Remember a few weeks ago that I mentioned I had some news. I’m teaching at Connections Quilt Festival November 9, 10, and 11. And! Bonus! The Generation Q Magazine Quilt as Desired Exhibit will be there!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! The congratulatory messages on my new position with Floriani are simply awe inspiring.
Now onto our regularly scheduled program:
Oh I do remember giving you this update sometime during the week in Instagram. Debby was stitching this motif on a postcard, and I was inspired by it. I’m not entirely certain that Debby posted this anywhere publicly so just know that I have permission to copy her homework at any time. Cool, eh? With this project you have permission to copy my homework. If you’re playing along please feel free to send me pictures and I’ll share them here on the blog.
Remember I tend to show all the stuff that I’m not happy with because I’m still learning how to machine quilt.
The free-hand embroidery foot is aboutt 1/4” from needle center to the outer edge of the foot. I chose a spot roughly in the center of the square to start stitching a circle. Once the circle closed I very slowly started curving out until the edge of the foot was on the center circle. I kept stitching around, and around, and around, and around, and around and around. Once I reached the edge the ditch helped me keep the curves consistent. Using 80 weight thread in the bobbin means that there is little thready build up, and the fabric doesn’t distort.
I’m going to show this one in a very quick vid.
This should give you an idea of how this motif is stitched out. This one looks like a wonky log cabin block, however it’s stitched from the outside in. On the quilt itself I simply winged it. In the video I used a ruler to make the lines. Going from the outside in is what helps create the visual twist.
It’s interesting how thread looks on different color. 80 weight thread is the best!I like the different texture with the straight lines in the square and the ribbon candy in the border.This is the first square I stitched in. While I’ve done this before I wasn’t quite remembering the rhythm of the stitching. It came back after the first full round.
I’m teaching at Quilt Market.Enrollment is now open! I’m teaching two classes Creating Consumer Confidence Machine Sales and Creating Confidence in the In-Store Talent. Tracy Mooney, Maddie Kertay, Ebony Love, Heather Kubiak (this is one I want to attend on the legalities of our business!), Morna Golletz, and other great talent will all be there offing our experience. Cheryl Sleboda has four business related classes at Quilt Festival. You can also check with her to see if she has mentoring appointments open.
Quilt Basket: Pawling, NY Saturday September 16th If the Foot Fits Use it 11, and 1. I’ll offer quilting suggestions so bring your quilts! Twilight is there, stop in to see it!
Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show – Featured Quilter/Speaker This opportunity to share my work at this show makes me so happy. Twilight in the Bronx won a ribbon at this show. I’ll be spending some time in the BERNINA booth more on that soon. @play is visiting that store stop in and see it!
Shine Your Light, one of the quilts in the “Live Your Brightest Life, A Tribute to Yvonne Porcella hosted by Pokey Bolton” arrived home last night, rolled up, in plastic (to keep it dry in case!), and in just the perfect box with the info sheet with it.
there is something amazingly special about this quilt, to me. In the last few days I’ve had reminders of the events going on in my life at that particular moment of time. I was out of my home 13 hours a day. I had to give up writing a book that I’ve longed to write, and the quilt shop where I worked was in the process of closing. Let’s just say that the physical tiredness, coupled with the heart wrenching decision to Let Go, and the emotional fatigue was off the charts. There is some other stuff that I’ll just hold onto. So to have a quilt like this happen, in a relatively short amount of time….ooooph.
Having the quilt selected to be part of the exhibit buoyed my spirits. Sometime soon it will hang in my sewing room as a reminder to Live my Brightest Life, to pour all of who I am into the quilt making that I get to do, the people I am privileged to teach, and work with in the quilting community.
Speaking of Bright Lights. I’m sharing this link to Lisa Sipe’s Go Fund Me page. She is, without a doubt, a bright light in our quilt community. As you may have heard Lisa lost the lower part of her left leg. She’s not able to work right now, however she’s made major strides (she would love the word play) being able to take her dogs out for a walk on her own. This is huge. At some point down the road she’s going to need a prosthesis…so I’m sure her goal of $25,000 isn’t going to quite meet her needs.
this looks like a hot mess, and in a way it is. what you can’t see is the ever growing pile o’holyscraps over there ———->
I’ve wanted to make a kaleidoscope quilt for a long time. Even designing one in a program but not quite getting what I needed out of it. So Sizzix comes to the rescue. After pressing some* of these batiks I started cutting.
*some were from a 5” charm square pack I had from teaching some time back.
I wasn’t quite sure where this where this was going color placement wise, and quite frankly I’m still not. I know you’re not surprised by this either.
I made the choice for this one fabric to the be the background, realizing that I didn’t have enough I found this glorious orange. I ripped several pieces off the yardage, pressed, and figured out how to cut each strip to get the pieces I wanted.
I’m using Superior’s MicroQuilter 100 wt polyester for the piecing. No distortion here.
Tip number two for the day, I put my iron on the lower middle setting for the cotton. Wow! what a difference this is making as I can press for longer periods of time and not burn my fingers. The bigger difference, the fabric isn’t warping. Good golly I’ve been quilting for over twenty-four years you’d think I would have learned this by now, right? Not so. Sheesh.
Now I have another idea for this same die.
I need to set this aside for a few days while I work on some other stuff. Stay tuned.
Saturday I’ll have another installment of the Quilted Block of the Month.
Technical difficulties sometimes present big problems. Other times they are opportunities for learning. Something went screwy a while back, causing something to happen to the version of Microsoft Office installed on my computer. I have an open source that I can use for documents, power point presentations, and graphics, it’s simply not as intuitive as Office. I could use the desktop but that requires a few back flips. I’m hoping by the time I get this posted I’ll at least have a line diagram that makes sense.
Oh rejoice with me friends it worked!!! Hallelujah. You’ll notice later on that the line that is in the squares around the perimeter are not stitched. The motif that gets stitched in there is so fun. Want to see from the back?
The outer box is 12 inches. I’m using the Quilters Select 12” x 6” ruler. I’m digging these as they grip the fabric so no shifting! I use the twelve inch side to draw the outer lines. The 6” side helps me to keep the ruler straight marking the next line. Why not use a 12” ruler? Well the ruler I currently own has a chip in one corner. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Marking the center points on all four sides. I used a hash mark, a dot will suffice.
Measure in from each side 1 1/2 or 2 inches, this will create the inner square. See the diagram above.
Tip: hold the marking pencil at an angle along the ruler. This will help keep your lines straight, and consistence.
Now to make the smaller squares: connect the dots. Place the ruler from hash mark to has mark on an angle. Draw a line from the dot, to the inside line.
For August we’re exploring how quilting looks on a highly patterned, very colored fabric. As a newer quilter I would often let the fabric do the work for me using simple motifs or stippling to accomplish the work of quilting, I daresay this is common among quilters, and it’s perfectly fine. Whatever gets the job done.
Batting
I’m using two layers of a cotton wool batting by Hobbs. I do love multiple layers of batting, this is something I started doing on competition quilts after Tilde won it’s ribbon. The first (back) later might be cotton, or bamboo to give stability to the quilt; the top layer is wool, or silk for great stitch definition. On the rare occasion that I make bed quilts one layer of wool or silk is perfect, as they breathe, and keep a body warm.
When Hobbs debuted this cotton/wool blend I thought I’d died and gone to heaven as it provides the stability I want with good stitch definition. Bonus!
Thread
The where and how will be over the next several weeks.
Superior Metallic – 40 wt. and shiny. Interestingly it’s quite subtle.
Superior MicroQuilter – 100 wt polyester this is a new must have in my thread collection for everything from stitch in the ditch, to the intense quilting I’m passionate about.
Backing
Is a striped batik from Robert Kaufman Fabrics. I’ll share that on Instagram later this week.
Sam Hunter of Hunter’s Design Studios gathered the teachers This is going to be so much fun. I do know what I’m going to do, and I know when I’m going to do it. For right now let’s just say I’m going to tackle a long standing quilting tip.
Shine Your Light, one of the quilts in the “Live Your Brightest Life, A Tribute to Yvonne Porcella hosted by Pokey Bolton” arrived home last night, rolled up, in plastic (to keep it dry in case!), and in just the perfect box with the info sheet with it.
