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!

Fun with Hexies!

Way back in March, I was very excited about going to Bloomington, IN to take a class with Mickey Depre called "Hello Hexies! - Mug Rug".  Unfortunately, two days before the class, my hubby fell getting off his motorcycle and fractured his femur.  He spent 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital, and I spent a lot of time sitting by his bedside.  So I thought, I should probably just teach myself to English Paper Piece.  I mean, I retaught myself how to knit continental style after learning English style when I was 10.  Problem was, I heard that it was kind of addicting!

Yeah, they are kinda addicting.  I started out just making enough to make some mug rugs.  But then, I really wanted to keep making them.  So I fired up my trust EQ7 and designed this little wall hanging.  I churned out blue hexies, and thought how cute some bees would look, so I pieced some black and yellow and to make a pieced hexie!

My original thought was to do some hand stitching ala Laura Wasilowski, but I changed direction when I saw how well my Bernina 550 did a double blanket stitch with King Tut thread.  And I was inspired to free motion quilt the petals in the hexie petals, and pebble the flower centers!

And I am pretty proud of the back, also!  I usually would match my bobbin thread to my backing fabric, but I was afraid of having black thread pop up in the blue sky, so I threw caution to the wind and went for white!

Mickey has written a book "Pieced Hexies - A New Tradtion in English Paper Piecing" which will be available in September.  Pieced Hexies has its own Facebook page; if this has interested you, stop by and like it, and browse at all the fun things you can do with hexagons!

A quilting challenge!

The day started normal enough.  Drinking my coffee, and checking on my friends on Facebook.  One of my friends, Teri Lucas, said she was awaiting the mail for a special package.  Turns out she was waiting for a delivery of Robert Kaufman Radiance.  I mentioned that I had found some in my sewing room while doing a reorganization.  Teri challenged me to make something out of it.  I accepted the challenge!

I considered making some piecework, as I had just watched a Sally Collins' video yesterday on precision piecing.  Then I thought about doing a crazy patch.  But what I really think of when I see Radiance is how beautiful it looks quilted!

I could have done a simple feather wreath, but I wanted to do something different.  I mean, if it is a challenge, it should stretch your abilities.  So I searched my Quilting Designs and found this design!  Perfect!  So I did a practive piece on muslin, with turquoise Isacord thread.  Started to add some thread painting details.  Yeah!  That's a good touch

So I created this!  But this wasn't Radiance, it was a piece of cotton sateen.  Not the same.  And although you probably couldn't tell it over the net from the picture, I would know that it wasn't Radiance.  So although it was great practice, it was back to the drawing board.

Taking inspiration from my favorite coffee mug, I drew up this design.  I wanted to add the snail, because I know how to stitch 'em!

Sorry for the sideways picture...grrr!  So this is done on a light brown piece of Radiance.  Superior threads of King Tut, Kimono silk, Rainbow, and one YLI.  I think the drawing looks better than the actual execution.  But it was fun!  I used a wool batting, which gives it a bit of loft!

So, the moral of this story is, sometimes it pays to just keep your fingers off the keyboard rather than adding your two cents worth!  Have a quilty day!

Mystery Bus Trip

Bright and early (6am to be exact...yawn!) 49 excited quilters meet up with this handsome guy who loaded us all up on this big blue bus.  Except for a few of the ladies, most of us had no clue where we were going!  We were promised a fun day, and by golly!  they were right!

The fun started as we boarded the bus!  The committee had a terrific goody bag for us, with a cool handmade name tag (to help the shop owner's identify the bus people and give us our due discount!)  We all got a great recyclable green bag from JoAnn's, which most of us filled by the end of the end (more on that later!)  We also got the cool little Fiskars scissors, which are great for handsewing!  A raffle ticket for door prizes, a salty snack, napkins and wet wipes to keep us neat completed the bag!  To keep our strength up, we all got a delicious muffin, and a cooler of bottled water was availble to keep us hydrated during the day!

We had lots of fun trying to guess where we were going, as the bus started our journey.  We started out headed west...were we going to Morton and Peoria, or perhaps even further west?  When the bus pulled off in Bloomington, a general cry went through the bus, oh no! It's way too early for a quilt shop to be open!  But to keep us on our toes, it was just a well planned potty break.  When we turned north from Bloomington, we started thinking Rockford, or Madison, WI.  Well, we did stop in Rockford, pulling into the Quilter's General Store right at opening time!  I didn't get a picture of the shop, but it is in an old farm house!  Every inch of space was used!  They had some great fabric, especially kids theme!

Besides fondling fabrics, we quilters like to eat (you got that idea from our goody bag, right!)  So our next stop was lunch!  The Machine Shed in Rockford is a terrific restaurant!  They were pre-warned, er, notified that 49 hungry ladies and one bus driver would be visiting them, and they were ready and waiting to serve us!

I split a BLT with another lady, and we had more than enough food!  The sweet potato fries were served with cinnamon butter to dip them in!  BTW, this was my plate...Alma's was identical!  we shared the fruit cup you see in the background.  Then another lady who had too much on her plate gave us her cole slaw which Alma and I shared!  They didn't have any lemon meringue pie that day, or you would be looking at a picture of that!

Next stop was the Quilter's Haven!  Another delightful shop!  We all oohed and aahed at their selection, then helped the economy of Rockford!

Back on the bus, and we headed east.  We drove through Dekalb...we saw signs talking of Aurora in 22 miles....were we going to Naperville?  Great shop there!  But then we turned south.  Went through a lot of towns, but we finally knew...we were going to Morris!  The Fabric Center is a fantastic store, and was our last store!  They have a huge store, with all kinds of fabrics, lovely shop samples, and places for weary quilters to sit and contemplate!  They graciously stayed open an hour later for us, and we graciously made it worth their effort!  Supper was at Culver's in Morris.  I was good and had a salad, and I was so good, I rewarded myself with a Lemon Ice with raspberry topping!  It was very good!

Like all good days, it had to come to an end.  I got home at 9:30, welcomed by a happy dog and hubby!  And see, I did manage to fill my shopping bag!

Millie Sorrells Advanced Heirloom Quilting

On June 2, I had the opportunity to travel to Decatur, IL to take a class from Millie Sorrells, quilter extraordinaire!  Millie is a lovely and gentle lady who does drop dead gorgeous quilting!  She had a quilt win a second place ribbon this year at Paducah, as well as having a miniature quilt hang in the show!  Millie also has the privilege of having one of Superior Threads Kimono Silk threads named for her (it is a beautiful red)!  What a fantastic class it was!

We practiced different quilting patterns in the morning, then Millie gave each of us a class kit that included cotton sateen, wool batting, a spool of Kimono silk, and a Schmetz needle, size 60.  She even included enough bias binding to finish off our sampler!  Now that is a class act!  We ran out of time to finish the sampler in class, but I didn't let it be just another UFO in my stash!

This was such fun to work on!  I had never done clam shells before, always afraid that I could not get them perfect.  But I marked out a grid, and went for it!  I love the checkerboard effect! And what is not to love about a feathered wreath! 

The nautilus design was not from Millie's class.  I got this idea from Teri Lucas, another quilter extraordinaire!  I love the swirling lines, and being able to use more lines to fill in!  It was uber fun!

Speaking of Miss Teri, I was fortunate to have been interviewed by her for her blog.  Please check out her blog, and not just my interview, but her whole site!  She is an awesome quilter, and an awesome person!

Fun with feathers

Goodness!  I didn't mean for a month to go by without a blog post!  I still have been super busy with taking care of hubby.  He is still non weight bearing on the fractured leg, so he is dependent on me for most things.

The major news this month is that I bought a new sewing machine!  And, yes, this loyal Janome girl crossed over and bought a Bernina!  It is the 550QE!  I am so in love with her!  I have named her Earline, in memory of my Uncle Earl, whose inheritance money I used to buy her.  Earline has been purring like a kitten, responding like the fine European machine that she is!  She has not been fussy about threads or needles.  I am getting used to the BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator).  I will be taking a class later this week to learn more about that feature.   I also am going to be taking an advanced Heirloom quilting class with Millie Sorrells on Saturday.

Sorry that this is sideways!  Yesterday I picked up this book at JoAnn Fabrics using my 40% off coupon.  I am in love with her feather concepts.  The book is "Creating your own Dream Feathers" by Peggy Holt.  It is published by AQS (American Quilters Society).

The "S" shape is the first one I attempted to stitch.  I used a multi-colored Mettler thread to do all these!  I did not use the BSR, but will play with that later to see about getting some better stitch control!

I love the stylized butterflies she showed in the book!  I am going to be practicing these a bit more, and I have just the piece of fabric to put them on.

PS:  I will be selling my Janome 7700, if anyone in my area is interested, let me know!

It's been busy!

I guess I had better get a post in before April gets away from me!  March was a very busy month for me, with our quilt guild retreat at Lake Williamson.  I fully intended to have several posts on the retreat, but my intentions didn't make it into reality.
I had promised hubby that I would work on a quilt for him at retreat.  It was a Kansas Troubles Quilters  pattern called "Candle in the Window".  He had seen the quilt made up at A Quilting Bee in Mahomet, and wanted me to make it.  Not exactly an exciting thing for me, but I told him I would work on it at retreat.  Well, it is done, and is at the long arm as I type.  Pictures to come.

I did get the binding done on this quilt, also made for Wayne! The pattern is from Elisa's Backporch Design.  It is called Earl Grey, but I added an extra round to make it bigger, as well as a border, so I am calling it The Duke of Earl Grey, a nod to Wayne's teen years in the 1950s!  If you go to Elisa's website, she has a great video for doing those curves.

I did make some more of those mini pieced baskets and made a miniature quilt!  I was labeled as the crazy one at retreat...but I really enjoyed the challenge of working with small pieces and seams!  Sally Collins' technique made it so easy!  I will be taking an Heirloom Quilting class from Millie Sorrells in June.  I am going to wait until then to quilt this, as I am going to ask Millie for some advise!

I also finished up the cherries from Nancy Prince's class.  I used Sally Collins' technique to add that 1/8" border.  I used silk thread and silk batting.  Wayne thinks I should just frame this instead of finishing it off with binding.  I may just do that....eventually!

Speaking of Wayne, he is the reason I have been so busy!  Wayne had lost nearly 100#, and was feeling lots better physically.  So he traded in his motorscooter for Yamaha 250cc motorcycle.  Less than 24 hours later, he fell while getting off said motorcycle, fracturing his femur.  He spent almost 3 weeks in the hospital, and is home.  But he is to be no weight bearing on the leg that was fractured.  Fortunately, we had a power chair from when he fractured his proximal fibula (small bone in the lower leg just below the knee) last year.  So I have been doing private home care duties.

The weekend that Wayne fell, we were going to go to Shiisa Quilts in Bloomington, IN to take a Hexie Class from Mickey Depre.  I needed a hand project to do while in the hospital, so I taught myself to English paper piece.  I designed a little wall hanging on EQ7.  I am going to add some hand stitched embroidery ala Laura Wasilowski.

Wayne's accident also truncated my planned trip to Paducah!  I did manage to get down for Tuesday and Wednesday!  Circle of Life didn't get any awards or ribbons, but I am just thrilled to see it hanging at the Paducah Show!

So this brings us up to the current date.  I have been working on a few things.  This is my independent stab at thread painting!  I traced a picture that my nephew Logan Ingold had posted on his Facebook site, and followed Nancy Prince's instructions!  Not too sure what I will do with this. Probably quilt and bind it, and hang it in my sewing room!