Have Web, Will Travel
Soon I shall be on the road spreading the word that you too can make lots of fun art quilts! My first stop in early February is at the Quilters Guild of Charlotte, NC, a refined group of people with excellent taste. Then I'm off to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival where I frantically leap from class to class (must bring a leotard).
At the end of March I'll be back hanging around several guilds in the Columbia, SC area whether they want me or not.

If you still haven't had enough of me, then try Charlotte, NC in June. Registration for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium.has already begun. I'll be packing my hand-dyed fabrics and threads with me every time I travel along with my current stitching project (no leotard required).

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Pistil Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursdays- Pistil Stitch
The pistil stitch has me hooked and now I must use it on everything!  It's a relative of the French knot only taller and sassier. Making a French knot (see my Jan. 21 blog entry) is very similar to making the pistil stitch except you extend where you return the needle. So, rather than sticking the needle back down where it came out, you stab it down away from the entry wound.. Here's how I do it:

Hold the thread horizontal to the fabric and wind it around the needle 3 times. Select a point about 1/4" - 1/2" away from where the thread came up out of the fabric. Insert the needle into the fabric and slowly draw the thread through the knot while still holding the thread gently in your left hand.

Pistil stitches are not only for....pistils. I use them for little bird necklaces and head dresses as well. This is a detail from Coleen's Calling Birds #13 made with hand-dyed silk and stitched with Size 12 threads. Doesn't she look fetching?

Frieda's New Book

My friend Frieda Anderson has a beautiful new book out published by the best publisher in the world, C&T Publishing. Fabric to Dye For gives you step-by-step instructions for dying fabrics that are perfect for unique quilt making. She also walks you through the process for making a 5 fused art quilts with your new hand-dyed fabric. Order it directly from Frieda and she'll autograph it for you too!

One of my favorite stitchers is Susan Hinckley. Her work is witty, colorful, and fun.Visit her blog, Small Works in Wool, for some wonderful and wacky images. You can also see more of her work here. I just love her use of text and stitchery along with other embellishments.

Pretty Planet #3

The hand stitching on Pretty Planet went really fast and was so much fun! The running stitch makes up the fields. Straight stitches are really useful for grass, window frames, and adding stripes to the tree trunks. Bead-like French knots decorate the trees and house. All easy stitches done with Size 8 threads.

After I wrapping the quilt top around the Timtex and adding a back, I machine stitched the blue background fabric. Now all I need is a hanging loop like this one and its ready to go!

Construction Zone

In celebration of the new year, I've started a new set of small pieces. For this round quilt, I'm using my baskets brimming with lots of fused scraps. My fusing table is completely covered with a Teflon sheet so I can fuse right to the table top rather than using release paper. 

The finishing technique I'm using is a Wrapped Binding (directions now available on my web site). When the composition is complete, I peel it off, steam set it to a circle of batting, hand stitch it, and the add Timtex and a backing. Stay tuned and I'll show you the completed project in a few days......maybe.

A Thread is Born

Look at this mess! I've dyed and washed and dyed and washed even more thread and now it stares me in the face everyday. Hanging from the water pipers in my dye studio, it air dries and I try to ignore it. But noooooooo! It nags me every day screaming "Twist my skeins, you lazy lout!"

Again, too much time in the dye studio.

Thread-u-cation Thursday: French Knots

Thread-u-cation Thursday- French Knots
Ah the French! Creators of exotic and tasty things like French fries, French toast, and of course the French knot. A French knot sits on the surface of fabric like a fly on your nose. And just like a fly, it demands attention! 

Here's how I make my French knots: Grasp the thread in your left hand and hold it parallel to the fabric. Wind the thread clockwise around the horizontal needle 3 times.

Holding the wound thread in place, scoot the tip of the needle just next to where the thread initially emerged from the fabric. (Don't pull the thread too tight around the needle.) Poke the needle into the fabric and slowly draw the thread through the knot to the back.

The trick here is to continue to gently grip the thread in your left hand so the thread doesn't tangle as its drawn through the knot.

Here's a tip: if the thread slips off the needle before you can insert it into the fabric: use the fingernail on your right hand to hold the wound thread into place.

French knots are the perfect stitch for adding a hit of color, to build texture, or to add an accent mark you can not make with fabric. Use them for flowers, doorknobs, or those creepy eyes on a fly!

Lint Winner Announced!
I had no idea. Apparently lint is a much desired commodity and I have a gold mine of lint right here in my studio. People emailed me, commented on the blog, and even telephoned me with their linty ideas. You are all deserving of this fine colorful stuff but the winner of the rainbow of lint is Natalya. Please visit her website and blog to see her beautiful art work.

Harmonica and I shall continue to collect lint (even if it is of the gray variety) and pray that it doesn't blow up the house. Thank you all for being part of the Lint Lovers Lottery!

Lint Lovers' Lottery

Delight, oh ye lint lovers of the world! My dryer, Harmonica, collects this colorful lint for me after every load of colorfully dyed fabric. Isn't it pretty?

And now you can have this lint for your own peculiar purposes. Interested? If so, enter my Lint Lovers Lottery by leaving a little comment below on what you would do with this lovely lint. If you are the most deserving of the lint, I shall send it to you where ever you live. 

Duck and Harmonica

Meet Duck and Harmonica, my musical washer and dryer. If you put too much fabric in Duck, he quacks and quacks when agitated. Sometimes the sound drives me out of the dye studio! Mild mannered Harmonica plays a soothing harmonic tone when she dries my fabric. She hums a note, waits a decent interval, then repeats the same pleasant note. Later this week I'll reveal what other talent Harmonica has. Can you guess?

Well, looks like someone is spending too much time in the dye studio.

Line Up

At an impromptu meeting of the Chicago School of Fusing Faculty, it was determined that holiday parties can extend into the New Year. Here we are partying like it was 2009. Famous artists visiting me are: Frieda Anderson, Anne Lullie, (me), Jane Sassaman, Trish Williams, and Judy Perez. We gabbed, we ate, we gossiped, we laughed. And in a stunning revelation, Frieda declared that she had finally cleaned her studio. A good day with good friends!

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Running Stitch

Running Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursdays

This is the first in a series on my favorite embroidery stitches. Today's stitch is the easiest, yet most misunderstood of all stitches, the Running Stitch. Here's how to make it: going from right to left, draw the thread to the surface, then plunge the needle and thread back down through the fabric. Repeat.

 

I'm stitching through just the top and batting layers of this quilt with a Size 8 thread and Size 3 embroidery needle. To mark a straight line, I place a ruler on the fabric, run my fingernail next to the ruler, and stitch in the groove.

 

You too can get in the groove. Line up Running Stitches, curl them around, make them short, or long. There are endless possibilities for the lowly Running Stitch. Try it today!

Little Bird Nesting

The best part of winter in Illinois is the inability to go anywhere. Some people get cabin fever.  I get stitchin'.   I rediscovered this little quilt (6" x 6") recently and remember how much fun it was to embroider it; making it all up as I went along.  Most of the stitching is done in a Size 8 Rainbow Medium thread with the nest in a Size 12 Lime Frappe. These quiet days are the perfect time to sit and sew.

Bon Voyage!

As I sit here in the chill of my basement studio, I envision the joy of a Caribbean cruise. Warm beaches, cold drinks, sunny skies! Imagine sand between your toes and no long underwear.

If you need a break from winter (and the binding of your long underwear), then join me in a Quilt Seminar at Sea. I'll be teaching on the cruise ship, Noordam, February 6 -16, 2011. Its only a year away and already I'm practicing my samba.

Machine Quilting Unlimited Arrives
(I must get this cover framed!) Thanks to Machine Quilting Unlimited for placing Birdland on the cover and for 5 pages of really high quality color images of my quilts. The color reproduction is really spot on in this glossy magazine.
Articles abound  on design, exhibits, and technique. There is also a thrilling description of the Chicago School of Fusing and it's faculty. It's a must read!

Coleen's Calling Birds #7

A New Year of Travel
I'm looking forward to a new year of travel, teaching, and making new friends.You can find me at the Charlotte, NC Quilters' Guild in early February. Then, like a little bird, I'm flitting off to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA. By mid-March I return to the south where it looks like I'm the guest lecturer at the Quilters of South Carolina Spring meeting. Let's hope I'm prepared.

Platter of Thread, My Dear?

A few people had questions about the miracle of thread dyeing. The threads I dye for Artfabrik are used in hand and machine work. You can put a Size 12 on an empty spool and stitch with a 14/90 embroidery needle on your machine. Or wind a Size 12, size 8 or even size 5 onto a bobbin from the spool and use it for bobbin work. I dye a size 3 (couching) and 6 stranded (embroidery) too. There's a short movie on how to use the threads on the Thread Page.

Here's how I dye the thread. I buy white pearl cotton thread, wind it into skeins, and paint the dye (Procion MX) on the pre-soaked (soda ash water) skeins as they lay on a platter. The thread dries out, then I bundle it up, and, this is the hard part,  hand wash it so it doesn't tangle. Voila, you have beautiful hand-dyed cotton thread in a vast variety of colors. It's a miracle!