Kimberly Einmo - Quilter, Designer, Author, Teacher

Kimberly Einmo is a national and international teacher, author of 5 books, and designer of quilts and specialty rulers.  What we didn't know about Kimberly is that she lives in Northern Virginia and last night was the program speaker for the Burke chapter of Quilters Unlimited.  Her lecture covered what to do with jelly rolls and other pre-cut fabrics that are available in today's quilt market.

She gave an informative and entertaining lecture with several tips from her quilting and teaching experience.  Having traveled with a military spouse for a number of years, she wrote her first book on creating a travel souvenir quilt.  Successive books have focused on jelly rolls & precuts, while her newest being released later this month focuses on block combinations.  Check out her website for more about her books.

Did you know that jelly rolls (2.5 inches by WOF strips) contain 40 strips of fabric?  These are a way for a fabric manufacturer to showcase a line of fabric and have become very popular.

A   "layer cake" is a set of 10" squares.

Both a jelly roll and a layer cake yield 2.5 yards of fabric.

If using a jelly roll for a quilt top and you want to add fabrics for background and borders, buy 1 1/2 yards of each.

Kimberly has several classes available on Craftsy, including a free Block of the Month class that you can enroll in on her website. See her homepage for the link.

Saturday's Printing Class

Saturday saw us back at Artistic Artifacts to teach another group the techniques of thermofax screen printing. 

We are always a little surprised where people travel from to take classes, this time we had one from Maryland and one from Delaware.  For some there are not local venues that teach fiber art techniques.

These ladies dove right in and experimented with various fabrics including silk, organza, and previously dyed commercial fabrics. 

 

We start with various brands of textile paints on cotton fabrics, then branch out to other fabrics and mediums.  This time we were also able to play with the new line of fluid textile paints developed for Artistic Artifacts by ProChem.

We also show how to tape a screen and how to use other products including discharge products (to take color out), thickened dye, foil, and resists.

Here are some more student pieces.  The bottom left shows a metallic foil transfer that is adhered with glue printed through the screen.

And a few more....The piece on the left is a peacock feather printed with discharge paste.

Below is the demo piece that includes paint, thickened dye, foil, and discharge(the leaves) on a background created with a paint resist and Tumble Dye (a spay-on dye).

It's lots of fun to play - come join us next time!

Printing with Thermofax Screens

Time to sign up for our fall offering of Printing with Thermofax Screens at Artistic Artifacts!  Join us on Saturday, Sept. 24 from 10 AM to 3:30 PM for a fun day of printing with our extensive collection of original screens.  Many images are elements of nature based on photos we have taken.  Others are more graphic designs.  We will work with textile paints, discharge products and thickened dye.  Bring as much fabric as you like and build your stash of custom printed fabric!  You will also go home with a small screen of your choice, and learn to tape the edges for ease of use.  Go to the AA site for more information and registration.  Below are samples of Sue's work.

These are some snaps from our class in January.

Hope to see you there!

Fat Quarter Pop-Ups!

Friday night Sue led a sew along at Artistic Artifacts to make a fat quarter (small size) Pop-Up container.  Pop-ups are the creation of Joanne Hillestead, AKA The Fat Quarter Gypsy. 

These collapsible containers are great catch-alls in the studio or to carry along to workshops.

Everyone completed their pop-up, with a few "lessons learned" for next time.  Such as, don't forget to cut the tape on the wire before you stitch the bottom on!  Oops!  (Guess who - yes, teachers make mistakes too!)

,

The finished work....ta da!

Patterns are also available for medium, large and extra large pop-ups, though the construction method differs somewhat from the small size.  There are also pop-up partners - designers who have adapted their pieced patterns to fit various size pop-ups.  Check out The Fat Quarter Gypsy site for examples and ideas.

UFO Busting for August

It's the first Friday of the month, so should be time for Vicki Welsh's UFO Busting report.  If you've been following along with Sue's UFO Busting, you may recall that she was a "no show" for July - quite simply there was no progress to report during the month.  August has been a little bit better with 2 finishes, though not in the quilt realm.  This month she moved over to wearables, having purchased some dress fabric last summer in Maine that she decided it was time to do something with.  During Row By Row last year we visited a shop called Alewives Fabrics where Sue saw a dress she liked on display.  She ended up purchasing the pattern and some fabric to make it for her daughter, and then a few days later at Maine quilts, purchased additional fabric to make one for herself.  So back in June she decided to tackle the first one, tracing the pattern and cutting out the blue one, to test for size. It's a very simple style and project, however it still took 2 months to finish it!  Of course, that was due to NOT working on it.  The second, black one, took less than a week!  So one was a start for June, finished in August; the other is a start & finish for August.
(Note: This dress form is a leftover from Sue's college days.  Oh how she wishes her waist were still that small!!)

This is the pattern, called The Staple Dress, by April Rhodes.  It can be made with a straight hem or the hi-lo as in the picture below.  Go to april-rhodes.com for info on purchasing the pattern.

Another project Sue continues to work on is the Susan Carlson collage project.  Though still a ways from being finished, there has been some progress.  Just the outside left to fill in.

So the stats for August are:
Starting UFO count: 12
New projects started this month:1
Projects finished this month:2
UFO count at end of month:11

Hopefully in September Sue will be able to spend more time at the machine to reduce that UFO backlog!  Go to Vicki Welsh's blog - Colorways by Vicki Welsh - to see what other participants have reported for the month of August.