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

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

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

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

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

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.

had some late nights working on getting 2 quilts done.  The first is for Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero of Kaleidoscope Collections.  She posted on facebook that she had to get a quilt done in time for Houston and I offered to quilt it for her.  I need to get permission to put pics up on the blog however if you’re in Houston this week stop by her booth and look for the autumn looking drunkards path quilt.  It’s small 18 x 43.

The other quilt I finished this week is a guild quilt that I’ll get photos of on Tuesday at our guild meeting.  The quilt is being donated to Common Ground to raise money for their homeless veterans.  Village Squares members made house blocks that were then turned into a quilt.  Each block will be auctioned to raise money for the vets.  Great idea.  Since this quilt was on a time line and needed to be passed on to the next person to add the binding & label I didn’t have time to get pictures.

So yesterday, though I still have a few projects to do I worked on this.

Mickey DePre & I have been talking about working on quilts together…she pieces and I quilt.  A while back I purchased some Kona PFD fabric to play on as this is what Mickey uses for dying fabric.  I took some time yesterday to quilt a piece up.

I watched Gina Perkes demo this technique for orange peel on The Quilt Show one episode and have had fun playing with it ever since.  To get the green (MasterPiece) background grid I drew one line then used the edge of the foot to get the rest of the lines.  I switched to a gold color So Fine thread by Superior Threads.  These fine threads made it possible to get the very very small size going on in this piece.

I laid my ruler on top of the orange peel section to really get some perspective myself on the size that this quilted.  Whew it’s tiny, however it was fun!

In another section I played with another fill in technique, again working in a smaller scale so see if it could be accomplished and if it would look like I imagined it.

I have a habit of placing bobbins on the extra spool pin either for use later or because they’re empty.  Two of the bobbins I’d placed on the pin were full as I’d been playing with that color the night before and had them there for use.  Somehow the thread from one of the bobbins started winding around the spool of thread I was using and started messing with the tension and at the point where I noticed it and in the scale I was working I wasn’t pulling it out, particularly since this is a practice piece.

I’m heading to pick up Twilight in the Bronx later today.  I’ll send it off to Nashua later this week.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

PS – just learned that “Twilight in the Bronx” earned a 2nd place ribbon at the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Celebration.

One of the biggest surprises for in my quilting career is how much I love teaching.   A big thank you to Mary Anne for encouraging me down this path.  Mary Anne & I were driving back from somewhere and she asked me when I was going to start teaching…whew hadn’t give it a lot of consideration at that point, however, I’m grateful for the nudge.  Each student teaches me something new and keeps me on my quilting toes.

To my students if you’re reading this…practice, practice, practice and there will be dark chocolate peanut m&m’s next week.

Tonight I showed them a couple of pieces I’m working on and one that has served it’s purpose well.  When my friend & I were making “Eclipse” for the Hoffman Challenge we had a small top that she pieced and I quilted to test color and technique across the surface.  I have no intention of finishing it (binding at this point) because the it has served its purpose, two fold 1) it showed Anne & I how the color of the thread would play across the surface of the quilt and 2) my students get to see a practice piece.

I’m developing a new machine quilting class that needs a new jazzy title…any thoughts?  The focus will be moving beyond stippling & meandering, doing feathers and other free motion designs.  At this point I have about 20 techniques and will add a few more.

Happy Quilting!

Teri

So on Saturday we went to the Octoberfest at Bear Mountain with some good friends.  Their anniversary is one week before ours so it was a dual celebration. At some point my sweetie had my camera and took this picture. Many many years ago he was a photographer by trade and still does good work.  Some of his photos will be featured here on the blog in this post.  I miss the fact that he’s not a photographer at the moment because it’s something he really enjoyed for a long time.  He loves his work now and I’m so grateful for that! While we were waiting on line to get some lunch my sweetie had the camera.  Good thing he wore a belt cause that’s where he carried it for me. So this is the really sweet couple we went with.  Well the backs of their heads anyway – my head too.  They knew about the zoo across the street so off we went to see what critters resided there.  Each one of the animals living there have been injured in some way and have found their way to Bear Mountain Zoo. The bears really captured my sweeties attention.  He kept looking and looking and stretching and trying his best to reach the fence and climb up.  His paw was in the air like that for a good couple of minutes while he looked out into the woods adjacent. close up of the same guy I think.

I thought these two were bored and didn’t have a clue what to to with themselves. If you get a chance to go to this zoo not only do you get to see some really neat creatures, you get to hike part of the Appalachian Trail all at the same time.

Then there is the bald eagle.  Beautiful and striking and regal. 

“Twilight in the Bronx” has been accepted into “A Quilters Gathering” in Nashua, NH and will also be in the Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show in Poughkeepsie.  I’ll be at the DHQC on the Sunday so that I can pick up my quilt and get it ready to go to Nashua.

My sweetie and I are celebrating 17 years of marriage today.  Our celebration started on Friday with a trip to Gabrielsons in Jamesport with a good friend to get mums.  Since we have the bigger vehicle and can carry more plants we drove.  Dh and I purchased 8 mums and hopefully the weather will cooperate to plant them this week. The mums are gorgeous and reasonably priced.

Gabrielsons is a family run farm that grows the mums locally in Jamesport.  While its a bit of a hike it’s well worth the trip.

I’ll post more mums later this week.  I have loads of photos of them and did quite a few macro shots.  The detail of color is quite inspiring.

While we were out on Long Island we took the opportunity to get to a few wineries.  Macari on the recommendation of our friends.  They have some fab wines.  I really liked their reds.  Hands down the Long Island reds are way better than anything I’ve had upstate NY with the exception of the Pinot Noirs from the Niagara Escarpment.

The next vineyard we visited is Roanoak Vineyards in Riverhead, NY.  We arrived on a very special day.  Gabby, the owners dad celebrated his birthday and the release of their new Cabernet Franc named in honor of Gabby.  Gabby worked the 12 rows of vines this vintage came from and the effort payed off big!!!!  If you’re into reds this is one worth buying a case and seeing how it blossoms and grows over the next 8 years or so.  My sweetie got Gabby to autograph a bottle for us – something to be treasured for sure!

This is our friend Mary – she’s the one who told us about Gabrielsons and has just been a great friend for a long time.

While we were drinking this bottle of wine Gabby came out and we shared some of this Cabernet Franc with Gabby.  That was the highlight of our day.  One thing I need to remember to do on autumn days is to bring a jacket.  It got breezy and chilly out here.

More tomorrow!

Teri