Edie McGinnis

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is right around Pumpkin Piethe corner. It’s one of my favorite holidays. A cartful of groceries, a little cooking and I’m ready to go. It’s also a time to reflect on our blessings. I’m thankful for all of my family and friends, my home and my work. But I’m a quilter and there is a particular list of things to be thankful for when one lives in the world of quilting.

I think back to the quilters that came before, Marie Webster, Ruby Short McKim, Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, and wonder what they would have done with the tools we now have available. I would be willing to bet that the quilt shop as we know it would have taken their breath away. No more cardboard or sandpaper templates, no treadle sewing machine and no more poor lighting.

Here is my list of things I’m thankful for regarding my favorite pastime of quilting.

1. My rotary cutter. This has to be the one most valuable tool invented for today’s quilter. I don’t think I would care much for quilting if I had to cut out every piece with scissors, and I probably wouldn’t be very accurate.

Last weekend I took a day off from my sewing and went to the quilt show put on by the Lee’s Summit Quilt Guild of Lee’s Summit, Mo. Let me tell you, they have some very talented quilters there.

Shirley Duncan, who now lives in Independence, was theShirley Duncan, featured quilter featured quilter. Shirley is a fantastic quilter and teacher. She is known around the area as an expert at hand quilting and has the blue ribbons to prove it. Shirley shares her knowledge in the art of quilting at Quilter’s Station in Lee’s Summit where she teaches classes on hand and machine piecing as well as quilting. Everyone who knows Shirley was thrilled to see her honored.

One of the features of the quilt show was an old-fashioned bed turning. A what? That’s right, a bed turning. A bed was set up and had layer upon layer of quilts on the mattress. A speaker told the history of the quilt that was showing on top of the bed. When she was done, the quilt was folded over the pillows so the audience could see the next quilt and hear its story.

Sometimes I get ahead of myself when I am making a scrappy quilt. It’s the weirdest thing. I make a few blocks, pin them up on my design wall and start seeing problems. Not only do I start seeing problems, I begin to try to resolve them.

Hmmmm, what could be wrong with this picture? (Speaking of pictures, I’d love to show you one, but this is going in a book so you’ll have to wait a bit.)

I am working with the precut Honey Buns. Those are 1 1/2” strips. Each bundle or roll contains 40 strips of fabric and one gets every piece from a line. I love the pattern. The blocks are fun and quick to make.

So what’s the issue? I’m sure inquiring minds want to know.

The fabric line I’m using has wonderful colors. Reds, blues, browns, pinks, tans and beiges make up the color palette. I put together one of my blocks using the reds that were in the roll and the beiges. It’s a very pretty block . . . until I put it up on the wall with the others that are much darker. Now the block is screaming, “Look at me! Look at me!” I can almost see it jumping to the forefront instead of melting in with the others.

I make more blocks. In one of them I use the beige with dark blue. Now I have two blocks that want to be the main focus. My eyes go directly to those two blocks. Yikes!

The big area event this week is the AQS Show in Des Moines, Iowa. Okay, maybe "area" is a bit of a stretch, but I call anything within a 200 mile radius doable. Especially when it involves quilts and when a show is on this grand a scale.

I drove up to Des Moines yesterday for the show. When I walked in the door to the main arena, I was greeted with the sight of row after row of vendors. Toward the front of the hall was the AQS exhibit of Burgoyne Surrounded quilts. Quilters used that pattern as a jumping off place to create a new look.

At the back of the hall was an exhibit of quilts and the Artful Bra Project. I’m sure you know of the Artful BraArtful Bras Project but just in case you don’t, quilters from South Carolina decorated bras to bring awareness to the issue of breast cancer. Some deal with the aftermath, some with the loss of a friend or relative, some with enduring the disease. And like everything else in life, it helps to have a sense of humor. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go see this exhibit. We also published Artful Bras: Hooters, Melons and Boobs, Oh My! A Quilt Guild’s Fight Against Breast Cancer to celebrate this exhibit.

The Original Sewing & Quilt Expo is in town. Vendors, quilts and dolls less than 10 miles from my house, how could I not go?

I met up with my friend Barb and her friend, Judy, from Columbia, Mo., at the KCI Expo Center around noon and we were off and running. Barb and Judy are art quilters.Some of my purchases Me, I’m as traditional as they come. So this was quite an experience for me.

I’ve not seen any of Judy’s work but she talked about doing screen printing on fabric. That’s an art medium I’ve not tried yet.

Now, Barb, I’ve known for many years. We raised our babies together and we had our own little sewing group over in Columbia before I moved to Kansas City about 25 years ago. That tells you a bit about this friendship that has endured.

When we first started getting together to sew, Barb was working on an Overall Sam quilt for her son Rick. She had started it when he was a baby, and he was around 8 or 9 when she picked it back up. She was determined to finish that quilt and accomplished that before I moved to K.C.

My own bed looked mighty good when I got home from Houston at 10 p.m. Tuesday night. My cats, Ally and Earl, let me know how neglectful of their needs I had been by winding themselves around my ankles. Some people consider that a tripping hazard (I’m one of those people), but the cats seem to think it’s their job to put me on notice that they are a tad miffed about me being gone for a week.

Even though I drove through rain the biggest part of the trip, I had the most fun ever on the way home. I caravanned with Barb Adams and Alma Allen of Blackbird Designs. When I left Houston, I had to stop and gas up the car so I was about 30 – 45 minutes behind them.

We stopped for the night just south of Dallas in Ennis, Texas, and stayed at the same hotel. We met for breakfast and made some plans for the day.

Barb and Alma had plans to stop at the Moda warehouse and asked if I would like to go. They were planning on doing some shopping and they thought maybe I would be able to find a few things as well.

Think of it! Shopping at Moda! Fess up, I know you’re jealous!

Moda’s warehouse is overwhelming. Check out the video! Aisle after aisle of steel racks of shelving hold the most glorious array of fabrics. The fabric was arranged by designer lines. Blackbird had quite a lot of space dedicated to their lines as did Brannock and Patek, Sandy Gervais, Minnick and Simpson and Three Sisters to name a few.

Here we are at market watching all the people going to and fro, stopping, looking, buying, talking, laughing, finding old friends and making new ones. People are here 'Moda Village': Alma Allen of Blackbird Designs signs for a fan.from all over the world, so there is a polyglot of languages drifting through halls. A distributor from Spain stopped by yesterday, and surely the ladies from France will be by later. Quilting is truly an international obsession.

So what and whom have we seen around market? I saw Mark Lipinski chatting with Barb Adams and Alma Allen. He’s left Quilter’s Home Magazine and has moved on to other endeavors. He has a line of thread under his name with the Aura-fil Thread Company. Gasp! Will Quilter’s Home survive his departure?

Got the quilts? Check!
Got the ladder? Check!
Got the drying rack? Check!
Got the linen rack? Check!

Diane has been laying the groundwork for Market for weeks now – getting the paperwork done to reserve our booth and arrange for the utilities, plus creating our sales sheets and promotional materials.

I’ve been hurrying to put the finishing touches on one more quilt for display.

Now it’s time to load up and head south to Houston. Props, books . . . boxes and boxes of books go in Doug’s van. All the quilts go in my car. On Thursday, Diane flies in from Portland and we begin to set up.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of “stuff” a vendor takes along to make a booth look inviting. We have big blue tubs filled with drapes. The drapes are black, so they make a perfect background for any color quilt we hang. We have a few extra lengths of black fabric we use to hide our boxes and tubs. We usually stack them so we have a built up display for quilts that aren’t hanging.

In addition to the quilts, I also bring the props from home. I bring an old wooden ladder. It’s not only handy for hanging quilts, but it’s beat up enough that it looks quite nice with a primitive quilt flowing over the steps. A quilt on the ladder fills up and enhances a corner.

Hannibal - the town of Samuel Clemens, Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer. Huck, Tom and Becky were some of my best friends when I was a child. Floating down the river with Jim and Huck, whitewashing a fence with Tom, frog jumping contests, I was doing it right along with them in my imagination.

I used to drive through Hannibal all the time when I went to see my dad in Illinois. And that was about all I did, drive through. It was my stopping place to fill up the car with gas and get the boys something to eat.

Recently I was invited to Hannibal to be a speaker atMark Twain and Tom Sawyer quilts greet customers in the Hickory Stick Quilt Shop the inaugural quilting event, Hometown Stitches at the Hickory Stick. The Hickory Stick is the quilt shop in Hannibal owned by Pat Waelder. The event was held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the shop.

Did you think I was gone forever? No, I’m still here. My version of Across the Wide MissouriI’ve had my head buried in research for the Block of the Month project for 2010. We will have the patterns ready to go for fall market next month in Houston.

I guess you probably want to know what it’s all about, don’t you? Jan Patek and I partnered up and designed the quilt. We are calling it Across the Wide Missouri. St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph were gateways to the West for the wagon trains.

We know many things about the men who went west. There Jan's version of Across the Wide Missouriis no shortage of tales of their derring-do. But what about the women? Where are the stories of their bravery, their sacrifices? Why is it that their stories are only included as afterthoughts?