Sewing with Sadie

Today was one of the best days in the Studio. My Sadie girl came over and we started on a new quilt for her bed. This is Sadie’s second quilt, but the first one this large. I was amazed at how well she did today. Picking out her colors, staying in the same value range, and then piecing her strips. 

As the day went on, her confidence grew and we tag teamed with Sadie stitching and I pressed the seams so she could continue piecing.

Sadie set a goal for herself to have 4 feather blocks completed before it was time to go home. Look at her accomplishment!

I think we will have another award winning quilter in the family.

Stay tuned; we have another date set in a couple of weeks to work on her next blocks for her quilt. 

Getting Ready for the Dallas Quilt Show 2018

Just a little crazy and behind on posts here. Time is counting down for the Dallas Quilt Show at Market Hall and I'm still dyeing fabric, finishing a quilt, making flyers, organizing my inventory and oh yes, coming down with Bronchitis. Luckily, I ran to the Dr. and got a steroid shot and meds before it went too far and I'm on the mend. Several days in bed didn't help my stress level, but hey, what happens happens and what gets done, gets done. Right?

I finally finished quilting one of my quilts for the Dallas Quilt Show yesterday. Tomorrow I will get it trimmed up and put the facing, sleeve and label on it. (Today I get to go celebrate grandkids with a birthday party! Cake!!!!)

So, come to Dallas, March 9-11, 2018, and see the Dallas Quilt Show at Market Hall. I promise you will love the show and come by my booth, say "Hello", shop for fabric, clothes and notions and sign up for a dye class!

Check out the Calendar of Classes and Workshops page for 2018 Dye Workshop dates. Fun times in the Dye Studio!

Quilting Classes TBD! Stay tuned.

Happy Creating!

Jules

Prism Refraction is Finished!

I finally completed Prism Refraction. Piecing was fun because I love this wave piecing process. I'm addicted to it and can't wait to do more of it and maybe even teach a few classes.

The quilting of this quilt, well, that is another story. I wanted to hurry and get it done so I could enter it in a show. So I went to the long arm studio and quilted it. I hated what I did. I'm not a seasoned long armer and my lines just didn't turn out the way I wanted them.

So home I went and had a lot and I mean a lot of quality time with my seam ripper. I took out the entire quilt and started over on my Bernina. It took a couple of days of quality time with my walking foot, but I got it done and I am very please with the precision I was able to quilt.

Needless to say, I didn't make the show entry deadline. But there are others coming up!

I think I will be doing a lot more quilting with my walking foot. I even ordered the book "Walk: Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot" by Jacquie Gering, to help me with inspiration and new designs. Can't wait for it to get here the end of the week.

Creatively,

Jules

To Pin or Not to Pin

What do you do? I usually pin my quilts. I have friends that use spray adhesive and ones that pin. And I have friends that work small art quilts, so they don't have to do either. I've tried spray basting before, but the quilt still shifted and I didn't like the layer of adhesive going through my machine and gooping up my needle. I just grab my bowl of quilting pins and Kwip Klip and pin.

Oh, like my little bowl? It is very special to me. My step-son made one year in elementary school and gave it to me for Mother's Day. Sweet memories every time I see it and use it. I've been using it for over 20 years now!

My worktable was designed so the height is easy for me to pin on, really saves my back. I use binder clips on the edges to hold the layers in place and depending on the size, I may use blue painters tape too.

So, my quilting friends, what do you do? Let me hear from you!

Borders On

Today started very early this morning, say around 2:30am. We had a tremendous hail storm that lasted around half an hour. We have neighbors with damage worse than ours, but my morning started off by walking our yard and taking pictures of the damage. There is so much damage in our area it is going to take the insurance adjuster a couple of weeks to get to us. Fortunately, only the outside panes of our double pane windows were broken. As I looked at the broken windows I thought, "Well, it goes with the quilt I'm working on!"


After things settled down I was able to get in the studio and sew the panels together and put the borders on. I fell in love with this quilt more and more with every border I stitched on. Tomorrow I am going to start practicing some of the stitches from The Free Motion Quilting Project for the quilt and start the quilting.



I decided to go ahead and put the borders on instead of quilting the panels and then putting it together. I'm glad I did, the visual of the entire quilt has energized me, and after the morning that I have had, I needed the energy.

Better run, Jeff is on his way home so we can clean the yard.

Quilt in Progress

Just thought I would post a few pictures of my quilting and mixed media techniques on my current quilt "Outside In". As I posted earlier, the initial intent of this quilt was to mimic the hydrangea's outside the window, but my husband thinks this quilt looks more like the depth of the ocean. My quilt, I win....it's "Outside In". I'm not done yet, but I"m getting there!

Oooops

I've had a good day, really, until a few minutes ago... I was quilting away on the truck quilt, listening to "Crossroads" by Fern Michaels, and wondering if I have enough thread to complete my quilting, when I decided to stand back and take a look at the section between the barn and the windmill.....that's when I realized I was quilting at an angle and not horizontal....grrr. So, I guess while I'm watching TV tonight I'll be picking out this section of quilting and tomorrow I'll quilt as long as I can before I run out of thread.

At least I walked 4 miles today at lunch and Mr. Wonderful is on his way home from work. Time to go start dinner and enjoy a glass of red wine. Even though there is a hiccup in the progress, I'm determined to find a bright spot, or two.

Testing Truck Quilt Background Quilting

The other day I started working on testing out the quilting for the "Truck Quilt". Today I completed my test and feel really good about what I quilted. I'll start with the "Truck Quilt" as it is at this moment. As you may remember from previous posts, this precious truck is from a picture of my fraternal grandfather's truck, we called my grandfather "Foxey" because his favorite cartoon when he was growing up was "Grandpa Foxey". Anyway, the truck was a 1956 Ford, and he drove it around the pasture and from the house to his fishing tanks. I think all but one of us 7 grandkids learned how to drive in this truck, so you see, it's special. But I just had to put a twist on the "Truck Quilt" and make it my own. It's turquoise instead of baby blue and I added long horns to the front (with several Univ. of TX Longhorns in the family, I felt it was appropriate, plus I'm a true cowgirl at heart).



Now for the quilt testing. With the hand dyed background being so intense, it needed to be knocked down a bit so the truck can stand out. So I decided the background was going to be quilted so I could paint the background white to tone it down. Now Foxey had a barn, several infact, and a windmill on the property. So I decided to quilt in a barn and a windmill behind the truck along with the clouds.

Now the bright fabric you see at the bottom left, well I left that bright because that is where the truck will be in front of the barn.



This next picture gives you a little closer look at the barn detail and how it lays with where the it will be with the truck.



The following picture is a close up on the windmill and the different cloud designs I quilted today. I usually do the swirlly clouds, but I tried the horizontal horizon lines and then also following the movement of the fabric. The movement of the fabric just isn't tight enough and I really think the swirlly clouds are too busy. The horizontal horizon lines help push the background back and help the truck pop.



Okay, couldn't resist. Had to cut out the bright area and pin it up on the wall with the truck quilt. WOW! I love the results! The white paint really tones down the background. The windmill is going to be over to the left above the bed of the truck.



This week I've got a fairly clean slate, so Lord willing, this baby will be quilted and thread painted this week. Yes, I still have to do the thread painting on the truck. Okay, feedback please!!!!!

Getting ready for the New Year

I have been AWOL lately, but for good reason. I had my gall bladder removed on Tuesday. I am feeling better than I felt before the surgery, but I haven’t been in the Studio since I finished my secret Christmas gift, which ended up not being so secret since my sweet niece, Karolyn, reads my blog. Here is a picture of us with her new quilt. I hand dyed all of the fabrics and quilted it on my Bernina. Karolyn posted a Christmas video of “If Quilts Could Gossip”. Link on over, it is so wonderful and Yes, I am bias, she is my niece!

I love the colors of the hand dyes I used for Karolyn’s quilt. I think I’ll try to dye some more in these colors when I get back into the wet studio after the first of the year.
After the first of the year, my first project is to finish the truck quilt. I have ideas in my head for the quilting and I just have a little bit left to do on the painting. Then I’m going to continue on the quilt for the house. I’ve been collecting mixed media items for it. Stamps, surface techniques, keys (one for each grandchild), beads, misc. items that have family meaning. I made a trip to Artful Bead in Carrollton, TX and found some wonderful glass pieces to include. One day after a DAFA board meeting we made a field trip to the Stamp Asylum in Plano and I found some wonderful stamps! I am looking forward to getting back to it and using some of my new findings.
Then I have new projects in my brain. I’ve started sketching out one that started from my workshop day with Katie PM. It is in the enlarging stage right now.
While recuperating I am using some of the time to get started on “The Sketchbook Project”. I actually bought two new sketchbooks the other day. Both are small enough to fit in my purse and one of them has watercolor paper in it. I am really looking forward to this challenge and broadening my artistic abilities. Can’t believe that it is going to be the new year in just a few days!
To add to all of my new year art projects, I am going to spend more time in the kitchen this year. I love to cook, but “Mr. Wonderful” is also “Mr. Picky Eater”, much to the surprise of my mom 24 years ago. I am her child that would anything she put on the table, and I married “Mr. Picky Eater”. My response to her was “Well, he can fix anything that breaks around the house.” That got a smile out of her and she said she was glad I looked at it in such a positive way. Our meals have gotten very lazy and routine and with some of my health issues, I have decided to go Gluten Free. So far the things I have fixed have gone over well, especially the chocolate-chip cookies.
Okay, off to take care of a few other things on the computer and read my new cookbook.
Have a safe and happy New Year everyone! May it bring you health, happiness, and lots of paint, thread, fabric and mixed media!
Jules

Accomplishments

I feel accomplished! I have had a basket in my elfa stand labeled "Quilts to Quilt" and now I can proudly say, it is empty! Yesterday I finished quilting the Traditional Batik quilt and last week I picked up my Pumpkin Quilt from being quilted (I wasn't going to tackle this one on my Bernina, I'm not that industrious). Today I am cutting off the excess batting/backing and cutting the bias binding for both of these quilts. They turned out beautifully and I'm so proud of the piecing, applique and quilting in each one. My friend, Connie Keller, quilted the pumpkin quilt. She does awesome quilting and I'm so blessed by her friendship.
As soon as I get the binding on these quilts I'll post full pictures.

Project for the Week

Ever have a hard time starting a new project because you keep thinking about the projects you haven't completed? My answer - Constantly! So I told myself that this summer I have to complete my "Unfinished Projects" in between the new projects. This way I'm taking care of all the mental and visual road blocks that keep me from having a free mind to create. This week I'm quilting the "Traditional Batik Quilt" that I pieced two years ago. I participated in a Block of the Month with Cabbage Rose in Fort Worth, TX in 2008. We had a choice of traditional or batik fabrics. When the blocks were complete I designed my own quilt instead of using their pattern. I love Flying Geese so I chose this block to join the other traditional blocks together. Yesterday I started quilting and I'll spend today working on it too. I'm stippling the quilt and using coordinating thread colors for each block.

Here's a picture of the quilt top after I finished it two years ago.
I'll post again when I'm finished with the quilting!