Daily Blog

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Leah has provided us with photos of her wonderful quilts, including close-ups of that fabulous quilting. 

Star Members can watch Leah in Show 1712: Free Motion Practice Makes Perfect.

Descriptions of the quilts follow below.

365 Free Motion Quilting Designs - This is the collection of designs Leah created in the first three years of her blog, The Free Motion Quilting Project. Oddly enough, Leah never planned to make this quilt from the beginning, but decided to connect all the little 4-inch blocks together years after they were finished. Once complete, this quilt has become a favorite at quilt shows and when Leah teaches in person. Every single design is different, making it a truly addictive quilt for texture-loving quilters!

Dancing Butterfly Quilt - This year was all about butterflies, as Leah taught quilters around the world how to piece, appliqué, and free motion quilt this beautiful quilt block by block. The butterflies were inspired by an antique quilt that was probably made by a grandmother or great grandmother in Leah's family.

Duchess Reigns - This is one of Leah's most time-consuming and challenging goddess quilts to date. This beautiful wholecloth quilt began as a large, solid white square of fabric and Leah marked and quilted the design before dyeing the entire quilt dark red. This created many challenges for the quilt because the fabric distorted badly, and at one point Leah put it away for more than a year. When she finally got back to the project Leah had to accept the flaws on the surface and just keep quilting. One of Leah's favorite tips is "throw more thread at it!" which definitely came in handy for this quilt.

My Cup Runneth Over - Thankfulness was the theme for this goddess quilt that Leah designed and quilted in 2010. Leah had a sudden inspiration to make a quilt that would represent the overwhelming love and joy of her family. This was one of the first quilts Leah designed with fusible appliqué and the hardest part was knowing what to quilt in the background. Finally after a few months of looking at the quilt on the wall, Leah realized the perfect background was a simple landscape. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best!

Release Your Light - This huge goddess quilt is one of Leah's favorites for the transformation it brought to her life. While working on it, Leah was struck with the idea to start the Free Motion Quilting Project and challenge herself to share new quilting designs every day. In this way, Release Your Light allowed Leah  to release her light to the world, build a business, and support her family.

While it may not look like it, this quilt began as a large white bedsheet! The goddess figure was hand appliquéd to the surface, then the entire quilt was quilted. Only after it was completely finished did Leah began painting the surface with Shiva Paintstiks and colored pencils to create the dramatic blazing sun effect.

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Laura from SewVeryEasy.com is back with a great method for creating reusable fabric gift bags. You can make your own pattern from any paper gift bag. Any size gift bag will work, and you get to choose your own fabric. But don't expect your bag to be returned back to you because they are too cute to re-gift.   :)

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Please consider supporting the National Quilt Museum by donating to their Year-End Matching Campaign. From December 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016 each dollar donated will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

Click here to learn more about donating to the Year-End Matching Campaign.

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Sue's quilt, "Tutti Frutti Alleyway," won 3rd Place Art Whimsical at IQA Houston 2015.  Here she talks about how she created the quilt.  The interview is part of the Quilt Alliance's "Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! project.

Star Members can learn more about Sue in Show 1608: Creating Unique Collage Quilts & Quilts with Meaning. In this show she shares her fabric collage techniques, walking us through the process layer by layer. She also demonstrates using dye magnets to create her wonderful tone-on-tone fabrics.

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TextileFusion was a special exhibit at IQA Houston 2015.  Suzann Thompson fuses together knitting, quilting, crocheting, and embellishing to create her signature TextileFusion pieces.  She cuts and pieces recycled knits onto a fabric foundation.  After she quilts and binds, she embellishes with crocheted motifs, embroidery, buttons, and beads.

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Look at what they are discussing in Paducah.

What do you think of the idea?

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Here's a beautiful quilt from Sue Nickels and Pat Holly, "New York State of Mind."  The sisters talk about the quilt and how they managed to create it while living many miles apart.

Sue and her daughter, Ashley, will be featured in 2016 in "Show 1808: A Quilting Family From Vintage to Modern."

Check out close-ups below the video.

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Pantone began its "Color of the Year" program in 2000.  This year, for the first time, two colors were chosen, and here they are: Serenity and Rose Quartz.

What is the Pantone "Color the Year?"  Here is what Pantone has to say,

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Michael James was our TQS Quilting Legend in 2013. Michael serves as Chair and Ardis James Professor of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (which is also home to the International Quilt Study Center and Museum). In this show (1313)  members are  treated to insights on the collections from Michael and Carolyn Ducey, Curator of Collections. Michael reveals how he transitioned from painter to textile artist, and the evolution of his work in the process. In addition, he shares a technique for enhancing a wholecloth quilt, and welcomes us to his home for a tour of his studio, a peek at his fabric collection, and a preview of the newest piece on his design wall.

Now his latest work is on display at the museum.

 

 

Click here to see the exhibit.

Ambiguity & Enigma: Recent Quilts by Michael James, runs through February 20, 2016.  According to the Catalog's Foreword by Curator Carolyn Ducey, the exhibit:

 

"includes what may be this artist’s most cohesive and introspective work to date. Somber, dark, and mysterious, they play bold strokes off ethereal sky spaces, and stabbed marks against lyrical, though interrupted, linear networks. Leaves, branches, grasses and water remind us of the inexorable cycling of the seasons, death and rot leading to new life leading to death yet again. While the broad vistas of the Plains can seem hopeful, they can be lonely and can seem oppressive too, especially when the sky lowers and bears down ominously. The presence of the landscape can be as discomfiting as comforting. Its expanse can as easily fill one with despair as with optimism.

James’s newest quilts have grown out of a very personal experience of loss and mourning, yet they aspire to universal resonance. His sorrow and pain are familiar to each of us, and have no less impact for that ubiquity. Our human destiny is to live, to love, to lose, to mourn. These quilts embody one artist’s reflections on that destiny."

(Photo: Elegy (flatland) 2015 from the International Quilt Study Center & Museum)

 

Ambiguity and Enigma: Recent Quilts by Michael James

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When you have a damaged quilt, what do you do?  Do you try to fix it? Do you throw it out, keep it as an heirloom, or do you "up-cycle?" Look what they did at www.heirloom-couture.com.  What do you think?  Awesome or sacrilege?  And what do you think of the price?