Category: machine quilting

Embracing Quirkiness & Connections Quilt Festival

and a Reality Check

Live your brightest life 1One of the reminders from my time at the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show is that I’m quirky. Shocking! I love being quirky.

Embrace quirk, let go of seriousness. Seriously.

So, this weekend during the lecture “Surprise I’m a Free Motion Quilter” the end of the lecture came, as I made decisions about quilts to share I picked up Shine Your Light, my tribute Quilt to Yvonne Porcella as the last quilt. I started talking about Yvonne, SAQA, the inspiration for the quilt, and how Donna ice dyed the fabric that year that Eastern MA got over 100” of snow. There came a moment when I got choked up, heart in throat, tears welling in my eyes. I didn’t realize how much this quilt means to me.

color fix 3

In just a few short weeks from now the Connections Quilt Festival will take place in Nashua, NH November 9 – 11. The Generation Q Magazine Quilt as Desired Exhibit will be there on display with all of the information on each one of the quilts.

I get to teach three different classes:

Thursday – Beginner Free Motion Quilting/Permission to Free Motion Quilt.

Friday – Let Your Foot Loose be Fancy & Free/Intermediate/Advanced Machine Quilting

Saturday – Go Mini or Go Home – Lone Star

this outta be so much fun, and I’m can hardly wait to see you there.

I’ll be participating in a facebook live on the Connections Quilt Festival fb page at 10:00 Eastern this morning. Come join us! Here’s a link to the video 

Happy Quilting

 

Thank YOU!

There are many, many thank you’s this week.
First, Trish and the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show Committee, it was an honor to be invited to be the Featured Speaker. I really enjoyed spending the weekend at the show, sharing quilting, and teaching each one of the quilters who attended. Our quilts are the story of who we are, stitched together with needle and thread.

Thank you Beth, Innkeeper of the Grand Dutchess Bed & Breakfast in Red Hook. You are a delightful hostess, and a good cook!

Gentle reader if you are in the area of Dutchess Community College there is an exhibit of quilts though October 22nd in the Mildred I Washington Art Building. Check their pages for times the exhibit is open.

Thank you Debby Brown for capturing images like this:

and this:

we had dinner with Paula Reid, Trish and Holly, a fun time was had by allp

and holding up quilts

and not eating my chocolate cake

and just being there.

Sometimes I think I’m horrible at taking pictures when I’m on the road teaching and this weekend I realized I’m in this moment talking quilts and being with my students.

I enjoyed the moments I got to spend in the S&S booth, talking about the BERNINA 7 Series machines. It’s no secret they are my fave.

As with any teaching trip there is always an adventure! Let’s just say that I ended up being able to rent a mini-van for the weekend, which made me silly happy because more people and stuff fit in a mini-van than a smaller car. YAY. I got apples too. There will be apple pie. YAY for apple pie.

I’ll be at the Quilt Basket on Saturday January 20th for an all day class. We’re still working on the what but it will focus on machine quilting.

November 9 – 11 is Connections Quilt Festival. I’m teaching classes each day and will have the Quilt as Desired Quilts on display.

I’ll be at Quilt Market, where I have two classes Creating Consumer Confidence – Machine Sales and Creating Consumer Confidence in the In-Store Staff. These are tips I’ve learned over the years working in quilt shops, and working towards becoming the national machine quilting teacher I’ve always wanted to be.

I’m staying over to work in the Pinwheels booth with Maria Tamaoka. Stop by the booth say hi! and adopt some Daiwabo, or Oakshott Cottons for your stash! I’m happy to help the adoption go through.

Watch Instagram today for apple pie pics. I bought APPLES!!!

Happy Quilting,

Teri

 

Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show – Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap for blog

My bags are nearly packed. One quilt is in the dryer for a final fresh me up. There are kits for Go With the Flow Monday, paper and color pencils for And Now What?! (Doodle Your way to Better Quilting) on Sunday . The Generation Q Magazine Quilt as Desired Lecture is ready to go. And giveaways, I have some giveaways for each event.

I’m honored and excited for this weekend. Honored because I get to do what I love. Excited because Trish, representing the Show Committee asked me over a  year ago to be the Featured Speaker for the show. This request arrived in my inbox right around the time that the store announced it was closing, so this little bright spot in that moment.

twilight with ribbon

On a hunch I searched my photos. Twilight in the Bronx won a second place ribbon way back in 2009. Serendipity is a good thing!

I will be demoing in the S&S Vac booth. Paula Reid will be in the Sew & Vac booth (ruler work on the home sewing machine). Debby Brown will be in the Quilt Basket Booth with the Cuties.

I’ll be doing a facebook live with Debby this afternoon. She may be behind the camera or in front…we’ll figure it out.

See you soon!

Teri

 

I don’t get sick often but when I do

"Twilight in the Bronx"It always starts out innocently enough. My sweetie casually mentions, “Hey I think I’m getting a cold.” Okay fine. I can deal. Innocently I pour tea from the half-gallon he brought home. You know the one he drank from. So guess what. Yeah. I got that cold. Only more. Like sleeping during the day, taking cold meds more. Like I’m not going to Church and sharing this with everyone more.

I’m fine now. Really. I am. *cough! cough!*

I’m a little behind but have a couple of days to catch up before the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show. By the time you read this I will piece and blog for Thursday. It’s a Cotton Cuts Day, this is later than I intended but still on time because I didn’t reveal any secrets ahead of time.

Have you joined Debby Brown for Tuesday afternoon facebook live? She’s so amazing as a person, as a quilter. Debby is a prolific quilter with a precision and speed that comes with designing, testing, and making quilt patterns over and over again. Check out the vid (see link) then head over to her website to vote in Cutie Madness.

Have a Creative Day!

Teri

 

 

Quilt Shows and a bit of other stuff

Mornin’ Quilty Peeps

The Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show is quickly approaching, October 7 and 8. It’s hard to believe that this is just around the corner. I’m tweaking handouts, getting quilts together, and looking forward to this show. Paula Reid will be in the Sew and Vac booth demonstrating the Westalee Ruler Foot on the brother sewing machines.

If you’re in the neighborhood drop by the show.

Connections Quilt Festival Quilt Show EntryQuilt Show Entry deadline is October 15th. So there’s still time to enter. I need to shoot a quilt, then will be entering 2. After you’ve entered the quilt show head on over and sign up for a few classes. There are some amazing teachers in the group: Melinda Bula, Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill, Lynn Thibault, Margaret Mew, Lynn Wheatley and Me. If I weren’t teaching there are a few classes I’d take.

The Road 2 California quilt show entry deadline is just days away. Yes, I’m entering. It all has to do with that picture!

I'm kind of in love with Kaleidoscope Kreator.

A post shared by Teri Lucas (@terilucas) on

See you in a couple of days! I’m spending today and tomorrow with my sweetie celebrating our 25th.

Happy Quilting,

Teri

A little or a lot? Or how much quilting for this quilt?

20449106_10213973184472142_3759714678466190392_oHow much threadwork does this quilt need?

A little?

A medium amount?

A lot?

This question comes up frequently often saying something like, “I see all these quilts that are quilted to within an inch of life and I don’t ‘get it’, ‘like it’, ‘understand it’.” or “I like quilts that are quilted this way because they belong on my bed.” or “my walls are warm enough”

bob at Roanoak
Celebrating 25 years with this guy on Wednesday September 27th I love him!

There’s a reason why the word “It’s your quilt, it’s your rules” frequently exits my lips – this part – like so much of quilting – is all about you. You get to pick. You get to choose the lime green and pair it with the deep gray. You get to pick what weight, and color thread.

A slightly more complex answer begins with the following questions:

What is the end purpose of the quilt?
What batting will be used?
What thread(s) will be used?

Once these questions are answered then the rest, like a cute puppy, will follow you home. I’ll give an example:
double-irish-chain-full-viewI’m planning on remaking a quilt for my sweetie and I, a double Irish chain, using a variety of colors, and a gray background. As it’s a remake of a quilt I already own I get to make choices that are significantly different than the first quilt (seen here on the left)

First – no muslin. There are two different weights here because I didn’t know any better in that moment. The cream is where the gray will be.

Not only the gray background, the rest of the colors will be changing as well. My use, and understanding of color has changed.

Second – it’ll be bigger. It covers our queen sized bed, but not with us under it. I’m not a fan of fighting for the covers, are you?

Third – it will be all machine quilted, a bit more consistently across the surface. This is comes from the years of experience I now have. This will reflect where I am as a quilter now, and this is my choice.

Fourth – batting – most likely wool, or silk. because I like how they show off the quilting. When I started quilting this I used a dense cotton, I liked it at the time. However my experience now brought other battings into my quilting world. It’s been exciting exploring what they do. In an upcoming post I’ll share the battings I use and why.

Fifth – thread – it used to be all cotton. Now there are so many threads – cotton, wool, polyester, silk that are worth a look. Then there’s weight. Oh dear me I’m getting excited thinking about the possibilities!

So this is a bed quilt, with wool batting. Depending on the batting I might be able to quilt 4 – 8″ apart. So that will, in some ways, determine how much quilting is stitched over the surface of the quilt.

Now I’ll talk about whole cloth, and art quilts a little later on. Stay tuned!

Happy Quilting,

Teri

PS there’s still time to enter a quilt in the Connections Quilt Festival I’m filling out the paperwork for 2 later this morning!

Quilted Block of the Month – Brain Overload it’s a Think

kal 2 use this oneGood Saturday morning friends. This is a morning of several tales of how we, as creatives, can over think things, make some mistakes, and that we can recover.

So, this morning as I sipped coffee, and realized it’s Saturday. Saturday, you know the day I’m committed to posting the Quilted Block of the Month. I got nuthin’! Nuthin’ dang it. The quilt is sitting in front of the Sizzix taunting me. How you might ask? Well, thank you for asking the question because this deserves something of a discussion.
But first allow me to pause and share this blog that got me thinking about what to write this morning, that I do have something to share. In the first few paragraphs the author, Sarah, writes about dropping things, and how this triggers memories from days long gone, and not in a straight line order. One memory is older, one is newer, all associating with the dropping and catching, or tossing from one hand to the next of some object.

These  words evoked a ton of images in my brain. Seemingly scattered, yet all meaningful in a delightfully weird, connected way.

You see this week has been fraught with some frustration, some serious work, and some honest-to-goodness solutions. If I were braver in this moment I’d show you the creative mess I’m working in (don’t judge, it actually works for me). I’d love to be in a tidier space, however it won’t happen until we decide to repaint this room in the autumn orange I’ve been jonesing for, forever. Then everything will come out of the room. Now this has me thinking about replacing the flooring to something other than carpet because the chair I have sinks into the carpet making hard to move, even with the huge chair mat underneath it.

I’m working on a quilt that needs to be ready for Quilt Market. In and of itself this is not a problem, I can, and do make quilts. However there are some specifics about this quilt that need to be in place. I was having some trouble, and realized I was using the wrong product.

dance bang head 1975First of all, I felt like a bit of an idiot at first. Then I realized, I’d made a mistake, it’s fixable, and I can move on. Done.

I’m also working on PowerPoint presentations for Quilt Market. I realized a long time ago that I do a lot of thinking before working something out. When I was in high school I’d do term papers and other things right before they were due. Sometimes the night before. I’d partly get myself all worked up about the due date, and what I had to do, then just sit down and get it done. What happens is, all of the thinking that happens when I’m all disconcerted end up being wildly productive. With the two I need to work on one is nearly complete and the other is still wandering about my head a little bit, however will be done in short order.

Now, back to the quilt. The possibilities for quilting are endless. That said there are a couple of ideas niggling at the back of my brain. I’ve wanted to highlight the circular movement that happens as a direct result of the angles in the quilt. While looking at the photo this morning I have a clearer idea of how I want that to happen. And it’s not how the original idea or thought.

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So while thinking about what to write this morning 5 different options presented themselves, that I like. As of this moment I’m not quite sure which of these will win the incredibly vehement discussion in my head. Once that happens the discussion for thread will begin. And that, as you know, is a rather complicated, and involved discussion. Stay tuned. This should get really interesting.

While I’m often confident when I get started stitching there is still a struggle inside my brain for what will happen over the surface of a quilt. You’d think after all this dang time it’d be really easy. Nope. One thing leads to another, and another, and another. Resolutions come in the midst of come really weird, self-berating things that whizz around at light speed in my thoughts, and dream.

Now that these words are finished typing I can get to the sewing machine and finish one of 8 projects, all vying for attention. At the same time.

Happy Quilting!

Teri