I was driving on the back streets of Shipshewana, Indiana when suddenly I was ambushed by a surprise drive-by quilting. Thank goodness had my iPhone and could snap a pic. Lois Dunten has attended my retreats in Colorado and has a quilt featured on my Kool Kaleidescope DVD. Linda Maether is a big fan and is an enthusiastic member of The Quilt Show.com. She recently told me that she enjoys my music, quilt patterns, and especially my hand dyed fabrics. Linda is on the left, Lois is on the right.

Linda says:

Ricky was the featured speaker for the Shipshewana Quilt Festival and was with a fellow employee sight- seeing between engagements.  We had heard of drive by quiltings that Ricky had enjoyed and wanted to create a surprise for him. We only planned this the evening before, so had to think fast!

We stood in the drive behind Yoder Department Store going up to the Elementary school. We knew he had to got hat way and would be driving slow so he would be able to see us and our quilts.  It was a surprise and hopefully a good memory of his visit to Shipshewana, Indiana in June 2012.  Whoo Hoo!!

About the quilts:

Lois was holding 2 quilts, the first was a patriotic table runner from a “Pieces from My Heart” pattern by Sandy Grevais #335, “Pride and Glory”  made in 2006, it measures 20 ¾” x 40 ¾”.

Lois's second quilt is a fall wallhanging that she made as a possible quilt for Joen Wolfrom’s latest book “Adventures in Design.” However it was not included in this book.  Joen has written Lois that she wants to include it in the revision of her color book instead.  The two block quilt was made using public domain blocks-Fifty-four Forty or Fight and four patch blocks within a nine patch block.  It measures 37” square and was made in 2011.

Linda was holding a “Kool Kaleidescope“ quilt top using Ricky Tims’ fabric “Oodles of Doodles” by Red Rooster .  The kit was purchased at Spring Market, 2010.  It measures 25” square.  Linda had Ricky autograph it and will machine quilt it. It was made in 2012.

The second quilt that Linda displayed was a variation of “Tuscan Moons” pattern by Kelly Cobridge and hand dyed fabrics by Cherrywood.  Linda also added Prairie Points to the border using Susan Cleveland ‘s techniques.  Susan was a guest on The Quilt Show.  Linda used the circular attachment on her Bernina to do decorative stitches around the circles and it was also machine quilted.  It measures 39”square.  It was made in 2012.

This is a drive-by quilting captured during a ride on the London Underground. 

Ferret says: Ricky was in London over the Christmas period, and I thought we should make the most of the opportunity and do a drive-by quilting. The problem was that Ricky wasn't going to be driving anywhere convenient for me to get to. I was going to be having dinner with Ricky, Justin and their friend Susan, so I arranged for Tet to bring one of my quilts in case we could work out a way to sort something out. We couldn't do a drive-by, but a "tube-by" on the London Underground seemed like the next best thing.

Tet says: I was bringing one of Ferret's quilts, and that afternoon I'd 99% finished a top that I'd been making as a Christmas present for my parents, so I decided to bring that along as well.

About the quilts:

Ferret says: A friend of mine had seen some of my other nude quilts, and had told me she wanted to model for me. She's a lawyer by day, but has been ballet dancing since childhood. She sent me a selection of photos, I chose one and this was the resulting quilt. After soliciting opinions via my blog, it was named "Quiet moment" by committee (the model, Tet and me collectively) from a shortlist of the suggestions. As with all of my quilts, it's made entirely from fabric and thread, with no painting?involved.

Tet says: I never intended to become a quilter. But I'd been proofreading and typesetting Ferret's patterns, and the only way to do that properly is to follow the instructions, which by default made me a quilter. Or at least a piecer. Although I'd made several of Ferret's patterns, this was the first quilt I'd designed myself. It was a very late decision to make a quilt as a Christmas present. I started on 19th December and finished it just in time. The central panels are from some stained glass door panels by Leadbitter Glass, in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, my mother's favourite designer. I added the borders, again in the style of Mackintosh.

The afternoon was dreary, but Sue Maddox and Sue Watters managed to make their way to Oxford station just before we had to pass through the turnstiles and board our train. Since most of our drive-bys are done at lightning speed, this particular opportunity to actually visit for a moment was rare. 

Sue Maddox says:
Two days to go before Christmas and all was going according to plan -  ie not Christmas preparations, but taking part in the UK 'Train-by' version of Ricky's US 'Drive- by quiltings'. When I saw Ricky's travel schedule, I couldn't believe he was going to be travelling through Oxford, just twenty minutes away! Even better, he was going to be catching the train there, so as long as he was at the station in plenty of time for his train, and we could get our timings right, we possibly stood a chance of chatting with him as well.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this on my own, so called my PIC (partner in crime) Sue Watters and talked her into doing it with me. We always talk each other into mischief and this seemed to be something we absolutely must do.

Two quilts were selected and we set off in the worst weather we had seen for months. The mid afternoon sky was black and the rain was hammering down. We crawled through heavy traffic, abandoned, rather than parked the car, and ran, with our quilts to the station. We must have looked a bedraggled sight, but there was Ricky, Justin and their friend Susan waiting at the Oxford staion to greet us.

Goodness knows what the crowds of people must have thought of us, but we were so caught up in the moment that we really didn't notice anyone else. We had a quick picture in the station entrance, followed by a chance to chat. Ricky was unbelievably generous with his time and Sue and I so appreciated the fun opportunity to do something so mad.

Whoo-hoo as Ricky says! We giggled all the way home and both thought it a great start to our Christmas. We'll dine out on this in quilting circles for years to come. Sue has a blog ISEWQUILTSUK.com and you can see a few pics of our 'Brief Encounter' there.

About the quilts:
My quilt is a Folky Baltimore - my own design using blocks from EQ. I loved making it and eventually taught it as a BOM at my local quilt shop. I was talked into adding the border by my lovely students and I'm so glad they encouraged me to do so. The fabrics are mainly Rites of Spring by Brannock and Patek, which seemed perfect for the aged, mellow look I was after.  I think the quilt was one of those quilts that are inside you, just waiting to be made. I hand appliqued, using freezer paper and finished hand quilting it in time for the Shipton Quilters' show in 2011.

Sue's Watter's quilt is her 'Toile Reel'. The beautiful Jo Morton Ravenswood fabric inspired this quilt. She loves toile fabric and just knew she wanted to use it as a border for this quilt. She used blanket stitch applique and had it long arm quilted.

Thank you Ricky for this fun opportunity. It was great to see you here in the UK!

Sue Maddox, Alvescot, Oxfordshire and Sue Watters, Cheltenam, Gloucestershire

Paula Doyle managed to make it to Mortimer station during our journey from Salisbury to Oxford on December 22, 2011. We knew we had to watch for her on the platform. I saw Paula and her quilt come into sight and started clicking away. We passed right by her. When the train stopped I ran back to the previous coach so I could say hi through the window before the train pulled away.

Paula says:
It was great to see you through the train window at Mortimer Station on the 22nd! I’ve always been envious of the “Drive-by” quiltings you do in the States. It was great to get to participate in the event on this side of the pond! We got some weird looks from the other people on the platform boarding the train – it was such fun to set them wondering about what was going on.

About the quilt:
The quilt I brought along is called Big Triangles. It was pieced by me, and quilted on a longarm machine by my good friend Isabel Hall of Compton Quilting Services. It is a copy of a quilt I made for my Dad after my Mom passed away and he went to sleeping in a single bed in a new apartment. I picked the colors for the quilt from a couple of  jute-and-wool wall hangings he had from Chile, where he and my Mom had lived as Methodist missionary teachers for many years. The object of making the first quilt was to make something easy and quick, but I soon became intrigued with the way the colors reacted with each other, and with the secondary patterns that emerged from these simple blocks. It is a favorite “quiltathon” option for my quilt group, Thameside Quilters.

Sandy Ospina received the message that I would be arriving in Bath, England by train. She was able to make it to the Bath Spa train station and we were able to see her quilts up close and personal before hopping into our taxi. 

Sandy says:
Just like any other morning, I turned my laptop on to do the usual mail checking, only this day was different as I had received a notification via facebook informing me that Ricky Tims, THE Ricky Tims was going to be in England and passing by the City of Bath which is only 30 minutes from where I live. 
I could not believe what my eyes were reading and as always my partner in adventure, thrill and excitement is my daughter, Stephanie, so I had to let her know what our next journey would be as I knew without her the  experience would not have been the same! 

The day I had been anticipating for had finally arrived. I arrived to the City of Bath at 1.30pm however, we did not know that it would be a challenge trying to get our way round to Bath Spa Train station where Ricky Tims would be getting off the train at 2:23pm. 

The clock was ticking and we had still not been able to find our way to the train station, the time was now 2.15pm just 5 more minutes and we would be at risk of not living the Train-by experience. Tension was now building. We parked the car and ran to the platform where Ricky would be soon to arrive. 

The excitement we had contemplated till this time was now just about to explode, as we began to unfold the quilts and stand on a bench, each one of us holding a quilt I had made. We could hear a train coming our way, could this be Ricky? As we waited for all the passengers to come off the train, we saw no sign of Ricky, just a false alarm, one which caused a lot of laughter between Stephanie and I and some of the passengers who had come off the train.

Another Train was in sight, now this had to be Ricky, there could be no doubt about that. This time we were right as we saw Ricky, Justin and their friend Susan board off the train, we were lucky that we had sometime to greet one another as we were aware they were on a tight schedule. 

About the Quilt:
My Sunbonnet Sue Quilt was the first quilt that I ever made making "sunbonnet sue" my first love in Patchwork.The quilt is called Sunbonnet Through The Year and is designed by Sue Linker. It is all hand made, hand applique and hand quilted. It has twelve squares each one representing a month of the year, which was as long as it took me to complete the quilt.