Decided to Make an Additional Show Quilt

Posted on November 26, 2017November 26, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Design as you go, Design Work, Quilt Journal, quilt shows, Techniques / 2 Comments

I’m working on a new show quilt with a January 23rd deadline. I started it too late, so it will be a bit of a race to finish on time. But the thing is, I am really having fun making it. I am making it mainly so I have something to enter into Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival because I suddenly realized I had nothing for that show and I have already made arrangements to go to it. I won’t be sharing pictures or descriptions about it until after its debut. I put aside the Bayou quilt I am making for a while, because the deadline for it is months later next summer. This new quilt is going together mostly just from my idea and directly on the quilt, because I wanted to keep the design time very short. I just made a concept sketch and plunged in, using fabrics I already had on hand and, surprisingly, I have already made a fair amount of progress. I had an interesting idea for it that required one piece of fabric I didn’t have, so I ordered that. Everything else is on hand. So there you go, I have already greatly shortened my usual design time and eliminated the shopping time for this quilt. This probably means I will finish it, although it is touch and go. I’m keeping anything about what it is like quiet because I want to give it the best chance possible. Now that I have been playing around in the quilting community for a while I find I know a lot of the judges, as is the case for MAQF. They also frequently know my quilts. I’m sure this is true with other show quilters out there. Maybe I can make one that they won’t recognize as mine.

A quilt project like this makes it hard to write blog posts on a regular basis. Additionally, the Bayou quilt also has some restrictions on sharing pictures of it for the most part until completion, at least. Nevertheless, trust me when I say it is all fun right now. I’ve gotten both quilts fairly well started and over some of the beginning problems I had for both of them.

A Question for my readers:

Over the decades I have accumulated a lot of sewing and quilting knowledge. I’ve sometimes thought I am a techniques collector just for the heck of it. LOL. Sew my question to my readers, assuming there are any, is what would you like me to blog about? I can provide some short tutorials, answer how to questions, and talk about quilty things. I will use your responses to write my blogs while I’m working on these two quilts. Please respond.

Sew happy everyone!

My Uncle and What’s Happening in My Studio

Posted on October 22, 2017November 13, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Church banners, My Family, selling quilts / 2 Comments

I’ve taken too long to write a new post. This past month has had its lows and highs.

My uncle Betterton passed a week and a half ago. He was 91 and was two years younger than my mom. I had five aunts and six uncles on my mom’s side and one aunt on my Dad’s side and all are gone now, as well as my parents. Uncle Betterton was one of my favorite uncles. He was always close with my mom and someone everyone could rely on for help. He had various tough illnesses the last several years, mild dementia, and is now no longer suffering. He was a strong Christian. Like my father, he was a civil engineer, both served in WWII, and he and Dad enjoyed a strong friendship. My memories of him are sweet and dear and the pain of losing him is softened by his wonderful long giving life and his final release from the difficulties of his last few years.

Sew what’s going on in my studio these days? My “apprentice” Anita and I finished the church banner celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The church members apparently love it, and I was really pleased with how it looks. I have still not gotten a good photo of it, but I will share as soon as I do. The big community celebration is next Sunday. I guess this tells you that I attend a Lutheran church. I do. It’s five minutes drive from my house and the it’s a lovely church with services not far in liturgical style from the Episcopal church. I grew up an Episcopalian. For many years I drove down to Georgetown to go to the historic St John’s Episcopal in Georgetown where Marvin and I both were very active and sang in the choir. After Marvin passed, I moved to Ashburn, Virginia, and the drive to Georgetown got even longer, so I looked for somewhere closer. Our Savior’s Way Lutheran Church is in my neighborhood…now that’s a luxury I had not had for decades.

I have gotten a start on my next show quilt. I’m not sure I would call them “show quilts” any longer, except that’s a term many understand. I like to show them, but my primary goal for these quilts is to make wonderful art, and hopefully sell most of them in the long run. Everything I make I hope to meet show quilt level, but sometimes show judges don’t seem to understand why the techniques I choose are done the way they are, or how difficult they really are. Sometimes they seem to see things and remark on them that I simply cannot see, and sometimes I think they don’t see something about my quilts that I think is especially unique and interesting. Maybe I need new glasses, a flashlight, and a better magnifying glass. Or maybe I need a microscope. LOL So I have found a lot of freedom in reaching for creating beautiful art the best way I can make it and not worrying too much about what a judge might see or not see. Competition can be rough on one’s ego. He-he-he

Anyway, back to my latest project. It’s based on the art piece I bought the rights for one art quilt from the Disney artist Joel Christopher Payne. It’s set in the Bayou and has interesting trees, and two rather rundown homes with light peaking out through the cracks in the boards. One is a houseboat, and the other is a shack built on stilts on a platform. The scene is at night and there is a little pale light filtering through the trees in a way that suggests a heart shape, and there are fireflies. This is a huge challenge for me, but really, I am enjoying myself so far.

I have the houseboat “built” and the shack about half done. Yesterday I did a little low and high lighting with Neocolor II pigment crayons. When you use them with fabric, you can just color it on and then brush it with water to blend it onto the fabric and then heat set it for a permanent color. Sometimes when I heat set it, it gets lighter so I have to go back and add more color, but it’s a wonderful way to over color an existing fabric pattern to add shadows and lights where you need them or “correct” colors. In this case, I have three different wood print fabrics that I have backed with Steam-a-Seam II light and cut into board shapes. I am using these to “build” the shack and the houseboat.

The picture has really big trees that also have some Spanish moss hanging from them. I have five different tree bark prints that I will use to make the tree appliqués. They, too will need to be overpainted to get the right look and color, I am planning on thread painting the Spanish moss on, and probably it will be more than Joel put in his picture because this is a fabric and threads interpretation of his wonderful art piece.

I have obtained some glow in the dark paints and threads to make the fireflies with, and the paint has some additional pigment so it will look good in light too. I may add crystals to the fireflies for added dimension.

The biggest challenge as I see it is the light that is getting the back light that is coming through the trees and reflecting across the water right. I am thinking this will have to be done with paint, but I’m still thinking about it.

Sew I hope you all have a wonderful week. Try something new and push to get it as well done as possible. I have a lot going on in my studio besides this new quilt, so I hope I will get back to my weekly blogs for a while. Cheers!

Two New Digital Quilt Projects

Posted on June 16, 2017June 16, 2017 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.

Make a Stylized Landscape Quilt with Me: Step One

Posted on March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Applique, Art Quilt Techniques, Classes, Design as you go, Design Work, Techniques, Tools / 2 Comments

I am making a fun new design-as-you-go stylized landscape quilt with some kind of flying creature and I hope you will try one of these too. For as many steps as it takes (to be determined) I will be providing a blog post to take us through this quilt together. This quilt is made without first drawing out and printing a full sized design and will be using techniques that I am sure you may wish to try or have tried already. I am not providing a pattern, telling you what size it will be, or even tutorials for all the techniques needed. This is a project for us to play together making some wall art. I will tell you where you can find the techniques, providing the links, and for some parts I will give tutorials, but not all. It can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it, with guidance as to where you can find help. And if you have a question all you have to do is make a comment on the blog post and I will respond as soon as I can.

Let’s begin:

I am using some interesting techniques available online at Iquilt and Craftsy. But you don’t have to take a class for this project, just follow along. If you have Electric quilt 7 and know how to do foundation paper piecing you, or you already know how to make a compass block, you can do this without additional classes.

For this fun project there are several objects we will need to make and obtain.

Challenge–Make The Sun: This can be either a simple quarter of a large circle of fabric to applique on a sky or one quarter of a sun compass block or a smaller full stylized star block in your choice of sun colors for your imaginary world. For my quilt I am using the star block that Karen K. Stone teaches in “English Paper Piecing by Machine” found on iquilt here. It’s very similar to a regular compass block, but has some interesting differences. If you watch the sales, you can almost certainly get this class on a very good sale. But there are a lot of beautiful choices for a star to represent our own star, the sun. Here are some I found on Electric Quilt 7 that would be great choices with some color changes. The outside large piece, or the background pieces need to be made from the same fabric as your background sky piece (see below), or you can use the curve to applipiece or piecelique (whatever you call it…it’s just joining the two pieces in an applique manner) it directly into the background sky. I will provide a little tutorial of this in my next blog related to this project. So just hold off on attaching the star/sun to the background sky.
These blocks were all found in Electric Quilt 7 and would work very nicely. You can change the colors, of course, however you want them.

In addition you could draft your own compass rose. I found this fascinating method on The Quilt Show that uses a really neat drafting device available from Renea Haddadin’s website here. I don’t have this device, but it really looks useful far beyond the drafting of a compass rose.
Put together the background: For this you will need a full width of ombre gradiated fabric that will be one third of the length of your finished quilt, or just a plain piece of fabric that looks like a sky to you. You can paint this, buy this, or construct this with strips of various pieces of fabric. You just have to size the sun appropriately to fit in the upper left corner of the scene. Two thirds of your quilt will be mountains and maybe water or grass somewhere in there. If you want to make this easy, you can use a simple white or off white or even light brown or green for the lower two thirds of your quilt background, giving you a background to applique mountains and rivers and plants onto. Remember, this is a design as you go quilt and is meant to be just for fun.
Wait to applique the sun in the upper left corner of your background until my next blog when I will be discussing applique techniques.

Okay, that’s all for now. Go forth and make a sun and gather the background pieces or even make the simple background. The next part will deal with appli-piecing the sun into the sky, and making the mountains and other parts of the foreground. Then there is a part for making plants, and finally we will make some kind of flying creature for our scene, which may take several parts. I plan on following this with a series of blogs focusing on embellishing and quilting. I am not calling this a “block of the month” or anything, but I am planning this to stretch across several months…not sure how many.

Sew happy everyone! Do some thinking about this…join me in the adventure and make your own wall quilt just for fun and to stretch your design techniques a bit.

The Making of Pendragon

Posted on February 22, 2017March 9, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Ancient manuscripts, Applique, Art Quilt Techniques, Design Work, Embroidery, Fabrics, Quilt Journal, quilt shows / 4 Comments

I promised you I would write some posts about the making of Pendragon after it was accepted into its debut quilt show. Pendragon will be shown in the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival on Feb 23-26. I am so excited because I am planning on attending this show. When you read this post, I will probably be there, since I am setting this up for posting on the day I leave for the show. Because of this, I can finally reveal the finished quilt picture.

Pendragon
34 x 45 Text from “The Legend of King Arthur” by Thomas Percy (1729-1811)

I actually made a few small changes since this picture was taken. There was some stitching that went on a downhill decline under the lower left of the pictorial center on the top of the black text box. I spent a whole day frogging (ripping out the stitching) of about five inches of decorative stitching and restitching it. It was worth it. I think it was the only thing that would stand in the way of a judge who likes the design deciding it is a good quilt. I’m not sure you can see it here on this web-sized picture, but I also added some interesting quilting below the text in the block. I had to enlarge the text box just a bit to make the borders I made fit just right.

So here is a web-sized picture of the design that Ken gave me for my birthday last year, along with the threads and fabrics. I blogged about this gift here. He gave me the throne room background in a separate full-sized file without banners or people or the table, which I had printed on cotton by Spoonflower.

You can see there are some differences. The banners are all a little different, the text box is longer than the one shown here to make everything fit together, and the border designs, which were a huge challenge, all have slight differences. Also, there were three more swords pointing on the table from off-picture knights that I eliminated.

So first of all, I sent out the thrown room to be printed, as I said, and then I tried to dye the prepared for dye cotton/silk radiance he gave me to get that nice rich dark green for the Celtic borders. It came out a very pretty color, but not dark enough. Here’s a picture of the fabric. It will make a wonderful green for another quilt, so it isn’t a lost effort (I’m thinking a whole cloth pictograph).

My green dyed Radiance

So I talked to some of my quilting friends, particularly Jerry Granata, who has one specialty of working in unusual fabrics, and bought some (much less expensive) poly satin of exactly the right color of dark emerald green and did some testing. That is what I ended up using. I also had some green cotton of the right color that I used to work out the design and way to achieve the Celtic border designs on. Quilters, I will tell you that getting these borders worked out was one of the biggest challenges of my entire fabric arts career. I wrote a little about it in previous blogs: One and two and three.

After that, I decided it would be best for me to withhold additional photos and construction information until it actually debuts at its first show, which will be the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival in just a week. I’m so excited. I decided to go to the show, not only because Pendragon got in, but so many of my quilting friends and mentors will be there. I’m not taking any classes, but I am going to attend several lectures, try to spend some time with my friends, do some quilt gazing and shopping, and stand by my quilt a bit even if it doesn’t place. And it may not place. I love it, but it does incorporate digitally printed fabrics, which is not an altogether accepted method yet, and I am all too aware that my quilting is not traditional in any way and needs to grow. I plan on showing it as much as I can over the next couple of years regardless of the reception by the judges just because it is a meaningful quilt that I want people to see. When it finally comes home for its retirement, I plan on giving it to Ken if he wants it. I am thinking it will also be at my exhibit of my quilts at G Street Fabrics in April or May (I’ll give you the dates when I get them).

Anyway, back to the making of the quilt. I loved the way the people came out mostly. I particularly like the queen. Her dress is a small print with gold that I outlined all the little flowers with gold thread quilting. I used a matching sheer for the sleeves and actually made tiny sleeves for her arms. All their hair is free motion thread work. The guys’ tabards and the little banners all have machine embroidered designs. The little banners are independent banners that I made, then hand stitched on top of the quilt.

I digitized the mens’ chain mail shirts using some of the powerful software in Bernina V7. It was a fun challenge and took me several days to make it come out with the appropriate differences that fit their bodies. Then it was embroidered on black and after applique I added some free motion chain work around them to make them look more real and smooth some of the joinings. The swords were so challenging to figure out that (after much consideration and discussion with Ken and Beth) I ended up printing the digital design of the swords from Ken’s design and appliqueing them on with monopoly. Getting the hands properly tucked around the handles was a bit of a challenge, but in the end, I was happy with the swords. I added black crystals on King Arthur’s sword. The crowns are free motion stitching using metallic threads with the addition of hot fix crystals.

All the quilting of the throne room was done with the idea of bringing out a 3D concept. I am generally happy with that result.

Then I faced the challenge of piecing it together. The border was in pieces and had to match up square and with the pictorial center. I should have had the throne room printed slightly larger, because by the time it was quilted and squared up, it was a bit smaller than the intended design. I dealt with this by adding a bit of black below the text box (to make up for the lengthwise shrinking), where I placed some quilting designs, and slightly narrowing the top and bottom small Celtic border pieces (to make up for the crosswise shrinking). But in the end, after a few bits of frogging and restitching, it actually came out very square and flat. I was ecstatic. Getting quilts square and flat, especially my art quilts that have so many different types of techniques, stitching, painting, etc, is a huge challenge every time. This one worked. I used my laser devices (a laser square and a laser cross hair lamp) to help get it square. If the judges measure it, and it doesn’t get shifted in any way in the transport and hanging, they will find it a square quilt.

I used Quilters Dream thin poly batting and Hobbs wool batting. I ended up using 6 titanium top stitch needles on this quilt…I think the gold paint dulled the points quicker. Constructed on my Bernina 830LE and quilted on my Bernina Q20. All Superior threads (variety of weights and colors).

Sew happy everyone! Will I see you at MAQF? Do you have any questions?

Making Panel Quilts: The Designs

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Design Work, Panel quilts, Quilt Journal, selling quilts / 2 Comments

Design for my second Alfred Shaheen panel quilt (image using EQ7). There will also be painted designs of flowers and possibly birds around the border. I am currently working on those designs.

I am making as many quilts as I can to add to my upcoming exhibit of my quilts at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, to take place sometime in the April/May period. I figure keeping busy is a great way to ignore the news as much as possible, and quilting is such a delightful way to do that.

I had such a lot of fun making my Hawaiian Garden quilt that was focused around the Alfred Shaheen panel that I made for the MQX Exhibit in 2016 and later gifted to my brother and his wife for their special 50th wedding anniversary that I decided to make another one (see design above). Here in this picture of Hawaiian Garden and you can see I will be using a similar border plan for the second AF panel quilt:

Hawaiian Garden…central panel is a vintage Alfred Shaheen panel.

I received permission to make the second quilt from Alfred Shaheen‘s daughter, since the first quilt had been made under MQX’s permission they got for the exhibit. His daughter asked that I let my quilt friends know that the panels are very rare and are obviously precious to her. I know that all of us who have made these for MQX are honoring his wonderful art work with our quilts.

I have also been working on the design for a panel quilt where I will be using a printout of the design I painted myself for the central panel. I worked out this plan below in EQ7 using the design I painted in the center. I still have to get the central panel printed. I may add some additional real painting in the border…I have an idea for that, but can’t get it drawn like I “see” it in my head yet. I might just leave it as is.

Design for my digital flower panel quilt (using EQ7 to design placement and border)

Both of these quilts will probably not take very long to make, now that I have worked out the designs and have the borders worked out in EQ7 which is very helpful in getting them cut properly. I already have the quilt top cut out and ready to piece together for the Alfred Shaheen panel quilt design shown at the top of this post. I plan on offering both of these new quilts for sale if they come out like I hope.

Sew happy everyone! Make a panel quilt…there are some wonderful panels out there now and they are really fun to make. You sometimes have to block them square first and steam helps too.

Christmas, Advent, Blogs, and Magic

Posted on December 12, 2016December 29, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Books, Design Work, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio / 2 Comments

I am astonished to see that it has been nearly a month since I published my last blog post. In general, I try to publish once a week every weekend, but sometimes I get caught in that time vortex where each week is but a day and each day but an hour…you know the ones I mean. I am just bobbing my head up from the latest whirl as I prepare for Christmas and work to complete some deadlines.

I am waiting on a wish list from my most difficult of all family members to buy a gift for (my oldest son Ken), and if he doesn’t give me one he gets a gift cirtificate. But other than that I have completed my Christmas shopping. I have not yet even started decorating for Christmas. I celebrate Christmas, the birth of my Lord, from Christmas Eve through 6 January. I also celebrate Advent as a time of preparation and reflection. So for me, having the house decorated by about December 20th or so is just about right and in tune with the preparation part of Advent. Yet, the other night I was driving home from being out and saw my whole neighborhood is bright with beautiful Christmas lights. So I think for my neighbors we will endeavor to get our outdoor lights up this week.

My youngest son, David, is under a heavy set of deadlines for his writing. He has been asked to contribute a novelette for a collection of stories that is due by the end of the month, and he has to get it to his editor by the 15th. So I am putting off decorating until he gets that manuscript to his editor. He is a necessary part of this endeavor. After all, someone has to go up that ladder to get the decorations down…LOL.

He also has been asked to be a guest author at a writing/fantasy/sci fi conference (Raven Con in Williamsburg, Virginia) in April, and he has the third book in his Law of Swords series close enough to completion that he wants to get that one published in time to have it in hand for the conference. So snatching a bit of his time here and there is really difficult. But I’m excited for him. His writing is downright magical.

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If you haven’t read any of his books, I encourage you to do so even if you don’t normally read fantasy, because they are full of romance, intrigue, and adventure and are so very well written. They would make great Christmas presents too, and talent as deep and wonderful as his is needs supporting. So please buy a book and see what you think.

I have not forgotten the blog this past month. I have been struggling to write a post about the magic of combining today’s wonderful drawing and painting software with fabric art and specifically with art quilting. But I think I’m going to put that one aside because I just can’t get it put together like I want. But believe me, it’s worth the time and money spent to obtain and learn such technologies as Corel Draw, Corel Painter, Bernina Design software, Electric Quilt, and any photographic editing software. With it, you can paint in the computer and print on fabric. You can design in the computer and print a full sized design. You can design your own fabric and have it printed. You can draw a whole quilt and have it printed full sized on wonderful fabric and quilt it. You can digitize your own embroidery items and stitch it out on your embroidery machine.

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You can just draw something wonderful and print it out full size and replicate it on your free motion machine (even a treadle machine if that’s how you roll). It’s so exciting and wonderful that it’s almost magical.

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And so what are my deadlines, you wonder. Ahhhhh….that’s a good question! Maybe I’ll tell you some of them next time.

Sew happy everyone! I bet you have some kind of artistic software lurking around your computer somewhere. It’s time to learn to use it if you haven’t already as part of your quilting and/or sewing adventure.

Part 2: Quilting for Domestic Machine Artists…Rulers (cont.) and Markers

Posted on October 28, 2016November 3, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Art Quilt Techniques, Fabrics, Food for Thought, Ruler work, Techniques, Tools / 4 Comments

This is the second in my unknown number of parts series of quilting for domestic machine artists. Several interesting points stood out to me from comments both here and on Facebook following my last blog-post on ruler work for domestic machine artists. There are a lot of rulers, sometimes called templates, out there for this type of quilting; more keep being introduced; and they are relatively expensive. There is no way I can test them all, or even all the brands (but if you’d like to contribute to this blog using the PayPal donation button on the lower right, I will happily thank you and apply it to rulers/templates and provide further testing results).

So I suggest if you are just starting out that you buy only a few basic rulers–a good well-marked straight ruler, and a few shapes and curves, or one of those sets. Then learn to use them, and add them only as you need them for specific projects, which will help focus your ruler collection around the way you work. In a while, you might want to take an inventory of what you have and see where there are gaps you might need. I note that this series of blogs have forced me to do such an inventory and I have found some places I need some rulers. Please pay close attention to the quality and the marking. These things make a huge difference in your quilting results.

Another thing I hope you will do as you start using rulers is to be patient with yourself and just keep on practicing until you feel comfortable and have reasonably good results. I hated it when I started using rulers, but I totally love ruler work now. It’s amazing how easy it feels to me now when I found it really hard at first. I still am not that great at it, but I do so enjoy it that I think I might get there.

I still haven’t had a chance to borrow my daughter-in-law’s Gadget Girls rulers, but I will and tell you about them when I do.

I also find that I need to mark lines to guide my ruler work. This might be grids, or a simple line. It is not full marking of the planned design usually.

A Word About Marking

Everyone has their own marking methods they prefer, and I suspect that is the case with most of you. I have already mentioned some of this in past blogs, but it is worth revisiting. I have several products I particularly like. The choice for markers depends on whether I am going to wet block or wash my quilt after it is complete, what are the fabric weave and content, and the value (is it light or dark).

My favorite marker is Crayola washable markers…the finest point available. This marker washes out of everything I have tested so far, even if I happen to iron over it. I only had one time I had to wash it twice, and that was using a brown marker on white tightly woven cotton. It came out though. This marker is not very expensive, it stays in place as long as it doesn’t get wet and you can easily see it (I sometimes have a hard time seeing the oft-recommended blue markers). But it has to be washed out with water.
If I’m working on one of my art quilts that have a lot of silk, specialty threads, and other painting on it, I probably will not do more than a spritz of water and steam to block such a quilt. But regardless the marks have to come off one way or another.
- Mostly the different chalk markers, mechanical chalk pencils, and so on, tend to work fine, but I do avoid yellow because I had a terrible time getting that out one time, and I’ve seen others say the same thing. Mostly I remove these with a microfiber cleaning cloth…comes right off.
- Chalk goes away much too easily for most silks and satin weaves. I have spent much of my quilting career hunting for a good marker that stays in place on such fabrics while I need it and comes off without washing. I think I have tried all of the main types and brands on the market. The ones I found that works the best are the mechanical pencils by either Fons and Porter or Sewline. These, however, will also often go away well before I’m finished quilting satin weaves, such as Radiance cotton/silk or dupioni silk.
- I have found one method that works for satin weaves, but is sometimes tedious to remove. I trace the design on Golden Threads paper and stick it to the fabric with temporary adhesive dots trying to miss most of the stitching lines with the adhesive. Remove by tearing it off and catching resistant places with tweezers. I have even been known to use this method on very close stitching. Of course, it takes forever to remove and you shouldn’t use an open toe foot for this, because it gets caught under the paper. Here is an example…shadows under the steps on my quilt Perspective in Threads.

Look at the shadow under the steps. THat was many lines of thread marked with the paper method.

Look at the shadow under the steps. That was many lines of close stitching marked with the paper method. I printed the design on the golden threads paper and stuck it on. It took me hours to remove, but it worked. I stitched this whole quilt back in 2012. This was long before I started ruler work. I used straight stitch and decorative stitches on my Bernina 200E machine (I no longer have this) and marked with Crayola markers, except for the part under the steps. Today, I would just mark the general areas that need the close stitching and do close together ruler work, so I wouldn’t have any paper to remove. Here’s a picture of the marking.

Crayola washable marks on the top before stitching.

Marking in progress for “Dad’s House Plan” also before the days of at-machine ruler work and done with Crayola markers. As you can see from both of these examples, rulers would have been helpful when I quilted it.

It also helps a lot to have some kind of very temporary marker around once you start quilting. I use either one of those that are air erasable or one of those fatter chalk pencils. These are handy for as-you-go additional marks, corrections, notes to yourself, and idea changes after sandwiching to the ones you make before you sandwich your quilt.

Sew happy everyone! Teach someone to sew or quilt…your brother, your child, your neighbor… Cheers.

How Long Did That Quilt Take to Make?

Posted on September 21, 2016October 5, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Ancient manuscripts, Design Work, Food for Thought, quilt shows / 4 Comments

Here I am back from the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza (PNQE), where I actually won a ribbon for my Spiral Galaxy Number 3. I will be blogging about that also (waiting on some pics from one of my friends). While I was there, and at other times about other quilts, I got the ever present question “How long did it take you to make?”

First of all, with the exception of the one I’m working on right now my quilts are my own design. I may, however, be inspired by, or use a piece, character, or portion from another source…like a set of NASA photographs, or a Dover flower, or a traditional quilt block for part of a wave, or a border from an eleventh century manuscript, for instance…but it still is my own design. My current project is a design drawn by my oldest son for inclusion in my ancient manuscript series, but it is a pictorial design and still requires solving how to make elements of this design. It isn’t a pattern.

So this is my usual workflow. Each quilt is different, of course:

A design concept pops into my head.
I may capture the concept in a simple quick drawing and notes in paper and pencil so I can remember it.

The design concept notes for Canterbury Knight
I let it “marinate” in my head for a while, meanwhile I research various elements of the design, figuring out the approach I want to take to accomplish the quilt. The research consists of any historical design information, techniques that may be needed, and types of fabrics I should probably use.

An illuminated page from Book of Hours
I draw it using a combination of Corel Painter for the picture part, Corel Draw to make it full size, smooth some of the lines and turn it into a vector line drawing for a pattern, and maybe even Electric Quilt to see whether or not it needs borders, and get the sizes between the central theme and the borders all working together.

My completed digital design for Canterbury Silk
I print out a full sized picture using Corel Draw, which divides it into printer paper sized tiles. Then I tape that together.
If I decide some of it needs to be digitized and embroidered in the hoop, I digitize it, test stitch, fix the digitized version.

Betty Jo Tatum, “Canterbury Silk”
I do some testing and practice to see how to do some of the parts.

practice pieces for Canterbury Silk
I gather my fabrics and threads. I start by shopping my stash, then shop elsewhere to fill in what is missing.
I finally construct the quilt top, including appliques, embroidery, painting before-quilting items, and piecing.
I mark the completed top for quilting.
I sandwich and quilt
I paint any post-quilting paintables, and add any bead-work or other embellishments
I bind the quilt and add the rod pocket and label
With a flashlight and a magnifying glass I go over the quilt looking for thread ends and any problems that need to be corrected.

You may remember the completed quilt Canterbury Silk. It has already completed its show season. It won Best Surface Design from MQX Midwest in 2014, but no other ribbons.

You’ll notice that it is not until step 9 that I actually start constructing the quilt. I think for most quilts it is between half and two-thirds of the way from concept to construction where one might say I started “making” the quilt. Also, I am not only working one quilt at a time. Usually I have two or even three in the works over the same period of time.

So when I’m trying to answer “how long did it take you?”, don’t be surprised if I look like a fish out of water gasping for an answer. I could give an answer like “I’m not quite sure, but I started the quilt about a year ago” or “I worked on the design about six months, and it took about three to construct it.” Usually, though, I will just take a stab at the whole thing and say “about xxx months”.

Sew happy everyone! How long did it take you to make your last quilt? 🙂

Encouraging Enthusiasm in Quilting and Sewing

Posted on August 14, 2016September 11, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, Quilt Journal, quilt shows, Sewing Clothing, Teaching Kids / 4 Comments

Woman sewing

Gloomy feelings are prevalent in the quilting community recently at the announcements of the closures of several quilt-related magazines and businesses, or parts of businesses. I was recently talking with a close friend of mine about this. These things have a way of being self-fulfilling prophesies by making people hesitate to dive in and do things because they think the industry is closing and they don’t want to invest their time and money in a failing pursuit if supplies, or when fellow quilters might not be around. Linda Thielfoldt captured it well in her blog post in which she ends up by calling on us to mentor a child.

Sew let us think about this a bit and brush the dust off of our dreams for making that piece of funky or pretty art for your wall, a well-tailored jacket, a set of decorative pillows to spruce up your living space, a really nice outfit to wear to special occasions, some new pot holders, or how about that costume for your favorite fun festival or party. Sewing and quilting can be calming and also a fun adventure.

I’ve actually seen recent comments from quilters or sewists criticizing other sewists for the way they shop or buy a class, or blaming problems on the “aging” quilters, who, they assume, don’t buy anything anymore (WRONG!!!); or on young sewists and quilters who have very little time and not so much money so they pull learning and patterns from where they can. Such comments are not helpful.

I call upon these naysayers and those who are worried to welcome all manner of quilting and sewing into our folds…the costume maker, the art quilter, the modern quilter, the traditional quilter, the tailored clothes maker, the hat maker, the bag maker, the doll maker, the sewist who makes items for charity, the ten minutes-at-a-time stitcher, the incredibly talented hand stitcher, and those who do all of these things just because they can.

man sewing 1912

Sewing and quilting is an adventure, an occupation that takes our minds off of the difficulties of life, the politics, the horrible things happening in the world, and gives us the opportunity to think about how to construct that tote bag, or make that art quilt, or tailor that jacket to wear to work. In the end, moreover, we often end up with something truly wonderful.

I do also hope we can stop categorizing the sewists of this world into preconceived ideas in a way that may limit opportunities. The younger quilter is not always interested in modern quilting. The older quilter is not always interested in traditional quilting. The middle-aged quilter is often ignored in discussions of this type. The art quilter is often as committed to excellence in their craft as the traditional quilter. Some people have jobs or other responsibilities that don’t allow them time to take half a day to shop or go to that show. Sew, wonderfully, they download classes (some of which are wonderful and thereby they support that teacher), they order on the Internet (maybe even from their local fabric store)…but they order and they take classes, they buy that fabric and thread and machines. This activity will keep the industry alive even if it doesn’t help our neighborhood fabric store with the owners who have been in business for decades and are ready to retire to do their own sewing.

Red, my favorite color, is not as plentiful in my home as I would have expected. I staged this in my studio using the red things I could find that seemed to go together. Interesting challenge. Shot with my Nikon D200 on tripod, no flash, f14.

I hope we will continue to support each other and encourage the “ancient quilter” making something spectacularly different, the middle-aged man sewing a vintage costume, the college student making something for their dorm room, or the twelve year old boy quilting. Let’s keep this industry alive with enthusiasm even as it changes to encompass the new methods of communication and shopping!

DSCN0129

Sew happy everyone! I loved Linda Thielfoldt’s blog about mentoring new young sewers. This is important. Might I suggest, also, that it does not just have to be a young person (though, again, this is important)…an older person with a little more time and money on their hands might also want to get in on the fun and then pass it on to their young person.