Quilt Bits

Solving visual problems visually

2012-01-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

I participated in an art quilt round robin and now I need to complete this piece. I have sort of been ignoring this project for a couple of weeks because I had no ideas about what to do with it. This morning I put the piece up on the design board and almost immediately thought about needing to create visual balance in the piece. So I began putting up different fabrics to see how this balance might be created. Then I thought color would create the balance I was looking for. The title of this post really says it all, I must work visually to see what happens with the artwork, I can't figure it out in my head.

I have been studying design principles since last summer. The concept of creating visual balance that popped into my head today is a result of the time I have spent reading and studying design principles.

Below are a few pictures showing how my problem solving progressed this morning.


This is the starting point


Fabric on left is trying to balance the right side; unsuccessfully.

The next attempt.

This color choice seems to be working better for balance.

I noticed the dark blue choice on the right added a good visual balance on the right side.

I added a dark color all the way around with more dark color on the left and top.

The I added more striped border on the left side.

My design session is over for today. I will leave this pinned to the design board and see if I like it or want to play with it some more.

Mystery solved

2011-12-12T16:10:00.000-08:00

The mystery photo is a gift I made for my mother. It's the Bearrit pattern from Carols Zoo, http://www.carolszoo.com/patterns/bearrit.htm

Below is a picture of the completed bear.

What's this?

2011-12-11T12:58:00.001-08:00

I'm working on this today, can you guess what it is?

Exploring Design Principles and Elements

2011-12-06T12:17:00.001-08:00

I have been reading a lot more about design principles and design elements. The design principles are balance, unity, and variety. There are six design elements; line, shape, color, pattern, and texture.

I decided to explore some of the aspects of the design principles and elements while doing my second quilt in my fabric manipulations series. This quilt started with using paint sticks to create some colorful fabric.
I used color and different types of lines for variety. I used actual and implied lines. I used hand quilting and machine quilting to create texture. I used line to create movement and direct the viewer's eye.

I really had fun creating this piece.

Just Peachy

2011-11-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

I call this quilt "Just Peachy". At the workshop with Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer we were coached not to minimize our work by saying something like "I just chose some colors and then I just kind of sewed it together." The point being don't use the word "just". So the title is a play on that good advice.

As I previously posted, my motivation for this quilt was to use the technique samples started in the workshop. I used the samples and created a few more as the centers for the wonky blocks. Additionally I challenged myself to use a limited color palette. I wanted to create something happy and upbeat.

Paint Sticks and Fabric Manipulation

2011-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I played with paint sticks and some dark brown fabric. I masked the fabric with painters tape and then applied paint stick color. I wore latex gloves and kind of finger painted different colors into an area after the base color had been applied. It was fun! I let the paint dry for about 5 days and then heat set it with the iron. Here is a photo of the result.

This was the first time I had created some fabric markings with paint sticks that I thought I could actually use. My other attempts were trashed.

Yesterday I decided I could actually cut this fabric and try to use it. I pulled some colors to work with and decided to make wonky blocks. Here is a photo of my progress so far.

I am having fun working on this, it's satisfying my need to feel creative.

Project Completed

2011-08-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

The second quilt in my strips and curves series is complete and on the wall. I call it "Celestial" because I think of the universe and the distant views when I look at it. This work is based on the techniques in the Strips n Curves book by Louisa Smith.

I designed the quilting in each block / shape as I got to it. This allowed me to be more creative with the actual quilting. I used the long tails and bury them method for starting and stopping the quilting and this also allowed me more freedom to experiment with the quilting design. It was much easier to remove some quilting if I didn't like it using this method. Click on the image below to see a larger picture.

Quilting detail:

What's on the design board?

2011-07-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

I have been working on bits and pieces that I started in an Empty Spools workshop. The instructor was Jeanette DeNicolis Meyer, the topic was art quilt construction. It was a very good workshop because it gave me some perspective on the creative process. A big thing for me was to learn that it's ok to get stuck during the creative process and it's ok not to know where something is going. I also learned I have to keep working with the piece and manipulating it to get to the next step.

I experimented with some fabric origami to make the center of this block.

For the following block center I played with reverse applique.

Here is a picture of what is on the design board at the moment.

More Quilty Things for Door Prizes

2011-06-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

I have made a few more items from the strip challenge blocks I won a few months ago. They get given away today at the BAMQG meeting. (Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild). It's been fun making these items, I know what the end result is going to be so there isn't any creative angst for me.

The first item is a cover for a composition book.

The next item is called a pad folio.

The third item is wall art, each block is stretched onto an art canvas and stapled.

Quilty Things

2011-05-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

It took a month to get my sewing space back together after the major roof leak we had in March. I have been very busy catching up on quilting projects in the last few weeks. One of the guilds I belong to had a strip challenge a few months ago. Everyone brought in some 2 1/2 inch strips of solid fabric. They were put in a bag and we randomly picked 5 strips out of the bag. Then we were to make 12 inch blocks from the strips. We were allowed to add one more solid color fabric of our choosing The result of the challenge was thirty blocks of all different designs with some of them having the same colors. I won the drawing and got all thirty blocks.

I tried putting all the blocks together to see if I could make a quilt from all of the blocks, but it wasn't going to look very good. I kept thinking about what to do with the blocks and decided to make some "quilty things" from them. I used some of the free projects from 3 Creative Studios for the items I made. I have given some of the things I made back to the guild to be used for door prizes. We had our first drawings for door prizes at our last meeting and it was great to see the reactions to the prizes. This has been a fun thing to do and it has given me something to focus on and a time line for finishing . I still have lots of blocks to do something with. I'll keep you posted on my progress. My rules are the items shouldn't take more than 3 hours of construction time; this does not include the time needed to get supplies like stiff interfacing or fusible web. I also do not include time spent trying to find the next "quilty thing" project.

Here are some pictures from the first group of "quilty things" made from the challenge blocks. The first item is a fabric folder and I sewed parts of a checker board block to another block to get a large enough piece for the outside of the folder.

Fabric Folder left side

Fabric Folder right side

Fabric Folder inside


Mini Pad Folio outside


Mini Pad Folio inside

Spring Storms and Quilting Progress

2011-03-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have finished the border design and have started the quilting of the Strips and Curves 2 quilt. I am thinking about entering this quilt into a show to be judged; I have not entered a quilt to be judged before. So I am paying attention to technique and burying the ends at the beginning and ends of my machine quilting. (I leave long thread tails at the beginning and end; then I use a self threading needle to pull the ends into the layers of the quilt.) This process takes longer than short stitches but it does look better. There is an added advantage to this technique it's much easier to take out a line of quilting. So now that I can remove a line of quilting it's easier to take some risks in the quilting itself because I can recover from bad decisions or execution.

The latest spring storm has produced bad roof leaks and water damage for us. And because of the repair work I don't have access to my sewing and quilting space. I am thinking of going to the LQS and setting up my machine there so I can quilt for a few hours. It would be good to relieve some stress from this last week.

Border Design Process

2011-02-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

I started to work on the border for the Curves 2 quilt today. The process is:

Put the quilt top on the design wall.
Pull out the fabric bin with all the leftovers from this quilt top.
Pull every fabric that might work from the bin.
Start pinning pieces up around the quilt top to make the border.
Keep experimenting!
After an hour or so, put it aside for another day.
Stay willing to experiment. :)

Disappearing 9 Patch

2011-01-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

It’s done the queen sized disappearing 9 patch quilt! I got the idea for the quilt from a video I saw on YouTube from the Missouri Quilting Co. http://www.youtube.com/user/MissouriQuiltCo#p/u/22/dEjZOXxPazg

It was fun to play with the layout and experiment with it. The making of the blocks was a very quick process.

I chose the colors of the fabric because I thought they would look good with the neutral palette in the room. The green floral focus fabric appealed because it seemed very modern.

The matching pillow shams were easier to do than I thought they would be. I decided not to use the same block pattern for the shams. I just made something up; but I wish I had not used such a large piece of green fabric for the middle. I may make some small pillows now with more red in them to distract the eye from the green expanse of the pillow shams. But that is another sewing project and at the moment I would prefer to do something more creative.

I am a little stuck at the moment and haven’t quite found my next inspiration for a creative quilting project. I have been thinking that I have had a lot of fun in workshops when I just start cutting some fabric for a collage of some kind. But I find I need some form of structure/ inspiration for the collage and don’t have that yet.

Design Principles

2011-01-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

I took a one day workshop on design principles last October. I started a little fused piece to play with some of the design principles. I worked on it a little more today, I have no idea where it's going. I was playing with perspective using color and size.

Musings

2011-01-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

I joined SAQA last summer and have been back issues of the SAQA Journal. I am finding many interesting articles. I read one today about a quilt artist who has rented studio space. She mentioned being able to focus on her work, display work in progress, and displaying completed works to see the change in her artistry and get inspiration. All that sounds very good,. As I was reading I was thinking sure when you are selling your art renting studio space makes sense; then I got to the part saying she wasn't a professional artist and implied that she hadn't sold anything yet. Hmmm.

I read another article recently about going to workshop after workshop trying to find your artistic voice. I can relate to this one and now understand one of my quests is trying to find my artistic voice.

I have also started reading about design principles. Earlier I thought who needs those concepts; now I am just starting to understand that there might be something to them and further noodling in this area is appropriate.

Check Lists

2011-01-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

Binding Fabric

I always have to check my work when joining binding strips together; it's guaranteed that I will make a mistake when I don't check. This morning I was thinking how careful I was being and congratulating myself on checking my work every step of the way. And then I held up the binding strips I had been sewing together and discovered a new item for the check list; make sure I have the correct ends of the strips in my hands when pinning so that I don't sew a strip to itself. :)

2010-12-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have been working on the quilting of the queen sized quilt since Thanksgiving. I used a home made basting frame doing the pin basting. The frame is 4 pieces of wood held together by 4 small C clamps. It usually works very well because it can be sized to fit the quilt being basted. However, the pieces of wood weren't long enough to accommodate the queen size quilt. So I had to baste the quilt in sections. I over-sized the batting and the backing and still had some trouble with shifting during the basting process. I ended up with about one extra inch of batting and backing in one corner; all the other corners had 4 or 5 extra inches.

I thought about doing some free motion quilting on the quilt. I practiced the design on a white board to get the muscle memory of doing the design. Then I put a small practice piece together and did the free motion design on the machine. It worked great, but I wasn't comfortable with the decision to do free motion. I put a much larger practice piece together, that was about 20" by 36". And now I was having trouble moving the piece to do the free motion design. So I finally had a practice piece that was large enough to experience trying to move the piece under the needle and I decided I couldn't do the free motion on a queen sized quilt.

I had been perusing a quilt design book by Barbara Chainey and kept thinking about her comment about a basic design principle of dividing a block in half either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Then devide it again any direction that's pleasing to you, and do this until you have a design you like. She also mentioned that quilt tops did not have to be marked before basting. :)

I tried different ideas on paper, but wasn't getting any definite ideas. So I put the basted quilt on the table, go out a ruler and chalk wheel, and looked at the quilt blocks. As I looked at the blocks, I used the halving principle and came up with a design that I would be able to quilt using the walking foot. I need to remember to set up the quilt and just look at it for awhile when trying to figure out a quilting design. I was stuck on the "how to quilt it" problem for about 3 weeks.

Sunday

2010-11-28T14:41:00.000-08:00

I just got the last border put on the queen sized quilt. I measured the quilt a week ago and carefully measured the width and length in the center of the quilt, just like the "rules" say. I pieced and cut the last border this afternoon and tried to pin it to the quilt; it was 10 inches too short. Embarrassingly, the measurements were correct, but I had to use two rulers because the quilt is so big; when I added the numbers together my arithmetic was wrong. So annoying! But it was a simple border design and I just added more and now it's done.

I have figured out a quilting design to use, if I quilt this on my home machine. Any I would quilt in thirds, splicing in the next third of batting as I go to keep the bulk low while working. I haven't decided yet...

I forgot to mention, I finally Googled the phrase "I took the process pledge" which I saw on a lot of blogs. It means in your blog you will discuss the process of making your quilt and not just post the finished result. When I first started blogging this had been my intent, but I thought if anyone reads my blog they might find it boring, so I just started to post the final result. Now what do I do? Maybe I shouldn't worry about what other readers think. Well then what should I worry about?

Quilty things done this week

2010-11-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

Monday night, I went to a meeting of the Bay Area Modern Quilters .

This was my first meeting with them. They are a small group and were very friendly and welcoming. There was some good show and tell and then a fun activity. Everyone bought some stash favorites and then we formed teams of two and had to do things like each person pick a fabric from the table and then the team puts together the supporting fabric to put together a palette. We did about 5 versions of this, it was fun to work with other peoples fabric and see what we could do with it. I enjoyed being with a smaller group, it was more open and participative than larger guild meetings I gone to in the past.

Then Tuesday morning, I took a long arm quilting class this week at my LQS, Always Quilting. We learned the basics on how to operate the mammoth machine; oiling it, loading the quilt top, batting, and backing on the rollers. Then we got several turns at doing some quilting on the large piece of plain muslin that was used. I was kind of tense during the first try and then was amazed that using this large puppy for the first time to do free motion quilting was much easier than the early attempts at free motion on my domestic machine. We got to practice 5 or 6 different all over designs and one pantograph. It was a very successful class and well taught.

When I signed up for the class I thought I would be able to quilt a queen sized quilt top that I just finished. But I talked to one of the ladies using the long arm at the store where I would rent time on the machine and she recommended doing some smaller quilts first to get used to the long arm. She said it's very tiring to do a large quilt and it's better to get used to everything before tackling a big project. I know that's a good coach. Before getting that advice I woke up one night thinking about how I was going to just start quilting that large quilt after just taking one intro class on the long arm?

Now I am thinking about making some smaller quilt tops or just using some fabric to practice using the long arm. But I also want that new queen sized quilt top done so we can use it soon. So what to do; quilt the queen sized top on my domestic machine ( which I have done before)? Make a practice quilt top and sign up for long arm time to get some hours. (This would mean be patient and wait on that queen sized quilt.) I wonder what I will decide?

Design after my morning coffee

2010-10-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

I made a few changes that seem to make the design more cohesive. I think I am ready to start sewing the blocks together.

Design before my morning coffee

2010-10-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have been working on my second Strips and Curves quilt. I found it difficult to cut the first couple of pieces from my strata, since the strata was "precious". So I decided to make a second strata so I could afford to make some mistakes. That helped free up the intimidating design process. (Strata is 1 and 1/2 inch strips of fabric sewn together in gradations of color.)

This morning I had this version on my design wall when I was having my first cup of coffee.

Strips and Curves quilt is done

2010-09-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

I finished the Strips and Curves quilt that was designed during the Empty Spools seminar at Asilomar. I have to thank our instructor, Louisa Smith, for all the help in designing this quilt.

I got into some challenges when assembling and appliqueing the quilt. You would have heard a few mutterings along the lines of how did I manage to do that; or how was I planning to do that?

The quilt has the place of honor above our fireplace in the living room.

Christmas Needlepoint Stocking

2010-08-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a road trip to Spokane. The purpose of the trip was to attend a wedding reception for our nephew. (We didn't go to the wedding in Cabo San Lucas.) My sister in law asked me if I would needlepoint a stocking for the bride, everyone in the family has a needlepoint stocking, all of them done by my mother in law. Since my mother in law no longer does needlepoint, I volunteered to do it. The bride loved it. I designed the lettering for the name and chose all the different stitches and threads to do the stocking.

Empty Spools Seminar

2010-07-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my first Empty Spools workshop at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA. I had a wonderful time. I wasn't sure how I would like the seminar when I signed up for it. (I had been thinking about it for several years before actually signing up.) But this year I needed some respite from all the events that had happened in the last few months, the death of a parent and remodeling the condo. My DH said you need something positive go and have some fun.

Well the instructor was Louisa Smith and the class was based on her books; one of them being Strips and Curves. Louisa worked with each participant to help design a wonderful quilt top. At first I thought I might be in over my head in the class, but that was first day jitters. I can't wait to finish my quilt so I can post a picture of it. Louisa was wonderful to work with and so inspirational.

There were about 200 quilters at Empty Spools and it was great fun being able to talk with fellow quilters about their quilting and the workshop they were taking. We saw lots of finished quilts that were brought for show and tell during the evening program. There was some amazing work on display. It was a very friendly and uplifting experience. I don't like big groups and wasn't sure the seminar experience would work for me, but it sure did. I might be hooked as I am thinking about going next year. During the last couple of days, one of the major topics "was which workshop are you signing up for next year?"

Thank You Note

2010-02-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

I wanted to thank a wonderful lady who is the care manager for my parents. She has done a wonderful job of helping out with all the activities required to help aging parents. So I created a "thank you" letter. There is quilt art on the front and on the back there is a thank you letter printed on fabric. She loved it!

I got the idea for the block from the Art Quilt Worksbook book I have been working my way through. It's called wonky piecing and its fun to do.

2009-07-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

I am still working with the Art Quilt Workbook. The latest assignment was to make a quilt using a photograph as inspiration. Coincidentally as I was thinking about which photo to use, my cousins in Wales sent me a photo of my paternal grandmother. This finished quilt is my second attempt at the quilt. My first attempt didn't work because I got the color pallet wrong. After struggling for a while I decided to give up on the first one and start over.

I also did some couching for embellishment and used some vintage buttons.

This piece is about 9x12 inches. The edges and corners got a little wonky. Maybe on something this size it would work better to leave the binding off and use a pinking blade to create an edge. (Click on the picture to see more detail.)

Wonderful Quilt Exhibit

2009-06-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

I saw the exhibit called "Reservoir; John M. Walsh III Collects" yesterday. It was a wonderful exhibit. There are 29 art quilts all using the theme of water and nature. The quilts were just amazing. I went to the exhibit on a Sunday afternoon. Since no one else was there, I was able to read about each quilt and view it in quiet contemplation. My visit was like being on a quiet nature hike up in the hills somewhere. I loved all the different interpretations of the water and nature theme. I was also very interested in all the different quilt construction techniques in the quilts. The work really does show that any technique can work when the artistry is there.

Art Quilts Continued

2009-06-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

I am still dabbling with the Art Workshop book. One of the homework assignments was to do this pear design. I decided to be bold in the color choices.

Working Small and Fast

2009-03-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

Working small and fast is often mentioned as a way to get going on a quilt. Well today for the first time I tried small and fast - it's fun. I have a new quilt book enthusiasm it's called Art Quilt Workbook by Davila and Waterson. At the end of every chapter the homework is to start a small quilt and use one or more of the chapter lessons in the quilt.

I started a small quilt today and incorporated the lesson of perspective using value.

Shapes One is complete

2009-03-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

My original exploration changed as I worked on it. The initial design was very geometric. I tried several times to work with it but wasn't getting anywhere. Then I decided to assemble the background since it was going to be an applique project. When the background was done I tried working with the original design but it still wasn't fun. So one morning I started doodling with paper and pencil trying to figure out something to do with the background; and started to get excited about a new possibility. Things started to move quicker with the new concept.

While working on the applique I went to a guild quilt show in San Francisco and found very interesting bugle beads and buttons. I decided while walking around the show to buy some of the buttons and beads and put them on my project; in other words to experiment! Finally the project was fun to work on.

My design exploration is now called Shapes One. I might do a series since this one was a lot of fun to do after getting over the first hurdles.

Design Exploration

2009-02-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

I am starting a new quilting adventure, a design exploration from Katie Pasquini Masopust's book. The sub-title for this book says "easy to follow lessons for dynamic quilts". I don't have any complaints about the lessons or instructions, but I do experience a lot of frustration going through the creative process. I'm trying something totally new, an original design. I read the instructions, then try to do a step or two. The first few steps are working with pencil and paper to get a geometric design. Then I put the project away for another day with a vague feeling of hopelessness meaning this project will never work out, I don't know what I'm doing. Then I think about the project and decide to give it another try.

I was getting confused with some of the steps involved in moving from a paper based design to the templates and design roadmap. I decided not to follow the steps in the book and work with a method I am more familiar with. Of course there is the possiblity that changing the steps will cause problems later.

I have decided on a color scheme three times so far. I have pulled fabric twice. I am trying to stick with the third color scheme and start to cut out a few pieces of fabric. I get a better feel for the work when I start to see some fabric on the design wall. I should mention that I have also skipped the step of using water colors and painting a design sketch. I tried to use water colors in another project to do a design sketch and the sketch just didn't do anything for me. I can't relate the water colors to fabric.

Well wish me luck on moving to the next step in this creative process. :)

Fish Applique

2009-02-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

I finished a quilt I started about two years ago. I put it aside while working on some other quilting projects. I like listening to recorded books while doing hand work. I had a book I wanted to listen to and found this partially done quilt. It needed three more fish appliqued. I had fun listening to the book and doing the appliques. This design is from the book "Applique Inside the Lines" by Carol Armstrong. Each area has an embroidered outline and then the applique is done by hand inside the embroidered outline.

I did free motion quilting to represent rippling water. I used a silver thread for the quilting which turned out to be very subtle.

My parents moved!

2009-02-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted. I have been very busy on the parent project. The good news is my parents are now living in a senior community which offers assisted living. They are adjusting very well.

I got a lot of help from a care manager in finding and choosing an appropriate place for my parents I think the task would have been much harder without their help. The same care manager is now monitoring the care that is being provided which is also a big help.

I've concluded that the parent project is going to continue one way or another for the rest of their lives and it's time for me to have others help out where appropriate. It took some time to come to this conclusion, but I am glad I did.

Nice Things Happened This Week

2008-12-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

I don't usually blog about life's events, but today I make an exception. At the beginning of this week,my husband and I were getting ready to take my parents, who are in their mid-eighties, to see an assisted living senior community. We were both desperately hoping my parents would like the community as much as we did. I was feeling quite stressed and checking email before leaving to see if there were any changes to our plans and I had a very nice surprise. A fellow quilter and blogger named Linda had a give away on her blog and I won a hand made Christmas star ornament. I can't tell you how much my spirits were lifted by this news. It really put a smile on my face. When we were leaving the condo, I was saying something good has already happened today. Thank you so much Linda!

The "fabric" for the Linda's ornament is made up of several scraps of fabrics and threads overlaid with some tulle. It's a very pretty piece (click on the photo to see the detail.) To see more of her work visit Linda's blog .

And finally, yes my parents liked the community! I have already started the Parent Moving Project planning .

Purses Big and Small

2008-12-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

I bought a pattern and fabric kit at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in October to make a large purse. The pattern also had instructions for making a smaller version. So after completing the large one, I pulled some fabric out of the "collection" and made the small purse. The patterns for these purses were called "Annie's Favorite Purses" for Sew Batik. The pattern instructions were very clear.

If I make the large one again, I will not use a super stiff fusible interfacing. The super stiff one turned out to be extremely hard to work with. The pattern says heavy weight and I got carried away interpreting what that meant.

If you want to see more detail, click on the picture to enlarge it.

Sewing Station

2008-11-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

A guild member asked about sewing cabinets. I have had one for about 8 years and do like using it. I used to use the dining table which made for uncomfortable sewing since the machine was too high. I have a Koala cabinet, don't remember what model it was. I like being centered over the needle. I like the machine being low and flush with the sewing cabinet. I wish I had more room to the right of the sewing machine since that's where I like to put tools when I am using the machine. The top is very wide and really helps support quilts when I working on them. If I had the space I would buy the biggest cabinet I could. I would want to maximize working surfaces and storage areas.

A good desk chair which can be adjusted for height and back position is also needed for a comfortable quilting experience.

2008 PIQF Project Complete

2008-11-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

I took a workshop at the Pacific International Quilt Festival called "Arc-i-Textures" from Carol Taylor. The first part of the workshop was cutting pieces of textural fabric, not quilting cotton, fusing it down and then couching yarn over all the "seams". Carol called this the sweatshop portion of the class and it was. Then we learned to couch the circles. Surprisingly it only took a couple of practice circles to technique working and then it became addictive.

To see the detail of my finished project, click on the image.

2008-10-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

I finished the Zinnia quilt. Here is a picture of a part of the quilt to show the free motion quilting on the background. (The reason I chose this project was to improve my free motion quilting.) You have to click on this picture to see the quilting detail.

More from the quilting supervisor

2008-09-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

"Looking good" she says and "when's dinner?"

Background quilting

2008-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I chose the zinnias project because I could use it as an excuse to get better at free motion quilting. Several months ago I went to a quilt show and listened to a quilter talk about her work. She had a lot of free motion quilting in her work and I asked her how much practice time she had needed to be able to do the free motion. Her response was something like; well I saw a free motion quilting demo of a feather and then decided to try doing it. This wasn't exactly the answer I was expecting. But I found myself thinking about her answer in the following days. I concluded that I had read a lot about free motion quilting and tried to do a little practice with poor results several years ago. I had kind of decided it was impossible to do even though it intrigued me.

So as I was surfing the net thinking about new quilting projects I discovered the Jean Wells book which has dimensional quilts in it. This meant I could practice doing the background quilt for a project and it was risk free; meaning I would not ruin a quilt top trying to do some free motion. So I have been doing several practice pieces and now I think I have a piece I will use a background quilt for the zinnias project.

I also want to thank Linda Cline, the quilter who gave her talk at the quilt show, and inspired me to take a risk and "try it". Check out her blog it's very interesting, "Linda's Art Journal".

Color Workshop

2008-08-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

I went to a color workshop last week. I really like playing with color. One of the "explorations" was to "create an abstracted interpretation staying true to the color of the original palette" of the painting we were given to work with. This was lots of fun.

I had a blushing moment and a giggle when the instructor said "wow you really got it"! when I showed my work to the group.

More Zinnia Blossoms

2008-08-28T10:12:00.001-07:00

I'm continuing to work on the Zinnias project. I have 11 blossoms done.

Each blossom is satin stitched around each petal, some details are thread painted, and the centers have some very subtle beading.

Now I just have to decide which ones I'm going to use and the placement of each. This picture shows some of the blossoms on my design board just to give you an idea of the future wall hanging.

Zinnias Project

2008-08-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

The current WIP (work in progress) is the Zinnias Project from the book "Portraits from Nature" by Jean Wells. This project is a dimensional quilt. It's got satin applique, lots of colors, and also provides an opportunity to work on my free motion quilting. A small quilt is made for each zinnia and then the small quilts are put on a larger background quilt which is already quilted.

I used the "3 in 1 Color Tool" by Joen Wolfrom to help select a color pallette. I can't use a regular color wheel because the colors just don't look like fabric to me. The color tool really helps me pick a pallette with interesting color combinations.

This photo is a sneak peek of the current project. I have to make 9 different Zinnia blocks.

Needs More Quilting

2008-07-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

The creature quilt needed a little more quilting. This quilt design posed a problem for quilting because the appliques were not consistent in size. I would have used echo quilting around the appliques, but some of the designs took up the entire area leaving no room for echo quilting.

I used a batting that could be quilted up to 10 inches apart, but when I looked at the finished product it looked just a little under quilted. So I did some tacking using the sewing machine and thread which matched the applique. It was surprisingly easy to do and solved the under quilted problem.

Stressed

2008-07-13T13:37:00.001-07:00

My quilting supervisor is looking stressed!

Quilting Supervisor

2008-07-13T11:06:00.001-07:00

I want to introduce my quilting supervisor, Jessie. Here's a photo of Jessie's Quilt with Jessie in the starring role. I bought commercial patterns for the doghouse, fire hydrant, and the "I love my dog" blocks. The other blocks were my designs.

Now it's done

2008-07-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

The creature quilt is done. This design is called starfish and friends from the book quilts, bibs, blankies... oh my! by Kim Schaefer.

Almost Finished

2008-07-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a wall hanging which is a gift for some friends of ours who are having their first baby soon. The quilt took longer to make than I thought it would. It's the first time I tried satin stitch applique which was something I wanted to try for a long time. This quilt has several starfish, a frog, a turtle and some other creatures; all of these creatures have eyes and a mouth. The quilt pattern called for either using ink to color in the eyes or embroidering the eyes, I did not think either of these would work very well, so I chose to applique tiny pieces of fabric. I did the eyes and mouth first on each block, that way if they didn't turn out I hadn't wasted a bunch of time doing the satin applique around the entire creature.

I'm much better at satin stitch applique now, which is good because I want to work on a project from the book called Portraits from Nature by Jean Wells and it has lots of satin stitch applique.