Post Surgical Update

Good morning dear quilterly friends!

As soon as I can get to my desktop (after next Friday when I’m cleared to do the stairs) I have 3 amazing quilters as guest bloggers – Rayna Gilman, Jeannie Sumrall-Ajero & Michelle Foster of Quilting Gallery lined up.   Rayna & Jeannie’s blogs will be interview style.  Michele will take a different approach.  I’m very grateful to each one of these quilters for taking the time to work with me on these blogs.

I mentioned in this blog that I’d be having surgery in January.  The surgery happened last Wednesday, Jan 11, and I am doing very well.  As I mentioned in the previous blog that it’s nothing serious, and it wasn’t I want to share here a little bit.  I had a hysterectomy.  My sweetie has been the best about taking very good care of me!

I’d been following Mickey DePre and  another quilter on their journeys.  They have both been very supportive through this experience.  Overall I’m doing really well.  No pain meds since Friday, I’m walking around well – slowly – but well and overall feeling fine.  Sneezing & coughing require a pillow and of course the pillow is usually on the love seat I’m coughing or sneezing.

One of the things I’m doing to while away the hours is sketching/drawing.  I love coffee and have been designing coffee cups since I got home.  I’ve been posting the pics on facebook and am sharing a few here with you this morning.  I’m having a lot of fun with these designs.  They’re kind of a riff on the zentangles.

 

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

 

 

Cozy Quilt Shoppe

Saturday my Sweetie & I went to visit family in NJ.  Whilst in NJ there are a couple of requisite stops:

1) Vitamia in Lodi for sausage bread.  We’ve had sausage bread from other Italian bakeries/pasta makers and it’s just not the same.  It’s like Italians, sandwiches from my home town in ME, there are other hoagies, heros, grinders etc from different place, but there’s nothing like Italians from Sams in Lewiston.

2) filling up on fuel.  NJ has the lowest gas prices in the area so we fill up right before coming home.  With a 40 – 50 cent difference it’d be silly not to get fuel before coming home.

3) a quilt shop if we see one.

I’ve known about the Cozy Quilt Shoppe since working on publicity for a quilt show.  Google maps is great for finding so many things.  Timing was never quite right then they were in the process of moving to their current location in Maywood NJ.  As we were on our way to our family we stopped in Maywood looking for a fruit stand.  As my sweetie is driving down the main street we both noticed the shop.  First stop the market just adjacent to the shop, we picked up a couple of apples then I went to the shop.

The owner, Denise, could not have been any more welcoming!  She opens her shop for customers to come in with their projects to be there for the day.  For a small fee she provides a little snack, the iron, spray starch and access to the Accuquilt.  And you’re in a quilt shop so if you need fabric. . .

I chatted with some of the quilters in the classroom.  There is a definite camaraderie and they are most welcoming.  One of the gals pointing out sale fabrics on the shelves.  I did some of my shopping there, including the back for Staten Island Sunset.

No this isn’t it.

I enjoyed this fabric from Lakehouse Dry Goods when it came out years ago and thought my nieces might enjoy it.  It’s bright and fun.  I love the warm & cool color play.  Hmmmn.  It may just stay in my stash.  There were several other Lakehouse fabrics on the shelf and I picked up one of their stripes with the gold circles.

Then I happened upon the hot pink and the orange batiks.  The orange one just made me so happy!  I love the shapes and the positive/negative of it all.  I asked for a yard of each of these, then Denise mentioned that the orange is on the sale rack.  I checked with her as I’d picked it up from the shelves in the main room of the quilt shop.  It was indeed on the sale rack so I got the rest of it, another 4 yards!  This is going to be the back of Staten Island Sunset.  I’m getting more and more excited about working on this quilt.

Like all my quilts there’s a certain amount of serendipity that happens and I’m loving how this happened.

So if you’re in Bergen County NJ the Cozy Quilt Shoppe is a great stop!  For my NY friends this shop is easy peasy to get to!

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

Staten Island Sunset progress finally

In July I fused this beautiful hand dyed (by Esterita Austin) silk organza to the gold Radiance.    I love the way Mistyfuse fuses.  It was easy to handle and leaves the fabrics with a lot of flexibility.  There’s enough body that marking the diamonds and circles will be easier than if I was just marking the Radiance.  Several months ago I purchased some copper Radiance from Shiisa Quilts not quite certain how I was going to use it.  When it arrived I knew it needed to be paired with Staten Island Sunset.

After weeks of not doing any quilting in my studio I finally had a little energy to work a little on this project.

First I pressed the misty fuse to the copper.  Lesson: parchment is better release paper than say, butcher paper which has a waxy side to it and adheres to the fusible rather than allowing the fusible to adhere to the fabric.

Lesson 2) a cooler iron works a little better than a very hot iron.

Next I hand cut a long curvy cut to add a soft rather than hard line when fusing the two fabrics together.  I laid the copper just over the edge of the silk organza thus taking care of that raw edge.  The upper raw edge will end up in the facing after the quilting.

My friend and mini group member Sandra has this beautiful gold/blue/gray crinkled organza that she shared with me which covers the line of the copper and I’ll add a little more here and there.  Not exactly sure how yet but I have a clearer definition of how this quilt is going to come together.

I really think this is working nicely and can hardly wait to get quilted.  I’m not entirely certain when I’ll get this marked and basted however I’m going to set some goals with this quilt.

I have the silk and bamboo batting that I need to get the quilt basted.  I just need to make a decision about how much copper Radiance I’ll keep as part of the quilt.  I’m thinking about 18 – 24″ .  Right now I have the entire width of the copper attached to the quilt and I know it’s too much.

I’m still thinking about thread color and what will pop against the already colorful background of this quilt.  I’ll bring this quilt to MQX if you’d like to see the progress.  I’ll be teaching Beginner Quilting, And now What?! and Let Your Foot Loose be Fancy & Free.  On Friday, as long as all of the planning works out I’ll be in the Bernina Booth.

Happy Quilting!

Happy New Year!

Teri

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas wish 2011 blog

 

 

Working on a mystery for my guild

The last 2 months I had them paper piecing a gaggle  flying geese.  I did a very quick demo on paper piecing at the guild.

And flying geese they made!

This month they are working on this delightful shoo fly block.  Did I ever tell you I love shoo fly pie.  Oh that delightful molassasy taste.  I think when I go to Lancaster for the AQS show a pie is coming home with me.  I’m so grateful I drive there.  I must make reservations.

Just a reminder I’m teaching with MQX East in April.

Beginner Free Motion Machine Quilting

And Now What?!

Let Your Foot Loose Be Fancy & Free.

I’d love to see you there!

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

 

I’m still here!

This last week has been busy.  Work, guild, work.  Thinking about several upcoming guest bloggers in January/February.  I’m lining these special quilters up as I’ll be having surgery the 2nd week of January and won’t be quilting or blogging for a few weeks after.  My studio will miss me I’m sure.  It’s nothing serious just something I need to take care of and am doing so while I have the opportunity.

I’ve also been working with a couple of quilters in an on-line mentoring process that seems to work well.

Earlier this week I decided to go ahead and send in the application to teach with a big show, of course the deadline is tomorrow so rush was the word of the days.  For some silly reason I was away from 12:15  to 2 Tuesday morning.  That’s when I decided to apply.  As I was going to guild Tuesday and I’m no longer serving on the board I had some time.  The old adage applied here, “the hurriedier I go, the behinder I get!”  As I made copies and filled out pages the computer & scanner didn’t want to talk to each other consistently.   By 11 I was running late and needed to go.

Of course that afternoon I needed to go to work to finish the newsletter and go to our holiday party.  So yesterday morning I finished the application, wrapped up “Moon Over Manhattan” aka “Little Miss Sassy Pants” to go to Road to California and headed to the Fed Ex office.  The application will arrive on time and Little Miss Sassy Pants will be a little early.

Now that these 2 things are off my plate I can get back to the studio & get some other quilterly things done.

Happy quilting!

Teri

 

 

Take Me Right Into The “Feather Zone”

I’ve quilted for Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero of Kaleidoscope Collections since shortly after we met on the set of Quilting Arts TV in 2009.  As I stitch I’ll send Jeanie photographic updates of the quilting as these quilts are decorating her booth, inviting customers in for a closer look.  I work at being mindful of her needs as the designer of the software and the quilts.  I love playing with the kaleidoscopes seeing where and how I can quilt them without overwhelming Jeanie’s work.  As a side note kaleidoscopes make great practice quilts, more on that another time.

Jeanie sent me photos of a quilt she was working on and I was totally blown away.  These photos came with a different request, “quilt it like a show quilt“.  We emailed one another finalizing the design of the quilt.  I enjoyed this process as we discussed which design we liked best.    (ALL IMAGES USED WITH PERMISSION)

Meet “Feather Zone”

That red border is pieced in because Jeanie asked me what I thought about printing it…that was fine but I know what an excellent piecer she is and I thought she should piece it in.  Turn about is fair play as you’ll see later.  Because Jeanie was getting ready for Market and Festival I needed to do a very quick turn around time on the quilt.

 

Over the week or so that I spent quilting this I sent Jeanie sneak peeks of the stitching.  I stopped sending them after a while as I needed to finish the quilt and I really wanted to surprise her with the finished quilt.  I did.

As I stitched I followed a lot of the boundaries of the feathers filling in with some detail as I thought it needed it.

And of course I needed to fill the space.  This is the quilt where I realized I didn’t have much, if any, pink thread.  Five spools of Superior MasterPiece came home with me.  All five pinks came home with me the next day and were stitched into the quilt.

I used fuchsia in the border which ends up quite subtle as the border is a very dark purple.  Jeanie overprinted it to get just the right color.

I used a couple of different colors on the back including orange.  I love the orange/purple combination.  And here again it’s quite subtle as the purple is deep.

I used 2 layers of batting in the quilt.  The batting at the back is bamboo, the batting on the top is Hobbs Tuscany Silk.  The bamboo gives the quilt structure & stability while the silk gives smoothness and loft.  At Jeanie’s request I actually hand stitched the binding to the back.  Yes, you read that correctly I did some hand stitching.  Jeanie was right of course hand stitching on a show quilt gives a much better quality & feel to the quilt.

I did not use bias binding, instead after a conversation with Paula Reid I decided to give cross-grain binding a go and I must say I’m pleased.

The other night Jeanie & I finally decided on the name for the quilt, “Feather Zone”.  We’re taking you into the Feather Zone.  I dare say this is the best way to learn feathers I’ve ever encountered.  Mind you Ricky Tims does a phenomenal demonstration at the Super Seminars and I’m grateful for that!  As I stitched this quilt I learned more about the ways the feathers can be stitched up one side and down the other, than I ever had before.  I’m not one for turning the quilt around a lot as I quilt and this allowed me to quilt in a way that was really comfortable.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

PS Jeanie & I are submitting the quilt to shows, as soon as we know where it will be we will let you know.

 

Hand dyes

Last week Ally came into the shop to get fabric for a new project she’s working on.  Ally took machine quilting classes from me at the quilt cottage several years ago.  If memory serves Ally took the beginner machine quilting then moved right into the advanced class as she was going back to work right after the advanced class.  Over the last couple of years Ally has sent pics of her quilts.  I’ve very much enjoyed how much she loves to quilt, the whole quilting process.

She came in to see if we carry Kaufman’s pimatex pfd, long story short we don’t but we were able to order the whole bolt for her.  You see Ally’s been dyeing fabric for a while.  See the fabrics to the left  <—- those gorgeous hand dyes right over there <—- Ally dyed those.  And I am the grateful recipient!!!

I will be purchasing from Ally in the future.  These are luscious.

I’m seeing now that the light is weird and throwing off the color the yellow is actually an orange it’s deep and rich.

The blue and medium purple are showing up well but the orange and the deep purple (almost brown) aren’t showing up so well.

 You can get a better sense of the colors in this picture.  They are delightful and quite evenly dyed.  I can hardly wait to play with them.  I’m thinking a little zentangle inspired art in either a 6 or 8 inch square.  I can hardly wait to get stitching.  Alas that will have to wait a little since I have some other work that needs to get done.

I might be rethinking when I get started stitching.

 

Just a reminder I’m teaching at MQX East in April.  I would love to have you in class!

I’ve entered “Moon Over Manhattan” into the show and Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero of Kaleidoscope Collections and I are discussing entering our quilt “Feather Zone” into both AQS Lancaster and MQX East.  ”Feather Zone” is from the Kaleidoscope Creator Feathers Template pack.  Jeanie was working on the Feathers pack, sending pics back & forth auditioning several designs before settling on the final design.  When I got the quilt I swooned.  The quilt is double batted using bamboo and silk for stability and loft respectively.  I sent Jeanie sneak peaks of the quilting here and there but I must admit to being a bit of a tease.  I didn’t send final pics of the quilting before shipping it off.  Truth be told I really didn’t have time to take them and she was on the road to Quilt Market in Houston.

Sarah Vedeler & Lisa Sipes were with Jeanie when she opened “Feather Zone” from what they said Jeanie was thrilled to bits.  Wish I could have seen her face but alas, a trip to Houston will be for next year I hope.  I’ll let you know where the quilt will be shown as soon as Jeanie and I work out the details.

Happy quilting!

Teri

 

Muffins & Studio Reorganization

Since we put in the new windows a few weeks ago I’ve been reorganizing the studio.  I’ve still got a ways to go but I’m liking the perspective so far.

instead of having the tables form an “L” shape in the corner and everything else off to my right I’ve started by putting a little shelf in the corner that currently houses extra bias binding, canned air and a few other odds & ends.  Next to that I’ve put the old Singer Sewing machine.  That has the radio, phone, writing implements and a few other bits & bobs.

Eventually the thread will go someplace else leaving the table it’s on right now available for cutting and extra quilt when I work on large pieces.  I’m going to bring the other sewing machine in from our bedroom for the thread giving us a bit more space and put some of the thread on that.  The ironing board move back in front of the fabric once I get that all sorted and put back together.

This is the next quilt I’m working on.  When I’m finished the quilting I’m going to cut it into three to make a triptych.  While not readily visible due to the lighting  I’ve drafted diamonds & hexagons on here in 3 different places.

This has 2 layers of batting the bottom (back) is bamboo, the top is silk.  I’m using a lime green batik on the back.  I’ll get a picture of once I have some of the quilting done.  This is one of the three pieces of silk I picked up at the Philadelphia quilt show.

 On a completely food related note.  I’m a fair cook but I can bake.  I get the process of baking and understand how changes can be made in recipes to tweak the flavors.  I’ll never qualify for Top Chef Just Desserts however I’d have fun trying.

Muffins always eluded me.  I’d end up with tunnels or tough muffins.  A friend I’ve reconnected with on facebook frequently posts muffins she’s taking here or there.  This morning I was inspired to try once again to get it right!  King Arthur Flour Cookbook to the rescue.  I took their recipe for Pretty Darn Quick Muffins added craisins, slivered almonds and a bit of vanilla.  It worked!  I was shocked actually.  I got 24 muffins out of the recipe and they were nicely cooked, rose well and tasted good.  I’d do this again.  The gals in our monthly mini-group are getting some of these tomorrow night.

When I baked & decorated there were two baking books I relied on heavily Great Cakes by Carole Walter & The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  Love these books.  When I got Great Cakes it changed how I bake cakes.  Just like with quilting it slowed down the process making for a much better product.  It also called for better ingredients, not particularly expensive, just better.  Quilting is the same way, the right tools go a long way toward making the process easier and a better end product.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

Look Beyond

I think I’m going to combine “And now What?!” & “Doodle Your Way to Better Quilting“.  I’m going to list this with the option of a one hour hands on lecture or a half-day class.  The new name:  ”Look Beyond”.

Last night I watched “Mona Lisa Smile” with a different perspective.  The first time I saw this movie I remember thinking about the role of women & convention, how Katherine Watson & Nancy Abbey seemed polar opposites while both wanting the same thing – to educate & form the Wellesley alum and to be happy in life.

As I watched last night I heard the movie more in light of the art and how Katherine Watson continually asked the students to look beyond their initial impressions and truly reflect on the piece in front of them.  Three scenes made deep impressions:

1) when she took them to see the Jackson Pollock and asked them to look & study

2) when she handed the girls the Van Gogh paint by number kit commenting that this kind of kit is counter to all that Van Gogh stood for as an artist as he desired to push the boundaries of contemporary art

3) when Betty Warren sits with her mom in the library and she demand that her mom look at the Mona Lisa and think beyond the smile, asking, “is she happy”.

When I teach “And Now What” that’s essentially what I want the students to do, to look beyond what they think is appropriate/traditional for this particular quilt and see what else is there.  What other lines and patterns come forward as they look at the quilt?  What kinds of threads will be most appropriate for the type of quilting they are considering?  Does this mean that I’m asking them to do something other than their initial impression? No, I’m not.  I essentially want the students to know that they are free to stitch their quilt any way they choose, the way that makes them happy, that makes the most sense for them.

If doing the expected makes them happy then go for it.

If stitching in the unexpected makes them happy then go for it.

Look Beyond dear quilters, look beyond!

On another note Emily Cier has an amazing blog post that all quilters need to read the end result will have far reaching effects.

Happy quilting!

Teri