Rainbow Rings - quilt swap

Rainbow Rings

24" x 24"

To celebrate the opening of QuiltCon Together, I decided to post about my Make a Mini Make a Friend quilt.

This is a quilt swap with the Modern Quilt Guild.  After you sign up, you are paired with someone else who is participating.  We get introduced to each other via email, and then make a mini quilt for each other that are eventually sent through snail mail.  This is my first time participating and it was fun!  I was also grateful that my normal break neck pace had slowed down enough to have an opening in my normally very full schedule. 

First, my swap partner did not have any requests at all.  This made it really hard for me.  I already struggle with decision making.  I was worried that I wasn't going to come up with any ideas at all. Luckily for me, she had an Instagram account, so I was able to look at her previous posts.  Brilliant!!  It didn't take long, and then I was well on my way.  The only thing I found hard was keeping this a secret!  She wasn't supposed to see it until it was mailed to her.  We were allowed to post shots of details that did not give it away, and that was good enough! 

Another thing I really liked about this project was an opportunity to explore an idea I had.  I had previously made a double wedding ring quilt, but since then I have had a number of other ideas, but hadn't yet had time to pursue them.  This one was perfect because it also incorporated the idea of transparency in the overlapping colors.  

Using my copic markers, I sketched my idea.  I loved the idea of starting with the markers, because I could overlap the colors and see the transparencies.

It also took me a while to find colors that would work and appear to be the in-between colors.  

Then I drew the pattern full scale and cut out the rest of the pieces.  For this to work, I needed to keep track of the placement of all the blocks because none of them were interchangeable.

I started piecing the smallest squares first to make the corners of the DWR. 

These were quick and easy! The curves were a bit stretchier, but doable.  It went together really quick, which was very satisfying! 

Basting:

I decided to hand quilt the colorful rings because I love the texture of hand quilting so much!

I finished it up with some black echo quilting and fine line quilting in the melons (the black and white striped inner section of the rings).  Then I sent it to my swap partner.  I was surprisingly anxious... waiting to hear if it arrived and if she liked it or not.  After a few days I saw her post on Instagram.  It warmed my heart to see that she liked it!  That's the best part of this project is how I felt.  The act of giving warms the heart!

And, within a day or two my quilt from Julie arrived!

I love it so much!  First, I LOVE hummingbirds! They symbolize joy for me.  And I have used them in my work before. Perhaps you remember from this quilt? Also, I love the bright aqua/turquoise colors she selected for my hummer.  It is PERFECT for me!  I also love the background fabric and the backing fabric because both had hummingbirds on them! A nice repetition of pattern.  Last, I love the precision of the paper pieced pattern.  I am not a paper piecer.  This is not something I would normally have, but I am so grateful that Julie can do this (and she does it VERY WELL!!).  It is so beautiful.  The pattern is called Sugar Baby and is from Nicole at Lillyella Stitchery. 

My New Oliso Smart Iron

My New Oliso Smart Iron!

Hey, where is my new Oliso iron?  Has anyone seen it? Ha!

Oliso with a new quilt and an old one (Development)

Yes, I am at QuiltCon!  However, I am also working like crazy to finish up some quilts for another exhibit.  It is hard doing both at the same time, and sleep is scarce.  Which is why I did not notice, as I was quilting late into the night, that the back side of my quilt was getting folds, lots of folds.  And once the fold starts, it continues and gets worse as the quilting continues.  So it had to be fixed.  I was tired and very frustrated because it was the first time I tried to do a lot of quilting lines without checking the back.  Mistake!

If it had only been this one fold, I probably would have just repaired this section (on multiple lines of quilting).  But there were LOTS of sections that had folds like this.

This is the back side of the quilt.  It is another two sided quilt. So BOTH sides have to look good! The seam ripper is holding up the fold so that you can see where the actual seam is.  It is eating about 1/16 of an inch now, but if left un-repaired, that amount grows.

I am quilting in concentric circles, so I had about 10 lines to rip out.

And, I am not a fast ripper.  It was almost good for me though, because I was already doing my best (or at least I thought I was), and I had no idea how to keep this from happening again. And I am really good at basting, but when sewing in concentric circles, crazy things happen, and I have experienced a few of those disasters as well.  I had a new idea to pin baste, and then on my machine with BIG stitches, quilt some randomly spaced radial lines, taking those out as I go, along with the rest of the safety pins.  You can see below, the brown line of thread and the backs of the safety pins (yes, this is the back side of the quilt).

Unfortunately, all the folds were happening right along the edges of those brown basting threads because I forgot about the rip it out before sewing, and I was sewing over them.  Lesson learned. sigh....

I finished ripping and went to the first day of QuiltCon and found this fabulous new Oliso iron! It is so smart!  You can iron with it, and without lifting it, take your hand off, and it automatically pops out these retractable thingies that lift the iron off the work surface! Magic!! I used it to solve my problem.  I have never ironed a quilt during the quilting, but it worked to ease the fullness in during this giant mess of a problem, and allowed me to continue working.

Now watch as I take my hands off temporarily, and use both hands to smooth out the fullness of this large project. The iron pops up! (I will try to take an actual video of the magic, once my 'assistant' wakes up. I will post it on Instagram). You can also google this and find videos of it happening!

A close up of the magic:

Last, I was careful to press both sides of the quilted sandwich before proceeding with the quilting. And, with the 10 foot long cord, it was easy to get around this big quilt! Here is the front side:

Works like a charm!! So far I love this new Oliso iron!  And, it's yellow!!! (comes in other colors too!). And, if you buy it at QuiltCon, there is a discount. Check it out if you are in the market for a new iron.  I am looking forward to using it on many projects to come! And, because it rests in this position, I can be assured that it won't tip over and crash to an early death.  True confession: I have done that to two irons already.

PS. I do not work for Oliso.  If you have a problem with yours, you should contact the company directly.

QuiltCon 2020: Here I come!

QuiltCon 2020: Here I come!

I am so excited that QuiltCon 2020 will be in Austin this year! I haven't been to QuiltCon since the last time it was in Austin, and it is one of my very favorite quilting events.  The work is so inspirational and motivating!

And, I am super pleased to have the following 3 quilts juried into QuiltCon.  This show has grown substantially since it began.  And, as such, has become increasingly difficult to get quilts juried in. Many, many, many quilts are rejected to make room for a carefully crafted set of quilts for the very best exhibit. So many quilts are rejected that makers have taken to the hashtag #quiltconreject.  If you search for #quiltcon or #quiltcon2020 and #quiltconreject you will find a feast of very beautiful quilts.  You may even find yourself questioning why one quilt got in and another was rejected.  I admit to having raised an eyebrow or two myself, but I also know how difficult the job is.  And, typically the jurors work as a team, so it can be even harder to come to a consensus. 

I also wanted to mention this note.  As tempting as it is to want to try to determine what the jurors for a particular exhibit are drawn to, there simply is no way to second guess what the next set of jurors will want or like.  I don't worry too much about my rejected quilts and that's because when I was making them, they needed to be made.  There was something in the project that spoke loudly enough to me that I was motivated to do it.  And because quilts are so much work and take so much time that voice has to be pretty loud for me to listen.  In the grand scheme of things I have found that I learn something for each quilt I make.  I frequently make the same mistake more than once.  I also push myself to try new things.  I don't always know where the work will lead me, but I trust that I need to go there.  Growth is not always a straight path.

Okay, here are my quilts that are going to the show!

Unfinished

Two Halves

Beach Colors

Hope to see you at the show!  If you can't go, you can see glimpses on Instagram, which is what I have done the last few years. Cheers!

Quilts on Exhibit

Quilts on Exhibit

I just thought it would be fun to give you a glimpse of what is currently showing and what is coming soon!

Currently I have the following pieces exhibiting:

The Long Necked Cats and the Long Necked Bird

Wild Fabrications, SAQA, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI, Dec 17, 2017 - Feb 25, 2018

The Women's March

Threads of Resistance, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, Dec 9, 2017 - Feb 18, 2018














Coming Soon:

Wedding Rings and Crossroads

QuiltCon 2018: Pasadena, CA: Feb 22-25, 2018

Development

Concrete and Grasslands, SAQA, The Spring Knitting & Stitching Show, London, UK: March 1- 4, 2018

the Deep End

Tranquility, SAQA, Australasian Quilt Convention (AQC), Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens, Melbourne, Australia: Apr 5 - 8, 2018 

Floating in a Sea of Symbols

Personal Iconographies, Dinner@Eight, International Quilt Festival, Chicago, IL: Apr 12 - 14, 2018

i Quilt

Modern Quilts: Designs of the New Century, MQG, The Dairy Barn, Athens, OH, Apr 29 - Jun 17, 2018

Catching Up - Studio Changes

Catching Up

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 months since I've posted.  I have missed QuiltCon.  These two quilts went to the show and were happy to be seen! Since I wasn't there, I watched a lot of Periscope and Instagram.  It was so nice to get the virtual tour!

Falling

One Earth

I have been tackling a few new house projects.  The biggest is the re-finishing of my hardwood floors in my studio.  It has needed to be done for about 10 years now.  The only hitch is moving EVERYTHING out of the studio.  I mean really, who wants to do that?? Meanwhile, since everything was out of the studio, I decided it was also a good time to remove the popcorn texture from the ceiling.  My moveable design walls are just tall enough to constantly bump into that stuff and have it rain on my floor.  And, it is unattractive.

scraping off the popcorn texture

covered in dust from the patching and sanding of the ceiling

And paint? Yes! The old purple walls will be painted a nice and light reflecting white paint.  I will miss the old purple, a lot, but I think I might be able to see better with white on the walls. I also wanted to mention, for the curious among you, that my body feels significantly older than the last time I scraped ceilings and painted walls.  This may be the last time I do this.

Here is a photo of the before floor, walls, and one of the bookshelves. The bookshelves were built in place. It is a simple construction, and very effective for storage. However, the bottom board sits on the floor.  To sand the floor, the bookshelves had to go. They are too large to move, because they reach from floor to ceiling, so I had to take them out, one board at a time...

goodbye old purple walls

The most fun so far was seeing the floor after sanding.  My fabulous workers painted samples on the floor of the new colors, and I got to pick!  It was fun.  Then they sanded off the samples and then stained the floor. Also fun, hiring someone to do the work.  These guys were VERY skilled and I so appreciate their craftsmanship and professionalism.

Floor sample colors, and the new white walls

Today is the last coat of the polyurethane, and then there will be days of outgassing the fumes.  Then I will go back to work, painting and re-installing the baseboards, putting in the sink, re-building the bookshelves, and then moving back in.  The sink! I found, hidden in my closet, a functioning water supply and drain!  So I bought this little sink at IKEA.  It took quite a few hours to assemble the 6 million pieces, but I am looking forward to having it in my studio!

IKEA sink for my closet + cat

I also decide to put in new window coverings.  My old ones were purple, like the walls.  I want nice white light, so I bought a white shade for the window, and white replacement slats for the vertical blinds covering the door.  The white replacement slats were NOT white, they were beige.  Bleah....It was disappointing, but not a disaster. Paint to the rescue.  One by one, I painted both sides with wall paint.  That is actually how I got the old purple blinds purple, I painted them too.

painting the vertical blinds 

Soon I hope to be happily quilting in my studio again, instead of stumbling over pieces of my studio in the rest of the house.  Cheers!

Falling

Falling
66" x 64"

The photo above shows the design of all the elements, but unfortunately did not capture the texture from the quilting at all.  I am frustrated by how hard it is to take a good photo of a mostly white quilt.  So many photo sessions!! Argh!  I tried outside.  I tried inside, with photo lights, with the flash, without any lighting.  I tried using my old Nikon and my new Canon.  I tried many, many fixes on Photoshop to make the photo look like the actual quilt.  Many times I got all the colors right, except the green kept getting distorted.  In photo terms, it is called, "What you see is what you get".  This is supposed to work using the RAW mode.  Mine did not.  And I also shoot with a grey card from MacBeth (which I can never remember the correct name).  Meanwhile, it is very obvious when shooting a white quilt when you get the lighting wrong.  This one was close to the best I could do.  I am so grateful that the detail shots are so much easier.  The photo below looks like the quilt.  I love the way the quilting lines show every tiny little ripple. 

And despite my ranting, I am so happy to tell you that this quilt was juried into QuiltCon 2016!!  I am very pleased that it will get a public audience, one that is in person, because of the afore mentioned problems with my photographs of this quilt.  It will definitely look better in person!

You can read more about how I made it on a previous post from last March, here. As for the personal meaning for me?  I was nearing the end of a long period of grieving and wondering if I should stop quilting.  I had decided to sew up all the fabric I had into quilts (the Stashbuster project), and then quit.  Or maybe quit?  I didn't know where I was going.  I felt lost.  I also felt like I was over the hill, falling.  The metaphor of these beads falling off a string, not knowing where they were going to land fit me perfectly!

And, if you have been following my blog, it will be obvious that I haven't quit yet.  I am still working on the Stashbusters, on and off, but my muse has started singing to me again and I am working. Happily working.  And last, I would like to share with you a funny picture of my cat that I previously posted on Instagram.  The cats are supposed to stay off my quilts.  This kitten hasn't learned that yet.

QuiltCon2015 - Quilts and Vendors

QuiltCon2015 - Quilts and Vendors

QuiltCon2015 - from the Press Room

First a note about some of my favorite quilts.  These are just a FEW of the very many that I loved at the show.  I don't know why I selected these to take photos of, but I did.  If you would like to see more, you can find them on the Modern Quilt Guild website, here, or perhaps on Luana Rubin's Flickr page, here.  And many of them have been on both FB and Instagram, so please explore!  It will be worth your while if you didn't get to the show!

This one is subtle, but it draws me in.  I love it, I love the fabrics, and the quilting.  All good!

I love Amanda's work, every time I see it.  The joy of piecing curves (which I have not found yet)!  Look at all the quilting lines!  Wonderful!!

I absolutely love the pattern and colors.  This quilt sings in person.  And it is really large.  LOVE IT!

A detail of the wonderful quilting!  Love!!

Love this one.  Love the colors, but also all the wonderful modern fabrics, and the play with shapes.  Well done!

I was surprised to see the hand quilting with this.  It works wonderfully!  Good addition to an already wonderful quilt!

Love the colors and shapes!  I could stare at this one a long time!

Love the play of brights with neutrals.  Very pleasurable! See Terry's website here.

Ah, one from the wonderful tuning fork series.  Heather, you knock my socks off! Thanks for the inspiration!

Next, some of my favorite vendors.  We couldn't do all this without you!!!

To Mistyfuse, I love you!  You make my dreams come true.  I iron a bit of Mistyfuse to fabric and cut out the shape I want, and presto, it becomes real as I iron to another piece of fabric.  Magic!  This is the best stuff, ever!

To Malka Dubrawsky, my teacher and owner of Stitch N Dye, I am profoundly happy that I have found artistic expression through batik and dyeing.  Your class changed my life.  Thank you!!

To Juki and Superior Threads, you make it all come together!  You maximize many fond hours of sewing joy!

 To Havel's scissors, proud sponsors of Dinner@Eight exhibits, you make some seriously great scissors!! The newist to my collection, a pair of snippets!  Thank you!  I look forward to using them.  

Ah another favorite, friendly and welcoming, Michele Muska at ez Quilting, just like the tools she carries.  Fun booth, many great tools and inspiration for quilters!

To Soak, a new addition to my list of favorites.  I look forward to giving this one a try!  It will fill a much needed niche in the cycle of creation and caring for my creations!

After the show was over, I volunteered, along with a few new and old friends, to take down the quilts.  Here we are, hamming it up a bit!