Virginia Consortium of Quilters - Fall Meeting

Both Elizabeth and Sue are members of the Virginia Consortium of Quilters which meets in various locations around Virginia 4 times a year.  This past Saturday our fall meeting was held in Manassas. We have a day of workshops (5 hour class) plus a boxed lunch, business meeting, and show and tell.  It's always a fun time getting together with other quilters and seeing friends from around the state.  This meeting also coincided with the Spice Route quilt exhibit at The Center for the Arts in Manassas which is there through Dec. 17.

Elizabeth took a class from Marisela Rumberg called “Quilt your own Quilts”.  Marisela’s pledge is that after taking her class you will never again need to pay to send your quilts out to a long arm quilter.

This class was divided in two parts.  The morning was spent learning to quilt with the walking foot on your sewing machine while the afternoon was about free motion quilting.  Marisela had many tips to offer and the class was interspersed with demos, practice, and brain research all designed to keep your blood flowing and participant’s backs and brains from getting tired. 

Her attention to the details of being a teacher made this an outstanding class.  Elizabeth highly recommends her class to anyone who wants to improve or learn to machine quilt.  She teaches in Northern Virginia at The Quilters Studio in Fairfax  and is a member of the Studio Fiber Arts group at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA.

This was just one of the workshops offered at the VCQ meeting.  If you live in Virginia, consider joining us!  Yearly dues and meeting costs are very minimal.

Shop Announcement and More on a Project

We will be away for a week and unable to process orders in the Etsy shop.  Orders placed September 3 through September 10 will be filled beginning September 11.  Thanks for your understanding and patience!

Now for the project.  Sue shared this table runner in her post about July UFOs as her one finish and thought she would share a bit more about it.  First, she is really happy with how it turned out and how it looks on the dining room table.  The mix of cheerful colors is great for summer.

But what she likes best is how the quilting turned out. She started out by stitching down the center of each horizontal and vertical row, but wasn't quite sure where she was going to go from there until we watched a Quilting Arts video called Modern Machine Quilting by Catherine Redford.

Catherine shows you how to quilt contemporary geometric designs with a walking foot.  This is where Sue got the idea for the gridded design that's focused on the circles.  She added rows 1/4" apart on both sides of the center stitching until the circle was covered.  Keeping the focus on the circles with some negative space in between gave it the contemporary feel she was looking for, as well as securing the circles that were fused in place on the squares - form plus function!

The thread used was a variegated Rainbow thread by Superior.  It blended well with the variety of colors in the fabrics.  It also worked well with the backing fabric.

Though Sue usually used a separate binding, in this case there was enough backing to fold the edge to the front.  So looking for a way to save some time, that's what she did and secured the edge with a machine blanket stitch. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the video by Catherine Redford and would recommend it if you are looking for ways to broaden your quilting skills.  In fact, it may be time for us to watch it again!

Queen Ann's Lace

This is the description of her quilt that Sue sent to Quilting Arts magazine:
"I love the delicate, ethereal nature of Queen Ann's lace and enjoy using it in my work. Several stages of bloom are printed here, layered over a hand-dyed background and prints of grasses and a crackled texture. All the Thermofax(r) screens used are made from original photos. There are also words written in the background that evoke  the symbolism of the blossoms - bloom, blossom, grow, evolve, reach, unfold. Created with hand-dyed fabric, Thermofax screen printing, and machine quilting."

The words listed above were written first on the hand dyed fabric using a sharpie.  Then the crackle texture was printed, first in a transparent red and then metallic gold.  This is what the crackle screen looks like.  The screen in the Etsy shop is slightly different, but this one can also be ordered by sending a convo, and saying you want the one in the blog post (same size & price).

Next, some grasses were added to the background.  The curly grass screen is also available in the shop.  Then the queen ann's lace was added in various stages of bloom.  There are 4 different screens used in different sizes and variations.  (Two of these are in the Etsy shop.)

Sue briefly considered adding a decorative trim as embellishment at the bottom of the piece, but then decided against it.

It was a good thing, because when the backing was added and a quarter inch was lost all the way around for the seam allowance, it would have covered up too much of the queen ann's lace.  Below is the finished piece once again. The machine quilting mostly follows the lines of the imagery of the crackle, grass and queen ann's lace - click on the photo for a larger view.

Spring Retreat

This morning I (Sue) left home for a weekend retreat with my local guild in Winchester, VA. I've never been to a retreat with this group, so not sure what's in store.  Here's the car all packed and ready to go.

I met up with a friend for a shop stop at Webfabrics in Purcellville. I hadn't been to this shop before and it was quite overwhelming.  Lots of other "retreaters" were here too.

Above is the shop and the things that found their way into my shopping bag.  Something new called Art Cloth - have to buy it to try it, right?

Folks are beginning to arrive and set up their sewing space for the weekend.

That's my space in the foreground.  I accomplished more than I expected in the first few hours.  There was a retreat assignment for everyone to make 2 blocks for soldier quilts.  I got those done first thing.  Then I started quilting on a baby charity quilt that I put together a few weeks ago.  It went a lot quicker than I thought it would, and I actually got all the quilting done!  Now it just needs a binding and it will be ready to turn over to the quilt collector.

That will be one completed project for April.  There are several more projects in my bag to work on this weekend.

Mustard Seed (part 4)

In part 2 I mentioned that I highlighted the text in the parable of the mustard seed. Here's a close-up that shows the brown fabric marker I added to create a shadow and contrast to make it easier to read.  

And now for the quilting.  First was a zigzag around the stones to serve as the foundation and provide emphasis.

Then I stitched the village houses to look like stones, a free motion feather stitch on the mustard field, and wavy lines in the sky.

 The remainder of the surface was covered with small circles - and lots of thread!

So that's it, the story of the mustard seed quilt and how it all came together.  Hope you enjoyed my story!

Progress on UFO

Last week I got back to working on my Winter Oaks piece.  I want to submit it for the Sacred Threads exhibit, and the deadline is coming up in exactly a month, so time to get it done!  I've finished all the background quilting.  All that's left is a little corner of tree, and the border.  Then all the finishing details - binding, sleeve, label.  The end is in sight.

QC6 Day 11

July 10, 2014
Today was a wash out - wash out of dye, that is.  I had 3 things batching over night that I showed you yesterday - the shibori pole wrap, clamped piece and napkins.  The napkins weren't as dark red as I wanted so after rinsing I put them back in soda ash and then back in the dye pot with some additional dye.  The pole wrap looks much better now - more balanced, and the clamped piece (circles) is interesting.

I finished my "row" from Keepsake Quilting's pattern.  The pattern is only 4 blocks; I added a third Yankee Puzzle block because I felt it looked more balanced, and plan to use it as a table runner instead of part of a quilt, so length doesn't matter.

I was going to layer my Artistic Artifacts row for quilting, but decided I wanted to add a border to make it a little wider.  Since I didn't have a piece I felt worked, I decided to print my own.  I had a piece of hand-dyed orange, and wanted to add texture and/or print.  I started by printing an all over design with discharge paste, which takes color out when heated with an iron. 

On the left I've applied the discharge and started to iron the bottom corner; on the right is what it looks like after ironing.  Then I went back to the print table and screened another image over top.  But I forgot to take a picture so I will share that tomorrow.

What else did I do today?  I made a peach pie; that's my assignment while I'm here - a pie a week!

I put together a small collage in neutral colors and machine quilted it, then put it in a dye pot - the leftover cobalt blue.  The dye is not full strength, so I'm hoping it will turn out a paler color than the piece with circles above.  This is a process we saw on a Quilting Arts video called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity.

And finally, a little bit of a sunset.

Tomorrow, another road trip!