Glass Beads Medium on painted Timtex
Oooooooh doggies, did we have some fun tonight! Click here for the replay.
We worked with Liquitex® Glass Bead Texture Gel Medium on fabric, on Timtex®, on Lutradur®, on paper…lots of great ideas in this episode! This medium is wonderful for adding sparkly texture to your surfaces; it really does transform most any surface into something completely different and completely special. Use it all over or use it as an accent…it’s coming out from C&T next month and you will love it!
Join us next week for some fun with fast2fuse® – Creative Troupe member Susan Slesinger will show us how to make a lovely fabric box, and I will show some ideas for making easy kid-friendly projects with fast2fuse.
Click here for the full schedule. See you then!
Finished Van Gogh Group Quilt
Now that we’re done with the Van Gogh Slice Quilt (which by the way, raised over $3,000 for the NAMTA Foundation) we’re trying to decide what to do for next year’s raffle quilt, and we want your suggestions.
The criteria are:
It must be a familiar / recognizable / iconic work of art.
It needs to be in the public domain (generally meaning it was created over 100 years ago)
It needs to reasonably translate to fabric.
That’s it. Leave us your comments with your suggestions.
When I first saw the title of Alethea Ballard‘s new book Maverick Quilts on the list of upcoming C&T titles, I admit that the title made me a bit skeptical. How much of a maverick can a quilter be if their work is good enough to be published? I thought. Although my own quilting experience was minimal, I had gone the route of ignoring the rules. From the disasters that resulted, I learned that the rules are there for a reason and if I ignore them, I will be taught a lesson. I will be taught a lesson every single time, no matter how small a corner I cut. So I started respecting the rules and reading the instructions. And that’s why I smiled at the idea of a book of Maverick Quilts.
Fast forward six months and here I am writing this blog post. Having just read Alethea’s book, I now not only understand what a Maverick Quilter is, but I want to BE one! And I am happily admitting I was wrong before, not because it is my tendency to admit it when I have made a mistake—because believe me, it isn’t—but because being a Maverick Quilter means freeing oneself from the fear of making mistakes. But there is more to being a Maverick Quilter than that. The introduction in Alethea’s book explains it perfectly of course:
The difference between my experience with breaking the rules, and being a Maverick Quilter like Alethea is Alethea knows which rules to break. And I, on the other hand, have no idea what I am doing. Until now, that is. Because her new book contains a wealth of insider knowledge and it is the exact kind of information I have been waiting for: Specific instructions on how to be rebellious and have more fun quilting!
It turns out that “maverick” isn’t the only fun word in this book. On page 7 the reader learns what a “zinger” is and how it is used. I love the included example image of Alethea’s zinger and I can’t wait to experiment with creating my own. Click on the below images to enlarge them and get a taste of the Alethea’s narrative.
Her candor is so refreshing for me to hear because it shows me that I am not alone in my tendency to buy fabrics I love but have no idea how I will use. An example of this is her description on page 6 (below) of how she finally starts cutting up the precious novelty prints she couldn’t stand the thought of wasting should the project turn out to be a flop. It’s so encouraging to know that she took the plunge, hasn’t looked back since, and has a collection of successful projects to show for it.
Continue Reading…
My 8 year old daughter loves receiving mail. By claiming the chore of mailbox retrieval, she’s always first to discover the treasures that lie within (fingers crossed, one will have her name and only her name on it). Her grandmothers are especially supportive in cultivating a love of letter writing, and by corresponding with them the old fashioned way, she has learned that if you write, you shall receive.
In this day and age emails and texts are the dominant means of communication between friends and family which, by all means, is awesome. These messages are quick to compose and send in an instant. But there is something so beautiful and romantic about a letter—the handwriting, poetic sentences, a postmark revealing its journey, and perhaps a treasure tucked within the folds of paper. It seems important for my daughter to understand the art of age old communication. She’ll have plenty of time for the Speedy Gonzales way later.
For my daughter’s birthday I figured I couldn’t go wrong with coming up with a snail mail folio. As you can see by the cute, sparkly kitty fabric, it was designed with a little girl in mind. Not my style but she loves it!
Continue Reading…
From memorial quilts to festive purses to fun crafting tips, our Creative Troupe’s projects make for some good blog-hopping!
© Jean Chesek
Jean Chesek shares the quilt she created for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative, along with a brief description of how it was created. The couple shown here are her parents…what a lovely tribute.
© Vicki Genz
Vicki Genz shares how to think “outside the fabric line” so you can create a fabulous purse like this one. Continue Reading…
Tonight’s guests were two of our fabulous authors, Barbara Cline and Laura Lee Fritz. Since we had a few technical difficulties with our webcams tonight, we have links to video clips of just their demos to share here, rather than the whole live webcast replay.
Barbara showed how to make the diamond chain strip that you see around the edges of the blocks on her book’s cover quilt – she really is a great teacher! Click here to see her demo.
Laura has lots of great tips for creating continuous-line quilting designs for diamond blocks. Click here to check out her series of video tutorials.
Congrats to our prize winners tonight – Judy won an autographed copy of Barbara’s book, and Cyn won an autographed copy of Laura’s book!
Join us in the Digital Lounge next Wednesday for my demo all about fun things to make with Liquitex® Glass Beads Texture Gel Medium.
Click here for the full WNL schedule – see you then – and tell your friends!
Sewing diagonal seam for binding
I put the new fast2sew™ Ultimate Seam Guide on my machine this weekend to try it out. I like that it makes it really easy to sew a nice 1/4″ seam–not always easy on my machine.
But I love the way it makes is super easy to sew on the diagonal, like when you are making binding or half-square triangle blocks.
I don’t think I’ll have it on my machine all the time, so I punched a little hole in one corner, so I can keep it and the cutout pinned to my design wall, right by my sewing machine.
Try it for yourself, and you’ll see that it really does make things fast 2 sew!
