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To me this is big news: a marker that marks clearly, precisely and removes fairly easily. It’s a marker that’s been around for awhile-Morgan’s-and some of you may have already tried it. I rediscovered it in Houston at the vendor’s booth. I probably even have an old one somewhere in the catacombs of my quilt paraphernelia! I am curious if any of you have used this before and what your impressions were of it, whether good or bad. I put it right to the test after I got back and marked a grid in graphite on WHITE silk dupioni, so…
I’m sharing “Two Tiny Tips” today-things that will make your quilting life just a little bit easier. Burying thread ends Sometimes you want or need to bury your thread ends instead of securing the end of your quilting line with tiny little stitches. I do this on my competition pieces or anyplace where the end of my line of stitching is very visible or I want all the stitches the same size. But sometimes this is a little hard to do. When I’m working with super thin silk thread (100 wt) and I’m taking tiny stitches, it’s difficult to get the…
This month’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge at SewCalGal‘s site was provided by Sarah Vedler and it was all about spirals. Sarah is a quilt and block-of-the-month designer, an embroidery designer and also free motion quilts. So our challenge was to learn to do spirals. Well, I did two rows of spirals, and then I thought, well these could also be rectangles. And then I did some squares, and finally some triangles.It’s a pretty versatile concept and I could see it as a background fill. We’ve got one more month to go in the challenge and it has been a lot of…
The annual River City Quilters’ Guild Show was held last weekend in the Scottish Rite Temple in Sacramento, Ca. They always have a great collection of traditional, contemporary, art and applique quilts as well as wearable art. I did not come away with many great photos as the light is pretty low and I just couldn’t seem to get a good photo off. “Red Chair” by Mary Upham. This Best of Show greeted visitors as they walked in and it’s a stunner. Mary worked from her own photo and started this piece in a Ruth McDowell seminar at Asilomar. So…
It’s the Fall Quilt Show Season! The Pioneer Quilt Guild Show moved to more spacious quarters this year and the quilts showed so much better. I had a great time at the show, spent too much money at the boutique and got some photos to share. I have to say upfront that my photos are not the best. It’s a combination of strong light from the skylights, crowded aisles, operator error and I swear my camera is doing weird things with color.“Baskets For Mom”, by Mary Hammarin. This caught my eye right away. Sometimes a quilt really sings when you…
Final installment!“Prairie Fire” by Ruth Powers depicts the early spring burning of the Flint Hills. And that is pieced, not fused-stunning in person. “Brink of Sunset” by Hanne-Grete Brink of Norway was made to honor her ancestors who lived “at the brink of land between mountains, the sky and the sea”. It was constructed on a long arm! I can’t get away from this one-it continues to hold my interest. “Ephemeral Elegance” by Deborah Grifka. Deborah wondered what “modern applique” would look like and this was her answer. She used bias strips to create this original design. “Down Pat” by Pat Budge. There was an interesting…
Continuing on… Cecelia Koppmann of Buenes Aires, Argentina. Cecelia used improvisational piecing to create this interpretation of the Biblical Tower of Babel. I really enjoyed this piece for its use of color, value and whimsy. “Ear of Rice” by Sachiko Sano, Japan. Sachiko used her Mother-in-Law’s old kimonos to create this quilt which represents stacks of rice straw. This quilt just continued to hold my attention. It was beautifully constructed and quilted of course, but the use of the fabrics in this quilt was extraordinary. “Aeki” by Tineke van Heuvelen of The Netherlands. I love the European influence in this show! Tineke used IKEA images…
(Written on 11.01.12) I’m here at IQF-Houston and I am vibrating with the energy I am getting from all of these amazing quilts, garments and art. Last night was Preview Night and I saw maybe a tenth of the quilts and as well as friends from all over. This is just a fabulous experience! Since sleep may just not be happening, I thought I would post instead.My friend Diane Loomis’ “Five Bar Blues” won second place in the Merit Quilting category. My photo just simply does not do it justice-her work truly is perfection. It is heavily trapuntoed and the…
It started out so well-I was going to make a special tote for my upcoming trip to Houston for the Int’l Quilt Festival. Actually I decided I was going to make two: first a “muslin, since I’m not an accomplished tote maker, and then one which featured my quilting. It did NOT turn out the way I planned. I did complete the “muslin”-in a mere 5 days-are simple totes supposed to take this long?? I guess it turned out okay, but I had much higher expectations and I took some detours along the way. This is where the trouble started. I got…
I felt the need to follow up on my last post about pre-printed panels (PPP). The Asian panel in my last post had over 30 hrs into it, with beading and complex quilting. Since my point was that PPP are great things to just let go and play on, I figured I’d better follow up with something simple!I did this simple Christmas PPP several years ago and from layering to binding, this took maybe 4-6 hrs. My thought on this panel was to try four things: -Machine applied binding. -To use only one thread throughout-would it be enough? -Fusible bamboo batting. I used…