Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Variegated Threads
 Almost all the threads I use for my hand embroidery are of variegated colors. True, some colorways I dye are colors that are very close in value (like Oranges above) but most change colors every 2-3 inches like the colorway Moss (seen below).
So why choose variegated pearl cotton thread for my hand embroidery? Changes in color value or hue make the surface more active and tantalize the eye. I'm making small quilts and I want to draw the viewer closer and hold their attention. Color is the first thing we notice when we look ...

Martin County Quilters

The Martin County Quilters honored me by inviting me to teach at their first annual retreat in Stuart, FL. These talented and fun loving girls were so kind and easy going. Above are a few examples of the pieces they made in the Tree Top Be-Bop class held at the JaM Patch quilt shop in Stuart, FL. I love the JaM Patch people; they are so very friendly. Thanks Martin County Guild!

Treat Your Feet!
If you are attending the Quilt Festival in Long Beach this weekend and your feet are killing you, please stop in and say "Hi!" to my cousin Tim. He's in Booth #1356 and has the best floor mats for those of us who stand all day long. If you can't go to the show, then check out his web site at Ground Floor Packaging.

Long armers love these mats. And even lowly dyers who dye thousands of yards of thread all week long need to treat their feet. I can truly say, Tim's mats ...

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Stitching Station

Most evenings I plop down on my comfy leather reading chair and stitch for an hour or two while ignoring the television set. It's important to me to have a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the stitch process. Above is what you'll see surrounding me at my stitching station.

There are my skeins of pearl cotton threads in sizes 5, 8, and 12 ready to pull from their metal loop holder and a small quilt ready for stitching. The little scissors and my thimbles fit inside an eyeglass case that also holds my ...

Thread Dyeing Marathon
About twice a year I do some heavy duty dyeing.This means putting on dye stained clothing, praying a rubber glove doesn't leak, and discovering fuchsia dye dripping down my foot. It's a great time of year!

This week I'm dyeing pearl cotton thread in my standard 58 colorways. It's a long process. After reeling the thread into a skein, I mix the dyes and paint the dyes on the pre-treated skeins. Later I wash and wash and wash the skeins by hand with buckets and buckets of water. (Dye week is also ...

The Arrow Stitch is a handy stitch for creating branches for your little trees or as a decorative feature for the surface of your quilt. Vary the distance between stitches or lengthen the stitches to ignite even more pointy textures.
Here's how I make my Arrow Stitches: Bring the needle and thread up at point A and re-insert the needle about 1/4" down and 1/4" to the right of A at point B. Slide the needle under the fabric to point C which is about 1/4" up and 1/4" to the ...

Four Little Landscapes
If you are a lucky attendee of the Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza (September 16 - 19, Philadelphia) you may now sign up for one of my new classes, Four Little Landscapes. Brave quilt makers attending the class will first construct a very small landscape (4" x 4") and then design a decorative border. Your little fused quilts are so fast and fun I predict you'll make several configurations like this one above. After you make a few, you can join them into sets of 2, 3, or even 4 to make larger quilts.

Its amazing what my talented ...

Stitch after Fusing Finished!
Congratulations to Nancy, one of my students who recently finished her lovely quilt above in my Stitch after Fusing class. Note the Pistil Stitch on the tulips and the wrapped binding to finish it with curvy edges. Love that vase!

Here's another Stitch after Fusing quilt by Terri of Minnesota (the best classroom helper ever)! She amazed herself by actually finishing a project she started in class. And then she went on to make 2 more small art quilts. 
Thank you Nancy and Terri. I love seeing what my students do!

Thread-u-cation Thursday: The Ten Commandments of Stitching a Fused Art Quilt
These Ten Commandments were inspired by the following note from a reader we shall call, Jeanne:
I love your humor! I have a hard time getting the needle through a fused piece - I know I'm a 150 lb weakling, but could it also be the needle I'm using? What, oh Queen of Fusing, do you suggest?
Signed,
Jeanne

Dearest Jeanne,
I love your humor too! (And stop bragging about your weight.) When making a fused art quilt for stitching there are few things to keep in mind ...

Sunny Fairfield Quilt
Its always a sunny day on the Fairfield Batting web site. When you visit their site, look for the spinning sun in the upper right corner. That's my quilt!  It was commissioned by Fairfield for their booth at Quilt Market and later incorporated into their new web site design.  (When you place the mouse over the sun it spins even faster!)
There are lots of little scenes they've created on different pages of the site. You'll see my houses throughout the site. And check out this page where the Yellow Chair and Blue ...

Class at the National Quilt Museum, Paducah, KY
I shall return! To Paducah, KY that is. The National Quilt Museum has invited me to teach a 3 day version of my class, Fusing Fun: Fast Fearless Art Quilts this September 23 - 25.  Its a great opportunity to visit the city, the quilt museum, and the local artisan shops without the crowd and hub-bub of quilt week. I am so looking forward to the prospect of fall in Kentucky as well. 

In the class, expect to make lots of art quilts. Learn fusing tips like free-cutting, collage building, bias fusing and ...

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Stitchy Decisions
I've been doing an lot of hand stitching lately and am amazed at how hard it is to choose the right stitch for the right area of the quilt. Decisions, decisions, decisions!
So I've given myself a few guidelines.  Dear self, try this:
1. Start with the focal point of the design and stitch it first. That way you get all the important stitching done and don't over-stitch an unimportant part of the quilt (and then have to balance the composition out by over-stitching the focal point!)

2. Add accent marks with the ...

New Work to Show
This is the latest in my on going series called Weezie's Wildflowers.  You can see a few others I've added to my Portfolio of New Art work here.

Improvising from my scraps of fused fabrics is my favorite way of creating small art quilts. Those little pieces of fabrics are like dabs of paint for me. You trim up the color shape a little bit, slap it down on a collaged background and build up a design as you go. Stitching the quilt just adds the icing to the cake. Its so much fun ...

Berea Quilt Extravaganza
Did you know that beautiful  Berea, Kentucky is the Folk Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky? And its one of the nation's top 25 arts destinations. I must go there!

And so I will. You can find me there during their Quilt Extravaganza where I'll be teaching 2 classes August 4 - 6. There's the 2 day Fusing Fun class where you make lots of original fused art quilts and the 1 day Color Chip Collage class where you create a lovely art quilt from fused collages like Betty's Bloomers above. We have go ...

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Chain Stitch
If you want to draw a really thick line on your quilt top with thread, the fastest way is to use the Chain Stitch. This linked stitch starts out like the Lazy Daisy stitch but attaches to the previous stitch to form a line or chain of stitches. Here you see the Chain Stitch forming bulky cumulus clouds above the tree tops on a stormy day.
Here's how I make my Chain Stitch: Bring the thread up at point A and re-insert the tip of the needle into the fabric at that same point A ...

Thread-u-cation Thursdays: Needle Weaving
In Needle Weaving, the idea is to create a thread structure that screens or creates a mesh across the background fabric and sits on the surface as a bold texture. It acts as a grid pattern to emulated window panes or tile or even cobble stones on a small quilt like the detail above.

Here's how I make my Needle Weaving: make a row of vertical straight stitches about 3/4" long and about 1/8" apart on the fabric. These are the "warp" for your Needle Weaving. Make sure it is an odd number ...

SAQA Store
An excellent organization I belong to is SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Associates. If you visit their web site you'll see that they have a store selling art quilts including my Nice Neighborhood above. This quilt is part of a traveling exhibit called SAQA @ 20 Art and Excellence 2009.
If you have a chance, you can see the exhibit at the following venues:

• National Quilt Museum, Paducah, Kentucky, May 28 - July 6, 2010
• International Quilt Festival, Long Beach, CA, July 23 - 25, 2010
• Bloomingdale Park District Museum, Bloomingdale, IL, Sept. 11 – October 23, 2010
• Springfield Art Museum ...

Inspiration
Often people ask where I get inspiration for the work I make. Here is a good example, a set of birdhouses in my garden on the back fences waiting for residents to move in. This line up of birdhouses has triggered many a quilt including this one below, Birdhouse #8 :
It is a cheerful little home for all your feathered friends (or at least those not afraid of color). True it has only 1 room but I'm sure they'll like the neighborhood.

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Ermine Stitch
Ermine Stitches look like tiny stars dancing across the sky to me. If placed correctly, they could form constellations like my favorite (and only one I can find in the night sky) the Big Dipper. Ermine Stitches are made with 2 really simple stitches: the Straight Stitch and the Cross Stitch.

Here's I make my Ermine Stitches: Make a Straight Stitch from A to B and bring the needle up at point C which is a little down and to the left of point A. Draw the needle and thread through the fabric.
Cross over ...

Curvy Quilts
If you haven't received a June/July 2010 edition of Quilting Arts Magazine, rush out to your local book store to pick up a copy. There are lots of great articles examining hand stitching on the surface of textiles and an article on page 82 called Small Circular Quilts by moi which also includes hand stitching.

In the article, you'll find directions for creating round quilts like Pretty Planet #5 above. These circular quilts are from my latest series of hand stitched quilts. It's not just about the circle shape for me, its about the ...

Exhibit at the Vale
If you are in the Chicago area this summer, please stop in at the Vale Craft Gallery to see several of my art quilts on display in their group show. Including Midwest Summer (above), there are several of my new small works to be seen. The Vale is that rare gallery that displays wonderful objects from pottery to jewelry to basketry and beyond. It's located in Chicago's River North gallery district on Superior and Franklin and well worth the trip.

The exhibit opens Friday, June 4 with a reception from 3:00 to 8 ...

Irish Patchwork Society
In August I'll be flying over to the UK to vend at the Festival of Quilts with Frieda Anderson in the Chicago School of Fusing Patternworks booth. That's me above passing the volcano in Iceland. Neither rain nor sleet nor ash shall keep me from my appointed rounds.
http://www.irishpatchwork.ie/index.html
Then in early September you'll find me teaching at the Irish Patchwork Society meeting in Cork. I'm really looking forward to setting foot on Irish soil. I hear it's very green there.