Category: Quilt Market

On Making a Quilt for Market

part one sewmuchPlease pardon the angle of the photo, the layout is on my ironing board as I’m using a product that is still in the design phase and I can’t show it just yet. This is the beginning of a second quilt for the Sew Much Cosplay booth at International Quilt Market. I had an idea, a color wash of sorts with light batik dots, and Plaster of Paris from Frond Design Studio. and it was kind of working but I knew last night it wasn’t quite right. So I set it aside to get some rest.

Quilt in progress

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Diane Magidson of SewBatik saw the fabric I’d originally cut for the quilt and asked if it was Tequila Sunrise Gradation. She knows her product. Diane’s question got me thinking about my two fave times of the day: sunrise, and sunset. (Queue Music!) I got started listening to the idea of the color wash but limiting the number of fabrics being used to Tequila Sunrise. I’m happy to let the fabric do the work for me.

tequila sunrise

So much better. The dot fabrics are there just in case.

Once I got a few more pieces filled in I grabbed a silicone pressing sheet from C&T and got started pressing. The Teflon sheet I have is just a little too heavy to transfer the heat well. The silicon release sheet allowed the heat to transfer and released the fusible product without any problem.

Shh don’t tell anyone I need an new ironing board cover. I’m going to Market next week and I have my eye on a couple of places to look.

The quilt top is ready to be stitched.

sunrise

I’ll post an update on Instagram later once the top is pieced and ready for quilting.

Catch ya later,

Teri

Embracing Quirk, and a new class

Happy Tuesday!

dupioni whole cloth playtime my brain on quiltingLast spring I asked a trusted friend what her impressions were: confidence was the number one take away from that conversation. Honestly, I like that she picked up on that. It’s taken a lot of time to become confident at the machine, moving the quilt under the needle and watching the quilting motifs become what I see in my head. There is often a lot of frustration leading to getting what I see in my head on fabric. When it happens though it’s so cool.

So January 20th I’m teaching at the Quilt Basket in Pawling, NY, so I offered Go With the Flow. Funny thing is, they have a Cutie Pattern with that same name by the FabuLuxious Debby Brown. So they asked me to change the name. I proposed something on fb that made sense, starting to capture the class. For the most part it was met with enthusiasm. Some of the suggestions made sense, however don’t fit my quirky nature. So this really amazing friend shared this: Brain Dump: Stitch the Stuff of Your Dreams (Release the Kraken). It’s like she gets me or something. Weird, right? So that is the name of the newish class. Here’s the class description:

Let’s get the quilting we see in our heads out onto fabric by exploring what we can do with thread, batting, and needles. You’ll stitch on a small whole cloth based on a quilt block, or a fun design using a variety of thread. We’ll explore the differences in cotton, polyester, silk, in a variety of different weights to see how thread weight and color will do lot of work for you.

Kits available.

This will soon be listed on the Lectures/Workshops page.

There’s still time to sign up for the classes at the Connections Quilt Festival in Nashua November 9, 10, & 11. This is a direct link to the classes.

November 4 & 5 I’m shadowing at a Floriani Event hosted by SewRight in Queens. Check out the event page for more details.

Then there’s Quilt Market, and Quilt Festival. I’ll be helping Maria Tamaoka in the Pinwheels booth at Festival. Stop by and see us…there’s FABRIC in the booth.

F – A – B – R – I – C

I’m off to finish a couple of quilts for Cheryl and Tracy and do some embroidery.

Happy Quilting,

Teri

International Quilt Market & Apple Pie

I’m honored to share my years of experience working and teaching in quilt shops, teaching nationally, talking with shop owners, and working with Generation Q Magazine in each one of these talks. Join me at International Quilt Market. Check out Ebony Love, Cheryl Sleboda, Tracy Mooney, Maddie Kertay, Heather Kubiak, Pepper Cory and so many other presenters in ways that we can grow our businesses. Cheryl is offering business consultations with special Quilt Market pricing.

Reminder: Ebony Love is nearing the end of the Kickstarter Campaign to make new Sizzix dies for cutting some amazing quilts. Anything from sharing the post to $1.00 on up is a great show of support. Kickstarter campaigns are All or Nothing Events. If she meets the goal, she gets the money to make the dies, if not she doesn’t the opportunity to do this. Think of this as buying stock in a company for their growth and development.

Bonus! I’ll be staying through early Friday morning of Quilt Festival. I’ll be in the Pinwheels booth with Maria Tamaoka. She sells Daiwabo and Oakschott Cotton. Hooo baby let’s pet some fabric.

I made this deliciousness yesterday: Caramel-Bacon Apple Pie
2 crust pie crust (medium flake: a mixture of butter and shortening for the fat rocks it) I use the King Arthur Flour Recipe and add cider vinegar to the water.

1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
6 T butter
1/4 c water
2 t Cinnamon
8 strips precooked crispy bacon chopped up

Cook this in a skillet til it boils on medium heat. Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 more minutes. Set aside to cool

preheat oven to 400

a whole bunch of apples (4 – 6 cups)
slice or chop ’em your favorite way and place in a honkin’ big bowl

once the caramel mixture is coolish, pour over the apples to coat them completely

roll out bottom layer of pie crust layer in pie plate

dump the apples in crust
add apple mixture

roll out top crust

place over top, trim and pinch to seal the edges.

put pie plate on baking sheet and place in oven
reduce heat to 350
bake for an hour

take out of oven
cool
eat
enjoy

 

Quilted Block of the Month – September 2017

 

So, September and October can be a bit dodgy posting regularly. I’m learning how to use the Floriani Total Control U digitizing software. A friend asked me for some help with a bit of digitizing. I’d imported a photo into FTCU and told the software to do it’s thing. I couldn’t remember what I did. Well hello very popular search engine! Looky what I found. Getting Started with FTCU, complete with the solution. The internet has everything.

Now onto the Block. Spirals seem to be the thing, at least for the center, and spiraling out, well, kind of.

IMG_20170929_134108Once the spirals were echoed once I wanted to keep the outward moving feel.

Stay tuned to terificreations.com tomorrow for more details

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The video shows the feather work that continues out.

kaleidoscope block color here's what will happen

I’m still learning how to use the mouse and the touchscreen to draw on images. There’s a good feel for what the rest of the quilting will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

kaleidoscope multi

And here we go with a multi block piece.  I do have more kaleidoscope pieces to cut and make into something special.

This coming week will see me preparing for the Dutchess Heritage Celebration, working on Floriani projects, and getting two quilts pieced for Quilt Market.

Oh so you know I have a Sizzix. For anyone who doesn’t like the cutting process, or who has physical issues that limit their ability to cut fabric. Ebony Love of Love Bug Studios has some new dies she’d like to get made. And this quilter would love the dies because the quilts are gorgeous! She’s got a kickstarter campaign to raise the funds. FYI, a kickstarter is akin to a stock IPO on the stock exchange, a way of raising funds to get some work accomplished. What I love about this kickstarter is this allows all of us to benefit from Ebony’s creativity and damn hard work.

Happy Stitching,

Teri

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

I’m kind of excited!

2017-09-15 19.05.13Visiting the Quilt Basket last Saturday was so much fun. The students enjoyed If the Foot Fits Use it. Both groups were so much fun, covering a lot of territory in a short amount of time. The lecture itself is about an hour, as we made this interactive – the students asked questions lots of great questions. I’m adding a couple of slides featuring pages of The Big Book of Feet. This one volume book from BERNINA is such an amazing resource. (Forgive the fuzzy shot, either I need new glasses or to clean the lens on my phone.) I’ll be going back to teach at some point, will let you know when.

If you’re going to Quilt Market or Quilt Festival – the Quilt Basket will be there with the Cutie Patterns. Please stop by their booth. And for a wee bit more fun – Debby Brown is celebrating Cutie Madness on her site. Follow along, and vote for your favorite, and an opportunity to win Cutie patterns.

"Twilight in the Bronx"

October 7 and 8 are quickly approaching. Why does this matter? It’s the weekend of the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show. This is a long time planning and this quilter is still amazed and honored to be part of this event. Check out the lectures and workshops.  Paula Reid will be in the S&S booth, and I’ll stop by to demo on the 7 Series. This will be fun. @play is currently at S&S so please stop by to see it.

 

 

Quilt Market is quickly approaching and I have two classes:
Creating Consumer Confidence – Machine Sales Saturday October 28 9 AM – Fifteen tips and techniques for making sewing machines sales now and in the future. Includes staff training and consumer conversations.

Creating Confidence in the In-Store Talent Sunday October 29 6 PM Fifteen tips and techniques for making sewing machines sales now and in the future. Includes staff training and consumer conversations.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Happy Quilting,

Teri

September Quilted Block of the Month

It’s Still Saturday! Ha! At least for a little while yet.

So I’ve been thinking about this kaleidoscope quilt, how to quilt it and what colors to use. Before I got there bear with me for a moment.

Shadowing = learning for me. There are things to do. so watch this space for things I’m doing to learn what I gotta learn to do the work of teaching. Yesterday as I sat in the back of the room the gal I was shadowing said something and my brain kicked into high gear. Finger in the air tracing out some thing that made sense. I still think I can do what I want to in the software. There will be some trying going on.

Superior Threads Tiara Silk threa setSo then for the quilt my brain has been thinking split the complement! split the complement. Woot! Woot! I love splitting complementary colors. So splitting the complement it is. I’m going to focus on the orange as it is the background and primary color of the quilt.

Blue complements orange beautifully.
Purple complements yellow.
Green complements red.

I could go on adding colors and sharing the complement of said color, and while this would be an exercise adding color names, shades, tones and lots of words, the point is that each color has a color that is it’s bff, that adds spark, and sizzle and wow. And then there’s the next door neighbors who are kind of, well…I’ll go there another day.

Tomorrow is the travel day so while waiting for planes there will be some messing about in the software.

Happy Quilting!

Teri