Saturday, March 30, 2013

Catching up on Skill Builder's BOM

Yesterday, I got caught up on my Skill Builder's BOM.  Em Dash Block and  The Mood were last month's blocks.  I quilted The Mood 
last month, but didn't get Em Dash finished until last week.   Both are done with free motion quilting.




Block 5 & 6 were given to us on March 21st.  I finished the Woven Star and the Woven Chevron blocks yesterday.  We will get quilting examples on April 4th.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The Girl with the Pearl Earring

The Girl with the Pearl Earring - from a class by Lola Jenkins
I am really pleased with my results, not because I did a particularly fantastic job with it, but because I was able to get it done at all.  First I arrived at Monday's class 4 hours late.  Yes, that was correct.  I had a neurologist visit and had made arrangements for being late, but no idea I would be this late.  Lola just took it in stride and got me started.

I chose a lovely colored batik for my project.  I transfered my design and started free-motion quilting away. (Oh, I'm good!)  My machine decided to cause all kinds of trouble.  I quilted quite a bit and stopped to check out the back stitches.  When I pulled the bottom thread, all of my work came unstitched and I was left holding a long curling wad of black thread.  After many attempts to correct this, a friend let me use her machine.  (Yeah!)  I was able to get the girl finished in black and start on the coloring.  My first idea was to use free-motion vines in a shimmering white for the background, but it just didn't do a thing for the quilt.  Lola suggested large diamonds.

So yesterday, I use superior variegated thread 808 to do small meandering in the background.  I also recolored the girl using ink intense pencils to make her much darker.  My machine is working fine -just used a different bobbin and another brand of thread.

Here are my results.  I will still have to decide on a boarder technique.

  

Thread Art - Lola Jenkins

As mentioned in previous post, the thread art class by Lola Jenkins was terrific. 
 I am going to post some pictures  of what other ladies in the class were working on. 



 Several people worked on very light backgrounds.


A few others chose bright colors like yellow and orange.


 I think they all did a wonderful job.   A few people did something besides the Girl with the Pearl Earring.  My camera was out of memory when I arrived at the class and deleting was taking forever   so these are the only photos of other students' work.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Lola Jenkins





Yesterday I was privileged to b able to take a class with Lola Jenkins.  She is a talented artist and teacher.  She spoke Saturday at our Quilter's Day Out in Lexington, KY.  Then Sunday and Monday she offered two of her classes.  Lola is a vey interesting, funny and motivational speaker.  If you have a chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend it.  She is also offering some of her thread art classes online at Craftsy.

Later, I will post some student examples from the class I took.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Getting ready to teach my 1st free-motion class

 Lately, I've been busy with family and trying to complete a few UFO's.  My sewing room is approaching critical.  I need to put away lots of fabric and scraps, but I am using them for all the current projects. (Good excuse anyway ... except my scissors and favorite rotary have been swallowed up in the chaos.)

I have been working on the skill builder quilt by Pile of Fabrics and Leah Day's goddess quilt.  These have been very good for sharpening my free-motion quilt skills.   I have created handouts and a quilted book of some of my free-motion stitches for the class I will teach for Sassy Stitchers today.  Here are a few pictures of my quilted book.