Calico Cali Designs: 2016

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year

Our top 3 favorite #business moments of 2016...in random order:

1. Our #embroidery designs being sold via Nancy's Notions.

2. Our embroidery designs being at #QuiltMarket.

3. Quilting this double wedding ring quilt for a customer.

Thank you to everyone who supported Calico Cali Designs this year. We are looking forward to 2017 with new embroidery designs and more time on the Gammill.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Snake snake snake

I an afraid of rattlesnakes. I've never actually seen one, but I'm sure that the moment I do, things will go terribly wrong. So when I saw this sign at a rest stop in WA I was not happy.

Seriously..I actually wish they wouldn't warn me at all. Until that sign, I was happily walking over to the path to photograph the amazing view. Then the sign happened. And I froze in my tracks. I actually had to force myself to walk on the path and take the photos that I knew my heart had to have. #stupidsign

I almost never stray from a path like that..unless I'm walking the dogs...they won't 'go' on concrete. Little buggers. So there was not really any chance of me actually seeing a snake...but when ever I see that sign..I envision the snakes laughing...hidden among the dry grass, just waiting to jump out and bite me. Did I mention that a rattlesnakes can jump like 600 million feet...or something like that. Far, they can jump far and it scares the bejeebers out of me.

Luckily I didn't see any snakes, and I was able to capture these amazing photos with my phone...and I made it back to our truck, bite free. Thank goodness!

I win this time evil snake sign! Have a great week everyone..hope it's snake free!
-Kat :)

Saturday, November 12, 2016

DWR Quilt

Recently I had the pleasure of quilting a Double Wedding Ring Quilt for a customer. The more I worked on this quilt..the more I fell in love with it myself.

The amazing colors of the rings.....

The feathers that I quilted in the middle of each ring....

And each time I rolled the quilt and looked at the back....

my heart was just sooo happy. It truely was hard to give this one back to my customer.

This amazing quilt is a wedding gift, and I'm sure the bride while cherish it for years to come. I wish I could see her face when she opens the box.

If you have a quilt top that will be a gift..give me call...I currently have openings in my schedule and would love to quilt your tops for you!

Happy Sewing!
-Kat :)

Friday, July 29, 2016

Can we get a pool Dad? - Part 3

We got a pool (last summer)! When I last wrote about the pool, we had just up it up and were about to fill it. It took us a little over 9 hours to fill the pool (okay, it took DH that long, I wasn't even home when he filled it). Unfortunately for us, by the time we got the pool up and filled with water, the weather had cooled down and we didn't get to use it much. Bummer dude :(

Fast forward to Summer 2016! We figured out two things rather quickly this summer.
#1 - The pool ladder was kind of wobbly and unsafe, and there was no place to put our towels/pool floats/pool noodles/soda etc etc.
#2 - We live in the high dessert & it cools off at night and the pool can't retain it's temperature.

So this summer we tackled both of those issues. We installed a solar heater so that we always have the perfect water temperature. And we built a deck! (okay, again I really had nothing to do with the actual building of said deck)

Construction of the deck.

I'm overly excited about this.

Jeff, myself and his Dad all worked on staining the wood for the deck. (Yup...I actually helped. I think I stained 5 out of like a zillion boards..but it still counts as helping).

Finished deck and stairs!

The next step in our pool project will be to add a railing, and a path to the stairs. Ohhh I also want to add planters at the bottom of the stairs. Somehow, I think the pool is going to be one of those never ending projects. I have a feeling that every summer we will be adding more and more to it. But that's okay because we now use the pool all the time, and it's fast becoming one of our favorite investments.

Happy Summer!!!
-Kat :)

Friday, July 22, 2016

Great- Grandmother's Quilt

I had a rare and amazing opportunity to quilt a vintage quilt top. Not just any vintage quilt, this one was pieced by my husbands great grandmother Mary Ann Wirth.

Family members were able to confirm that the floral fabric in the quilt used to be her dress. That's right she cut up her own clothes and used them to create a quilt to keep others warm.

The darker solid yellow fabric is vegetable died muslin, the lighter yellow fabric is a sheet that she cut up into fabric strips. She really put a lot of work into making this quilt top.

At one point she ran out of white thread and finished the piecing of the blocks using black thread. Our best guess is that because this top was created during war time, she probably wasn't able to get more thread or perhaps couldn't afford to buy more white thread so she just finished it up using what she had on hand. Nothing went to waste back in those days.

She started piecing the top by hand, and later she was given a sewing machine as a gift and the remainder of the top was completed by machine.

The quilt on my longarm.

My mother-in-law brought the quilt to me, along with maroon fabric for the back (to match the maroon flowers in the dress fabric). She and I went through my books of quilting patterns and together we decided on an edge to edge floral pattern.


Stitching out the floral quilt pattern.


All quilted!!!

The back is just stunning.

We had to put it on a bed..just once.

So pretty.

My mother-in-law (Doreen) had promised her mother that someday she would have her grandmother's quilt top finished. Doreen added the finishing touch by stitching on the binding and now she proudly displays the quilt in their WI home. It's full of history and love. Three generations of women in our family have worked on this quilt, and I'm honored to have been part of this family heirloom.

-Kat :)

Friday, July 15, 2016

Mom's Studio Makeover

Last year I flew to Boston to visit my family and help my Mom set up her studio. When my parents first built their house, Mom was given a room to be her sewing studio. Of course as it often does, life got busy and her room became many things over the years, but sadly a sewing studio was not one of those things. It was my goal to change that!

Like me, Mom has lots of sewing supplies, and I could tell that she was a bit overwhelmed at having to organize and entire room full of stuff. Luckily for her...I LOVE and I mean LOVE organizing. I think I was more excited about the project than she was.

I started by clearing out the entire room...and then slowly bringing items in. It took myself, my Mom and my Dad to get that nice new chair put together. It was a stubborn chair!

Mostly empty room.

After a quick trip to Joann's I was able to hang up thread racks on the wall. (okay, okay, Dad hung them up. I'm not an expect with power tools)


YES! Thread racks!

I put hooks on the wall to hang her embroidery hoops and quilting rulers from.

I had a little too much late night fun putting together furniture. Wait....is there really such thing as "to0 much fun"?!?! Maybe I should re-phrase that.


So many organizational options!

When I was sorting through her supplies, I found the floral plaques that I had given her as birthday gifts and Mother's Day gifts over the years. So of course I had to hang those up!

I filled this cabinet with baskets full of embroidery stabilizers, designs and other goodies.

Remember that furniture from earlier.....all filled with notions, patterns and more!

The completed thread wall! I just love looking at a wall full of color!

Counter top, cabinets, and everything Mom needs...right at her fingertips.

Super organized hoops! (The candle is one that we both bought on a shopping trip in Sisters, OR earlier in the year, therefore I had to put it on the counter so that she could think of me every day.)

Did I mention that I love to organize? I had my Dad install shelves in the closet. Meanwhile, I cut up cardboard boxes and spent a little bit of time, wrapping her fabric around them. And, of course, I put it on the shelf according to color.

Patterns, books, and magazines also got their own spot. As did sequins, beads etc.

Everything is now labeled too!

Dad also helped me adjust her cutting table to the correct height. An viola!! An amazing, organized sewing studio! Here are a few more after photos.

Once the room was done, I spent the rest of my trip visiting family, digitizing and test stitching out my designs in her new studio. Ergo, I'm confident when I say the new room is very functional.

I hope this studio makeover inspires you in some way.

-Kat :)

Saturday, July 9, 2016

2016 Sisters Outdoor Quiltshow

Today (Sat 7/9/16) was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show! For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the show..it's the worlds largest outdoor quilt show, and I had a quilt displayed at the show this year so there was no way I was missing it. I had heard about this show long before I moved to OR, and for the past few summers my schedule just didn't work out, but since I had a quilt at the show this year, I made sure that I was free. And I'm soooo glad that I did. (warning this post has lots of photos!)

The highlight of my day was meeting the sew-lebrities. I got to meet my quilting idol Angela Walters.
You can tell by the photo just how ecstatic I was to meet her. (I had tried to sign up for her class, but it filled up soo fast that I was unable to get a spot). She very sweet and nice and I'm still in awe that I got to meet her, she even gave me a hug and complimented me on my hair. I was in fan girl heaven. Just an amazing moment that meant so much to me, and I'm grateful that she took that few moments out of her day to stop and make my day.

Me and Angela!!!!!!

Next up, I got to meet Quilt Dad!! I've been following John Q. Adams on social media for a long time now....so I was incredibly happy to actually get to meet him in real life. He creates amazing quilts, and he's a published quilt author! He too was very nice and took a moment to chat with me. Again..so greatful that he stopped and took a photo with me.


Me and Quilt Dad!!!!!

And lastly, I met Rob Appell from Man Sewing! Rob does fantastic sewing and quilting tutorials online, and it was so cool to see his work in person, and to meet him. He also took a few moments to chat with me. He has an great laugh, and fun energy just rolls off him. Thanks for photo Rob!!

Me and Rob in front of his quilt.

Now onto the quilts!! Sooo many cool, amazing, beautiful, wonderful quilts. It truly was great to be surrounded by all the quilts, so many like-minded folks & artists, and of course the mountains. Sisters really is the perfect setting for a quilt show.

My quilt was part of the Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild special exhibit. Our exhibit was all about "cool colors"...and they looked fantastic all hung up in a group. It was definitely a "cool" moment to see my quilt hung up among all the other amazing works of art.


Me and My Quilt.

COMQG Cool Colors Exhibit.

And now just some random photos that I took while at the show. This years show had 1287 quilts!!! There were soo many gorgeous quilts that it's impossible to photograph them all..so here are the photos that I did take. They are in no particular order, just quilts that caught my eye and I had to have a photo of them for one reason or another. Some photos I took because I loved the colors, some I took because I loved the pattern, others because I loved the theme of the quilt. Some just took my breathe away and I wanted to be able to view them over and over again. My favorite part was seeing the quilts amidst nature. I loved seeing flowers in front of the quilts. Soo pretty. Enjoy the photos!