Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Variegated Threads

 Almost all the threads I use for my hand embroidery are of variegated colors. True, some colorways I dye are colors that are very close in value (like Oranges above) but most change colors every 2-3 inches like the colorway Moss (seen below).

So why choose variegated pearl cotton thread for my hand embroidery? Changes in color value or hue make the surface more active and tantalize the eye. I'm making small quilts and I want to draw the viewer closer and hold their attention. Color is the first thing we notice when we look at art so why not give the viewer lots of color with variegated thread. Variegated thread makes for some lively stitching!

Martin County Quilters

The Martin County Quilters honored me by inviting me to teach at their first annual retreat in Stuart, FL. These talented and fun loving girls were so kind and easy going. Above are a few examples of the pieces they made in the Tree Top Be-Bop class held at the JaM Patch quilt shop in Stuart, FL. I love the JaM Patch people; they are so very friendly. Thanks Martin County Guild!

Treat Your Feet!

If you are attending the Quilt Festival in Long Beach this weekend and your feet are killing you, please stop in and say "Hi!" to my cousin Tim. He's in Booth #1356 and has the best floor mats for those of us who stand all day long. If you can't go to the show, then check out his web site at Ground Floor Packaging.

Long armers love these mats. And even lowly dyers who dye thousands of yards of thread all week long need to treat their feet. I can truly say, Tim's mats give you happy feet!

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Stitching Station

Most evenings I plop down on my comfy leather reading chair and stitch for an hour or two while ignoring the television set. It's important to me to have a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the stitch process. Above is what you'll see surrounding me at my stitching station.

There are my skeins of pearl cotton threads in sizes 5, 8, and 12 ready to pull from their metal loop holder and a small quilt ready for stitching. The little scissors and my thimbles fit inside an eyeglass case that also holds my packets of needles. That orange thing in the lower left is where I stick the needles I'm using. It's a home-made needle holder made from a piece of Timtex folded in half and covered with fused fabric. The felt inside is also fused into place so there is something easy to slip the needles into.

That white blob on the left? It's my stitching light. The light has a magnifier but I don't use it cause it drives me nuts!  Do you have a place to sit and stitch? I hope its a comfy chair like mine.

Thread Dyeing Marathon

About twice a year I do some heavy duty dyeing.This means putting on dye stained clothing, praying a rubber glove doesn't leak, and discovering fuchsia dye dripping down my foot. It's a great time of year!

This week I'm dyeing pearl cotton thread in my standard 58 colorways. It's a long process. After reeling the thread into a skein, I mix the dyes and paint the dyes on the pre-treated skeins. Later I wash and wash and wash the skeins by hand with buckets and buckets of water. (Dye week is also a good week to do laundry as I can use the laundry waste water to fill my buckets for thread washing.) And like my hero, Scarlett O'Hara, I'll worry about untangling and twisting all the dried thread into skeins..... tomorrow

Here is the finished product all tucked inside their little draws waiting for a stitcher hold and love them. They're colorful threads. They need a colorful cabinet to hold them (bought at Costco years ago).

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Arrow Stitch

The Arrow Stitch is a handy stitch for creating branches for your little trees or as a decorative feature for the surface of your quilt. Vary the distance between stitches or lengthen the stitches to ignite even more pointy textures.

Here's how I make my Arrow Stitches: Bring the needle and thread up at point A and re-insert the needle about 1/4" down and 1/4" to the right of A at point B. Slide the needle under the fabric to point C which is about 1/4" up and 1/4" to the right of point B.You want points A, B, and C to form a right angle. Draw the thread through the fabric at point C.

Now re-insert the needle at point B and slide the needle under the fabric to a new point A which is about 1/4" to the left of point B. Draw the thread through the fabric. Repeat the above instructions beginning with the new point A.

The Arrow Stitch is the perfect stitch to decorate the edges of this little quilt called Small World #6. Small World is indeed small measuring a mere 9" x 9". It is part of a new series of improvisational quilts I'm playing with at this time.

Four Little Landscapes
If you are a lucky attendee of the Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza (September 16 - 19, Philadelphia) you may now sign up for one of my new classes, Four Little Landscapes. Brave quilt makers attending the class will first construct a very small landscape (4" x 4") and then design a decorative border. Your little fused quilts are so fast and fun I predict you'll make several configurations like this one above. After you make a few, you can join them into sets of 2, 3, or even 4 to make larger quilts.

Its amazing what my talented students have come up with in this class already. Everything from beach scenes, to mountain ranges, to the never ending prairie. Their landscapes may be little but they are delightful!

Stitch after Fusing Finished!
Congratulations to Nancy, one of my students who recently finished her lovely quilt above in my Stitch after Fusing class. Note the Pistil Stitch on the tulips and the wrapped binding to finish it with curvy edges. Love that vase!

Here's another Stitch after Fusing quilt by Terri of Minnesota (the best classroom helper ever)! She amazed herself by actually finishing a project she started in class. And then she went on to make 2 more small art quilts. 
Thank you Nancy and Terri. I love seeing what my students do!

Thread-u-cation Thursday: The Ten Commandments of Stitching a Fused Art Quilt

Thread-u-cation Thursday: The Ten Commandments of Stitching a Fused Art Quilt
These Ten Commandments were inspired by the following note from a reader we shall call, Jeanne:
I love your humor! I have a hard time getting the needle through a fused piece - I know I'm a 150 lb weakling, but could it also be the needle I'm using? What, oh Queen of Fusing, do you suggest?
Signed,
Jeanne

Dearest Jeanne,
I love your humor too! (And stop bragging about your weight.) When making a fused art quilt for stitching there are few things to keep in mind:

1. Thou shalt not kill thy glue! We are working with a heat activated glue. If you expose it to too much heat from an iron for too long it makes the fabric really stiff and burns the glue into the fabric. It also makes it difficult to hand stitch. When constructing your quilt top just fuse-tack the design elements for a few seconds to hold the shapes into place.
2. Thou shalt steam thy glue! Fabric with fusible web must be steam set for 10 seconds to make it permanent and to make it easier to stitch through.
3. Thou shalt use batting that is easy to stitch through! Some batts are so dense you can barely get an embroidery needle through them. Test the batting first before applying your quilt to the batt. I like Hobbs Premium 80/20 or Fairfield's Cotton Classic.
4. Thou shalt fused thy quilt to the non-scrim side of the batting! Fusing to the scrim side of the batt may ripple the quilt and no amount of stitching will fix it.
5.  Thou shalt not have too many layers of fused fabric! My dainty little fingers can only stitch through 3 layers of fused fabrics. Anything more and I make sure I don't have a lot of stitches to add in that area.
6. Thou shalt use a thimble! Its that added layer of protection that keeps your dainty little fingers happy and safe.
7. Thou shalt use a needle that is appropriate for thy thread! See the embroidery needle chart to match your thread with your needle. Then test out various brands. For instance, I discovered that the Size 4 Richard Hemmings Needles work better on my Size 8 thread than a size 3 needle.
8. Thou shalt stitch only through the top layers of the fabric! There is no need to make every stitch go entirely through the batting and top layers. Just skim the needle and thread under the fabric to create your stitches.
9. Thou shalt have good lighting so thou shalt not go blind and stab thyself! You need to see what you're doing.
10. Thou shalt relax and enjoy thyself! I can not stress this enough. Relax and enjoy the process. It will change your art.

Sunny Fairfield Quilt
Its always a sunny day on the Fairfield Batting web site. When you visit their site, look for the spinning sun in the upper right corner. That's my quilt!  It was commissioned by Fairfield for their booth at Quilt Market and later incorporated into their new web site design.  (When you place the mouse over the sun it spins even faster!)

There are lots of little scenes they've created on different pages of the site. You'll see my houses throughout the site. And check out this page where the Yellow Chair and Blue Chair are sitting together in a room.

Class at the National Quilt Museum, Paducah, KY
I shall return! To Paducah, KY that is. The National Quilt Museum has invited me to teach a 3 day version of my class, Fusing Fun: Fast Fearless Art Quilts this September 23 - 25.  Its a great opportunity to visit the city, the quilt museum, and the local artisan shops without the crowd and hub-bub of quilt week. I am so looking forward to the prospect of fall in Kentucky as well. 

In the class, expect to make lots of art quilts. Learn fusing tips like free-cutting, collage building, bias fusing and more. And plan for some hand embroidery on the quilt tops too. The object of this class is to develop your own art quilt style and to create original work. So please join me! All the information is on the National Quilt Museum web site. See you there!

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Stitchy Decisions
I've been doing an lot of hand stitching lately and am amazed at how hard it is to choose the right stitch for the right area of the quilt. Decisions, decisions, decisions!
So I've given myself a few guidelines.  Dear self, try this:

1. Start with the focal point of the design and stitch it first. That way you get all the important stitching done and don't over-stitch an unimportant part of the quilt (and then have to balance the composition out by over-stitching the focal point!)

2. Add accent marks with the thread that help define the shape. Like adding a French Knot to act as a doorknob so you recognize it as ....... a door.

3. Outline fabric shapes to help the shape and color pop away from the background fabric. You can do this with an Outline Stitch.

4. Build pattern on the surface to create a repetition of motif and help reinforce the theme of the piece like the stitching on these fields. There is the Pistil Stitch, Running Stitch, and Cross Stitch.

5. Add stitches in large open spaces to create movement and texture. The Running Stitch in the background of this quilt swims along with the pattern of the machine stitching and adds an overall texture to the piece.

6. And remember, self, enjoy the process. You can always rip out the stitches if you don't like them.