QuiltCon Class with Bill Kerr

On the third day were in Austin, I was able to take a 3 hour class with Bill Kerr. Not only does Bill design with his wife Weeks Ringle at Modern Quilt Studio, but he also teaches Graphic Design and is Chairman of the Art Department at Dominican University.  The class I had the opportunity to take was The Role of Color in Your Quilts.

Bill talked a lot about the saturation of color, much as Weeks had. Desaturation can be moving light or darker than the most intense version of a hue.  Think about Red and Yellow. Saturated red is much darker than saturated yellow. Actually what is the darkest form of Yellow? It's brown!

As soon as you put boundaries on your art you limit yourself

Interesting concept isn't it? It aligns with Weeks' comment the day before: Rather than choosing the first fabric then selecting from your stash, consider everything as an option, then edit out what doesn't work. It gives so many more fabrics the opportunity to be selected. There could be hidden gems in your stash you didn't think would work.

The first exercise we did in class was based on a painting by an old master. Bill passed out copies of the paintings to everyone in the class. Here's the one I got stuck with  was given, it's "Icebergs and Wreck in Sunset" by Frederic Edwin Church:

OMG was my initial thought. I really don't like to use pastels in my work; especially the dreaded m-a-u-v-e. (So glad I'm not opinionated.) Bill even told me he chose that painting for me because I was wearing an emerald green sweater and he thought it would be a good excersie for me.

Okay, let me step off the mauve soapbox so I can tell you what we had to do. First we were given a color wheel and had to place dots on the wheel that indicated the saturation of color we saw in the painting.  Then we wrote down percentages of those colors that we saw in our painting.

Next we were to select fabric from our stash that represented the colors we saw. We weren't to try to recreate the painting, but trim the fabric to different sizes to reflect the proportion of the colors found in the painting. Here's my end result:

(For the record, I want to say that the pinky-mauvey color you see above was a piece of fabric I was given when my number was chosen in a raffle at a guild meeting...and I've used it to applique flower petals...the color looked great...Gasp! Perhaps I've been a little hard on pinky-mauvey. Maybe it does have its place.)

After about 20 minutes, we all shared our interpretation of the color with the rest of the class.

We talked about each painting and the fabric swatches. It was interesting to see how certain hues were used to evoke a particular message or feeling. I think that by using the peaches and pinks in the sky, Church was able to evoke more of a feeling of anguish for the ship wreck than if the sky had been steel blue or dove grey. After all, pale pink is the lightest saturation of blood red.

It was a great exercise. Another one Bill mentioned was to hand out photos of paintings and ask everyone in your guild to sew a log cabin block with colors that mimic the painting. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

QuiltCon Class with Weeks Ringle

I took two classes at QuiltCon. The first one was Rediscovering Your Stash with Weeks Ringle. On Pat Sloan's podcast I had heard them talk about Weeks' magic when she works with hard to match fabrics in someone's stash  so I knew it would be an interesting class.

At the beginning of the session, we talked about color and its importance. Rather than thinking in terms of light/medium/dark fabric, Weeks encouraged us to realize the importance of contrast. When deciding on a background fabric, the hue shouldn't be found in any of the other fabrics selected for the quilt top. The same value in a different saturation makes the fabrics pop. Also, when determining what fabrics go together, think in terms on commonality i.e., not matching.

Here's a photo of a quilt that will be in the next issue of Modern Quilts Illustrated. You can see each of the colors very vividly.

And here's a close up of another quilt using Liberty of London fabrics. Weeks says every quilt needs contrast. As you can see, the drab makes the bright triangles pop with the contrast.

After we talked about color, we each selected one fabric from our stash that either we really didn't like or we didn't know what to do with it. We put them on a table and Weeks teamed us up with the owner of another fabric on the table.My fabric is the bold huge print on the right - I love it but I'm not sure how to use it. My partner had the alligator print (okay, maybe it's really a crocodile - I'm not sure!).

At this point, we were to use our stash and select 8-10 fabrics that would allow the huge print and the alligators to be used in a single quilt top. Weeks taught us to consider everything in our stash as an option, then whittle it down. How to do that?  Look for commonalities - not matchy matchy. We chose the roundness of the berries and the long curved line of the stems and alligators' tails.

It's a very interesting process that certainly has taught me to look at fabric differently. For more information on the exercise, check out issue 7 of Modern Quilts Illustrated. It makes for a fascinating read!

QuiltCon was Great!

After months and months (and months) of planning, QuiltCon has come and gone. A fine time was had by all. We made it out of dodge right before the 'snowapalooza' hit Columbus and out of Austin before the temperature dropped. The Quilting Goddess was definitely smiling on the modern quilting community.

As soon as we got downtown, we headed for the registration desk. Much to my surprise, I spent enough to get the goody bag. And what a goody bag it was! Not only did I get the tote bag but fabric, books, patterns, magazines, thread, discounts at certain booths, and notions. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! First thing I thought when I saw it was 'how am I going to get all of this home?!' My suitcase was already bursting at the seams with everything I took for my classes.(But trust me...I wasn't complaining!)

We enjoyed the show much more this year than two years ago. There was more variety and more quasi-art quilts which both Kathy and I love. MQG doesn't have any photos out on the web site yet, but hopefully they will soon.You can check out #quiltcon on Instagram to see some of the entries.

As soon as Kathy and I got into the show area, there was a Kona booth with a fabric challenge. They had boards with swatches of Kona solids. Each participant was given a bag with names of the colors and you had to attach the name of the color to the right swatch. Then you got your "Kona IQ". There were about 25-30 colors on the board. I got 6 right. What can I say. Kathy on the other had got 16 right, I think. She's an over achiever.

Of course no one can go home a loser, so regardless of your IQ, you got to spin a wheel and it told what prize you won. I got a fat quarter. Kathy got a Kona totebag with some of their color swatches on the front. Very cute.

There were definitely more vendors at the show this year. We got to meet Alyssa from PileO'Fabric and Susan K. Cleveland was there (are you a "Piping Hottie"?...I am). Quite a few people had book signings. I wore my Fit Bit every day and I can tell you we walked over 12,000 steps that Thursday!

At dinner Thursday night we met Linda from Martha's Vineyard MQG. Needless to say with the weather as it has been in New England, Linda was very happy she made it! We were able to talk about our guilds, share some interesting ideas, and talk about why we like the modern aesthetic. This is why attending events like this can be so valuable; making contacts and sharing ideas.Kathy and I ran into Linda several times over the next few days and I'm sure we'll stay in touch with our new friend.(Linda, if you're reading this,thanks for telling us about the Albers Color app. I spent half of my morning today pouring over it. Thanks!)

Friday I had a class with Weeks Ringle and on Saturday with Bill Kerr and attended a lecture given by Victoria Findlay Wolfe. See that's another thing about QuiltCon...you can take classes with the people you follow on the internet, books and magazine articles.  Kathy had a class with Carolyn Friedlander and the two of them talked about a project of Kathy's. I don't know another event where you can get personal time with such a wide variety of  great names in the business.

Last but certainly not least I have to say we attended the key note speaker's event which was Gee's Bend. Four women from Gee's Bend talked about how they grew up and learned to quilt. They sang gospel  for the audience and answered a multitude of questions. Afterward we decided to treat ourselves to dessert and a glass of wine before packing for our 6:30 AM flight. (Since we walked so much over the four days, we certainly deserved it!) As we were getting ready to leave Kathy realized her purse was gone; she had left it at the convention center where we listened to the Gee's Bend presentation. After talking to a security guard and staff from QuiltCon, Kathy's purse was found...someone had turned it in. Once again the Quilting Goddess was shining down on us keeping any eye out for two modern quilters.

Peer Pressure

I've been following everyone's preparations for QuiltCon on Instagram. It's getting me  psyched for the show! People are sharing photos of things they're making for the event. Everything from tote bags to dresses to lanyards.

While I did think about making a tote bag (hey, I even went so far as to buy a zipper!), I decided to make a lanyard for myself and my travel and quilting friend Kathy F. She's been keeping me supplied in selvages and since she's so into Kaffe Fassette, I pulled out all of the selvages from his fabric for Kathy's lanyard.

Okay, so now that the fabric selection is taken care of, I have to find a pattern. So I Googled "fabric lanyard" and lo and behold there was a link to a pattern Anne Marie Chaney has posted on her genXquilters site. Looks easy peasy. Picked up the hardware for both lanyards at a big box store for $1.87 and I already have the plastic holder for our QuiltCon IDs so I'm ready to go.

Because I'm using scraps, first step was to sew the strips together to about a length of 45". Since my scraps are narrow, I sewed two long strips together.

 Fold in half and press and then fold in the raw edges and press (Ann Marie has this all explained very nicely on her site) then stitch.

Next I simply folded the raw edge up  and stitched to keep in place. I made my lanyard first and learned that because I pieced my strips, I have extra bulk. I put in a heavy duty needle and I took it slow and I'm happy to say my needle didn't break! Now add the hardware and fold up again and stitch.
 

Voila! A fabric lanyard!

Now I'm officially ready for QuiltCon!

iPad Case

I like to sew and sometimes I like to make something that can be completed pretty fast. You know what I mean; instant gratification!

My husband got me an iPad for Christmas. Shortly after opening the box I knew I wanted to make my own case. I went onto Etsy and found a very cool cover in Katie's Modern Nest shop. Not only was it designed so the iPad could be propped up, but it also had a couple on fun little pockets.

I downloaded the pdf of the pattern and read it over to see if there was anything tricky involved. I'm happy to say there wasn't and I was able to see that the sewing part of it would be pretty darned easy.
 

To tell the truth, what took the longest amount of time was selecting the fabric! Because so little is needed, I was able to use my stash. Yeah! I didn't want to be matchy matchy so I kept pulling out fabrics that coordinated and then finally had such a stack, I had to eliminate some.

I purchased two sets of the inserts that help the case prop up so now I can make another!

Getting Ready for QuiltCon

I'm all about color. It energizes me. Gives me a positive attitude. Scheduled for a tough meeting at work one day? I'll be there in fuchsia or electric blue. Wear black on a Monday? Oh no, not me. No way to start the week. I'll be in something bright and peppy. My mood is influenced by the color around me. I share this psychological babble because I'm excited that color will be in the forefront of the classes with Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr at QuiltCon.

 QuiltCon is right around the corner. And this year I'm excited to be registered in a couple classes. One is with Weeks Ringle, and the other with her husband, Bill Kerr. They do fabulous work and were some of the first "modern quilters".

For Bill's class I need to take small pieces of fabric from my stash. Same for Weeks' class, but the class description mentions along with fabric scraps, we can bring a project. So I figure if I am going to have some one on one time with Weeks, why not have a project.

At the Columbus Modern Quilters meeting last week, one of the women had a quilt she had worked on that was really quite interesting. And even better; she explained how to make it and it's a pretty simple concept. Win win!

So I went to my stash chanting ROYGBIV...you know...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I thought I'd try to put my squares together based on the color wheel.

Here's my Green selection before it was pressed:

Next I trimmed it into a square and then cut corner to corner:

Now just a little switcheroo of a couple of the triangles and Voila! A very cool block:

Here are a few of the squares on my design wall. I threw in the black and white because I just love the feel it gives with the other intense colors, don't you?

Hope the color speaks to you too. Now go to your stash and design something energizing!

The Quilting Has Begun

Time to start quilting the North Market quilt. So I made the ol' quilt sandwich out of some fabric from a North Market apron because it's heavier than quilting cotton. I wanted to see how it would stitch out and I'm very glad I did. My machine skipped stitches. Ack! Not good. So I changed needles (three times, may I add), re-threaded (at least twice), and took out the bobbin thread and put it in again. But no. Nothing helped.

I went online to various sites and saw that for the type of fabric I was using, I should use a Universal needle. Luckily I had a few so I put one in and I am happy to say it appeared to help. I practiced with invisible thread. Once I gained some confidence, I switched to darker thread to see how well I was doing. Not too bad, I thought.

Now I picked a square that I knew I wanted to quilt with little bubbles, put on my trusty Machingers, and started to stitch. A few things I learned...when using thread that matches the color of the fabric, it can be difficult to see where I had already stitched. So that's a good news/bad news: the stitches blend in, but the final result might not be as crisp. Also, I used my Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR). It allows you to stitch without using the foot pedal, so I was able to concentrate on moving my fabric. Dropping the speed was good for me because I could concentrate. Also, I thought I'd want a longer stitch length, but by having it shorter, my curves were smoother.

I get sloppy when I rush. So the master plan is to quilt two squares each weekend. I'll see how that goes, but that's the plan at least for now (fingers crossed).

Keep This in Mind

Well, the North Market quilt top and back are done. I pieced together the back using some extra blocks left over from the front. It's a modern technique that I really like. Only issue in mine is that I really needed that extra fabric since I didn't buy enough for the back. Oh well, I stressed out, but got it done.

This weekend's task was to put the three layers together because as we know...'it's not a quilt till it's quilted'!

Now I've watched Elizabeth Hartman put these sandwiches together on multiple occasions and I'd even done it her way and very successfully I must add. Disclaimer: Elizabeth didn't have to lay her quilt out on the floor of the garage.

Here's the technique: measure the quilt top. Add 2" on each of the four sides for the size of the batting. Take the batting size do the  same math to determine the size of the back of the quilt.

Then roll each piece individually in a roll. Unroll the back and tape it down. I use spray adhesive just like Libby Lehman said at one of her classes I attended a couple years ago.

Now here's a piece of free advice: if you are doing this outside in the fall in a state like hmmmm, Ohio, and it's breezy...be careful that leaves don't fly onto the adhesive. Enough said.

At this point I have the back down and sprayed and "just" need to roll out the batting on top. Luckily anything placed on the spray adhesive is re-positionable. Once again; enough said. I had to roll it out at least three times because I kept rolling it crooked. Finally it was time for the top.

Here's the photo. I struggled a few times,but finally got it down. I don't have the neat 2" and 4" borders like Elizabeth, but it's done none the less.

Now it's a-quilting we will go! Wish me luck as I move onto the next step in the process. I saw a t-shirt quilt I really liked at a show and made some notes. I have a kabillion Craftsy classes ready to watch, so now I'm ready for some inspiration...