Bold and Happy

This is a very busy and bold client quilt.  It has many modern fabrics as well as batiks, and 17 hand embroidered squares.The fabrics don't really fall into one color family because they are prints, so choosing a compatible thread was both challenging and simple.  I could have used just about anything.  It would show a little here and none most everywhere.  Let that be a lesson - don't overthink thread selections when there is this much pattern.

Here's the thread I used.  It has nearly every color pastel possible in it.  I received this from Aurifil this last summer as a gift, along with a dozen other cones.  I have been very skeptical of cottons, and essentially quit quilting with cotton thread years ago, but hearing this, Alex Veronelli of Aurifil offered to send me a "couple" samples.  Many are different weights of cotton, and I really like most.  This happens to be a poly thread, but it quilts like a dream.

 The embroidery blocks were echo quilted using a coordinating SoFine! thread (50wt poly).  I didn't want the variegated thread to detract from the appearance of the quilt that she was going for.  This meant for about 6 different color changes, but I do have a lot of SoFine! colors, thankfully.

 What I did on the quilting is hard to decipher with all the print too.  The setting triangles (above) got 1/2" spaced lines, just to set this part of the quilt off.  The small dark (blue) stones were cc-d, and the background of the quilt received my all-over feather treatment, with some leaves.  There are aspects of this quilt that are somewhat organic -- the embroideries are of birds and flowers.  This filler is not incredibly fast, but it works well in spaces like this.

I also spent a few days last week working on one of my own.  This is small, 36"x53" and is made from Cherrywood.  Can't remember if I have shown this top finished or not, but here it is again.  It is free curve-pieced, and is intended to be more on the modern edge when I am done.

 I thought I had all the thread I wanted to use, but soon discovered I was wrong.  With the hundred or so fabrics I used (OK, maybe there are only 50 - but they vary in color and tone), it is hard to pick one or two that work well everywhere.  I did manage to get the framework stitched so that the quilt is stabilized.  Here's a peek at the feathers (I use that term loosely) that wander down through the falling leaves.  All but the last section of these is done.  I need a different dark blue thread.  Hello, Glide!

The background is getting something different, at least for me it is different.  These leaf-like shapes will be filled before I am done, but I need that thread too.  The 50wt thread I used up the sides on the hatching is too heavy and thready for my taste (it may come out and be replaced with the thinner stuff that I am getting).  It has a lot of work left, but something this size could be finished in a few days.  That's my theory and hope anyways.

My last bit of fantastic news is this.  Guess where I am going to be picking up this new thread??...HOUSTON!!  I am leaving for Houston next Saturday.  Meander Publishing is putting me up there - I found out last week.  I am so excited.  The airfares are cheap, but hotels run $250 per night, and I couldn't pull that off comfortably.  I am so thankful to have good colleagues and friends in this industry.  I will be working in their booth at Quilt Market on Sunday and Monday, and Wednesday evening for the Quilt Festival Preview.  I get to go to the awards presentation Tuesday, and to a winners's luncheon the next day. I have all day Tuesday to myself to find a class to take.  I hope to get into a painting class that is 1/2 day.  As an exhibitor, I will be able to get in to see the quilts during Market here and there, and I am told that we can go in to see them before hours also.  Officially, I only have Thursday to go to the show and to shop so that will be a crazy busy day.  It will end with Quiltapalooza - a costume party.  Remember that this is Halloween!  My daughter isn't thrilled about mom being gone for Halloween, but she'll be ok.  It just means that I have a ton of different things to pack.  'Nuff rambling, time to go get my day started!

Quilt Show Chat

While I am certainly not a saint when it comes to keeping my mouth shut over judging disappointment, I am one to value the experience.  If I didn't, there is no way that I would continue making, entering and competing quilts.  There's no way I'd know what to improve or where I am excelling.  Lately, though it definitely seems that quilters have been a tad more vocal about expressing dissatisfaction over judges comments, to the point of completely discarding the comments.

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Back to the show...I am getting such a kick out of reading that some other quilters just trash the comments after the show.  Yup, the garbage can.  I must be some neurotic freak because I have every judges sheet that has ever been given to me, from the very first quilt I entered in 2009, to the latest show a couple weeks ago that I complained about in my last post.  And I have been known to refer back to them.  When I hear that some quilters think that they are mostly useless, it is sad.  The vast majority of them do have information that can help your quilting if you look for it.

They are supposed to be informative and thought provoking.  They also should highlight what the quilter has done well.  They also need to critique areas that need improvement.  It's just common sense.  If all they did was say how good you do this and that, there really wouldn't be much point of getting them, now would there?  It is the areas of negative feedback that are the bone of recent contention.  Some comments, including some made on one of my quilt's critiques, were overly picky when it comes to the chosen colors for the quilt.  I have heard of two other individuals that had quilts at a certain recent quilt show that received similar "I don't like your colors" comments.  To me, this is nit-picking, especially at this level.  This is not Houston.  It is not extremely difficult (or hard at all!) to get juried into this show.  And furthermore, isn't that a subjective choice?  Judging should be more about design, stitching technique, quilting plan and execution, etc.  My remarks were for this quilt.  The red and coral were "not appreciated"...I believe the comment was that they were "jarring" to the otherwise complimentary palate.  Ouch.

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 I, for one, love the bold juxtaposition of color that the bright red star brings to the quilt.  And that coral diamond border helps to draw the viewer's eye in to the star, without being quite as dramatic of a color as the red.  Each color I chose was carefully auditioned.  I wonder if comments like this are made because they think that a quilter haphazardly chooses a fabric.  The red and coral provide the framework for the eye.  I just so disagree, and I would imagine that the others that got color comments from judges would too.  I mean seriously, from the colors in the quilt, is there a better color choice to have used?  It's OK, please tell me if you think so.  Give me technical feedback; it is more constructive and useful.

The comments from judges are (IMHO) invaluable.  They have taught me early in this journey that I made cruddy binding.  I learned that it should be snug, filled, straight, narrow, and that some do prefer bias-cut binding.  From my first show, I took one thing from each review and let that be a focus of an area for future shows that I didn't want to lost as many points on.  Binding was my beginning.  I added making piped bindings to my repertoire, and more recently the scalloped binding.  Top scores, nearly every time.  If a judge had only remarked on the good, these learnings would never have come.

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Some things that judges tell us we just know...like tension should be good and consistent throughout.  This is their subtle way of telling us that you have bad tension somewhere.  It's kind of inevitable, so use matching bobbins, and check the tension frequently.  Bury your thread-tails.  They just have a magnet for finding where you stop and start, and trust me, after 2 years of sending it off in a box, running a lint roller over it each time, anything not buried is bound to come out of where it once was snipped.   I think that judges prefer shorter stitches - just a gleaning from the many sheets I have reviewed. Shorter stitches make curves that much smoother.  Variety of stitching patterns and overall design are a big deal, especially with the machine quilting shows.  But there must be good cohesion of patterns -- an ever-present challenge with many, including me.   They just know when the quilt is a weekend project.  A well thought out design is hard to execute that quickly.  With as many show quilts as I have made in 4 years, I struggle each time to design something that I just love and want to make, with fabrics that I really like, while being mindful of what a judge may say.  This should not be read "she makes quilts with only the judge in mind".  I do ultimately make what I love, but I do think about how both judges and viewers might see it.  Twelve to 18 months of effort is just too much to make something that won't show well also.  It is a gentle balancing act.

My concluding comments are this.  Don't let the comments of judges suck your style and personality from what you make.  Let them guide you to make something that may be technically better, whether you plan to show it or not.  Let the comments tell you that darker colors make a better outer border than paler shades. Lighter and less printed backgrounds will show off the quilting better than darker and busier.  Some threads are more appropriate for denser quilting.  Their comments are only intended to make us better and more conscientious quilters.  They aren't a personal attack.

It's Beginning to Look a Little like Christmas

The Christmas deliveries are coming in and out of here daily.  I much prefer to get them done early as opposed to making my clients sweat that they might not have time to get them bound.  This one is flying its way back to California later this week.  It's a cute holiday applique pattern.  I suspect it is a pattern that is commercially available, but I am not certain.

 It has a number of appliques, including these snowflakes, that are from an ultra-suede material.  It's a little bit thick so I limited how much I stitched on this stuff.  All of the appliques are ditch-stitched.  It is sort of my standard.  I hate how they look if they aren't outline stitched.  It just gives the quilt a more finished look this way.

 My client noted that she has quite a few embellishments like buttons and other similar things that will be added when this comes back home.  That will help Santa's face :-)  Right now he's kind of expressionless.

 I chose backgrounds for the scenes that were fun.  Many got an echo-type quilting or a swirly-flowy look, kind of what you might expect for sky or whirling snow.

 These snowmen were just a little too big to leave them without a little bit of quilting on them, so I added the swirl.  Just a little touch of whimsy-

 The gingerbread house is fun.  All of the snow is the ultra-suede.

 And it is clear that there was some fussy-cutting for these ornaments.  The reindeer fabric is a hoot.  Who cant giggle at a winking reindeer?!

 This was kind of a large quilt, and I am happy to have it off my docket for the month.  I hope it's owner is just as happy!

A week or so ago, I finished a simpler holiday quilt for a client.  It is an edge-to-edge on fairly busy holiday/winter fabrics.  She requested a snowflake pattern.  After a bit of hunting around, I found this one.  It is rather dense and a bit time-consuming to quilt, but looks good.

Do you have holiday projects that need finishing in the next 2 months?  If I can help you with your quilting, please don't hesitate to contact me.  I have some openings still for edge-to-edge quilting, and maybe a few custom, depending on the complexity.  Most quilters have cut off their holiday jobs by now.  I happen to be pretty good at time-management, so I do have a few openings still.  Email if interested.

Jax Quiltfest & other quilt show musings

Last weekend was the Jax Quiltfest.  It is a smaller, non-juried quilt show in Florida.  I have had bloggy friends suggest I enter there (yes, they live in the area), but previously had not because of the dates/quilts available/etc.  The prizes there are small.  I know...what has this world come to when a ribbon is not enough?  Well, I tell ya...if there are three other shows at the same time in September that have good prizes, then that about explains where my most competitive quilts will be.  Never the less, I sent Postcards from Venice and Sea Glass to Jax anyways.  I have a client from out of the country that enters quilts there, and she goes to this show as a part of a vacation.  I entered my quilts from 2011 partly for giggles, and partly so she can see some of my work. Now, I am painfully aware that these quilts are 2 yrs old and they really are not competitive in the quilt circuit, mostly.  They did OK for a year, but the level of quilting is really good, and they often just don't place now.

Turns out, my Sea Glass took an HM, and the Best Machine Quilting award.  It earned a whopping $100, but nobody is complaining.  Not me anyways.  The show did get a bunch of other folks complaining though. The most surprising thing is the number of emails I have received since the show to complain to me about the show judging.  They are quilters, not judges, so whether they really "know" all the facts is debatable.  In fact the funniest thing, while I was writing this, someone from Jax just called me.  Talk about a hot topic!  I know that these quilts that I sent have flaws.  I even know where they are - no surprise there.  I haven't seen the other quilts at the show in these categories, so my ability to comment is limited.   The emails were to tell me that this quilt is way better than the ribbons hanging on it might suggest.  The messages thought that the show winner was lackluster and not deserving.  That is a harsh thing to say.  It just told me that perhaps the judge favored hand-made quilts.  It was a ballsy group of gals that contacted me, but it is suggesting of a much deeper issue. Shows like this that want to be competitive with quilters and the choice of quilters cannot gain the reputation of having biased judging, or completely irrational judging.  Shows must (I mean "MUST") have more than one judge, as this most definitely keeps personal opinions tempered somewhat.  Jax Quiltfest only had one judge.  I can comment more sufficiently on the content of the judging when my quilt arrives home and I see what criteria are on their judging form.

Now, don't mistake this post.  I am not really too upset by this.  Amused, sure.  But, I won't enter there again with my better quilts if I think that there's crap going down in the judging room.   Clean up your act!

I have been holding out showing a picture of this quilt for a while now.  I quilted it in May or so.  It belongs to Carol, and is 74" square.  She entered this and another (I did not quilt) in Jaxfest.  This was in a duet category, and it took 1st place!  I'm delighted for her.  Who doesn't love a blue ribbon?!?  I will show some close-ups of the quilting in a couple of weeks.  It is coming out in a magazine at the end of the month! 

Catching Up...some baby quilts

Kids have been back to school a full month now.  I have been a quilting fool for much of it, trying to make up for the lack of quilting over the summer.  I've done a pretty good job at getting things mostly caught up. Right now, I have a pile of jobs for October that are Christmas (or before) commitments.  It's nice to NOT have these all piled up for the last week of November, for a change!!  BTW, I recently got a great snowflake pantograph, so...if you have any fun holiday/winter quilts that you have been itching to get quilted, you might get in touch with me :-)

Here are a couple baby quilts I finished in the last month.  I have done this quilt before.  It's really sweet for a boy.  The challenge comes in trying to make the quilts not identical (since they are going to the same owner).

 I love how this simple sashing looks on a sampler-type quilt.  It is sweet, and not hard to do.  The backgrounds of all blocks are a quick and flowy freehand feather.  These are bump-back or traditional style feathers, but they move right along and require no marking.

This has just a single cotton batt (Hobbs 80/20) and the thread is probably Omni.  Gosh, can't believe that I forgot that, but I suspect that it is.  Had it been for a girl, it might have been Glide (nice-n-shiny), but I doubt I used shiny thread on a boy's quilt.

The second quilt is a little smaller, and has machine embroidery blocks.  My photos are kind of bad, thanks to the phone.  My good camera just came back from being repaired yesterday.  My son and I had a costly oops while on vacation this summer.  I'll be glad to have it home again.

 This was a rush job, so the designs are on the simpler side.  It's still pretty though.

 I love how simple geometric patterns can have a beautiful look.  The double CCs are perfect for the 9-patch blocks.

 Lastly, I will leave you with a sneak peek at something I am puttering around.  It is all made with Cherrywoods.  If I ever get rich, that is one of the first things I will stock up on!  It's kind of a play on improvisational piecing, use of color and whimsy.

Exciting Week

This weekend, there are a couple of big quilt shows running - The Georgia Quilt Show and the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza (hosted by Mancuso).  I have entered the GA show four years now, and ribboned each year.  Each year the competition is a bit stiffer too.  Last year the top prize was a huge chunk of change, so it attracted some larger name quilters.  I wasn't really sure what this year would bring, but sent 2 of my better quilts anyhow.  Zen Garden had a bit of a unpredictable start last year, bringing home more than a handful of honorable mentions.  It was really hard to gauge how it was doing.  At the start of this year, it earned yet two more honorable mentions.  One of them was at Paducah, which I consider a definite win.  This set of somewhat lackluster results was tempered by the fact that it was the cover quilt for the Vermont Quilt Festival's class catalog, and it was the cover for MQU magazine's June/July edition!  But until June, I had no idea what to expect.  Since then, it has taken two 1sts and two Best of Shows, including the first it got in Georgia.  A 1st at Georgia pays like a BOS at many other shows - yes, it was a lucrative win!  The comments from my peeps at the show have been all positive, and you can see from the show photo, she is hanging beautifully.

I also sent Kaleidoscopic Calamity to Georgia.  It is a hard size quilt for many shows, being only 35" square. It's difficult to compete with other good small quilts when they are 50".  I made it especially for some of the machine quilting shows that have a 40" and under category, and as you can see it does have no shortage of nice machine quilting!  It didn't place, but it is taking home a special Staff Recognition ribbon.  Both of these are heading to PIQF in Santa Clara next month.  I am hoping for good results there!

I sent two other quilts to Phili for the PNQE - Rainbow Nouveau and Meet Me at Giverny.  Both of these have done pretty well at shows, especially Rainbow Nouveau.  A year ago when this quilt went to its first show, I never would have predicted how well it would do.  In fact, the Georgia Quilt Show selected my Rainbow Nouveau to be on all of their show advertising this year!  Below, it is on the cover of their class catalog (Best of Show relegated to the back inside cover...).  

And last night I was looking at the show's photos uploaded to Facebook, and noticed that they have these banners around the show - one here at a giveaway and another in the entry hallway.  The quilt on the banner is mine!!  Love it!  Now I am completely kicking myself for not attending this show.  I came SO close to going.  Regrets, damn.  Anyhow, Both quilts at PNQE did not disappoint.  Rainbow Nouveau took home a 2nd place in the traditional category, while Giverny got the HM (same category).  I'm scurrying to finish up my applique quilt so I can go shopping for fabric for a new quilt...yup, the winnings are going to burn a hole in my pocket soon!

 I will leave you with a sneak peek of a quilt I am finishing up for next year.  Never fear, it's only the back. You'll have to wait until the springtime to see the grand reveal of the front.  I'm glad that this is done, but will be happier when it's blocked and bound and ready to enter.

Next week's agenda...get some borders onto a small-ish modern quilt I will also hopefully have ready for next season, quilt Erin's silk quilt and a couple others of her's, and finish an article I have due soon.  Sounds easy enough, but it's not!  Too little time...

Embroidered Applique Beauty

This lovely 54" embroidered applique quilt came off the frame today.  I expected to have finished it yesterday, but sometimes these things have a mind of their own.  I turned out fabulously gorgeous, and I am loving it so much.

 I have been trying my best to make a productive afternoon of things, but the wasteful and mind-sucking sitting around waiting for the Houston award announcements to trickle down is making a complete wasteland of my afternoon.  I managed to quilt half of a sample I need for an upcoming magazine article, but turned the machine off because I was too distracted.  I figured I'd get this blog post written as I just putter and wait for the kids to get home.  We are having a rogue 95F day, when all in the last 2 weeks have barely topped 75, so I just cannot get motivated to go snip my gardens or exercise.

This quilt has a single layer of Hobbs wool batting.  The client has requested thinner threads, not wanting to see the buildup of thread.   I used Madiera Monolon to outline the embroideries.  I just don't get why so many quilters turn their nose up at using clear thread.  That crap just runs in any direction, and never quits.  It is EASY!  Digressing... The detail quilting of the center frame and the curved cross-hatching on the sides of the quilt are done with a 40wt Glide.  This is probably heavier than she had in mind, but I wanted these areas to show, and I chose a teal thread that would show on both the aqua and on the purple.  The look of it showing on one and disappearing on the other is not what I wanted.  I also made that central frame with triple parallel lines, so it was prominent.  The fill for the aqua sections is a pale aqua Bottomline (60wt), while the purple areas were done in a matching purple Invisifil (100wt).  Yes, I know they are different weights, but I chose what I had that blended best, and seriously, there's so little difference in the weight of 60wt and 100wt.

The center turned out just lovely.  I should note that the arched frames are stitched using the medium size double-S template by Ronda Beyer.  This is one of my all-time favorite templates.  I have never used it for cross-hatching, but it makes nice framework.  There are small dots, and they tie in with dots placed in other locations on the quilt.  Each purple block is done the same with a feathered wreath, a small section of pebbles and some echo quilting.

 The embroidered wreaths have curved cross-hatching, and my free-hand, free-form feathers around them.

 One issue I ran into was inadequate backing fabric on the sides of the quilt.  I had only about 2" per side.  As a result, I had to modify my initial design plan for how I was going to quilt the sides.  I ended up stitching more of the free-form feathers in the aqua, and it looks nice and cohesive.

Here's to hoping that my client enjoys this as much as I do!  Have a quilty week~ 

 

Another 60" Feathered Star

This 60" Feathered Star by Judy Neimeyer came off the machine last Friday.  The client (Ann) saw this quilt that I quilted back in the springtime, and wanted a clone of it.  This is Jeanette's quilt and I refuse to make a clone of someone's quilt that is a show quilt.  Somehow, that is just not right in my mind.  I explained it to Ann, and assured her I'd use some of the features she liked about the reference quilt, but would make this quilt different and her own.  It is destined for her husband's office.

 First off, the color scheme is completely different.  Being brown, I had to dig deep to find that creative juice.  My brain just does not think in browns!  Except for the outer border, most threads are not brown.  I used many different threads -- Superior Omni, Glide and Magnifico, with Madiera Monolon for the ditching.  I know that it must be challenging selecting fabrics for these complicated quilts.  I'd struggle too.  I think, however, that the design loses itself somewhat though because of all the star point backgrounds being so close in tone (all beige, except for one set of points).  To help this, I stitched the center point backgrounds with a gold thread - SoFine to be exact.  I wanted to try to get a slight tone to the background.  Not sure it really worked unless you are up close though.  The other backgrounds were shades of tan.

 Every one of these type quilts I quilt, seems to be destined for issues at the center.  The center just puckers.  Always.  I've come to believe it is a feature of the design, or of how the piecer needs to manipulate it (and all the bias edges) in order to get the center point to match.  As a result, I limited the quilting across this center point.  Hopefully, after Ann blocks the quilt, it will lay fine.

 The brown background has a similar quilting to the previous one I did.  I chose a peacock-colored Glide thread to stitch the cross-hatching and feathers.  I wanted to bring out the blue in the feathered points, as well as make the feathered ring more visible.  The background diddle-daddle with pebbles (for lack of real technical name!), is in a deep rust Magnifico.  It just disappears as texture, as desired.

The border is a close cousin to the previous quilt, but I simplified it this time because it was as total pain in the butt to do before, and I don't really know that it brought the bang for the buck either.  For a non-show quilt, this is pretty and functional.

 One feature that Ann requested was the circles.  I have stitched many of them into the design.

The battings she sent were different that what I used before, and I don't think had quite as much poof.  These are QD 70/30 and QD wool.  The 70/30 is a much flatter batt than my Hobbs 80/20.  The many small dots I quilted on the green feathers's background (same size dot), barely show on this quilt, but were very prominent before.  Drat!  Still pretty, but I generally prefer the Hobbs battings.

 Another look at the outer segment...and below at the border at the mid-point.

I hope Ann will love it.  It's a great looking man's quilt, and was fun to finish :-)  Off to UPS!