Month: November 2022

Floor or inspiration???

For the last 5 years, when Linda and I have gone to the International Quilt Festival we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express hotel….2 blocks away from George Brown convention center.

Each year I have looked fondly at the carpet in the halls and entryways…..

I have taken numerous flat photos of the designs (and my feet!!)…..

….and have dreamed of the quilt that I could make like this.

This year I decided to do something about it!!!!

So, I visited the Cherrywood Fabrics booth, took my phone with these photos, and picked out fabrics to use in the quilt……

Maybe if I have spent the money on the fabric, I will actually MAKE the quilt!

My original thought was to applique the teardrop shapes but, after seeing this quilt at the festival…..

….I have about decided to cut out each circle and then cut away the teardrops.

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In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

Easy Basting…..

No…..I am not talking about cooking the Thanksgiving turkey…..I am talking about getting a quilt layered and ready to quilt.

AND I DIDN’T HAVE TO CRAWL AROUND ON THE GARAGE FLOOR TO DO IT!!!

It started in a Houston class with machine quilter, Christa Watson. It was a wonderful class and in passing, she mentioned that she bastes her quilts on her design wall.

I have heard that people do this but I could never figure out how you sprayed it without it getting ALL OVER EVERYWHERE!! But, she mentioned that she sprayed the pieces outside and then transferred them to her studio and pinned them on the design wall.

Okay…..that might work!!!

On Sunday I started out in the garage…..

….and ended up with a perfectly basted quilt in my studio……

I filmed it as I worked thru the process and present this video to show you the nitty gritty.

The video is 23 minutes long but it is all done in real-time, meaning that it took less than 20 minutes to baste the quilt!!

Have a watch and see if this is something that you might like to try……

Obviously, I wouldn’t have the room to do this with a full-size quilt but it worked well for this large lap quilt.

Here it is after I trimmed it, pressed it, and added a few safety pins around the edge….

Tomorrow I will get started with the quilting process.

Stay tuned for more about the quilting of this fun sampler quilt!!

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In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

IQF Finale…..

This is day thirteen of our tour of my favorite quilts from the International Quilt Festival. I have probably shown 100 quilts but remember that there were over 1,100 of them on display!!!

There were so many different exhibits and today I want to highlight several quilts from the “Color Sequences and Improvisation” exhibit which showcased quilts made by Caroline Oneto. Her work is described as a journey through color, curves, improvisation, and mathematics…..all my favorites!!!

This first quilt uses themes of music and color…..

“Vibrato”

I love the movement that the free-motion quilting adds to the quilt…..

The basis for the next quilt is sad (1 in 4 people living in urban South America lives in poverty), but the quilt is so interesting…..

“One in Every Four”

I love the colors in this quilt…..

….and especially the informal quilting that ties it together…..

In the “Hands All Around” exhibit, I loved the depth provided by the fabric arrangement in this quilt from Noreen Borys….

It is another example of a simple design where the fabrics did all of the heavy lifting!!!

The “In the American Tradition” exhibit took traditional patterns and morphed them into something NOT traditional. This quilt from Lorainne Woodruff-Long certainly did exactly that……

“Quilt Melt”

This quilt from Susan Lapham and quilted by John Tsiaperas was a wonderful strip pieced quilt……

I love the grid quilting….again it is simple and effective!!

Finally, I leave you with a quilt from Debbie Jeske based on BACON……

“Baconrific”

….a TASTY way to end!!!

I have loved showing you around the 2022 International Quilt Festival and pointing out some of my favorite quilts and techniques. It has given me a chance to look deeper at the quilts, read the artist’s statements, and gain a greater appreciation for the work that was presented!!

Tomorrow we return to the daily posts about things a bit more mundane but hopefully things that will help you in your creative endeavors!! Please join me!!

It’s Eye-Candy time again!!

Today I want to show a few more quilts that caught my eye at the International Quilt Festival.

There was an exhibit called “Inspired by Washington”, and this quilt from Dana Brennan Hancock was a great depiction of Union Station…..

“Union Station”

This simple, uncluttered design was very effective!!

Wonderfil presented an exhibit called “Layers of Memories” which featured quilts from Katie Fowler. These two were favorites…..

“Square Pegs”
“Thick As A Brick”

When I first looked at this quilt, I thought that the holes were appliqued but, after further inspection, I discovered that they were cut out and layered over the previous brick. SO much easier to accomplish!!

Over the years I have seen numerous quilts made by a group of people where each quilter was supposed to produce a section of an overall picture. This one from the Taiwan Art Quilt Society was by far the best one that I have ever seen……

“Butterfly Garden”

Each quilter provided one panel in this glorious garden…..

It was so effective!!!

Linda and I spoke at length with Priscilla Bianchi from Guatemala….

She had a solo exhibit using traditional Guatemalan fabrics. This was one of my favorites…..

“Rainbow Orange”

With my new-found love of circle piecing, this might be a fun pattern to play with…..someday!!!

And the final one for today is this portrait quilt from Shin Hee-Chin…..

“The Grimke Sisters”

These are the “Grimke” sisters who were advocates of abolition and women’s rights. This quilt was part of the “Deeds Not Words” exhibit.

The quilt becomes much more interesting when you move in closer……

Just look at the embroidery…..

It is amazing how she uses such a rough embroidery technique to show great detail in the faces!!

Well, we are coming to the end of our tour of the International Quilt Festival. Come back tommorrow as we finish it up!!

The Frank Klein Collection

As Linda and I walked around the show we ended up in the Frank Klein Collection. Now you may ask “Who the heck is Frank Klein?”

He is a Texas art collector with an emphasis on the art quilt. His love of family, photography, and nature has developed a collection of fine art quilts that inspires the nature lover in all of us!!…..or so says the poster!!!

The collection that we saw included some of his favorite quilts collected over the past decade.

Fortunately, many of these quilts were MY favorites too and it was fun to re-live quilts of the past few years!!

Kestrel Michaud created this wonderfully sentimental quilt…..

“Brewing Friendship”

Kestrel is also the creator of “Not Today” from the Small Pictorial Category that I posted about a few days back.

I feel that Frank Klein has a fun sense of humor since this quilt by Christine Holden was included…..

“What Happens in the Swamp”

I love the look on the alligator’s face!!

Who can resist this brightly colored New York Beauty quilt from Karla West Dee….

“Sizzle”

Jane Sassaman had a quilt included too……

“Johnny Jump-Ups”

I think that blue and yellow are perfect together!!

I love the look of this disheveled owl from Pat Bishop…..

“I See”

Betty Busby did LOTS of intricate cutting to create this great quilt…..

“Lichenometry”

Look at the details….

The sweet colors in this quilt from Nancy Sterett Martin are so appealing to me……

“A King on His Throne”

Terry Aske created this colorful quilt…..

“Aurora”

…..with some amazing matchstick quilting…..

Wouldn’t it be fun to own all of these quilts!!! I would never get anything done because I would be too busy looking at each one in detail!!

Come back tomorrow and we will look at more eye candy from the International Quilt Festival!!