Tag: quilting

  • I had to bury myself in the studio last week

    I had to bury myself in the studio last week

    To put it bluntly the last week or two have been hell. Between the GOP gift to the wealthy tax bill and their endorsement of child molester/sexual predator Roy Moore for US Senate, I just can’t stand seeing what’s happening and feeling so helpless to stop any of it. Everyone I know is calling, writing,…

  • It’s been a productive week! Finishing the red vase

    It’s been a productive week! Finishing the red vase

    This week, in between packing up supplies for teaching at International Quilt Festival, this is about half of what I’ve had to pull together for all my classes, 4 other boxes have been shipped, . and finishing a cable sweater I’ve had in the works for 2 years, did I ever mention how much I…

  • How Long Does It Take To Bind A Quilt?

    Evidently for me, a traditional quilt binding can take 9 years, lol. I don’t make many utilitarian quilts and I’ve never liked sewing traditional quilt bindings, but I made this ‘modern’ quilt for the bedroom we renovated in our house in Austin Texas almost 10 years ago! Front              …

  • Hectic days, an old artquilt gets a face lift and spring fever.

    I’ve had so much going on the last couple weeks it’s been hard to sit down and write. Between my recent travels, I sold two quilts to a friend/collector who’s moving to England and sent my daughter Indigo off on a last minute month long trip to help her get set up in her new…

  • Making 8 of Cups

    Making 8 of Cups

    The 8 of Cups came about after getting my heart broken by a guy I was dating. I began by drawing an anatomical heart from an old medical illustration engraving, extending the arteries into curving vines to represent new growth and life. I feel like when I create imagery that is painful but transformative, it…

  • In the home stretch…

    The quilting is done! I chose to do my curvy meandering fill stitching that is reminiscent of leaves and flourish-y shapes in the white background areas to contrast all the linear stitching on the cups and flourishes. I stitched with Bottomline thread which is generally used in the bobbin, it’s a lighter weight thread, because I wanted the stitched lines…

  • 8 of Cups progress

    I have been really loving spending time stitching! There are some other things I really should be doing, but I am feeling so in the groove right now, I don’t want to stop. I decided to continue using monofilament for stitching the feathery flourishes since I do not want to obscure this part of the…

  • Have you ever been challenged by monofilament?

    Monofilament is clear thread, similar to a light weight fishing line that is a perfect solution when you need to add stitching but don’t want the thread to be prominent. I personally love MonoPoly by Superior, it’s a strong, matte, polyester thread that comes in clear for light to medium colors of fabric and smoke to…

  • Things were humming along and then…snap!

    Isn’t it ironic that my free-motion presser foot breaks at strength?! LOL Well as frustrating as that is I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, this machine is over 20 years old and it is my favorite so it gets a lot of use. Luckily I found a replacement online pretty quick and have ordered…

  • 8 of Cups progress

    I am finally getting some time to work on my latest piece. I decided I want the quilting to have less loft and dimension and instead have more stitched illustrative details, so I am using wool felt instead of batting. Luckily I had a big piece of yellow felt that a friend gave me during…

  • Down the home stretch

    Two months ago I began this painting for a quilt, unfortunately it got put on hold because several writing projects came up. I have been very quiet the last two weeks because I had to get back to work on it full time to make the deadline for it this week. When I prepare a…

  • Oh Deer, Look What’s Become of Me!

    It is officially done, yay!, except for the label which I am sewing on tomorrow. Then it gets sent off to Kaufman Fabrics to be in a traveling special exhibit using their Kona Solid Fabric line. When I find out the schedule of venues I will post it.

  • Nearing the finish line

    Nearing the finish line

    Last Thursday I called my photographer and made an appointment to get the quilt photographed Monday morning. In order to make that happen, I worked all through the weekend to get this quilt done. I still had grass to quilt, scroll work to quilt, the little deer to trapunto, block the quilt, trim the quilt,…

  • Trial and Error

    I am now quilting the grass, while delaying my decision about what to do about the little deer. My initial thoughts on quilting the grass was to use three shades of green; light yellow green for the lower half, a leafy green for the mid section and darker green for the darkest part of the…

  • Scared!

    I have to tell you, I was so scared to start quilting the big deer. I was having a hard time trying to decide what was the best way to tackle it, so I put it off as long as I could. The issue I struggled with was trying to figure out the best way…

  • Quilted hills

    I quilted the hills with a simple contour quilting line. I chose to use that design for several reasons; one because I want the hills to be a simpler pattern than the foreground imagery, also if I quilt the grass area vertically I like the contrast of the horizontal line and lastly with time being…

  • Quilting details

    To quilt the details on the plants I am drawing them on with my Bohin marking pencil. I have put in a pink lead to give a little more contrast than the white since some of the leaves are a bit light.

  • Quilted trees

    I have finished quilting the trees, I did not want to obscure the lines of painted images so I am opting to quilt slightly outside the painted image lines. I want it to retain its painting quality. I often have a tendency to quilt over my lines, so it becomes harder to tell if it…