MQX - Installment #5

Class: Fanciful Feathers & Fillers, by Gina Perkes.

Sadly, a week before the start of MQX, I received an email saying that Gina had to cancel her classes at MQX. The 4-hour hands-on class was rescheduled to a 2hr-45min hands on with Judy Woodworth, immediately followed by her 2-hr lecture class entitled Feathers & Ferns. I was a little disappointed initially, because the 4-hr classes are more expensive than than the lectures, and I really wanted to have a class from Gina. I've seen her quilting and it's fabulous. After sitting through Wednesday night's awards show, I quicky learned, however that we got the long end of the stick. Judy's quilt Avatar Revisited received a 1st place, and after seeing her work on the show floor that night, I knew that her class would be equally as good. She did not disappoint! The hand's on class was smaller because some people dropped. I did not have to share a frame with anyone, which is nice since it's not common for 2 people to quilt at the same pace. Judy's hand's on portion of the class focused mostly on different fillers that can be quilted free-hand on a quilt. She had us start out by quilting our name, then a feather, and then to try one particular type fill. She, of course, stitches these amoeba-like feathered masses in ultra-tiny dimension. Mine are quite good sized.
In the class, we roughed out the boundaries of a mini-quilt to be freehand quilted. She told us to do a feather in the middle (I chose to do a feathered heart - which I attempted to stitch the interior of similar to some that she'd done). Then around this "feather" we were to do a multitude of different fillers, some ribbon-candy, some micro-filling, etc. Mine is only about half done because of the time constraint, but you get the idea.

This was stitched with a gold Glide thread which I absolutely LOVE. I'll never use metallic again when there is this thread. Judy is such a dear that she told me to just take the rest of the cone since I helped her with the class setup. Seems she did not have a teacher's angel for the class.

Here's a couple close-ups of my fillers. Above, she calls the one that resembles intestines "Bananas". And below is one of her signature fillers. You'll see it again later in the post when I show her Avatar quilt.She sometimes has her husband hand paint the designs after they are quilted. These are done with Stuart-Gill paints.

In the lecture, she has a full size Gammill, with videographer (displayed on a screen, which was kind of hard to see at times) assist - taping what she's quilting over her shoulder. She stitched out many different variations of feathers and ferns. Mostly I sketched these; no pictures of that except for her class samples.

I have pictures of her 2 show quilts. The first one I have seen before in magazines. It's whimsical and colorful. I believe that the horses are machine embroidered.

The quilting is so much more intricate and impressive in person.

Avatar Revisited is her latest show quilt. I think she was truly surprised to win the large whole-cloth class, but this quilt is modern and amazing. The background is all black, which is hard enough to sew on.

I have 2 close-ups of the detail work...It has plenty of colors that I might not use together, but they work in this design. Many different fillers are used, creating fantastic texture. See her swirly-feathery-amoebas in teal thread...they are probably the size of a silver dollar.

It is really a cool quilt. Kudos to Judy for winning!

And if you didn't get the impression that I loved her class, I will say it emphatically. She was great - very enthusiastic, humble, helpful, outgoing, etc. She's got great stories to tell of her road to where she is today. In fact, I just ordered her book "Freemotion Quilting". I think her class was one of my favorites from the show.