Top Stitch – Day 2

Quiltina and I are ready for our second day of Top Stitch ~ Hanging Lampshades!

We started once again at Bungalow Quilts to choose our palette. Then we took the bolts back to the college and jumped right in. I decided to use my Repliqué technique and make my lampshade a winter scene (in contrast to the 86 degrees outside the door), so my fabrics were much more subdued today (note the metal frame rings at the bottom of the image. Judy has these specially made by a man in Arizona for her fun and funky lampshade pattern):

I’d drafted my scene at home and reversed it in preparation for Repliqué:

Once again, in my mind, this was going to be a quick project. And once again, I found I sew much slower than I think I do. The process wasn’t difficult, but there was a lot of stitching, trimming, and tearing away of paper.

and by 4:30 I was nowhere near done.

Instead of dwelling on that here – let me introduce you to my dear friend Deanna.

Deanna Springer was Nancy Zieman’s right hand woman, and now continues Nancy’s legacy as one of the Stitch It Sisters! Deanna and her sisters, Dana and Denise, are part of the Nancy Zieman Production team – and this is what they do:

“Nancy Zieman Productions (Team NZP) is honored to carry on Nancy’s legacy and love of sewing and quilting through sharing Nancy’s time-saving sewing techniques at the Nancy Zieman Productions Blog, developing sewing notions for Clover Needlecraft, Inc., fashion garment patterns for The McCall Pattern Company, fabric collections for Riley Blake Designs, creating quilt patterns for QuiltWoman, and co-managing The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show with PBS Wisconsin.”

Deanna told me Nancy treated her like a little sister and taught her so much. During Top Stitch she often spoke about different techniques she learned from Nancy, but she is definitely a creative talent in her own right. I’ve worked with Deanna at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show every year (the show is next week!!! click here for the show’s site and to sign up for my lecture 😊).

Top Stitch gave me the wonderful opportunity to get to know her better, and what a blessing that was! We had many giggles together over the 3 day event.

This day, when the judges arrived, Mary and Jill were ready for them while Deanna and I were still stitching away. Judy was joined by Professor Rafael Salas. He has a Masters in Fine Arts and teaches at the college. Cindy Joyce is a former sewing teacher at Fox Valley Tech. Each day we would share the story of our creation with them before they deliberated. Afterwards they would give us each a helpful critique and announce that day’s points. Is was a great learning experience. 

In the image below I finally just pinned what I had into the frame, even though it wasn’t where I wanted it to be, (what a blessing we weren’t downgraded for not finishing in the amount of time allotted)

and joined the others to help Deanna “get ‘er done”. What a great group of ladies! We were all cheering for each other!

And here we all are with our lamps!

Mary’s paper pieced design was made to match a quilt in her bedroom. Jill’s was also made to match the decor in a room in her home. Isn’t sewing great?!? We love to do it and we create useful objects! Deanna chose a layer cake of Tula Pink™ fabrics to make her pieced design, and mine was made to hang in our log home 😊.

Since returning home I did finish my lamp and was finally happy with it. I’d planned to do the entire piece with raw-edged repliqué, but the fabric I chose for the deer frayed quite a bit, so my first order of business after unpacking was to unpin the shade from the frame and satin stitch over those raw edges.

Then I figured out a way to put it back into the frame and have the moon look like it extended off the top edge. I was pleased with the result and again… I learned a lot!

I think the tulle shadows were very effective, and one of my favorite parts of the design.

I lost points on my score for day 2 because of a number of things (don’t we always know our own problem areas?), and deservedly so. But there was one comment the judges made that I have to share. I used an ombré/gradation fabric for the sky and placed it so the light area was at the top, near the moon. The judges commented that the lighter portion should have been along the horizon. You probably knew that, but I drove back to the lake house debating this in my mind. The moon was the light source in my design and the lighter area should be near it ~ right?

Once “home” I googled images of “a full moon on snow”, and the judges were right! Then it hit me. The moon only reflects light, so it wouldn’t brighten up anything behind it! There’s so much to learn in this world. I’ll do it right on the next lamp ~ but I’m not going to change this one 😁.

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And one last comment. I’ve written two books on Repliqué, and both are out of print (although I still have “Snuggle and Learn Quilts for Kids” available on my website, in case you’re interested in adding words to your quilts). If you’d like to learn to repliqué photos or drawings you may be excited to know that I’m in the editing stage of my fifth book and all the instructions for my original technique are there, plus step-by-step instructions for adding tulle shadows, and a whole lot more:

Please stay tuned for the grand appearing of book #5!