Beth Ferrier’s Blog

With just one week left before heading to Quilt Market I have plenty of work to do. I’m doing a Schoolhouse session, a 30 minute infomercial the day before the exhibits open to promote the fabric line. Oy! I have handouts to finish, patterns to finish, quilts to finish, projects to finish.

It’s really nice to be able to count on my family for help. Jack oversees the printing.

Lucy likes to check my work, especially when it involves chasing the cursor.

And it makes perfect sense that the new asphalt driveway needs to go in the week before market. That would be the same asphalt driveway that we’ve done just fine without for thirteen years.

But this girl is nothing if not stubborn. Here’s my Miranda Day Bag, out of my new fabric (gosh, that still makes me giggle!), just waiting for the handles and closure.

 This is the first time I’ve followed someone else’s pattern in at least a million years. Thank goodness that Joan Hawley,  supreme Lazy Girl, writes really excellent directions. Despite all the interuptions, and furry helpers, and a trip into town for stablizer, this only took me a few enjoyable hours to finish.

The pump has been running for a week, but for the most part the pond was just a pile of wet rocks in the middle of a mess. This weekend we got down to brass tacks and finished (well, almost) the landscaping around it.

Kent dug more big rocks out of the ground under the rose bush, and he says there’s still plenty more! These were used to terrace the mound of dirt supporting the waterfall. I still haven’t decided what I will plant here.

 This space to the side was originally planned for a bench. I’m thinking now that I will plant irises here. And something creepy to trail over the blocks.

 Caleb did a really terrific job with the waterfall. I sure won’t have to worry about the oxygen levels this summer. It makes a wonderful music.

This is the one remaining fish from the old pond. He’s in his favorite hiding space. Can you see the bite marks?

I have three white waterlily plants that have overwintered for the last three years. It’s always surprising to see how big they become from such humble beginnings. Can you see the three small butterfly koi that we added on Friday? Yeah, me either. So far they just hide, but I know they are still in there, under the lily.

Didn’t the guys do a terrific job? All that is left for me is to go shopping for perennials to fill the beds. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Playing in the dirt is just the tonic for the pre-Quilt Market frenzy of the coming two weeks.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments on the loose sheets/booklet issue. Looks like the booklet wins hands down, so we’re going to give it a try. My goal has always been to write directions that are more than simple recipes. Being pathologically curious, I am always interested in the why and how of everything. It’s always a bit of a struggle for me to edit the pattern down to the right number of pages for the project. I just want to tell everything I know (and thankfully that’s more than what can be contained in one pattern).

Our winner is Elizabeth Sample! To determine the winner I decided to use my age. The fabric line is named for my mom and it was just about 51 years ago that she became my mom. It was obviously meant to be, my given name is Elizabeth. My mom thinks I should be using my grown-up name on my books. I only heard it when I was in trouble.

The La-ti-dah Do Re Mi pattern is ready to go. We’re even offering kits, using my fabric line. They can be ordered from my web page. Click here.

It promises to be a beautiful day. Just as soon as I finish this post I’m going to go play in the dirt. The landscaping around the pond is nearly done. I’ll post pictures this week.

Thanks again for all the comments on the pattern format. It’s nice to know that I’m not talking to myself. (I already know what I’m going to say.)

Quilt Market, the wholesale show for quilt shop owners, is just two weeks away. Worldwide the stress level for those in the quilt industry is ticking upwards, deadlines loom.

My fabric line will make its debut at Quilt Market. I’ll be hanging around the P&B Textiles booth to help promote it. (At least they think having me around will help.)

I’ve been busy recreating some of my favorite patterns in my own fabric. (I still can’t say that without giggling.) Brand new designs are coming soon, too.

This is a new/old quilt. For years it has been “Do Re Mi”, just the center pieced blocks, designed for teaching brand new quilters some of the most basic quilting concepts. I’ve added a border to it and now it will be available as “La-ti-dah Do Re Mi”. I still need a much better picture for the pattern cover, one that doesn’t show all the junk important stuff on my windowsill.

Quilt patterns have traditionally been 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper folded in half and tucked into a plastic bag. I’ve always hated having loose sheets, shuffling them constantly to find the right spot and searching for the pages that have wandered off.

I’m considering changing my patterns to booklet format. So instead of this:

We would have this:

That’s the cover (missing the picture for now) tucked underneath. That would be stapled together with the booklet.

I’d really like to know what you think. So much that on Friday evening (9 pm eastern time) I will draw a name from the comments for a fat quarter collection of my new fabric line.

For years we have had a small pond next to our patio. It started out small, a plastic form, simple filter and pump and a handful of tiny fish. Each year as the fish grew, so did the pond, moving up to slightly larger plastic forms each year. The fish have overwintered just fine in my silly little pond, that is until this year.

While we were off galavanting in Florida the waterfall sprang a leak, slowly emptying the pond over several days. Because of the way the pond was built the pump couldn’t really empty it entirely, so the fish should have survived. Unfortunately, it seems, the low water level made them easy pickings for the resident racoons. I was sad, for sure, but because they just disappeared it was a little easier to take than to find them swimming belly up.

And to be totally pragmatic, in a way, it solved a problem. The fish, three koi and five comets, were getting so big that the pond really couldn’t sustain them. Last summer I worried constantly about the oxygen content and water quality. They were going to have to find new homes. Although I was thinking trade in at the local pet store, not sushi.

Caleb, son number three, worked for couple of summers for a landscape company that specialized in building ponds. This spring he decided to build a “real pond” for me, partly for mother’s day and partly to work off college debts.

 The flagstone edging was the first to go. The water plants and the sole survior, one of the comets, were moved to one of the earlier pond liners to await their new home.

 Boys and their toys. Kent (left) supervises as Caleb begins to dig out the new pond. The guys convinced me that the backhoe would make quick work of the digging. And since they were digging into ground that had for many years been the gravel driveway to the former garage, the rental seemed like a good idea. Once Caleb was done shaping the pond Kent used the machine to pull out over grown foundation plantings and to move pine trees from the meadow’s edge to the side of the busy road we live on. David used the lawn tractor and trailer to relocated the dirt.

First the underlayment goes in to protect the liner from punctures from stones in the ground. Caleb knows what the pond will look like, he has it all worked out in his head. He’s already planning the placement of stones and ledges for plants. All of my sons are creative and artistic, but Caleb has a real eye for form.

Three tons of fieldstone will line the pond. Caleb and David hand pick where each stone is placed. That sounds like a lot of stone, but it really wasn’t. More like about six wheelbarrels full. But, as Kent pointed out, that’s plenty if you’re the one lifting each one.

Meanwhile,  Kent is off harvesting small boulders. These stones were likely piled here, on the edge of the field, after being plowed up during planting. Until the turn of the last century Applewood Farm was a real working farm with its own blacksmithing shed and cider press. Now the only thing we grow here is boys and quilts.

If you missed out on ordering a fabric kit for Pinwheels & Posies from us, all is not lost. Lisa’s in Stitches in Moro, Oregon is now offering kits. I ordered from them early on when I needed additional yardage for the background of my sample quilt. The fabric arrived quickly and nicely packaged. So, while I have no affiliation with this store, I have been a happy customer.  Click here to see the details on ordering a Pinwheels and Posies fabric kit.

Meanwhile, I’ve made progress on the repair of my sample quilt. I decided that I really needed to know how really widespread the problem was, so I threw the quilt top in the washing machine. YIKES!

The water soluble bobbin thread seemed to be concentrated in the Four-Patch and Diamond Pinwheel blocks. But seams also disappeared in the little accent four-patches. This is the one time I’ve been sorry that my Bernina bobbins hold so much thread.

So, after a little unsewing to remove the messed up blocks I had to decide if I was going to try to fix these blocks or start fresh. Since I hate ripping and had already done more in the last hours than all of last year I decided to start fresh. Truthfully, I’m still finding bits of these blocks in the studio, even in the garden nearby!

These blocks were only partly sewn with the water soluble thread. The best way to fix these guys up was to hand stitch them. It was a great way to refresh my applique stitch, and a terrific reminder of why I like to work by machine.

 But in surprisingly little time the quilt is ready to add in the new blocks. The nice thing about accidentally using water soluble thread in the bobbin is that there are fewer stitches to remove. Thank heavens the Center Pinwheel and the applique were not involved. I do have to admit that I considered completely starting over so I could have the wobbly mess to show during my lecture. I make the mistakes so you don’t have to.

You may remember my recent struggle with Lemon Merangue pie. After years of making perfectly acceptible pies suddenly I was having all sorts of trouble. The lemon curd would refuse to set up, the merangue would fall, and sometimes both parts of the pie would fail.

Many of you were so generous with your help and recipes. Thanks so much for that!

My oldest son, Nathan, loves Lemon Merangue pie. We celebrated his 26th birthday recently, and I decided it was time to give it one more try. I gave myself a little pep talk before starting. I decided that I was making it harder than it needed to be. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Stop making such a big deal about it and just make the silly pie. I went back to the good old Betty Crocker cookbook that I’ve used for thirty years, the same recipe that had worked so faithfully in the past, and just made the pie.

Ta DA!

My oh, my. My sample yardage is here. Well, actually, it’s been here for several days, but I’ve had my head down, chopping it into bits and sewing it back together. Oh, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Creating a promotional quilt and pattern is part of my agreement with P&B Textiles. Not too hard, that’s sort of what I do for a living. Except for the part about needing it yesterday.

But hey, I’m cutting up fabric with my name on the selvedge!

You know, I was kind of nervous, working on this quilt. I wanted so much to make an excellent design to help promote the fabric. No pressure there! I had a quilt designed (okay, several quilts) before the fabric arrived, but I just wasn’t confident about any of them. Once I got the fabric in my hands it all fell into place.

Doesn’t the stripe make a terrific border? It looks like it’s pieced, but it’s not! I mitered the corners just for the fun of it.

Tearing into the pile to create the sample left everything in a bit of a heap. What a lovely mess! Ten yards of each fabric just folded up is a little hard to manage. Once the quilt was finished and off to P&B for photography, it was time to create a neatness in the studio.

The fabric arrives at the warehouse rolled flat on tubes. There it is folded and wrapped on the cardboard bolts that grace our quilt shops. To make the fabric easier to work with for future projects, I folded and the wrapped up the fabric. And I’m feeling like a real dork for tossing all the empty bolts left over from the kits!

 There, that’s better.

The fabric line is called Audrey’s Garden, after my mom. It will be shown at the wholesale Quilt Market in Portlant, OR next month and available in quilt shops in July.

“Stars for Audrey”, the promotional quilt, will be available as a free pattern from P&B. Here’s a quick pic that we snapped before sending it off. It’s too yellow. P&B will send me a better one and I’ll post it when I have it.

It seems that I have finally risen to the level of my incompetence. While it’s nice to know one’s limits, it’s not so much fun when it involves frustrating customers. Of those who ordered Pinwheels & Posies kits from us, most were wonderfully patient, some understandably disappointed, a couple were downright mad.

It’s hard to believe, but it has only been a month, start to finish.  In that time we have been wrangling bolts,  nearly seventy-five bolts in all. We ordered them in “rounds”, eight bolts of background, three bolts of accent and one bolt each of the twelve colors. Each round would make about sixty kits. When we started I worried that we would ever sell sixty! Every quilter covets yards and yards of fabric, but not all the same fabric! Three rounds later we finally called it done. Every single kit sold.

We cut more than two thousand fat quarters!

And folded them neatly.

Packed them up, ready for their new homes.

To be fair, we never dreamed that the response to the kits would be so big. And we were trying to fill all those orders while I was away on a long teaching trip, and Kent was away on vacation (with me, more on that later) and my crack assistant, Elaine, was away on Spring Break. Geesh. Note to self: don’t advertise kits and then leave town.

Thanks to all who ordered and waited so patiently. Quilters are the very best people in the world.

While it may seem like I’ve disappeared under a rock, the truth is I have disappeared under a huge pile of fabric. Oh, could you punish me some more? Lots going on here, all good stuff, but it’s keeping me busy, busy, busy.

But I sure don’t want to slight the lovely folks in Florida because of all the excitement since we got home. So, here’s a tease: I’m going to fill in the delicious details, one post at a time, over the next few days.

After watching the ads on TV for years about “America’s Friendliest Home Town”, I was looking forward to seeing The Villages for myself. Oh my! The Villages are wonderful little communities, each with their own identities and facilities. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken in a grander auditorium.

The room was bright, happy, beautifully decorated and full of delightful quilters, and they laughed at my silly jokes! Our classes went really well. Once again I was so busy teaching that I forgot to take pictures in class. Geesh, will I ever get it?

The Quilting Sisters of Leesburg was my next group. Their meeting place was not as grand as the Villages’, but it filled with  quilters and laughter just the same. A terrific group indeed, we had a great time in class. We had so much fun that I’ll be back there again in two years!

The first week of classes ended with the Busy Bee Quilters from Belleview, FL. We had a great workshop, despite being without power for about ninty minutes! Kathleen sent me a link to her pictures of the day. Click here to see some of the fun we had in class.

While I was busy teaching, hubby was trying to fly south to join me. The plan was perfect. He would arrive in time to pick up a rental car and meet me for a romantic dinner. Instead, a major snowstorm played havoc with the airlines. Never one to miss an opportunity to castrophize, I worried that we would ever make it to the cruise ship on time. But arrive he did, a few hours later than planned,  and we were off on our adventure…..