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.

Spice Quilts at Manassas Center for the Arts

We have blogged about our “Along the Spice Route” quilts several times now (see posts from Oct. 4-6), but it is always a thrill to see your work hanging in a new venue.  The exhibit is now at the Manassas Center for the Arts in Manassas, VA until December 17, 2015.   This brightly lit art gallery is located in the charming historic downtown area of Manassas across from the train station.  Apparently it was once a candy factory.  Many small shops and restaurants are located in this approximately 5 block by 5 block area of Manassas with plenty of free parking. 

As this will be the closest this exhibit comes to home, Elizabeth and her husband went to view it on Friday November 6, which for Virginia was an incredibly warm fall evening, perfect for walking the town.  Many people were out and about, dining alfresco and strolling through an open house of art exhibits all over the town.  The organizers could not have asked for a nicer evening for their biannual art walk event.

After taking in a good number of the art walk stops, we stopped at a Cajun restaurant called Okra’s Cajun Creole and had a delicious dinner of Shrimp PoBoy (Bob) and Shrimp and Grits (Elizabeth).  We would definitely return to eat there again.

If you are near Manassas, be sure to stop at the Center for the Arts to see the "Along the Spice Route" quilts.  At each venue a display looks different; the backgrounds they are hanging against is different, the lighting is different, the ‘vibe’ of the venue is different.  It is fascinating to see how the space changes the feel of the exhibit.  Luckily, the Virginia Consortium of Quilters is meeting in Manassas this weekend so many of Sue and Elizabeth’s Virginia based friends will get the chance to see this exhibit soon.

More Fall Retreat

On the second full day of the retreat, Sue spent the morning finishing up small projects.  The zipper bag pattern makes a set of 3.  The 2nd and 3rd went together more easily than the first.

Then another fabric box was in the works. The first 2 were made with 11 inch squares; one had corner triangles sewn at 2", the other at 2.5".  This 3rd one is a 12" square with corners at 2".  Each variation will give you a different finished size.  The tutorial can be found on Seaside Stitches blog.

Then it was time to tackle some preparation for the "repair project".  If you recall, Sue posted about this a few weeks ago.  The first step was to make some replacement "footballs" that will be appliqued over the ones that are worn.  She also worked on adding some blocks to a border strip that will be added to the top of the quilt.  The "footballs" were made with Quilt Smart templates; they just needed some size adjustment to account for the different construction method she used.

When no more could be done on that project, she switched to a UFO; this plaid quilt has all the pieces for the 20 blocks cut - they just need to be sewn.  It was determined that this was a guild "Ways and Means" project from 2002 or 2003, so that makes it a 13-year project (so far)!  She got one block sewn Saturday and 2 more Sunday morning, so now has 7 of the 20 blocks sewn.  As with the zipper bags and fabric boxes, they get faster the more you make, so Sue had better make some more blocks before she forgets how they go together!

All things considered, it was a productive retreat and a fun weekend of sewing with like-minded quilters!

Fall Retreat

Sue's local guild holds a spring and fall retreat in Winchester, VA.  We take over a very large conference room at a Hampton Inn so are able to sew all day and go upstairs to our rooms for the night.  It works out very well.  Sue went to her first retreat with this group last spring, and since the fall date didn't conflict with VCQ weekend (which it usually does), was able to attend again.  (Which comes as a welcome few days away from the ongoing kitchen renovation at home.)  Here are a few of the quick and easy projects she started with - a surefire way to take away some finished items!

A pair of fabric baskets that need some tacking on the inside and buttons on the flaps.

A pair of improvisationally pieced blocks to donate to a raffle quilt.

A zipper pouch with a clear vinyl front - largest of 3 sizes.  Some fun projects to get started.  Today, on to some work on the "repair project" and some UFOs.

UFO Busting for October

In the quest to get some UFO's out of the studio, we have joined Vicki Welsh's UFO Busting initiative.  Here is Sue's report for October:

I think I'm on time this month for my UFO Busting link - yeah!  And I actually have something to report! October was definitely a better month than September. First I finished my exhibit piece for "Fly Me to the Moon".  This is an "in the works" book and touring quilt exhibit that will commemorate the first moon walk being led by Susanne Miller Jones, but we are not allowed to share pictures yet.  What I will share is a picture of the label, so you can see it's actually done.  That's my one previously started/now finished project.

In addition, I had an art bee challenge to make a self-portrait (yesterday's post reveal).  I actually made two 12 inch squares for this challenge - the photo-to-fabric portrait, and a screen printed version.  These were both new starts, but also finishes, so my overall UFO count did not grow, in fact it decreased by 1.  Progress!

Check out the other UFO Busters links on Vicki's blog at Field Trips in Fiber.   

So, for my end of month count, this is where things stand:

• Projects in progress October 1 - 8
• Projects completed -3
• New projects started - 2
• UFO's trashed - 0
• Projects in progress October 31 - 7

I'm at a quilt retreat this weekend, so I plan to make progress on a couple of UFO's I brought along.  But alas, they are big projects so won't be anywhere near done.  And I may start and finish a few small things - we'll see!

Self-Portraits

Have you ever made a self-portrait?  Sue's art quilt group issued a challenge to make a self-portrait as one of their bi-monthly challenges.  It could be an actual portrait, or alternate interpretation of the term.  Some chose to interpret personality traits or likes/dislikes, one even used the results of Facebook quizzes as the basis for her self-portrait.  Sue decided to be literal in creating a portrait based on a photo, since she had never tried it before.

About the same time she was getting starting making a freezer paper pattern, an email arrived from Quilting Arts advertising some $5 videos, one of which was called "Making Faces" by Maria Elkins.  How could she go wrong for $5??  So after purchase and instant download, she was ready to watch the video to see how her method worked.  It seemed pretty foolproof, starting with a photo, changing it to black & white with 4 values from light to dark, and then using a product called Steam a Seam II Lite to build the layers, using the printed photo as a pattern.  This was the most basic method in the video; there are 3 others that are progressively more challenging, up to drawing a portrait freehand.  But the basic method was perfect for this first attempt.  Maria also offers tips on fabric selection and how to quilt the finished portrait.  Very much worth the $5!

This is the original photo, which was cropped down to just a head shot, and the background removed in Photoshop Elements.  Then it was changed to black and white and the posterize filter applied, with levels set to 4 so there would be 4 light to dark values.

Black & white photo

Posterized photo; you might notice this version is a mirror image of the previous one.  This is necessary for the final product to have the same orientation as the original photo.

[Normally, Sue hates photos of herself - don't we all?  Well, maybe not the selfie experts!  But Sue says spending so much time looking at herself does make it a little easier to accept what she sees!]

The posterized version is printed out and then the different value shapes are drawn with a red pen.  This will be the pattern for the portrait.  Three additional color copies are needed - one for each of the 4 layers.  Actually, 2 additional copies is enough but Sue wanted to keep one copy intact (the others get cut).  Each 8.5x11 sheet of paper is then adhered to a sheet of Steam a Seam II Lite.  This product comes with paper on both side and feels tacky when you peel the paper off.  The tackiness allows you to stick things together and still be able to reposition them until you are ready to fuse with an iron.  The lightest value goes down first, uncut. The 2nd lightest value has the paper pattern attached and you cut out all the "1" areas, which is the lightest value.  Then it is place on top of the first layer, so that the light value shows through.  This is repeated with the other 2 values, layering each one on top of the previous. Some parts, such as eyes, are completely cut out and so must be placed, but the cut-away pattern serves as a guide for placement.

Here are the 4 values layered on top of each other, before the background and clothing areas are cut away.  (The lines are marked with chalk to get an idea of the overall appearance.)  The brown (dark value) was cut away, other fabrics added for the jacket, and then the layers were ironed to permanently fuse them. Then it was time to find a background.  Many choices were auditioned before settling on the orange batik, which was embellished with stitching and beads.  The portrait was quilted mostly with invisible thread; brown was used to add texture to the hair.

Sue says this was a great learning experience!  She tried a technique she'd never done before, made her first portrait, used a new product (Steam a Seam II Lite), and tried some different embellishments.  In fact, she had so much fun with this, that she did a second self portrait as well!  More on that in another post.

From Photo to Thermofax Screen

Have you ever wanted to turn your own photo images into thermofax screens?  We are happy to make custom screens from your images.  A lot of the screens in our Etsy shop are from photos we have taken.  We use Photoshop Elements to convert our photos to screen images.  While not all photos may fit the exact same process, there are some basic steps for  converting a photo to a screen image.  If you can take the object out of its natural environment and photograph it against a white or black background, or take photos with a single color background such as water or sky, it makes the task a bit easier.

The first step is always to save your original photo under a different name so the original remains unchanged.  That way you always have a copy to go back to if you need to start over.  Here's a photo of a ginkgo leaf against a black felt background.  Once you've saved it to a new file name, you want
to crop your photo to get rid of the excess background.  Come in as close as you can to the object - that way your dimensions will be the object itself, not the object plus background.

Below is a portion of the toolbar that shows the tools we'll use for this image.  Be sure the foreground color is set to black - this will make a difference when you apply a filter.

After cropping, the next thing to do is change your image to black & white.  Thermofax screen images need to be black & white (no gray) in order to burn a satisfactory image.  Go to the Enhance menu and choose Convert to Black and White.  The dialog box below will open up.  You have several styles to choose from and can also adjust intensity.  Try them all - what works best for one image may be totally different for another.  In this case, I chose "infrared", but quite often I use "newspaper".  What you are trying to do is create a high contrast black & white image that shows details.  In this case, infrared seemed to show more texture in the leaf.  When satisfied, click OK.  (We should note however, that sometimes we remove background before changing to black & white.  It just so happens that with this particular image, it's easier to obtain an outline in the image by changing to B & W first.)

Your image file now looks like this.  It's good to save your file at this point, again with a new name, so that if succeeding steps don't turn out exactly as you want, you have this step to go back to rather than starting over.

There are several paths you could take next, and a lot is trial and error to find the process that works best for any given photo.  One option is to get rid of the background first, and then apply a filter to get the effect you want.  Another choice is to apply a filter and then remove the background.  Typically we remove the background first, but found that with this image, applying the filter first gives the image a stronger outline.  To apply a filter, go to the filter menu; there are lots of choices!  The filters we have found we use most frequently are in Sketch, either photocopy or stamp.

This is what it looks like with the filter applied.  (Note - as mentioned previously, the foreground color needs to be set to black to keep the filtered image black & white.)

Next we'll get rid of the background.  Again, there are several ways you might do this, and it also depends on what version of Photoshop Elements you have.  The eraser tool has both a background eraser and a magic eraser.  However, because the background is mottled instead of solid, the basic eraser works best.  (Again, try the various options to see what works best.)  There is another option if you have Photoshop Elements version 11 or earlier - that is a tool called the Magic Extractor which is found in the Image menu.  (If you have a later version, we'll cover that next.)  When you choose the extractor, the window below opens.

You use the red marker to identify the areas you want to keep, and the blue to mark areas to remove.  Choose the preview tool (circled) to see the results before clicking OK; that way you can still edit. The preview looks like this.

You can see that the image, including the outline, remains intact, with just a bit of clean up needed around the edges.  That can be done with an eraser after closing the extractor.  If you're satisfied with the preview, click OK.  If not satisfied, you can do some additional editing.

Before (above) and after (below) cleaning up the edges with the eraser.

What if you have a newer version of Photoshop Elements?  After version 11, there is no more Magic Extractor.  Well, here's an alternative method.  After applying the filter, you can remove the background with the eraser tool.

Start with the Magic Eraser and click in the background spaces around the leaf.  It should take away most of the mottled background; just be careful - if you see dramatic changes to your leaf such as the outline disappearing, go to Edit > Undo (or Ctrl Z).  Remove the remainder of the background with the "regular" eraser; you may have to zoom in on the image to erase close to the outline of the image and use the size slider to change the size of the eraser.

Another alternative to the magic extractor in version 12 and newer is the quick selection tool, although that is more challenging for this image than the eraser.

If using the quick selection tool, click & drag over area you want to select.  Use the add/subtract tool at the bottom of screen to add/remove additional areas.  Then click Refine Edge; adjust the edges as desired.  Click “Output To”; select New Document.  Go to File, Save As to save & name this new version of your image.


After you have removed the background, save your file again, adding height and width to the file name - this is your original size.  This way your file can be adjusted to various sizes depending on the project you have in mind.  To resize an image, go to the Image menu and select Resize > Image Size.

Type in one of the dimensions you want; the other will adjust automatically as long as you have constrain proportions checked.

Again, save your image as a .jpg (image) file with the dimensions as part of the name.  You will end up with multiple files through this process, both photoshop files and image files, so being specific in your naming convention helps avoid confusion.  I would name this ginkgo4x3.7.jpg.  It's also smart to organize all the files for one image in a folder. Finally, your image is ready to be made into a screen and then the fun begins when you can start printing!  Here is this particular image printed on fabric.

Although this tutorial may seem very long, the process itself goes faster, so don't let the length deter you.  As mentioned earlier, there is not one specific process that works for every image.  But once you've had some practice with a variety of photos, it is easier to know what will work best without as much trial and error.  In future posts, we'll add some tips for other types of images.  Give it a try and see what you come up with!

Copyright pgfiber2art 2015. You are welcome to print out this tutorial for your own personal use but please do not share printed copies. We ask that you refer others to this page who may interested in learning about this process.  Thanks!