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It seems like every whole cloth quilt hits a point where the quilting gets tedious. I am at that point on my table cloth whole cloth quilt. I chose to use a 12 wt thread to outline all of the motifs. That is a super beefy thread and I felt like it needed that thickness to highlight the design. Choosing a thick thread meant that I would have to bury all my thread ends. With a thinner thread I can just take 8 – 10 tiny stitches and snip my thread, that will hold. But you can’t do that with…
Only when I started putting my post together did I realize that I am working on 4 projects at once – how’d that happen? I’m taking this time to create some new class samples in addition to working on one quilt and rediscovering another. I have this great 8′ x 8′ design walls, one of the luxuries that I planned for when we remodeled the house 4 years ago. Yet somehow I wish I had twice the design wall! What I find myself doing is putting up the project du jour on top of the previous project. Sometimes I forget…
I’ve almost finished my virus quilt (no name yet) and have moved on to my tablecloth quilt. I received a sweet reminder note from the Houston people that the due date for submissions to the Houston International Quilt Show was just 4 1/2 weeks away. Yikes – I’d better get busy! But first, my “almost finished” quilt: I still have some things to do to declare it finished, but it’s not anything that will take a long time. I decided I did not like the faux French Knots at the tips of the Prairie Points (PP). Hand stitching is…
I started thinking I did not have much to say this week but a peek at my photos for the week showed otherwise. I have not completed anything but I have worked really hard all week in bits and pieces: This drives me crazy! Working on several projects at a time gives me a mess. It didn’t stay this way for long, that’s just how I roll. I started playing with screen material. You know I love me a good sheer fabric, been working with sheers for a long time. About 10 years ago I played with screening material but…
Apparently “scattered serial quilter” is my new normal. When I am traveling to teach and lecture, I just can’t have 3 or 4 projects going at once. My brain can’t handle it and my studio needs to be organized enough that I can stop a project and prep for my gig. So this makes me realize, no wonder most of my friends have multiple projects going – because they can! It feels unnatural to me. The good thing is if I get stuck, I can just move on to another project. This is all news to me, grin. I’ll…
This week was scattered – mask-making, working my whole cloth tablecloth, playing with Lumiere paint, fixing some annoying computer/laptop/phone issues and starting a pieced quilt top that I may or may not finish. You know the apocalypse is nearing when you find me piecing, so there’s that too. So here’s where I land on the whole mask thing: I have read many articles on the pros and cons of these. I have looked at 1.5 zillion tutorials including “the best”, “10 min mask”, “15 min mask” and, not to be outdone, “the very best”. BTW, none of them are…
It’s kind of hard to have a compelling blog post during a quarantine. It’s not like I went to a fabulous quilt show this week or had a super fun gig at a fabulous location. But I have been productive in a very different way this week. I find it very hard to sit still and hang out. I have so many things I want to work on – this is my chance! Here we go: I did have a finish this week, kinda sorta: I am going to let this marinate for a bit, thinking I want to add…
Once upon a time, a long time ago, before Covid 19 really hit the US, the SAQA show Aloft premiered at AQS Daytona Beach (late Feb). I was able to see its debut. I didn’t have a lot of time to ponder the quilts as I was sneaking in time at lunch and after teaching. I particularly enjoyed Aloft because it was positive and, well, uplifting. I have grown weary of “statement” shows and craved a positive exhibit. I got a chance to hang out the with my Florida SAQA peeps and it was wonderful to get to know them…
This was my first time to teach at AQS Daytona Beach and I had a blast! I have not been to that part of Florida before and I found it to be genuinely friendly and laid-back. The influence of the car is felt pretty much everywhere. The accent was seriously southern and the food that I had outside of the Hilton was fabulous. The barbecue next to the convention center was some of the best ever. Walking around the city was a delight. It was a real challenge to pare down to one checked bag! By necessity I flew Delta…
I had a grand time at the Santa Barbara Quilting Retreat a few weeks ago when I studied with Betty Busby. Betty is a very popular teacher and I knew her a little bit from SAQA, so I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy the class. It exceeded my expectations for several reasons. I thought I would feel intimidated but I was not, a shock to me! Surface design, fabric painting and design in general are not something I am confident in. I’m usually a bit rattled in general by the whole taking-a-class thing. But I felt totally…