By Popular Demand
April 24, 2007People keep asking me about running a beginners machine quilting class, and we have listened. I will be running the first one at Patchwork Corner on the 22nd of May. I know it is rather short notice but hopefully some of the interested people will be able to make it. Please pass the message on if you have friends who might want to take this class. I promise there will be no quilt police and we will have fun. The advanced class the end of July I think is now full but we are planning on running it again.
I am feeling very pleased with myself tonight. I have presented a design to a client and had it approved, which is always a good feeling. The deadline for the project has been moved out so I am less stressed about it as well. Wonderful. I’ve managed to do lots of business paperwork and completed a quilt that was causing trouble. Why is it some quilts just don’t want to come off the frame? I even managed to trim up some more of my strip club blocks. I have 204 to do in total and I think I have done about 60.
Tomorrow I am planning a day off, the question is what to do? I could go into town, there are a couple of exhibitions I really want to see. Or I could go for a walk in some local woods and try and get some good botanical photographs as source material for quilts. I think I will make a decision tomorrow depending on how I feel.
Quilt Marking Spray
April 23, 2007A couple of weeks ago I tested some quilt marking spray. It does mark very well but I found it quite hard to remove. A discussion followed on other uses for it. Well I found one, marking up the welding needed on my car. It works a treat. Even on a play blue car it shows up nicely and seems to stay on. If you want to see the rather sorry state of my car (and the great visibility of the spray)there are some pictures here. It is off to have the welding done in about a month, then I will have my car back. This may not see a big deal to most people but I have always loved my car and I do miss driving it.
While I as stripping out the interior to get access to the welding I had a chance to give the seats a good clean and give some more though to recovering them. I keep thinking about all the funky quilty things I could do for cars, from covers to interiors. I guess I will have to play one day but I am not sure I could live with it in my daily drive.
Thank You
It seems Skadi needs to extend her thanks to the packers at IQA Chicago. They have sent her the perfect cat bed, which she immediately made use of. Well as soon as I removed my bundle of fabric from it. She was less impressed with that. As you can see she is very happy in her new box. Apparently it is much better than the ones I use to send quilts, this is the perfect size for her to stretch in. So the quilt may not have won anything but Skadi still collected a prize.
Don’t tell her but I am hoping to reclaim the box at some point as it is a really good size for shipping quilts.
In Full Bloom Returns
There is one thing I really love about sending quilts to American shows, getting them back. Not in any negative way you understand, but because I know they come with things in the box. I love to have the show guide and the judging forms with the quilt which seems to be standard in the USA. I like the note saying who packed my quilt, I like the thank you letter from the organizer, and I am thrilled with the care taken in packing my quilt.
The judges comments do range from enlightening, encouraging, funny to bizarre and somewhat confusing, but I think that is common world wide. In the case of In Full Bloom I feel each judge has picked up on one thing I think is wrong with the quilt and I need to improve on. One pointed out I need to watch my tension, and the other that my mitres could be better. Both things I am working on and was aware of. I find it rather reassuring when a judge agrees with me on something like that, I feel it shows I do have a clue what I should be doing.
On the other hand one of the judges has me mystified with another tip for improvement, filled and even bindings. The binding is full to the edge, I’ve just been all the way around checking it. I was sure it was but you never know. The binding also looks pretty even to me. I haven’t actually taken a ruler to it to check, but … So is this just the comment of the moment? I know a lot of people on quiltart have been talking about this recently so maybe it is a phase the judges are going through. Are they looking for us to add extra wadding to the bindings to actually round it out? If so I see me getting a lot more of this comment as I really don’t like that look.
I was somewhat amused by the complete difference in the rating of various aspects of my quilt. I don’t think the judges agreed on any point. Just goes to show judging is very subjective. Otherwise how could one judge see “Integration of all design elements” as excellent and the other as needs improvement. The same was true of “Execution of chosen construction techniques”. Before you ask no it wasn’t just one judge being more picky as they swapped over their differences on several points. I am very pleased I only had two “Needs improvement” though and they were both from the same judge. Even more pleasing was the fact that both judges said I had a “Good choice of quilting design and style”, which given quilting is my profession is possibly the most important thing they could have picked to like. Oddly the slightly more critical judge was also the one who offered more praise, so overall I am pretty pleased. Sorry but I will be largely ignoring two of the pieces of advice, the tip about binding and the suggestion that smaller squares for the blossom would have had more impact. The latter is possibly true, but not the point of the piece. I specifically chose to work with that resolution of piece.
Day of rest
April 22, 2007Yesterday was hectic, it was great to see so many people at the Shop Hop, but boy it was tiring. It is difficult because a day like that is very inspiring but I do come home to tired to work on anything tricky, and too excited not to sew. I settled on working on a strip quilt. I was lucky enough to win second place in the Shop Hop Challenge which got me a gift voucher for Patchwork Corner. I put it to good use helping to buy the precut 2 1/2 inch strips. I bought 120 strips in total, half black and half batiks. This will be plenty to make a king size ‘Ripple Effect’ quilt. Last night I managed to sew all the strips together and get the batik cut into squares, not bad considering how tired I was. I figure this isn’t and entirely frivolous exercise (although it is fun and a great reward) as I will quilt it up and offer it to Jenny as a sample for the shop. It helps me to feel less guilty about taking some time off when I am really very busy, which is good as I know I need these breaks.
For those of you who haven’t been on a shop hop, they are great fun. For two days the shop is full of demonstrations, bargains and refreshments. I got roped into helping with the demonstrations after spending all day there as a customer. It really is just like drag racing, stand around too long and you become crew. This time I was showing people how to sew scarves from knitting yarns, with the aid of water soluble stabilizer. They are really quick, easy and a great place to practice your free motion quilting as it doesn’t really show when you are done.
Doug made the traditional cream teas for us, but invented a rather unconventional way to whip the cream. He adapted a small bendy whisk to fit his electric drill. Very clever and most effective. I dutifully sampled each batch and I can confirm the whisk works. Obviously I only partook in the name of science, so I assume they were all calorie free.
Among the other demonstrations was one for a gadget to make Suffolk Puffs, or Yoyos. I can’t say I was terribly interested but after watching it a few times I started to see potential in these very regular little puffs. I think I will be adding one of these gadgets to my supplies and seeing how I can make use of them. They look like they would be interesting for building texture with left over scraps.
Now off to load up the machine and get on with some quilting. If all goes well I might even get a chance to play some more with my strip quilt before the end of the day.
Turning Twenty Again Patterns
April 20, 2007The patterns have arrived and I have just packed up the orders to send out. I still have a few so if you would like to try this pattern click on Contact Me on the right.
The Turning Twenty pattern is very simple with only three pieces to a block, the Turning Twentry again is the slightly more intricate version that I used for my MQS entries.
Busy Busy
Sorry it has been a while since the last update. I’ve been busy quilting. The last of my quilts went off to Malvern just in time as ever. Although I think that is an advantage. The later I send the quilts the less time they spend packed up so hopefully the less creases they will have. I wonder if there is anyway shows could leave it later to request the quilts? Certainly some shows do leave it later but I haven’t been to those so I have no idea if it does improve the look of the quilts. Anyone have any experience of this?
I’ve introduced a new person to quilting, yay. The moral is if you don’t want to start sewing don’t fall in love with a quilt. I am really very pleased with her efforts, she made a single quilt top very quickly and surprisingly accurately given it is her first experience of a rotary cutter and she doesn’t get on with sewing machines. I have quilted it and the next time we see her she will put the binding on. She is now planning her next project.
I also found time to make a sample quilt for Patchwork Corner. It is from a range of botanical fabric and was quite quick and easy as requested. It is made with pre-printed panels which is not usually my thing, but as I was working on it I kept thinking of things I could be doing with it. I had never seen the potential in these panels but working with them has inspired me. I think they could be made to look really amazing with some interesting quilting and trapunto. I suspect it will be an idea I don’t follow up on as I have so many other projects to do but you never know.
If you are in the area tomorrow, there is a shop hop going on at Patchwork Corner and Inca Studios. There will be demonstrations and raffles all day. Please do come along, I will be showing how to make sewn scarves from yarn.
Tops tops everywhere
April 16, 2007I have an embarrassing confession for a longarm quilter. I suddenly have lots of tops to quilt. On the other hand it does indicate I have been busy which is good. I have samples to do for the quilt shop. I have two tops done for my meme swaps, a pink and soon to be floral quilt for a little girl, and it looks like there will be another Turning Twenty Again in need of quilting. The bright side to all this is I can spend a few days at the machine which I will love. I really enjoy the quilting and doing several quilts back to back really works for me.
My other flower quilts are on hold for now, they may make it to the competition next year. I feel much better for deciding to skip that one. See I can listen to advice sometimes. In the breaks in the mad piecing I even managed to sort out my paperwork, and figure out which quilts were available for which shows. Just as well as I needed to post my Malvern entries and I may well have forgotten otherwise. So two went off today and the last will follow them tomorrow. Is anyone planning on going to the show?
Public Speaking
April 15, 2007On Friday I gave a talk to Gone to Pieces. They are a lovely group who meet in Coleshill. I was made to feel very welcome, and I do love having a reserved parking space. This had been a bit of a nerve wracking talk as I had already spoken to a lot of the ladies in this group, but I managed to find a good number of quilts they hadn’t seen to take with me. In fact the car was full so I felt a little better about not just taking the tube. It really wouldn’t have been practical. As Robin was working I took Nat along with me to help hold up my quilts. I am sure there would have been people in the group happy to do it, but as they have paid to see them it is only fair to have them in front of the quilts if I can.
I still find public speaking very difficult and it took me a while to relax into this talk. I hope I made sense and people enjoyed the beginning of the talk. I try to ask people to heckle, as I like the direct feedback and it helps me guide my talk, but I forgot until part way through. Hopefully the mistake will help to remind me in future. I certainly find that in general I learn more from my mistakes than my successes. On the other hand the feedback from the audience for my latest quilts was fantastic. I thought I was unusual in being inspired by the Turning Twenty Again pattern, but apparently not. Hence the decision to start selling the pattern. A decision that was made far easier by talking to the designer, Tricia Cribbs. She was so friendly and helpful and made it easy for me to place my order. I love supporting the good guys.
I also took along some pictures to sell. Mostly I had guessed right about what people would want to take home with them but I did miss a few. My cat portraits, I just didn’t think of them as being photogenic, dim I know. It seems I should also take pictures of my Turning Twenty Again quilts, I hadn’t realised ho appealing more abstract pieces are. In a similar vein other abstracts will also be available in the future. The perfect end to the day was being given a Gone to Pieces mug, I had been admiring them earlier in the day but was being good and not spending money, so it was a lovely treat. It was also beautifully presented, and has given me food for though on how to pack things. So thank you very much for inviting me to speak, and I hope to see you all around at other events.
Everythings going floral
So is it just a case that once you make a floral quilt you can’t stop? I suppose In full bloom was kinda floral, even though I don’t see blossom as flowers really. Then there was the pink and flowery commission, which is coming together well. Now I have spent all weekend working on a pair of flower quilts.
These are very much in my style and although fiddly they are quite satisfying. I don’t know if I will have either of them done for the ‘In Full Bloom’ show but I will try. If not I will be able to send them to Sandown which would be fantastic as I am looking like not having anything to send there this year. I think I also need to look through what I have on hand and do some careful planning.
I am really thrilled to report I have finished the tops of my meme. I only had two people ask for pieces and I have tried really hard to live up to their expectations. I have had and discounted several ideas but at last I have come up with something I am confident about sending out. I have found this to be a lot harder than entering shows. I am so scared they won’t like the pieces. As ever with me they have come out a bit larger than I expected. I hope that wont be a problem. I will quilt them up tomorrow and then think about the binding.