the chaos, I find that I can get happily lost in my sewing, especially when I have time to work on my own projects and let my creativity flow.

I mainly sew for clients, and have recently begun to work on things for myself again in a variety of ways, and this has been a wonderful reminder of why I started sewing in the first place a few years back [read: over 25 years ago], when I was about 12.

Economics and frugality were always strong factors in my sewing choices as I was learning to sew as a teen. I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town with two fabric stores, so I could go and browse, and buy small pieces to use. My mother sewed, as did my grandmother, and so there was always a wealth of information, supplies, notions and goodies to choose from as well!

I don’t remember specifically having a scrap box growing up, but I am sure there was one. I always had access to small fabric pieces for doll clothes – I sewed for my Barbie – evening gowns and such!

Over the intervening years, I have been running my own custom sewing business since high school, and have always had a problem throwing away those scraps. Now, please note, I am not a quilter. These fabrics are not often cotton, nor even natural fibers! I make wedding and evening gowns, so I luxuriate in silk peau de soie, crystal organzas and sequined chiffon. And I keep my scraps! I return scraps to clients, but often they have no use for them and just leave them with me.

At one point, about 3 years ago, I decided it was time to clean up my fabrics. By the end of that very busy and somewhat fibrous weekend, I had over 10 office boxes of scraps that I really had no more room for. I found www.Freecycle.org and was able to give them all away to a variety of very grateful crafters, designers and entrepreneurs. Yay! No pile of textiles going to the landfill, and people made happy!

Since then, I have done the same thing a few times, and have now embarked on a new design journey that allows me to be creative and use all of these reclaimed textiles in fun new ways.

But what about the fact that so much of it is synthetic? How do I counter that in my grander scheme of environmental awareness? I have not yet decided to tell clients that I will only sew natural, sustainable textiles, that create little or no pollution in their production. It’s really not that easy to find that perfectly acceptable fabric.

I have been able to work with some beautiful hand woven fabric done by a local master weaver – gorgeous and very sweet to work with! I have also been able to find some great hemp, and nice cottons for other endeavors I have undertaken, but there is still shipping and exchange rates to deal with – thus creating an interesting economic choice and carbon footprint with which my psyche must contend.

I know I am not the only person tackling these issues on a regular basis, but I wonder how much quilters explore these choices? Cotton production has such a bad rap, the dyes can be so toxic, both the standard and “natural” ones. Organic cotton would seem to be the way to go, but is the cost prohibitive?

Already the artistry and time involved in quilt making astounds me, and while I am very happy to sit and spend 24 hours hand-beading a wedding dress, the thought of cutting up perfectly matching shapes and assembling them like a big puzzle holds no interest for me at all! Kudos to you folk whose patience comes out in this field!

But I am curious, do environmental issues contribute to your choices of fabric in your projects? Do personal economics rule your decisions? What choices do you make to be frugal? Green? Vegan? Non-Toxic?

Post your comments and you can win a $25 gift certificate towards any Eco-TAV product of your choice! There are some fabulous holiday gift ideas on my site, and you would get your choice!

Remember your travel mug!

Tracey
…Creativity Abounds…
TAV Creations | Eco-TAV | Belly Dancing for Fun | Halyma’s Blog
E-mail: tracey@tav-creations.com
Photos: WTL

UPDATE: Post a comment by December 15 to be entered in the draw.

Sarah Jane will be awarding one lucky winner from the Quilting Gallery a one-year membership to the site My Quilt Patch. Sign up for the free trial, (enter the referral source as Quilting Gallery), before the end of October to be entered in the draw. More info…

What does quilting mean to you? Answer this question, in the comment section of Chris Dahl’s guest blogger post and you will be entered into the random draw to win a free class at Quilting Weekly. To be eligible, submit your answer/comment before the end of October.

Congratulations to Sharon Schamber for winning the Best in Show at this year’s Houston Quilt Festival for her quilt The Spirit of Mother Earth. I’d also like to say thanks to Sharon for posting such detailed photos on her web site. It is a real treat to be able to see so closely the gorgeous stitching.

Please join me in welcoming another Guest Blogger to the Quilting Gallery. If you’re interested in being a Guest Blogger, just drop me an email to discuss.

Hello quilters!

My name is Chris Dahl, and I am so glad to have this opportunity to share my quilting journey with you.

I live in the Midwest part of the United States, in a suburb about an hour west of Chicago. I have lived in the Midwest my entire life and love the fact that we get to experience all four seasons to the fullest! Although I must admit as I get older I do not enjoy winter as much as I used to. I still love to watch the snow fall, and see the tree branches glisten in the sun after an ice storm. And there is nothing like the pristine look of a snow covered field early in the morning after it snows. All that being said, shoveling or driving in winter is my least favorite part, along with the cold. Not a fan of cold anymore, it gets in the bones and you can’t get it out for hours. Sitting in front of a warm fire with a nice glass of wine does help to melt away some of the ice in the veins!

My quilting journey started approximately 8 years ago. I have been sewing most of my life, with my first sewing class taken in high school. I remember the teacher telling us to make one item from our patterns for the class project. I ended up making all three items, a skirt, pants and a vest! I also enjoy working with yarn, and have taught myself to knit and crochet. Most of my sewing/quilting is self-taught with an occasional class taken here and there.

I remember my father doing sewing for us as children, and my grandmother sewing as well. So I guess it was only natural for me to follow in their foot steps. My grandmother used to let me press the pedal on her treadle machine while she sewed her clothing. She even made tiny little clothes for my Barbie dolls! I still have some of these clothes that my girls played with on their dolls and now I cannot wait to pass them onto my own grandchildren some day. How cool will that be to say “Your great, great, grandma made this!”

Anyway, back to quilting. I discovered quilting by watching a cable show called Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. Some of you may be familiar with this show. I was so intrigued by the design possibilities of quilting that I just had to try it. I immediately went to the store and bought a book titled “The Complete Guide to Quilting” by Better Homes and Gardens. This became my “quilting bible” and I still refer to it today. I recommend this book to any new quilter as it is written with easy to follow instructions, and fabulous photos. It comes in a paper back and hard cover version. I am glad I spent the extra for the hard cover book with the spiral binding, it lays nice and flat on the table. Through this book I taught myself to quilt. I never took any formal training I just read and started to play with the fabrics. I did not take any classes until 2 or 3 years later.

Around the time I started taking classes, I decided teaching was something I wanted to do. I knew enough about quilting, that I felt I could share with a small group. I found I enjoyed teaching as much as I enjoyed quilting and continued. I get so much pleasure when I see that a student learns something new. I especially enjoyed teaching children. Unfortunately they do not require students to take sewing in school now, it is an elective. What a shame. So many kids don’t even know how to sew on a button.

Once I discovered teaching the real fun began. I went around to community centers; park districts, churches, Girl Scout groups; quilt and fabric shops and I then made it a personal mission to teach as many people about sewing and quilting as I could. I did this for several years. At one point I even ran the education department at my local JoAnn Fabrics. Which gave me good training for the next phase of my life.

This is where you will find me now, teaching quilting online through my blog Quilting Lessons Online and through my online classroom website Quilting Weekly. Both of these venues have allowed me to reach out to more people then I could have imagined before, and there is no travel involved for me or my students! This really is the best of both worlds to me. I do however miss the interaction of a live classroom, and I really miss those “ah ha” moments that would happen in class. But for now I will have to settle for the wonderful e-mails I get from my students who choose to share their successes with me.

I would like to end my story with a simple statement about what quilting means to me.

Quilting is my form of expression. It is part of who I am. Some people might call this an obsession while others call it a passion. But to me quilting is full of creativity and endless possibilities.

Please leave us a comment here and share your thoughts on what quilting means to you. For doing so, you could win a free class at Quilting Weekly. I will pick a random winner from all the entries between now and October 31, 2008 and send the winner a free pass to a class of their choice! This is no Halloween trick. It was a real treat for me to be here, and I want to thank you for reading my story, and thank Michele for giving me this opportunity.

So go ahead leave a comment and tell us what quilting means to you!

Happy Quilting!
Chris Dahl

Please join me in welcoming another Guest Blogger to the Quilting Gallery. If you’re interested in being a Guest Blogger, just drop me an email to discuss.

Hi there- I would like to tell you about a new Online Quilting Community called "My Quilt Patch".

I know that I don’t have to tell you that quilters and patchworkers constitute one of the most friendly and sociable groups that you will find anywhere and that we are all interested in sharing our love of the craft and hearing about what others, who are also passionate about patchwork and quilting, are up to.

The new and developing features of the internet (dubbed "Web 2.0") are ideal for the creation of special interest groups with a social media dimension and for building online communities around a particular activity or interest. The growth in popularity of "Groups" in sites like MySpace and Facebook is testament to this.

It is this approach that is behind the "My Quilt Patch" site, which we hope to build into a worldwide community of quilters, such that it will be a place where people can share their joy of quilting with others, using a range of simple online tools and applications that enable them to do a number of fun and useful things.

However, in addition to being a quilters’ online sharing and communication facility, we want the site to be entertaining and informative as well and, therefore, there is also a ton of articles and other resources available (including tutorials, patterns and projects) covering a wide range of quilting related topics, many contributed by internationally-acclaimed quilting tutors and textile artists.

Here is a brief selection of the kind of thing available on the site:

	Here is a super Free Block Pattern from textile artist Pat Archibald entitled Celtic Tree, where she shows you how to use her own technique of using iron-on foils to create a shiny metallic motif on the block.
	Here is a beautiful mixed media project for you to do, incorporating delicate fabric painting together with free machine embroidery. This design by Tracy Curtis called "Thistle Project" is suitable for a number of different applications. It could be used as a framed picture, a cushion cover or part of a design for a quilt.
	Why not let Annette Morgan show you how to add some real sparkle to your quilting? In this article she walks you through one of her techniques, in an extract from her book "Glitzy Quilts". Here you will learn just how she cleverly makes use of all sorts of materials for Beadmaking, which she then uses to add sparkle and interest to her quilting designs.

Now, what about these Web 2.0 utilities? What are they all about and what do they enable you to do online?

Well there is quite a long list of features that are available to members of the community to use, which are mainly about different ways of celebrating and sharing your own quilting creativity and also interacting online with like-minded folk in a variety of fun ways.

A sample of these include:
(For the full details of everything available on the site visit the MQP "Getting Started Guide".)

• Creating your own Quilting Photo Gallery to "showcase" your work and share it with members and others via the internet. This can be displayed as individual images with narrative descriptions, or as a slideshow.
• Browse and/or participate in the My Quilt Patch Forum and exchange views with other quilters around the world, ask questions and pick up (or pass on) patchwork and quilting tips. (There is also a facility to set up private sub groups on the forum).
• Online Chat – With this feature it is possible to communicate with other members of the community anywhere in the world in "real time" via text, audio or video (or a mixture of all three) simply by using your web browser (no phone charges) This is also great for use by private groups!
• Create a Quilting Website without scripting, coding or HTML. An intuitive and fun tool you can use to easily make your own custom quilting website hosted at "My Quilt Patch" at no additional cost.
• Send Online Audio-Visual Postcards to your quilting circle (or anyone) by simply using your webcam or microphone. Use this tool to email personalised "rich media" communications to any email address.
• If you have a wish to teach others or to pass on knowledge of particular quilting styles or techniques there is an Audio-Visual Presentations capability together with a Video/MP3 Gallery available, not to mention a facility for creating Podcasts. (All simply accessed and utilised via web browser).

The My Quilt Patch quilting community is still very young and in the early stages of growth and while its origins are in Britain, it already has members from all over the world (particularly from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia).

It is a members only website with a small monthly subscription (to keep down the advertising!) but no long term commitment is required. There is a month’s free trial available so that anyone interested can check out the community thoroughly before deciding to remain subscribed as a member.

However as a special offer for "Quilting Gallery" readers there is an opportunity to win a year’s free subscription to the My Quilt Patch community. All "Quilting Gallery" readers who sign up for a free trial before the end of October will go into a draw for the free year’s subscription (just put "Quilting Gallery" as the referral source when signing up for the free trial, to be automatically entered into the draw).

I hope this information has been of interest to you and very much hope to see you inside our new quilting community.

To check out the MQP site just click on this link: www.MyQuiltPatch.com

Best wishes and "happy quilting".

Sarah Jane King
My Quilt Patch

Note: this has been a paid guest blogger post.

Please join me in welcoming another Guest Blogger to the Quilting Gallery. If you’re interested in being a Guest Blogger, just drop me an email to discuss.

I began quilting when I was 19. I was orphaned before I was a teenager, was separated from my four siblings and lived in various (bad) foster homes until an aunt and uncle took me in when I was 15. When I was 19, I paid a girlfriend’s grandma to make me a quilt. That quilt is still on my bed to this day.

Shortly thereafter, I read the saying, “When you Sleep Under a Quilt, You Sleep Under a Blanket of Love”.

I cannot tell you what that saying and quilt did to my broken and bruised heart. Quilting became the embracing hug that I no longer received from my parents. It was the love that I was unable to share with my siblings. It made the loneliness that I’d experienced throughout my teenage years disappear. It was at that moment that quilting became the passion in my soul that I needed to share with others.

Unfortunately, I have environmental skin allergies. They are very bad, to the point that my hands have been blistered about half of my adult life…and if it’s not my hands, it’s my feet or my torso. That means that playing with fabric can cause serious injuries to my skin. It’s terrible, both not being able to enjoy my passion as much as I would like; and then when I do indulge myself with a weekend of quilting, I suffer terribly with my skin – but my quilted heart is calmed.

So, I’ve become the Quilt Designing Computer Geek. I quilt one day a week, design patterns anytime I have a free moment and work on the computer with quilt-related customers and websites. During the day, my work revolves around web hosting, website design, webmaster duties and online advertising sales (not everything quilt-related). In the evenings, I run any one of my quilt-related websites. It keeps my hands in quilting without endangering my skin any more than I must. And it keeps the quilting passion that I have alive and well – in my quilted heart.

Most of the quilts that I’ve designed are made of traditional patterns, though I am very partial to block of the month quilts because I like not having to make the same block over and over to make a quilt. To satisfy this part of my love of quilting, I started www.BOMquilts.com. Then I found that I needed a fun way to document the quilts that I’ve made, so I launched www.QuiltScrapbook.com. Through those two websites, I just kept the quilting spirit alive on the Internet – beginning sites such as www.QuiltTags.com, www.QuiltCoupons.com, www.QuiltTherapy.com, www.Quiltalicious.com, QuiltBlogAds.com, www.QuiltHeart.com, www.QuiltShopMarketing.com and my newest website, www.QuiltDash.com.

I have the most fun designing baby quilts, I suppose because I have four children. There are three baby quilts that I’ve found great success with – I call them one-bobbin quilt tops! The tops can be made, at least on my sewing machine, with just filling the bobbin one time. And all three are beginner-friendly, with full-color quilt patterns and illustrations to help the quilter create their own quilted work of art. The three quilts are named, “Hug & Mooch Baby Quilt“, “Nine-Patch Star Baby Quilt” and “Building Blocks Baby Quilt” – and all three are available at www.Quiltalicious.com.

I can’t imagine any other life than being a Quilt Designing Computer Geek. It’s left me with one of the most precious ways to share my quilted heart with others, while giving the recipients of my quilts an opportunity to have a quilted hug. It’s really true – When You Sleep Under a Quilt, You Sleep Under a Blanket of Love!

Tammy Harrison, CEO
Quilt Designing Computer Geek
quiltalicious@gmail.com