I don’t typically spend a lot of my quilting time working on traditional quilts, but I promised a queen-size bed quilt to my kids when they got married, 6-1/2 years ago. After I installed the new machine, I thought it was finally time to fulfill this promise. As they say, “I put the pedal to the medal” and didn’t leave my room very much over the next two weeks. By the end of this time, I had free-motion quilted this massive piece. The difference between a longarm and a domestic machine is that you don’t have to fight with the quilt to push it through a small throat space. My shoulders didn’t hurt as I moved the machine over the layers. I found that the technique of free motion quilting is the same whether you are moving the fabric or the machine. Finally the speed of the machine and the fact that I didn’t have to baste the layers was an awesome time saver. I entered the “zone”… and didn’t notice the passage of time. It was really an enjoyable experience.

I am thrilled with the result and my kids are already using the quilt. They too seem very pleased. Here’s a photo of the new quilt.

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Here are some photos.

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“…Every song you sing should show some evolution from one to the next. Everyday practice is an occasion to evolve. When we practice, though it doesn’t seem like much, it is actually a spiritual event and should be treated as such…”
Riki keeps these words in mind as she works on any project.

Riki decided to master free motion quilting — specifically quilting Feathers. Riki purchased a book about mastering feathers called Feather Adventures by Patsy Thompson. After purchasing the book, Riki sketched her design and practiced it with a pencil. Next she made practice sandwiches and hit the sewing machine. Hour after hour Riki persevered, paying attention to the shape of her loops and the overall composition. Week after week, Riki painstakingly repeated this exercise until she was happy with the results. Happy is not just satisfied… Finally, before touching the real quilt, Riki did a practice run with the thread she intended to use. She didn’t like the look and actually went with another thread. After this “dress rehearsal” as she called it, Riki tackled the real quilt.

I won’t go into too much detail here because my message today is about the value of practice. It turned out the thread Riki chose was faulty and it was very difficult to sew with. Because Riki now had the confidence to do the job well, she finished it up with another thread rather than throwing up her hands in defeat.

I thought I would show you some of the practice pieces that Riki created in this process. It really was a wonderful experience watching the mastering of this skill. I learned a lot from Riki through this process. From this student, I was taught… Thanks, Riki!

Now it is my turn to tackle feathers, but more than that, it is my turn to consider the value of practice in the journey towards mastering any skill.

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I started the tedious job of sorting them by color. Small snippets went into small plastic containers from my husband’s cold cuts… Large pieces went into the old cookies containers we bought and saved. I sorted till I thought I would scream. I actually took a water break long enough to describe this story here, during which time, one of our many cats came in and dumped two of the containers. OH DEAR!!!

So, no choice. I will finish sorting these and cover all the containers. I have shelves for storage and they will serve me well. It has been fun to see what I have. Actually, it’s been inspiring. I started thinking about how some of the green scraps would make lovely tree foliage. So, it is not all for naught.

When I am through, I will have a tidy workspace, happier students and a nicer space in which I can create.

What is my advice? Do this process after every project. If you wait till you have heaps of scraps the task will be so daunting you will not want to do it…

Here are a few photos of before and after… just to inspire you too.

Happy creating.

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To evoke passion and excitement, I used many values from the warm range of the color wheel. I think the varying values helped add contrast and made the background pop.

The focus of the piece is a pair of tango dancers in silhouette. I thread painted their musculature using warm colored thread. I layered another layer of batting behind the figures so they would also pop.

If the quilt is accepted, it will travel around the US for the next year as part of a SAQA exhibit, so wish me luck!

Dimensions: 38.25″ x 29″
Materials: Cotton fabric, cotton / polyester batting, interfacing, cotton thread

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The video was posted on Pissott’s site, our local fabric store.

Robert Kaufman Printing Process

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I decided the best way would be to make a map of the enlarged quilt. Here is a photo of the map I worked up.

Next, I started to put together the strips. When sewing long strips the challenge is to keep everything straight. The longer the strip the more likely the fabric will stretch or that it will be off just a little by the time you reach the bottom. Well, if you do a few strips, that isn’t so bad, but the entire quilt is composed of strips of different widths. I worked painstakingly to keep everything straight. I put sections together, measuring each section to make sure it was even at the top and bottom before attaching it to the next section. Finally I attached all the sections and this is the top I made.

Next I made my quilt sandwich; that’s a top, batting and back. I set it on the dining room table to baste it. I got the usual groans from my family for taking over the table…
Here are some shots of the basted quilt.

Finally I quilted the piece. I have a wonderful sewing machine with lots of bells and whistles, but it is not a long-arm sewing machine. Fitting a quilt this large within the throat of the machine is hard work — hard to manipulate and no small challenge for my back muscles…
Here is a photo of the quilted and bound wall hanging. I’m really happy with the result. The buyer has just sent me payment and I will mail it to her in the US today! I sent her photos along the way and she is very excited. She promised me she would take a photo of the quilt once it is hung on her wall.

P.S. This is the message I received from my happy customer:
“Your amazing piece of artwork arrived 5 minutes ago!!! It is safe and gorgeous!!!! I will hopefully have it hanging tonight!!! I will email you a picture. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you!!! I’ll be in touch.”
So rewarding when people are happy with my work.

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I took a second day of classes with Phyllis, where she taught the art of portrait in quilting. Here are a few images of Phyllis’s work. I’ll talk more about this in another post.

This summer conference of the Israel Quilters Association was a special one because the group is celebrating its 20th anniversary. There were quite a few guest teachers from the US, England and Scotland in addition to the long list of talented Israeli teachers. I wandered around and saw some wonderful projects. It’s just this kind of gathering that everyone needs to help motivate and jump start new ideas and energies.

The conference opened with a few speeches given by some of the guest teachers.

Alicia Merrett discussed “A Passion for Color”. Her talk dealt with the use of color in quilting. She loves vivid shades and uses color to give different impressions in her work.

The next speaker was Pat Archibald, who took us on some of her journeys and showed us how her travels had inspired her work. Pat, a teacher from Scotland, reminded us about the art of storytelling as well as sharing some amazing art with us. Her stories were mesmerizing, particularly her climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The last speech was given by Phyllis Cullen, who discussed the “Rules of Art”. Phyllis touched on the questions: How? Why? and What? She said that we can take artistic license with color, texture, values of light and dark to bring harmony, variety, contrast and balance to our work. These element lend themselves to movement. By playing with proportion and focal point of a piece you change the balance, tell a story and set a mood. Is your piece abstract? surreal? a landscape? a pictorial story? Phyllis mentioned keeping a journal of sketches, emotions, doodles, words and photos. In summary though her message was to have fun!

The conference was also an opportunity to meet new friends and visit with old friends. A group of participants on the Internet Jewish Quilters chat list attended the conference. Each day a group of us ate lunch together. Now my email pals have faces! I really enjoyed meeting everyone.

Are you getting the impression that I had a great week of learning, sharing and inspiration? You are right! That’s exactly what it was. Below I share some photos from the conference.

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Have you ever looked out the window and thought, “I would love to capture this scene in a quilt”? Now you can!

The technique taught in this class will enable you to capture your favorite scene in a photograph and create it in a beautiful quilt. Your palate will be fabric and your paint will be thread. You will be able to achieve depth and three-dimensional qualities, almost as if you can walk into the scene yourself.

Level of class: Intermediate

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Everything was ready… The table was covered and the pans for the dye were out and scraps of cotton fabric were piled high. So we went at it. We used rubber bands and pipe cleaners to make swirls and circles. We wrapped fabric around rice and lentils using rubber bands. This came out a little different than just winding bands around the fabric. Riki made an accordion out of one piece of fabric, which resulted in stripes after she soaked up dye on each side of the accordion. Danielle and Riki decorated a tee shirt from Danielle’s closet.

We read about different methods and dyes from dyeing expert, Paula Burch. Her site is really helpful and informative:  http://www.pburch.net/. By the way, we used dye that works on cottons, called Rit dye (www.ritdye.com).

We poured a little bit of dye and some boiling water into aluminum pans and started dunking and swishing the fabrics in them. Although we wore gloves, we all ended up with teal colored fingers. Oh well, that’s the price for fun.

Here are some photos of our morning. I’m ready to do it again! Who wants to join us?

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