Daily Blog

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TQS welcomes back Nina McVeigh who returns with her side kick Susan Beck. Both of these very talented Bernina national educators will be bringing you fantastic tips and techniques. Don´t miss the newest video! And then, why not take some time to review some of the incredible past videos. Each of the videos run from 3-5 minues and so they are easy to watch when you need a sewing technique fix. If you appreciate the Bernina videos, why not tell Bernina. Maybe you would like to send a message to Nina or Susan as well.

The newest video is called Machine Binding with Pizazz. To watch it click the Bernina banner on the upper left or click here.

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Save on Gas! - Check out the TQS shoppe for a sizzling summer sale. Many of the items are on sale - from 30% up to 50% off! This sale will extend through the end of July - but do not delay, as it is "as supplies last". And remember, if you are a TQS Star Member you receive an extra 5% at check out! Go here to start shopping.

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We´ll, we´re nearing the end of day one. A lot of drawing and designing was accomplished today. Kansaspatches brought some pieced diamonds and has created a setting that will include curved piecing and paper piecing. Desertquilter is doing an original design with pieced curves. MKNavy90 is working on her machine quilting, and Quilter01 is designing her own Rhapsody quilt.

Justin paid the bills and treated himself to an ice cream cone. It´s not his birthday, but if your marking your calendars, it is August 25th.

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Four TQS Members are in La Veta, Colorado this week to experience a true quilting get-away - we call it, the La Veta Quilt Retreat. From left to right are: desertquilter, kansaspatches, quilter01, and mknavy90.

Today is their first day together. Some of them had connected via TQS, but none of them had ever met each other. I´ll attempt to bring you a journal of their progress over the next five days. If you have questions, add a comment and I´ll be sure to report back. Hopefully you´ll learn something along the way too!

BTW, MKNavy90 has already created a Member Blog - read it!

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All is right in the world and you have been given a day off from your regular tasks.  Don´t worry about dinner, laundry, paperwork, etc.--it´s being taken care of. What are you going to do in your studio today?  Are you going to work on a quilt project?

Or, are you going to re-organize and clean up?  Tell us how you would spend this "Free Day". 

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This quilt won a Grand Prize for Alex, but there was a problem. If you get a chance to come to one of Alex´s lectures you will hear the story. Let´s just say that it is generally a good idea to read the rules of a contest, before you make the quilt. In the end things worked out. (She did get the State right).

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Photo by Gregory Case

Gregory Case, our own TQS Photo Man, is once again treating you to a collection of slides.  Catch all the behind the scenes action by viewing the slide show from the upcoming Laura Wasilowski Episode 303 show which airs Monday, August 4, 2008.  To see the slide show click here.

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Alex has been on a creative journey these past two years. It all started with an Artist Way workshop at Asilomar. Although Alex was a part of the teaching staff - this experience jump started her journey. Here is a look at a piece she created as her teachng tool. It took 4 hours to complete from start to finish. If you think about it, we are all on a crative journey - what was your last "aha" moment?

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Dad´s Lone Star has been featured a couple of times recently in The Daily Blog, most recently in the photo with Gregory Case. We get questions - so here are the answers.

Many of you know that my dad, Richard Tims, began quilting the same time I did in 1991. The week we started our first quilt, neither of us knew the other was doing so. Yes, that´s weird!

Dad´s first quilt was a Broken Star. TQS Member WiAndee has a beautiful example of a traditional Broken Star quilt. A Broken Star is not generally recommended as a first quilt, but my dad´s mother made three of them (one for each of her children) when she was 85 years old. Dad decided if she could do that at 85, he could do it at 65. I don´t have an image of his first quilt, but you can see it in Episode 211, in Segment 4. In this special field piece, dad is working on a quilt we call Papaw´s Choice. The pattern for Papaw´s Choice is on our TQS Projects Page.

Years later dad decided to do a Lone Star quilt, similar to the Broken Star, but without the surrounding diamonds. See a beautiful Lone Star made by TQS Member altazimuth. Dad was attempting to cut individual diamonds from my hand-dyed scraps. When I learned this, Justin and I immediately went to the dye room and dyed yardage for him to use so he could utilize the much easier strip pieced method for making a Lone Star. While dad was working on all the diamond units, I designed the setting for the large central lone star. Mom and dad both helped cut out the ´Ricky Feathers´ applique. I stitched the applique with double blanket stitching and outline bobbin embroidery, assembled the quilt top, and machine quilted it on my Bernina. The quilt finihed at 93" square. It won a third place in the 2004 IQA show Houston and a second place at the 2005 AQS show in Paducah, KY. It also won a first prize at Quilts on the Waterfront in Duluth, MN. Could this be the first father/son quilt to ever win a prize in an international quilt competition?

The dark portions of the quilt utilize my "caveman dark-hand-dyed fabrics", but the luminous, almost mystical parts of the star are created from my "caveman pastel-hand-dyed fabrics". Most quilters will breeze right by these iridescent light fabrics because they don´t draw you in (just as we skip over the lights in our quilt shops), but when used properly, it is a glorious background ´light´.

This quilt was recently featured on the front cover of Machine Quilting Unlimited. The quilt would never be for sale, but a limited edition of large, signed and numbered giclee´ fine art prints are available through my website. A giclee´ fine art print (pronounced zhee clay´) is created using archival inks and archival paper. If you ever see one in person you will think you are seeing a real quilt behind glass - the printing is so detailed.

Dad is now 81 and quilts almost every day. Mom (rickysmom) and dad (rickysdad) will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on August 7th.

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If you have not yet watched show 302, you are in for a treat! This show is loaded with information and techniques by Alex, Ricky and Sally Dutko. You will be surprised how each person solved the challenge. The theme was "It´s a New Day!" Alex teaches the strippy technique used for the pillow below to solve her challenge. To watch, go here.