Vertical Quilting Curve

Here is an artist I would love to be. She works with not only fabric but beads. She also creates quilt art in the form of marvelous garments. My favorite garment is Get Me to the Train on Time which takes you back to Victorian times with the wonderful velvet traveling coat, beautiful embellished princess-seam jacket and a hat that the ladies of the Kentucky Derby would die for.

One of other unique works are Fabulous Fabric Vessels. These are similar to the fabric bowls and vases you may have seen before and fabulous is an understatement especially when you view the close up of one.

If you like her beading you can learn her techniques in her book Beading on Fabric which was just published last year. I’ve had this book since Christmas but have only had time to sit and drool over the great photos of projects. The diagrams for how to different bead stitches are exceptional. I really can’t wait to try them now. I’m going to have to make room in my projects for adding a little beading.

You can view her works in the various galleries on her website. You can get her book at Amazon or try your local quilt and bookstores.

quilting, Larkin Jean Van Horn, beading, quilts, quilted garment, art quilt

I learned a new quilting term today, quilt turning. It sounds like something you do when making a quilt or like turning it over on a bed. It is closer to the latter but resembles a quilt show on a bed. You view quilts one at a time while the history of each quilt is told.

Just Julia recently attended one and has documented the event on her livejournal. After doing some research I found that they are popular at museums, special events at libraries and county fairs, and of course, quilt shows.

Please feel free to share if you have attended one.

quilting, quilt turning, quilt show, quilts

If you have been quilting or doing any kind of crafting these acronyms are probably pretty common in your vocabulary. But if you are new you may be asking “WHAT?” and you are thinking you know what a UFO is but what’s that got to do with quilting?

Well, instead of being an “unidentified flying object” it means “un-finished object”. WIP is similar in but stands for “Work in Progress”. I’ve found that crafters will use UFO more if it is a project they’ve either given up on or they have changed in their tastes on what they like to work on and it is very unlikely they will finish the project. WIP on the other hand is a more positive term whereas the quilter is actively working on the project. Most seasoned quilters have several UFOs and WIPs. You will probably find many other quilt bloggers who bring out their projects to share and usually hoping to get motivation to finish them.

Below is a couple of pictures of some crazy quilt hearts that I started a long time ago and just found in a box a few days ago. In fact I remember doing them but I don’t remember how I did them. They are very similar and looks like I may have used a pattern to cut the pieces instead of doing it in the traditional manner of piecing it together. My hope is to get some more embellishment on these and find a place for them. Maybe they will end up on a tote bag or small wallhanging.

Question of the Day: How many WIPs and UFOs do you have?

quilting, UFO, WIP, crazy quilting, crazy quilt, Work in progress, Unfinished Object

Stem stitch is one of those basic embroidery stitches that stitchers either love or hate. I happen to be one of those that loves it. It is one of my favorite embellishments to use on craft projects and quilts. When I do redwork blocks I rarely use anything else. One of my friends who loves the chain stitch wanted me to share how I make my stem stitch so I decided to create a short photo tutorial.

Here in Photo 1, I have brought up my thread to the front of my fabric piece and inserted back through and halfway to where I came up.

Photo 2 shows where I have inserted my needle down and taken a stitch. You can see where the next stitch begins in the middle of the first stitch.

In Photo 3 the needle is inserted and comes up at the end of the first stitch. This completes the second stitch when you pull it through.

Now Photo 4 shows that the stitches continue as in the previous photo until you get the length of the line you are completing.

Photo 5 is a complete line but to finish the line off you will simply take your needle down as if making another stitch BUT you do not come back up.


Hope this helps you try the stitch. For the steps above I used a piece of felt and perle cotton for demonstration purposes. On quilts I usually use 3 strands of embroidery floss and a crewel embroidery needle on cotton and fashion fabrics.

You can see a redwork block using the stem stitch on my other blog, Crazy Crafting Mama. I made this block for an exchange with an embroidery group.

quilting, embroidery, stem stitch, redwork, tutorial

Due to the recent allegations from some of the members of the Gee’s Bend Quilters and recent letters flowing into her company, Kathy Ireland has released a statement regarding licensing of the designs for her products.

It is heartbreaking to learn that there is litigation involving The Quilts of Gee’s Bend and the talented quilters. This is especially distressing, to me personally and to everyone at Kathy Ireland Worldwide. I have met and spent time with these artists, who we love, respect and honor. I value their humanity as well as their art. The well being of each quilter is critical.

Our agreement assures us that the quilter’s representatives are the proper place to send all quilt related earnings. This week a careful review of our files indicates that Kathy Ireland Worldwide has paid more to these representatives than our company has earned from the quilts project.

In light of these developments, I have directed our legal team to review these serious allegations.

We look forward to a future of support for our partnership with these artists.”

kathy

Visit kathyireland.com to see some of the products using the designs.

quilting, Gee’s Bend, quilts, quilt art, Kathy Ireland, copyrights, artists rights

I took a class from Cara Gulati at the Spring International Quilt Festival. I have to admit I had not heard of Cara before this class. In fact I’ve really been out of the active quilt world for a little while. Since I love to try my hand at new techniques and would like to do my own designs I liked the idea of her Threads of Imagination class where you learn to work with all those cool threads and also learn how to make your own fabric with water soluble stabilizer and snippets of threads.

I was thrilled with the class and Cara. Her basic philosophy on quilting is to not stress out and be “organic”. I love this and I love her designs. Everything is very bright, cheery and lots of fun. She publishes patterns and books at her publishing company Doodle Press. She also designs fabric that is reminiscent of her art quilts. Her quilt 3-D Party Explosion won Viewers Choice Award at the 2003 International Quilt Festival in Houston.

If you get a chance to take a class from Cara and you want to have fun while learning a new technique I highly recommend it. She has a list of teaching schedule on her website. Also, an article about her is in The Quilter magazine’s July 2007 issue.

The picture below is my fabric I made in her class. I’m still working on the quilted piece.

Cara Gulati, quilting, art quilt, quilt designer, fabric

On my list of quilts to do is a t-shirt quilt. This is the method of taking all those t-shirts you have accumulated in your life as a result of vacations or events you took part in and cutting them up and sewing them into useful quilts. You don’t have to give away or throw away those shirts that give you so many memories (or maybe they just don’t fit anymore but you still love that darn shirt).

I have seen several quilts made with t-shirts where the basic construction is to cut out a square with the logo/design in the center but I have found one where the t-shirts have been cut up in various sizes and reconstructed in a very active visual style. On her flickr page, tiboutoo, has created a unique wedding gift using this style. She even has pictures of her process that gives you a good idea of how to put one together for yourself. What a great twist on a practical method!

Question of the day: Could you cut up t-shirts in this manner or would you rather have the big squares with the design in whole?

t-shirt quilt, quilting, quilted gifts, t-shirt crafts

Okay, my challenge due date I had for myself was June 15 and I am a few days late but I have found something to work on. I came across this fusible applique method by Lorraine Carthew in the American Quilter magazine Projects 2005 issue. The technique is basically a mosaic approach where you cut small pieces from fabric backed by fusible web then fuse them to the background.

As you can see the photo is a pattern of a rose. I am not going to do the rose so another part of the challenge will be deciding on what to use for the design. I’m thinking just doing some shapes. And, now I just have to find the time to start challenging myself. We are traveling this weekend and then it will be the holiday week. It just seems there is never enough time to do everything you want.

Question of the Day: What designs do you think would work well with this technique?

fusible applique, quilting, Lorraine Carthew , quilt challenge

Here is a cute little item you can make in no time really. It is one of the smallest pincushions you can probably make. These would make great gifts for fellow quilters and other crafters as well as just about anyone who needs to keep a few pins close at hand. It would be a nice little addition to a sewing kit for a college student or in your desk at work. Oh, and don’t forget your travel sewing supplies you keep on hand when working on your portable projects.

Here are two links that provide tutorials for two different types of the bottle cap pincushion. Over at “How about orange…”, she uses the cap as a base for the blossoming puff of pincushion while verybigjen encloses the bottle cap with felt in her slideshow flickr tutorial.

Question of the day: Can you get much smaller with your pincushion and still be able to hold a few pins?

sewing, pincushion, quilt gifts, bottle cap pincushion

Here is a cute little diddy known as the Sewing Machine Song I found over at You Tube. I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought anyone who uses a sewing machine would as well. It comes from the 1947 movie the Perils of Pauline sang by Betty Hutton about a garment sweatshop worker.

Question of the day: Do you know of any other sewing related songs?

sewing machine, songs, old movies, sewing, Betty Hutton