‘Variable Star’. United States, New England, 1725-1750. 104 1/2 x 102 1/2 in. Photo: Los Angeles Co. Museum of Art.
Very soon, I’m going to be able to announce a neat thing I’ll be doing that hopefully will make a lot of people happy. Here’s a hint: it’s got something to do with writing, it’s got something to do with quilting, it’s not a book, and it’s free. Are you curious? Me, too! I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. Stay tuned for the news because it really is pretty exciting if you’re a quilt nerd like me. (And if not, why not?)
But there’s another Big Thing on the horizon that I can’t say a peep about. Some of the inner sanctum knows about the Big Thing, but by and large, this is top secret ops. Here’s a hint: No! THERE CAN BE NO HINTS! I can’t give you even one tiny, baby hint or I’ll get in trouble. Big men in suits will come and tomorrow is my birthday. I’d like to not be kidnapped on my actual birthday.
How great it would be to have a third secret project for aesthetic reasons, but that’s it. Just two secrets, just two life-changing projects. Wait! I almost forgot! I do have another secret project and I can go ahead and tell you, I guess:
Goodbye, cruel world. I’m going to sew, now. Photo: Me
Yesterday the FedEx man brought me a new sewing machine!
Oh, BabyLock. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: My two (2) Melody machines, my Symphony, my Tiara, and now my Lyric. This post would’ve come yesterday but I had to check with the BabyLock peeps to make sure I could let the cat/machine out of the bag. This this is hot off the truck! I dropped everything and set her up immediately, and I have been sewing on it for basically 24 hours straight. She’s a real beauty, guys. Friendly, intuitive, a great machine for beginners, for taking to classes, and for petting in general. Rides like it’s on rails. Smooth like a chocolate shake. I could go on.
And while we’re on the subject, let me tell you something about BabyLock real quick. Yes, I do promotional work for the company but I do that work precisely because of what I’m about to say, so you needn’t feel like this is some advertorial. It’s not.
When I pitched Quilty, the project was green-lighted but it wasn’t funded. The parent company who gave me the initial “yes,” told me that if we could get sponsors, we could do the show. No sponsors, no Quilty. And let me tell you: just because I was Marianne Fons’s kid didn’t mean I had it easy. Working with the ad seller for the media company, we got rejections. A bunch of them. I was an unknown quantity. Revenue streams for online video were still being understood/explored at the time (this was 2010) and besides: everyone with a project wants sponsors. Most of these companies’ budgets are tapped out before they finish their spreadsheets every quarter.
BabyLock believed in Quilty. By extension, they believed in me. I remember pitching the idea to them at Fall Quilt Market ’10. I was so scared during my spiel I think I actually stuttered once. The two women who were subjected to my pitch were intimidating and very pretty. These days they’re two kindred spirits in my life — really — and they’re still at the company, still believing in me. Most of the people who work at Tacony (BabyLock’s parent company) have been with the company for decades. My friend Pam? Thirty years with BabyLock. This says a lot about BabyLock.
So yeah, the pretty ladies took a chance on Fons 2.0 and that would be reason enough to be loyal to them but then there’s the little matter of the sewing machines being actually, truly, genuinely fantastic. The embroidery machines are like, the best in the biz, but full disclosure: I’m not an embroiderer (say that word out loud) so I don’t play around much on them. I don’t have to. It’s all good stuff, whatever your stitch may be.
I’ve got two quilt tops going. I like them both equally, so I just keep switching back and forth between them. If I had enough room in my apartment, I’d leave my Symphony up on one table and my new Lyric would be on another table. A girl can dream.
Me and some of the girls, waiting for the bride. Photo: Sew Creative, Lincoln, NE
The sewing retreat in Sioux City was wonderful. My students were brilliant, new friends were made, and all the sponsors — I’m looking at you, BabyLock — were more than generous.
During the morning portion of my Log Cabin paper-piecing master class yesterday, we heard a lot of activity in the courtyard outside our classroom. We looked out to see men setting up chairs and tables for a wedding. As the morning and early afternoon went along, the wedding took shape and we followed the action between quilt blocks.
People began to arrive and music began around 2:00pm or so. When the bride was imminent, those of us in the room threw our patchwork to the side and ran to the window to see her.
“Bing” is for bing cherry, by the way. Photo: Internet
Greetings from fabulous Sioux City!
When’s the last time you were in Sioux City? Yeah, me neither, but I’m glad I’m here. Sioux City is pretty cool. The downtown makes a good first impression as you roll in with its copper-colored bricks, clocktower, and a few tall buildings. I consulted the oracle* to learn a bit about this town that is almost in South Dakota and almost in Nebraska.
Here are 5 notable things I’ve learned about Sioux City:
1. In 2010, Money magazine named Sioux City one of the best places to live in the world. I can’t find the article but that’s a very nice thing to say, Money, and I’m sure you had your reasons.
2. There is a creek here called Bacon Creek. Not Beacon. Not Macon. Bacon.
3. Try as I might, I cannot stop laughing over the fact that the airport code for Sioux City is SUX. It’s just not fair. Someone, please do something about this. It’s time.
4. The Twin Bing candy your ancestors ate? Made in Sioux City. It even says so on the wrapper. I feel like the Twin Bing is primed for a comeback via the post-hipster set. I can see a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Chicago working a Twin Bing foam into the pork chop dish; I can see an all-natural cosmetics company making a Twin Bing exfoliant.
5. Guess who was born here? Pauline Esther Friedman and her twin sister Esther Pauline Friedman, better known as Abigail Van Buren (“Dear Abby”) and Ann Landers, respectively. Yes! The advice columnists known for the sassy, brassy advice they gave the American people for over two centuries. Did you know those two women were sisters? Twins, even?! And did you know they hated each other and though people said they reconciled their bitter competition at some point, they totally did not? You can’t write this stuff!
And I am falling asleep in this chair, proof that you can write this stuff, but not anymore tonight.
I was almost going to break my “one image per post” rule, but if you don’t stand for something, you’ll post anything.
When it was certain I would come on this road trip, I had a matter of days to get everything together. I immediately made a mental list of all the thousands of items I would need to go out and get (e.g., leather jacket, campsite hand-wash detergent, a carton of Gauloises, etc.) but I decided to buy nothing that wasn’t absolutely, positively necessary. I’ve been making a lot of purchases recently — a gal’s gotta watch her pocketbook.
But one of the things that seemed absolutely, positively necessary was a robe. I have a robe, but it’s big and fluffy. “Big” and “fluffy” are not words welcome when you’re driving across Death Valley in a Subaru. I was having fun with the “buy nothing” preparation tip I was on, so I decided to make myself a packable, pretty kimono. And so I did.
Quilters have “unfinished objects” (UFOs). UFOs are portions of patchwork that have not yet been turned into a quilt and therefore sit on a table or in a tupperware container, waiting to get their day in the sun. Patchwork is much happier in a quilt, so I keep my UFOs to a minimum; still, I have a modest collection of orphan piecing. So I took blocks and patchwork units from my UFO bag and incorporated them into my kimono — and by the way, cutting into finished patchwork is horrifying and exhilarating and every quilter should try it once. The “pattern” for this thing was just figuring out how to make a back and two front pieces. Then I double-lined it for softness/durability and voila! The patchwork kimono. I made an obi, too.
I cannot express to you how perfect this thing is. I mean, in general, it’s perfect to me because I made it with my hands and my brain. But on this trip in particular it has been astonishingly useful. It’s a picnic blanket. It’s a robe. It’s a towel. It’s a blanket for the car. It’s padding for a seat. It provides shade and wind cover. And it’s a quilt, of course; many women (and men, and children) have traveled this westward route over the centuries with a quilt at their side. So there’s some kinship going on.
If you’d like to see more pictures of my kimono (including several with me actually inside the thing) please visit my Facebook page.
My sewing table, about two minutes ago. Its state has not changed. Photo: Mary Fons
I hung out with my new friend Carla last night at a cafe where everyone was way, way cooler than I will ever be. Carla and I were jamming on quilt world trends and interests. Carla is a proficient quilter and, in my view, has her finger squished squarely on the pulse of the Internet as it relates to quilts, quilters, and quiltmaking in America in 2015. I am not good at keeping up on all this because I am not good at keeping up on voicemail, let alone what hot UK designer is doing with partial seams. I’m not proud of it, but at least I know who to ask.
The conversation turned at one point to my own position in the quilt blogosphere. (I didn’t bring it up, please note!) It was uncomfortable to hear that in Carla’s estimation, I could do a lot better with sharing my quiltmaking process, the projects I have going, the day-to-day life I have as a person who regularly works with fabric and thread.
“It does seem that your projects sort of emerge when they’re done,” Carla said, munching a pear from her salad. “People like to see process. They want to know you better as a designer, I think, as a fellow quilter.”
Thus, a picture of my sewing table. My sewing table is also my table-table. I have no other table in this furnished apartment and it’s a good thing, too: to have a second table just for breakfast, say, I’d have to stack it on top of this one and then where would I put my washer and dryer? What you’re looking at up there is a fresh crop of fabric purchased in Kansas City; materials from the class I taught at the DC Modern Guild a couple weekends ago; my sewing machine; a candle that should not be there; flowers from my friend Jason that are very nearly dead but so beautiful I can’t toss, yet; and under all that, my mat, seam ripper, rotary cutter, a pattern I’m drafting, and previews of art for my upcoming fabric line.*
My design wall is directly behind the table and there are several things happening there, too. If PaperGirl were a vlog and not a blog, I would show you a full tour of my sewing area, but PaperGirl is not a vlog, will never be a vlog, and while we’re on the subject, I will never say “vlog” out loud, nor will I ever write it, ever again. Humans are capable of making good choices, as it turns out, and not allowing “v*og” into the vernacular is proof of this.
In the months to come, I plane to do a bit more curtain-drawing in this manner. There are big projects afoot and I’m champing at the bit to share about them. But don’t be surprised if one of these days “PaperGirl Too” pops up and Pendennis and I take you through how to make the quilt perpetually on my mind.
This quilt is for sale from Rocky Mountain Quilts for $4,600. Log Cabin Maltese Cross from Pennsylvania, c.1880 62 x 68.
Since June of last year, I’ve been doing my Color Me Quilter webinar series. The enjoyable, informative, quilt geeky show happens once a month and helps you select fabric for your quilts. Many, many quilters have asked me for help in this area, and Color Me Quilter has helped a lot of you, which feels great.
There are just two months left of the series, though you can get bundles of my past webinars on the Fons & Porter website. Tomorrow, my presentation examines brown fabrics. I know, I know — brown does not scream “sexy.” It may not scream “modern” to you, either; by “modern” I mean “relevant,” not necessarily “modern” the way quilters use it — but modern quilters are using brown a lot these days, actually. I can pretty much guarantee you will be surprised, big-time at what you see tomorrow.
From Civil War quilts and their mega-popular reproductions to classic Amish quilts; from brilliant use of brown by today’s designers, such as Edyta Sitar to Amy Ellis; from timeless combos like traditional brown and pink to chic brown and black, you will be inspired and provoked to think about your own fabric palette and how brown plays a role.
Brown isn’t the new black, y’all: it’s the new brown.
It’s easy to join. Just go to the Webinar tab on my homepage and I’ll see you at 1PM EST tomorrow.
The Tree of Life quilt block, currently up on my design wall.
Here was my day:
I woke up. I wrote for a few hours. I drank tea during those hours, tea with probably too much cream and honey. I don’t want to live in a world without pots of tea with cream and honey, so there you have it.
Errands were run. Dry cleaning. Grocery store, because I needed cream and honey. I didn’t get to the post office and I feel bad about that. I didn’t go on a walk to no place at all and I feel bad about that, too. I took a brief nap.
I did work. Emails, proposals, thinking-cap sorts of things. Correspondence. Invoicing. I called a friend of mine, I tidied the kitchen, I received a UPS box. It contained a quilt that has finally come home after a year of being out for editorial, or a show, or because it just needed to go find itself.
And at the end of all this, at the end of myself, what did I want?
I wanted to sew. I wanted to touch fabric. I wanted to turn on my iron to the hottest setting she’s got. I wanted to slice and dice the selected fabric and stitch it back together again, paired now with other fabrics, paired now with other patchwork in order to create a more perfect union. After looking at quilts, talking about them, reading about them, being steeped in the whole thing most of the day — more than anything in the world, I wanted to try a quilt block because I have wanted to try “Tree of Life” for about a year.
Isn’t it marvelous? Making quilts?
The hum of the machine as it sews is something close to maternal. The snip of thread scissors does something important in the brain. The steam that rises from the iron, if I may be a little woo-woo, is purifying. And the thing about the process of making patchwork is that it’s fun and engaging and satisfying, but at the end of your efforts, you have a quilt. You don’t have a puzzle that needs to be scooped up and put back in the box. You don’t have a model airplane, the function of which is now to collect dust on the top of a bookshelf in grandpa’s office. A quilt wraps around a body. A quilt is functional art. A quilt is for you, and for me, and forever.
To those on the fence or those who are stumped; to those who are searching for something that will make it all better — or increase the joy factor in an already wildly fun existence — I strongly recommend making a quilt. It works for me.
Yesterday was not a good day. It finished well, but it got off to a terrible start.
The terrible day began the night before, which seems unfair. I can share the following detail because a) I cannot remember the last time I did what I did and b) it’s pertinent to my tale of woe:
I was extremely hungover when I woke up. Why was I hungover? Because I was on a painfully lousy date the night before and it was so very, very lousy, I had two Sidecars and then basically chugged a snifter of armagnac. I also attribute my wild behavior to needing some kind of release after taping 40 shows in nine days: 27 Quilty, 13 Love of Quilting. Whatever the reasons, that is far, far too much liquor for me and probably anyone except Frank Sinatra. And in case you’re not aware, armagnac — which for our purposes here it’s essentially cognac — is not to be swilled. It’s a beautiful thing, a strong treat after dinner that is best shared (slowly) with another person over dessert. Part of the pleasantness of cognac or armagnac is that it’s served in a snifter, a footed glass with a wide bowl so that your hands warm the liquor as you take small sips. Did I warm my armagnac? No. Did I share it? No. This was foolish, but sometimes a girl just is and that’s that.
When I woke up, I woke up at four in the morning. I drink rarely because I can’t sleep for poop when I do. It’s not worth it. But my eyes blinked open and I felt wide awake and super grody. When was the last time I was hungover? For the life of me, I can’t remember.
Then, I looked at my bank balance. Not so great. Then I made blueberry paleo bread and it tasted amazing but was so raw in the middle, it was soup. Then I realized I forgot to pay rent this month because I have not been home in two weeks. Then I felt disturbed and scared about a pain that has developed in my abdomen around my ostomy scars. Then I did something that will make all the quilters in the audience gasp and possibly cry. I know I did both.
I washed my favorite quilt, “Whisper,” which is all-white. I neglected to take the hanging sleeve off the back. The hanging sleeve was attached by someone at a show where the quilt was on display and it was made with a multi-colored marbled fabric. The sleeve was not at all colorfast. And my beautiful quilt is now pink.
I know.
Not all of it. The top fourth. I wept. I crossed my arms, dropped my head, and cried. Pardon my French, but goddamnit. I travel this country and advise quilters about how to properly wash quilts. As the former editor of a quilt magazine and the host of several how-to quilting shows, I know, should know, how to properly wash a quilt, and I do. But I overlooked the sleeve. And now “Whisper” is kinda sorta ruined. The good news is that it’s immortalized in my book and will still keep a person warm. Maybe I’ll offer it for sale, on sale.*
We all make mistakes. We all have depressing dinners. We all take too much punch from time to time. And we take punches. I am well aware that my bad day could’ve been far, far worse (e.g., receiving a shattering diagnosis, receiving a life-altering phone call, etc.) but when I saw those pink patches and my head was throbbing, I didn’t feel wise. I felt like the dog’s breakfast.
I’ve decided to sell a few quilts from my large and ever-growing collection.
I make a lot of quilts. Many of them are for publication in magazines or books; many others are given to loved ones. There are certain quilts that are particularly important to me that I will keep for myself, but there is a growing number that I think might give other people happiness — and hey man, I gotta earn a living. So over the next few weeks/months, I’m going to offer a few quilts for sale.
This quilt is the first up on offer. It’s called “Hey, Blue” and it was pieced entirely by me in downtown Chicago in 2014. The block used (which measures 11 1/2”) is called “Butterfly at the Crossroads” and there are twenty of these blocks in total. The quilt is throw-size, measuring 66 x 75 1/2”.
The blocks are all made from scrappy blues; the background a consistent, real sweet modern shirting print. The back features a big swath of a Provencal white-and-blue floral, paired with a swath of a cheery orange and white modern floral print from Michael Miller, a lovely contrast when a bit peeks out from behind the top. The quilting was done on a longarm by professional longarmer LuAnn Downs and was featured in Quilty magazine in the Sep/Oct ’14 issue.
The price of the quilt is $1300 + the cost of insured shipping via FedEx. If you’re interested in purchasing this quilt, email me at mary (at) maryfons (dot) com. The first person to pipe up gets the sale. You can mail a check or we can do it via PayPal, then I’ll send along your new blankie.
If you’re interested in purchasing a quilt but miss this one, just keep reading. I have a lot of (rather lovely, I’d like to think) quilts and plan to cull the numbers until I can more freely move around my apartment.
Seeing Bert and Ernie chopped in half and placed under glass is making my inner child hysterical and traumatized, but at least they’re the real mccoy. Photo: Wikipedia
There are ribbons tied to my fingers; some go from there to this keyboard and some flutter out and lay in the pages of my journal. This is clearly annoying and counter-productive if I’m doing anything but sitting at my laptop or writing in my journal.
It’s TV taping time. Yesterday, I filmed three fantastic shows with Mom. I feel okay saying that the shows are getting better every time we do this. It’s not a new job anymore. I got this. And I like it, too.
On the set, doing this job, the ribbons have to be tucked away. Frankly, it’s kind of a relief. It’s good to be around the crew that I love, good to have those hot lights on me, good to meet the guests and do the job, which I see as simple: make the other person look good. That’s it. And so I can take all the focus off me and shift it to the other person. No brooding, no decisions to be made outside of what patchwork unit we need to teach next.
And there’s a Bert and Ernie in the lobby of the Iowa Public Television! This is the best place to be today.
Dear Quilty, available at fine bookstores everywhere, local quilt shops, and on my website soon.
Friends! Countrymen! People afflicted with the desire to tear up perfectly good cotton fabric and sew it back together again! I have an announcement:
Dear Quilty is here and it is really good. (It’s a book.)
Working alongside Team Quilty, I selected some of the best, most beautiful, most approachable quilt projects (and one totebag project) from the past four years of Quilty magazine. The full patterns of the quilts are inside, there are tutorials and demos, there are links to Quilty video tutorials, and of course, Spooly is all over this thing, helping you out, being your pal, possibly getting in the way (adorably, of course.)
But it’s more, y’all. It’s more than that.
Dear Quilty was a way for me to tell the full story of the show, the magazine, the whole point behind Quilty, which was: Make a friendly landing place for beginning quilters. We cannot shame the people who don’t know what a bobbin is. We cannot snicker when a new quilter brings in a poorly made first attempt. We can’t ever stop learning from the beginner, either (that means you, Advanced Quilting Lady a.k.a. Quilt Policewoman. And no, there are not Quilt Policemen. They are always women. I don’t know why.)
In the book, you learn about the people who have made the magazine over the years. You get these great interviews with them and also with the Chicago film crew who has made the show with me since 2010. There are fan letters in the book, too, proving that Quilty has changed some lives, man! Pretty groovy.
Now that the magazine is going away and I’m leaving the show, this book is kinda extra special. Quilty the brand isn’t going anywhere, it’s just entering a new phase. But Dear Quilty is a record of what may be “vintage” Quilty? Maybe? That makes me feel old/too special for my own good, so let’s not say “vintage” at all. Let’s just say the book is great and you should get one immediately. I saw the first copy at my gig in Georgia and it turned out even more amazingly cool than I could’ve hoped for.
Within the next week or so, I’ll have a link to buy the book from me — psst… I’ll be doing some giveaways! Until then, ask your local quilt shop to order it for you and check in with ShopQuilty.com as inventory comes in. This one’s hot off the press.
Do you have quilts in your house that are just sitting there? Are they folded, perhaps in the closet, perhaps on a shelf? Put another way: is it time for you to give some quilts away? Probably.
Generosity is in quilters’ DNA. We typically do give quilts away, which is fabulous if you’re a person who knows a quilter, because if you wanted to buy a beautifully made, king- or queen-sized quilt, it would cost you several thousand dollars; if a quilter loves you, you get it for free.
I give quilts away because there is nothing worse than looking at a stack of beautiful quilts languishing in my closet or in baskets around the house. What good are they doing there? The joy is in the making. Once the quilt is finished — unless it’s one I’m going to use for teaching or one that means so very, very much to me personally it’s like a limb — it’s time to give it away. Everyone but everyone needs a handmade quilt.
Today, my bestest friend Sarah got her quilt. It was a wedding gift way overdue. It’s the cover quilt for my book, Make + Love Quilts (available at fine bookstores everywhere!) It’s perfect for her, her husband Seth, and their kids, Little Seth and baby Katherine.
The quilt is out of my studio, out of my home, out of my life. I couldn’t be happier.
“Welcome To Nolandia,” by Mary Fons, quilted (eventually) by Angela Huffman, 2014.
I submitted a quilt to QuiltCon and didn’t get in. I meant to write about this a long time ago but it’s good that I didn’t, not that I would’ve ranted about it — ew — but now that I’m at the show, my feelings went from bummed to 100% okay-ness with the decision the jury made.
“Welcome To Nolandia” is the oddest quilt I’ve ever made and one of the quilts I’m most proud of. The quilt depicts a town, and the story is told from top to bottom. The sky/gods are above, then come the houses of the people. (You can’t see them in the picture, but all the houses have little fussy-cut pieces in the windows: pink pigs flying, frogs fishing, faces, flowerpots.) The sidewalks and streets come next, then the vegetation and trees. Below that, the dirt — that’s the improv-pieced purple and black. There is buried treasure down there, represented by gold and yellow pieces; there are old bicycles and metallic fabric, too, striations of sediment. Then comes deep bedrock, limestone. This picture doesn’t show the last row I put on, which was the water far below; I pieced flying geese in light and dark blue.
[Note Yuri’s feet. This picture was taken in our East Village apartment this summer.]
Now that I’m at the show, I realize how inappropriate this quilt is for QuiltCon. It’s not modern at all. It’s bizarre, it’s got a few elements of the modern style, but it would stick out like a funky, misshapen thumb at this show. The jury knew what they were doing, of course, and if I were on that jury, I wouldn’t have accepted my quilt, either.
As a writer, I get a lot of rejections. A writer has to submit to magazines, has to try and get an agent, has to “put herself out there.” Any writer that has succeeded in any measurable way will tell you they have a stack of rejection emails and letters. The good-natured ones refer to them with a certain sense of pride.
I understand the QuiltCon organizers got something like 2,000 submissions. There are like, 100 quilts in the show. (I should verify that, but it can’t be many more.) The quilts are stunning, inspiring, and each quilter brought their A game, big time. The quilts are perfect specimens of this aesthetic and hats off to each one of them. I mean, dang, y’all.
At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker, I say unto thee: if your quilt didn’t get into the show, shake it off. Rejection usually means you tried something hard. Good for you. Most of the time, there is a good reason your work was rejected: your article wasn’t right for the magazine, your pottery style was already represented by three artisans at the art festival, your quilt wasn’t appropriate for the show. You didn’t get the job because the hiring person thought you’d be miserable if you were hired or you don’t know Excel well enough or something.
Enjoy the quilts here, quilters. If you’re not actually in Austin, enjoy the tsunami of social media reports all over the quilter web. And if you aren’t in the show — like 1,900 of your comrades — let yourself feel lucky. You can sit back and enjoy while all the quilters who did get in bite all their fingernails off hoping they’ll get a ribbon or prize money.
And remember why you make quilts anyway. I don’t have to tell you why. You know.
“Maslanitsa,” by Boris Kustodiev, 1918. Stick Rod Serling’s face in there somewhere and you’ve got it.
I remember exactly one Twilight Zone episode out of the dozen or so I saw accidentally as a kid. The one I remember, not surprisingly, is the one that scarred me for life. I was about eight when I saw it and I think about it whenever life presents an obvious twist of fate.
In the episode, a pretty lady is driving a car one night and she gets into a bad wreck. The cosmos, God, fate, etc., had determined that she would die as a result. Like, it was written in some big ledger in the sky that her time was up and she was supposed to die that night. But then she doesn’t. There is a wrinkle in the time-space continuum or something and she survives without a scratch. She’s happy about this until zombies.
These way-too-scary-for-an-eight-year-old people-creatures who, looking back, were totally zombies though I didn’t know what zombies were at the time, began appearing in this woman’s world. They weren’t everywhere at first but as she went through her life in the next few weeks, these people-creatures would pop up and like, grab at her.** Their goal was to take her to the other side, the side she was supposed to be on. She was in the living world, but that was wrong. She was an escapee from the natural order of things, a rogue moment that had to be corrected because… Well, because it made for a great Twilight Zone episode, I guess.
NOTE: To all the brilliant, gracious, attractive ladies in my lecture and class outside Richmond, VA, thank you for a wonderful day today and please do not in any way think that I am connecting you with zombies from the Twilight Zone.
That said, tonight I’m totally the lady from the other side. Because I should still be in Richmond. It is written that I should be giving my second lecture right now to a large group of quilters at the fabulous Sew Refreshing shop. But I’m not there. There’s been a wrinkle in the time-space continuum and I am home. In my pajamas. AAAAAGHHHHH!
It’s because a snowpocalypse snow storm is bearing down on the east coast. Richmond, a city that owns maybe 1.2 snow plows, both made in 1946, is expected to get a foot of snow tonight. Terri, my host and owner of the shop picked me up this morning and said, so sweetly, “Mary, ah… Well, I’m just wondering about the lecture we added this evening… Well, we’re going to get about twelve inches starting this afternoon and I just don’t know that the ladies should be driving in the weather…” I knew what she was suggesting and was 100% onboard, sad as it is to cancel an event. Truth was, I wasn’t so sure about doing the evening lecture after I heard the weather report.
“Terri, absolutely. We should cancel the evening program. I’ll look at the train schedule.”
And so it was that after my morning lecture and the 1,000 Pyramid class — such a good class! — I went to the train station and got the 4:00-ish #80 Amtrak back into Washington. I almost got off at Fredericksburg because I’m a Civil War nerd and I’m dying to check it out, but I figured with the blizzard and all and not knowing a single thing about Fredericksburg other than it being an historic battle site, I should wait.
I should be in a smart outfit with a laser pointer, but instead I’m drinking juice. I’m on my couch. There are no zombies in the closet, though. I know because I checked.
** Please remember that I’m describing a Twilight Zone episode I saw once when I was like, eight. If some of you know the episode well, forgive me for butchering (!) it. I’m only recounting what scarred me for life, not the mise en scene or the actress in the title role. I only remember death.
The thing about being sick for a long time is that when you first get sick, everyone’s like, “Oh no! You’re sick! Can I help?!” but then life continues apace and no one can be faulted for kinda forgetting about sick folks. Not completely, not everyone, but the blush is off the IV tree after awhile. It’s okay. We are all doing our best, usually.
Libby Lehman is a quilt industry visionary who had a massive aneurism last year. She nearly died but did not die, which is to say she barely survived. When she came through her ground zero, her life was altered forever. She’ll probably never make a quilt again, though extraordinary things do happen and when they do, they do because people like Libby do them. Libby is in therapy, she is working on using her hands again and she learning to speak again. She’s gettin’ her sass back, too, from all reports. She needs 24-hour care, though, and there is nothing about that that does not suck.
My mom made a quilt to raise money for the medical bills not covered by Libby’s insurance. Mom used fabric by Moda that was expressly produced to raise money for Libby, too. The quilt is called “LIbby’s Log Cabin” and it’s gorgeous and it’s pictured above; the quilt is 60” x 75”. You can win this quilt by sending a donation of any amount to the address below; Libby’s sister is taking the donations. Mom will draw a name on Friday, February 13th and I promise to announce the winner on Facebook. Moda is also covering this contest, so watch their blog and Twitter and all that, too.
Libby was one of the first quilt industry people who was like, “Can we please stop using slide projectors and get on the whole digital projector thing?” She also pioneered new techniques in thread painting in contemporary quilts. Without innovation, art goes nowhere. Without early adopters, people go nowhere. Libby is as cool now as she has always been, she just can’t walk or talk very well. By helping pay the Man for in-home therapy, medicine, and maybe even a dinner out at some point for her 24-hour caregivers, you’re helping your fellow man, your fellow women, and yourself. Because we are all temporarily-abled, you know.
For your chance to win, send a donation of any amount to:
The first time I saw the first issue of Quilty in print. Chicago, 2011.
I’ve been dragging my feet, writing the last Letter From the Editor for Quilty’s May/Jun ’15 issue. It’ll be tweaked before it’s in print at the end of April, but I’m happy with it for now.
Dear Friends:
The first issue of Quilty magazine came out the summer of 2011. As the magazine was put together, I remember knowing only two things for sure: Quilty needed to exist, and I needed to learn how to make a magazine really fast.
What you are holding is the last issue of Quilty magazine. With thousands of fans and a river of “I love you, Quilty! You taught me how to make quilts!!!” fan mail, it seems impossible. Quilty has made such an impact; isn’t it only getting started? Yes, but that start looks different than I thougt it would. More on that in a moment.
The reasons for closing a magazine are numerous and, frankly, rather boring; it’s all P&L spreadsheets, dry meetings, and examination of market data. Knowing that magazines close almost as frequently as restaurants is cold comfort to me. It takes a village to make an issue, but Quilty has been like my kid and now my kid is leaving home.
This is where I get Kleenex.
There’s no need to cry, though; Quilty is immortal. We have proof in letters, comments, pictures, and emails that hundreds and hundreds of people have learned to make quilts because of Quilty. Beginners everywhere — and not a few veterans — have been inspired to become that beautiful thing called “a quilter” because of a little magazine. Is Quilty really over? Hardly. For the people who learned by and from it, it will always be part of their story.
“Where did you learn to make quilts?” they’ll ask you.
“Oh, there used to be this wonderful magazine called Quilty. It was so great. It ran great patterns and there were all these how-to’s and tons of quilt history and context. It closed, but I have all my back issues. Wanna borrow them?”
And then another quilter is born and another. We are all stitched together, a big patchwork quilt. Quilty has been and will always be just one patch. Thank you for reading.
It’s like the olden days, all colorful and random and cozy. In process: “George Washington’s Cabin,” by Mary Fons, 2015.
If you’re not a quilter, you probably don’t have a stash.
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and make a “Well, my husband has a mustache” joke. But watch it: if there are quilters in your midst, they may be inching toward you, tightening their grip on their sharp rotary cutters. A quilter’s fabric stash is, in the simplest terms, the fabric that she owns that is not in a quilt, yet. A quilter’s stash is her library, her paint palette, her big lake of color and texture from which she brings great ladles of the stuff to put into her patchwork.
As you can imagine, some stashes are bigger than others. Quilters who have been sewing since the early 1980s have… a lot of fabric. Those who are new might have just the seeds of a stash. Some folks hoard and some folks cull (ahem) but if you make quilts in any serious way — and you ought to — you have fabric somewhere. And that is your stash.
Did I mention I moved around a lot in 2014? I moved around a lot in 2014. A good two-thirds of my fabric stash is in storage in Chicago, but I have a whole lot with me, too, and that means I’ve transported all this fabric many times in the past nine months or so. And something cool happened in the shuffle: I changed my stash organization style and this has made all the difference.
I used to organize my stash by color. All the reds, all the greens, etc., all together. Now, this is a fantastic way to do things and as a quilter who typically starts with color inspiration and goes from there, I fully support this mode of stashing. But because all my fabric has been in and out of boxes all year, keeping it all color-coded has been hard. So what’s happened is that my tiny red prints are getting thrown in with my wide, black stripes, my yellow chambray is all up in my calicoes, my browns and pinks are sleeping with each other — it’s mass hysteria. And it’s fabulous.
I’m seeing new combinations. I’m considering new styles. Fabrics I might never have put together before (e.g., pink, burgundy, navy) become, suddenly, very necessary combos.
So there you go. Mix ‘er up. Don’t be too regimented. A tidy stash and studio are essentials and I’ll keep preaching that gospel till I’m dead, but don’t be too strict with your materials. As I say in my book:
“Quilts are like dogs; the best ones are usually mixed breeds.”
The Royal We, by Mary Fons, 2013. It’s in my book.
Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking at a quilt guild in the Chicago suburbs. Everyone was gracious and awesome. There were many pans of bars. A merry time was had by all and I was honored to be there. Thank you, ladies.
When you do public speaking, there are a few loose rules to follow. You want to start out with thank you’s to the audience and the organizers, calling out specifically (albeit subtly) the person who will be signing your check; you want to keep things clipping along, so watch those tangents; if it’s a slideshow have lots of slides; and always have a closer.
This last thing is something used more by comedians than Toastmasters, but it’s a smart move for anyone who has the attention of a large, seated group of people for more than thirty minutes. A closer is the last bit a comedian does before leaving the stage. This closing piece is typically the comedian’s biggest joke and receives the biggest laugh.
I have a closer. Slays ’em every time. Wanna hear it? This comes straight from Marianne Fons, who, you’ll remember, is hilarious. It’s really better in person, so you’ll have to invite me to your guild, shop, or event so I can bring the house down with it, okay? You might have to be a quilter to really get it, but I assure you, this illicits howls of laughter for those who know.
How To Wash a Quilt In 6 Easy Steps
(The Fons Way)
1. Get your hands on some gentle detergent. Orvus paste is good, even a gentle lingerie detergent would do.
2. Find a front-loading washer with a gentle cycle. (The front-loader’s agitation is better for a quilt than the spinny, top-loading model.)
3. Get a large, oldish towel. This could be a beach towel, or something else from the linen closet or garage.
4. Fold the towel several times long-ways. Place towel at the base of the machine, right there at the front.
5. Load your quilt. Load detergent. Press “start” on the machine.
6. Get down on your knees on that towel, woman, and pray.
I got the mail today and what was inside but a small, padded manila envelope from one Margaret Maloney. Margaret lives in Brooklyn and we had a blind date set up to go to a quilt guild meeting together this summer. I was unwell when the day came, however, and had only recently arrived home from an out-of-town trip. I was too pooped to pucker and bummed out not to meet Margaret.
Not long ago, she asked me for my mailing address, which of course I gave to her. Here is what she wrote on the card that came with the item you see above:
“Dear Mary,
I hope that this Pocket Pendennis can be a help to you at times when a full-size sock monkey might be impractical. I think it is lucky — I worked on it on the train to and from a successful interview for admission into medical school. I’m sorry this city hasn’t been good to you — it doesn’t know what its missing! I hope our paths will cross another time.
Best,
Margaret”
I’m pretty speechless, Margaret. Thank you. Congratulations on getting into medical school and way to go being extremely articulate and possessing of stunning penmanship, but mostly thank you for hand-appliqueing my sweet little monkey on a quilted square. You cannot know how much better you made my day. It was rainy, I was sad, and my tummy is extremely mad at me these days.
It would look so nice with a big, fat bow on it, don’t you think?
Happy Holidays!
‘Tis the season for sales and promotions and I’m getting into the game. I’m offering my book on sale for $20 dollars*, signed and personalized by me, from now until December 31st!
“Personalized” means that if your name is Fido, I will write, “Dear Fido: Thank you! Best, Mary Fons” along with my Heart Plus logo and the year. That’s my standard inscription, but if you’d like a little something extra, like “Merry Christmas!” or “You cray-cray!” or “From the team at Acme Co. — let’s have a great 2015,” you let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
This book is my first and it has quite a bit of my writing inside, as well as beautiful photography and twelve (12) original scrap quilt patterns for bed-sized quilts. I have seen photographs of quilts folks have made from my book and they look fantastic. There’s a lot of how-to, tips, and extras in the book and the Amazon reviews are great, so don’t take my word for it!
Here’s all you have to do: Click on the Make + Love Book tab on my website. Scroll down and you’ll find a PayPal button there. You don’t need a PayPal account to use it to buy the book! PayPal will give me your shipping address.Please let me know who to make the book out to! I will get books out as soon as I can; my goal is within two (2) days of ordering, but with my travel schedule, be kind. Books will be sent media mail.
The price of the book ranges from $17.68 (Amazon) to $22.95 (bookstores) so you’re getting a great price and something you can’t get from Amazon or a bookshop: a personalized book with an autograph. I love bookshops and Amazon, but this is Christmas! It’s all about the sparkly extras.
Happy shopping this season. I know it’s overwhelming.
*Plus shipping. One book ships for about $5 bucks; any order of three books or more gets free shipping. Whee!
Quilt Market is like this hedge maze, except with more booths, more people, and guards at the doors who won’t let you bring in your coffee so you have to smuggle it in your purse. Not that I’ve ever done that. (Photo: Stan Shebs.)
For the next four days, I’ll be deep in the labryinth of International Quilt Market, Extreme Fall Edition.
Quilt Market is a crucial event for folks with serious business to do within the quilt industry. It occurs every year at the end or tail end of October; you could set your desk calendar to it and most industry people do: Market is where the biggest deals are done, where shop owners plan their strategies, where new careers are unveiled, and many meetings are taken in which one is advised to take notes.
From the time we were old enough to register the lives of our parents, Quilt Market was important in my life and the lives of my two sisters. Mom went to Market every year, and how we knew it was important was because Mom usually bought something new to wear to it and she didn’t do much shopping back then (still doesn’t, but back then it was because the family financial situation was mighty precarious.) We were also well aware Market was held in Houston, and this was strange in our young minds because our paternal grandparents also lived in Houston and we only had poor memories of those grandparents. We were dimly aware that Mom and our estranged dad had met in Houston and gotten married there. So Houston was an emotionally charged place for us (or maybe just me) and every year, Mom went there for work. Maybe it sounds irrational that her annual trip would cause us anxiety, but kids’ emotions are complex, especially when there’s been a painful schism in a family.
And now I go. This is perhaps my sixth Market? Something like that. I love it. I love the energy, the concentration of hundreds upon hundreds of talented people in one place. I love the effort that everyone puts forth to make this Market the best Market ever. The color in the place is dazzling. And at the heart of it all? Quilts. Well, money is also at the heart of it. But the quilts come first and the money follows, so quilts win. Isn’t that something? A Nebraskan quilter who had a name but is now only remembered as “Anonymous,” stitching along on a Log Cabin quilt in 1880 had no idea that what she was doing would yield all of this.
She’d be amazed. She’d be excited. She’d probably want to upgrade her sewing machine. At Market, she could do that. She could do a lot more than she could in 1880, that’s for sure. “Anonymous in 1880”? This Market’s for you. I will dash around in heels with my notebook and make deals and further the love of quilting in this country in the name of your anonymity. Together, we’ll help pull the next one up.**
*“Pull The Next One Up” is a brilliant poem by my friend Marc Smith, founder of the poetry slam. Google the poem and prepare for goosebumps. I love you, Marc.
“Hitchens,” by Mary Fons, 2013. 70 x 70. It could fit the ceiling.
If you watch Love of Quilting on PBS, you surely know (and love) The Tip Table.
Mom and I sit at the Tip Table at the end of every show and share tips sent in from viewers across the country. The tips are clever, resourceful, and useful to quilters. We get way more tips than we can share, but we get to as many as we can each series.
Today, Mom and I had a fantastic day in Seattle doing the first of a two-day BabyLock dealer event. I woke up with lots of pep and the day was a rousing success for all (thank you, BabyLock, and the fine folks at Quality Sewing & Vacuum.) Before our second lecture of the afternoon, a lady named Lynn gave me a tip that I have to share.
“I live in an apartment,” Lynn said. “If you’ve got noisy neighbors, hang your quilts on the wall. They look beautiful and they muffle the sound!”
Isn’t that smart? I grew up with a few quilts (big ones) hung on walls in our home. There was a Tree Everlasting quilt on the dining room wall for over a decade. But I never thought about hanging quilts in any apartment I’ve ever had in order to soundproof noisy neighbors. And boy, have I had some. A brilliant tip!
Then Lynn added, with a wink, “You could put ’em on the ceiling, too, you know, if you had…well, that sort of a noise problem,” she said, and though all the ladies that were gathered in our little tip-sharing group howled with laughter…I can’t share that one on TV.
Tonight, I cast aside this mortal coil and share the love of quilts for an hour. It seems fitting that tonight’s Color Me Quilter webinar considers yellow. Sunshine, lemon meringue pie, a banana peel pratfall — yellow is key in all this joy. Yellow reaches a long, golden arm into the history of the American quilt, too; from calico to Chrome, quilts show plenty of yellow through the ages.
Putting this lecture together over the past few weeks has been a refuge for me, in fact. It’s hard not to be cheerful when you’re looking at quilt after sunshiney quilt. And tonight, live from Chicago, you can join me online for the talk and I’ll share with you how to harness the power of yellow in your own work. We’ll talk contrast and hue and how best to “push” yellow in one direction or another. I will also offer a bonus lesson in substrates and you’ll see so many quilts, you’ll probably run to your machine to sew when we’re done.
The show begins at 7pm CST. If you’d like to join the party, click here and wear your best Big Bird costume. No one will see you in it, but we’ll feel it.
Starting on Monday and for the next six weeks, you can enroll in an online course, designed by me, to will teach you how to make beautiful, accurate patchwork. It’s fun. It’s relaxed. It’s Quilty time, is what I’m saying.
Enjoy this nifty video I made the other day about the course. I hope to see you in class.
