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Thread Painting

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Way back in 2000, when I was developing projects for my first book, I stumbled onto a technique called thread painting. I wanted to make the cones on my Coneflower quilt spikey. I decided to try dropping the feed dogs on my machine, threading it with a variegated thread, stitching in a “cone-ish” way and seeing what developed. I was very pleased with my first effort and was excited that it was beginner easy!

A few years later I had the chance to take a class with Nancy Prince. She’s an award winning quilter and  excellant teacher. Her method in her Quilt Savvy book  requires so much thread that she often makes her motifs on a separate fabric with stabilizer and then cuts them out and stitches them to her quilts. I made this tree in class and was pleased with her wonderful technique.

 

The stabilizer is still under the stitching, waiting to be washed away. I haven’t done any more of it yet, but it’s stored in my bag of tricks, waiting for just the right project :-).

Ann Fahl is another teacher who does great thread painting. In many of her pieces she adds the thread to the quilt top before quilting. She then quilts around these areas allowing them to puff a bit and not have the flat look that occurs when the threadwork is done in the quilting step.

I’ve just finished my latest project and………SUPRISE!……….it contains some thread painting. I’ll share the new quilt along with some detail shots in Thursday’s posts.

Have you any adventures in thread painting to share?

 

Friendship Exchanges II

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Thanks to everyone who responded! I appreciate all the great suggestions. Now Wendy and I need to do a bit of brainstorming and share our ideas with the Irish quilters. We’ll let you know what we come up with :-).

Friendship Exchanges

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I’ve recently begun a delightful email relationship with one of the quilters I met in Ireland on our Sew We Go trip last October. Sandlin and I have been sharing stories about our families, faith and quilting. She’s currently making a quilt using Replique for her grandson. It’s delightful and really makes me smile.

You can visit her guild’s blog at: www.westernips.blogspot.com

Wendy and I are hoping to put together some sort of friendship exchange/challenge with our Irish travelers and the Galway branch of the Irish Patchwork Society. We haven’t come up with the details yet and I was wondering if any of you have done long distance exchanges that were successful.

I did one in the early 1990’s that was great fun. I was living in Madison, WI and belonged to Mad City Quilters. A group of quilters in Freiburg, Germany contacted us for a challenge and also invited a group from Bern, Switzerland. The German quilters chose 3 fabrics (1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green print) and sent 20 packets of the 3 fabrics to us and 20 to the Swiss quilters also. We, along with 20 German quilters, were to each make a small wall quilt using the fabrics. That was it! The resulting quilts were delightful! Here’s mine:

The most exciting part was that we were able to send them all to Freiburg and have all 60 hung in their town hall. Then all 60 came here and were displayed at the Civic Center on State Street in Madison. Lastly the quilts were exhibited in Bern before we each got ours back. This quilt has been many places I haven’t.

The added fun of this Irish exchange is that we’ve met the quilters from Galway. Now to come up with the perfect challenge (perfect is a relative term :-). Any suggestions? I’m really hoping for some helpful input from all you talented folk! Ta ta til Thursday!

Well Behaved Beads II

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Trying to pick up tiny beads, with a tiny needle, which is tethered by a thread to your work can be aggravating. A few years back I came up with a way to make those beads behave and the magic tool is clear mailing tape! It’s really quite simple:

1.  Wrap a piece of mailing tape, sticky side out, around the forefinger of your non-dominant hand (left, if you’re right handed).

2.  Pour the beads onto a flat surface and dip your taped finger into them.

3.  Knot your thread and bring it up through the quilt where the bead needs to go, pick a bead off the tape with the tip of the needle, attach the bead and repeat.

Voila! Beading can be done in the doctor’s office, at kid’s sporting events and even in a moving vehicle. One of the best advantages of this technique is that the beads are close to the work area and so, as the thread gets shorter, the beads are easy to reach.

Have fun beading!

Well Behaved Beads

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Sometimes quilts need a bit of extra sparkle and beads can be just the right touch.  Here is a quilt I call “Confetti” with detail shots of the beads:

 

 

 

 

 

Bead shops are almost as much fun to wander through as quilt shops, but how do you make beads work on a quilt? I’ve discovered my own ways and will do a bit of sharing. Even though these pictures don’t do the tiny beads justice, I hope you get the idea :-).

Typically I don’t use beads on bed quilts, but they can really add something on wall hangings and quilted accessories. The first time I attempted to add beads to a project was during a crazy quilting phase. This Christmas stocking has only a few beads, but they were a nice addition:

Years ago Sharon Rotz gave me a crazy quilt pillow which I still treasure. She did a great job of embellishing with beads.

Her latest blog topic is “pillows”. To read all about it go to: http://sharonrotz.blogspot.com/ 

And speaking of other blogs. Cheryl Anderson takes beading to a whole new level in her crazy quilts. She shares a lovely beaded ornament on her blog:

http://cheryls-chatelaine.blogspot.com/2010/07/class-on-beaded-ornaments.html

In 1997 I made a Green Bay Packers quilt to celebrate winning the Super Bowl. It was made as a sample in a Fast Patch Sampler class I was teaching at the local tech college (watch here – it may be taught again :-). Beads added to the festive feel. We’re enjoying this quilt all over again with our recent win!

The beads adorn the streamers along the right panel of the quilt and also attach some of the buttons. In addition, I’ve used beads on small purses:

 My “Crossings” series quilts are where I’ve really gotten into beading, but that’s a topic deserving it’s own post.

In Thursday’s post I’ll share my favorite way to make beads behave while attaching them to your quilt. In the mean time, do you have any quilts with beads you’d like to share, or maybe a favorite technique for attaching them to your quilt??? 

Spirals

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I’m so glad many of you enjoyed “Leah Day’s 365 Days of Free Motion Designs”. She has really inspired me!

I mentioned in Monday’s post that I find the quilting process to be so much more fun if I’m quilting a free mo design I like doing. I have many “favorites” (and there are so many left to try :-), but so far the design I enjoy the most is spirals. The secret to good spirals is:

#1 – Practice!

#2 – Make them fun sized! So often we think everything has to be “stipplelike” tiny. Most normal quilters don’t do projects that need tight and tiny designs and making your designs a bit more open often yields a more pleasing effect.

#3 – Leave yourself an out! Begin by starting a circle the size of a quarter or even a half dollar. As you spiral in make sure you leave the channel opening double the size you want the actual channel to be.

#4 – Circle out down the center of the channel opening and once you reach the “exit”, continue around the outside until you feel like branching off and starting another spiral.

#5 – Be careful. With a little practice these can become addictive!

For those of you in Wisconsin; next Saturday, February19, I’ll be teaching Beyond Meandering for the Hustisford Community Ed Department. Hustisford is a small town on Hwy. 60, north of Watertown. This is a workshop for quilters who have tried a bit of free motion quilting and are already tired of stippling or meandering. There are so many fun designs to try and we’ll play with a bunch! The class will run from 9 – 3 at Hustisford High School. To sign up please contact Cindy Fitzsimmons at 920-349-3261 ext. 228 or . For more information feel free to contact me. Thanks and happy quilting :-)!

Free Motion Fillers

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All you need to be a good free motion quilter is practice. With enough of it you may reach the point where quilting the quilt is as much fun as making the top. I’ve reached that point and truly enjoy learning new designs. In case you missed a recent comment from Johanna, I’d like to share the site she recommended. It’s http://www.daystyledesigns.com/365project.htm. Leah Day is a quilter who has challenged herself to come up with a new free mo design each day for a year. She’s close to completing this challenge and, by going to her site, you can not only see the day’s design, but watch a short video on how she does it. The best part is that all of her designs are at your fingertips with just a click of the mouse. I truly admire Leah’s creativity and have enjoyed playing with some of her designs.

The one that has intriqued me the most so far is called Fiery comet:

and Angles and Circles is a close second:

Angles and Circles by Leah Day

 They are a great leaping off point for me to make a variation of my own. What I find makes quiting fun is choosing a design that I feel like doing that day. I always tell my students that if you choose a design because you think a judge might feel it’s the right one, you probably won’t enjoy the quilting and the end product won’t be your best effort. Instead, decide what you feel in the mood for that day and go at it with abandon. Things turn out better when you want to do them and they actually get done!

On Thursday I’ll share my favorites. What are yours?

PS It’s 3:30 on Super Bowl Sunday – Go Pack!