Houndstooth

Fall is right around the corner, back to school is just about here, and the sunbeams are streaming in at a new dazzling angle.  Oliver has found his old cozy spot on the soft throw on the back of the couch every evening, rather than his summer spot, stretched out on the hardwood floor.  The summer is winding down.

I was thinking of more grid-based designs using my June Tailor Grid Marker stencil that lets you mark those perfect lines with no gaps so quickly.  My first favorite background or space-filler was a cross-hatch grid.  Next came "Diane-shiko," the classic sashiko design but done not in circles that overlapped, but over a marked grid, lines removed when quilting is finished. 

Then came Apple Core.   My students embraced these designs and most could quilt them well with a bit of practice.  It gave everyone such a fabulous design basic to use over and over, giving a structured look to contrast with more circular flowing designs.  It's good to have structure.

But another one?  I wondered what would happen on a marked 1/2" grid if  only gentle wiggles were quilted on those lines, in both directions, "sort of" trying to cross both lines at the marked intersections, but not obsessing about it.  What would that look like?

The design, above, was my first effort, done on a 1/2" marked grid (lines are removed after quilting) with #100 silk thread, in a very subtle variegated green.  I don't like the distraction of the thread, but that is just me.  Many love the little surprises when variegated is used.

I did the vertical lines first, then horizontal to avoid stretch. 

It would have been easier if this had been marked "on point" with lines at a 45-degree angle to the edges of the fabric.  There would be no distortion at all, no pushing or pulling of fabric as you approach an already-quilted line or intersection.  Just a suggestion, as it does work ok quilted on the grain if it works for your design choice, but be careful of distortion.

Below, my second try, on a 1" grid with matching silk thread in green, next to the first sample on the 1/2" grid.  This was actually a bit harder to keep the wiggles small and not revert to the arcs in my other designs like Diane-shiko or Apple core.  It was harder not to create large wiggles.

However, like any machine quilting motif, repetition brings competency.  After doing this for a half hour or so, I could do it rapidly with minimal goofs.

I decided the design looked just a bit like the old wool woven Houndstooth, which I have always loved.  This gives a structured look with TOTAL forgiveness in quilting! 

However, and you know what I am going to stress:  Stitches must be even and consistent, tension correct, thread color a good choice.  I honestly think the most distracting thing about poor machine quilting is uneven stitches, especially very large ones. 

If you have stitches that are too large for either the type of thread or the design, the "puff" of the batt will not happen.  You will lose it.  It will seep out under those giant stitches.

With stitches that are too large, you tend to "see" them, not the design.  Stitches look like big chicken tracks. 

Slow down your hands.  Speed up the machine just a bit.  For some mysterious reason the most common problem I see in my classes is a combo of fast hands but slow machine speed.  Work on this.  Learn to move those hands smoothly and evenly, and keep the speed of the machine going fast enough to create the best looking stitch length.

Make up a sample and try this!  Use something beautiful, a scrap of silk or sateen so you can see the quilting, and the final design.  Once you become more proficient, try it on a quilt in an area you would normally use a grid.  Let me know what you think!!  I believe it would look great over prints, just like the other grid-based designs do.

And have a wonderful Labor Day holiday everyone, hope you can relax and enjoy the end of summer.  Soon I'll be seeing many of you at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY in October.  Please email me with any questions about the class if you have them:  dianequilter@sbcglobal.net

Keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day.

Diane

Oliver claiming his spot in the "other" sink while I brush my teeth....

Oliver is Two!!

Today is very special, our Oliver is two years old!!  He has lived with us since he was 6 months old, a wild and woolly kitten who had been surrendered by his first owner to the Wisconsin Humane Society.  He is now a somewhat wild but totally wonderful cat, settled into ruling the house and us as well. 

He woke up this a.m. purring, happy, scampering about, knowing it was "his special day."  He especially liked the birthday singing, and the cake is fun to investigate and watch us eat (ridiculously yummy).  We dared not light the candle.

What a blessing a pet is.  We were reluctant at retirement time to take on a new young cat, but oh we are so happy we did.  He makes each day brighter, and happier, and more fun.  If we are bored, we say "where is Oliver?"  "What is he up to?" and he will stroll in and do something cute.  He helps us get through the bad times, and makes good times that much better.

I think he knows now we are his forever people.

Give your pet companion an extra hug today, or adopt one at your shelter who needs a loving home.  They give us so much in return.

Diane

Oliver posing as statuary on a very tall chest of drawers.

Phat Quarters Classes

Home from a wonderful trip to a charming town, Galena, IL, and a most welcoming shop, Phat Quarters!  The shop, above, suffered severe flood damage right before our scheduled event, but fast work, Jane and her intrepid staff managed to salvage inventory and move to a new location right on the busy Main St. in time to host our event. 

Classes were held in the new front room of the shop, with big windows and plenty of room.  Now that we have left, they can proceed to setting things up and arranging inventory, decorating, etc.  They were flying by the seats of their pants, with an old cash register, no computers, but none of us complained at all. 

We had two days of great classes, fun, excitement, and success!  The charming shops and restaurants were all on the same street, and in the beautiful summer days there we took advantage of it all.

Feathers were amazing, stitches improved, students were smiling.  I thank everyone in class and especially the staff for making this happen.  If you are in Galena, stop by their new place and see what's going on.  Fabric not damaged is on killer sale, great bargains to be found.  And yes, they have Berninas!

I stayed in a hotel at the outer part of town and it had the most perfect carpet that included scrolls, feathers, leaves, and spirals, and of course the ubiquitous tendrils, below.   Perfect to set the stage for class as I unpacked and regrouped before my lecture the first night, with vintage 35 mm slides.

I arrived home Wed. night thinking I just might have time to bid on my AAQI quilt online and own it myself, but by the time I got to it the auction was over.  Thank you all for your bids and support, and congrats to the final bidder who will receive this quilt.  I think it is one of my favorites, and I hope it will be enjoyed for a long time.

"Mourning Too Soon"

Teaching with talented quilters gave me many ideas and inspiration, and now I hope I can find some time to work on a few long delayed projects. 

Oliver of course scampered his little heart out when I arrived home, then settled down for unpacking and sniffing everything from foreign lands, well, IL at least, and purred in contentment as we rested and relaxed. 

Monday he will be two years old, and we must plan a party.  He is still a Vegan, although he has been licking the remains from melted frozen custard in my dish, his first real people food, definitely on the path to becoming a bona fide Cheesehead.  He is a cautious boy.  He much prefers corn husks, raw green beans, and any veggie. 

Thanks again to my Galena students; it was such a pleasure getting to know you in class.  Don't let too much time go by before you quilt some of the techniques at home.  Repetition is the key.

Keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day.

Diane

Summer Days

It's muggy and hot, slow and steamy here in Wisconsin.  Oliver and I have written another one of my columns for American Quilter Magazine, we're catching up on laundry and other put-off chores, relaxing in the big recliner with iced tea and a book.  Soon I'll be packing my bags for my trip on August 8 to Phat Quarters in Galena, IL for some classes.  Hope to see you there!

There is a new blog in town that you might like to visit.  I especially enjoyed Scooter the cat on the beautiful blue and white quilt, lovely.  The address is:  seehowwesew.wordpress.com and tomorrow the entry will be about the quilt auction of the exhibit quilts for AAQI.  Please visit, enjoy, please support the initiative.  Thank you!!!!

Continue to enjoy your summer days, and take some time off to relax and live in the slow lane.  If you can work in some fun quilting, that's good too.  Or you can just clean and oil your machine.....!

Diane

Quilt Auction!

We are in a heat wave here in Wisconsin, today going to 97 with high humidity so it will feel like 110.  Ugh.  I know many of you have it worse than this, so I hope everyone can stay cool. 

Oliver doesn't like the closed curtains, extra fans, sleepy days.  He is protesting by sleeping all day.  Soon he will be two years old and is becoming quite a cat now, no longer a kitten playing with abandon.  Now he is more purposeful, thinking out his attacks, waiting to strike.

He and I have not been quilting.  It is too hot.

The photo, above, is a detail from my quilt "Mourning Too Soon," made in honor of my mother, Erma Hinterberg for the "Alzheimer's:  Forgetting Piece by Piece" exhibit, organized and curated by the amazing talents and dedication of Ami Simms.  The exhibit travelled for five years and more than 300,000 people had a chance to see it, were moved by it, and were encouraged by it as well.

It is a strippy style quilt, chocolate and lilac silk dupioni, "almost" wholecloth as it is "all" quilting, with original designs and a cable design in the chocolate strips.  It includes a Mourning Dove, one of my mother's favorites, who cries for the sadness we all feel for losing our loved ones way too soon to this disease.  It is a beautiful quilt.

After the exhibit ended I donated my quilt for auction, along with other quilts in the exhibit.  Please go to:  http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltauction.html  to see the quilts. 

The auction is August 1-10, and the link is:

http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286

I hope they will raise many dollars to go to this cause.  This disease has touched us all, and continues to devastate families.  We need research, a cure, help.  This is a great chance for any of you who have wanted to purchase one of my quilts to get a lovely piece, with my heart in it, to have in your own life and support a great cause at the same time.

Please make a bid on my quilt. I am a huge supporter of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. They are an all-volunteer national charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. They spend no money on fundraising and all their profits fund Alzheimer's research. They have raised more than $550,000 for research...one quilt at a time. Help me help them.

And a very special thanks to SewCalGal for her wonderful write-up of my class!  It was an extraordinary group and experience, and the interaction in the class was terrific.  Everyone benefited and it made my job so much easier.

Hope you all are enjoying summer, the heat, and maybe just a bit of quilting.  And thank you so much in advance for supporting this cause.

Keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day,

Diane

My New Bag

With no ulterior motive whatsoever, really, I so admired this shoulder bag that Roberta, our sewing machine guru at Empty Spools last week was wearing as she toured our classroom in the Open House. 

I could see my designs on it from 30 feet away!  They are the digitzed quilting/embroidery designs that are built in to the Bernina 830, but similar ones and more are available on my OESD CD "Quilting Whimsy," available for all embroidery machine formats. 

She used them as outline embroidery to embellish this soft and drapey bag, made with some changes to wholecloth rather than piecing from the La Borsa Bag pattern. 

She used Metrosene red/white/blue variegated thread, #40, and the double stitching and overlaps of the thread made it shimmer and blur so that it has an entirely different look.  I probably would never have done one of my designs like this so it was a delight to see how beautifully it turned out, how muted and elegant it looked on her shoulder.

The design square on the bottom is  my "Bouncing Bananas" motif, and looks amazing as well in this thread.  What Roberta did so well was use her creativity with the digitized designs to create something new and fresh. 

After gushing over this beautiful bag to my class the next morning, who should stroll in but Roberta, with bag, and she totally surprised me by giving it to me.  I was open mouthed with amazement, and a hug and thanks were all I had in exchange.  Thanks so much Roberta, I shall use it often and love it each time.

The designs on the Bernina 830 and my "Quilting Whimsy" CD can be sized and combined, rotated, whatever, to get the effect you want.  There are two designs for a large hoop.  The creativity is up to you. 

Using them as quilting in the quilt sandwich and placing it in your embroidery hoop, then doing some simple free motion work or walking foot lines around them to finish up a very fancy quilt makes these designs a great way to quilt your tops, or try out on table runners or placemats to get the hang of it. 

Or make a bag like this!

Hope you liked seeing this project, and keep quilting!  Your work gets better every day......

Diane

Fronds, Feathers, Flowers, Froth, Fun....Home from Asilomar

Another fabulous class at Empty Spools Seminars, at the beautiful Asilomar State Park near Monterey, California!  Above, my intrepid and amazing students, 25 in total, who worked with me for 5 days to accomplish more refined and beautiful machine quilting, all done on a home sewing machine.  My table is in the foreground and this "chairs up" session at the front of our huge classroom/building covered one of many techniques included in the class.

This particular group forged out on their own to counter the next building's group, who chanted all day long and were interfering with our own Zen and the sounds of our machines.  Original chants were devised and performed, highlighting lessons learned and teacher foibles, ha. 

With all the class work, the other activities, the evening sessions, time to eat and sleep, who knows when they had the time to do this, and practice, and perform so very well!  This will be my "chanting" class in my memories, the class where all I had to do was hold out my arms, and a chant would ensue. 

Yes, we had fun.

Yes, we learned about doing beautiful motifs and techniques on our home sewing machines.  Podflowers grew, feathers flowed, gingko stretched our brain power.

My trip home was smooth, my last day there I spent in a fantastic new room far away from the woods, up on a scenic outcropping with a full ocean view.  A wonderful way to unwind, pack for the trip home, and relax.

Class, I never found the gingko handouts with the diagram.  They were not on the kitchen counter after all.  I may have unpacked them in my first night's hotel and left them there.  Who knows what some housekeeper might be practicing in her off time, and what wonderful gingkos she is quilting.....!

Thanks to everyone for making my last class so wonderful.  I will always remember my times at Empty Spools, the fun and talented people, the scenery, the buildings and charm.  Special thanks to Diana, Suzanne, and Gayle for making it all possible and for taking such great care of me and everyone, and for all those over the years who were my classroom assistants/hostesses and made it all go smoothly.  

Special thanks to Roberta for all her assistance with the machines and who provided me with a wonderful smooth familiar Bernina 730 for my quilting demos, and for the lovely bag, which I shall show in a future post.

Oliver was ecstatic when I arrived home, and is still checking out my luggage and interesting crumbs and exotic scents in my things.  There were even a few pine needles.  I think he grew while I was away, but is now so content and happy that I am home and doing fun things like laundry. 

More on what we learned in a future post.

Meanwhile, keep quilting....your work gets better every day!

Diane