Providing Quilting Supplies, Services and Support. My shop has quilting quality fabric, pre-cuts, Aurifil thread, notions and patterns at 301 Main Street, Grand Coulee, WA. Gammill Long-arm machine hand guided quilting up to 96" wide. Complete quilt commissions considered.
As I reflect on the past 6 months it is difficult to decide which single quilt to share with you. Right now, the voting is still happening, once a day over at McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 and so the most exciting quilts I've worked on in the past 6 months have been at least two (Mi Amore and 1892 Rondure) of the three that I have created through the three challenges presented to the contestants. The final challenge was to use lyrics from a song to be inspired.
My husband and I have found very meaningful songs in our 2.5 year marriage so far. The first, 'Never Alone' and the second 'I Run to You', both sung by Lady Antebellum. We discovered the first song through Jim Brickman's CD and then started following Lady Antebellum a bit more. So, our love is still pretty young, but we've had to endure many stressful situations already that have only made us stronger as a couple. We're headed into a potentially stressful situation again with a job change, but we come back to our faith and our songs. Our special songs aren't necessarily that recognizable, so I tried to chose a love song that was at the top of the charts for a while...even it was back in the 90's!
I did a complete writeup of the design and fabrication process of the quilt 'Mi Amore' here. As I listened to the words, the visual of hearing a song kept coming to mind. I wanted to explore more 3-dimensional design work in the background and then something coming forward as well. I am very excited with the result of this quilt. I hope you like it too!
Mi Amore by Marlene Oddie 2011
Final Round Entry in the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Contest
What did I learn? Here is a quote from an old post that I want to just share directly with you:
"When I started this McCall's contest, I
didn't feel that I could clearly define my style of quilt design. I have made
many quilts, most my own designs, but always a reaction to a particular
inspiration for the ultimate recipient. Now having made 3 quilts within this
challenge process, I believe that in a series, these all say that I have a style
that incorporates geometric shapes, perspective/3-d and color variegations. I
look forward to continuing to develop this (my) style.
1892 Rondure
70"x70"
Pulsed Illumination
37"x37"
Mi Amore -
51"x63"
Thank you
McCalls for the format and organization of this process and giving those of us
who participated an opportunity for exposure to a larger public and reason to
explore our own style."
My next big excitement is escorting a group to the Int'l Quilt Festival of Ireland June 5-15, 2012...so if you're interested in leaving out of Seattle....the full-payment discount is good through Nov. 1! Join me!
Thanks for stopping by during the festival. There are many more bloggers participating in the festival. Check them out at this linkup over at Amy's Creative Side.
Happy Halloween....I hope you are having a spooktacular day! This picture was taken at the Washington State Quilter's show entrance in Spokane, last year.
So, on my design wall are my placemats. These hearts were cut using a Go! Baby. I've got the tops finished, just need to quilt them now. Wondering if I should back them with black or white. If I do white, then white thread for some quilting would work nicely, but if I put black on the back...then the thread choice becomes a bigger question.
I want to make some progress on my 'Oddie's Wild Nature' quilt using blocks adapted from some June Jaeger designs and Ryan McKenna. This is a June Jaeger one. I'll consider this as a BOM's Away Monday category project just because each block is so different. The eye is cut out and it just placed perfectly to really look like an eye using the background fabric coming through! Yeah! June's pattern is done as a silhouette, but I'm doing mine more real life. My husband and I actually saw elk during mating season one year. Well heard them more than saw them, but we saw them in a deep forest setting, so I thought this background was perfect for how we have experienced the wild.
I also did some browsing this last week and discovered what the Skill Builder Sampler is all about. I've been watching Lee @ Freshly Pieced do hers and wasn't interested in participating until I saw the button. Amazing what will inspire us, right? Have you seen this? I've got a really cool idea and think I just might try to jump in on this project.
I'm going to try to start writing blog entries that aren't just 'status' related on Friday's, so I hope you'll check out my blog entry from last Friday if you aren't a regular follower.
Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 **** TOMORROW !! **** for
full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15,
2012.
McCall's voting is still happening, vote for your favorite once a day through Nov. 8. Don't forget to leave a
comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!
I have been so busy w/the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 contest the last several months it seems that I've been out of touch with real life sometimes, let alone keeping up with what is going on in the quilting industry. Within the past week I have tried to catch up on various activities that I enjoy browsing online. This includes promotions and sale fabric and other fun things like that!
I just want to give a shout out for Sew Lux! I saw a promotion shared by one of their friends on Facebook, checked it out and actually purchased some sale fabric. Of course I signed up for their newsletter and now follow their blog. When I received the newsletter I was their FQ winner for the week! OH my!! How exciting! I'm adding a FQ of Kate Spain's Terrain Fern Berry. This will go nicely with the Terrain charm pack I already received in the mail. I'll probably use it as some element of a zinger in the design. Love this color!
As I get close to the end of the year it is nice to reflect on what I've done and think forward to new goals for next year. This year included gaining exposure in the quilting industry and the McCall's contest alone has done a significant amount to reach that goal for sure! Thank you to all who are now following along. Getting into several juried shows, one regional and two national, was also very exciting and helped to increase my exposure and reputation for quality work. These included: AQS - Knoxville, PWQS and MQX-West. Another goal was to create balance in my work life. That was going well until McCall's started! HA! But, I'm already settling back into it and it feels great!
I just took a moment to look at the statistics of this blog and am blown away. Thank you to Patchwork Times and Freshly Pieced for their weekly hosting of linkups. They are my highest referral sites and I got a huge amount of traffic when posting at Patchwork Times when the FINAL quilt for McCall's -Mi Amore was posted. Wow!
If you read my WIP posts on Wednesdays or my Design Wall/BOM's Away/{Sew} Modern Monday posts (click on the labels to the right to read the indexed posts) then you have some idea of things that I've been working on personally. This next year I hope to build on this to include tutorials and other fun projects that I try. Is there something you want to do but would like a little advice? There seems to be a plethera of options online for learning about the art of quilting. I'd like a list of all my favorite resources so I can access them quickly when I need them!
The next few months are going to be an adventure. My husband's work project is wrapping up in just over a month and we're wondering what will be in store for us in the future. He is a mechanical engineer who has enjoyed fulfilling a life long pursuit of working in the renewable energy industry with this current project. He is also interested in airplane construction, air powered cars and pneumatics. We draw on our faith to believe that the right situation will present itself as we search for the next opportunity. Perhaps you'll be a part in that journey.
Fortunately for the most part, my work in the quilting world can travel with me wherever we may end up.
Thank you Thank you for all of the wonderful comments left on the voting page. (click on the 'vote for me' to the right to check it out and add yours)
Bonus: Just wanted to share my latest customer quilts.....so happy to be back into the swing of things. I'm loving how the feathers turned out on this cotton sateen (left). The borders especially! On the right is my 'Zoe' pattern with a front facing frog pantograph which was just the perfect design to put on this Tula Pink 'Prince Charming' fabric with the frogs subtly in the design. This particular frog in the fabric and the pantograph just happened to align in an amazing sort of way. I have a client who has done several of my 'Zoe' pattern quilts and I usually get to be very creative with the quilting. This is the first I've done a pantograph on 'Zoe', but it was just the perfect design for the fabric and the quilt is intended for a boy. I'll post more photos in my Facebook album.
An exciting development in my long-arm machine setup includes a set of Red Snappers that I bought from Renae Haddadin while at MQX-West. No more pin pricks for me and quilt backs (and tops if you want) are loaded and unloaded in a snap! Check them out on her website.
Personal Projects Progress: 8 are in process
EQ7 2011 BOM- on track
through October! I think the remaining two blocks will need to have green centers, but a fair amount of white, wdyt? Maybe another with significant black. I don't know what the block patterns are yet, so just thinking about trying to get a decent balance. The EQ challenge will be at the end of the year when we get to design a 'setting' for these blocks.
Fearless Design Ch. 9 - 4 blocks w/diff. borders/placemats for charity . I got the hearts attached to the background. Now to decide on the various borders. I've designed several in EQ7, but not sure I want to go through the real exercise and make them, just due to time
Awaiting Attention:
Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so
we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth (it was ready to quilt!!)
2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target
December
Completed during 2011 (TOTAL: 12)
McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge - @ McCall's HDQTRS
1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX
West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted
into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's
version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011)
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now
on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - Black Hole
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters
Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for
full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15,
2012.
Thanks for stopping by....Thanks for voting! Don't forget to leave a
comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!
The voting is still going on for the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 challenge. This is the FINAL round. You can vote once a day from any device you have internet access with and can leave a comment on what you like about the quilt, how it speaks to you, etc. Thank you for your consideration as you look at the 12 quilts. Mine, 'Mi Amore' is shown on the left.
I've been able to get back to customer projects and have made significant progress on a t-shirt quilt that was commissioned by the mother of the owner of one I have already made. This mother was clearly supportive of her daughter's pursuits and had plenty of used and unused t-shirts and dress shirts with licensed embroideries to show for it! It is fun to imagine the adventures that people have been on while piecing these quilts together. I plan on writing a tutorial for doing this, at least a checklist of tasks so if any of you are interested in making your own in this fashion and would like some guidance, you can! Follow along with my blog and you'll get to see it soon. The border is the 'periwinkle' color of the Lumiere Sateen --the same line of fabric used in Mi Amore. This will be on the back as well.
Personal projects--I have the EQ7 BOM - October Opportunity block finished (shown right).
Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for
full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15,
2012.
Thanks for stopping by....Thanks
for voting! Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!
Not much progress on personal things, as I've gotten back to customer requests and trying to catchup on a few. Did you see my post with my FINAL McCall's Quilt Design Star challenge revealed? I counted it completed last week since I had to send it off to McCall's, but I couldn't show pictures until McCall's revealed it on Monday afternoon. You can read all about it at that link. Please consider a vote every day through Nov. 8. I was really going for a 3-d effect. wdyt? When voting, there is an optional comment section on the same page, please leave one! Thank you!
And for all of you who voted in the past rounds....thank you for helping me get through to here. This is the final stretch and I'd appreciate your continued daily vote support!
Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so
we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October --am wondering if this is
ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.
Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target
December
Completed (TOTAL: 12
McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge - @ McCall's
HDQTRS
1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX
West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted
into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's
version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011)
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now
on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - Black Hole
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters
Great to be able to show you my final McCall's challenge. Please vote daily through Nov. 8!I'm still loving the 3-d effect of the background alone and the hearts coming forward.
Last week I got to attend a hands-on class by Linda V. Taylor at MQX-West in Portland, OR. Here is what I created based on what we learned. I used it as a real practice piece rather than trying to create something for show, but here it is!
Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.
Having taken the process pledge....I will share.
Challenge: use lyrics from a well recognized song to be inspired, let it represent you as a designer.
I immediately thought of several songs that are 'ours' (my dear husband and I), but I didn't feel like they would be well recognized. I went in search of something that would still represent our love but be more recognizable. My quilting in general is so supported by him, I had to choose a song that could represent why I am even here.
I Adore, Mi Amor - by Color me Badd - if you don't recognize it from the title, I believe you'll recognize it when you hear it (if you were alive in the early 90's!).
So...it is all about listening and knowing the love of my dreams ..... (lyrics) and so started my design process.
In general I was thinking about some sort of background but then large applique over the top. In thinking about these specific lyrics, I imagined hearing it from a speaker. If you look at the speaker fabric under a microscope it just might look like the background I have created. The hearts represent the love of my dreams coming forth from the speakers. The more I tweaked the design, it almost looked like a castle wall with small glass (red) windows. Medieval Love!
I have Lumiere Sateen in my stash that I've wanted to use for a long time.
I love Jinny Beyer border prints, but wasn't sure I'd find one to work, but alas I did! Four Seasons - 6055-04. This softens the geometric design of the center but keeps it looking Latin.
I loaded the fabric image (although not a full-repeat) into EQ7 so I could get an idea of how it would come together and then quickly ordered from Jinny Beyer's studio the only place I was able to find it online.
Besides the Lumiere Sateen, I also had some Cotton Sateen solids, including a lot of black and only a fat quarter of several other colors. I decided that one solid red I had was too cherry/orange like, and the dark/maroon was the best darkest dark to go with the Lumiere Sateen. I then decided NOT to use the lightest end of the Lumiere Sateen in the redish colorway. These squares get cut once on the diagonal.
I wanted to print the text on the fabric, but the size of the heart was too big to feed through my printer. Light box and fabric pen to the rescue! This font was used for our wedding stuff too!
Here I have cut up strips from the greyish colorway of the Lumiere Sateen. I also had solid black and decided that was best for the darkest dark.
I decided I should do a test block. I don't know if I have ever done a 'test' block before, so this was really disciplined of me. But I wanted this quilt to really work well and the color placement was critical. I did one block, took a photo of it, then replicated that photo multiple times to get a mocked up version. It is going to work! WHOO!! HOO!! If you don't see the 3-d effect, just squint a little bit.
Chain piecing by folding a grey strip and a red triangle in half, align the midpoints, sew, set the seam, press (special directions to keep the seams going in a nice way), then trim to size. I just happened to have the perfect ruler!
There really are only two blocks, but half of each block should be pressed in opposite directions so that when putting the blocks together you get seams that complement each other rather than overlap. I put together the half square triangles into a square. Then the four squares that make a larger block, 3 blocks in a row and 4 rows.
Note the pressing, especially in the center of this four-square.
Carefully pull apart the seam so that they all lay in different directions. This is supposed to help the join lay squarely. This also meant that each square nicely joins with the next square in all directions.
Center pieced-- look at the 3-d effect! WHOO HOO!YEAH!!
Mirrored mitered borders, the Jinny Beyer way! Here I am testing with a mirror to see if I like the mitered location or if I should choose an alternate 'center' point (there were two points of symmetry in this border). The middle border, top and bottom, used the Lumiere Sateen WOF; left and right used a slice from the LOF on the dark edge. In the design process I changed the size of the quilt to fit the WOF to be able to use the fabric this way. If you chose to make a king size you could use two WOFs. The inner and outer border print were on just the right repeat so that I didn't have to cut the long sides to get a good design mirror miter at the corners. Typically with a rectangle you need to do a middle join half way between the two corners on the long sides in order to keep the mirrored miter working correctly. When doing so, the center joins aren't very noticable, but I didn't even have to do them!
This could have been the entire quilt, but I felt it needed more to be in this challenge. Now, let's test the applique' process. How do I want to put these on to the top? I tried it several ways (see the test below), but ultimately decided upon fusible woven interfacing to give it extra opaqueness, used on all hearts except the tiniest to give them consistency in their texture and look. Thank you Suzanne Young for the interfacing.
With templates from EQ7, I traced each of the 15 hearts on the interfacing, cut each of them out and ironed them onto the wrong side of the fabric as shown. The visual here is key to get the shading direction correct if I wanted it to be like I had designed it!
Right sides together, stitch the actual heart shape, right at the interfacing. Split open the back side and turn it inside out. Hand applique 'blindly' to the quilt top center in its appropriate location. Remembering a tutorial I saw at our local quilt festival in September by Mission Lake Designs, I wanted to use silk thread, but didn't feel the one color and very old thread that I happened to have in my stash would be a good choice. I ended up using my Aurifil Maco 40 weight in a variety of colors. Thanks Aurifil!! I'm also not convinced I really knew what I was doing with this applique since hand applique really isn't my thing, but I felt the fabric type required it. I like to use fusible raw edge applique when I can ;-).
Test. There are several different ideas tried with these four hearts, including machine (black heart only) and hand applique; (left to right) cotton batt sewn into the seam, batting added behind the quilt top as if it is being trapunto'd, no stuffing, stuffed with hobbs 80/20. I also wrote on the heart with a fabric pen to test how that would work. I then added a layer of wool and a layer of cotton batting and then the backing. Not sure if I want to do all of that on the real thing.
I experimented with the quilting a bit on the hearts. Quilting half of two of the hearts and not the other half just to see how they would set up. I quilted the Mi Amore in the large heart. Motif quilting in all 4 sides and straight line in the borders based on the fabric motif in the left and bottom borders. Definitely want to do the straight line on all borders in the real quilt. Need to outline the hearts with quilting (just outside the heart) but need to use clear or smoke thread. Used 3 different threads in the curved lines: black (upper right), grey (lines lower of the hearts) and a white WonderFil (lower left). Decided the grey was probalby best, but needed to be a bit darker. Thank you Suzanne Young for coming through with the right threads!
At this point I'm just hoping the applique hasn't distorted the quilt top too much. I'm going to use wool only for batting and solid black cotton sateen on the back and binding.
In quilting this I was concerned about losing the 3-d effect in the background so didn't want to quilt it too densely. Keeping with my notion of 'Simple and Stunning', I tried to do just that. Long sweeping movements are difficult even on a long-arm since I like to stitch them fairly quickly and that overruns the regulator and wool batting is fairly lofty providing some shifting to the quilt top as you move across the quilt. The cotton sateen is fairly flimsy (i.e. not stiff) so the quilting lines definitely add movement and movement of sound can be spastic, right? ;-) I think it would be fun to make this again and this time heavily quilt the background with spastic illustrations of sound bursts and see how much difference it makes to the 3-d effect (if at all). I roughly chalked the sweeping curves with a chalking wheel before quilting them. Only one had to be continued after shifting the quilt since I loaded it sideways on the long-arm frame. The hearts in the border were freehanded as I did the inside ditch with 'smoke'--an invisible thread that is dark in color. This thread was also used in the scallops of the border and going around each appliqued heart. The key is to get the thread with a sock on it or put it in a bag so that the thread doesn't jump off the spool and then catch underneath and stop the machine or break the thread. (rrrr) I freehanded the Mi Amore lettering. The thicker sections are outlined.
How is this for having just enough thread? I had to pull some off the bobbin back onto the spool in order to finish up the binding. WHEW!!!
My working title was Medieval Love, but I decided to go with Mi Amore which isn't exactly the title of the song, but apparently is part Spanish and part Italian and since the quilt feels Latin, I just liked how it looked and sounded. Hope you like it!
This quilt was made for the FINAL round in the 2011 McCalls Quilt Star Design Challenge. Voting is open Oct. 18 - Nov. 8, 2011. Thank you for your support throughout this entire process. May I suggest after you get to the voting page that you make it a 'favorite' or put a link on you desktop so you can access it easily every day! Don't forget to leave a comment on the voting page as well. Thanks!!
Vote HERE daily.
Personal Reflections: When I started this McCall's contest, I didn't feel that I could clearly define my style of quilt design. I have made many quilts, most my own designs, but always a reaction to a particular inspiration for the ultimate recipient. Now having made 3 quilts within this challenge process, I believe that in a series, these all say that I have a style that incorporates geometric shapes, perspective/3-d and color variegations. I look forward to continuing to develop my style.
1892 Rondure 70"x70"
Pulsed Illumination 37"x37"
Mi Amore - 51"x63"
Thank you McCalls for the format and organization of this process and giving those of us who participated an opportunity for exposure to a larger public and reason to explore our own style.
If you would like to vote, you can do so daily Oct. 18-Nov. 8. You will find my quilt here.
As I reflect on the past 6 months it is difficult to decide which single quilt to share with you. Right now, the voting is still happening, once a day over at McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 and so the most exciting quilts I've worked on in the past 6 months have been at least two (Mi Amore and 1892 Rondure) of the three that I have created through the three challenges presented to the contestants. The final challenge was to use lyrics from a song to be inspired.
