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In an act of shameless self-promotion I’ll be giving away a reversible table runner at my Saturday Night Sampler presentation at International Quilt Festival-Long Beach this week. I want to attract participants to my talk about “Fast Fixes For Free Motion Frustrations”.My topic this year is the most common problems that free motion quilters encounter. I’ll be showing some nifty new tools and techniques as well as the best marking tools, how to choose the right batting for your project and more. I’ll also cover the number one most asked about subject-come listen and find out what it is! I wasn’t able to begin the table runner…
Tonite is the opening reception (7-9PM) for the “Masterpiece Medley Membership Show” at the Blue Line Gallery in Roseville, Ca. I’ll be there! There are over 100 works in varied mediums by Blue Line artists from all over the Sacramento Valley. There will also be works by fellow Studio Art Quilt Associates members Priscilla Read , Pam Berry and Sandra Wagner. My piece “Emerge II” will be on display. I wanted to rework and refresh my original “Emerge” that I wrote about here. I used Misty Fuse on the border this time, which created a much better lay of the fabric…
I am at that delightful interlude of life where my boys have left the house and have set their own purposeful trajectory. DH has retired and golfs and volunteers enough to give me the mental space to create my art. I have had casual, aisle-of-the-grocery-store type of conversations with three Moms and a Dad over the last week. They all had a similar theme: we actually like our grown children as people and somehow, we actually helped produce those likeable people! We have led very different lives: financially, geographically, spiritually and politically. Each of us had radically different approaches to…
Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) has selected my quilt “Lily of the Valley” to be one of 106 that will be on display at the SAQA booth at the Houston International Quilt Festival in November! I am so honored and excited that I WILL have a piece hanging in Houston this year after all. I was so bummed when I missed the submittal deadline in June-I assumed that I would not have anything hanging in Houston this year. I decided in January that I was going to see the show. I need to get my nose up to those spectacular quilts to learn…
Sometimes lessons come when you least expect them. In mid-July I’ll be given exactly three minutes to sell my skills to a group of shop owners, guild Program Chairs and others interested in hiring quilting teachers at the Northern California Quilt Council. I’ve been putting off the task of making six giant quilt sandwiches for this venue. I want the audience to be able to see what I teach in my Intro to Fearless Free Motion class from the back of a large room-hence the giant quilt sandwiches. I thought this would be a pretty mindless task, but it has been…
The June tutorial for SewCalGal’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge was provided by Cindy Needham. Cindy asked us to “divide and conquer” by creating a random areas to quilt by meandering a curved line across the surface of our sample. Cindy also provided some great tips for successful free motion quilting. I used cotton sateen, wool batting, various weights of Aurifil thread, as well as Superior King Tut, Rainbow and Silk Kimono threads. Since I recently went to the county fair and was especially taken by some of the youth art, I thought I would create a wholecloth piece with a naive style,…
Very few shows happen in the summer so I was happy to go to the Roseville Quilters Guild’s show. I enjoy their show each year, along with the fair and some Food Not Approved by the American Heart Association. This was the charming greeting as you walked in-it got a chuckle out of me! Poor Little Sunbonnet Sue is walking the chain gang in prison stripes, hanging her head in shame. Guess she won’t touch the quilts again! It was a County Fair after all, so there was plenty of youth art. I love youth art and this happy little watercolor…
I love working with Radiance fabric, a blend of silk and cotton. It can elevate the look of your work to new levels. I adore its rich sheen and luminescence. But, it’s a bit tricky to work with. I’ve experimented with a couple of products to stabilize Radiance. I’ve included photos of each combination but unfortunately some of the photos are not as informative as I’d like them to be-but they’re still pretty! I’ve tried four different ways of working with Radiance: -No stabilizer. -Secured with bits of Misty Fuse placed about 2″ apart. -Stabilized/basted with Misty Fuse. -Stabilized with Pellon Bi-Stretch…
I’ll continue showing the Flutter Motif in this tutorial, but first I want to show it done two ways.Here I have stitched it with Feathers, Bananas and Lazy S’s. I used Radiance fabric, wool batting and Superior 100 wt. Kimono thread on both of the samples.Here it is stitched with just Bananas and Lazy S’s. I am surprised with the results: I like this one better than the one that includes Feathers-who knew? I will illustrate the Flutter Motif here using just the two designs I showed in Part 1 of this tutorial: Bouncing Bananas and Lazy S’s, like the photo…
Several of you have asked how to quilt the Flutter Motif and I promised to post a tutorial on how best to quilt it. I love this motif! This is my first attempt to put on “paper” how to do a motif like this. Let me know if you have questions or if my directions are not clear. By combining two motifs you can get something spectacular-try doodling your own favorite combination!I “fluttered” the central area of my Lily quilt and I really like how it turned out. The blue marker is still in the quilt so that’s why the color is funny…