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!

A Discussion About Wall Art Quilt Sizes

Posted on October 30, 2017November 1, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Ancient manuscripts, Design Work, Food for Thought, My micro-business, quilt shows, selling quilts / 3 Comments

I make art quilts now primarily to first show them and then sell them (or give them away). I think that these two goals slightly conflict with each other. I believe most people would find wall quilts wider than about 50 inches just simply too big for most homes or offices today. Normally, smaller is better for sale items. Shows, however, seem to not see it that way, and I kind of understand that, since when they are in the show the impact is increased by the size for the most part. I have been quite surprised, however, when I have made a quilt that is around 50 inches wide, which seems fairly large at home in my studio, and then go to the show to see it in place where it seems really small hanging there. Nevertheless, I think the sizes I end up with are right for the styles and may make them more possible to sell later. So you see, I have a bit of an argument with myself about sizes. Just so you can see, I usually size my quilts to fit within the American Quilting Society’s guidelines because, truly, they are the least flexible. Here are next year’s categories with sizes.

Another consideration is the physical challenge of dealing with large quilts. The older and creakier I get the more difficult I find large bed-sized quilts to make, but it helps that I have a large table for my main machine (Bernina 830LE) and my sit-down longarm (Bernina Q20) with a large table. So I really can work up to about 60 x 60 with no problems. Currently, I am working on my Bayou quilt, which is 60 inches wide and 30 inches long. The original art work I am working with is 30 x 15, so when I enlarged it to a size that would be a good show quilt, I had no choice other than 60 x 30 if I were to keep the aspect ratio the same and meet AQS specifications. Why is that? Well, I want to enter it into AQS Virginia Beach 2018. As you can see, if it is any wider than 60 inches it moves to the large quilts category that has a minimum of 60 inches long. If it is any narrower than 60 inches the length would becomes shorter than the required 30 inches.

Normally, I get the design worked out and decide how I am going to approach making it and then enlarge the design to a showable and saleable size. I kind of aim at 40 to 50 inches wide, which is really a small quilt for most shows, but it also is a nice size for most walls. I might try making a few of the AQS Fiber Art wall quilt sizes this year (24 to 40 inches wide by 24 to 60 inches long). As a matter of fact, most of my Ancient Manuscript series fit within this size, but as you see, not all their shows support this size.

And finally, some consideration must be given to the cost of fabric. If I am making a quilt all in silks, I want to use high quality silk fabric and that is expensive. So smaller is more affordable.

I would love to start a discussion about wall quilt sizes. What sizes do you think are the best, in general, and do you think the shows should set their sizes by specified width and length groups or by either perimeter inches or square inches, which would allow an ancient manuscript that is 27 x 37 into the wall quilt categories that would not be allowed now? Or maybe it doesn’t really matter to you, just so you can make your quilt like you want it. What do you think are the ideal parameters for wall art quilts for home or office?

Canterbury Silk. This all-silk quilt is the first in my Ancient Manuscript inspired series. It is 35 x 44 inches.

Sew happy everyone. Make yourself a beautiful piece of fabric art for your wall, or make them for gifts. They make wonderful presents if you know they would fit in the lives of the people you give them to (give that some serious consideration before giving them a quilt). Also, check out my quilts on my website (link at top of this blog). I have revamped my site slightly so you can really see the quilts better. The prices and sizes can also be found there.

Space and Quilts

Posted on August 23, 2017August 23, 2017 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Books, Deep space quilts, Food for Thought, My Family, Quilt Journal / 2 Comments

The Heavens declare the glory of God…(Psalm 19:1)

Wow! This week with the eclipse and spending that time with my 14 year-old grandson Kevin was soooo special! We had eighty-five percent of the eclipse in a pure clear sky with the birds and the noisy cicadas in the woods behind us. His parents, who are serious astronomy hobbyists, headed down to Tennessee to get in a total eclipse area, but he did not want to spend that long in the car. The traffic for them was aweful and they had to spend an extra night in a motel on the way home, so he clearly made the right choice for him and it gave me and his uncle David a real special time together with Kevin even though it was not total here. I am told Ken got some photos to process of the eclipse. I am looking forward to seeing them.

This comes at an interesting time in my quilting life, because I am trying to line up a couple of new deep space quilts to fill out my space series inspired by the fabulous photos found in the NASA gallery. The pictures have to be copyright free for me. I have tried a couple of times to get in touch with the astronomers whose pictures NASA sometimes shows that are copyrighted and they simply ignore my inquiries. But there are many many magnificent copyright free photos available to use for the basis of new quilts. I will probably also include a couple of space quilts that may use other techniques inspired by Ken’s (oldest son, Kevin’s Dad) and Beth’s (his wife) photography and ideas. I am planning on writing about making space quilts and including all of these in the book. This will probably be a part of my ongoing project of Art Quilt Basics: Surface Design and Embellishment that I hope to get published this year. These quilts are practically all surface design and embellishment with organic, but well planned, quilting. They are very hard to photograph because of all the light reflection, but I leave that to Ken, who does a credible job on it.

Spiral Galaxy No. 3: See this quilt in the upcoming MQX Midwest show!

So I am currently on the hunt for my next deep space quilt photo inspirations. If you have a favorite, let me know in a comment but do it soon, because I’m going to start working on this next space quilt very soon. ?

I hope you are all having fun with your art, sewing, or quilting. I’m busy drawing up a couple of new ideas and making sampler quiltlets to include in my book project Art Quilt Basics: Machine Quilting for Art Quilters (this book starts with the very basics for machine quilting (both feed dogs up and free motion) and moves through the process ending with a discussion and ideas specific for art quilters.

Sew happy everyone! Make yourselves a stack of small quilt sandwiches and play. You’ll be surprised how much fun it is…use all your machines. You will benefit by improving your skills and having a lot of fun too. Cheers.

Down to the Last Minute, and A Thread Review

Posted on July 3, 2017July 5, 2017 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 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.

An Exhibit of My Quilts at G Street Fabrics

Posted on April 20, 2017April 20, 2017 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!

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.

My Thoughts About My Fabric Art for 2017

Posted on December 17, 2016December 20, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, My micro-business, quilt shows, Sewing Clothing / 6 Comments

I have made some adjustments in my thinking about my fabric art direction over the last few months that will lead to my putting less focus on competition art quilting and more on the adventure of making art as fabulous as I can. You may not see much difference, because I probably will continue to enter some of my work into shows, but the emphasis in my studio and in my mind is more on the art work and less on the show work.

I am very excited about this because I have so many things I want to try to make and I want to share with you, gentle readers, what I learn along the way.

This new direction came about because two quilts of mine that I know are quite show worthy and people would emjoy seeing them, were both rejected from Road to California 2017. That puzzled me (I have several theories about this, but I won’t share them here). They are wonderful quilts and deserved to be in the show. Here they are:

Drawing Nigh, completed 4/17/2016, 39.5 x 44.5 inches. Original design by BJ

Spiral Galaxy No. 3 (Best Interpretation of Theme in PNQE earlier this year)

Yes, I know all the things that are said about this by friends trying to comfort me (I am not upset, by the way. It is a good thing that helped me think I needed to move in new directions)…”make what you love”, “even if they are rejected it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with your quilt”, “they probably had too many in that category”, and so on. I appreciate it. But think about this: It costs money to enter a show, and my desire when I enter is chiefly to share my quilts with people.

If I win something it is icing on the cake, so not to get into a show is really harder for me to take than not placing. I used to clearly understand it if my quilt was rejected, since I was such a junior quilt maker and I could see the problems in the quilts myself. But my recent quilts are flat, square, quilted well, full of impact, individual, good designs, and worthy of sharing.

So I have decided to loosen my focus on shows a bit and look for new ways to share my quilts, sell my quilts, and share what I have learned (books, classes within driving distance, this blog, and so forth). I am having an exhibit of my quilts next spring at G Street Fabrics in Rockville. I still will try to get some quilts in if I think they fit well in a particular show, because that is the best way to share them with more people. But that will not be my focus for making a new quilt. I have so many quilts I want to make…fabric and thread experiments I want to try…digital to fabric experiments…and embellishment and applique adventures I want to go on. Without having to worry about the judges, I will have more freedom (though they will all still be made to show quality). It is so exciting.

I am currently working on my wonderful oldest son Ken’s design he gave me for my birthday in March. This quilt has taken me longer in actual hours than any other quilt so far. I have at last completed the central pictorial theme this week, made all the special border pieces and the text box. I only have to cover a tiny cord for inclusion in the quilt and I will be putting together all the pieces of the top very soon. I already have figured out how I am going to quilt it once I get it to that stage, and with my wonderful new Bernina Q20 (Fritz), I expect that to go well and faster than past quilts. I am hoping to get that into Houston next fall, since it’s always been intended as a show quilt, and if I do, I will hope to attend the show myself.

In addition to the creation of fabric art, I am planning on blogging several series of how-tos like my recent five-parter here, including one with a few months of a step-of-the-month project. I will be teaching some classes at G Street Fabrics in Rockville next year, and will be looking for other nearby possibilities for workshops (I don’t like to fly). I will finally finish writing the three books I already have been working on (Applique for fabric artists, Embellishment and surface design, and Quilting for art quilts) to be published by Fennec Fox Press (my youngest son’s small publishing company).

Sew happy everyone! Join me in this exciting new adventure in 2017!