Play piece

Earlier today I was working on a quilt that should be done.  I got 90% there and realized I have to frog the whole thing.  I’m annoyed to say the least!

So I decided a little down time was in order.  Linda M Poole always has a color fix on her posts.  I love this particular part of the post because they always send my mind reeling off to how I could make that happen on fabric.  I have a tendency to want to translate images literally however this afternoon I just went for it and here’s the result from the front.

 

 

And from the back.  I used several different colors of rayon embroidery thread, Aurifil, and Superior Cotton 50 wt. and Polyester 60 weight.

Standing behind this piece is my 14 x 14 square ruler.

One good thing about having the ruler behind this is that you can see how small I was working.  For some reason lately I really like doing teeny, tiny stitches.

tiny feathers, tiny pebbles tiny swirling feathers…when will the madness ever end?  Oh yeah…when the piece is complete and I can go back to what I was doing.

 

There are a couple of blank spots that need to be filled in with some kind of filler…that will happen in a few days.  Now I can focus on the major deadlines I have.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

Kaleidoscope Creation, stitch plate & quilt

This afternoon I visited Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero’s website Kaleidoscope Collections and noticed that Favorite Projects Volume 2 is out.  See the quilt just under the number “2″?  That’s the quilt Jeanie sent to me to quilt in time for Houston.  Thanks Jeanie!

The last couple of days in between quilting the forest (more on that in a bit) I’ve been doing some pattern testing for Benartex.  I really enjoy this technical editing. I get to play with fabric and quilt.  Doesn’t get much better than that I tell ya.

By way of an explanation of this picture.  This is the forest quilt…the one where each tree is being quilted one at a time.  I’m one pass beyond the halfway point.  In the background see the pine cone fabric?  That’s the very same fabric that is in the foreground just in front of the cream fabric.  That’s about 120″ inches of quilt shoved in there.  Yep I was having such a good time I kept going and going and going and then the bobbin ran out.  I’ve used 8 bobbins on this quilt already.

See how I’m holding my left hand here?  Well, if you can imagine, that’s how I also hold my right hand when I’m quilting.  It’s hard to take a picture of hand position when you’re trying to hold the camera.  I’m going to have to get my dh to do that for me one of these days.

A few weeks ago I purchased a straight stitch needle plate for my machine.  The original intended use was for quilting and I love it for quilting!  Oh my goodness every time I get a “should have for quilting” gadget I wonder why I waited soooooo long!  This is one of those time.  Not only am I loving it for quilting, it makes piecing, particularly biased angles, so much easier.  I don’t have to worry that the fabric is going to head down into the bobbin area.  This is one more must have for quilters.  I you don’t have this for your machine, run, don’t walk to your nearest dealer and get one!

Here I’m finishing a hst unit…Love it.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

PS – Jeanne Cook-Delpit Director of National Events for Bernina posted a blog to the Bernina blog she has some great projects and lists some of the great quilters & artists who will be appearing on Quilting Arts TV in the 500 series.  It’s thanks to Jeanne that I can now use and teach the BSR!  Thanks Jeanne!

 

Quilting a forest.

I’m quilting a forest and my customer said I can share some photos.  I’m not going to reveal the full quilt mostly because it’s hers and partly because I don’t have the space to take a picture.  This quilt is larger than a king size and I just passed the halfway point quilting these trees.

This is a fun quilt.  As you can see each tree is quilted differently…I’m repeating a lot of stitches.

I’m also nearly finished one of the Benartex quilts and I’m working on my first lecture and classes for my brochure.  I’ll have a new brochure done in a few weeks.

Happy quilting!

Teri

 

 

Bernina 24 foot revisit and bunny ears

Linda M. Poole is issuing a challenge to her blog readers.  We often make quilts for other people – babies, friends, grand bababies, nieces, nephews, people we don’t even know who are in need of the warmth, care & concern a quilt will bring.  I am in process of making a quilt for me…the next in the “Twilight in the Bronx” series.  This quilt is going in a direction that I didn’t expect it to, I’m enjoying the process however I do need to give it more time because I have some goals with it.

Linda is encouraging each quilter in the challenge to spend 15 minutes working on this particular quilt.  Fifteen minutes is an easy amount of time to work on this challenge and loads can be accomplished in short periods of time.

Linda also has several great features on her blog…including the color fix which usually sends my imagination into over drive trying to figure out how to quilt some of these things!

 

 

Someone emailed me this week asking the width of the opening of the Bernina #24 foot, the Freehand Embroidery foot, that I use for quilting.

*The quilt under the foot is the forest quilt.  I’m going to work on getting permission to post pictures of some of the trees.*

 

The actual opening from tip to tip – straight across – is 1/4 of an inch.  This seems quite expansive and potentially feels like the stitches might catch on the tips of the opening.  The only time I’ve ever had stitches catch is when my stitches have been too big.  Thats one more thing this particular foot helps me remain focused on is keeping the quilting stitches consistent.

Benartex sent me a pattern to test that uses lots and lots and lots of half square triangles.  These are the bunny ears from 56 half square triangles.

That’s a lot of bunny ears.  As soon as they post show the quilt on their site I’ll post a link here on the blog.

 

 

I’m hoping to post again later this week with some pics of the forest quilt.

Happy quilting!

Teri

 

Ever since I subscribed to American Patchwork & Quilting

I’ve admired and hoped one day I’d have Laura Boehnke’s job as pattern tester for American Patchwork & Quilting.

As I chatted with Giovanna last night I realized I have Laura’s job…just not for American Patchwork & Quilting.  I get to test patterns for Benartex.  It’s so much fun to realize a dream has come true.

I got a call from my friend neen yesterday…she’s at “A Quilters Gathering” in Nashua, NH looks like “Twilight in the Bronx” received an Honorable Mention in their ‘Excellence in Machine Quilting” category.

In January *will be working out the dates* I will be offering “Let Your Foot Loose – be Fancy & Free” at the quilt cottage in Mamaroneck.  The class will be based on “Twilight in the Bronx” and will include some trapunto as well as lots of quilting design.  As I chatted with some of my students yesterday they were asking about my quilting style…do I mark the quilt top?  do I plan the quilting?  How do I get there?  I would describe my style and planning method in this way – “short attention span quilting”.   So as I quilted “Twilight”  I would change the stitches and the thread color as I moved from space to space.  I don’t mind quilting using the same type of thread and quilting stitch over the entire surface of a quilt with quite interesting results…with “Twilight” and other practice type pieces I like to play and see what happens as a result.

The next in this series will be a much bigger quilt.  The diamonds will be 60 degrees.  I still have to figure out how big the diamonds will grow and where the color will come in.  I know I’ll have more of the suns and trapuntoed circles however the rest is a mystery that will unfold over the course of the next few months.

I’m off to quilt and pattern test!

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

It bears repeating…I love teaching machine quilting!!

I love teaching machine quilting.  Each student and each machine gives me something to think about and a new approach to how I teach.  This morning two of my students had these beautiful “Aha!” moments as Sarah Vedeler calls them.

I always talk to my students about speed, that a good even, medium speed will make a huge difference in how consistent their quilting will become.  In my last class, quite the feisty group, I started issuing “speeding violations” when a couple of the gals would just race the machine.  With several of the gals I’ve done this in class, much to their amusement, but they’re getting it, slow down a bit and their quilting will improve.  As one of the gals worked with her machine she gets it, the machine slows down, the shoulders relax and the stitching improves.

Next gal, has a simple basic machine and has been doing ok.  There have been several speeding violations issued, usually within moments of one another.  Today I invited her to sit at my machine and quilt for a while.  Her amazement as she gained control of the machine, her shoulders relaxed and the stitching improved was amazing.

I love this.  I love watching students who struggle with quilting as it is so counter-intuitive to how we’ve been taught to sew everything else we sew.  I love watching students who just get it and move on through the whole process and I can help them move into something beyond what they’ve been doing.  I love how I get to share this gift of quilting with each quilter.  There’s nothing better for this quilter.

When I quilt I use the Freehand Embroidery Foot #24 for my machine.  Renee, after taking a class on machine quilting, suggested that I purchase this foot for quilting.  I did and WOW what a huge difference this made for me visually.  At a class I had another student, again having her sit at my machine just to see how the visual field opened up with this foot had her “Aha!” moment.

I’ve also recently invested in a single hole stitch plate for my 1080.  Love it.  Absolutely love it.

When I’m not teaching or working I’m listening to the World Series and quilting microfiber.  Yep, you read that right microfiber.  I’m making myself a new pocket book.  I finally finished the quilting and will have photos most likely tomorrow.

My new friend Susan Brubaker Knapp has a book out called appliqué Petal Party.

should be quite a lot of fun!  Congratulations Susan on the release of your book and your Best of Show!  How cool is that!

Happy Quilting!

Teri

 

International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene

Nancy from the quilt cottage in Mamaroneck called this afternoon letting me know that “Quilt Scene” arrived today.  When I told my sweetie we had to take the trip there to pick up a copy.

*Edit* a friend pointed out that I forgot to mention that I wrote an article on machine quilting tips for this magazine.  The New York Beauty pictured is a quilt that I made a few years ago titled, “When Alex & Jinny met in NY Beauty Happened” and won a 2nd place ribbon at Maine Quilts in 2008!

There are so many great people in this article from Terry Howard Grant, Susan Brubaker Knapp, Melanie Testa, to all of the award winning quilts from Quilt Festival.

Pokey Bolton and the entire staff from Quilting Arts have made this entire process fun and exciting and smooth and just amazing!

It is so difficult to share with you how excited I am to share quilting tips though Quilt Scene.  Quilting is something I love and am passionate about.  

The quilt in the article is “When Alex & Jinny met in NY Beauty Happened”

There is so much quilting in this quilt as I considered it a practice piece and tried a lot of different quilting techniques.  One of the NY Beauty blocks is all thread work.  

I’m so glad my sweetie offered to take me to Mamaroneck!  Thanks.

I just realized that there aren’t any quilts that I’ve quilted for the shop in these pics.

I have a couple of links to add Kate Perri & Ellen Highsmith Silver.  Kate wrote for Singer and is a quilt artist and Ellen wrote the book on Floorquilts.  (Ellen took a couple of these pics for me, thanks!)

So yesterday at mini-group Giovanna showed us her stained glass quilt.  It’s a beauty. The quilt is based on a cathedral here in NY and designed by Giovanna, a graphic designer by nature and training and her quilts reflect that.  I love that I get to share in her quilt making.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

PS thank you all so much for sharing in this quilting journey with me…I can’t quite share how happy I am that you share this blog with me

 

From Pen thief to pin thief to . . . . donut thief

Some time ago I posted this blog on how I became a pin thief.  I still have several of the pins that came home with me that day.

Yesterday started out well enough.  My sweetie headed out to do some grocery shopping while I was perusing the internet blog sites that I visit, checking out the news and all that jazz.  By the time he arrived home I’d had breakfast, spoiling his plans for blueberry pancakes..oh well, there’s always next week.  While he was out he picked up 3 chocolate donuts with just a hint of cinnamon they smelled yummy.

In the afternoon I have mini-group, so we’re going to Church earlier in the day.  I go get ready and off we go.  While we’re at Church my sweetie realizes that yet again, for perhaps the 5th time since he got this thing, his phone died.  The first few times it was really annoying the more it’s happened the funnier it’s become.  I figured out yesterday that the phone died because the pew was shaking and I look over at him…looking at his phone & laughing.

After Church we head over to his office, which is less than 4 miles from our house, to get the paperwork & packing.  This is the first time since he started this job that I’ve gotten to see his office.  I must say I’m quite impressed.  It’s quite functional with loads of storage for all of the stuff they need to have in there.  As we’re on the way home we chat about a few things including what I’m going to pick up for the mini-group and having a quick bite to eat, including my one donut.

I’ll bet you can see where this is going.

I get all my stuff together…Generals Marking Pencils, pencil sharpener, the fabric that I’ve pieced for the next in the “Twilight in the Bronx” series…I eat my donut and thinking he’d had one already (didn’t know he’d only gotten 3) …eat the second one….get in the car and off we go.

As we’re driving over we discuss the donut situation and I realize that I’ve become a Donut Thief!  At first he thought I was kidding that I ate the donut.  Nope, I’m not.  I try to get out of him where he purchased said donut so I can stop there on my way home from work today to pick up another one for him.  Nope he won’t tell me.  I sing love songs to him…nope doesn’t work.  He still won’t tell me.  I try all the way over to get him to tell me.  Nope.  Not happening.  I’m doomed not knowing.

I guess it’s just been a slippery slope from pen thief, to pin thief to donut thief….

Mini-group on the other hand was quite successful for me.  I was able to get the center diamonds drawn on the fabric.  So far its 5 diamonds long and will be 5 diamonds wide…I may go 7 long but I’ll have to wait and see how it looks like with the 5 completely drafted in.  There are 4 60 degree diamonds radiating out from the center and the plan is to have diamonds further out on the piece in between the first set.  I just need to finish drafting the first set and see where this will land.  I will once again use all Superior Threads for the project, the diamonds will be MasterPiece or SoFine, now that I’ve become more comfortable using it and the rest of the quilt will be King Tut.  I need to decide on colors and I know that I want these to be brighter across the board.

I do have one picture from yesterday however it’s still on my camera.  Giovanna has a stained glass quilt that is just stunning.

Have a quilty day!

Teri

 

Let Your Foot Loose – Be Fancy & Free!

Thanks Bridget for the title to the next machine quilting class that I’m developing.  The goal is to have this ready to go in a few weeks.  This will be offered at the quilt cottage in Mamaroneck as soon as I get the right order for teaching worked out and the put together a small kit for the students.  After chatting with Ellen Highsmith Silver last night before class started I’m going to base the class on “Twilight in the Bronx”.   Much of the quilting from this quilt is what I would incorporate into the class…so this seems like a great idea.  Thanks Ellen.

Yesterday was guild with the Village Squares Quilters.  Elin Waterston  presented her talk “finding your voice” as an artist and more specifically as a quilter.  Learning how she finds inspiration, what moves her and how that is incorporated into her art quilts is quite fascinating.

Before the program started the Outreach chair made a presentation of this quilt to Common Ground (didn’t realize how fuzzy the picture is) different members of the guild participated in making this quilt.  I quilted and my friend Susan bound the quilt and added the label.  At first we were thinking that I’d quilt the label right on to the back, however I soon decided that this wouldn’t work because of how pretty the label itself is.

The quilt blocks will be auctioned off at a fund raiser for Common Ground and will go toward restoring a brownstone somewhere here in the City.

The quilting on here is quite dense in most blocks.  Susan ended up quilting three, maybe four blocks…somehow I missed them.  Thanks Susan!!!!!!!!!!!

Each house is different…some have trees some don’t.  Most have lawns.

The director for the Veterans place at the Montrose VA shared with us how touched the vets are that people would make quilts for them.  When some of the vets are moving settled and moving on to their new homes the quilts are going with them.  Making quilts for these folks who give their lives in service is quite an honor.

Oh yes, the Village Squares Quilters will have a quilt show November 13 & 14, 2010 at the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester on West Hartsdale Avenue in Hartsdale.  We’re looking forward to getting things together.  My role will be a bit more behind the scenes this year with publicity.  Yeah!

Happy quilting!

Teri

 

Kool Kaliedoscope

This is one of the quilts that kept me up late last week.  I finished it on the 6th as it needed to be in Houston by the 8th so Jeanie could finish the binding and have it ready to hang in the Kaleidoscope Collections booth.  It made it!  Whew.

The autumn leaf blocks are printed onto the fabric and are quite bright.  I had a hard time at first trying to figure out how to quilt this because the autumn leaves need to be the star…not the quilting.  So it took me a couple of days to figure out how to quilt it, then another day to realize what would & wouldn’t work with the quilt.

What worked: finer thread & finer needles because the fabric is so dense (tighter than a really good batik) that it wasn’t liking the heavier needles & thread.  Stitches were skipping and thread was breaking…not good for anything especially a trip to Houston.

For the back I chose So Fine by Superior Threads in a lighter shade of brown.  This pops on the back of the quilt.  You can see here that I really tried to accentuate the curves going around the Kaleidoscope blocks.  The stitching is quite dense.

For the front I chose MasterPiece, also by Superior in a red that matches the background color fairly closely.  Although it’s somewhat difficult to see here it ends up being quite effective.

I used an orange color to outline the leaves and because of how the leaves line up down the entire piece I was able to work from the top down without a lot of stops & starts and having to bury a lot of thread.

I outlined the center spikes as well in the same orange.  I have to say this was a lot of fun and I’m so glad that Jeanie sent this to me to quilt it.

Here’s a close up of the quilting in the curves of the quilt.

Out on the border the fabric also dictated where I would go with the quilting.  Outlining the leaves in the same brown used on the back ended up being very effective and complimented the leaf shape in the Kaleidoscope blocks.

Happy quilting!

Teri

Wednesday morning I’ll have photos of the other quilt that kept me up nights last week.