What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Last Christmas my oldest son asked me to make some fiber art quilts for his good friends. These are adults I have known since they were kids and I was excited to create some art for them. I thought this would be a good opportunity to review my process for those who would like to attempt it.

First, you need to pick a high-quality image—my son picked this one on the far left. Then, you run the image through an art filter in Adobe Photoshop and get it printed out at the store in the size you wish to ...

I spent Friday at the AQS Grand Rapids Show. When you have a quilt hanging there, you have to go and enjoy it.

The quality of the quilts this year was exceptional. Several quilts looked like paintings, they were so heavily stitched. They didn’t look like fabric. Not something the average quilter will produce, but fun to see what’s possible.

I didn’t buy any fabric at the show or at any of the stops we made on the way home Saturday. I did count the fabric I bought last week.

Clockwise from upper left: rayon batik, red ...

This past fall I lectured to a quilter’s group in Northern Virginia. My quilt talks consist of a PowerPoint supported lecture where I go through my history of quilting. I then discuss the quilted homes process I developed. And finally I talk about my fiber-art pieces; reviewing my techniques, showing samples, and doing a demonstration. It is always so much fun! As someone who would never voluntarily speak before a group of people, I am remarkably calm during these lectures. Probably because I’m talking to “my people.” THEY get me, these ladies who quilt.

At the end of ...

I had a productive week in the sewing room.

I finished Trinidad for almost three yards out.

I learned a lot making this quilt. I’ve never done a landscape quilt from a photo before. If I do it again I will do things differently and save myself some time and grief. Thanks to Laura for giving me permission to use her picture.

In the sewing room declutter, I sorted through all my UFO and orphan projects. I found a lot of fabric in the UFO bins that didn’t go with the projects. I re-stashed some and other pieces ...

Sandra and I have known one another for many years. We were both public library administrators in the suburbs.  Her late husband was a pastor-turned-librarian and my husband is a librarian-turned-pastor.  We had mutual friends in Fargo, too.  We realized that it had been about ten years since we'd gotten together.  When she wrote in her holiday card that she moved back to Chicago last summer  I responded with the suggestion that we meet at the Museum of Contemporary Art. There's a special exhibit of works by Faith Ringgold that closes at the end of February.  That was ...

No change in the numbers.

I met my January OMG but never posted it. I didn’t post the February Short list either. I’m keeping the February list small because it’s a short month and I’m going for finishes.

Project 1 (stitching): Gather & Give Thanks, pattern by Diane Arthurs of Imaginating. I have a few stitches and a little outlining left in the lower right corner.

Project 2 (Original): Trinidad. It’s basted for quilting. I was watching a Craftsy class while I basted and put in way too many pins. Guess I won’t do that ...

I try to participate in Project Quilting every year. It’s a great excuse to try a new technique and play.

This week’s challenge is “Sky Color (not blue). We’re supposed to create a quilted item within one week start to finish.

I decided to try a resist technique I saw demonstrated by Quilter Julie B. Booth on Quilting Arts TV (Episode 1703 “You can’t resist this”). She demonstrated how to use ordinary liquid dishwashing soap as a resist on fabric.

Here’s a youtube Quilting Arts TV preview… see it on the end:

No change in the numbers.

The nameless tree quilt has a name now. I decided to name it Trinidad for the place where Laura took the picture. Every time I look at it I hear the old Eddy Money song play in my head, but I can live with that.

I finished adding motifs to the top and started sewing down the bits.

I hope to start quilting it in the next few weeks.

Fabric In: 0 yards

Fabric out: 1 yard

Net Fabric Used: 1 yard

How did you do this week?

I have no fabric movement to report.

Time got away from me and I’m adding the Short List/OMG to this post. January is always a busy month at work. I scaled back the list because of that.

I started The Short List many years ago to create goals to work toward and a way to focus. I change things up as my goals and interests change.

Project 1 (stitching): Gather & Give Thanks, pattern by Diane Arthurs of Imaginating. I’ll either finish it this month or early next month.

Project 2 (Original): The nameless tree quilt. It would ...

I made good use of the holiday by spending most of it in the sewing room. We don’t have family close by, which makes holidays free days with better food.

I’ve wanted to rearrange my sewing room for a while now. Long story short, the sewing table my husband and I built to fit both my sewing and storage needs has not been in my sewing room for years. It’s now back in the sewing room, and a dresser and the portable table are gone. It gives me much needed storage and more open space.

It also ...

No change in the numbers.

The sum of all my sewing was one Traffic Jam block.

I did do some cleaning and purging to make room to start working on this quilt.

And this quilt.

I’m struggling to figure out where I left off with this one. It has several more branches than it did in this picture, and has been waiting patiently for me since March.

Fabric In: 35.875 yards

Fabric out: 9.125 yards

Net Fabric In: 26.75 yards

How did you do this week?

No change in the numbers.

For various reasons, I did not get my OMG/Short List posted this week before the linky closed. I’m posting a shortened version here.

Project 1 (stitching): Gather & Give Thanks, pattern by Diane Arthurs of Imaginating. It’s coming along.

Project 2 (Original): The nameless tree quilt. It’s time to get back to it.

Project 3 (charity): Traffic Jam quilt, pattern by Pat Sloan. I’m sewing a block here and there while working on other projects.

Project 4 (UFO): Remember Me, a member quilt from a group I belonged to many years ...

The title of this quilt describes the inspiration and process of its design, and also a great way to approach Life.

Serendipitous - occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

I've discovered that I like working on more than one quilt repair job at a time.  It keeps things more fun!  So I had fabrics for two quilts on my table and decided that I really loved the combination - a deep golden yellow and a bright magenta.

One quilt was a string quilt, a memory quilt with fabrics from a mother's blouses.  The other was ...

In June 2012 I inaugurated this blog as follows: “Another quilting blog, ugh!  Why?  Well, I’ve been trying to neaten and straighten my notes, thoughts, resources, works in progress, and my work.  So, I thought a blog might be the way to go.  It’s for me primarily.  If anyone else stumbles on it, that’s fine.  I considered using Pinterest, but decided I needed the ability to add words.  So here I am.”

I had no idea I would continue writing posts for 11 years. Yep, that’s 11 years of at least one post a week, for ...

My September OMG was to finish the challenge quilt, which I called Still Life. The photo doesn’t do justice to the background fabric.

Except for the veins in the leaves, I either dyed or painted all the fabrics. I learned the free form piecing technique at a class I took at Guild several years ago. The quilt is the size of a cutting mat.

The inspiration for the next challenge is hanging on my design wall, where I can listen to what it has to say.

Visit Stories From the Sewing Room for all the other OMG finishes.

I’d like to add this quote to the above, as it sums up my approach to art:

If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.
― Unknown

Sometimes revisiting my scrap hoard sparks an idea for a new quilt. While shuffling through fabric I had Spoonflower print from a photo I came across large leaves that I hadn’t used in an earlier quilt. Here’s that quilt.

For my new quilt I pulled all sorts of autumnal colored scraps – cottons, silks, synthetics – and grouped them around the leaf panels I had left. I spent some time moving parts around and began construction in chunks.

I had another reason for making this quilt, a regional SAQA exhibit (Indiana, Michigan, Ohio) that’s to feature a bit ...

In the early days of the pandemic I spent a lot of mental energy on a project to make circles and ovals out of silk fabrics I had painted, dyed, and printed. I ended up separating the shapes into groups of cool and warm colors, and hand sewing them together into lattices. The warm color piece was finished in 2021, while the cool colors chilled out in my black trunk. A few months ago I was struck by an urge to clear out unfinished projects, so the cool color circles came out of storage.

I decided not to ...

A lot of life happened here in July, but I managed to finish two projects. One wasn’t on the list and I forgot to post it. The other was Wallflower (the challenge quilt).

The list isn’t changing much for August.

I started The Short List many years ago to create goals to work toward and a way to focus. I change things up as my goals and interests change.

Project 1 (stitching): Words of Joy Tree, pattern by Ursula Michael. I’m stitching this on red 14 count aida with DMC white, all from stash.

Project 2 (UFO ...

Just about every other year I travel to Athens, Ohio, to take in Quilt National, one of the more prestigious art quilt shows that’s been around since 1979. This year for my birthday my husband drove me three hours each way, and took a long walk while I gawped to my heart’s content at the 81 works this year’s jurors had selected. Size, style, techniques, and subjects were varied; which is perfect for representing the diversity in art quilts.

I’ll try to recap some of the themes and trends I saw this year, and provide photos ...