Customer quilts

 

 

This quilt belongs to Cyndi Campbell. I finished quilting it & have it ready to return. She out of town right now, so I am going to take it to Quilt Guild next week for Show & Tell. The top & back were beautifully made, & I wanted to do something special with it.  I considered putting the top on the bottom with wash-away stabilizer all the way around the edges, so I could custom quilt it from the back, but after much hard thought & a phone call to Megan, I decided to keep the top on top I did use the stabilizer on it though, because there was a lot of bias on those triangles, & I figured it would help keep it square, & it did.

Can you see the quilting? The picture below is the back side. It’s pretty too.

I have another quilt on Lily that I’ve started quilting on, & this one is hanging on my design wall, while I contemplate how I want to quilt it.

The one directly below, marked Plan C is where I think I’m leaning.

I do like the corner feathers in yellow, below on this next one.

There are a couple more design choices on the star parts of this next one, but I think plan C is the winner.

A Cool Tool

One of the great things I learned about in my On-line class with Carla Barret, was about this tool. I know they have been around for a while, because when I was talking to my DD about it, she told me that Darian (the DGD) has had one for about 2 years. She does all of her art work with it. It’s better than colored markers!

Below is a picture of a customer quilt that I had quilted a few weeks ago. The fine black lines on it are what I’ve done in practicing with my new Bamboo tool. You can digitally draw on a photo of a quilt top, try out lots of different quilt designs. They can then be e-mailed to the customer along with quotes on what each different design will cost them, then they can decide what they want. What a great tool! That way everybody should be happy in the end. No more problems with “Communication”!

Speaking of communication. That’s the next Fiberaction challenge. It seems that communication has been a very important factor in my life lately. Actually , some miscommunication has taken over & opened up a new window for me (while closing an old door). Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t seem to communicate what I was trying to say, so I will be free of some obligations that I would have otherwise had to spend time, energy & most likely money on in March. I am looking forward to a trip to Delta Junction, & teaching more.

Thank You!

 

Just had to do a quick post to thank all of you who agreed on the wood trim! The ugly stuff has been returned to the store! Warren is working hard getting doors in & trim on. In another week or so we may have his room almost done.

Th picture above is our little grandgirl Carys. My DDIL sent it, a friend of hers took it. Isn’t she cute?

Blogger: Dashboard

The Bar Debate-Your Opinions PLEASE!

 

First of all, I thought since I seldom have photos of myself here, I would share this one, above. My friend Kate Beebe took it during my needle  felting demo at Quilt Guild this past week.

Here are a couple of pictures of Cyndi Campbell’s quilt that I am working on right now. I’ve taken inspiration from the green leafy fabric for the quilting design, plus I am using melon shaped rulers from Kim Brunner for the melon wedges in the blocks. The quilting doesn’t show much on this quilt because of the busy fabrics, but so far I am pleased with how it is turning out.  I am using the Dream Green batting again, & I really like how it quilts.

Now here is where I want some opinions. My DH & I have been working on getting this flooring down in his little Bar room.

The debate is about the floor trim. Above is one that matches the floor. You can click on the images to see them better. Below is one that matches the wall. Which would you choose? We have a difference of opinion between us & I feel very strongly about it, so I want a majority vote, as someday we will want to sell this house & I think we should try to appeal to more people. Can you guess which way I am leaning?

Extra Class Work

Today Carla assigned me an extra assignment. No, not for being bad, just needing to be more challenged. She wanted me to take some of my doodles from the first assignment & try to use them, stretch my brain a bit more.
I started with my trash basket from my studio.

Below is the sketch it inspired.
 
Below is another doodle I did, combining different styles of feathers.

This is the result. I did stretch in ways I seldom go. I did a little bit of marking for the straight lines, & I did a cross hatch marking in the background to have points to cross when I was doing the free-motion lines.
The perfectionist in me isn’t happy with the irregularities in the design, yet the artist in me says it’s OK. When I teach students, especially in my Threadplay classes, I encourage them to not get “too perfect”. I think when we make designs too perfect, they become somewhat sterile, & looks digitized. I prefer to have some irregularities, it makes the art work more human.
 

Sketches & Quilting

I woke up early this morning & started sketching for the on line class I’m doing. I did 10 pages, before my hand cramped up & decided I should move on to other tasks I needed to do. The feather sketch below is similar to the feathers I quilted on the “Chicken Delight” quilt that won an Honorable Mention at APNQ IN 2004.

I’m thinking about doing this leaf design on the  quilt that I just loaded on to Lily.

Below I test quilted it on black velvet using 12 wgt. Aurafill  cotton thread.

This little seascape is another design I did on the same fabric with the same thread.
 
I made a background quilt to hold my threadplay samples, for the Basic samples.

The Advanced Threadplay I mounted on black card stock.

I agonized over the quilt that I’m going to be quilting on Lily. It has a back as beautiful as the front, & the quilting is going to be more visible on the back. I thought long & hard about possibly putting the back on top to do the quilting, but ultimately decided against doing it that way because of so many bias edges on the top.
I stitched Wash-away stabilizer to all of the top’s edges, then cut all but a 1 inch strip along the edge, to help stabilize & keep it square. I also used wash-away thread, so it will all go away with just a little water, when I’m done quilting.

Below are the front,

and back of the quilt.

Threadplay Samples

The tree above was the very first threadplay item I ever made. I broke 14 needles making this tree, teaching myself the technique. I seldom break needles now, but when I first tried that’s what happened. I had given the tree to my friend Kathy, but she never used it fro anything, but a little wall decoration. She was kind enough to give it back when I started teaching Threadplay as a class, so I can share this firs piece with my students. I finally used it in a quilt, at least 14 years after the tree was made.
I also used a piece of my Shibori dyed fabric. I made this in a Joan Morris class 8 years ago. I dyed all of the fabric in this piece (except binding & back), in Joan’s class. Click on the images to get a closer look.
 
This is another tree I made, using metallic thread.
 
The trees, & this flower are samples for my “Advanced Threadplay” class. They will be going to Dina’s Cozy Cabin in Eagle River this week.

Below are all “Basic Threadplay” samples, that will also be going out to Dina’s.

In my Basic class, I teach students how to “color” on fabric with thread. In the advanced class they learn how to make things without the fabric, creating out of thread alone.

One of the things I love about this little rooster is it’s dimension. The threadplay makes it pop out, & becomes 3-D. There are ways to stop that effect if you don’t want it, but on this piece I did it intentionally.

Technorati Tags: Threadplay,thread painting,Shibori,quilt,quilting

Friends & Initiative

 

This post is a mix. Wednesday evening we went out to Orso’s restaurant with our usual Wed. evening crowd, for a Beer & Wine tasting dinner. The beers & wines were both good & not so good. The food was unusual. If this had been my first Orso experience, it may well have been my last too. I do love this restaurant though & will go back, but will order off the menu, not  just get the chef’s surprise, because there were some surprises. Have you ever eaten Pork Belly? That’s what that pretty thing in the picture above is. Now, my DH & I don’t eat beef, or pork either one on a normal day. Occasionally we eat very crisply cooked bacon. This was a gelatinous mass of fat, with thin layers of meat. The flavor was nice, & the kale it rested upon was great, but I just couldn’t take that fat. Ugh.

Above is Ellis ( he works with Warren in RT), & Maria, a traveler RN, who came here from South Africa.

Below are Lisa & her neighbor Cecil, who shared our table. I found out that Lisa is engaged to a CRNA, Carl, who I know from the Recovery Room. Tina is the girl in green next to Ellis. She is a traveler RT from Oklahoma City.

We had a good time visiting. Below are Maria, Will (Warren’s partner at work), & Warren himself.

Desert was pretty, but the chef spoiled a good brownie by adding banana to it. It made it way too rich, on top of a fat filled meal. It wasn’t a good move. The Madera wine with this course was lovely. Rich, full bodied, like raisins in the sun.

Thursday was Calendar Girls at Jackie Carley’s house. Jackies new dog Cammy was being very protective.

Mary Lee shared her new project. It was such a happy warm & sunny piece.

Today is the reveal for the “Initiative Challenge”. This was mine, but the others are wonderful. Go check them out. I’ve written the description of what I did there.

Lastly, I am taking an online quilting course from Carla Barret , & here are a couple of exercises I did today. I used dry erase marker on clear vinyl, to demonstrate how I might quilt these 2 quilt tops. The first is a top my big sister Vicki made, that I will eventually put another border on, then quilt for her.

This Grandmother’s Flower garden is an old top that I felt sorry for & bought off of Ebay. I don’t think I will ever actually quilt it, as it has some real “technical” problems, but I have used it for a table cloth under the vinyl, & it’s great for that.