Dyeing fabrics is an obsession. I began with cottons as directed in the Elizabeth Barton class, Dyeing to Design, that I took over at Academy of Quilting. I had little interest in dyeing or so I thought, and only took the class because Elizabeth was teaching it and I wanted to take a class with her and it was the first class closest to the date when I started researching her classes. I had no idea I’d fall so completely in love with dyeing. But I did. After her class ended, I took her other dyeing Class – Basic Dyeing for Quiltmakers where we learned to over dye and dye just about any color we wanted. It was thrilling to see a color, figure out what primary colors went into it and then create it! But as is my way, I wasn’t content to dye just cottons.
I decided I had to learn how to dye wool, which is a different process entirely, so I could finish my block of the month designs (more on that in another post). So I went over to Dharma Trading, a great company that sells dyes and everything related to dyeing. I sourced wool fabric, also not as easy as one might think, and then purchased a small amount of wools, silks, raw silks and silk/wools from a couple of different places. I even found some lovely silk velvet at Dharma, perfect to use on my wool appliqué pieces that I began designing a few months ago. And I began dyeing.
Aren’t they beautiful?
Here are all the cotton fabrics I dyed in Elizabeth’s class, including some of my silk screens and shibori dyed cottons…
Now I’m back to designing so I can use all of these lovely fabrics. This is the beginning of Mr. Pig. He still needs to be embellished and is one of twelve blocks for my Block Of the Month project featuring cookie jars that I’m in the midst of creating patterns and, hopefully, kits for, that will come with many of my hand-dyed fabrics as well as everything you’ll need to make each block.
Notice the cotton fabric to the far left? That is one of my shibori dyed cottons and the green wools and pink wool and velvet are all my hand-dyed fabrics too!
Yay, I finished it!! My first large quilt. I began it in January and finished yesterday.
This is the queen-sized quilt that I have written about ‘here‘, ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘. In a nutshell this quilt was my starter quilt. I wanted to learn how to make a quilt start to finish. This quilt was designed by Kim McLean and is called Flower Pots. I took a class where we followed the pattern, learned to appliqué, and got to use all the things I had learned from Sue Spargo – layering, using different fabrics such as wool and velvet and then perle cotton and other threads and a multitude of stitches to enhance the shapes. I hand stitched all the appliqué and machine stitched the panels together with the sashing and border. I then used a wool batting and learned how to free motion quilt. I used a red batik for the binding, cut on the bias and hand stitched the back. Finally I made and applied a quilted label.
This first picture is of the lower center panel where I decided to try an emerging pattern of double leaf free motion quilting shape. I used a slightly darker grey thread.
Center Star Panel
For the upper center panel I wanted to try my hand at McTavishing, which is named after a woman who created a specific way to free motion quilt. After a few times, I went off and did my own thing, echoing, but also playing with flame shapes.
Top Center Panel
On this long side panel I decided that the paisley fabric was so cool I would just use it as a quilting guideline. I really loved how this turned out, though it’s hard to really see, I did add a close up below.
Side Panel
Detail of the free motion quilting on the side panel
This is the bottom panel and I included pebbles, echoing and swirls, which I did again on the top panel.
Bottom Panel
More of the center panel
Merlin naps as I work
Merlin was constantly coming over to nap or pretend to nap while secretly inspecting my work. He loved snuggling up amongst the folds as I worked, making for some interesting adjustments on my part as I hated to disturb him!
The border
The entire border I did in a pebble stitch, which I love. It’s so reminiscent of shapes I used for my jewelry collection, The Lotus Collection. And now that I think of it, the swirls in the bottom and top panels remind me of my Samadhi Collection.
Hand Sewing the binding
Finally I had to learn how to make and add a binding. After a number of different ideas regarding what fabric to use, I decided, with my FH’s (fabulous husband’s) help, to go with a red batik. Batik tends to be pretty densely woven, and as the binding can get more wear and tear than the rest of the quilt, I thought it was a good choice, plus, I love the red. I cut it on the bias, mitered the corners, and hand stitched the back.
For my beautiful mom ~ Merry Christmas
And then I had to learn how to make a label for my quilt. There are wonderful ideas on Pinterest. Are you on Pinterest? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pinterest. I made a label using word documents and then used a freezer paper and cut a piece of fabric that I adhered the freezer paper to and copied the printed label onto the fabric, lightening the tone so it was just readable, but wouldn’t show too much. I then removed the freezer paper, sandwiched the printed material with a cotton batting and muslin and then used red wool thread and stitched the text. I added the little wool red heart and cut out another smaller heart in the same fabric as the binding because I figured I can’t add enough hearts to a quilt made specifically for my mom.
So Mom, if you’re reading this, the cats out of the bag. Merry Christmas!! This quilt was made for you. I thought of you the entire time I was making it. I hope it will keep you wonderfully warm during those cold winter months and I’m told wool batting breathes and should be perfect for the summer months as well. I love you.
What’s next? A twin-sized quilt that I will design, stitch and quilt!! I’ve got my sketch book and am playing with some ideas… I’ll keep you posted! Heh-heh, a little pun to end this post.
My mother has always been a self proclaimed “student,” whether that’s a student of life or of a specific topic, she has always been curious and an avid learner, and as a result, she is a really interesting person to talk to. I, too, am a constant “student.” What this means is that I am often a beginner, which means I’m learning, practicing, making mistakes, perfecting, learning more. When I was younger I wanted to be an expert at something, anything, but as the years wore on I have learned to love the “beginner’s mind,” which can be applied to just about anything. (There are some things I do know quite a bit about and as a result I have strong opinions about those topics, but I’m talking about learning and how it applies to the creative process.) Having a beginner’s mind means being curious, open and filled with wonder. This post is about creating, and in order to create I need to be open to new things.
Last January I took a class, an actual class, not a virtual one, at the soon to be closed City Quilter. It was a BOM (Block of the month) class, and though there were not 12 blocks, but instead six, I figured it would be a good way to learn the process of taking a quilt from start to finish, and it was! I learned a different appliqué technique, I had the support of other classmates, I enjoyed going in once a month to see what everyone else was doing. It was wonderful. It was my first BIG project and I’ve written about it at length in previous posts ‘here’. Each block was hand appliquéd (I’m adding the link to the Craftsy class I took, that helped me enormously, with the hand appliqué technique) and I applied all the stitches I learned from Sue Spargo’s Craftsy class. I’ve talked about the joy of Craftsy in other posts ‘here‘ so I won’t go into all that again.
Once the quilt top was put together, I had to learn how to quilt the whole thing, which took me to this class and this one and this one. I am now in the final stretch and I continue to learn, make mistakes and try again and then learn some more. Each time I don’t know how to do something I google it and look for websites that focus on what I want to do. For Free motion quilting, Lori Kennedy’s The Inbox Jaunt blog is absolutely fantastic with free tutorials on specific motifs. For stitch inspiration there’s of course Sue Spargo’s fantastic website, store and blog, but there are also some great blogs out there that concentrate on stitching, such as Sharon Boggon’s Pintangle where she features a TAST (take a stitch Tuesday) and Mary Corbet’s NeedlenThread, which is more traditional embroidery and oh my goodness is her work beautiful, then there’s Eleanor Pigman’s blog, she’s a bead artist and her work is absolutely incredible! A couple other, not-to-be-missed-blogs are: Kelly Cline Quilting, a blog filled with amazing work, both stitching AND quilting and Trish Burr, the queen of embroidered birds and flowers, though all her work is absolutely incredible and beautiful.
There is a whole world of knowledge, expertise, creativity and art out there and I love finding, learning, applying that knowledge and then creating my own designs. Interestingly I’m drawn to similar motifs over and over again, no matter what the medium is. Below is my 18 kt Gold, Tourmaline and Paraiba Bracelet from my Lotus Collection. It’s no surprise one of my favorite free motion quilting motifs is Pebbles!
You’ll notice it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything here, but not for the reasons you think. It became necessary to give up my studio when we made the decision to pull my youngest child from school and began homeschooling. That was over two years ago. We felt we didn’t have a choice. There is nothing, absolutely nothing I can create that is more important than my daughter’s education. We are all happier as a result.
Which leads me to this blog. Just over a year ago, last May of 2015, to be exact, I signed up for a Craftsy class. Do you know about Craftsy?
WHAT?
YOU DON’T???
Craftsy is fantastic. There, I even added the link for you to go check them out. No, I am not being paid, nor do I, in any way, get anything for writing about them. This is my opinion and experience. Okay, so I took a class on Craftsy called: Embroidering Texture and Dimension by Hand by Sue Spargo and it changed my life. I loved the way Sue used stitches on layers of wool and fabric. I loved how she created something so different from what I was used to seeing. She didn’t “embroider,” not in the way I was used to seeing embroidery done, but instead created a whole new three-dimensional textile. I was utterly enthralled.
I knew nothing about quilting. When I signed up for her class I did not know that her work was considered quilting. In fact when I took the class I wrote her and asked what all the stitching was in the background, was it done by machine or hand and when and how did she do that and, by the way, why and how was it all so puffy looking? Someone helpfully suggested I take a beginning quilt class and my first thought was – “huh, I didn’t know a quilt could do that!”
But back to Sue Spargo’s class. It began with a download of one of her lovely designs, a butterfly sampler, but as I have a strong independent streak, I decided to design my own piece and use what I learned in her class on my design.
A few weeks before I found Craftsy and Sue Spargo’s class, my husband came home with a photo of a West African Long Tailed Hornbill that was perched on a railing at the Central Park Zoo. He, the bird, not my husband, though my husband is also fabulous, was so captivating I decided to use his image in my piece. Here’s the photo my husband took.
A West African Long Tailed Hornbill. Look at him!
C’mon, admit it, he’s adorable. So here’s what I started to do and you’ll notice I got way too involved with everything BUT the bird, which was the focus… and again, this is something I also tend to do – do everything but the thing I’m trying to focus on. Look, squirrel!
The Beginning
He began to take shape…
I gave him some much-needed feathers on his head, because he was getting cold, I could tell.
A little hair/feathers/plumes, whatever are good, but he definitely needed more…
More, more, more and while we’re at it, let’s toss in some black beads. I am a jewelry designer after all.
There, that’s better
And some more circles, because honestly who doesn’t like circles?
Circles can go anywhere I always think and I wanted to try my hand at all the different circular stitches from Sue Spargo’s class.
And if one or two circles are good, well many, many circles can only be better, right?
Okay, so maybe I got carried away….
And here it is, the final piece. As an ode to my beautiful daughter I call this piece Thunder Bubbles.
I used every single stitch Sue Spargo taught on this. It really should be called, “Thunder Bubbles Sampler.” Because I knew nothing about quilting I didn’t know that you should leave an edge so that you can bind, face or otherwise somehow finish it off. I also took a hand quilting class at the local quilting shop and did my best to hand quilt more circular shapes. I didn’t know to iron in between, so the back isn’t as flat as I would have liked and the weight from all those drizzle stitches on his head pulled the batting and backing fabric into a kind of crater. Anyway here’s the back of my very first hand quilted piece!
Next week I’ll write about where all of this has taken me and what I’m doing now.
circles, because honestly who doesn’t like circles?
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