Zoom Lectures

I attended three lectures yesterday and one today at the Virtual Houston International Quilt Festival 😊

The first one was called "Twenty Tips and Tricks for Better Machine Quilting" by Cindy Seitz-Krug.  It was SO good!  She really had a lot of good tips, some of which I knew or had heard before but a lot were new.  You can read more about her on her website:

https://quintessentialquilting.com

A couple of tips she talked about (as shown in these pictures) are making sure you're using the proper machine quilting foot for your project - some work better with different types of projects, batting etc. than others and she gave a lot of examples. Another tip, for invisible thread, she uses a tomato paste can and sets the thread in it beside her machine, and then tapes a safety pin thread guide on her machine to thread the invisible thread through before threading the machine.  She has a DVD on her website with 30 Tips and Tricks for Better Machine Quilting.  Very informative lecture!

The next lecture was "Quilt Any Design with Six Basic Shapes" by RaNae Merrill.

This lecture didn't interest me quite as much.  It felt like it was more for very beginners and she did some quilting "yoga", which I wasn't really getting into 😂, but I'm sure it was really helpful for some.

The final lecture yesterday was "Sensational Quilts for Scrap Lovers" by Judy Gauthier.  This one was really good as well!  So good in fact that I didn't capture any screen shots!  She has three books out - the most recent is the same title as the lecture.  Here is a link to a spotlight on her (she owns a quilt shop in Wisconsin):

https://createwhimsy.com/projects/spotlight-judy-gauthier-quilter-author-and-store-owner/

I have a lot of fabric!  She gave a lot of good tips to make some fun quilts to start using it up!

Today's lecture was by one of my favorite quilters Sue Nickels. It was called "Machine Quilting for Today's Quilts".  I took a class from her several years ago when she came to Grand Junction and what an amazing teacher!  She's just great, and so talented.  Here are a few screen shots from her lecture. She gave a little history of machine quilting, which was quite interesting, then shared a history of her quilting and machine quilting.  She has traveled the world teaching and done several cruises.  The picture below shows the Titanic Museum in Belfast, where I hope to go some day! 😊

She of course had to talk about the famous Beatles quilt, which is not in possession of the The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, as it won a purchase prize.  She is teaching ruler classes now for machine quilting and has designed her own set of rulers.  You can read more about Sue here:

https://www.sue-nickels.com

Great lecture - she's just a lot of fun!

I thought I would be safe from the Vendor Mall at this Virtual Quilt Festival but dang!  Some of the vendors posted VIDEOS, which then led me to websites!  Ah!  Needless to say, I have some stuff from Cherrywood Fabrics coming my way! 😂

https://cherrywoodfabrics.bigcartel.com

There I posted the link, now you may go look too!

Oh well, we need to support our quilt businesses... right??

 

Virtual Quilt Festival

Welcome to the Houston International Quilt Festival!

Today theVirtual International Quilt Festival began and it runs through Saturday.  You can attend the festival for only $10 (see all the quilts and visit the vendor mall), and you can attend lectures and classes virtually as well.  Today I had my first two lectures.  The first one was with Paula Nadelstern (you can see her up in the top right corner).  She talked a lot about fabric, templates, and design choices.  It was very informative and I learned a lot.  She also had a Q&A at the end of her lecture.  I missed my second lecture because of the time difference - it started at 5PM my time.  But they will post the video of it, so I'll still be able to see it, and watch any of them over again if I want to.   My hubby will be happy that I got to go to the Quilt Festival and attend four lectures for only $50 😊  

I've also started viewing the quilts, but as with the real show in Houston, it's going to take me awhile to get through them all!  I'm feeling inspired already.  Quilt shows are awesome and this one is no exception.

Join in the fun!!

Old Fashion Ferris Wheel by Allie Brown

 

Show and Tell at SSQ

This morning I went to the Sunset Slope Quilt guild meeting and listened to Katie Fowler speak.  It was a very inspiring lecture and tomorrow I will be taking a class from her.

SSQ always has a great show and tell (Don't all guilds?  So inspirational!)

Here are some photos!  This first quilt is Wendy's.  If I know the name of the maker, I will mention it, but I don't know everyone's names yet...

Sheila's, above

and 

Wendy's, below

I don't know his name yet but just to prove that not only do men quilt,

they attend guild meetings!  Kudos to him!

Sharon Wright and Barbara Walsh

CWQG and SSQ (quilt guilds in Grand Junction) were lucky to have TWO speakers and teachers this week, both from Utah.  According to them, they are the best of friends but couldn't be more different in their quilting styles.  Sharon said Barbara is an "excellent technician" and more of a traditional quilter, whereas Sharon creates her own designs and patterns as she goes.  Both of them are excellent quilters and make beautiful quilts.


The quilt above was designed and made by Sharon and the Kim Diehl quilt to the right was made by Barbara.  Barbara is friends with Kim Diehl and has made several of the quilts in Kim's books.

Sharon has entered into a "wool" phase of quilting in an effort to use up all of the wool fabric she has been collecting over the years.  She was inspired by this book on Welsh Quilts by Jen Jones, and has pieced several wool quilts and quilted them in the Welsh style of quilting.  I captured only a few photos of the many amazing quilts she brought.

The pieced designs on some of them were large and fairly simple, but the quilting was intricate and absolutely amazing - all done on a domestic home sewing machine.  Imagine pushing an entire wool quilt around on a domestic machine.  Imagining that makes this quilt even more amazing....

She has also dipped her fingers into quilting on silk - this quilt above is her first all silk quilt (even the batting is silk).







The members of both guilds really admired both Sharon's and Barbara's work.

Front and back of this quilt - so you can see the quilting better!

Above is one of Barbara's - machine embroidered

Below is one of Sharon's made from silk neckties

Below is the back of the necktie quilt - using even more neckties!

 

Sharon, visiting with guild members at SSQ.

Barbara visiting with Laura at SSQ.






Below - Christmas stockings designed and made by Sharon.

Barbara teaching Precision Piecing in the afternoon - her class members raved about all of the great tips they learned.

Sharon teaching Well Done - Finishing Techniques.  The students in this class learned:  Piped Faced binding, Piped binding, two-toned prairie points, tubing, and probably more that I'm not remembering!  It looked like everyone was getting the hang of it!
Below are some pictures of Sharon's quilts using these edging techniques.

I was lucky enough to host these two lovely ladies in my home and as a thank you gift they gave me some Jam in a Jiffy packages, which I am excited to try.  I love homemade jam and apparently all you have to do is mash up fresh fruit and mix a package of this in - how easy is that??  With the lovely fruits we get here in Western Colorado I am going to have some FUN making jam.


What a wonderful, inspiring couple of days!  I hope yours have been too!

Eldred Shafer

We had a wonderful program last week at our Colorado West Quilt Guild meeting presented by Eldred Shafer, an art quilter who lives here in Grand Junction and is the president of the Art Quilt Association - AqUA.

She shared many of her quilts, a lot of which feature animals and discussed her techniques in making them.  One interesting technique she says she learned from Kari Harvey (another local art quilter) is this heavily stitched edge instead of applying a regular binding.  It still makes a very nice edge, and is unique!  It looks great on her art quilts.

She discussed two dying techniques she uses - ice dying and sun printing.  Here is an example of her sun printing.  The ice dyed fabrics are used all over in most of her quilts!

She is willing to teach a class to anyone interested in learning these techniques.  Sheila will put her contact information in our newsletter.

It was a great program and I learned a lot!  You never know when new tips and techniques will come in handy!