Daily Blog

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I'm having the great privilege of teaching at the International Quilt Festival Dubai which is held next weekend in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is often sited as being the most affluent city in the world. It currently is home to the world's tallest building. The photo I've posted is an architectural rendering of the next major building project to get underway - the Dubai Towers - simply unbelievable. 

Yes, riding a camel and seeing belly-dancers is on my list of things to do - so is riding four-wheelers in the desert. After my day of fun I will be teaching machine quilting and Rhapsody quilt lecture/demos, judging their show, and playing piano for their gala dinner. Two TQS guests will also be teaching there: Sharon Pederson (episode 512) and Bonnie McCaffery (episode 205).

I'll be in overload mode while I'm there so my reports may have to come once I get home. I'll do my best to keep you posted, but until then - it's Dubai or Bust! We have some TQS members attending the show and my classes. Anyone want to chime in with advice before I board my plane 24 hours from now?

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March 2007--This picture was taken by Gregory Case and marks an important point in our history. This is Alex and Ricky just before they went down the stairs to tape the very first show.  Ricky had just told Alex not to worry but that as far as he could figure it out, it would take over $300,000 to get the videos to play on the internet.  Alex was worried.  She only had $20 on her and she was hoping to have a nice dinner after taping.

Fast forward.  Ricky found a company out of Germany that had just started 3 months before with a product that just might do the job for less than 1/10 the cost.   By April 2, 2007 the program had been installed and the first show premiered.  Whew!!!

The big question in electronics is, When do you jump in?  There is always a new innovation around the corner and prices are always coming down.  

That brings us to the new bigger player.

The original idea was to get a video that could be seen by slower internets.  We tested the player with our viewers in Australia and New Zealand.  (They are really nice people!!) What we found was that the slower internet people were unhappy but the faster internet people were thrilled.  So we tested with a wider sample of viewers.  The same result:  Faster internets were happy and slower were not.  Our results showed that 90% said go and 10% said nice try, don't change.

We decided it was time to jump in, but not leave anyone behind.  There is a screen for both internet speeds.

There is more to this story and we are going to put together some quick tutorials, but first I have a hot date with a quilter.

Capt'n John

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Here is a wonderful sewing valentine from TQS member, Barbara Acchino.  Barbara has been collecting sewing and quilting Valentines just for fun and would like to share them with you.  Have a wonderful Valentine's Day from all of us at TQS!

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Once again TQS members came through and offered loads of advice and thoughts about batting.  Here's what they had to say.  

If you have the money, wool batting seems to be the way to go.  Comments about wool include:

"The wool drapes beautifully, has a nice loft that shows off my quilting, and is light weight. It also keeps us warm in the winter but it breathes in the summer!"

"It quilts well, doesn't hold creases and has great thermal properties on the bed. My idea of heaven."

"I am looooving wool batting."

"I mostly have used warm and natural but I recently discovered wool and I love love love it! I did our kingsize quilt for our bedroom with the wool and it's so lightweight, but not overly warm at night."

"Then I learned more about wool batting when I took a workshop in machine quilting from Dianne Gaudynski. She uses wool quite a lot. I found it to be just as nice for machine quilting. The thing I like about wool is that it doesn't get so stiff when you use a lot of machine quilting."

For cotton batting, Warm & Natural, Warm & White, and Quilter's dream appear to be the winners.  For hand quilting, most members preferred a poly-cotton blend.

Bamboo batting intrigues a number of you.  There seems to be a debate about shrinkage with this type of batting.  If you are concerned, you might pre-wash the bamboo batting before using.

Many users, however, do not pre-wash any of their battings as a general rule.

Other batting tips included:

"It is recommended that you use a white batting when you have a white fabric in your quilt top, I found that the printed design on a white on white did not show up with a white batt so I used the natural colored batt instead. I could see the print better and the white still looked white, although not as bright."

"Well I know what I will never do again and that is buy a polyester batting on sale and then quilt it on to a quilt with a lot of dark navy blue fabric. The polyester some how manages to escape the middle and form little balls on the navy blue top. I pick these things off all the time."

To read all of our member's comments, click here.

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You are in for a treat and your friends will wonder how you got so good so fast.  Patsy will show you the tools, the methods, the design and the fun of Free Motion Quilting on a domestic machine.  Part I gives you the tools and the basics.  It's always best to start at the beginning.

Part I is FREE for everyone.  Parts II & III are for Star members only and included in your membership dues.  It's a small price for so much learning (and you get the current shows and 2 Blocks of the Month too!).  Part II will debut next weekend and Part III the weekend after.  

Three Intermediate Free Motion Quilting classes are in the works and 3 Advanced coming later this year.  

Click the Share button on the player to email this to a friend and let them know that class has started.

PS.  The Quilt Show Shoppe has some special deals on DVDs, 505 etc.  Take a look.

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With Valentine's Day just around the corner, TQS thought we'd ask, "What would you prefer to receive on Valentine's Day:  A bouquet of your favorite flowers, a box of your favorite chocolates, or a tower of fat quarters?"

Submit a comment and share the love this Valentine's Day.

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There are so many amazing quilt books out there a new quilter can become overwhelmed.  While a wonderful book to buy would be a "Learn to Quilt Book,"  such as Alex's Start Quilting, what other type of book would you suggest for a beginner?  A book on color, a book on inspiration, a technique book?  What other book helped you when you started quilting?   Submit a comment and share your library with a newbie.

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Alex saw the new RED!! Bernina Chair and had to give it a try. Scott Noble of Sew Vac LTD of Long Beach, CA gave Alex a demonstration at the Ricky Tims Super Seminar in Downey, California.

Check out the video above to see what Alex found out. (The cameraman (DH) visited the Cotton Patch in Lafayette, California and made sure Alex found a new one under the Christmas Tree.) Want one of these chairs?

Bernina USA is giving away a FREE chair to a lucky someone in the US. We found out about the contest and want someone from the TQS family to WIN.  Let's stuff the ballot box with our members. So get over there and sign up.

Here's the link: http://berninausa.com/

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Buggies abound in Shipshewana.

Personally, I was glad the decorations were still up.

I had a whirlwind weekend. The first stop was with Yoder's Fabric Department Store in the Amish village of Shipshewana, Indiana where Andre Yoder put together a fantastic program at a very cool performance theater. I was able to sample some fantastic food - you can imagine! Being a camera lover, I was able to find time to get out and about to take a few photos - more like a few hundred!

Then it was off to Elm Grove, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, where I visited Bigby's Sewing Center. Rosemary, the owner, went all out by setting up a store, letting folks test drive Berninas, having fresh flowers on the tables and providing lunch for each participant. The students were lively and we had a lot of fun.

Thanks to everyone who help to organize these events and to all who attended! Instead of showing you photos of the classes, I decided to show you the sites I saw. Are you city folk or country folk?

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I had the pleasure of making t- shirt quilts with Adair and her friend Katie over the Christmas Break - Katie is hooked!!! We started her next quilt this past saturday - no whimpy small wall hanging, Katie went for the gold - queen size. How big was your first "real" quilt and what was the pattern?