Author Archives: Colleen Kole

Holiday Artisan Market

     I had the day to myself on Saturday. Marc has traditionally taken the kids on a Saturaday to go shopping for me for a few hours and then he takes the kids to lunch. This year he drove to the little town where my daughter’s college is to have her join in as well. Yes, he is a great guy. So, I  bopped around to a few new places and my goal was to only buy local.

     I was having so much fun and I was successful- a felted snowman for a dear friend, a hand-dyed-silk scarf, some photo notecards from my photography teacher Diane Carroll Burdick and another photo print. Really relaxing and it was so nice to see this venue crowded and people supporting local artists.

  

     I am trying to give original gifts this year which are made by area artists. I did finish quilting #6 last night and thought I would have a finish for you today but…I ran about 18 inches short on the binding. Hate to keep going and have to take it off if I can’t find the right match! Not exactly how I planned to start the week. You have to wait.
    As a consolation, one of my nighttime photos- fun to learn how to take pictures at night.

     And one more, after Photoshop- I am addicted to it.

      Thanks for all the comments – Look forward to picking the winner on Wed. Happy Sewing, my friends.

Snow Day: Giveaway continued

 This is what it looks like outside my front door today-school is closed and at 8:30am they are all outside playing already. It’s beautiful out there. One more for those of you who don’t have snow.

      I am working on # 6 yet. Just seem to have too much Christmas stuff to do to get any sewing done. I’ll show you my first commission that I finished last spring. The new owners are very pleased with it and since it was hand quilted I was more than relieved that I was done with it. Looking at it now, I would not have put any borders on it but let the center composition stand alone with a flat binding. What a difference a few months makes !

   These are the colors they wanted and fabrics they chose. Much easier to have someone buy something already made! But rewarding to have pleased them.

GIVEAWAY: See Sense of Community post below. Just leave a comment to be entered or drop me an email if you don’t feel comfortable with that. (colleenkole@gmail.com). Only three people have jumped on board and there are 3 prizes. Giveaway on Wed Dec 9th.

Off to play today. Happy sewing, my friends. Have a good weekend.

Sense of Community: Part 2

    Thanks for reading that very long post yesterday. I forgot to post links to all those wonderful people I told you about yesterday so let me try….

Lorilee Beltman-City Knitting. Under Knitting Nuggets you will find excellent tutorials from Craft Sanity on Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket, Continental Knitting, etc. And the great big orange couch. This site  will remain active despite the store closing.

Jared Flood-brooklyntweed– designer and photographer-his pictures of his creations are amazing.

Cat Bordhi– www.catbordhi.com

Of course there is Ravelry, but I won’t enable you to go there today. You don’t have time to be lost for a few hours.
I always have one knitting project in my purse for my “wait-for kids” times. What about you?







Just a wee bit of sewing going on here…not much..love these fabrics….need to go put lights outside…





Happy Sewing, my friends.

A Sense of Community

       This past Friday night, I was enjoying my usual nighttime routine of computer checking before I went to bed. I had run across a used knitting book I picked up and really felt like knitting. So I linked on to Ravelry to check out if our local yarn store had anything fun going on.  When I read the header under the group forum, it read City Knitting is closing. Thought maybe Lorilee was taking the weekend off. But as I read on, I ended up reading the most beautiful, heartfelt letter about her store, City Knitting, closing within the month. The first thing I thought of was -another store closing secondary to the economy.  But no…

     I had taken a few classes at City Knitting over the past two years(-yes, I never have enough to do). Each time I walked in the store, whether it be to buy some luscious new fiber or take a class, I was always greeted with a warm genuine smile and a hello. Each time, I brought in a tangled mess, there was an employee willing to sit down in one of their comfy chairs or the big trendy looking orange couch to help me out and spur me on. Each time, I came to class, I had the best teacher there was willing to make sure that everyone understood. Each time I was there, the chairs were overflowing with people sitting and knitting  and taking the time to ask you what you were working on. It was a place to sit, knit and relax. A special treat.If you were stuck at home with that Baby Surprise Jacket , you could go on you tube, click on Knitting Nuggets-along with 340,000 other clicks and Lorilee would show you again via You tube.  She brought us wonderful teachers-Jared Flood, Cookie A, Cat Bordi, etc. to little Grand Rapids. To her store-which became our store. We became spoiled. And I am only a sometimes knitter.  It was a welcoming happy place and Lorilee had built this wonderful sense of community that is really irreplaceable. I didn’t wonder why she hadn’t sold it to someone else-it just wouldn’t be the same without her.

     But Lorilee just got tired. And she just doesn’t want to work 60+ hours per week anymore. So, she is closing the store. She will open up her home once a week for classes or knitting help-that’s how much she cares about her little community. I will really miss walking into a store-her store-our store- and feeling so welcome.

    So, to honor her sense of community, I will have a giveaway. It’s simple.

1. Send me a comment on this blog. I will enter your name.
2. Send a friend to my blog. I will enter your name again. For as many friends as you send and they enter comments, I will enter your name for each friend. Your friend will get their name entered too.
3. If you don’t have a blog, you should still be able to leave me a comment.
4. In one week, I will draw have one of my kids draw randomly for the prizes.

I am not doing this just to build a reader base. I don’t really have much spectacular to show you or tell you yet. Half the time, I don’t know what I am doing as a blogger. But, I know I am just beginning  this wonderful journey of becoming a fiber artist.  I want to meet your friends and be inspired by them. Look at their work. I am having fun connecting with friends I have met all over the country.

      You will get  -free stuff  guys – good stuff-three prizes. But,  most importantly, you get a chance during this next week to connect with a friend. Make a memory. And that’s what’s a sense of community is.

Prizes:

1.430 yds of A Piece of Vermont  fingering weight yarn

2. 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces hand-dyed sock yarn

3. A grab bag of silk, bead soup, Angelina and a little Artgirlz Christmas tree.

DEADLINE:  Noon Wed Dec 9th . I will announce the winners that night. I will mail prizes  ASAP -in case you aren’t a knitter and want to give it as a gift.

     Have fun.  Happy sewing my friends.
  

Recycled Jeans

 

   I am in charge(sounds like a lot of responsibility, doesn’t it?) of making an auction quilt for my son’s class at school. Now the auction isn’t until March but I need to start cutting the quilt out to see what I might yet need. So a friend and I will start the project today. I have collected about thirty pairs of old jeans from the kids.  We’ll start cutting them apart today to see how much” fabric” we have. Then I will begin stitching them together in a really random way. Yeah-ok- I have no plan. One piece building off another. It will truly be an improvisational quilt as I have no idea-ok maybe a vague idea of what we will do. I don’t want to give too much away. I do want to include some of the moms after Christmas in this project- they have expressed interest in the process so you never know who you might inspire.

 Stay tuned as this will be an after the New Year completion I am sure.

     Now tomorrow I will have something fun for you. A little lottery giveaway but you must think of someone fun to tell about my blog.

  Happy sewing, my friends.
    

Project Joy Update

     Hope you enjoyed a few extra days off. I did manage to squeeze in a little sewing. I finished the binding on # 5 and loved the back of the quilt.

    

     Just like the clean lines and minimal fuss of the design.

    

     I did start working on another one with my class fabrics and am about 60% done with the quilting. A sneak peek for you….

     Now that I see it on the screen, it looks kind of Christmas like which was definitely not my intent. Better get going on my day. Happy sewing, my friends.

Sometimes you are never prepared

     The turkey was a little late but delicious. The rest of the food was wonderful and it was also wonderful to have different families from different sides come together and enjoy each others company. It was even nicer to be able to enjoy a fire and watch a movie after 21 people left. ( I even had time to baste a quilt in the afternoon.)So, all in all, a great holiday. But I hadn’t taken one photo all day. I dismissed it last night as -“well you were the hostess. You didn’t have time.”

     But, a much less tired me this morning had to admit the truth. I didn’t want to see –through the lens of a camera– that for the first time in eighteen years-my girl wasn’t with me for a holiday. My eighteen year old Erin had gone to South Carolina to be on vacation with her dear boyfriend and his family. I knew far in advance that it was going to happen. She loves the Carolinas and and I knew that she would go if asked.  I wasn’t angry that she had gone. I wasn’t worried about her safety as they are a great family to be with. I thought I was prepared. But I was just plain sad that she had grown up. That big gaping hole that was left was just sad. After all, wasn’t it enough that I had been a big girl when she left for college? Wasn’t it enough that I am brave and don’t cry when she leaves to go back to college?

     Nope, I guess not. Motherhood just isn’t for wimps, that’s for sure. Sometimes you can never prepared for them to grow up.

     So what’s a girl to do? Go shopping with the one who’s still at home and enjoy every minute of fussy teenage girlhood that I have left. Please remind me of that soon! And give your little ones a hug before you go to bed. You are never prepared.

  Some oldies for you-my first improvisational quilts which hang proudly in my sewing studio. Hopefully next year I will be brave enough to take some pictures! Happy sewing my friends!
  

Life is Good

     I had fun this week volunteering at school and at the Operation Christmas Child warehouse. It renewed my sense of -if we all work together the world to make a difference,  life is easier and richer. I read a link on a blog last week about a community that came together to save a barn in Vermont and make it into an artist and community spot. I will send you to Martha Sacco’s knitting website : www.greenmountainknittingbags.com. Go to last week’s news and you will hear about the wonderful sense of community in Starksboro, VT. Martha has a once weekly sale of her beautiful bags for knitting. Yes, I am the proud owner of one.

     I have been a bit distracted this week. I did decide that I absolutely love Aurifil thread for piecing. If you put it in the bobbin, it lasts forever. It is smooth as butter on top! No lint, very fine and my new machine loves it as well. It is expensive but comes in a large quantity. When I looked for it last night, Mai-Britt Axelson is a sponsor. More eye candy for you-http://www.linen-and-silk.com.

  

     I know you are looking for completed UFOS. None yet although my back is pieced (on the left), thread purchased and now ready to go on this top(right) from my Carol Soderlund workshop. Distracted I was by finding bits and pieces of this UFO in my Christmas fabrics.

     I am grateful for all God has blessed us with this Thanksgiving. Life is indeed good. Happy Thanksgiving and Happy sewing, my friends. Put your feet up after turkey dinner is done and enjoy the links.

Photography Day: Meijer Gardens

 

     I have been saving my weekly photography “homework” for Sunday afternoons and usually drag some of the kids with me. But this week, with 60 degrees and sunny, no one wanted to come. They were too busy playing some kind of sport outside. So, I treated myself to a walk through a local botanical spot a few miles from my home, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Museum. It is filled with indoor and outdoor gardens and always some kind of art exhibit.

  
  I saw so many great lines and angles I just couldn’t stop taking inspiration pictures.

  

     Just balanced by the weight and angle of stone and nothing else. All stone transported here from Europe.

      Great sculptures.

     These guys just surprised me.

And more lines for you.

    These are all unedited. The goal for the past few weeks was just to learn to shoot in manual mode-no editing. I never knew that you could make your pictures look so great with Photoshop.( Yup, there was much eye-rollling by the two teenagers when I made that comment to them. And the question by college girl-please tell me you aren’t putting unedited photos anywhere Mom?)  I guess you just need to laugh at yourself when you have teen agers. As usual,  I have much to learn but am a willing victim! I can’t wait to do more.

Addendum- I am not making a quilt out of the last fabrics I just showed you -those were my rejects or dye-overs. Those were pretty bad colors. I’ll try not to scare you too badly next time.

      Be inspired by lines. Happy sewing my friends.

Fabric Dyeing

     Last February, our quilt guild had the the privilege of hosting Carol Soderlund. She presented a wonderful lecture and then stayed for two days of classes. I attended both days of classes with the first being her Pot-of Gold class. She taught us how to dye layers of cloth stacked three high in a plastic bag and upright container. She was previously a teacher and still had the gift of making everyone feel very comfortable with her. She is a teacher I would highly recommend taking a workshop from.

      In the quilt I am working on now, I showcased the fabrics we made. I  had made a prototype months ago and finally put it together as a stitch sampler in order to decide how to quilt it. It is one of my UFOS, too. The sampler fabrics are much lighter than the quilt I am working on now.

     These were the last layer in the “pot” so ended up the lightest. She uses Testfabrics 400 M. I fell in love with this fabric this summer and started ordering it in large quantities. The company is very easy to deal with and ships out quickly.

                                

                                                   Directions prototype-9×12

      I am going to choose the upper left for my quilting pattern for the next quilt. It is the most time-consuming    as you are always turning the quilt back and forth but that’s what I like.  I am feeling like I might have time for two more quilts realistically before the holidays. Must go put the Thanksgiving grocery list together. Happy sewing, my friends.