Free motion quilting: sketching with thread

Imagine that you had to cover a whole piece of paper with doodles, and never take the pencil off the paper. That's kind of how I approach free-motion quilting.

When you free-motion quilt, you disengage the feed-dogs on your sewing machine. Feed-dogs are the jagged teeth that sit in the base of your machine just under the needle. When they are engaged, they feed the fabric through at a steady pace. When you disengage the feed-dogs, you control the speed and the direction of the fabric as it passes under the needle. You control the pattern you make by moving the fabric.

Sounds easy, and it is, when you are using small pieces of fabric -- that's why I always encourage new free-motion quilters to practice on a small project. I learned to free-motion quilt by doing fabric postcards. It's harder to do it on a bigger quilt because there is more quilt to move around, but it's not impossible. Also, you don't have to leave the needle in the fabric -- but it goes faster if you can make your design without having to lift the needle and move the fabric all the time.

Many of my free-motion quilting involves swirls, hearts, and leaves. I've had enough practice to get them to look right. Today I free-motioned tulips; a favorite motif of mine, but one that I have not done free-motion yet. I also tried to do a sky -- wind (more swirls) and clouds.

These photos are small memo book covers that I am making to sell in the boutique at the Quinobequin Quilter's quilt show later this month (March. 25 & 26 in Neeham, MA).

The photo with the zipper is the start of a purse. I'm not quite sure what that's going to look like -- I'm toying with making the sides a circle (so it finishes as a cylinder) or maybe a teardrop shape. I'll post it when I finish.

I also started doing a few chenille potholders, but more on that tomorrow.

Pottery in Process

About four years ago, I decided to try my hand at pottery. I found it a great way to take a little vacation from the trials and tribulations of everyday life, because it is a craft that you have to really pay attention to. You have to be respectful of the clay. You have to move slowly and purposefully. You have to be patient, waiting for the pottery to dry to leather-hard, waiting for the pottery to be bisqued, deciding the glaze colors and how to apply the glaze and so on

I'm a creative sort, and usually catch onto new crafts quickly. But I made ALOT of mistakes from my pottery. Mistakes on the wheel. Mistakes in how I covered the pots to dry. Mistakes in carrying the pots to the shelf. Mistakes in how I glazed. But every mistake made me see what I could do with the mistake. I went in another direction with my art.

So today, I worked on two pieces that started out as something else. The teapot began as a large flat pad that I threw when I was trimming some plates. It was more bulbous than I wanted, but I saved it anyway. The fleshy spout was also a mistake -- a little shorter and wider than I was thinking. There were three weeks between classes, so it dried out more than I thought it would. But I carved the floral lid. I decided to underglaze it in red, and as I painted, I came up with the polka-dotted body. I had no idea that it was going to look like this when I started this!

The same is true of the sunflower plate. When I was throwing this, I rushed through it, and it got a little lopsided. I made a very thick bottom, so when I was trimming, I had a very large foot. After I finished trimming, I took out the knife and started cutting out the petals- though at that time I was thinking about crowns. (The bottom has the same crown looking carving). When I finished the spotted teapot, I was inspired to make the crown plate into a sunflower plate. Now where did that come from?

Friends in Stitches

Tuesdays are my sewing days.

Every Tuesday for the the past three (?) years, I have been meeting with a group of women to quilt. We are a dozen women in our 30's (barely), 40's, 50's an 60's. We share a passion for quilting, though our politics, backgrounds, families, economic situations, and even our senses of humor are quite different. We started as an off-shoot of the Quinobequin Quilters Guild (Wellesley MA).

Like most of the women's groups I've known through my life, we tend to support each other through tough times, give each other unsolicitated advice, lots of hugs, and we love to share joy and laughter. We've shared fabric and techniques and tips. We've supported each other's burgeoning businesses. We've pushed each other out of our comfort zones creatively and in our lives.

I'm very thankful for these friends, all but one who were new to me before the group. I'm also grateful to have a life where I can meet for four hours once a week to celebrate quilting and enjo each other's company

Today I quilted one of my signature slasher quilts. I also worked on two more purses. One is a tote bag with Japanese fabrics (I should finish that tomorrow). The second is a purse made from a knitted bag. A customer of mine knitted the purse, and I lined it and put on the handles.

Tote Bags

I spent a good 8 hours today cutting out tote bags from my collection of Japanese fabrics! A friend ordered four today! I finished these two grocery totes and cut out three more. These bags are nice -- finished with french seams and the handles are triple stitched for strength. I'm noping to get a few make for the Quinobequin Quilter's show at the end of March.

What I'm finding is that people like the way I put fabrics together. It's not just putting a "fabric collection" into a project. It's about finding fabrics that contrast -- that make each other look better. I like to put a surprise in the mix! I often collect fabrics that are ugly or aged, then challenge myself to use them in a way that gives them new life. It's a process that's almost meditative for me.

The navy bag is a project I did for a client who just loves to needlepoint on her commute to and from work. This is the third bag I've made for her using this Klimt design. This time I quilted a Klimt-esque pattern on the navy material. I'm sure this design will come up again; maybe I need to make a Klimt-inspired quilt!

Valentines Day quiting ideas

This year, for Valentine's day, I made fabric postcards and bookmarks for my family. The postcards are pieced backgrounds of a single color fabric, with fusible applique on top of the backgrounds, heavily quilted.

For the backgrounds, I first found about 7 different red (or blue) fabrics from my stash. Then I pieced the fabrics using wavy strips, to create a background about 12 X 18 inches. Then I slashed in strips, about 1-inch wide at angles. I fused the fabric to a piece of Timtex, and then cut that into postcard-sized pieces.

Then comes the really fun part -- it's like doodling with fabric. I found several fabrics that contrasted with the background, and fused Wonder Under to the back of those fabrics. Then I cut and collaged the flowers. When I got an arrangement I liked, I fused the pieces on the background. Then I quilted to highlight the flowers.

The blue bookmark is for my son, who is a fan of the Eragon books. I made this bookmark by using the cover art from the three books in that series. It was fun quilting the dragon's faces.