Remembering Memorial Day

(Note: OTS' Monday Tool Review will return next week with some great quilting travel tools)

    

Even though most Americans will celebrate today with BBQ's and picnics, we must remember that this day is to honor those who have died for our country while in military service. At OTS, we are grateful for these brave men and women who fought and died for our freedom. Whilst we will be enjoying this day, we will also remember why it's called Memorial Day.

Flashback Friday: I Spy

Hope you're all enjoying your Friday.

For today's flashback, we thought 

we'd share a little I Spy quilt that was 

the one of the first OTS Instagram posts.

 It was such fun to make these free motion swirls!! 

An OTS Update...or, What's Jeanette Up To These Days...

It has been almost 6 months since Jeanette's "retirement" from teaching at Whitlock's, but you're not going to find her lazing her days away! Between all of the kids, grandkids and great-grands, not to mention sewing wedding dresses and, of course, quilting, she has been keeping herself busy. While On The Stitch is still going strong, she has been able to celebrate a wide variety of achievements and joys with family!

Josh and his bride to be Anezka

A few highlights from this year include meeting her future granddaughter-in-law from the Czech Republic and making an amazing wedding dress in a week during January. We'll show photos later as we don't want Josh to see the dress before the wedding!

Andrew, Jeanette and little Shep

Along with marriages come babies, and finding out great grandbaby number 4 will be joining us this summer was a wonderful surprise! Can't wait to meet Andrew and Jeanette's (yep, she's little "Nettie" named after her Grammie) little guy, Shep!!

Poppa and Grammie with some of the little grandkids

Jeanette has also been enjoying quilting as well as doing some fun sewing projects. She especially likes to be able to make special goodies for the littlest grandkids and great-grands!

                                                                                                              

Another awesome thing was there were THREE college graduations in the family this May. 

After raising a family and working as a middle school librarian in Grants Pass for a number of years, daughter Dawn earned her Bachelors Degree from George Fox University. 

Whitney's nephew Alden is so excited for her!

After graduating from University of Southern California two years ago, daughter Whitney earned her Masters Degree from Willamette University on Mother's Day.

And after just three years, granddaughter Carissima earned her Bachelors Degree in History from Christendom College in Virginia.

 

Stay tuned for more quilting adventures with Jeanette as she keeps going On The Stitch!!

Monday-New Tool Review

A plethora of threads

Obviously, every quilter knows how important good thread is to their craft. At OTS, this is no exception. We use Superior Threads for all of our machine quilting. The selection of their "Sew Fine" threads cannot be beat in color, stitching and wear. They also make the quilting easier as they leave almost no lint and are great for all batting, whether cotton, polyester or wool.

Besides helping to choose quilting designs, choosing the right thread color is another favorite task. So many people just choose thread that matches the backing or front of a quilt, but we like to put a lot of thought into our choices.

Here are some questions we ask when choosing thread:

~Would a blending color or pop-out color look better on the pieced design?

Some quilts are very simple while others have a wide variety of colors. Sometimes the quilting looks better when blended while other quilts look fantastic with a bold color choice of thread.

~What quilting design are we using and which color would highlight that?

The color can matter if we are using a unique or custom quilting design.

~What style of quilt is this?

This one's especially important as more quilters are doing vintage-styled quilts but want a modern quilt design or vice versa.

Superior Threads also has a great website and monthly thread club which we love being a part of as we get to try new colors each month. Like we've said before, we don't get any money from sharing our tools with you, but we want your machine quilting and sewing to be the best it can. Enjoy your Monday and stay sew happy!