More photos of Karen's quilt

Here is a close up photo I took of the quilt just after it was quilted

Queensland Quilters Show 2007

Wow, what a great honour! My customer, Karen Mersiades has won first prize in the Non-Professional Commercially Quilted section of the 2007 QLD Quilters Show! Her quilt, "Star Gazer" was custom quilted with freehand spirals and diagonals on the backgrounds, and detailed quilting within the red stars.

Pictured is Karen, on the left, and moi admiring the quilt at the show!

New Directions for "The Sky is Blue and so is the Sea"

Twins - only their mother can tell them apart!
Before - my failed needleturn experiment - good to discover this early in the process!
After - the raw edge pieces are loosely in place. They are glued in a few places, will be hand tacked when I am happy with all the colours - then put onto the quilting machine.

Here are 2 photos of the early stages of the big quilt. (2 1/2 x 2 metres). the first one is a failed attempt at needle turn. It was too slow and tedious and the shapes were too hard to stitch out. I found that this technique meant that I was about to give up and abandon the project all together, which would have been a shame as I have prepared and marked out the quilt sandwich and was really ready to go with it.

The second photo shows the same thing in raw edge. this was done in one session (about 3 hours). I have just added a few dobs of glue to hold it in place, then I'll probably hand tack it until I get enough down to start quilting and embellishing. This has the advantage that pieces of fabric can be trialled, and replaced if necessary. I found the camera was great as it reduces the piece and I can see as if from a distance. Must buy one of those door viewer thingies!

I found the work of Ferret, in London to be so inspiring. I will put a link to her blog on this site. She does the most amazing art pieces, and her images are just what I am interested in! She wrote quite an interesting piece on show judging and it has attracted a lot of comments. The message I get from people is to remain true to your own style, don't try to please the judges - keep on keeping on and be true to your inner judge. I love that - and it means that you work with integrity always. Everyone loves her work, the judges just have to come to her. No more nonsense about burying threads in art quilts, please! I'm sick of all this anal stuff. Let's just get creative!

More photos from Malaysia

Here are some details which caught my eye

Malaysia!

The light fantastic - at a restaurant in Kota Kinabalu
The rivers run - on the plane trip to Sandakan from Kota Kinabalu
Looking out over Sandakan harbour from the Buddhist temple on high
Edible wild flowers in the Borneo jungle

Maylaysia merderka!

This was the catchphrase we saw everywhere, as this Friday is the 50th anniversary of independence. We are just back after a 2 week tour of Sabah, Kuala Lumphor and Singapore. I collected Malaysian Batik fabrics and these will go into a new quilt for the new bed! Above are a few photos of the trip - more to come later!

Seize the day!

Some pretty images from my overgrown, drought-stricken garden

Seize the Day!

I have been thinking a whole lot about how to really ensure success in achieving ones goals. Sometimes, of course, life gets in the way. The next challenge for me is doing a budget that will work for us. I'll be quilting until I'm 100, that's for sure. But at least it's a job I like. A recent study found that although self-employed people work harder that those in paid jobs, their rate of happiness is higher.



That may be because the business owner has more control over how they spend their time. Also, any rewards that the business gets through greater sales, increased productivity etc, are immediately enjoyed by the person who created them.



I'm a bit of a consumer and am very guilty of affluenza. Mr Costello (the nicer one of the two brothers) said on TV that compared to ten years ago we (in Australia) have bigger houses with more bedrooms with fewer people in them, bigger mortgages and we spend, spend, spend, on cheaper electrical goods and clothing. And yet we are less happy and more stressed. I have been measuring every cent we spend for about three years. This sounds weird, but when I come home from shopping I put it all in the computer to look at where it goes. After a couple of years I came up with the following conclusions. (Which aren't rocket science and sound a lot like Noel Whittaker)

1. We spend all we earn, and more.

2. Credit cards always get used when they are carried around.

3. The things we worry about (rates, insurance, interest) are only a fraction of what we spend on consumable or discretionary items.

4. Once a "must have" item is acquired it is soon taken for granted and more things are desired.

5. The only way to save is to "pay yourself first" We have now gone into salary sacrifice into superannuation to put $$ aside.

6. 99% of spending is triggered by emotion - a fact well known by advertising people.

7. There is no product that will make us: younger, sexier, happier, wiser, more creative.

8. The only things which have lasting value have to be: earned, saved for, sacrificed for, planned for, and time allocated for.

9. Every human in the universe has only 24 hours each day to work with, money only assists.

10. Finally, high returns = high risk. If you want to earn lots of money working in a war zone, be prepared for some flak. And if it's too good to be true, it probably is. (thank you Noel Whittaker)



Now, to seize the day!

Doing the Hard Yards

Why is it that creativity requires so much discipline? I've been racking my brains to work this out for yonks! I guess creating art is like all the tough things in life - saving money, losing weight, becoming fit, playing a musical instrument. And that explains why so few people really achieve a lot in these areas. It is not a quick fix, you can't take a pill for it and it takes steady slow and regular effort. All of which I have not been doing.

But I think I can get back on it again. That is a good thing about all of the above. It is never too late to start and it is never to late a reap a benefit for effort put in.

What I did was create a timetable for my week. The first three days are the days where I do the things I need to do for income. I work hard those days, very hard. Every week day between 7am and 9am I work on my designing on the computer ready for publication of my work. If you think you want to design and publish something, think of the time you think it might take and then multiply by a hundred! I think initially much of the time goes on creating a system that works for you. There are many road blocks and dead ends until it starts to gel. After that, it gets easier. Rewrites are still a possibility, but they don't take as long.

Discipline - I think all that really means is to quote Woody Allen - just "showing up". I made myself sit at the computer for those two hours this morning and it began to happen. If we made ourselves go to the studio or sewing room for a set time that would happen too.

It meant for me, leaving the breakfast dishes in the sink til smoko time. Who cares! I did, however, have a shower straight after our early morning walk and I will keep doing that otherwise I will be sitting here feeling very unwashed when my customers start arriving for the day. So - it is a little more than just showing up. Be showered, dressed and preferably made up for the day. I am not made up, but that is OK as I don't have anyone coming before 10am.

Also - do we really allow enough time for family, shopping, cleaning etc. I decided that I would no longer commit myself to any evening activities, including making myself sew or design at night. If I feel like it, I can. Instead I have given myself one whole day for creative activity, plus the weekend daylight hours. This will work, because I will have cleaned the house (yippee) on Friday, which is today. All of Friday is for household chores and shopping, except the morning, when I still do the 2 hours on the computer, designing.

Enough of that. Here are some photos of a mega huge quilt I have stared making. It is inspired by the Neil Young song: "I am a child, I'll last a while.....the sky is blue and so is the sea...." There is a photo, a modified image, and the pre-quilted canvas on which is attached some early pieced sections. (The hat of the little girl).

Not blogging enough - new start!

Why did I stop blogging! I told myself I was too busy and that was partly true, but guess what, the creative juices then started to grind to a halt!
Some quilting friends gathered recently to do visual diaries. I am including some photos of what we did. We have challenged ourselves to complete at least one page per day in the journals and meet again in a month. I have managed to do a few pages - I did 5 on one day, and then nothing for a couple of days etc - but I think I can average 7 a week without too much trouble.

We learned to look for the design possibilities all around us - these were Robyn's shoes on the floor. I loved the light and shade they made and this could become something....
This was a "dangerous" colour scheme.... one of the quick activities
This was a "blow-up" We used viewfinders over a photo to get an interesting detail.
This was an "under the sea" colour theme.....

The best thing about blogging and the visual diaries is that new ideas for quilts pop into your head - they really do! It is sort of a problem solving process which begins once you set your mind free to just play. I've got another idea from the lyrics of a song that just sticks in my head and won't go away - it's "I am a child", by Neil Young. I love that bit where it goes: "The sky's blue and so is the sea" - the images just explode in my head - more later!

Turning Japanese

This quilt is in progress! I expect to finish it this weekend as I am going to a quilting retreat - YIPEE! It is a simple design to show off beautiful Japanese fabrics. It is made simply from yardage for the sashings and borders and fat quarters make up the elongated "snowflake blocks".

A hand stitched Japanese quilt which was on display in the touring exhibition I saw as part of Stitches and Crafts in Brisbane last year inspired these shapes. My quilt is, of course, machine stitched. When complete I will put a computerized all over pattern on it.

It can easily be made queen size or single. The design will be published, including colour photo on the front, and full cutting diagrams and instructions. Recommended retail price of the pattern is $15.40. This would be quick and easy for a shop to assemble as a kit of fabrics, or alternatively, the customer chooses their own fat quarters to go with the gorgeous Japanese indigo yardage.

Art Nouveau on a roll

This is the beginning of the first panel which will be at the bottom left of the quilt. When this design is complete I will start making it. It will be made in the "Quilt-as-you-go" style, but I think I will use a different technique to the Rosebud quilt. With this one, I think I will use machine and hand embroidery to create a different look. There will be less freehand quilting and more outline quilting. Some of the flowers will be three dimensional. I just can't wait to start, as I have been collecting all the Bali fabrics I need for this quilt.

Today some catching up to do

Here are some photos of Megan's quilt - quilted all over with "Deb's Feathers" pattern (Designed by Deb) on the Statler machine. A stunning "Stack and whack Quilt".

Michelle had her graduation from USQ (nursing) on Saturday. Here is a photo of the flowers sent to her by her aunt and uncle.

Art Nouveau Gets a Background

This morning I worked on a framework for the background panels. My plan would be that the Block of the Month design would start with these outside sections, with the inner frame and the figure coming last. Each panel will feature a flower, eg, rose, lilly, vine, nasturtium. I still have to address the flowers in the foreground panel, but I think they might overlap and tie in with the outside panels.

This design process is quite intensive, but I am finding that when it comes time to actually make the quilt it goes quite quickly as a lot of the decisions about fabric tone and value have been made already.

I'm working on an entry for the DUQ Calendar competition as well at the moment, but I can't publish any photos of it til after the competition so it will have to be a surprise. I have been using this same method and I pieced the quilt in a weekend, but of course it is a much simpler project, and smaller, too. Quite different - much more contemporary.

Heirloom Quilting

This is a quilt made by my customer, Rosemary. It has been "Heirloom Quilted" which means that very close quilting has been done all over the quilt, in a traditional style. A combination of freehand, stitch-in-the-ditch and computerised Statler patterns have been used. The quilting took me the best part of a week. The calico backgrounds are ideal for this type of quilting. I was pretty happy with the result, and I am sure Rosemary will be too, when she sees it!

Art Nouveau Today's Edition

This morning I worked on the drapery of the figure. It wasn't easy to reduce about five different tones to just two, but by selecting a new background it would be less work to stitch out. My new idea is to use different background fabrics in different areas to make the final design much more dynamic in terms of colour. So we have a different colour behind the arch and a more suitable colour behind the fabric folds.

The original design has some prints stacked up in the foreground, but I think I will introduce flowers here, possibly standing in a tall vase, and spilling out over the frame to lead to the outer frames. I have no idea yet how these will look. In the final quilt, some of these could be three-dimensional, as could some of the leaves in the hair.

Another Idea on the go

No, it's not an alien cat! I am in the process of creating shapes to correspond with the original photo of Anna, one of the spoiled ones. The bottom picture shows how I am drawing the shapes, the eyes and nose and a couple of other areas are shaded in.

The top picture shows the design thus far with the photo removed. What I will be doing is add layers which will represent pieces of fabric. I've decided that the technique for this one will be a raw edge, sewn around just inside the edge, then the back cut away, before attaching the next layer. this will reduce the bulk. By using large tonal shapes, this will be much quicker to make than lots of individual pieces, This quilt will be big - A0 sized, over a metre in height and over 80cm wide. A very scary large cat with eyes that follow you round the room!

Long way to go yet with the design.

Art Nouveau Garden is Slowly Growing

Today, I had fun for five minutes at lunch time when I photographed up close some of the fowers and plants in my garden. These images will be handy to file away for design ideas later.





The Art Nouveau Garden is slowing growing. It takes about an hour a day when I am working on the design as this is all the time I have available, but I will get there. Today I did a lot of playing with colour combinations. Although they may not resemble the final fabrics very much, I am finding that this initial fabric rehearsal pays off once the quilt is started. You can narrow down the basic tone, textures and hues, saving a lot of time later. I have been having fun playing with the magenta, cyan and yellow sliding bars on the palette as you can see the colour dynamically changing as you work.

Art Nouveau Garden

More progress is being made on this design. I have worked on an arch shape to surround the figure and then there will be some wedge shaped floral panels to go around that. There is a lot of black in the design at present, but that will be covered up by flowers, leaves etc to a large degree. I spent about 3 hours on this today and I must say it has been fun and a great learning experience as I am getting better at making the software do what I want it to.

More Pictures of the Kool Kats

It's Sunday - a lazy day, and what better way to illustrate Sunday than with pictures of my two lazy Kool Kats!

This is the female, Anna, who loves to roll at your feet to tell you she loves you!

Me with Anna, or it is Kurtley?
Anna again, loves attention.

This is the male, Kurtley, my couch potato who loves to warm his butt on anything. He was most unimpressed when I got rid of the old nice warm fat monitor and replaced it with one of those flat screen things. Kurtley is shy and there are fewer photos of him, but he is generally seen around the food bowl.

Art Nouveau Block of the Month Design

This project is coming along again. I needed to get into the routine of working on the design and so I do an hour each day after breakfast, before the work day proper commences. I'm learning lots of great techniques in Corel X3 to make this design. The colours are only rough and will be adjusted as I go along to only resemble final fabrics to be used.

I can create a palette and can number the colours later. This will help in the planning of the pattern packs. Because Corel is so great, I will be able to make a pattern sheet cutting out guide for each piece of fabric. This will greatly assist those putting pattern packs together with fabrics.

A Quilt Made Entirely from Shirt Samples

Here are some photos of a quilt made by my customer, Jan. She has collected lots of men's shirt samples and made them into this delightful quilt. I quilted it with an all over pattern called "Chaos" from Lorien Quilting. It shows up well and gives a classic feel to this wonderful quilt.

Family Update

Time for a family update. This is our daughter Michelle, dressed in her university nursing uniform. the picture was taken a couple of years ago. She has now finished her degree, with High Distinctions, and has just started on her degree in Medicine at Hobart University. Yesterday, we were told that she has been awarded the Science Faculty Prize for USQ here in Toowoomba. As well as that she has won a scholarship and a bursary. Michelle did all this as a mature age student. She is now almost 25 years old. We are so proud of her!

Infill patterns on an applique quilt

This quilt, made by my customer, Grace, shows a decorative loop pattern which can be done as an alternative to stippling. It simply goes up close to the applique work. Usually the applique does not need outlining as well, but that depends on the individual quilt and the design of the applique.



This double wedding ring quilt, made by Jan, has an allover pattern; "Deb's Feathers" designed by Deb Guiessler. The quilting was executed on the Statler Stitcher. This is an inexpensive alternative to doing special quilting in the individual spaces of the rings. It creates a lovely, flat and decoratively quilted result.

William Morris - "The Strawberry Thief"

This is a little quilt I am almost finished. It was designed by Michelle Hill, Adelaide Australia. I decided to try a "pre-quilting" method with this quilt. I made the complete quilt, crasshatched it, and did the bindings - all before I applied the applique.

The pre-quilting technique was great, no problems applying the applique, but I decided I would have to do the blanket stitch around the shapes by hand and not machine as I had planned. Even though it was a small quilt, the constant turning around and around in the machine with the extra bulk of the batting made it impossible.

I have this rule about new techniques - try it for 5 minutes - if it is a pain to do - STOP and THINK - and do something else. Works fine and leaves me with fewer grey hairs!

Quilting can look great when it goes all over an embroidery. Cross-hatching, meander or other patterns give an even look which does not take away from the stitchery. Thread colours look best when they blend with the background. The quilt can have a custom quilted treatment, where borders are quilted differently, such as in this one made by Glenys, or an edge-to-edge pattern also looks great.

This is another Art Nouveau Design I am working on. It will become a "block of the month" design which can be easily quilted "as-you-go". The centre panel is being adapted from a Mucha design from a copyright free source. The outer panels will feature flowers: eg lilly, rose, nasturtium. It will be constructed with a heavily quilted raw-edge technique.
The technique I am using involves Corel Draw, using shapes to correspond to those of a scanned image. This is slow and tedious, but ensures a crisp outline for a final pattern, scaleable to any size. You can see how it progresses. the fill colours are only to give an idea of tonal value, and may not resemble the finished quilt at all.

Pictured are details from a beautiful Twisted Bargallo quilt, made by my customer, Jan. The colours are wonderful and the edge to edge pattern "Waitomo" from Lorien Quilting looks superb on it. the quilting was done using a Statler Stitcher on a Gammill Optimum machine.

What's on the longarm today?

This is a lovely applique quilt designed by Lynette Anderson
My customer, Jeanette has made this for a grandchild.

An edge-to-edge pattern was stitched on the computerised Statler Stitcher. The pattern blended well into the backgound, and as this quilt will be loved, used and washed frequently, this was a practical choice for quilting.

Watch this blog for regular updates of quilting from the Statler (computerised) and Gammill hand-guided machine.

The original quilt - "Where will I be" is still happening - the fabrics are on order and I have acquired some gorgeous silks as well. Hope to make more progress soon!

The quilt that I made at McGregor Summer School will go into the Sydney quilt show, if accespted.

Today I spent a couple more hours working on the design on computer. I added the lamp, the light and the book, open at page 43. I then inserted a textured background and the door also in the background, open.

It's hard to decide how big to make the quilt. I designed it for maximum impact measuring 2.2m x 2.8m. This means that each of the nine panels will be 60 x 80 cms. this is OK, but there will need to be a lot of texture, detail and interest in each panel to make it work. I will cut out from a larger sheet of paper to see how this will look - maybe print out the face to look at the scale and see if that is the size I want to work with. At this stage everything is flexible.

I also worked out some yardages required to make the window frame. Once the basic design lines are worked out I can actually construct the quilt as an "attic window" design with some detail in the background blocks. Then I will make up the quilt sandwich and go from there.

Here are some samples of quilting I have done for customers.

1. Custom quilting - special quilting in different areas of the quilt. Includes stitch-in-the-ditch, stippling, borders and freehand patterns in different areas of the quilt. This type of quilting is the most expensive to have done, and waiting lists are longer - can be several months.




2. Edge to edge quilting (see below) - the most versatile, durable and most economical.
A computerised pattern is sewn over the entire quilt. This technique is suitable for many types of quilts, including applique. Waiting lists are usually short - 4 weeks maximum.

This is a new quilt design I have started working on. I am designing it fully on computer prior to stitching it out. Why? I can print out patterns to scale, and I can get huge A0 patterns done by my bureau. Makes it so easy.

Today I am posting the first draft - this only gives a really rough idea of the shapes, concept and theme. The quilt is inspired by my memories associated with music I used to listen to in the 70s. The lyrics of the songs are very deep and meaningful (or so I thought, back then.) I don't want to name the music source for copyright reasons, but there are clues in the title of the quilt: "Where Will I be" and in the objects which will appear in the design.

This quilt will be huge. 2.5m x2.9m. I won't even be able to hang it in our house as the ceilings are low. Never mind - it will be a good exhibition piece! If you are looking at this quilt in progress, please leave comments - I will consider your design suggestions as I go!