Staff Profile: Kayla

MLXLS​​It is time for the second post in our series of staff profiles. This week I am up.

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I am the oldest of 6 kids with two little brothers and three little sisters. I am married to my high school sweetheart and we will be celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary in November. Together, as of  today we have four boys, the fourth born this morning, May 01 2018.  Our oldest will be 7 this fall and is currently finishing up Grade 1. The next is nearly five and will be starting Kindergarten in September. My third son is 3 and does everything he can to keep up with his older brothers. We live 10 minutes from Coaldale on a half acre lot that has lots of room for my boys to burn their energy, and just enough yard work to keep my husband busy without getting overwhelmed. One of my sisters lives 2 houses down from me and she watches my children while I am working.

For the past two years I have been working at Chicken Feed Quilts twice a week, but I am currently on maternity leave. Before that I worked for my dad on the farm as well as at Coaldale Nurseries for 5 or 6 years. 

I love hot weather, though I think that if lived in a climate that was always warm I would actually miss the changing seasons. There is something to be said for crisp fall mornings and changing leaves, cold, snowy winter days, and the first green leaves of spring. 

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Like most of the members of my family I love to water ski, my husband has recently learned to love it, and  3 of my boys enjoy it as well, so it is a fun activity that we can all do together. My husband and I also play softball together, though I will be watching from the sidelines this year. 

My mom taught me to to sew at a young age and I sewed mainly doll clothes. As I grew older I set sewing aside.  

I took up quilting soon after I was married but I didn’t do a lot of it until about 3 years ago. When I first started I only liked quilt patterns that were composed of squares or rectangles. Stars and triangles did not hold any appeal for me, and sampler quilts were not my thing. If you look at quilts that I have done in the past couple years though,  things have definitely changed in that department. I now love Elizabeth Hartman’s patterns and have made several large quilts and a few pillows using them. 

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One of my favourite quilts is a Block Of The Month I did by Sew Kind Of Wonderful called Urbanologie, and the other is another Block Of The Month, this one by Sherri from A Quilting Life. 

I usually will have one or two difficult or time consuming projects on the go and work on easier quilts at the same time. I love working with little pieces, but sometimes I just need a quick finish. 

Aside from quilts I enjoy making bags and have made several wallets, backpacks, zipper pouches, tote bags, purses and duffle bags. 

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I almost never make the same pattern twice and this applies to quilts, wall hangings, runners and bags. There are so many patterns out there that I love to try a new one each time. 

My favourite fabric designers are definitely Sherri and Chelsi, a mother daughter team who design for Moda. I love the colours and the prints in their lines and they have awesome low volume prints in each line that work great for scrappier backgrounds. I also love Sherri’s patterns they are so fun and are written really well. I met Sherri at Quilt Market last fall and she is so sweet and down to earth. 

I also love Art Gallery Fabrics, the quality of their fabric is incredible and it is amazing to work with. Pat Bravo and Maureen Cracknell are probably my favourite designers for this company. 

I, like Esther, work best in lines of fabric but I am getting better at putting together projects with fabric from all over the store. In fact Urbanologie is a quilt in which I pulled fabric from throughout Chicken Feed Quilts rather than sticking with a particular line or designer. 

I hope to ease back into working at the shop again this summer, but we will see how that goes. I will still pop in and out though as I can't seem to stay away and need to see all the new fabric when it comes in. I will also continue writing the blog during my leave. 

Have a fantastic week!

Kayla

 

Be My Neighbor: Block 4

SXLLM​​MLXLS​​We have reached the first quarter mark in the in the Be My Neighbor Quilt Along. I found House 4 a little less finicky than the last block but we are introduced to a new technique again. Both Esther and I chose to make the quarter square triangles (QST) differently than how the pattern instructs. We used the same method but trimmed our final blocks with different rulers. 

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Both of us cut two 5.5” squares of each color that was in our QST and placed them right sides together, marked a line down the diagonal and sewed a quarter inch on each side. We than cut on our marked line, and pressed to one side just like a half square triangle. Than we placed our two Half square triangle units right sides together again this time with opposite colours touching SXLLM​​each other and nesting the seams in the center. We than again marked the diagonal (this time across the previous stitch line), sewed a quarter inch in each side and cut them apart on the marked line again. I pressed my seams open here for a little less bulk, Esther pressed to one side again. 

Esther used her 4-in-1 half square triangle ruler from Creative Grids to trim her blocks and we did a short video of this which you can view on our Facebook Page.

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I used the 4.5” Square Ruler also by Creative Grids to trim my blocks. I laid the the diagonal line on the ruler on one seam and used the halfway markings on the ruler to make sure I was square all the way around and than trimmed them quick using my rotating mat. 

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I am currently working on two quilts that combine to have 192 QST units and 192 3patch QSTs that finish at 4” which is the same as the ones in this block so I have gotten lot of practice in the last couple weeks. 

One other thing I did while making my blocks was to pin the squares for the house roof in place while sewing them. With them being so large I was scared they would shift while I was stitching, so I just put one pin in the center to hold it, this also made it easy to make the trimmed portion into a half square triangle without any re positioning. 

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Wanderlust was delivered this week, and I know it is super popular with all of us that work in the store so if you want some you better come in store quick. This line  has small prints in amazing citrus colours inspired by Indian Clothing. I love the neutrals they are perfect for scrappier backgrounds. 

I have a little more baby sewing to finish off this week before Friday's post so that's what I hope to spend tomorrow doing.

Kayla 

Staff Profile: Esther

Every day at the store we meet new people and reconnect with others. We hear about what is happening in your life, who the next quilt you are making is for and upcoming family events like weddings, graduations and new additions to the family. You share with us about your vacations, or how busy you are at work currently, the joys and the heartaches of daily life. We love this, it makes all of you special to us and you become our friends rather than just another customer walking through our doors. 

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MLXLS​​Today when I was picking out some fabrics for a car seat cover I said I needed a blog idea for this evening, Jennifer suggested the idea of doing a profile on everyone working at the store, and when the words came out she looked like she wanted to take them back because Esther and I jumped on the idea. I have been contemplating the idea for awhile now, and it turns out I wasn't alone, and so for the next few weeks I will be doing a blog post on each of us. Hopefully this will help you to learn a little more about each of us. Logically Esther is up first. 

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Esther married my Dad, Jim nearly 28 years ago. They live and work on a Dairy Farm just east of Coaldale. Together they have had 6 children. I am the oldest, Carrie is the youngest and we have two brothers and two sisters in between that. Three of us are married now and we all still live close to home. Esther has 5 grandchildren now and two more expected in the next few months. Our family is really close and we all come home for dinner on Sunday Evenings. SXLLM​​

The majority of our family is big into water skiing and several years ago my dad expanded the dugout in their backyard to be large enough for a water ski course and a boat. Esther spends a lot of her summer on the water driving the boat and swimming with the grandkids. In the winter she loves going on water ski trips to Orlando, Florida.

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SXLLM​​Esther loves being busy and taught home ec at Coaldale Christian School for 7 years, often with cooking for the first semester and sewing the second. She had little kids at home during this time, and her only stipulations were that she could only do one day a week, and her kids had to be able to come with her. When they moved to a bigger dairy farm 10 years ago, Esther gave up the teaching to be more involved with the bookwork of the farm. 

Esther has been sewing since a very young age. She started out with sewing clothes for herself, and she made her wedding dress which was absolutely stunning. As us children grew up she made a lot of our clothes, I remember so many new dresses for church and special occasions, new school outfits, pjs and even swimsuits. Our dolls were often decked out in outfits that matched our own. She also did some upholstery work, recovering chairs, tractor and boat seats. 

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She sewed my grad dress, and two of my sisters as well, Carrie graduates next year and I'm sure Esther will find the time to make hers as well. She also sewed my wedding dress and I loved how I got a one of a kind dress that was 100% unique. SXLLM​​

When we kids got to old to sew for, Esther took a break from sewing and started Scrapbooking, she made some amazing books and had a lot of fun but found it to be less relaxing and therapeutic than her sewing was. 

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SXLLM​​This is when she got into quilting, she took her first class from Tammy 12 years ago and has been hooked ever since. Since than she has made more quilts, table toppers, bags and wallets than she could ever count, recently she has added some rugs to the mix as well. Many of her quilts and toppers have been given away to family and friends, and I have multiple quilts in my house that she made for me, my husband or my kids. Up until about two years ago Esther preferred to work more with the traditional fabrics, and her stash of Kansas Trouble Fabric is pretty incredible, but she has branched out and loves working with pretty much anything, but still prefers lines of fabric rather than pulling fabric from multiple designers. 

Esther never does anything halfway and so she bought Chicken Feed Quilts, nearly two years ago, with her husband's complete support and encouragement. She loves owning the store and has no regrets whatsoever. She has made lots of changes in the store, and I know she has more changes up her sleeve. 

The next profile will be in a couple weeks, as next week Tuesday is Week 4 of our Be My Neighbor Quilt Along. I hope to spend some time this week doing some sewing for my little one,a nd will share some of the projects with you in a couple weeks. 

 Kayla

Be My Neighbor: Block 3

SXLLM​​It is week 3 of our Be My Neighbor Quilt Along. I am having so much fun making these blocks, it’s so nice to set aside all my other projects and pull this one out and work on just one block and than put it away again without it feeling like an unfinished project, in fact I feel accomplished each time another block is finished on time. I hope all of you managed to finish your Block 2’s, the ones I have seen are looking great. 

MLXLS​​This block has just a little bit of appliqué. I used to shy away from any project that had the dreaded “a” word but not anymore. I still don’t love it and I am not very good at it all but they say practice makes perfect and so I shall keep on doing it. 

In the pattern the images are not reversed, which means if you were to trace the picture they give you right on to your fusible web or steam a seam and than iron that on to your fabric your bird would be facing the wrong way. What I did was trace the bird pieces onto a piece of paper, flipped this over and traced the upside down images onto my trans web. When I cut these out and ironed them onto the wrong side of the fabric my bird came out the correct way.

On my Art Gallery Block instead of the bird the pattern provides, I fussy cut one from one of the prints in my Color Master Boxes. I have enough left to use on the remaining blocks that have birds on them. 

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To do the appliqué I did a simple zigzag on all the raw edges. 

If you would like you could do turned edge appliqué but I cannot give you any advice on this as I have never done it. 

Also there is a few more birds in the rest of the quilt, so to keep all my appliqué the same I wrote down my zigzag length and width in my pattern book, this way I won’t have to remember what size I did or test my stitches to get them the same. 

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As it turns out the base of an Aurifil Spool is 1.25” so I traced that for the hole on my birdhouse instead of the circle they gave.

Here is the link to the pattern. I hope you enjoy making this block. 

This week at the store the GO dies are on for a buy more save more deal in addition to a free gift with your GO purchase. If you have been waiting to purchase a couple dies now is your chance. Esther also decided to add machines to the sale, so all three sizes the GO Baby, the GO and the Electric GO are all 15% off through Saturday. If you have any questions about them or would like a demonstration on how they work come in store. 

This week is another session of Grid Girls so check back Friday to see what we are working on this month, and due to appointments and school schedules I will be working for a little while tomorrow and a couple of hours on Friday so I will get some pictures of new fabric that has come in store and share them on the blog as well. 

Kayla

 

 

 

 

Be My eighbor: BLock 2

SLXLM​​It’s week 2 of our Be My Neighbor Quilt Along. All of the Block 1 houses that I seen looked great, and all of them were so very different. I love that so many of you are striving to use up your stash with this quilt along. 

Today we will be doing Block 2. This block is a lot of fun but the center of the house can be a little tricky so I have a few different tips for you. 

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First off I cut my squares for the triangles at 4” and 2.5” rather than the 8th measurements the patterns gives. I always do this as it’s easier to cut and gives me a little extra room to trim later on. Also instead of cutting them in half on the diagonal I left mine as squares, drew a line down the center and stitched a quarter inch away on each side than cut in half. This decreases a little how much stretching goes on. This combined with some starch provided me with some perfect points. 

For the center of the house I pressed all my seams open. This helped a lot to get the block to lay nice and flat without bunchy seams.  

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This next tip is something I like to do whenever I make the stitch and flip flying geese like we do in this block. After trimming off the extra triangles I will stitch them together to get a half square triangle rather than more scraps. Than when I have enough I will put them together in a quilt or in this case I will keep them together and have them ready for another block in the quilt that uses HSTs. 

I cannot wait to see this weeks blocks, be sure to join our Facebook Group, or send me an email with photos of your blocks. My email is kayla@chickenfeedquilts.com

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For a video tutorial that Esther did on half square triangles check out our Facebook Page. I will try to get the video posted on the gallery page for our Be My Neighbor QAL.

We will be closed this week Friday and Saturday, March 30 and 31 for Easter, and will reopen again on Monday, April 2. There will be no blog post on Friday either. 

Have a fantastic week. 

Kayla

 You can find the pattern for Block 2 by clicking here.