Past Heritage, New Traditions

That was our theme for Illini Country Stitcher's 2013 Quilt Show!  This was my second time chairing our biennial quilt show.  It is a lot of work, but it is enjoyable to see ideas come to fruition, and to have a chance to display all our guild members' immense talent!  At times it is like herding cats, but you just gotta love it!  I'll blog later about the show itself, but now I am just gonna brag a bit on myself!
I entered 7 quilts into the show, in 6 different categories.  I came home with 7 ribbons, but one quilt didn't win anything.  So I will start with that one!

Resting Amongst the Cone Flowers was a quilt inspired by a class with Ellen Anne Eddy through our guild last summer.  I thread painted the bunny and the dragonfly in class.  The background fabric is some of her hand dyed fabric.  It was entered in the art/innovative class.  The competition was stiff, and I was not surprised that I did not win a ribbon there.

This Double Wedding ring quilt was entered in the Antique class.  It was gifted to me by my Uncle Howie when I got married.  He said it was made by my Greatgrandmother Matilda Bell.  However....she passed away in the late 1920s, and this quilt contains many printed feedsack fabrics which were not manufactured until the 1930s.  So we have a family mystery quilter!  This quilt won third place!

This quilt was from a pattern in Quilter's World magazine last fall.  I fell in love with it.  I donated this quilt to a local charity for their silent auction, then purchased it back.  It placed third in large wall hangings.

This quilt belongs to my hubby, and he insisted that I enter it in the show, as he likes it better than the above quilt.  It was also made and donated to the same charity, and hubby purchased it through the silent auction.  Both quilts were in the same category, Large Wall Hanging, and hung across from each other in the show.  It placed second!  Hubby says, I told you so!  I am proud to say that this quilt (well the top, anyway) has been to Houston!  I took it there when I took a class with Teri Lucas to get her opinion on how to quilt it!  Thanks, Teri!

My small group, Material Girls, had a row swap last year.  I requested a Christmas themed quilt.  I was just overjoyed when I was gifted with my rows!  I had a lot of fun deciding how to place my rows and then quilt it!  It placed second in group wall quilts.

This little gem has won before, at the Midwest Heritage Quilt Show.  This was started in a class with Sally Collins at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in 2012. It now has won two first place ribbons!

 

 

This beauty won first place in Mixed/Other (meaning more than one technique was used, ie. a combination of paper piecing, and applique) and Best of Show!  This started life as a Block of the Month through The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. The design was by Sarah Vedeler, although I modified the design starting in month 6!  I call this Sedona Joy, because it was a joy to work with such beautiful colors!

I am still flabbergasted that I won so many ribbons.  The competition was truly marvelous, and people were constantly sighing and saying how hard it was to make a choice!  Counting the ballots took the committee 5 hours because there were many ties!  I am so proud of our guild and the great talent that our members posses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thread Magic with Ellen Anne Eddy

This past weekend, my local guild, Illini Country Stitchers, was host to Ellen Anne Eddy, author of Thread Magic and Thread Magic Garden.  I had previously blogged about these two books.  I have been anxiously awaiting to meet her in person and to learn more about working with threads!

Friday was broken up into two half-day workshops.  Friday morning was "Gilding the Lily".  Here we took a large print fabric, and augmented it with thread!  It was hard to pick a fabric...and even harder to stop thread painting!  I got carried away and did a lot more than was really needed!  But it was totally fun!

Friday afternoon was a class on bobbin work!  It was so fun to work with those heavier threads that can't go through the needle.  I used some of Ellen's hand-dyed perle cotton for the leaves, and Razzle Dazzle by Superior for the flowers.  We also learned that Sliver, and other metallic/mylar threads, are best used through the bobbin!

Saturday was Thread Magic, and for me, it was pulling it all together from the previous days.  I decided my quilt was going to be a bunny hiding amongst the hosta leaves, with a canopy of coneflowers.  Using a pattern that Ellen had brought, and some brown variegated Sashiko thread, I bobbin work made this bunny.  The variegated thread made easy work, without having to do any shading.

Of course, a garden is going to have  insects, and mine has a dragonfly!  I used lime green Sliver in my bobbin to make those cool eyes!  Angelina is on the wings to give it some shimmer!

And here is the finished product!  I had lots of fun thinking this project through.  I used Texture Magic to give dimension to my large hosta leaves.  And I used her corded buttonhole binding technique!

Ellen Anne Eddy

One of the best benefits of belonging to my local guild is the great speakers that we have come to give lectures and workshops.   Our next big name speaker to come will be Ellen Anne Eddy.  I had not heard to her, but when I heard the names of the workshops (The Color Cookbook Approach, Gilding the Lily, Bobbin Work Applique Flowers, Thread Magic Mastery: Working with all Kinds of Threads) I knew that this was going to be a great.  Then, I was reading Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles and she had done a review of Ellen's latest book.  I knew I had to get this book before Ellen came.

I consider myself pretty savvy as far as ordering things from the internet.  But the morning I went to Ellen's site, was not one of my better days.  I erroneous ordered two of her newest book, Thread Magic Garden, and I tried to correct it, but my computer was giving me some fits.  I decided it would be okay, as I could always gift the extra one. 

Okay, to quote John Melloncamp, I'm still hayseed enough to say look who's in the big town.  So when my cell phone jingled, and showed an unfamiliar phone number, I wondered who could be calling.  It was none other than Ellen Anne Eddy herself!  She had seen that I was having some difficulty, and just decided to call and straighten up the situation!   What a pleasant and congenial person.  We chatted about computers, and her upcoming appearance in Champaign.  I even ended up buying a third book on her recommendation, that would help with one of her workshops.

Her newest book explains how to do thread painting, and speaks of the stabilizers, interfacings, and threads that she likes to use.  She also explains her technique, so that you can try your hand at thread painting.  This is a my attempt to do a free hand flower.  A bit of puckering, because I didn't have it well stabilized, but I was pretty happy with the results.

The best thing is that she breaks down how to create different kinds of flowers, and shows not only the finished product, but also what it would look like before you add the stitching.

I tried my hand at the zinnia that is pictured above.  I love zinnias, used to grow them in my flower garden when I was growing up.  They always remind me of my Aunt Zola.  Here's my attempt.  I think is not a bad job!

I love thread painting.  I will be taking a class with Nancy Prince at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show next month.  And I love Ann Fahl's work.  If you love thread work, I really think these books are for you!