Home from Green Bay

Green Bay, Wisconsin, was lovely! The drive north through the rolling hills of the southern Kettle Moraine was almost at peak fall color, absolutely glorious. Stunning sugar maples were torches of flame amid the darker pines and oaks, and the sumac blazed in scarlet glory. The bright intense blue of the October sky was the perfect backdrop. We do have some bad winter weather here at times, but fall is the season that makes up for everything.

Thanks to everyone from Evergreen Quilt Guild for making my visit go so well, and to the big crowd at the lecture for being such a great audience. I hope you do go out and buy more mud fabric for your quilts, although from your show and tell quilts I can see this won't be an issue!

Class was in a large room, above, and everyone worked hard at their feather designs. Machine quilting on a home machine is not the easiest thing in the world, and there is much to learn and enjoy in the world of feathers. Start with the basics, get those feathers smooth and familiar, and then start branching out to make your designs more intricate. It takes focus and concentration, and frequent short breaks so the feathers don't deteriorate and become the proverbial toxic vegetables, tongue depressors, or stubby protrusions. And don't go around the Q-tip.

I think everyone did great with much good humor and of course things will go much better at home, but you do have to put in some time, add feathers to a real quilt, don't sit and practice.

My nemesis in the world of snack/junk food was lurking behind my table for hours before I noticed it, beckoning me, luring me in with the siren call of cheese and crunch, mmmmmmm. Cheetos!!! I ate only TWO and stayed clear of this temptation. When I arrived home that evening my husband had a brand new bag of them on the kitchen island waiting, as a treat for me when he knew I'd be tired out. Oh no..........

Keep quilting; your work does really really get better every day!

Diane

Green Bay Lecture - Mud!

"Kettle Moraine Star," above, back in 1996 brought attention to my love of dull, neutral, "ugly" colors in my quilts. The background was the shade of khaki used in pants, and was not at all popular back in the 90's (or probably now too, come to think of it) for quilts. I wanted a background color to showcase the star, and khaki was one of my favorite colors, so I used it fearlessly, with little thought about how others might like it...or not like it as it turned out. I liked it a lot.

I still use colors that others deem ugly and fit for the sale rack at the back of the store, but have graduated to including more percentage of brighter, more vibrant shades in my quilts. However, that first winning quilt gave me the claim to fame for my "Mud Quilts" that still is with me.

Tuesday night, October 13, I'll be giving a lecture on this subject in Green Bay, WI. at 6:30 p.m., Grace Lutheran church, 321 S. Madison in Green Bay. Hope to see some of you there! I won't have this quilt, but some of my work for you to see up close.

Below, my claim to fame has lingered on with my car's license plate, which seemed a good idea at the time, but after all the puzzled glances, high fives from mud covered pickup trucks on the highway, and even a query from a bird lover about the species Mud Owls, I wonder just why I ever did this. A weak moment I think.

Keep quilting, your work gets better every day!
Diane

Traditional Quilts?

I fell in love with traditional quilts from the very first. Not orchestrated modern traditional ones where every fabric coordinates perfectly, but quilts that worked within the framework of traditional and showcased the maker’s artistic skills and joie de vivre.

I admired but was not really inspired by most quilts shown locally in the 70’s and 80’s. After going to many shows, I finally found ones that made my heart skip a beat when exhibits featuring quality vintage quilts began to appear, and I discovered books filled with quilts from other eras. These quilts really rocked. They had exuberance, color, design excitement, whimsy, simplicity and elegance, all more or less within the “rules” of quilting.

That is not an easy accomplishment for a quilter. Those “other” qualities can sometimes suffer because a quiltmaker is so intent on executing the technicalities properly, and perhaps resorting to using a traditional “scheme” for the quilt that they may take a backseat. The art of the quilt can suffer.

I never really made a planned quilt. They grew and developed as I worked even though I always started with a plan. Even the plan in my mind was subject to drastic change at any moment, but I never threw out the basics of the construction and style of a traditional quilt.

At first these changes were tentative and minor. It was still a log cabin with darks on one side of the red chimney square, and lights on the other, but the fabrics were not all from one line, or one scale of print, or even all prints or solids but a mix of whatever I thought looked great.

I used drab colors with sparks of bright. Mud colors and subtle palettes were my signature look. Later I used more saturated colors, but subtle and subdued will always be pleasing to me.

I tried to work keeping in mind the spirit of quilters from the past who had no quilt shops, no fabric budget, but had to make do. They used their ingenuity and creativity to make wonderful quilts that still delight the viewer.

Later I ventured out into the array of new fabrics available as quilting flourished worldwide, and decided that strict “repro” quilts were not my thing, just as doing cross stitch designs and following the color charts never worked for me either. New threads and quilting techniques, designs and free motion methods all have affected the outcome of my quilts. Growth is a good thing in quilting, and keeps traditional quilts vibrant and fresh, ever changing, ever new.

I liked to play with my own color combinations, drawing on old quilts that wowed me as inspiration and then playing with variations of the traditional. Quilting motifs began as a continuation of designs used for hundreds of years, but have now changed and grown and are individual to me. Their roots are firmly based in tradition.

I still behave, and play by the rules: straight lines are straight, corners are not lopped off, precision in workmanship is very important to me. But within the structure and framework of traditional I have found much room for creative expression.

I continue to like the feeling of a challenge met when corners meet properly, geometry works out, bindings go on well.

Traditional in my mind has morphed into “classic.” It is a style of quilting based on an accumulation of history, culture, style that has worked for centuries in the decorative arts. It will continue to work in this century and beyond, but will leave room for growth, for creativity, fun, personal viewpoint, and color and design exploration.

A traditional quilt is a challenging and many times difficult quilt to make. The rules are not easy. Technical skills sometimes take years to achieve. Errors are easy to spot and can bring down the entire project. A quilter choosing this format has tough standards, a demanding task, a brave and intrepid spirit.

The rewards are worth it though. A true traditional quilt or “classic” can be exhibited in an art gallery and hold its own with contemporary art. It will also look perfect on a bed. It would command a room in an historic house, yet be a dramatic focal point in a NY loft apartment, all function, steel, glass, chrome, and brick.

It transcends time. It would be at home in the past, present, or future.
A traditional quilt will never be a trend or a fad, but reflect current styles and popular textiles melded with the quiltmaker’s personal art, all within a time-honored and tested format.

A traditional quilt lasts.

In this day of "trend du jour" in quilting, do not apologize for being a traditionalist. Create quilts, be proud of them, and explore your own art in this amazing genre of quilting.

"Butternut Summer," above 1998, and "Shadows of Umbria," below, at Paducah, 2008, two of my favorite classics.

Keep quilting,
Diane

On the Radio!

Ami Simms, founder of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, will be on public radio today at 11 a.m. or listen to her interview on your computer. She deserves huge accolades for what she has done to fight this terrible disease, with so many of you out there helping as well. Here is what she says:

"I'll be on PBS radio WVIA-FM at around 11 am today talking about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Listen on your computer at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wvia/ppr/index.shtml It will be available by podcast some time on Tuesday and rebroadcast at noon on Sunday.

Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece will be exhibited this weekend in Lewisburg, PA, hosted by the Susquehanna Chorale. They have just commissioned an original piece of music about Alzheimer's which will be performed on October 9th."

Give a listen,
Diane

Scale and Proportion

When the photo, above, appeared on the cover of the first issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited I cringed just a bit. The stitches looked gigantic. The fabric, could it be burlap? The mistakes, did they show?

Well, yes, of course they did, magnified and blown up and the stitches huge. But the color and punch of this small piece were exactly what the magazine editors were seeking.

Most quilters probably thought this stitch “size” was my normal quilting. It was not. It was very fine quilting, very tiny stitches done on a tightly woven crisp unknown cotton sateen type fabric with an almost impenetrable surface treatment. My friend Liz Armstrong designed and made the tiny piece, smaller than the size of a piece of paper. I quilted it with YLI #100 silk thread and a #60 Microtex Sharp needle, with small stitches, probably about a 1.5 in length.


However, when it was chosen to be used on the cover of this issue it was blown up larger than life size. The stitches look sooooooo big. Quilters seeing this would not even hesitate in thinking the stitch length was about 2.5 or larger, and the thread perhaps a 40 weight. Not!


What is the correct scale and proportion for thread and stitch length in machine quilting? Our wonderful machines can handle very fine threads to quite heavy ones that I personally would probably delegate for the job of tying up tomato plants or wayward roses in the garden, but never think of putting them through my Bernina, gasp. I know, I know….it is done all the time, no harm done. And simply threading the machine with this thread will clean out the thread pathway wonderfully.

So what is the bottom line in correct stitch length? The stitch length depends on the weight, color, fiber of the thread. There is no one perfect answer. The scale of the stitch length must work with the proportion of the design as well.


A nice “golden mean” for stitch length can be found by using a fine long staple cotton like Aurifil #50 (reads like a 70) or Superior MasterPiece, both about the same in fiber and thickness. With this thread in the machine, top and bottom, you can establish a lovely machine stitch and then vary it smaller for finer threads such as #100 silk or larger, longer stitches for heavier threads such as #40. If you do free motion stitching with this set-up, a 1.8 stitch length or finer looks nice, and yes, you’ll probably have to lower the top tension a bit, sometimes a lot, depending on your machine.


If you don’t know what a 1.8 or 1.6 stitch length looks like, first stitch out a line of quilting using feed dogs and a presser foot on the machine, and set stitch length at this number.


You can make several rows at various stitch length settings for comparison to your free motion stitching to get points of comparison. Then try some free motion, still with this thread combo in the machine, and see what you have to do to make your free motion quilting look exactly like the line you quilted with the feed dogs up, and a walking foot or presser foot on your machine.



The fiber content of the thread also determines the stitch length. Lustrous, shiny threads like silk or poly tend to need a smaller stitch than heavy, duller threads, mostly cotton without a sheen to them. However, there are some very lustrous cotton threads (Aurifil, e.g.) and some dull poly ones, so the best thing is to always quilt with the thread and figure out its best tension and stitch length.


A good way to check this is to begin with a fine cotton, get the stitch length established by how fast you run the machine and how you move your hands.



I like to tell students that a faster machine speed and smooth, slow and even hand movement works well for most of us. So slow down your hands, keep them moving smoothly with no jerking or quick changes of direction, and run the machine a bit faster. Get out of first gear! Try the faster speeds on that beautiful piece of machinery you own. Let it own the road for once, but only go as fast as you can still feel “in control” of what you are doing with your hands. The problem then can occur where you hear the machine going faster and automatically speed up your hands.


Speed up the machine a bit, and keep your hands slow, smooth, even.
If an entire area of a design is quilted correctly but there are areas with some large “basting” type stitches, the viewer’s eye goes directly to these. They break up the design and look not so great. They are there because your hands moved too fast in that area for the speed of the machine.


I slow down for tricky places where I can’t see well, or for more demanding and precise types of quilting like echo quilting. And when I say slow down I mean both the speed of my hands and the speed of the machine. Hands and feet work together as one.



And sometimes I speed up when there is “open road” or an easy design I’ve done a million times, and when I speed up that means I move my hands faster and I run the machine faster too.


With more elegant, refined and closely spaced machine quilting, below, I need a finer thread and smaller stitches. Large, open scale and fast quilting can have bigger thread and bigger stitches, but keep them even, and have the proper machine tension.



One of the most frequent comments I get when people see my work in “real life” is that they never realized my stitches were so small. They are.
Because of the very fine thread and the designs I quilt. Both of these things determine stitch length.

When I thread my machine with a heavier thread, I automatically slow down the speed of the machine so with the same hand movement I’m used to I can achieve a bigger stitch length that is appropriate for heavier threads.


Play with your threads and designs. The stitch length will vary accordingly. It will take some experience for you to be able to switch from a fine cotton thread to various weights and fibers, but it can be done very successfully, and it will make your quilting that much more interesting.


Keep quilting! Your work gets better every day.

Diane

Home from the Great North

It is wonderful to be back home after a great trip to Brainerd, MN with the Pinetree Patchworkers. I taught two classes and did a lecture for the general meeting, and everyone was so welcoming and attentive.

I know it is tough in a class situation with round tables, machines the wrong height, machines bouncing at times, dead zones of lighting in the room, and the ever-present too hot in the room for some and too cold for others!

But we persevered with humor and fortitude and a bag lunch on the patio in the lovely warm temps, 80’s. I realize there were experienced quilters in the beginning class and I so appreciate your efforts to work along with me, and not be frustrated and bored. Beginners who were terrified loosened up, and quilted wonderfully. There are so many things to keep in mind all at once that it is incredibly daunting and I realize that, and give you all full marks for being so game to keep at it and come up with some very nice results.

This town is the home of Cherrywood fabrics (shown in photo above), and of course I came home with new additions to my library of their suede-like hand dyed solids that I have used in many pieces, most memorably in my log cabin quilt “Through a Glass Darkly: An American Memory,” and more recently “Shadows of Umbria.”

The rich color saturation, the way this fabric can be pieced so easily and precisely, the wonderful hand of it, the texture--all these things help make my quilts rich and elegant, and allow my intricate quilting to be showcased beautifully. #100 silk thread and Cherrywood cotton? A heavenly combination, and one I will revisit often.

My 7 ½ -hour drive south to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, and then south and east through Wisconsin was beautiful and relaxing. This time of year the landscape was at its best, and some early color in the maples and aspens blazed out amid the deep green of the pines and the oaks. Yellow milkweed and a hazy mauve mist of foxtail at the sides of the road and in the median were so pretty with the greens of fall grasses, farmers’ fields, woods and streams.

I listened to favorite music and before I knew it my home was down the road, and another trip came to an end. Arnie is glad I am home. He is still purring.

Hope to see you on one of my trips soon. You never know the delightful people waiting at the end of a journey.

Thank you Pinetree Patchworkers! I had a wonderful time.

Diane

Labor Day?

Arnie and I are 'home alone' this Labor Day weekend. He is sleeping. Then he wakes up and moves over and sleeps some more. Perhaps later in the day we will sit on the front stoop and watch the dogs and owners walk by and say hi. And then sleep some more.

I am busy getting my supplies and handouts ready for my upcoming classes in Brainerd, MN. I should be able to do this in my sleep by now, and I'm sure Arnie could, but it is always a big job.

Things are moving very slowly here in Wisconsin this weekend. It is a lazy, late summer day, the smell of Fall in the air but yet it is very warm and still. We listen to the late summer insects humming, and feel an expectancy of bright crisp days ahead.

Enjoy your weekend, relax, maybe do some quilting.

Diane