The Visual Language of Quilting presentation

What a great turn out at the Crazy Quilters quilt guild meeting today! Nearly 30 members were in attendance for my presentation, "The Visual Language of Quilting" and free-motion quilting demonstration.

My quilt angels, Sharon and Vicky, assisted with my trunk show.
Here there are with my quilt, "Break free. Take flight."

In the presentation, I discussed the various roles the quilting plays and how it contributes to the telling of the quilt's story. The quilt above, "Break Free. Take Flight," is a good illustration of the quilting (a bird cage from which the bird has escaped) taking a leading role in the composition. Below, "Sedona Desert Rose," has a more traditional flavor in style, fabric and color choices and the quilting motifs follow suit.

Here is Vicky modeling my hand dyed quilted vest with origami roses. Her pretty salmon colored blouse is the perfect complement.

Along with the trunk show, the Crazy Quilters guild asked for a demonstration on free-motion quilting. During the demo, we had a great discussion about threads, thread weight and fiber content, needles, and machine tension.

I use Machingers quilting gloves when I free-motion quilt.

I brought an example of machine trapunto along for the trunk show. I'm developing a class on this technique and hope to be offering it soon.

Machine trapunto.

The members of this guild are prolific quilters. Nearly everyone had one or more quilts for their meeting Show and Tell. I was particularly impressed with their charity quilt contributions. There were at least 12 to 15 quilts turned in for Project Linus and several mini quilts for a neonatal unit of a local hospital. See a slide show here.

Thank you, Crazy Quilters, for the invitation to speak at your guild. And to Karen and Linda for taking the photos. I spent a delightful morning with a warm and talented group of quilters.

Crazy Quilters quilt guild—July meeting.

Presentation at Crazy Quilters guild

I've been invited to present "The Visual Language of Quilting" at the Crazy Quilters quilt guild tomorrow. This stack of 15+ quilts is going along for the trunk show. Boy, fabric is heavy!

Floral inspiration and using a viewfinder

In an earlier post, I wrote about using a viewfinder in the design workshop I attended at Shakerag. Someone asked me about the viewfinder, so I thought I'd share more about the design process and using a viewfinder.

For one our design exercises, the inspiration source was floral. There are many varieties of wild flowers that grow on the campus where the workshop was held, so finding a source was easy.

For this exercise, we could use any drawing or painting materials including colored pencils, pastels, markers, acrylics, watercolors, etc. to capture the essence or some aspect of the source. We worked on large sheets of drawing and watercolor paper. I did some contour drawings and color studies with colored pencils, pastels and watercolor paints.

Contour drawings and sketches.

From these drawings, we used a 1-inch square viewfinder to find and isolate an interesting portion.

Using the 1-inch viewfinder.

This mini composition was then enlarged and refined. We learned how to configure a repeat so the design could be woven or printed on fabric.

Pattern from a floral inspiration.

This is Jeannie's design from her floral inspiration. I love the boldness and graphic appearance, and the movement created by the diagonal lines. This would make a stunning fabric print for quilting cottons, as well as home dec, apparel or accessories. Quilters—what do you think?

Na-na naaah naah... goodbye (to the mess)

We got our street widened yesterday! After over 2 months, the trucks finally picked up the brush, limbs and tree trunks that lined the street after the April 27 tornado.

Brush and trees after the wake of the tornado.

Crew and trucks cleared away the piles.

On an earlier walk with the dogs, I found beautiful and inspiring patterns in the cross sections of many of the sawed tree trunks.

The shade and beautiful greenery provided by these big trees is greatly missed in our neighborhood.