adventures of a quilting diva

Since it’s nearly time for July CBQ events I thought I should update y’all on what happened in June. At the June Moonlighters meeting (Citrus Belt Quilters’ evening meeting) I gave a mini trunk show and beading demonstration/class. Mini because most of my stuff is really small, but also because there’s not a lot of them to show yet.

We used my 12×12x12 cuppa pattern and I taught bead embroidery. It was a large group (at least 40 or more) to be demonstrating seed bead techniques for and I don’t have a projector, so I used 1/4 inch pony beads for the demonstration and it worked quite well. The students used #10 seed beads, and some had even finished the project by the daytime meeting a week later.

I also attended a landscape quilt workshop with Rob Appell who makes the ocean life and Michael Miller reflections wall hangings. Since I don’t have a lot of realistic anything in my stash I decided to try something different. Rob was great and very easy-going about that. Everyone was free to take his techniques and go in their own direction. You can see the beginning of my project fused to release paper at left. You’ll have to wait and see what it will become just like I will because I’m free-cutting it instead of making a pattern first.

This is me (at right) going to the workshop. Actually it really is me. It’s a lino cut self- portrait I made while in college, but it still fits me today.

I packed my fabric into a suitcase, most of my brights: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and my black and white prints, no pinks for this one and no browns. This was way better than stuffing the fabric into several tote bags since I had a ready-made place to flip through the fabrics and easily find the ones I wanted. In fact a lot of it is still in the suitcase, ready for its next trip.

Happy National Quilting Day (U.S.) but if you’re from somewhere else, I hope you have a happy quilting day too! What are you quilting today? Here’s what I’ll be working on. This is the back side of my March 12×12x12 latte quilt. The green is also quite appropriate, since it’s also Saint Patrick’s Day.

What are you doing still surfing the Internet? Get off the computer and go quilt something!

I have two wips to share today:

Still way into beading, I’m working on a beaded appliqué design for my March 12×12x12 project. I’m still using that bad batch of Wonder Under, which I really need to return. The paper doesn’t want to come off the back, shredding the appliqué edges. I was too impatient to leave it for days first. Luckily the beads cover the edges well, and I zig-zagged around the fabric first for extra protection before adding the beads.

My February 12×12x12 challenge is done (minus the binding as usual). I hope I can finish it off before my guild meeting next Friday, when we’re all supposed to bring Valentine and/or red quilts. I really like the backing fabric on this quilt (and the fabrics on the front as well). The lettering is done in black beads and the white dots have pearly white beads on them, which you can’t really see unless you’re up really close. I think the lively tossed hearts pattern helped me make the lettering more carefree. Marking the letters wasn’t working so I beaded them freehand. I love the texture the echo quilting makes. Even though it was hand quilted, it still drew in the fabric quite a bit. I think it shrank an inch in each direction. I barely had enough left to make the 12 inches square.

I’m really glad this one is done. There are a lot of designs I want to sketch before I forget them all. See more 12×12x12 challenge quilts at the Quilt Studio blog.

Wave of manic creativity continues…

1). February 12×12x12 challenge quilt: Hand quilting with Jean Stitch did not work very well so I tried locally to find hot pink hand quilting thread. Found none in Gütermann, Coats & Clark, or DMC, at least that was in stock. Briefly considered using rayon, then came to my senses and bought a spool of hot pink cotton Gütermann machine thread. It works fairly well with three passes through Thread Heaven and 12 inch lengths. I’m quilting without a hoop or frame, which is not as precise, but I don’t have to worry about the beads getting in the way of the hoop, and it gives a nice folksy look.

Out of curiosity, any hand quilters out there: do you always stick to the nice glazed quilting threads or do you choose whatever strikes your fancy? Also, do you use the traditional colors (I found baby pink and dusty rose shades in the pink family) or do you prefer more vibrant hues?

2). March 12×12x12 sketch: I’ve been doodling quite a lot and here’s my favorite. I think I’ll use it for next month’s challenge.

3). New mini appliqué block: This is going to be part of a miniature folk art wool appliqué quilt. The finished blocks are 1 inch. I’m not sure what size the quilt will be yet. I hand appliquéd it with rayon thread, but am wondering if it would be more sturdy if I also needle felted it for good measure.

Wow! It’s been a busy week. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

1. February 12×12x12 quilt is coming along. It’s been fused, appliquéd, beaded, and basted. I’m going to try hand quilting with YLI Jean Stitch in hot pink. Here’s a sneak peek (right).

btw: I haven’t given up on the January 12×12x12 sashiko quilt. I’m not quite ready to start that one yet, and didn’t want to be perpetually behind the whole year.

2. January FFFC quilt center panel is fused (left). The red spool looks odd in the photo. My heart sunk when I noticed that, but when I checked the real thing it looked fine. It was hanging on my design “curtain” and must not have been flat against the wall.

I’m not going to appliqué the pieces down, just machine free-motion quilt over the whole thing (any suggestions for type of thread to use?). I’m also choosing the border fabrics. I really like the way this one turned out and might make another one larger with needle-turn appliqué. This one is 8 inches square. (That’s an easy size to do when I use my computer because I can print it all out on one page.)

3. CBQ miniature challenge (no I didn’t make all of these blocks in one week, but I did do some!) is made from a UFO I started in 2004. It’s Housepitality from Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting Jan/Feb 2004 issue, except really, really small. The original house blocks are supposed to be 10 inches. I’m not sure what size mine will be (right) since they’re not finished yet. The square-in-a-square blocks you see there will finish at 1/2 inch.

4. Hand quilting practice almost every day. I’m working on making the stitches even. They’re generally about 10 stitches to the inch.

5. Bling Bling scarf is up to 27 inches long. I’ve finished one ball of yarn and am hesitant to start the new one (it’s a different dye lot and looks really different) for fear it won’t look right. Maybe I’ll go back to the store with the scarf and see if there’s some that looks more like my scarf than the one I have.

6. Studio cleaning because with this many projects going on you can’t work in a messy place!

7. New blogger is adding line breaks when I upload photos and in general is misbehaving, making this post take entirely way too long. At least there were no problems to fix when my blog migrated. I like that I can add labels.

happy quilting!

Not too much in the way of quilting these days. I’ve been preoccupied with several days of migraine and preparing class materials mostly. I’m up to 25 inches on my scarf (see WIP Wednesday #7) and have a new sketch for my January 12×12x12 project. I charted it out on my computer in Illustrator for sashiko. I’m not going to show the drawing here, but rather reveal it in stages as I stitch it. This is my first venture into sashiko.

I’ve discovered why migraines and art don’t mix for me. My creativity and art flow from my emotions—joy, sadness, anxiety, etc. When I have a headache I lose touch with all my emotions and exist in some kind of blank emotionless state. Monday was the start of the judging at Road to California, but I didn’t care in the least. Tuesday after I recovered from my headache, the nervousness hit full force, but at least my creativity returned.

It’s not an auspicious beginning of the year to pass the deadline for the first monthly challenge and have not a stitch to show for it. I’ve made some decisions about it that should expediate the coming months though: I’m going to do three sets of four seasonal quilts for the year. The first set will include winter, spring, summer, and autumn sashiko-style quilts. Another will use fusible appliqué, and I’m not sure about the third yet. I’ll probably decide in May, the third month for spring. I can also use my sketches from WIP Wednesday #7 in the coming months. So in a way, I’m kind of ahead for February.

happy quilting!

On New Year’s Day I started a scarf. I’ve finished 17 1/2 inches out of 60. The bulky yarn crochets fairly quickly. I think I’ll finish it before the winter is over!
I’ve never used this type of yarn (Bernat Bling Bling) before. What’s interesting is that the scarf looks identical to the ball of yarn. You can’t really see what you’re doing. That’s both good and bad! Good in that you can’t see mistakes, bad in that you can’t really see where to place the stitches so I often come out with more or less stitches than the 17 you’re supposed to have in a row. I have to count them as I stitch because it’s hard to count after the row is completed. (I would rather rip the row out and start again than try to count the stitches!)

When I first started I made a row with too many stitches that wouldn’t come out. The baubles knotted it up, so Scooby got a fashionable accessory. Now I make my stitches a bit looser and haven’t had a problem removing errant rows.

Finally here are some sketches that I made for the January 12×12x12 Portfolio challenge. While I do like them, I’ll probably file them away for another time, and simplify for this month’s project. I think I’ll continue experimenting with the technique I used in Goodnight, Moon. It would be nice to start the year off right by actually meeting my first deadline (which BTW is January 15. Thank you Sande for the extra 3 days!)