Hyperquilted Swirl Wreath, New Fabric for Dyeing, and Free Downloads are Working Again!

February 25th, 2010

I went back and hyperquilted that first swirl wreath:

(Click on all photos to enlarge)

I’ve just finished another one, but I’ll save that baby for another post! I wanted to spread the word on an interesting new fabric that’s great for dyeing. It’s a 50/50 bamboo/cotton blend that’s available at Joann Fabrics, but only by the bolt:

It runs $69.99 for 12 yds, but after your 40% off coupon, that’s only $3.50/yard. It takes Procian dye really well and is incredibly soft. I’ve only dyed it once, using an immersion method:

(I know, I know; not nearly as thrilling as my normal dyeing method, but that’s all I can do in the frigid environs of Northwest Ohio!) Anyway, it took the color very well:

…so I’m sure I’ll be playing around some more with this stuff. My new friend Amy, (please check out her blog here, as she’s an incredible quilter and I suspect she will be a rapidly rising star in the quilting world) did not have as rich color results with her bamboo/cotton fabric, but she’s using a liquid concentrate form of the dye and I’m wondering if that might account for some difference. Time will tell on this and I’ll report back once I’ve had more experience with it.

I updated the wordpress blog a week ago in the hopes that it would enable me to post fullsize photos again, but to no avail. As an unintended side effect, it disabled the free downloads but they are now working again. Sorry about that! In the meantime, if anyone has a solution to this new problem with wordpress not allowing full size pics to be posted , please write me! I want to show full size pictures again so stitching can be seen easily!

And I’ve got so many projects going now that my head is kind of spinning, but here’s a peak at a corner of a center block of a quilt I’m working on:


(This one’s worth clicking on to enlarge!)

Sale and New Stencils in the Store!

February 16th, 2010

feathered heart swag border

(click on photos to enlarge.)

We’ve got some great new feather stencils in the store; the picture above is a corner shot of the feathered heart swag stencil stitched in an outward orientation. In this border application, you can see some “spacer designs” in between the swags themselves. Those spacer designs allow you to stitch these swag repeats into pretty much any size of border length; we have a spacer stencil that holds a variety of spacer designs of varying widths. Here’s what the above design looks like without spacers and stitched in the reverse orientation:

PT20

There is also the “plain” feathered swag:

feathered-swag-border-brown

and the feathered fleur-de-lis swag:

feathered fleur de lis border

and here is a feathered art deco border design:

PT24

and here’s another cool feathered border design:

PT23

We’ve also got some non-border feather designs, here’s an example of one that’s centered in a border and used as a substrate from which to flow feathers:

feathered-center-design

There are more stencils than these, so check them out in the store, because ALL STENCILS ARE 10% OFF THROUGH MARCH 1ST!! To get the discount, enter “stencil10” in the discount code box when you enter your payment information during checkout, and the discount will be deducted from the final amount at checkout.

Ooooooh-Lah-Lah!!!!

February 11th, 2010

swirl-wreath-close-up

(Click on all images to enlarge-I promise it will be worth the effort!)
Wow! Do you ever make something and then you’re just like “Wow, did I really just make that?!” I had 1 1/2 hours this morning before I needed to get in the car and make a 10 hour drive from NC to OH, and when I went to bed last night, I was hoping I’d have time to stitch out a design that had been in my head for a few months. This design looks like it would be tough to make, but honestly, it was not! I started with this as my “baseline” wreath skeleton:

swirl wreath 1

Again, this was kind of a no-brainer because I kind of cheated by using our 12-inch feathered wreath stencil and then I chose that cool spine design as below:

swirl wreath2

Next, I drew a small circle that was my boundary line for the inside design. I wanted to preserve the sense that this was a feathered wreath, so I needed to make sure none of my swirls crossed that line. If you look at the next picture closely, you’ll see that inside circle I’m talking about (If you enlarge this picture the line will be obvious):

swirl wreath3

I LOVED my wreath at this point, but I have a problem with thread in that I just want to keep adding more and more of it, and there’s a part of me that was thinking I’d probably want to go back later and hyperquilt some kind of design inside the outer plumes. If I were to do that, I’d probably use the same gold rayon thread, and the gold that forms the swirls was so loud that I though it might be too much to add more gold later on. Soooo, what’s a girl to do to tone it down? I went back in and very closely echo-outlined the gold swirls with turquoise thread. In that way, the contrast between gold and purple wasn’t as stark because now the turquoise thread was laying next to the purple:

swirl-wreath-4

Boy, that turquoise sure makes everything look more intricate, doesn’t it?! At that point, I needed to get in that darn car and start driving, so I never did hyperquilt it, but there’s always time for that later! This wreath is part of the center block for a larger quilt that hasn’t been pieced yet. It is trapuntoed and that makes doing all this detailed stitching easier. Here is the backside at present:

swirl wreath backside trapunto layer

It will probably be quite awhile before I get back to this quilt, but dreaming about it made that long car ride go a lot faster!

The Silence…

February 7th, 2010

is broken!! I have been spending 6-12 hours each day in front of a computer so once I see a chance to get away from that darn computer, I take it! That’s why I haven’t been posting-it would be more time with that pute! Here are a few things that have tied up my time…

color-proofs-for-HQ-bk

color-proofs-for-bk-2

What are these things? They are color proofs for our second book! Yep, I said SECOND book! These proofs are for a book about hyperquilting; it’s meant to be a primer for people who are just starting to learn how to do it. The thing that’s been taking up most of my time, though, is our first book, “Feather Adventures!” We are in the laying out stage for that one and I am so thrilled with it that I can hardly contain myself! It is unlike any feather book I’ve ever seen and it’s loaded with tons of eye-candy kinds of pictures! Both of these books will be out this spring and although it’s been a ton of work, I’m totally psyched!

Now what’s this stuff all about?…

feather-frame-3-half-shot

and this one?…

feathered-football-corner-shot

(click to enlarge). These are small snip-it photos from some quilts with designs from the next DVD. It’s all about fun feathered border design ideas and feathered frame designs. I’ve had a blast playing with all of them! But, the good news is that the biggest part of all my work for all these projects is behind me, so maybe I’ll have some time to just quilt for fun! That means more posts, too!