I think we've all experienced it to one degree or another - that feeling of being overwhelmed, blue, in a rut, under the weather, or down right depressed. I have to admit that I have been experiencing all of these feelings over the last 6 months or so. It's frustrating, because I have a great life - a wonderful, supportive husband, great home, a to-die-for quilting studio, a good job, health (mostly), friends, financial security, etc. But I just was not happy. While I was out (overwhelmed, blue, in a rut, etc.) I didn't post anything and sometimes would not visit my studio for days at a time. Come to find out it was most likely due to some dietary issues combined with some depression, and with some lifestyle changes I am back on track. HooWoo!
The year is winding down and I've been doing a review of some of the things I've accomplished this year and thinking about some goals for next year.
Even given my 6 month funk, this year I:
- made progress on my multitude of BOMs.
- improved my free-motion quilting skills.
- moved and set up a sweet quilt studio.
- reached out more to friends and hosted several sew-in days.
- visited some new quilt shops on my trip to New England.
- attended 2 retreats.
- signed up for (and watched most of them) lots of Craftsy classes.
- added to my stash of fabrics, books, and patterns (not sure if this is an accomplishment or something to be avoided next year).
- took some great workshops (the highlights being Jacquie Gering, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, and Kelly Ashton).
- designed (in my head) several quilts for my "50 Quilts from 50 States" series.
- started my self portrait quilt.
I still have time to think about what I want to accomplish next year. The hard part will be limiting my list to what is actually do-able!
So standby for next year's goals and updates on what I'm curious about in my studio!
About a year and a half ago I took a KVQG sponsored workshop from Joe the Quilter - Joe Cunningham. Although Joe's experience and training is in traditional quilting, he has branched out into sort of abstract and modern quilting. Check out some of his work here.
The Workshop we did was "Rock the Block, block style". Piecing the blocks was a breeze because there really was no specific pattern - it was just slice and add or slice and insert.
Deciding where to put the blocks was another deal altogether. Joe suggested we lay them out so that the color flowed from one area to another. When I did that with my blocks, I did get the feeling of a landscape with golden flowers, greenery and sky. But it was a landscape as seen through fractured glass - hence the name of the quilt - Fractured Landscape.
Adding the borders was another interesting step. I didn't want it to look "bordered" so I added borders in a way that continued the colors and lines of the design.
Next step - quilting. I have been paying more attention to how quilts are quilted and had seen this "follow the lines swirls" somewhere - I'm sorry I can't remember who inspired me - maybe several folks. And now that I started quilting it this way, I see this all the time - most recently on one of Jacquie Gering's quilts (see the post on her quilt Shattered Remix). If Jacquie is doing it I'm in really good company!
I have never spent so much time looking at my walking foot before. This quilting design is simple, but it takes a lot of time. I can use all the different "toes" on my walking foot as guidelines. I'm also really thankful for the needle stop down feature on my machine. I could stop with the needle down every time I needed to pivot.
My new (used) Bernina 440 has a free hands system that enables me to lift the presser foot with my knee. It works better if I used my left foot on the gas (foot control) and my right on the lift. It felt a little weird at first, but I am getting used to it.
I also used my Machingers gloves, a textured finger glove, to help me exert more control over the quilt sandwich. These gloves are especially useful when free-motion quilting.
Since the quilt design had irregular shapes in 3 colors, I decided to quilt the shapes separately, and then as some colors bordered each other I decided to try combining some of the shapes. It was enjoyable to see how the shapes emerged with the quilting.
So then I was approaching my non-bordering borders and didn't to quilt them like traditional borders. After consulting with my quilting sister Kathy at the retreat and seeing what she did on an angle quilt, I decided to continue to quilt the shapes into the border area. I marked the outlines, making sure that I varied the size and contour of my shapes.
I am finishing up this wall hanging just in time for the KVQG annual quilt show (5-6 April at Crown Toyota in Lawrence). Now I have to figure out how to bind it. I'm having the same dilemma I had regarding the borders. Should I bind as normal? Match the binding color to the border color? Face? Or use some other technique? I'll show you what I ended up with in my post about the quilt show.
What do you learn by taking workshops?
Always curious,
