I’m bored so let me distract you
July 13, 2007I am just wander a few blogs and I found this interesting posting. It is about making stronger fabric from old thin carrier bags. I think this could be a fun material to work with in quilting, but then I have been considering the possibilities of plastic for a while. It doesn’t fray you see so I thought it might come in handy. If you do make anything from it I would love to hear about it.
Darn.
It’s been one of those days. Last night I accidentally shut a cat into my longarm room. I don’t know quite how I managed it but I did. The cat was very good and stayed away from the quilt, but he did dig up the carpet and block the door. I managed to persuade it and get in though, so it could have been worse. I am very impressed he didn’t go on the quilt. When I first got the frame the cats thought it was just so I could make them the best and biggest bed. I put a lot of effort into explaining this was not the case. I guess they got the message. I don’t intend to test it too often though.
One of the reasons I bought a longarm is I have an old shoulder injury which doesn’t like hand sewing and tends to be aggravated by machine quilting large quilts on the domestic sewing machine. Most of the time using the longarm doesn’t cause me a problem. You can tell there is a but coming, right, but today I have managed to upset it . I think the quilting was fine, the unpicking wasn’t. I think I need to have the frame higher for unpicking than for sewing. I managed to sew a hand size area of small pebble pattern in the wrong place. Took about 15-20 minutes to put it in, an hour and a half to get it out. Tiny stitches overlapping each other are not easy to get out, and boy does my arm ache now. So what do I do next? I have too much to do to want to just sit doing nothing, but I don;t think quilting feels like a good plan. I have to draw a couple of patterns but that requires bending down too, and I suspect will be equally bad. Hrumph. Who would have thought a few stitches in the wrong place could be so hazardous. On the bright side the quilt I was working on is looking pretty good and I think I should be able to finish it tomorrow, shoulder permitting.
Censorship
July 10, 2007Yes I should be working but I have been quilting solidly for over and hour and I think taking a break will help. Funnily I’ve been thinking about censorship while I was quilting, and when I started catching up on my email I found a message with a link to this blog. It has several posts talking about censorship in the arts. It’s an interesting subject. There seem to be several different camps, most I can understand where they are coming from. The problem is I don’t like censorship at all. I think far too many bad guys get to hide behind it, you can’t talk about the bad things they do because it would upset others. That isn’t a good solution. However I think I might have an alternative idea. Rather than censoring all art, have some events that are only pretty and upbeat. It seems to me things usually work the other way, anything unpleasant is put into it’s own space, but then you get a very negative show, which isn’t much fun. The world is a mix of good and bad, so having shows do the same would probably be easier to digest. On the other hand there are times when all of us would like to just see the fluffy fun side, so have shows that are just that. I guess it would be tricky to decide what is fluffy enough, but probably no more difficult than removing everything too dark or disturbing. I bet it won’t catch on but it’s a thought. Now back to that quilt.
Skills
July 9, 2007
Today I have discovered two new to me skills. Well maybe one of them is more of a talent. I can upset my normally well behaved longarm on command. Really. All I have to do is load up a large (over 100″ wide) quilt that is important. Utility quilts just don’t do the trick. The it will refuse to play. Not really what I had in mind for today. I was advised to get the timing tighter, which I have. It sounds bad and I can’t believe it isn’t breaking the needle but I am getting less missed stitches now. I’d rather have none, and a happy sounding machine, but I guess I haven’t got time to be choosy.
The other skill I am much more pleased with. I thought I might have finally got the hang of curvy feathers. My small wholecloth has very tiny feathers as it’s filler. Of course that might just mean I have figured out miniature feathers, which while nice isn’t too useful. Apparently not. They are very organic, which I what I always expected from my feathers, but I do seem to have got the hang of them. I can even go up or down either side. Before you ask, no I don’t have any idea what changed. From my point of view one day I couldn’t and the next I could. I haven’t been practicing them, I just suddenly got the urge to do it and it worked. Neat.
I have been so busy the last few days I have entirely failed to blog. I did get around to taking a few pictures though. The black one is a close up of part of the little wholecloth. The finished piece will only be 40cm x 80cm so for me it is very small. The wings were inspired by a pair of earrings, though I am not sure you could tell that from the end product. I know and that’s what counts.
I also remembered to take some pictures of my speed quilt. On the black and purple side all the fabrics glow in the dark. It’s very silly, but I like it.
The other side (it is reversible) is rather more grown up. I hope that having black on both sides doesn’t put people off, but I wanted to use fabrics I had on hand with two different themes. These were the first sets I found with all the right amounts in. I guess by now most of my students are used to my colour choices for samples, and are quite happy to choose something that suits them better. The sample is one border short, as when I selected the fabrics I forgot it, then I realised it was quite big enough for a sofa quilt so I left it as is. I could always add another border later if I change my mind as I haven’t bound it yet.
Another one ready to bind
July 5, 2007I’ve just blocked my small wholecloth quilt, so when it is dry I will be able to get it bound. I am thrilled it is finished as it has been on and off the frame a few times. It was my first attempt at a wholecloth, and at times looked very unpromising. It has definitely been one of those quilts that looks better with more quilting on it. You wouldn’t think such a small quilt could take so long and cause so much concern. You can see why I am glad it is pinned up drying. Now I need to get the seat of the chair onto the frame. No rest this time of year.
Calling Longarm Quilters in the UK
July 4, 2007I’ve managed to end up with three copies of Unlimited Possibilities magazine this month. I know how I managed two but the third is a mystery. Anyway I really only need one so if you would like to have a free trial of this magazine get in touch. Use the contact me link on the right and I will send the magazines to the first two replies I get with addresses. To be honest if you are an experienced shortarm quilter you may find it quite interesting too. Sorry but I don’t fancy paying to ship it internationally, it’s a fairly heavy magazine.
Will I ever learn.
I keep promising myself I will photograph all my work before it leaves the house, but I keep failing. This time it wasn’t terribly exciting, but I still intended to photograph it and post the pictures. I guess I will have to go back to the shop with a camera. At the weekend I made my sample up for my speed quilting course. It is a reversible single bed quilt, and I am rather pleased with it. One side is Lonni Rossi Ginko fabrics in black and red, and reasonable adult. The other glows in the dark, as it is made from Halloween fabrics, bats, spiders and ghosts. It’s very silly, and a little disturbing when you find it in the dark unexpectedly.
Today I have been being trained up on a couple of Husqvarna sewing machines. It should be helpful when I am demonstrating the Sapphire and get asked tricky questions. I suspect I will still get a lot I don’t know the answers to, but at least I can say I have tried to learn about them. I also got to have a play with the Embellisher. It’s a fun tool, and I really must find time to play with mine.
It has also been a day of paperwork. I’ve been trying to sort out my entries to the Great Norther Quilt Show in Harrogate, and Scottish Quilt Championship. They’ve been fairly easy from the point of view of choosing quilts and writing the statements (which I mostly kept to 30 words, I just can’t break the rules), but tricky for posting. I’ve juggled them to be mostly light quilts, which will help the costs, but it is still going to be very pricey. It also says on the forms that return postage will not be refunded, which blows my idea of saying post them then collecting them if I win anything. My current plan is to try and find someone to collect them for me and post them back to me. I have no problem with paying the actual posting cost and compensation for the time taken to do it, it’s just that having them all sent back individually is really pricey. I think I will also try calling the show organizers and see if they can help. I guess the forms are designed for people to just enter one quilt which would work fine, so they may be able to do something.
I haven’t mentioned, and I should have, Grosvenor have greatly improved their quilt handling process. I was pleased to be handed back my quilts unfolded at Malvern, but at Sandown I got to see them taking the quilts down. They handled all the quilts with white gloves, each was taken down onto a covered table then rolled or folded as appropriate. My quilt were returned rolled exactly as I would have done it myself. I guess they have taken on board the feedback they have had. I am really thrilled, there aren’t enough shows for us to lose any but at the same time we can’t risk good quilts to bad handling. I have been giving clear instructions for each piece so they know what needs extra care and what doesn’t. I figure they are trying to help me so it is only fair for me to try and help them.
Now I have a little wholecloth on the frame that really needs my attention. Night night.
Chair 1
June 30, 2007
It is that time of year again. The next show on my horizon is the Festival of Quilts at the NEC and I can play with some of my more wacky ideas. I love this show as it has a category for everything. I really can go to town. Even better it uses collection depot, so I deliver a piece by hand to a courier who takes it to Birmingham, the cost isn’t related to the size or weight of the piece. This is so wonderful. Maybe it won’t sound so great to those of you in the USA but over here postage is very expensive and a lot of my work is effectively censored by what I can ship. The first question Thargol asked last night when he saw this was ‘How are you going to ship it?”.
Anyway, to the quilting. The chair is entirely self supporting and will effectively be four quilts. The back sides and arms are made from two quilts (one the inside of the chair the other the outside) and the same for the seat. The first picture shows a close up of the wood grain I’ve quilted on all the fabric I will use. I have just one layer of a thin wadding under the grain. Just enough for it to have some depth. I have had to quilt some face grain and some end grain as there will be places where you can see the end of the wood.
The design is based on cardboard chairs that slot together. I did think about leaving this one just slotted into place but I think it will be stronger and neater if I stitch all the joins into place. It will mean a fair amount of quite tricky hand sewing. Just what I always wanted. I’ve also taken inspiration from old furniture I have seen. I am thinking about the pieces made from planks joined then carved, where you can still clearly see the planks. I like the way they look like they have just used what was to hand. The planks are often different widths an sometimes even thicknesses. The real thing does have tones of character, so of which I would like to capture in this. I am concerned that the judges won’t understand what I was after and will feel that the planks should all be the same width, so I have made them very obviously different in the hopes it will be clear it was a deliberate design decision. Keep your fingers crossed for me with that one.
In the second picture you can see a close up of the ‘carving’ on the back of the chair. It has been sprayed with water to remove the various wash away products on it. I love the look of the wet fabric, it did look even more woody. I don’t think it entirely comes across in the photograph though.
Lastly this is the outer skin of the chair, standing up on it’s own. Only one of the arms is in it’s correct position, but you can see why I need the end grain. It isn’t a full size chair, I thought for my first attempt a scale model or child size would be more sensible. See just sometimes I can make life a little easier for myself. I guess the back stands about 30″ tall. I Obviously have quite a lot more work to do on this piece but I just had to share it. I am so excited that it does seem to be working. To me it was very important to just use textiles to make the structure. Several people have pointed out that I could put boards in between the quilts to keep things solid, but then it isn’t really a fabric chair anymore is it. This is partly caused by the 3D textiles course I did earlier this year. I was disappointed to find some of the pieces were stuffed with bubble wrap to keep them in shape, and at that point decided I wanted to find ways to make the fabric do it on it’s own. I did consider things like starch and other stiffeners, but it looks like I can avoid them, which for me is perfect. Keep watching, over the next month there will be plenty more wacky stuff appearing here.
My Sandown Award Winners
June 29, 2007
OK I only got second places this year, but I am quite pleased that half of my quilts picked up awards. I still think the best quilt I’ve made in a while is the pink one, I think that would have won the longarm award, but possibly not the bed quilt. Who knows, it isn’t going to happen.
Still ‘Wait’ has done really well for me. Not bad considering how bad the bearding is on it. I did consider just binning it when the bearding happened, but for some reason I stuck with it. I guess that was the right answer as it was juried into Road to California earlier this year and has now taken second place in the small wall hanging category. I am really very pleased that people can see past it’s issue to it’s good points. I haven’t decided yet if this is it’s last outing, watch this space.
I really like the rosettes this year, I love purple anyway and having a matched pair is fantastic. Thanks Kate for suggesting a way to carry them without creasing or crumpling them. I did decide they were too big to wear as earrings.
This was really very unexpected as ‘Red and Blue Tulips’ took second place in the long arm quilting normally there is only a first place for that category. Maybe this shows we have more longarm quilters entering these shows. I hope so, we do need to show people what can be done.
As you can probably tell this quilt is from Ricky Timms Caveman quilting technique. It is somewhat modified after I saw someone else make one like this. I like the slimmer version much better than the wide one. The quilting I actually did sometime ago. In fact I think it was one of the first things I quilted after Myrna Ficken fixed my machine for me. I had so much fun doing this. I didn’t really think it would ever end up in a show, it was just something to play with, but as I liked it I thought I would share it. I really didn’t think this one would win anything. I guess it just goes to show, you never can tell. 
There is no quilting on the little squares, so they stand up compared to the rest. The quilting mostly matches the fabric it is on. The red and blue background quilting does just slightly overflow onto the black borders. I only realised tonight that this is another background fill that I really like, and I think this is the only place I have ever used it. I think I need to have a play with it again and see if I can remember how I did it. It’s quite an odd feeling look at your own work and having no idea how you did it.
I guess really I should take it with me to my class tomorrow. Maybe one of my students will be able to recreate it for me. Oh that would just be too funny.
I am glad I am not easily embarrassed.
On the subject of very cool background fillers, I was sent a link to this site today. Do go and have a look, she has done a wonderful piece of machine quilting. It is just what I needed to look at to inspire me to come up with some new patterns. Thanks Sally.
Sandown Photographs
I’ve finally had time to look at my pictures and to take advice on what I can and cannot do with the pictures I took at the show. I can’t show pictures of other peoples quilts, unless they choose to send me them, which is a shame as I have pictures of most of the award winners and many of the others as well. On the other hand if you had a quilt in the show and would like my pictures of it, do let me know I will be happy to give a copy to the owner of the quilt.
pictures of the patchwork corner stand as well but I forgot, sorry. I’ll start with the two that didn’t win awards. This will probably be my last picture of Che as he has now gone to his new owner. He seemed to be very popular with the visitors to the show, which surprised me. I didn’t expect I am however safe to put up pictures of my own work from the show, so that is what I will do. I did mean to take such acceptance of him, but I am thrilled by it.
‘Tropical Punch” was seriously out classed in it;s theme category. The standard of work in the Batik Beauties category was stunning. There were two quilts there I would have loved to bring home. I was especially keen on the second place quilt, with it’s huge leaves. I like the fact that the quilting changed colour to match the fabrics, the effect was stunning. I can’t find my show guide right now to check who’s it was, sorry. On the subject of show guides, the artists statement. I spend hours fiddling with my statements to get them down to the word count, I think it was 30 words for this guide, yet many of them are far longer. The longest I found was well over 100 words. So am I being stupid editing mine down to the limit. Often there is a lot more I would like to say but I don’t because the rules say 30 words, yet they happily put in much longer statements. Any suggestions?
As you can see I still failed to get a good shot of the whole of ‘Tropical Punch’. I think this time it was entirely human error. It looks to me like I wasn’t holding the camera still. You would think that would be something I had learned a long while ago, but no I keep making that particular mistake. Still it probably gives you an idea of what was going on.
The close up pictures seem to have done a bit better. This first one shows one of the upper glasses. The background quilting on these was in a red-yellow variegated thread. I was thinking about the sunsets I saw in Cuba. They were red and orange and sort of spiky at the edges. There was often thin bands of cloud and the ends of them looked a lot like horizontal flames.
I guess I should mention that these are entirely pieced, I had a lot of people ask if the straw was applique, but no it isn’t. The whole things is done by free cutting and then shuffling the pieces to get the different colours in the various places. The cutting did take a lot of thought to get the details I wanted, but the design came to me as soon as I read the entry form some months ago. I like the pieces that come to me complete. The parasol and wedges of fruit have their details quilted, with a silver metallic thread. I also used silver to quilt the crushed ice in the cocktails. Of course I was forced to go to a cocktail bar to research the look of crushed ice. It helped add detail to the glasses.
At one stage I had considered putting applique leaves around the border. I gave up that idea as too over the top for the design, I wanted something more subtle. I settled on quilting the leaves on in a variegated thread. they do slightly overlap the panels, as though you are looking through vegetation. If I were doing it again I think I would want to find a way to make the leaves more distinct. I still don’t think applique is the answer, but maybe some way of making the quilting stronger. Thicker thread, double threads or maybe even bobbin work. Who knows, but I doubt it will come up again so it is rather academic.