For those of you who are new here to the blog (and to the website), I want to take some time today to update a blogpost which was originally published on my old site - and to introduce you to the Lake Shore family of quilts. If you are coming here from the IGQuiltfest on Instagram, this quilt is there under my post for Lessons Learned…keep reading!

There are three quilts in the Lake Shore series of quilts, named for the Inn where my quilt guild spent many retreat weekends. I had never had the chance to ‘run away’ from home as an adult before we found the Inn, and (as a mom of two teenage sons), it was a lifeline. I firmly believe that every quilter should take advantage of the creative opportunities a retreat can offer you. Lake Shore Magic is the original quilt featured here, and Lake Shore Sister and Lake Shore Spring followed shortly thereafter.

I ran a bus trip into New York City early in my quilting career to see the fabled Red and White Quilt Exhibit at the Folk Art Museum. Quilt Collector Joanna Rose had set out to collect Red and White quilts of many genres, ages and styles, and it came together in Manhattan just about 10 years ago. The first quilt in the series, Lake Shore Magic, was my quilt which was inspired by the exhibit.

I arrived at the Inn for a weekend with a bin of my white fabrics, a bin of assorted reds, and an idea in my head, based on the old Orange Peel block. For just about 2 days, I cut, sorted, and stacked my piles of ‘footballs’ on my workstation, reveling in the fact that I was free from all domestic chores and schedules…I could just play. And I did.

Of all the things this quilt taught me, this was where I absolutely fell hard for what I now know is called a low volume background, which appears in the photo at the top of this blog post. I LOVE what I call sparkle in a quilt, and it was a lesson I haven’t forgotten. You might hear me refer to Sparkle from time to time - that’s what I am talking about.

This quilt has quite a history -

it is the first quilt I have ever had longarmed by a professional, and Pat Harrison did a wonderful job with the nuances of the quilt.

Here’s a fun fact - she sent it back to me via currier, and we were in the middle of a ktichen rehab when it arrived back here. My husband and my contractor couldn’t wait to see it, but the drywall dust was flying that day, and I had to pull the box into the car when I pondered the next step. I had a quilting friend, who I called with the off the wall question - can I borrow a cup of your family room for an afternoon so I could bind it?

Hi, I’m Linda Pearl - quilter, teacher, designer and blogger, and I’m happy to have you here. I’d like to tell you a little bit more About Me…

A chance encounter at an afternoon lecture allowed me to meet Mary Fons as a panelist, and she was workingon a new magazine called Quilty. Lake Shore Magic was published as a pattern in Quilty in summer, 2013.

From there, it came home here, and I taught a couple of classes in the pattern at a local shop that winter. The quilt was hanging in the shop when there was a leak from a pipe in the floor above.. The Quilt, which had never been washed, had a bleed that not even my tears could wash away.

I has several offers of help, but nothing that I thought would work

to remove the bleed of red in the corner. A friend has come through with a solution that I hadn’t considered, and I will be investigating that as time allows later this year.

The lasting lesson of this is that every quilt I begin starts in my laundry room - for shrinkage, for bleeding, for removing any toxins transnmitted in shipment - and for my peace of mind, for never wanting to deal with this again - I am now and will forever more be a member of #teamprewash.

Lake Shore Magic is a part of my permanent collection.

Lake Shore Sister (red and white, but in only two fabrics) was donated to an auction.

Lake Shore Spring will appear as a quilt pattern later this spring.