Karla's Color Corner

Let's Talk Corduroy

Fall is in the air - can you smell it? Can you feel it? This is my FAVORITE time of year - mainly because of the COLORS. Burnt oranges and rusts, golds, reds, yellows. I love how green leaves get brighter just before they start to turn yellow. I love the contrast of a Maple tree set off against the darker green pines. I love how the Aspens scream "look at me" as they pop out flaming yellow next to a deep dark rusty Oak tree. We are very lucky in Minnesota to have such a wide variety of trees that change at their own pace, in their own color. Many 8-step gradations take form in my brain during autumn....

 

But what I really want to talk about is CORDUROY. Soft, fuzzy, scrumptious Corduroy.... Did you know that we dye it in 40 colors? We found a supplier a couple years ago who had PFD Corduroy and decided to try it out. Well, the dyes took wonderfully to it and it is so nice to see the Suede Look sinking into the soft, fine wale of the Cord. For those who are not as familiar with the terminology, "wale" refers to the size of the "stripes" of corduroy. Ours is a "pin wale" meaning the stripes are very small, and the fabric itself is quite thin. In fact it does not feel much thicker than our cotton.

Which means you can use them TOGETHER.... (Chocolate Corduroy with North Shore Bundle seen here)

 "Star" by Country Threads uses Winestone, Redwood, Juniper and Chocolate corduroy for the star points, and Bronze cotton for the background, Indigo cotton for the borders. I had no problem working with the 2 fabrics. And I did not worry about which way the wale was going when I cut it out. I just cut (on grain, of course.)

When we first started dyeing the Corduroy, I thought "let's just try it in about 6 darker, "corduroy-ey colors." So I chose Redwood, Winestone, Juniper, Chocolate, Avocado and Indigo. But then I tried some brighter colors. WOW do I like that. My favorites right now are:

Salsa.... Pumpkin... Grasshopper... Peacock Blue

I really, really want a trench coat style jacket in Pumpkin with Cinnamon accents... YUM :-)

Check out some more patterns we are carrying that we have sewn up in Corduroy:

This is a reversible jacket called "Twice As Nice" by Patty Dunn. We used Royal Blue Corduroy on the outside and a batik from SewBatik on the inside.

Breezy Block Jacket by Lorraine Torrence

Retro Raglan Jacket by Indygo Junction

Mandaly Medley by Lorraine Torrence (The center panel is corduroy and the rest of the jacket is cotton)

Cherrywood Challenge

I have to pass on a story that I just re-uncovered in my archives:

In 2004, Doris Morelock Hendrickson gave 8-step bundles to five of her friends as Christmas presents. She challenged them to make a quilt using any techniques they liked, but everything was kept very secretive. On September 9, 2006 they all gathered for a wonderful luncheon to unveil the quilts. The Cherrywood theme was carried through the menu with Cherry Spritzers, Cherry Vanilla Ice Tea, Cherry Garcia Ice Cream... The centerpieces were cherry picking crates, and each participant receive a bowl hand-turned from Cherrywood (compliments of Doris' husband, John). ALl this led up to the grand unveiling:

Wow - isn't this impressive????

Here is Doris with her hand-appliqued and hand quilted celtic wallhanging. Just stunning....

Brenda Hruska worked with "French Country" to create the fabulous stained glass quilt called "Quilted Glass."

"Deep Gems" found a great home in Martha Stephenson's capable hands. It is hand appliqued and heavily hand quilted.

Nancy Levine was inspired by the book "Stack a New Deck" and the Renaissance and Spice Jar bundles. Her family named this quilt "Autumn Winds." It is machine pieced and hand quilted with the big stitch.

Brigitta Hortin is from Sweden (Doris met her when she was teaching American Patchwork Quilting at the British Education Center in Germany. Brigitta was her student.) Brigitta made this Tessellation quilt from "Deep Gems." The centers of the flowers are embellished with beads.

Brigitta's daughter, Ingrid Hortin created this dragon from "Sueded Gems" and "Frosted Gems." I would LOVE to see this hand appliqued, hand embroidered and trapunto quilt in person.There is heavy stippling in the background.

Detail of Ingrid's, quilt...

Thank you so much for sharing these photos with us, Doris, and for using Cherrywood as the springboard for your creativity. It is very inspriational.

SO, don't you think we should make an "official" Cherrywood Challenge?? With prizes?? My mind is spinning and I am already planning.... stay tuned - you will be the first to know the details.

Cherrywood Customers at Houston

These creative women were spotted in the booth at Houston showing off their garments. They each got a little "thank-you" gift from us. We LOVE seeing your finished projects... especially the ones that advertise Cherrywood as you wear them around the quilt show, to special occasions and just every day life.

Do you have a vest, jacket, dress or garment made from Cherrywood you would like me to post on my blog? Just e-mail me at info@cherrywoodfabrics.com.

Connie from Texas used Spice Jar for her Seminole Vest. Love that design....

Rose Marie Jaspriza, Pam Prest, Sandra Warren and Barbara Martin from Belle Chasse, Louisiana (located below New Orleans). These gals were ruthless in their mission to have their "Points on Parade" jackets completed before Houston Quilt Festival. They used purchased ribbon on their jackets to make it go faster. Great idea.

  

In fact, poor Pam was told she couldn't come unless she finished hers. The poor woman was sewing beads in the car all the way from New Orleans. She needed one night in the hotel room to get it finished so she could wear it to the show on Thursday. It was worth it - she did a great job and I love the extra touch on the back.

And I have to brag up my sister, Brenda, a little bit. She made all these models for us to have in the booth: Downie Jacket (Grapevine), Patched Poncho (Pumpkin, Chocolate and Redwood Rayon), The Bias Jacket (Peacock Blue Rayon) and the Rainbow Trails vest out of Grand Canyon. Great job, Brenda. 

Work Hard, Play Hard, Eat Heavy

So, traveling with my 2 older sisters and being their boss was pretty fun. It is a whole different dynamic. You gals with sisters will understand...

 

I took them to Benihanas since Brenda had never been to a Japanese Grill.

Funny thing was, our chef's name was Hector. We learned Japanese AND Spanish during dinner.

The gals in the background are from the PFAFF booth. Dawn was having a great time and her laugh was infectious. I didn't get photos of the rest of the gang, but I can remember Karla (with a "K") and Louis' names. They were all very fun to dine with. (Louis even shared his calamari with us. That is his Lobster on the grill.)

MMMMMMMMM.... piles of hot, steaming fried rice is my favorite. Along with the grilled zuchinni.

Here I am with Brenda and Stacy waiting for a table at Sambucas. We looked GREAT in our Cherrywood at the Quilt show, but felt a little underdressed at the jazz club. Or was it over-dressed? We weren't wearing skin-tight minis with lots of skin showing, so... we just watched the show from the corner and listened to the great 10-piece band... and wondered why nobody tried to buy us drinks... :-)

By the time these desserts arrived at our table at 10 p.m. we absolutely SCARFED them down. That one with the sauce was pure butter. You should seen Brenda sop up all the sauce she could with the little cakes. They should have given her a straw.

After the show closes and the customers all go home, there is inventory, packing, reorganzing, tearing down, packing, lifting, packing.... uffda. We were one of the last booths to get out of the show. Let's just say that my sisters are VERY attentive to detail and had many suggestions for how to make my system better. *smile* Empty boxes = lots of fabric sold.

This was the "Last Supper" of the quilt show: Fries and Pies. We found an all-night diner and ordered 2 platters of fries. After they disappeared, we each got a slice of pie as big as our heads. Mine was German Chocolate cake, Brenda got some sort of "Mud" pie, and Stacy got a chocolate pecan pie. And of course, being good Minnesota girls, tall glasses of milk.

Photo Tour of the Cherrywood booth in Houston

Here are more photos of the booth in Houston....

This was the "bright" corner of the booth: Rain Forest, Berry Patch, Rainbow Oranges, Blues and Greens. Quilts on the wall are (from left to right): Ring Toss, Rainbow in the Night Sky (new), Snapshots. The little framed piece is hand appliqued using a Grab Bag: pattern is called Fit to Frame.

Mod Quad quilt (by Blue Underground Studios) was quite the hit at Houston. And the Seminole Vest takes just one fat quarter bundle of Blue Lagoon. Other bright and happy colors shown on the table are Alaskan Sunset, French Country and Carnival. Customers couldn't help but smile at all these fun colors as they passed through.

Here you see Chestnut to Light, Santa Fe and Potter's Wheel 8-step gradations on the table. The wire racks are holding all our hand-dyed shirts. It is impossible to guess which size and color you guys are going to want, so we are happy to take orders. Tell us what size, what color and if you want short-sleeve or long-sleeve. If we don't have it in stock, I just dye it up and send it off to you in the mail. (We pride ourselves in fast delivery of Special Orders.) Did you know there are more than 80 choices in shirts alone??? Enough to make your head spin....

Oh, then there is the corduroy City Wraps jacket hanging by the corduroy Star Quilt.... yummy texture. More on corduroy later. :-)

No, that is NOT a leather jacket you see. It is made from hand-dyed Cherrywood. It is our very popular Town and Country Jacket designed by MorninGlory Designs. This jacket in particular fools many people and it is fun to watch them touch it to see what it feels like. (We encourage petting in the booth) We sold out of kits the third day, but that didn't stop customers from creating their own color ways. I just LOVE pulling customized kits together for people right before their eyes. When we hit on just the right color, there is a certain look in their eye that says "BINGO - that's the one). I feed off that energy...

What colors make you smile??

My Houston Adventure

Well, I am home from Houston and my road was paved with good intentions. I INTENDED to blog every night while I was at Quilt Festival. I had my computer, my WiFi and my camera. And I started 3 times, all to be foiled by technology pooping out on me at the last minute. I was working on a little netbook and I don't think it could handle it. Now I am home on my big, beautiful iMac and ready to try again.

So last Monday I met up with my two sisters in Houston. Brenda is the oldest and works in the MN State College arena as her real job. Stacy is the second oldest and works as the Executive Director for a Chamber of Commerce in Wyoming. So this is a TOTAL change of pace for them to come work for me in the Cherrywood booth.I am the youngest, but also the biggest, and love to boss them around for a week. :-)

Snow, rain, flight delays and obscure motels made our first night of travel less than ideal and we finally flopped into bed at 3 a.m. the first night. We had a free day before setting up the booth, so we started out at the crack of noon to explore Houston. This was the first time we rented a car on our journey, so it was quite the adventure. I soon learned that Brenda was not the best navigator... especially when she admitted that she usually "can't find her way out of a box." 

We drove in circles for awhile in the Medical District, wondering where all those people went for lunch. We finally found food in the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts and pigged out. Well, let me clarify: my sister Stacy is quite a small person. (Here is where you say "How small is she?") She is SO small that she ordered a bowl of soup as her first meal in over 12 hours, and couldn't even finish it. Yeah, expenses were pretty low for this trip. 

Then we were off to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. There was a funky little garden outside with cool felted things hanging from the vines.

 

   

And a quick trip to a salvage yard and antique shop was a whirlwind of rusty textures...

Then it was time to start setting up the booth at the Convention Center. We were greeted by 3 skids full of boxes to sort through and unpack. Here is how it started:

 
Here is a little more progress: putting fabric on the ugly tables. 

We had an L-shaped booth this year, which created a nice spotlight in the middle of the booth. During my planning, I was thrilled to get the offer from a Bernina Fashion Designer to loan us his garment to display in the booth. His name is Gilbert Muniz and he was chosen two years in a row to make a garment for the prestigious Bernina Fashion Show held at the Houston, Chicago and Long Beach quilt shows. He chose to make his garment almost entirely of Cherrywood Corduroy with cotton accents. It was really fun to see what our hand-dyed corduroy looked like in the hands of this talented designer...

 

 
As we were dressing the mannequin, we just had to see if Stacy was small enough to fit into the size 2 corset. She was.

Detail of the big ruffly flowers on the train of the gown.

Detail of the corset. The details were perfectly done.

And here is Gilbert Muniz himself posing next to his gown "Rumors." He was fun to have in the booth and the gown attracted a lot of attention. Most women wanted to know why there was so much padding at the hips where they didn't need it. Some wanted to but the pattern. I even got to meet his mother and cousin, and a couple of his former students stopped by. Gilbert is letting us travel with the gown this fall, so look for it at the Des Moines, IA quilt show next weekend. See the professional picture in my earlier post.

Here we are on opening night all dressed up and ready to go. Brenda (left) is wearing The Bias Jacket in Peacock Blue Rayon. I am wearing an original design based on the Pacific Rim Vest pattern by Lorraine Torrence. Stacy is wearing a jacket made by my friend Ia at Hmong Textile Arts in Warren, MI. Ia makes these beautiful jackets entirely from Cherrywood and sells them in her booth at quilt shows. When you realize all the work that goes into just one panel, you realize how reasonably price these jackets are.

Here is a sneak peek of the booth. I arranged things by color, and this is the "bright" end of the booth. Stay tuned for more photos from the quilt show. I will be adding more in the next couple of days. Right now, I need to get some sleep...
                

Quilt Show Season is HERE

I hope most of you are fortunate enough to be traveling to a quilt show next week. There are TWO really big ones.... if you haven't heard... and we are going to have booths at BOTH. (Talk about a logistical nightmare.)

Santa Clara, California -(YAY let's hear it for warm weather)

Pacific International Quilt Festival BOOTH 101

October 15-18

Linda and her crew will be there in our same spot which is just left of the main door. This need to be your FIRST stop so you can snatch up all the yummy new kits we have in the booth. One new quilt fresh-off-the-quilt-machine is called "Lady Madonna" sewn by Dorothy. 

I nicknamed it "Chocolate Swirl" because it reminds me of melted chocolate drizzled over a tablecloth....yummy.

Houston Quilt Festival BOOTHS 224, 225, 325

October 14-18

I will be traveling with my two sisters to a little show called QUILT FESTIVAL in Houston. Maybe you have heard of it? (tee-hee) I am very excited because I did not attend last year, so I am READY to be back. And (I am so excited) we are going to have a NEW look in the booth.

We are going to have an L-shaped booth on the end of the aisle, so it will be hard to miss us. When I was thinking about how to display things in this new format, I thought "We should have something really cool on the corner that we can spotlight." 10 minutes later, I got an e-mail from Gilbert Muniz, a fashion designer from Houston. He was offering his fabulous gown that he designed for the Bernina Fashion Show in 2008. It is made entirely of Cherrywood Corduroy and Cotton. PERFECT.

 
Wait until you see this in real life. I cannot believe how elegant he made this corduroy. And those flowers... those are COOL. I wish I could walk around Festival wearing this. Well... maybe not, but I wish I looked like that model.

I will also have some brand new things in the booth.

 

I have designed two patterns to go with our NEW Cherry Rolls (2.5" precut strips)

 

Cherry Roll Vine uses the Hot & Spicy Roll..... 

 Cherry Roll Ribbons uses Calm & Soothing Cherry Roll.

This is called "Rainbow in the Night Sky" by Common Threads.

"Acute Vest and Wonseam Pants" by Design and Planning Concepts

The vest is made from Bronze, Redwood and Bark Rayon. There is no piecing, so this is a fast vest. The curves and edges are simply topstitched on to the background after turning under the raw edge.

I made the pants from a gorgeous rayon shawl from Handloom Batik out of Hudson, NY. My friend, Usha, sent me a couple of shawls with a challenge to make something from them. The shawls come in several colors and are 2 yards wide so there is plenty of fabric to make these simple wide-legged pants, or a skirt. The silky drape is just perfect with Cherrywood Rayon and I love the fringe around the bottom.

***********

Oh - and do you love scraps? Do you hate to throw things away? Well we have a treat for you - Cherrywood Scrap Bags. 

They come in Cotton ($10), Corduroy ($12) and Rayon ($14). You get a WHOLE POUND of scraps to play with. When we make the CherryRolls, we end up with long, skinny strips that can be crocheted, knitted, woven, topstitched.... whatever you can imagine. We couldn't just throw them away, so the "Scrap Bag" was born. The Corduroy and Rayon bags have larger chunks in them which might have a few dye flaws in them or were just odd sizes left over from a project. Think pillows, applique, embellished jeans, fiber arts, scarves, fiber jewelry....

Remember, if you CAN'T visit us at these shows, you can always CALL us and get one-on-one attention. :-)

Queen of Quilting Visits

We at Cherrywood, and all my friends at out local Quilt Guild (Brainerd Pinetree Patchworkers) were VERY lucky to have the Internationally-known Machine Quilter come to teach and lecture:

DIANE GAUDYNSKI!!  (visit her website and blog)

She was just a delightful teacher. She taught Beginning machine quilting on Monday. Then gave a fabulous presentation that night at our meeting. On Tuesday, she taught intermediate quilting and many of us took both days so that we could absorb every little ounce of knowledge we could from this talented woman! She has figured everything out and shared her winning (literally!) combination of technique, silk thread  and  quality fabric... and of course we are thrilled that she is a huge fan of Cherrywood Hand Dyed Suede Look Cotton!

I can remember when I first encountered Diane Gaudyinski in 2001.... It was my first trip to the Quilt Festival in Houston with Cherrywood. I was nervous, excited, overwhelmed... I was busily setting up our booth when I peeked around the corner and was stopped dead in my tracks! 

"Through A Glass, Darkly: An American Memory" by Diane Gaudynski 2001

First of all I immediately recognized it as Cherrywood so I wanted to touch it (I resisted). Secondly, the dramatic use of SO many colors was quite impressive. Here was a stunning example of how Cherrywood colors blend so nicely with eachother because of the overall "muted" look. Diane had taken such care in color choice... And Thirdly, the workmanship and quilting of this quilt was... perfection. I am glad that I got to gaze at it while I worked feverishly to set up our 40 foot booth for the show, because the next day this quilt was GONE. It had been moved to the front of the show to the "Winner's Row" to show off it's "Master Award for Machine Artistry!!"

It is always a thrill to see Diane walk into our booth at Houston or Paducah. But to have her come to Brainerd to teach was an honor. After many compliments back and forth, we agreed upon mutual admiration of eachother's work. Diane's talent paired with our fabric is unbeatable! If you EVER get a chance to take a class from Diane, do so! You will not regret it.

I was also the lucky one who got to take her to the local quilt shop after class (Colorz for Quilts) and for a wonderful dinner at Prairie Bay restaurant. Diane was impressed with our little city and especially impressed that we had such fine dining - I had fucilli pasta with portobella mushrooms and goat cheese. YUM! Diane had manicotti stuffed with smoked mozzerella and roasted artichokes. Wow - doesn't she look happy?!

Two hours (and two desserts!) later, we went our separate ways. I was very impressed with Diane and am looking forward to our next meeting. Diane, if you are reading this - I hope you enjoyed your trip to Brainerd as much as we all did, and I hope you continue to work with and love Cherrywood. You have raised the bar in the industry!

I have more pictures in my Photo Album but here are my favorites:

"June Bug" Raffle Quilt

This is me standing in front of the monstrous Raffle Quilt I designed for our local quilt club, the Pinetree Patchworkers. If the colors look familiar to you, it is because this was the first attempt to dye the gradation that I later named "Tuscany". There are 240 paper pieced blocks with fused circles on top. I designed this in Adobe Illustrator on a Mac. I handed out fabric and papers to 40 members of my club in April and they returned them to me in May. When it grew too big for my design wall, I cleared out my living room and it lived there for about a week and I sewed rows together  (not an easy task with a 4 year old and 7 year old in the house!) It was quilted on a longarm machine by Laurie Carlson. 

As we speak, it is hanging at the Crow Wing County Fair where we are selling raffle tickets like crazy! If you would like to purchase tickets and do not know a Pinetree Patchworker member, you can send a check (payable to Pinetree Patchworkers) to: 

Raffle Tickets

c/o Cherrywood Fabrics

P.O. Box 486

Brainerd, MN, 56401

(I can also add ticket sales onto Cherrywood sales!)

Tickets are $1 a piece. I will send the ticket stub back to you in a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you include it.

Drawing will be held at our Quilt Show in Brainerd, Minnesota on Sat. June 12, 2010. Need not be present to win. 

Minnesota Shop Hop

I was invited to set up shop at Colorz for Quilts here in Brainerd for the opening weekend of the Minnesota Shop Hop. I demonstrated how to use Cherry Rolls in quilt patterns and clothing. I worked on a new colorway for the "Cherry Roll Vine" pattern (seen hanging off the table above) and talked about the "Fat Quarter Jacket" using precut strips. Many Cherrywood customers were delighted to see me there (since we don't have our own retail shop) and many people were new to Cherrywood and it was a nice way to present it to them. We are in lake country and there were many out-of-towners who were vacationing here or visiting their cabin. 

Susan Lommen, co-owner of Colorz, kept the Cherry theme going with these great treats! Isn't this cute?!

Bring Cherrywood close to a wall of batiks in a quilt shop and they just BEG to be put together!

Here is the "Wet & Wild" Cherry Roll all sewed together. It is so nice to just sit down and sew without having to measure and cut. You end up with this huge palette of color just waiting to be subcut into something fun!

OR you can just overlap the strips a quarter inch on a muslin foundation and do this free-motion zig zag stitch to tack down the raw edges. I dropped the feed dogs on my machine, set the stitch to a triple zig zag (regular zig zag will also work), and moved the fabric back and forth as I sewed. The needle is going back and forth one way and I am jerking the fabric back and forth at a different speed, so the stitches are random and carefree! It is so fun - try it! And use our Cherrywood Variegated Thread (Carnival shown here) to get the perfect colors and 1-inch color change.

That is how I made this jacket - The Fat Quarter Jacket by Kathie Downie. It has a princess seam hidden in the muslin foundation, so there is a nice shape to it.