I love quilted fabric art pieces, in case you haven’t figured that out yet, They can be as artistic as any great painting and can warm the home and office with their beauty. The texture can approach three dimensional with different finishes and dents and poufs, and they make you want to go and touch them. There are so many directions they can take.
I also love using the power of my great machines and my computer to work well beyond my own talents and abilities even as my hands age and can do less. There is much there to take advantage of for creating and enjoying and the additions continue. I even recently bought a new Bernina foot and my dealer kindly mailed it to me.
Learning the techniques, and taking advantage of the various attachments and feet is an important and interesting part of this.
Understanding how the machines respond to fabrics, threads, and quilt sandwiches is a key aspect to getting the maximum advantages out of the machines.
Trying not to get too frustrated when things don’t go well, but instead working through various steps to see what can be done to solve problems is equally important, and perhaps the hardest thing to do.
Learning how to better use various helpful software also adds to how far one can go.
These are the goals for me to continue to reach for this year even after all these years of sewing and quilting using these great tools. I have concluded there is always more to learn. And then I also want to get better adding surface design in the form of in-the-hoop embroidery, paints, beads, and crystals to move even further just adds to the enjoyment. I feel almost like I am just beyond a beginner in this aspect.
Stitched slightly distorted swirl I made using Superior metallic threads on Kaufman Kona black fabric as a test piece playing with some in-the-hoop embroidery I digitized in my Bernina embroidery software just for fun.
Sew even though it is unclear where we will land in our quilting/sewing world after The Great Upheaval, my own name for the pandemic and actions taken, there will always be much to do and learn. This makes me excited even as I still hang out safely in my studio. Truth be told, even after we all get through this thing and I can go out more, I will be spending the majority of my time in my studio because I love these activities. Yes, I will have my friends in finally and go see them, and I will go to brick and mortar fabric stores that may be left, and will delight as I see the rebirth of the industry across the nation. I hope to go back to shows eventually. I think we still have some months before this happens.
So I will be making some smaller projects in 2021 but still plan on doing them to quilt show quality even if they never go to a show. It is the standard that I don’t want to leave. I will, of course, also make some cuddle quilts and a few clothes this year.
This Week’s Featured Quilt
Kanazawa Memories, Completed August 2015 Sashiko designs stitched with 12 weight Sulky cotton on Peppered Cotton. I digitally painted the individual flower appliques and printed them on cotton, and then arranged them in a close approximation of arranging Ikebana with real flowers. The vase is made from some hand dyed silk I had on hand. I then appliqued them with Monopoly. This is the perfect example of what I was just talking about. I did take a hand Sashiko class from the great Pepper Cory and I loved it, but I have a very hard time hand stitching Sashiko now. But here I used digitized Sashiko, some of which I digitized myself, and picked threads and fabrics close to what I knew were very Japanese in nature. Decades ago, I lived in Kanazawa for three years and had some wonderful helpful friends. This quilt was created while thinking about this time in my life. You can see a better image of this on my website gallery. I am still waiting my coming new computer after the great computer crash a week ago, so I must use what is available here on my laptop. Here’s the link to the gallery page where you can find this.
Sew happy everyone! Join me in advancing our understanding of what we can do with the machines we have. Cheers everyone.