Grip & Stitch Disks, BPQ Show and Giveaway!!!

These are the disks I love!  I always use them and now have 4 pairs, one for each machine station and another to keep in my class bag, because I love quilting with them and hate being without them.  They even help me grip and move the fabric or larger part of piecing and sewing projects much easier than my old way of grabbing  a handful of the fabric when I'm sewing.  If you've been to one of my quilting classes or free motion quilting demonstrations, you've seen me use these!  When I was at the Houston Quilt Market last year, a little video was made in the APQS booth when I was demonstrating quilting on the George (this is the long arm quilting machine I have - it's in a table, like my Bernina and Pfaff), and Clever Craft Tools has some U-Tube videos on their website.

Besides quilting and sewing, there are lots of other things I can see these disks being used for, such as when my husband is using his scroll saw.  Even though it's a saw, which is cutting the wood apart, instead of joining, the operation of the blade is up and down and the wood is moved like you move fabric when quilting, and I think it would give the woodworker an easier way to maneuver the wood they are cutting.  Now I just need to dream up a project that will get him to get out his scroll saw and try it.  Hmmm, I wonder if he will let me play with it?

Now here's the giveaway part.  I have a set of the newest version of the Grip & Stitch disks, which has even better quality foam and instead of the gray layer in the middle, it's now white.  Starting today, I'll be setting up my booth  at the Block Party Quilters Quilt Show with my booth neighbor, who is the manufacturer of these cool disks, Clever Craft Tools, and she has given me a pair to giveaway.  So leave a comment on this blog post and on Monday I'll use the random number generator to pick a winner!  

If you're local, come see us at the Block Party Quilt Show this weekend and say hi!  There will even be a machine so you can take the disks on a test spin.

(The fine print:  If you're the winner, I'll need a way to contact you or will have to pick a different winner if I am unable to get in touch with you next week.)

Field of Sunflowers

While the paint was still out, I painted the sunflower fat quarter quilt, so now it's also ready for binding and a sleeve! Although the discharge I tried in the background layer didn't seem to work as planned, maybe the paint to discharge paste was wrong, who knows, but it will require more testing to find out.  At least the background still worked for the sunflowers, and I'm happy with the way it came out!

This is the original fabric sandwich that was quilted:

The paint changed it to look like this:

It's fun to experiment with little projects like these, so I'm planning to do more in the future!

Daisies in Vases

Last night I had some fun with paint!  Using my limited palette of Jacquard fabric paints that came in little squeeze bottles, I mixed opaques, pearls and the metallic Lumieres to add more color to my little fat quarter, painted floral quilts.  I think the only thing left to do is bind and add a sleeve, and am considering an invisible binding, like I did on Janet's Influence, so the binding doesn't take away from the daisies and vases.

It started with a fat quarter sized fabric sandwich to be used to demonstrate free motion quilting on during our local shop hop.  As there were long breaks between groups of hoppers, I decided to have some fun and see what could be done with supplies on hand.  I used chalk to trace around my drink bottle, for the outer size for the daisies.  Once those were quilted, I decided they would be in funky vases and sketched funky outlines for the vases, stems and leaves.  All the sketched areas were filled in with free motion quilting and then the background, which ended up looking like this:

Up close, showing the real fabric color:

I wanted more color in the background, so this was painted with Jacquard's Dye-na-flow fabric paints, which flow more like a dye.  Now I liked the background color and it was ready to paint the daisies and vases, and the light was right, so I was able to get a better picture that showed the quilting off .  [I wish I could get the light to be like this for all my pictures:-)]

Painted Floral Quilts

These two little quilts were begun when I was at Quiltworks NW, demonstrating the Grip 'n Stitch disks, as I wanted to show the shop hoppers a more interesting quilting than just the little doodling, that just showed how to use the disks.  First I used chalk to draw circles around my drink bottle, scattering them across my sample, fat quarter, quilt sandwiches.  Once the flower centers were filled with quilting, petals were added, and then I chalked the stems and leaf placement.  I didn't stop until the whole quilt sandwich was covered with quilting!

For the second fat quarter quilt, flower heads were quilted in the circles, and then I decided they would be placed in vases, so I added a few more chalk lines.  Switching between chalking a few outlines and quilting, I worked until there was no more room for quilting! 

 Of course, the next step is going to be painting in the quilted designs, although I'm thinking I might like to try a wash of color to make the background more interesting before starting on the flowers.

My Quilts at Innovations

This Fantasy Fish quilt and my Water quilt are in Tacoma, WA for the Innovations machine quilting show. Wednesday and Friday I'll be down there to see how they did in the show, as well as take classes (and of course, there's a vendor mall too). If you're in the area, the show runs September 16-19.

three finished projects

I'm on a roll trying to finish up some projects that I've been working on simultaneously, and these three are finished (for now anyway).



First is the book cover that I started when I was writing up my Artistic Free-motion online class. I've added the pockets inside to hold a book and bound it, so it's just waiting for a book to be placed inside.



Next is the art quilt landscape - first project for the art quilt class that I'm taking with Jane LaFazio at joggles.com. I've added my hand stitching, and also went back and shaded the trees again to add more depth.



Last is a felt flower design for the same art quilt class. I'm not sure I'm making a quilt out of it - maybe a wall hanging, but it will be finished once I decide. At least all the cutting, layout, and embroidery are done!

quilted book cover progress

While I was finishing up my class lessons, I wanted to have a trapunto sample. Another thing I wanted to have time for was making a book cover with a piece of my sun printed fabrics that has been hanging around my sewing room. So, here is my combination project! The large leaf is actually a trapunto leaf, and there is both a layer of batting and fast to fuse between the top and back. It is in colors that I normally wouldn't use for leaves and landscape, but that was what my fabric dictated I do. The cover still needs to be assembled and edges finished, but I'm making progress. The lessons are now finished and sent, so now it is time to do some of my regular chores caught up so that I can get back and finish this book cover.

quilting samples

While writing up the free-motion quilting class, I decided I needed to have some new samples that will eventually be bound together into a fabric book. I've intentionally tried to stitch them in a way that a student might be able to follow my stitching, instead of back tracking as much as I normally would. I thought you might like to get a peek, so here is part of a page with few leaves. When I teach in person, my plan is to bring the book along so that it can be passed around for reference when I'm busy helping someone else.

Heavenly Hearts IV - in pink!

This pink version was started during a demo that I did at Gathering Fabric earlier this month. Now it is finished, and I'm having a difficult time deciding whether I like the pink or purple best. What do you think?

Enjoy browsing my blog,
Lynn

Heavenly Hearts - in purple!

My original Heavenly Hearts quilt was made mostly from a variety of pastel pink batiks, so when I decided to make a purple version, I first thought it would be more of a lavender color. However, once I started combing through my batik stash the deeper purples called to me. It isn't calm and quiet like the pink version, it is definitely more vibrant!

Summer Bounty

Well, I'm finally getting back here to update my blog! I've finished a new project for a class I'm teaching locally, and thought you'd like to see it. It was designed to have a variety of textures, and an illusion of dimension (as well as a few beads for real dimension), and have lots of the stitching that I always do on my applique quilts.

Of course, I'm still working to finish my hussif and pursif, and with just a few details to finish, it should be done soon.

Lynn M