So I haven't really alluded to it in a while - but I also dabble (OK more than dabble) in machine embroidery. I've got several projects working, although only one is on my active rotation.
One of my favorite embroidery companies is Hoop Sisters. Every year they offer an embroider-block-of the month. These quilts are quite fantastic. I should write a post about these quilts later.
This post is about their Mystery Embroidery Quilt. It's a 6 week weekly download. You can sign up here between now and the end of June. Mea Bernina and Babylock is offering a sweet deal - if you bring in your Mystery Quilt Receipt, they will treat it like a Mea class and will give you 20% off your fabrics and threads for the quilt. Call the shop at 785-842-1595 for exact details (effective dates, excluded products, etc).
So I have completed one set of blocks - it was fun, and a bit of a challenge to assemble. You'll get plenty of practice on inset seams (grin). You know I love EPP and Grandmother's Flower Garden, so you'll bet I love this quilt with its embroidered hexagons. I'm using a really cool pastel variegated thread for the background of the white block. You cant see it in this photo, but the variegated thread gives it a nice look.
I can't wait to work on the other blocks. I wonder what they'll be! I'll just have to wait and see. It is a mystery after all.
Curious about Embroidered quilts? Check out Hoop Sisters for the Mystery Quilt and Mea Bernina for the next Embroidered BOM - Sisterhood, which starts soon.
Every designer brings something new and different to my toolbox. I've been highlighting my favorites in no particular order of wonderfulness, but rather, as I encounter them. Last month Karen K. Stone visited the Kaw Valley Quilters Guild. Wow, what a program!
My introduction to Karen came many (10?) years ago when I took a class at Quilter's Haven in Olathe. The class was Karen's Cinco de Mayo - a fantastic, somewhat chaotic New York Beauty. This class fueled my search and collection of wild, colorful fabrics. These fabrics are part of my daily round now, but back then they were way outside of my comfort zone.
Cinco de Mayo is made of a series of blocks using the New York Beauty block - all of them varied in terms of the number of points and bands. This is not mine - I only have the first two rows done (yeah, I know I started it 10 years ago). But isn't it beautiful! I love the variation in the size and number of points.
My next close encounter with the force of nature that is Karen, was a class at the first Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival. I am an EPP fan and she was teaching EPP by machine. It was a challenging technique for me because I balk at a lot of prep work - and this technique took a lot of prep. It's a good tool to have in my kit, but I haven't used it yet.
This brings us to the present - well, last month, when Karen came to our guild. She is a dynamo of a speaker - I've love to get a little of her energy. The story of her quilts was mostly about color and value. It made me think about not being so matchy-matchy with my color schemes.
For the workshop after the talk and trunk show, Karen choose "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues" as the pattern. I choose Tula Pink's Raccoons for my focus fabric. I thought those little guys would be so cute surrounded by the colorful star points. After I took this pic, I added a black and white striped flange between the raccoon and the star points. I really liked it but i was a lot of work. So now I'm looking for something similar but easier. Or maybe I'll just leave it as is. Hmmmm Dilemma!
Curious about Karen? Look for her workshops and programs. She is a bundle of positive, quilting energy.
Many of us quilters are serial crafters - myself included. Counted cross stitch was my "gateway" craft. I started stitching when I was pregnant with my first son who just had his 31st birthday.
After years of cross stitching (which I still do occasionally by the way), I thought I would try weaving. Back about 16 years ago I bought a used Baby Wolf floor loom (Schacht) and took beginning weaving classes at Yarn Barn here in Lawrence.
It's been a while since I've had anything on my loom, but I was intrigued by a class offered recently by Yarn Barn on making crimp cloth. The samples were really cool - a cloth with pleats. The pictures of Dianne's (the teacher) garments were fantastic. So I signed up for the class, chose my yarn, and then worried about all the skills I'd lost over the years.
Dianne Totten is a great weaver, artist, and instructor. Her garments are gorgeous. Every day she wore a new vest. I was so wowed that I didn't get pictures of most of them. I did get this one of a couple of her vests from her slide show.
The crimped fabric has a wonderful drape and the garments were very flattering on all kinds of body shapes. OK, so I hear you . . . what the heck is crimped fabric?
Crimped fabric is woven like most other fabrics, but the yarns in either the warp or the weft need to be a synthetic and then you put in an additional thread that will be used to scrunch the fabric up and pulled out later. I did a weft crimp - you can see my pull threads in this pic - they are the yellow ones. After pulling the yellow threads tight and tying them, the fabric sits in a steam bath for 30 minutes, and Voila! Pleated fabric!
So I tried several different patterns with the pull threads. 4 by 4 offset (in the pic above), 6 by 3, poofy rows, and large poofy circles. I tried using weft threads in various colors - turquoise, green, dark blue, pink and red. I have a binder full of samples and some ideas to make some crimped scarves.
It felt good to be weaving again. I did have to ask basic questions to refresh my memory. But after a while, I was doing OK. I still have a bit of an issue keeping my edges (selvages) from drawing in. I've signed up for a beginning weaving class this summer so I'll be making some placemats and kitchen towels by summer's end! And maybe my loom won't feel neglected any more.
Curious about weaving? Check out Yarn Barn of Kansas!
In among the foundation piecing on Cat Tail Memories (yes, I've decided to name her), are some lovely applique cat tails and stems. What's the big deal about applique, you ask?
Well, Judy does applique in a WOW way. In each of her patterns that includes applique, she includes lazer cut sheets for each applique shape. Stitch-N-Peel sheets. These sheets are a cellulose material that softens when washed so you can leave it in. It can't be much easier than that!
All you have to do is peel the paper off the sticky side of the applique sheet and stick it to the wrong side of your fabric. Then cut it out with a .25" seam allowance, add a little glue stick and turn the edges under. And Voila! Each group of cattails leaves gets 3 or 4 of the fuzzy cuties.
The applique shapes in this pattern are quite simple. Some of her other patterns - Paradise in Blooms, Pepperdish, Cactus Rose, Diamond Wedding Ring, and Flowers for my Wedding Ring (I'm sure there are more) - have extremely intricate applique that would be so easy with Judy's Stitch-N-Peel method.
Curious? If you want to try Stitch-N-Peel in other applique patterns, you can order it from Judy's website.
P.S. If you missed Chapters 1-4 of my Cat Tail Memories posts, you can read them here.
Chapter 1 - Design
Chapter 2 - Color and Fabric
Chapter 3 - Preparing Papers and Fabric
Chapter 4 - Foundation Paper Piecing
I met Noriko Endo at an ASQ quilt week class in Phoenix AZ in 2014. The result of that class was a small wall hanging I called Autumn Path. I blogged about that quilt early last year. I sold Autumn Path and I have been missing my baby. So I decided to make another one. Oh, and I'm also talking about the technique at Sassy Sewists at Mea tomorrow - so gotta have a sample!
For several months I have been saving photos on Pinterest to my board called confetti quilt. The best photos (IMHO) for this technique are impressionistic looking landscapes - scenes that don't have a lot of sharp, crisp edges. After our trip through Colorado, Idaho and Montana last fall, I had been thinking about doing an aspen quilt. So while looking for aspens, I found this picture of this birch which I thought was beautiful. It had all the right aspects - good lines, multiple colors, some details to thread paint. Perfect!
I dug through my stash and found some batting that would do. To tell the truth, I hadn't labeled this piece, so I have not idea what brand it is. Then I found some batiks that would work for the basic background - light blue for the top third, and dark green for the bottom 2 thirds. As you can see, I didn't even press the fabrics. There is going to be so many layers on top of this that a few wrinkles don't matter.
A few days ago, at my guild small group meeting, I whacked some batiks strips into little pieces - confetti, and saved them - first in a muffin tin, and then I found a perfect storage bin at JoAnn. I felt like I had a palette of paints ready to use to make a masterpiece!
I imagine layering the fabric like a painter would layer paints - starting with the farthest bake layer and then moving forward. I sprinkled my "paint" down on the background using the picture as my guide. Then I added the tree trunks that stand "in front" of some of the leaves. Next came the first layer of tulle.
I found the tulle at Hobby Lobby. They had probably over 20 colors. I was tempted to try a dark red or green, but settled on my standby black. It doesn't add color, but tones down colors that are too bright. So now I have a layer of tulle over all the little pieces of confetti. I pinned it together and brought it carefully to the machine. Even though I was careful, I still spilled bits of fabric all over my studio.
Using the Bernina Stitch Regulator, I stitched down the tulle/confetti/background/batting/backing sandwich to keep most of the confetti in place. Now I added the top layer of confetti - the leaves that are in front of the tree trunks.
Now comes the fun part - the thread painting. I used Isacord thread in several colors and stitched bubbles, leaves, and squiggles over the leaves. I added the highlights on the tree trunks with a light grey.
I have a few more highlights and shadows to add and then I get to figure out how to finish it - binding? facing? staple to an art canvas?
Check out Noriko's book and try your hand at painting a confetti quilt. It's fun, uses scraps, and lets you practice your free motion quilting. Just a note of caution - put something over it or keep the cat out of the studio while you are working on it - also don't leave the windows open. Ask me how I know!
Inspiration - It's everywhere! Nature, architecture, other textiles, and of course other quilts.
My Pinterest board "Photos that Inspire Quilts" is jam packed with pins of ideas or subjects that I think would make great quilts. Pics of flowers, animals, landscapes, or abstract lovelies.
Everytime I travel, I see carpets, tiles, paintings, vistas from an airplane window that would make great quilts. Vacations are great opportunities to explore and experience landscapes and colors that would make great quilts. Our trip 4 years ago to the Galapagos Islands provided lots of ideas. Lava flows, birds, tortoises, sand, water - they were all gorgeous and all worthy of a cool quilt.
Of course other quilters are a huge source of inspiration. Before Pinterest, I used to comb through quilting magazines, tearing out pages of gorgeous quilts. I had files of pages - traditional, modern, colors I liked, applique quilts. Now, I don't need paper pages anymore to get and organize inspiration. Don't you just luuuuuvvvv Pinterest?
I have boards related to modern quilts, HST quilts, jelly roll quilts, applique quilts, landscape quilts, circle quilts, spiral quilts, crazy quilts, and a general category for "quilts I like". There are so many - I will NEVER want for inspiration. Not only do I have stash beyond life expectancy, I have ideas beyond life expectancy. I'll have to live to be 200!
There are so many quilts out there waiting to be born. Big sigh . . .
Where do you find your quilting inspiration?
Wow, its been quite a week with the Kaw Valley Guild's Quilt Show. The Show is now behind us and I am catching up with housework (yuck) and sewing (yeah). The show was a success by many standards. A lot of hard work by many people and also great fun and inspiration.
So, now that I am a bit caught up, I can work on my Judy Niemeyer Cattail Mixer. In previous chapters I designed and colored the quilt on Quiltster, and prepared the papers and fabrics. In this chapter I am working on one series of cattail sections. One of the best features of Judy's quilts is her method of assembly line sewing.
Actually, it should be assembly line sewing, pressing, folding, and trimming. Because the mantra here is "what you do to one piece, you do to all pieces". For Judy's patterns that could mean 4 pieces, all the way up to a hundred - on the border for example. In this case I have four sections.
For those of you who have done foundation piecing before, this is pretty much the same method. What is different is that you do several at the same time.
The first step is to lay out all your pieces that you prepared in Chapter 3. I aligned them in the order that they will be sewn with the "sew side" towards the top. In this case, I had 11 pieces of background and cattail leaves.
When doing foundation piecing, you should reduce your stitch length so that the paper is easier to tear off. Its a bear to rip out if you make a mistake though . . . curse words have been heard coming from my studio. Judy recommends 1.6. So I adjust my trusty Bernina and I'm ready to go.
Following the "do it for every piece" method, I lined up the first 2 pieces of fabric on each of the 4 papers. The beauty of foundation piecing, is that you just have to be able to sew on the lines. You get perfect points on difficult patterns just by sewing on the lines. I sew on line 1 four times. By the forth time, I really know that line well. Practice makes perfect!
Second step is to press the seam open - yes, 4 times! I sometimes use getting up to the ironing board as exercise (don't tell my trainer Zach), but this method saves those trips. I iron all 4 papers at the same time. I guess I'll have to do real exercise instead.
Step 3 is to fold the paper back and trim the excess fabric away. Judy recommends a long piece of template plastic because you can get a good fold all along a long paper. Using an "add-a-quarter" ruler butted up against the template plastic gives you a nice straight cut edge.
Now you do it again with the next piece of fabric, then the next, and next, sewing on lines 2 through 11 - you get the picture. I now have 4 raggedy papers, so obviously there are still a couple of steps left.
Step 4 is to sew the registration lines using a basting stitch. This is one of the brilliant features of Judy's patterns. The registration lines help you put the sections together. This section has 3 registration lines on each piece.
Now the last step, the fun part that really gives me a feeling of accomplishment - trimming the papers on the outside cutting line. If the lines are straight, I use a ruler. If they are curved I do it free hand.
So now I have 4 left side cattail sections complete. In this pattern there are a total of 4 different sections - 2 corner sections (left and right) and 2 center sections (left and right). As soon as I complete the 4 right side sections, the cattails will be done and I can move on to the inner border. The cattail sections include some applique stems and cattails which I'll address in the next chapter.
Keeping life curious with Judy Niemeyer!
So I have completed one set of blocks - it was fun, and a bit of a challenge to assemble. You'll get plenty of practice on inset seams (grin). You know I love EPP and Grandmother's Flower Garden, so you'll bet I love this quilt with its embroidered hexagons. I'm using a really cool pastel variegated thread for the background of the white block. You cant see it in this photo, but the variegated thread gives it a nice look. 
