Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Daisy Packs a Pistil

In the thrill of the moment, I've decided to give Lazy Daisy a pistil! Armed with a Pistil Stitch, the Lazy Daisy Stitch acquires a whole new look that resembles something...... I just can't put my finger on it. Here they are, all lined up with no place to go.

Here's how to make the Lazy Daisy / Pistil Stitch: Begin as you would a Lazy Daisy by exiting the fabric at point A. Now insert the needle right next to A and take a short stitch (about 1/4") and exit the fabric at B. Trap the thread under the needle and draw the needle and thread through the fabric to create a loop.

The next step is to make a  Pistil Stitch by grasping the thread in your left hand and holding it parallel to the fabric. Wind the thread clockwise around the horizontal needle 3 times. Insert the needle tip about 1/4" to the left of Point B at Point C. Now slowly draw the needle and thread through the knot to the back of the quilt.

Now I remember what this stitch combo reminds me of: bowling pins!

If you know the real name of this stitch, please let me know. If not, send someone who can carry boxes of heavy books. (See yesterday's post for clarification.)

Can This Studio Be Saved?

Three years ago my new studio furniture and lighting were installed. Mike from Tracey's Tables delivered 2 new sewing tables, 2 large quilt storage cabinets, and a raised table for fusing/creating. Isn't it pretty?

And then disaster struck!

A few days ago my beloved dryer passed away. (Sob!)  I had to clear the stairwell to get the old dryer upstairs and the new dryer down stairs. Everything on the stairwell ended up in my sewing studio including 3 bookcases full of books!

I hope my new dryer appreciates all the effort we went to getting it into place.

How to Tuesday: When Murdering Your Glue is a Good Thing

We all know this when fusing: too much heat from the iron for too long will kill fusible web on fabric. Repeated exposure to a hot iron actually burns the glue into the fabric. The fabric shapes get stiff and soon pop off the fabric like a rubber band in flight.

Don't do it!

But, as Dean of Corrections at the Chicago School of Fusing, I do give you permission to kill glue on your ironing board. The glue loves the iron and wants to melt all over it. If you get fusible web on your ironing surface, the iron will melt it and put it on your beautiful quilt top.

Here's how to kill your glue: Place Release Paper on the offending splotch of glue. Now iron the glue through the paper a good 20 - 30 seconds. This will melt the glue into the ironing board fabric and it will no longer be attracted to your hot iron.

For the iron it's like getting out of a bad romance that's a little sticky. And if it takes murdering the glue to do it, so be it. (You may have noticed. I have a little mean streak in me.)

Where Does Inspiration Come From? May I Have the Address Please?

Coleen's Calling Bird #18

Today I woke up to the sound of birds tweeting like crazy! Like musicians, dancers, and comedians, they entertain the world with their antics. They are so cheerful and happy to be alive! And that's why I make bird quilts.

It's important to find something that inspires you to create art work. Is it the rich color of a sunset, the texture of a rusty old farm implement, or the sweet voice of a little bird?

Look out for inspiration. It's lurking around every corner just waiting to grab your attention!

Guest Artist: She Stitches Like Albert Einstein

My friend Melanie is a cross-stitch genius! Just look and these 2 beautiful hearts she has cross-stitched using hand-dyed Rainbow Rich and Salt Water Taffy 6 Stranded Floss from Artfabrik. They measure about 2" across. Here is her interpretation of the stitching: The fabric is a 32ct linen (32 threads per inch), and I stitched over 2 threads, so there are 16 stitches per inch. Each heart has a stitch count of 35 x 35; 35/16 = 2.2" for each heart. 

Not sure what that means but the woman is brilliant! All she is lacking is Albert Einstien's hairdo and she would qualify as a stitching rocket scientist. Thank you for sharing your work with us Melanie!

Can You Doodle Like a Zen Master?

An easy way to jump start your next art quilt design is by doodling. There is a technique I like to use that some call Zen Doodling. (I like to call it: Fooling Around With A Pencil And Paper or FAWAPAP.)

Zen doodling is very meditative and allows you to block out the sight of dirty dishes in the sink. Here's how to begin.

• Draw an enclosed shape like a square, circle or oval. 
• Now sub-divide the shape with lines that create even more enclosed shapes.
• Fill in those shapes with motifs and patterns like dots, squares, or stripes.

Seedpods #2

My quilt, Seedpods #2, was inspired by a Zen doodle similar to the drawing above. If you'd like to learn more about this technique for designing your next quilt, please see my article in the April/May 2011 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. You can follow the process of drawing the doodle and creating the quilt (all the while ignoring the dirty dishes in the sink).

Digital Sketchbook Page 4: Can a Dot Bring You Happiness?

Digital Sketch

You know how a good dot livens up art work. That hit of color speckling the surface draws your eye right to it. Dots are like diamonds attracting us but without the expense. One of the texture making tools on the Art Studio app for the Ipad makes dots. As you can see above in my digital sketch, dots rule! How very exciting!

The French Knot is my dot of choice when adding hand embroidery to the surface of fused art quilts. A single French Knot makes a dignified door knob. Line them up and you build jolly patterns on the roof tops. Scatter French Knots around and they build up happy textures on shrubery that look like flowers.

Ah the dot! I've never met a dot I didn't love.

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Dot and Daisy, Good Friends

Meet my good friends, Dot and Daisy. Like you and your friends, they like to get together and make things. Things like fudge, and brownies, and chocolate cake with ice cream..... but I digress.

The Dot and Daisy Stitch is really a combination of the Lazy Daisy and French Knot stitches made by first building the daisy and then adding the dot on top. You may want to review those stitches or just wing it!

Here's how to make the Dot and Daisy Stitch: Begin as you would a Lazy Daisy by exiting the fabric at point A. Now insert the needle right next to A and take a short stitch (about 1/4") and exit the fabric at B. Trap the thread under the needle and draw the needle and thread through the fabric to create a loop.

The next step is to make a French Knot by grasping the thread in your left hand and holding it parallel to the fabric. Wind the thread clockwise around the horizontal needle 3 times. Insert the needle tip on the other side of the original Lazy Daisy thread loop. Now slowly draw the needle and thread through the knot to the back of the quilt.

Isn't that sweet? If you know the real name of this stitch, please let me know. If not, send chocolate.

Four Reasons to See the Visions Art Quilt Museum

Good fortune drew me to San Diego this week. After teaching the delightful and talented students at the Canyon Quilt Guild I had some really interesting food with even more interesting companions. But a highlight of the trip was a visit to the Visions Art Quilt Museum. Here is why you need to visit this museum too.

• The Museum houses gallery space especially designed for the viewing of art quilts. Gallery lighting and spacing of art is thoughtful, allowing you to experience the pieces up close and at a distance.
• Art work by Dominie Nash and Jeanne Lyons Butler is on exhibit through July 16, 2011. Although they have contrasting styles, their work actually compliments each other. Their show, aptly named Counterpoint, will enthrall you with the bold shapes and textural color of Dominie's work and calm you with the tranquil and clean collage-like constructions by Jeanne.
• Helpful staff (see above) welcome you to the gallery. There's a primo fiber oriented gift show too. I purchased a small piece by Ms. Dominie and am pleased to add it to my growing art quilt collection.
• This museum is a haven for the art quilt community. Join the Visions Art Museum today. Love it from afar, as I do, and receive informative newsletters and invitations to exhibit. Or visit the gallery in person and discuss the exhibits with friends at one of the many local restaurants within easy walking distance. I recommend the tuna sandwich at the Tin Fish.

How to Tuesday: Gunk Protection

An exciting instance of paper removal.

One of the joyous benefits of using Wonder Under # 805 fusible web is the paper that comes with the web. After you transfer the fusible web to the fabric, let it cool down, and then carefully peel the paper off in one sheet. Save this paper. It is called Release Paper.

Release Paper is really valuable like gold or diamonds or that safety pin you find in your purse when your zipper breaks. I mean valuable! And here is why.

A dramatic moment in the history of fusing.

How To Protect Your Quilt Top from a Gunky Iron: When you add a fused element to your quilt top, always put a piece of Release Paper on the quilt before ironing the fabric into place. The Release Paper protects your quilt top, keeping any glue or dirt on the iron from transferring to the quilt.

Here's another reason to use Release Paper between the iron and quilt top. Let's say your building a fused masterpiece and one piece of fabric is placed upside down (the glue is facing up instead of down). If you have Release Paper on top of the quilt, the element will fuse to the paper, not the bottom of the iron.

Take it from a woman who knows, your quilt top should always wear protection.

Is It Spring Yet? Cause I'm Not Feelin' It

Apple Orchard

Toiling away in my cold, dark basement this winter, I've held on to one idiotic dream: someday Spring will arrive! Inspired by this naive thought, I've created 3 sunny landscape patterns that are now available on the Arfabrik web site. Apple Orchard recalls my childhood and the variety of apples we grew in our orchard.  One apple variety was called a "Prairie Spy". How intriguing!

Trees on Blue River

Trees on Blue River is a tribute to every winding river that found its way to the sea.This one flows across some dry plain where the plants are just coming alive. Makes me thirsty just looking at it.

Trees by the Stream

And Trees by the Stream recalls those lazy summer days when the plants are lush and you find a spot of shade near a stream, and take a long nap. Yes, Virginia, there is a Spring! And in Illinois it should hit sometime in June.

Guest Artist: Woman Takes Vegetable to New Heights!

My friend, Stephanie Nordlin, stopped by the other day and brought her new quilt with her. Isn't this sweet?

Stephanie an excellent seamstress and winner of many a best-of-show award for garment making, but she is also into printing and dyeing fabrics. See that cabbage the bunny is nibbling? Stephanie printed that on the fabric with green textile paint. And here's the kicker. She used the sliced off base of a head of Romaine lettuce as her stamp. She will romaine in my admiration forever! Lettuce all applaud!

Want a Preview of a New Class?

Soon I'm off to the wonderful  Empty Spools Seminar in Asilomar, CA. This pilgramage to the shores of the mighty Pacific Ocean always reminds me of one thing: I can't swim. And that's why I am prepared! Or at least  prepared for the class I'm teaching.

In the class, Translating Ideas into Fabric, students will present their next great quilt design and possibly complete it that same week. Their ideas may be in the form of a sketch, photo, or just a vague idea. 

 Through modern technology, advanced fusing techniques, and the will of many people, we'll converted their ideas into fabric. It's a miracle!

 Asilomar is a delightful place to create, make new friends, and to take all those quilt ideas rambling around in your head and make them real. Just don't ask me to go for a swim.

Digital Sketchbook Page 3: What Will it Look Like in Fabric?

Fields drawn in Art Studio

The IPad has given me another way to design my quilts. As I work out compositions in the Art Studio app, I'm reminded that everything I draw has to become fabric somehow.  Ohhhhhhh the possibilities!

detail of Orchards, Fields, and Streams

Converting from sketch to cloth is challenging. You have to give up the idea that everything in the sketch has to be exactly replicated in fabric. Fabric is it's own medium with it's own wonderful qualities. Think of the sketch as a tool to help you create the quilt just like your iron, scissors, or sewing machine. Then run out and buy a new sewing machine! You'll feel much better.

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Elongate Your Daisies

While stitching a little quilt top last night I discovered another variation on the Lazy Daisy Stitch. Or to be more accurate, I made a mistake while making the Lazy Daisy and now claim to have discovered another stitch! I'm calling it the Elongated Lazy Daisy and I am not to be trusted. (This just in! Deepa reports that this is called the Long-tailed Lazy Daisy and is used in Brazilian Embroidery.)

Here's how to make the Long-tailed Lazy Daisy stitch: begin as you would a Lazy Daisy stitch with the needle and thread exiting the fabric at point A. Insert the needle tip right next to A. Take a short stitch (about 1/4") to the left and exit the fabric at B. Trap the thread under the needle and draw the needle and thread through the fabric creating a loop.

Now, instead of inserting the needle into the fabric right over the loop at B, insert the needle about 1/4" left of B at point C. Pull the needle and thread gently through the fabric to create a long stem on a tulip shaped stitch.

Congratulations, you have now elongated your daisy! Make a row of stitches like I have above our place them in a circle to make a flower like shape. Trust me, you'll love adding hand embroidery to your quilts. And Happy St. Patrick's Day too!

Four Reasons to Make Art

Coleen's Calling Birds #17

In the past few weeks I've make a series of new fused art quilts. They are small little pieces, like this one above. Each one is near and dear to my heart. These pieces are not functional in any way. They won't keep you warm in winter and as wearing apparel they're a little skimpy. So why make them?

Here are 4 perfectly good reasons to make art:

• Make art to escape. When you make art you leave the reality of everyday life. Time passes unnoticed and you enter a zone of creative consciousness away from the rest of the world.
• Make art to create something of beauty. It never hurts to add something beautiful to the world whether a garden, tasty meal, or bright quilt top. We all need loveliness in our life.
• Make art to express yourself. Tell the world about your hopes or fears or appreciation of life. Like writing a journal, quilts tell your stories in cloth.
• Make art to enrich your life. It doesn't matter what you make. The act of creating leads to discoveries about life that are well worth the journey. Enjoy the process!

How to Tuesday: What Do You Do with a Dirty Iron?

Like that famous sea shanty goes: What Do You Do with a Dirty Iron? Fusible web and fabric fibers are a bad mix when it comes to keeping your iron clean. A hot iron picks up fibers and fusible glue in a flash. Then the iron (the dirty little thing) spreads a streak of gluey slug all across your quilt top. This is a permanent glue! It's hard to get that gunk off the quilt top. So, short of throwing your iron overboard, what do you do?

Here's how to clean your iron. One solution is to purchase an iron cleaning product like Iron Off. Squirt the cleaner on a piece of old fabric that is draped over the edge of your ironing board. Now scrape the hot iron across the edge. Another option, you probably have right now in your house, is a fabric softener sheet you use in a dryer. Put a fresh dryer sheet between 2 pieces of fabric. Again scrape the hot iron across it on the edge of the ironing board.

Housing Department #4

Note: No matter what method you use, your iron will smoke. DO NOT clean your iron under a smoke detector or the fire department will come to your house! (Ask me how I know.)

Stay tuned to next week's How to Tuesday when we'll discover how not to fuse flowers to the bottom of your iron.

At Least this Guest Artist Isn't Scary!

My guest artist this week is Teddi, who recently attended my Four Little Landscapes Workshop in New Jersey. Here is a process slide of her quilt she began in class (she'll be adding more details with hand stitching soon). Isn't the pairing of the dotty batik fabric with the hand dyed fabrics perfect?

In this class, students begin by free-cutting small motifs like triangle, squares, jelly beans, or what ever their little heart desires. After loosening up, they then make small landscapes for the center of a 9" block. Some choose a theme like Teddi's lovely house vignettes above. One student, in a previous class, made a series of blocks depicting the scary demise of a chicken. (Well, it's not like he didn't see it coming!)

Exhibit in France- Oolala!

Meet my friend Monique Bonnet Imbaud. Here we are at the 2010 Houston quilt show exchanging greetings, books, and the desire for a hot cup or coffee. She has 2 lovely volumes: Quiltez en Rolls and Créez en Rolls. Yum! I like the idea of rolls with my coffee

For several years Monique has exhibited my quilts at various venues in France. Soon I'll send 5 little quilts to exhibit at Quilt Expo en Beaujolais in Lyon. Wish I could travel with them especially as I see the show is in the heart of the Beaujolais vineyards. Alas, another opportunity thwarted!

If you're in the area, please send me a case of wine.

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Why Does This Woman Need a Big Eraser?

Me and my eraser erasing mistakes in Vegas.

It's true, perfection is not one of my strong points. And when hand stitching fused art quilts, occasionally a mistaken stitch is applied to the quilt top. Do we wail or gnash our teeth?

YES!!!  And, after a deep breath, we simply remove the offending thread.

This is the beauty of adding hand stitching to your quilt tops. You can always pull out the thread if you don't like it. We are so lucky not to be stone sculptors. Imagine! One wrong hit of the hammer and you can lose a limb!     I mean the limb on the sculpture, not your actual limb.

Big Thread

So feel free to pull out your hand embroidery stitches if you don't like them. Erase those needle marks by stroking the tip of your needle across the fabrics to get the fabric weave back into place. No one will ever know. I mean it's not lopping off a toe or something.

So, Whatcha Up To?

In a flurry of activity last month (fueled by coffee and cookies from the Coffee Press Cafe), I shipped out stacks of Fanciful Stitches, Colorful Quilts to my lovely blog readers, you!

And now I sit here like a frog anticipating lunch. Anyone make something from the book yet? If so, I'd love to see it!
(Also, I'd steer away from the coffee at the Coffee Press, it has this iron flavor that's a little off putting.)

How to Tuesday: Got Glue? Why You Need WU WU

Fuser that is also older than dirt.

Fusible web has been around longer than dirt! Remember Stitch Witchery for hemming trousers? Remember trousers? Used to glue or fuse 2 pieces of fabric together, fusible web is a dry glue activated by the heat of a iron and comes in a variety of weights and sizes.

How to pick the best fusible web for your project. Without naming names, there are several brands of fusible web to avoid if you are making fused art quilts. Some brands are like plastic and sink into the fabric staining it. Some are bulky, have a tackiness that picks up fibers, or gum up your needle when stitching. These brands have their uses but are not for the fabrics we use when making quilts.

Don't worry. The iron's not actually plugged in.

Instead, I can highly recommend Wonder Under #805, Soft Fuse, and for light weight fabrics, Misty Fuse,
Wonder Under #805 (affectionately called WU WU) comes with release paper and is the right weight for assembling your fused art quilts. After steam setting, it stitches like butter (not that I often stitch butter).

If you are a confirmed fuser, check out Soft Fuse. It's 37" wide! Purchase it online or directly from Stacy Michell at a quilt show. And light weight fabrics need a light weight glue like Misty Fuse. It doesn't come with paper so transfer it to fabric with Silicone Release Paper or a Teflon sheet. I use it on silk fabric all the time.

 You've fused a million times and you have the dirty iron to prove it. No matter what brand you use, I hope fusing will give you hours of hot, sticky fun!

What Must the TSA Think?

Do you get those little slips of paper in your luggage when you travel by air that says the bag was checked by the TSA? I have collected so many of them, I can now wallpaper my living room.

This is what greets the TSA as they check my bags at the airport. It's a nightmare of thread and fabric and quilts. I can hear the shouting, "What's this woman up to? There's enough fiber in here to cause every passenger on a 747 intestinal distress! Call the Manager!"

If you'd like to see where I'm flying to next in order to change your flight plans (and thus avoid any distress), please see my teaching schedule.