Exhibits

Spirals and Stars

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Deep space quilts, Exhibits, Quilt Journal, Videos

Hi everyone!  Happy Thanksgiving.  This time of year is always my favorite.  I love Christmas that celebrates the birth of my Lord Jesus Christ.  I love the sparkly lights and the over-the-top decorations.  I love the music and everything about it.

In a somewhat related item this year, I am making a deep space quilt which I may not finish before Christmas, but actually, it is inspired by the great beauty and glory of the wonderful space scenes that NASA and others bring to us with their telescopes and photography.  Here is the chosen picture I will be celebrating.  When I see some of these glorious pictures, Haydn’s music “the Heavens Declare the Glory of God”, based on Psalm 19, runs through my head.  It was one of the pieces I sang many times with multiple choruses over my decades of singing.  Haydn had partially been inspired by a friend’s telescope focused on space some time before he wrote that piece.

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies roughly 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. While it looks like NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighbouring galaxy, this is just the result of the chance alignment of the two objects in the night sky. NGC 105’s elongated neighbor is actually far more distant and remains relatively unknown to astronomers.

I am acutely aware that my quilt can never fully capture the glory of this scene, but it might be beautiful when finished.  I will use a background fabric of Pepper Cory’s “Deep Space 98” peppered cotton, with a lot of crystals, Angelina Fibers, a little paint, black nylon veiling, and beautiful threads to make this.  I don’t have a clue how long it will take me to make it and I am not going to rush it.  I also plan on doing a few other projects during the same time-frame.  Will I be providing a video tutorial on this?  Well,not really.  I am planning to simply show some of the making of it, but not try to teach people the techniques.  If they pick them up from just my videos, that is fine.  I just basically want to share my fun in the making of it in a video or two.  Sew I will need a few other projects that are tutorials with patterns for my subscribers too.

By the way, I am making some short little project tutorials for presentation from time to time over the next few months.

ANNOUNCEMENT:  I will be providing a showing and discussion of some of my work over the years at Suzzie’s Quilt Shop, 10404 Portsmouth Road (Westgate Shopping Center) in Mannassas, Virginia on January 10th at 10:30 am. 

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A little report on my YouTube channel: As of today (Thanksgiving 2022), I have 465 subscribers.  According to the YouTube analytics, that represents about 31 percent of the people who watch my videos.  If I were to reach 500 subscribers, it provides me with a few more tools to add interest to the channel.  I cannot monetize the channel until I reach a minimum of 100o subscribers and lots of viewers.  Monetizing might help pay for some of the fabric, thread, stabilizers, battings, paints, beads, crystals, needles, cameras, lights, machine maintenance, sdcards, batteries, tripods, machine feet, and on and on.  Sew if you want to support my channel, all you need to do is “subscribe” (it’s free and does not require filling anything out) and then “like” my videos.  I would really appreciate it. By the way, I am making some short little project tutorials for presentation from time to time over the next few months.

Sew happy everyone!  Have fun in your studios (even if that “studio” is closet size or the top of your dining table).

 

A Show-and-Tell of My Experimental Quilting

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Ancient manuscripts, Applique, Art Quilt Techniques, Deep space quilts, Design as you go, Design Work, Embellishment, Embroidery, Exhibits, skill building, Techniques, Videos

knight detail from “Equipped to Stand”

My family helped me produce a new video I could never have done on my own for my YouTube channel that is a discussion and trunk show of my experimental quilting.  I think you might enjoy seeing it.  Here’s the link:  video

For years I have thought of much of my work as experimental fabric art, where I try to get certain looks in my quilts and sometimes had to develop a new technique or figure out how to apply a known technique to produce the look I wanted or just to see what something would look like.  It has been a bit of a wild ride over the years and so it seemed the thing to produce a show and tell for you all.

Thanks to my family for their help and encouragement both for the videos and the quilting. There are some fun things on the way.

Sew happy everyone!

 

Quilt Shows: Take Heart

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Deep space quilts, Exhibits, Food for Thought, quilt shows

I remember quilt shows, do you?  Where we gathered together and admired the show quilts, saw our friends, and took classes and bought stuff from vendors?

A haul from one of the quilt shows I attended a few years back.

They seem so far away now.  I do admire how much some of the show people are trying to keep this experience alive by doing virtual quilt shows, and they are fun.  I usually attend and pay the suggested attendance fee, though I haven’t taken a class that way yet.

They are, however, different.  I can see they might stay even after we get back to post-pandemic normal, whatever that is.  I think we will eventually have both in person and virtual quilt shows in the future.  Some teachers seemed surprised to realize that there is a vast quantity of quilters and sewists out there who have never even been to an in-person quilt show and are really happy to have the chance to take a class from a major teacher, see all the quilts in the contest, and have some shopping opportunities from the online vendors.  That’s why I think that will stay even when we do get back to in-person shows.

Stellar Nursery, created in 2009 inspired by NASA photograph “Mountains of Creation”. This was my first quilt (other than Hoffman Challenges) that was accepted in a major show. It was shown in MAQF in 2009. It didnt really dawn on me that year that I could send it to other shows. See, we all have to learn. This hangs over my Bernina 880 plus and sparkles looking for all the world like a space ship window framing out a gallaxy .  I made it on my Bernina 830 I no longer own. I no longer put borders on my deep space quilts, but in the black part of the pieced border I machine embroidered schematics of various constellations in black thread reversed so that when you see the back you see the constellations around the quilt in the right way.  I doubt the judges even figured that one out but I know it’s there and love it all the more for that.

Sadly, several shows, professional quilters, and vendors have permanently closed or already shut down for another year because they could not make ends meet and it looks likely the situation will continue far into 2021.

I guess I am the optimistic sort, however, because even as I am sympathetic to those involved and am very sorry to lose these parts of our wonderful quilting and sewing community, I believe we will rebuild and it won’t be as long as some predict.

In the meantime, I love seeing some of the developments of online classes, and sharing videos, and other opportunities to keep our talents alive and well and growing while we wait the end of the pandemic. I also see some real improvements in the online quilt shows that admittedly were a little rough around the edges when they first started, but seem to be settling into really fun venues now.  I suspect they will improve further.

Originally I was not going to enter online shows, but I changed my mind.  I have a couple of quilts all ready that I would like to exhibit and so why not?  Some of the rules have relaxed allowing older quilts or any size quilts into the shows, for instance.  Some of the photographic presentation online is clearer and you can see the quilting better.  They show all the entered quilts online, not just the winners like they usually do on their websites.  The cost is only the entry fee and not the shipping and nail biting while that show quilt is moving around the country.  So just for fun, I’m going to enter a few here and there to see what happens.

Sew happy everyone!  Take heart.  This is not permanent.  There are even some good things happening out there right now.  Do you have a fabulous older quilt you never got entered because you missed a deadline, for instance?  Now may be the time to fix that. Just get some good photographs (pin them to the design wall or hang it on a curtain rod and light it well, then snap away with lots of photographs using slight differences of settings and then pick the best or hire someone).  Cheers!

Upcoming Fun Events and the “Leather” Coat Project

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Embellishment, Exhibits, Fabrics, Food for Thought, Making Clothes, My Family, quilt shows, Workshops / 2 Comments

Hi everybody!  I have several items of news, which some of you already know about if you read by Facebook posts, but I’ll tell you anyway.

First of all my Embellish This! workshop at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, MD suffered a delay because on my way to the planned workshop my car quit running.  I was on the toll road and right at an exit that went downhill, which was quite a good thing since I was able to coast off the exit ramp onto a generous grassy side and was completely out of harms way.  Turns out it was some kind of air hose had come disconnected for no known reason and that was all.  But the nice AAA tow truck rescuer towed the car and gave me a ride all the way back to my preferred car repair place and they fixed it for nothing and did the annual checkup at the same time, which revealed I needed new brake pads and a new belt of some kind.  I did get those fixed the next day.  So the new class date is now December 15 and there are still places left, and I would like to fill them.  A full class is a happy class!  This class will be totally fun and result in a top that could be made into a nice wall hanging or pillow for a Christmas present and leaves you with a lot of knowledge of the techniques needed to embellish your projects.

Embellish This! workshop sampler for December 2019 class.

Secondly, I have been, as you know from my past several blogs, making a faux leather, aka “leather” coat for my youngest son David, who is a big and tall man of noble stature.  You can read the past two blogs to get an idea of what this entails, but I will say that it has been the hardest thing I have ever made in my entire sixty plus years of sewing!  And no, it wasn’t difficult just because it is “leather”.  The “leather is fairly easy to sew with, but it is black and slightly shiny and you can’t take anything out if the stitches are going to show.  But I had made the Frankenpattern from three patterns and then did a substantial amount of size changing.

I have only got the hems and the buttons to go on this project. I just had a fitting with David and it looks fabulous, fits perfectly, and I am surprised after all the struggle I had getting it right.  Partly it was difficult because it has been decades since I made anything tailored for a man.  Partly it was difficult because some of the pattern needed so much adjusting.  Partly it was difficult because I made several stupid mistakes (probably lack of practice) that resulted in my having to recut the right front piece along with its pocket pieces, and the collar, which didn’t lay properly (I used the Burda pattern collar and it was probably right if I had been working in wool, but it did not work for “leather”, so I remade it.  But anyway, I am down to the hems and buttons and I am happy.  Only one more day of sewing on it and it will be complete.  I discovered it is hard to work on it beyond 4 or 5 pm  because I have to rely a lot on the light coming in my studio window for this black shiny fabric.  Once the light oustide goes down the artificial light makes it simply too hard to see.  This is why I made the mistake on the front pocket that made me have to remake the front and its pocket, and I was too stubborn to stop sewing.  But I learned the hard way…LOL.

And now for the really fun news.  My quilt The Wizards’ Duel got into Road to California quilt show in Ontario, California, which is relatively close to San Diego where my brother Pat and his wife Carol have one of their homes, and where my nephew Whitlow and his family live.  Now since I had to purchase a new machine the middle of this year (you can read about that in several previous blogs..it was necessary) and have had some additional unexpected expenses this year, I told Pat I was unable to come out to see him and go to the show around that time, but that my quilt had gotten into the show.  The next day, he called me back and let me know that Carol and he were going to give me the plane ticket and most of the expenses for the trip for a nice ten day visit with them!  You could have blown me over with a feather!  He and Carol are going to drive us up to Ontario on Wednesday night before the show and stay all day Thursday and the morning of Friday!  They have been to the show themselves whenever I had a quilt in the show and it will really be fun for us to go together!  So I now have the ticket reservations, we managed to get into one of the preferred hotels, and the tickets for the show.  How about all of that?!  What a lovely present from my dear SIL and brother (it was her idea I was told)!

Wizards’ Duel.  Since this picture I have improved the mountainous rocks in the scene per a judge’s suggestion at MAQF.  I then sent it to PA Nat’l Quilt Extravaganza and it won a blue ribbon (Best Interpretation of Theme) and had wonderful comments from the judges.  R2CA will be the third show it will be shown in.  I entered it into several AQS shows but they rejected it from all of them for unknown reasons.  Perhaps I should have had it rephotographed, because the rocks make a difference and the flash made the bottom scroll work too bright.

So in my blog from Nov 2, I so confidently laid out grand plans for November in which I would do a lot of clothing sewing and end up with a refreshment to my wardrobe and David’s coat.  I had thought David’s coat would take about a week and a half, but it has gobbled up all of November.  These things happen, but now I have to decide whether to keep on with the clothing sewing or go back to quilting and fit the clothes in a little at a time across the winter and early spring.  I think I will do a little bit of both, in light of my trip to California and the fact that I have lost a full size over the past year.  If I make one pair of slacks at least I will greatly improve my traveling wardrobe.  I would also benefit if I could fit in a jacket…either the jeans jacket or the faux suede jacket with lots of embroidery.  I’m inclined to do one of those also.  both have embroidery and would be fun to flaunt at the show.  I KNOW they won’t take very long because the patterns are already fitted and don’t require massive refits.  I looked at my wardrobe and figured I can get by with just the slacks addition.  Sew we’ll see.  Nevertheless, I will still make all the items I listed for my November sewing plans but will spread them out over three or so months in between the quilting because I need them.  BUT, I WANT TO FINISH MY MOM’S MEMORY QUILT!!! LOL Not to mention I want to make several additional show quilts for 2020.  We’ll see how it goes.  And don’t forget, I’m working on books.

Sew happy everyone!  Even if you end up having to struggle through a project, make something wonderful for you or your family.  Stretch your sewing and quilting skills a little further.  Send me pictures and I’ll post some of them here if you would like.  Also, you are free to ask me questions if you run into difficulties.  I know a lot (just a fact, not a brag). LOL

 

 

A Sewing Machine and Design Software Fan

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Design Work, Exhibits, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio, Machines, My micro-business, My Studio, selling quilts, Tools / 4 Comments

Gibbs at work.

Make no mistake, I love my machines and enjoy using my various pieces of design software to help me create art quilts, or just to sew, or just draw, paint, and design digitally.  It’s more than a hobby.  It’s my fun and my full time occupation, though I hardly make much money from it.  Indeed, I spend more than I make at this point.  It would be great to turn that around, especially since I periodically do things to update, add to, or improve my fleet of machines and suite of software because I think it is the right thing to do,

Oh, did I tell you?  They have a new pin point laser light attachment for Fritz that shows exactly where the needle will enter the fabric to help with precision quilting and free motion thread work.  Awesome!  I ordered one (they had a 25 percent off offer).  LOL  I need all the help I can get making my quilting sing.  Last week, I also updated my Electric Quilt to EQ8 (they had a great offer).

Sew now that we have clearly established that I spend too much on my super hobby and I make too little with it,  I keep thinking how I can turn this situation around and start making at least enough to support my quilt-making habit, and even have some for trips to places like Houston or Paducah for the big shows.  For example, I just updated my website gallery last week so you can see my quilts better and see what the sizes and prices are for those that are on sale.  By the way, the exhibit of my quilts is still going on at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, where most, not all, of my quilts are on display through Thanksgiving if you have a chance to go.

Most of you probably know I am a Bernina girl.  I love Berninas.  I have four of them right now, but I am selling my Bernina 1230 to my student/apprentice,  Anita is one of my best friends, a true beginning quilter, and I am teaching her to quilt and improve her sewing, and to use the 1230 all just for fun.   I also have a Baby Lock Serger (yes, really!!!). Now I reluctantly admit that Baby Lock is also a very good brand, and they make wonderful sergers.  If I had to choose a machine other than Bernina, it would probably be Baby Lock.

My Bernina Q20 named Fritz.

Anyway, when Anita takes home the 1230 once she gets her sewing space set up and completes her initial classes on the machine, this will allow me to have all my machines in their own cabinet (except the serger), which makes my playground just plain wonderful.  It’s wonderful already, in fact, though it needs a little reorganizing and cleaning.  It’s a magical space even if it isn’t all slick and spacious.  I have Gibbs, my Bernina 830 LE in Studio Gibbs (meant to be a small bedroom), where I store the bulk of my quilting stash and have a small kitchen island for cutting and painting and the like.  Gibbs has a very large custom cabinet that can be a nice big work table if I simply move Gibbs.  I also have Studio Fritz, another small bedroom, where Fritz, my Bernina Q20 and, my ironing station, and my computers live.  Then there is Studio Betsy, well, actually that’s part of my bedroom, where I have my original Koala cabinet.  That’s where the Bernina 1230, named Betsy (for Betsy Ross) is currently residing, but I will be putting E.Claire (named for Edith Claire Head), my little Bernina 350 that is now on the floor in the cabinet.  Wilcox, my serger, hides under one end of that cabinet.  Plus the bulk of my sewing books are also housed in my still rather nice bedroom.  So nearly my whole upper floor in my modest townhome is pretty much dedicated to my studio.  I even briefly considered working out a way to sleep under a longarm frame when I bought Fritz, but decided the sit down setup for him would be the better option.  😉

My grandson a couple or years ago at  E, Claire, my Berinina 350

I have really neat plans for 2018.  I have several quilts already started or close to being started, and I am writing a couple of books on art quilting and I hope Anita will be my beginner beta tester of the projects in the book once I get her started.  My daughter in law Beth, who is an advanced quilter with a fabulous studio, will be my advanced beta tester.  Additionally, I am working out a few workshops for local teaching, but I seldom really make any money to speak of on those because it takes so much time for me to get them pulled together.  Maybe eventually those will make money too.  I really do them to learn what people want to know and am putting that in my books.  So they are still valuable to me.

Sew maybe 2018 will be my year…I’ll go through a whole year without updating any software or buying any new machines, start selling more quilts, win more and better cash award ribbons, and finish my two books which will, of course, each be a major hit and sell, sell, sell.  Ha-ha-ha-ha,,,,,,,,In the meantime, however, I plan on continuing to thoroughly enjoy my fleet of machines and suite of drawing and design software and endeavor to rein in my desire to have the very latest machines, attachments, and software.  We just won’t mention “adjustments” to my stash of fabrics, threads, yarns, beads, and paints here.  But they are necessary, right?

Sew happy everyone.  I hope you have a play space you enjoy.

 

Down to the Last Minute, and A Thread Review

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Applique, Design Work, Embroidery, Exhibits, Reviews, selling quilts, Threads / 4 Comments

I am going to take the second batch of my quilts out to G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, for the second part of the exhibit of my quilts.  This exhibit, which runs from mid July until the end of August or so, includes nearly all my show quilts except for Pendragon, Dad’s House plan, this year’s Hoffman Challenge still on tour, and a couple I have sold or given away.  They will be displayed throughout the store, including those that are already there in the Bernina department.  I also have completed one new quilt and nearly finished a second new quilt just for this exhibit.  Some of these quilts are available for purchase.  I will (really) post photos of the exhibit sometime in the latter half of July.

Sew here is where I’m at on the preparations.  I have completed the second one of my Alfred Shaheen panel quilts and named it “Tropical Garden”.  I used a lot of Superior’s new 100 weight polyester thread called Microquilter on both that quilt and the “Field of FLowers” I hope to finish by Friday to include in the exhibit.

A Review of Microquilter Thread

When I won all thirty colors of Superior’s Microquilter 100 weight polyester from Superior Threads, I was really thrilled.  I use almost more 100 weight threads than I do any other thread.  I use it for background quilting, detail thread sketching on things like flowers and line drawings, and I also love it for machine applique.  I do not use it for piecing or bobbins.

I found it a wonderful workable thread.  I tried it in my Bernina Q20 sit down longarm, my Bernina 830 LE, and my Bernina 350.  In every case I had to lower the top tension to keep it from breaking, just as I do for silk 100 wt and monopoly.  It worked beautifully without further adjustment in everything but the Q20.  For that, I had to lower the bobbin tension also (I used it with Bottom Line in the bobbin, though I did try one bobbin with the Microquilter).  I found surprisingly that the Superior top stitch needle size 80 worked better than a smaller needle that I use for monopoly and silk.  So here is how I ended up setting up my Q20 (Fritz) if you have one:

  • I have found my Q20 works better with a Magic Bobbin Genie sized for M bobbin.  I just put it in over the spring in the bobbin.  Without it, I have some thread nests on the bottom of my quilt when I get going really fast, and believe me, the Q20 can go REALLY fast.
  • I set the bobbin tension with Superior’s Bottom Line or the Microquilter itself for 180 using the tension guage that came with my machine.  If you use the Microquilter in your bobbin don’t wind it full.  It works better a little less…starting at about 3/4 full.  In the course of making two quilts, I used both Bottom Line that I wound and some prewound Superior thread bobbins that use Bottom Line.
  • I set the top tension for 125
  • I used a size 80 Superior top stitch titanium needle.
  • I used BSR1 set at 280 speed for tiny little stippling and 200 for slower tiny bubbles
  • This setup makes it work like a dream…no nests, no hangups, no tension problems

I will provide some pictures of my quilting with Microquilter as soon as I get them taken.  I am behind in getting my quilts photographed.

 

I got my little personal app quilt home that was a part of Road to California’s traveling exhibit of app quilts.  It has lost about six hot fix crystals out of hundreds, so I need to replace them by Friday.  I have one quilt that needs washing and reblocking, which I will do today.  I have several more stumpwork butterflies to make for the Field of Flowers and I have to put the rod pocket and label on it.  I think I can make the Friday deadline on this one, since the actual quilt is complete and bound. I even have the silver spider charm on the spider web part of that quilt.  Here’s the dragonfly that is ready to go onto the quilt already.  It’s in parts and needs a little additional embroidery after attachment where the wings attach to the body.  I will do turned edge applique of the body and hide the wing wires under that.  I will also probably darken the little white edges of the sheer to match the stitching.  I may even do a hand blanket stitch over the edges if I decide it needs it.  The first picture shows the pieces after stitching, and the second picture shows the dragonfly together ready to applique on.

The embroidered pieces, which I made in the hoop with my Bernina 830 LE

And I also need to ship “Pendragon” to AQS this week.  I want to do a little gold paint touch up on the border paint before I ship it.

So I have a really busy week ahead of me, but it’s an exciting time.  I am enormously pleased that G Street has asked me to show my quilts in the exhibit there.  It is a real honor.  I hope you have a chance to see it.  The whole show will be available in mid-July. I’m not sure of the exact dates, so you might want to call them before you head there.

Sew happy everyone!  Teach someone to sew or quilt…yourself, you cat, your dog…your son.  Until next time!

 

Two New Digital Quilt Projects

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Design as you go, Design Work, Embroidery, Exhibits, Fabrics, High-Tech Studio, Panel quilts, Quilt Journal, Software / 2 Comments

Believe it or not, I have completed all my projects I had going.  Now that the workshop at G Street Fabrics is over (I will be repeating it in the fall), I am going to make two quilts centered around two digital printouts.  I’m hoping to get one of them done by mid July for part two of my Exhibit at G Street Fabrics.

The field of flowers is a photograph by Beth Tatum, my daughter-in-law:

Photo by Beth Tatum, printed on fabric 36″ x 26″

 

The pink flowers I painted in Corel Painter 17 and had it printed.

I painted this one digitally in Corel Painter 17 and had it printed 28″ x 38″.

They came out really wonderful, and I washed them in Synthrapol, rinsing until they ran clear.  There wasn’t much color in the first batch of water and I can’t see any color loss.  So now I can use them in a quilt I will soak when the quilting is complete, which makes marking things  and blocking a lot easier.  I’ll have some embellishments I will add after blocking.

I plan on just sandwiching and quilting the field of flowers photo with  a variety of threads for depth and interest and adding beadwork and some 3D embroidered butterflies.  I might face it instead of binding it.

I plan on adding a double border on the pink flowers.  The inner border will maybe be shaped and appliqued on.  I plan on shortening the flower panel at the top to bring the border down to the vine, and cutting out the top half of the leaves that would be hidden by the border to have them break into the border.  Then I will quilt it with some pictographic flowers, vines, and creatures, also quilting in the flower and leaf textures.  I also am working on designing two or three 3d stumpwork with wire of small birds in
Bernina V7 software to applique on. This is my bigger project, as you might imagine. If this turns out well, this might be a show quilt, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, I have broken down my housecleaning project into small manageable sections and am spreading them out across a couple of weeks.  I did pretty well with this so far.  My upper level is mostly clean, though I have a plan to go through my stash at some point, eliminating some things and slightly reorganizing the fabrics so they all fit back into my storage units.  I’ll do this later, after the mid-July deadline for the second part of my G Street Fabrics exhibit.  I’ll do the main level next week, and David will do his level too (he has a nice “flat” on the walkout lower level that includes his bedroom/office and a nice big living area with his own back deck.  There is a bathroom area that has the rough in plumbing, but I haven’t gotten it finished yet.  Maybe if he has a big hit book, he will do that himself.).

A word about digital fabric art:   It is NOT “cheating” as some quilters seem to think.  For example, it took me s lot of time to paint the pink flowers, and they are fully my own artwork.  Why would that be any less of a “legitimate” quilt than a whole cloth, for instance?  Neither would a photograph that is printed, sandwiched, and quilted as a whole cloth.  I do think there is slightly greater acceptance of the value of digitally printed fabrics than there used to be.  And that is good.  Indeed, am hopeful some of the heated rhetoric about just about everything these days will cool off.  Let’s appreciate one another and their work…traditional, contemporary, modern, and art quilters, white collar and blue collar workers, sharing their Mom’s house while writing wonderful stories for the world to enjoy, making art quilts, plumbing the kitchen, powerwashing your home, managing a business, Democrat, Republican, Independent…cool it everyone.  Life can be wonderful and full of peace and love if we stop the arrogance and heated rhetoric and take a step back to love and appreciation that we are not all-knowing.

Sew happy everyone!  Try your hand at making some digital fabric art if you haven’t tried it yet.  I’ll post more on these projects along the way. Also, I have decided to put the landscape project I tried to start as a kind of block of the month on the backburner.  It needs more definition, and everyone that responded said they were too busy.  I think I am too busy too…LOL.

 

Notes on My Machine Quilting Workshop at G St. Fabrics

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Classes, Exhibits, Food for Thought / 4 Comments

Yesterday (Saturday, 10 June), I led a workshop on basic machine quilting at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland.  This workshop was held in the Bernina Department where part one of my quilt exhibition is being displayed.

When I walked into the area I was overwhelmed.  There were 17 students (with several students at each machine) of varying ages and my quilts all around the walls.  It was the first time I had seen this part of my exhibit.  (The second part begins in mid July and it all runs through August.)

This workshop was much more intense and went much faster than even I had anticipated, and I had thought that there was definitely not enough time to cover what I wanted to.  I managed to get a short introductory lecture, show my samplers, and provide initial instructions done and they had a handout also to follow.  We were off and running.  Here I am (or some large older woman..LOL) demoing on G Street’s new Bernina Q20 sitdown floor model.  I was describing what I was doing.

I was swamped with questions.  Many of them had nothing to do with the workshop but were centered on my quilts showing all around the walls, but many of them were related to the task at hand.  We went an hour long, and I think that it could easily have gone even further.  I walked around to see what each student was doing, and found that most of them had done very well, and several of them had obviously done this before.  Even after the class was broken up, I had several people asking questions.  I liked that, though, but I was really tired.

I managed to squeeze in a little couple of those tiny cheeses and a banana snack, but I think I ate someone else’s banana that was near me, because I found the one I took in my bag when I got home (with apologies).  It is possible I brought two bananas, but I don’t think so.  ??

Sew what did I learn for next time (I’m doing this again in the fall)?

  1. I was well prepared.
  2. I think I did well in presenting at the beginning.
  3. I needed to control the question periods better, but I had little problem answering the questions at least.
  4. I needed to either provide separate classes for early machine quilters and more advanced machine quilters, or provide some exercises that these more advanced quilters may have found more interesting (although I did not get any negative feedback)
  5. I need to schedule more time than I did for this one.
  6. I need to schedule a break for me in the middle.
  7. I need to finish my books.
  8. I really enjoyed it.

Those of you who teach, and those of you who took the class, do you have other suggestions?

 

An Exhibit of My Quilts at G Street Fabrics

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Exhibits, Food for Thought, My micro-business, Quilt Journal, quilt shows, selling quilts / 8 Comments

I am enjoying a new fabric adventure into the world of exhibiting of the body of my art quilting work at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, which is a two-part exhibit.  The first part is in the Bernina section of the store.  The second part will start in mid-July and my quilts will be displayed throughout the store.  I believe this part will run for an additional two months and I am hoping to complete several new quilts for this part.  So in effect, my quilts will be on display from now through August.

Yesterday I took eight of my quilts over to the store for part one. This part includes all three of my Ancient Manuscript quilts, four of my Hoffman Challenge quilts that demonstrate my growth as a quilter from 2008 to 2013, and Dad’s House Plan from 2013.  I had such a good time while I was there and am very excited about this two-part exhibit.  I am honored that G Street Fabrics wants to do this exhibit for me.

In June, I will be teaching a three hour workshop on quilting there at G Street…primarily free motion quilting but I am also going to briefly talk about quilting with a walking foot. Sometime while my quilts are there I will be providing a walking lecture around the store to talk about my quilts and related things in the store.

G Street is a wonderful store.  It is getting better all the time after it clearly moved to save itself from failing.  It closed two stores in Virginia to my chagrin and moved from it’s old Rockville location to its new one.  The new store is less showy and slightly smaller than the old Rockville one, but I looked over it yesterday and found it has a fine selection of fabrics and notions and seemed busy again.  It also has a kind of interesting atmosphere similar to some fabric stores I encountered in New York years ago…not flashy, but full of wonderful things for the sewist, quilter, and fabric artists of all kinds.  The Bernina section is in a setting like its own store, and it has a wonderful set of classrooms for teaching.  They have a Bernina Q24 longarm set up in the store that is available for in-store rental of time on the longarm.  And Lew is the best Bernina tech I have ever encountered over my many years of sewing on Berninas.  I encourage you to go pay it a visit if you are ever in the area, or even make a trip there if you are close enough.  You can even order from them online.

Sew happy everyone!  I hope you can make it to G Street and see my exhibits.   I better get to work…I have several new quilts in the works for the second part of the exhibit!