Longarm classes with Kim Brunner

Wow! I had no idea it has been so long since I have last posted on here. I can only apologise and say that Life has a habit of sometimes throwing stuff at you unexpectedly.
Since the Festival of Quilts, I had a week at home before returning to Birmingham for Kim Brunner's long arm quilting classes at The Cotton Patch. I've been at home for a week when we heard that my father in law has taken a turn for the worse. My husband and I took turns to sit by his bedside for the next 5 days and nights (thank goodness our children were all at home and could help with running the house) before he sadly passed away on the Friday. We now have the funeral this Wednesday, but as I am flying to France on Wednesday evening for the European Patchwork Meeting in Ste Marie aux Mines, in Alsace, this is the only opportunity I have to do an update.

Classes with Kimmy Brunner
Unlike in the states where there are loads of quilt shows and loads of classes available for long arm quilters, this is a fairly newish venture for UK quilters and we have very few opportunities to learn from the experts. Liz at The Cotton Patch has however attended a class by Kim at Houston last year and arranged for Kim to come and run some classes for us. Yayyyyy!!!!!!

Kim was here for 5 days and classes on offer were:  
   - Beautiful freehand work
   - Twirly Whirly feathers
   - Playing with plastic (templates and rulers, not credit cards!)
   - Custom Quilting
and lectures
   - From Wow to Pow! Trapunto for the beginner
   - Transforming your work with templates and rulers


Off course I signed up for all the classes and lectures and I am so glad I did. I have done Kim's online Craftsy class  "Machine quilting with templates" which I thoroughly recommend, but nothing beats the classroom experience. Besides, it gave me the opportunity to meet and mix with fellow Handiquilter owners, some of whom I have been friends with on Facebook for ages. Funny how we have never met in person before, but within minutes of actually meeting, it seemed as though we have known each other for years!
We had all agreed to stay in the same hotel, which meant we could socialise together after class each day. On one evening we all brought our favourite quilting books and had a look through them all deciding which ones we would need, on another night we all had a go at cutting shapes on the Go-cutter. We spent ages in the pub across the road from our hotel and had lots of time to just chill out together. On our next trip together, Marjorie will be doing all our manicures for us(!). Kim could not believe it when we told her we have never actually met each other until the course.

Stitch design avoiding the centre point with possibly lots of joining seams

One of Kim's class samples - LOVE the border

Another class sample - demonstrating use of rulers

The classes were fairly small, so Kim could give us each individual support when needed, the ladies with Sweet 16's all worked on their own, but those of us who have Avante's or Fusions, worked 2 per machine. That worked out fine, but on the Custom Quilting class, we had not quite enough time to finish our class sample. Silly me did not take a photo of Kim's sample, and as it is a while since the class, could not remember exactly how Kim's block was quilted, so I had to improvise and then did LOTS of extra micro stitching! So, my sample is loosely based on Kim's block with a bit of improvising thrown in, but I am really happy with how it has turned out. It probably is the first class sample I have brought home incomplete and actually finished! 

I have learned a lot from Kim, particularly with using rulers. Might have to do some continuous curve designs with my circle rulers soon :-)

As a bonus, Kim's class handouts have all the information that she has covered in class, so I have a permanent record of all that was said and can refer back to it whenever I need. Thank you so much Kim for the excellent classes and handouts!

"Crowning glory"

Back of "Crowning glory"

Dutch Treat update
Having set myself a target of 10 blocks per month, and having fallen way behind with this (epic fail), I have joined a Facebook group of quilters who are all doing a Dutch Treat quilt. One lady in this group has completed her fourth Dutch Treat quilt! Joining the group has encouraged me no end and I feel so much more inspired to finish my Dutch Treat now, so with renewed energy, I have managed to complete a further 17 blocks, all in the last 3 weeks, so now have a total of 151. I will hopefully have all the blocks complete by Christmas and will then start the appliqué on the borders in January.

134 blocks laid out together for the first time 

6 blocks in 1 week - my record so far!

11 done in last 2 weeks 

Secret block
Someone I know is retiring soon and a friend has organised a surprise for her in the form of a quilt that will be made by all her friends. We are all making a block each, with the same 2 fabrics. This is my block:

I have left space to embroider my message and name on the block, but as this is a surprise, I will not be posting another photo of it on here, although I do hope to see the finished quilt at some time.

My next post will be when I return from the European Patchwork Meeting.

Festival of Quilts winners

Just got back from an amazing 4 days at Festival of Quilts. I have met up with some old friends and made some new ones, and for the first time since I have started quilting 12 years ago, met not only 1, but 2 South African quilters, both at the Festival. Will be keeping in touch and hopefully meet up again at next years Festival.
There were some amazing quilts this year, below are some of the winners:

Pictorial quilts:

 "Poor and Rich" by Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga

Detail from "Poor and Rich"

 Traditional Quilts:

"The good life" - Philippa Naylor

Detail on "The Good Life"

Detail from "The good life"

Winner of Quilt Creations:

"Clock" by Kate Crossley

My own favourites:

Bristol Triptych - Yvonne Brown

On Green Pond - Judith Wilson

Cappoccino ' Gwenfai Rees Griffiths

A Girl's best friend - Liz Jones

"Play with squares" - Angela Rudolph

Liquorice and Lace" - Birgit Schuller

Detail - Liquorice and Lace

Turkish Delight - Philippa Thomas

Lente in Keukenhof - Ethelda Ellis

Detail of "Lente in Keukenhof"

The old garden gate - Lynda Jackson

Detail of "The Old Garden Gate"

Fire and Ice - Claudia Pfeil

Detail - Fire and Ice

Detail - Fire and Ice

Raconteur the Storyteller's Collection - Cinzia White

Detail - Raconteur the storyteller's collection

Flourish on the Vine - Kathy Wylie

Detail - Flourish on the Vine

Detail - Flourish on the Vine

Flourish on the Vine - detail

 Kutch Diamonds was entered in the Traditional category and got a Highly Commended, which I am absolutely delighted about. This is a photo of it hanging up:

Kutch Diamonds - Annelize ~Littlefair

Update on Dutch treat:

Although I have not yet caught up, I managed to stitch 21 blocks since my last update. I have to confess that I am thoroughly bored with it and decided that I do not like reverse appliqué. I will probably NEVER do another quilt like this and I am dreading having to do 4 borders. For now, I am going to persevere with my blocks until they are all done, before making a decision about the borders.

Next week:
Kimmy Brunner is currently the UK, she has been teaching at Festival of Quilts and will be teaching long arm quilting classes at The Cotton Patch next week. I have enrolled for all her classes and can't wait to learn from her. I will post some photos on here in my next post.

Summer is here!

Radiance Challenge quilt
Seven weeks after my surgery and my surgeon has given the all clear and okay to start quilting again. First on the list was my Radiance quilt, which I have been itching to do. I marked it out, using my lightbox and despite having a cotton interfacing applied to the fabric, which is quite dark, I had no problem seeing my design on paper through the lightbox. I used a Clover Chaco liner on the outlines of the centre design and a Clover white marking pencil (fine)  on the border design, which when you first draw a line looks as if it is not showing and then magically slowly show up crisp and clear.  The quilting design is all my own, but I have  used a design by Sue Heinz, from Kismet Quilting, for my border and I think it looks perfect with the rest of the design.

Quilt loaded with practise piece next to it

 I had so much fun stitching this design, it was hard to decide which colours and which make of threads to use. In the end I just put all the matching threads on the table and decided as I went along. I used Rainbows for the little "horns" but found the thread quite thick and also dull looking against the silk in the fabric. I normally like Rainbows as it add a bit of subtle sparkle but this is not one I would use again on the Radiance fabric. I then used Glide thread for the outline of the clamshells and the star.

More Glide for the lacey-looking little swirls and minarets around the top of the "horns"

Infill stitched with Bottomline thread. In the ideal world, I would have liked to use So Fine, but as I had not ordered it in the correct colour and wanted to finish before I went on holiday, I used Bottomline, which I did have in exactly the right colour and I am really pleased with the effect. 

I had a hard time deciding what design to use in the background around the centre motif. In the end I decided to do a fine meander stitch, that would gently remain in the background, rather than do a fancy design that could compete with the central design. I am very happy with how it has turned out. 

I used "Suede" fabric by PB Textiles for my backing, doesn't it look as if it was made for a wholecloth?
I might have to get some more of this to do a "Big" wholecloth quilt.

Radiance all done

Lovely presents for quilting friends
A friend recently started selling some beautiful seam rippers. I bought one for myself and fell in love it as soon as it arrived.  Apart from looking lovely, it sits incredibly comfortable in my hand. I have now had it for a couple of months, have used it more or less daily and can't imagine that I will ever want to use another one ever again. Today I bought four more, to give to some wonderful quilting friends and I can't wait to give it to them.

The sharp end pulls out and can be put back inside so that it is hidden and safe to put inside a sewing bag - no more poking yourself on sharp ends when taking something out of your sewing bag! Also, because the colours are so unique to every one, they are instantly identifiable so you won't misplace them when taking them to a class.
If you like the look of them, look on the website, if you don't see a colour that you like, ask, as not all the colours are on the website and Lynda is very accommodating.

http://www.capricornquilting.co.uk/category/uncategorized/rippers/


New projects:

While I was recovering from my operation, I was unable to use the HQ, but as soon as I was able to, I started working on 2 new quilts. Here are some teasers:

As yet, no name

"Whistler"

This week we are off to France for our family holiday, we have had some very hot weather in the last 2 weeks, positively tropical! and the forecast for France is even hotter than what is forecast for here for the next week. I did not think I would ever say this, but there has been days when it was too hot to even sew. 

When I get back, it will be Festival of Quilts and I will meet up with lots of quilting friends, I will be quiet for a while but promise to post some lovely quilt photos on here when I get back

Hope everyone is having a lovely summer 

Radiance challenge

I have recently read a post on Lisa Calle's blog about a challenge she set herself to learn how to quilt on her domestic sewing machine. This can be a problem for a long arm quilter. You see, once upon a time, we all did know how to quilt on our domestic sewing machines and some of us got quite good at it. Maybe we bought our long arm machines to set up in business or because the quilts we were quilting were getting larger and larger or maybe, because of a medical reason, it was just not feasible anymore to quilt on the domestic. Others just never did get on with the quilting on the domestic machine and it was either send it to get quilted by someone else or buy a long arm to get it done.
So, once we have a long arm, do we ever go back to do quilting on the domestic? I have, once, on a small wall hanging and could not believe how quickly I had "unlearned" how to do it. I hated every minute and decided to stick to the long arm in future.
Reading about Lisa's challenge got me thinking … I don't know that there are any "challenges" out there for long arm quilters, certainly not in the UK. I belong to an online group of long arm quilters, we are all fairly new to long arm quilting, some just absolute beginners. What we have in common, is that we all own Handiquilters, some have the Sweet Sixteen sit down version, but most have the Avante and one or two have the Fusion. Although we get some support from the trader, there is very little other support out there for us, so this group was set up so that we can offer each other advice and help when needed. Some of us have been getting to know each other very well and have become firm friends.
Anyhow, I just thought it might be a wonderful way to get everyone in our group involved in a group project, we can have some fun and join in Lisa's challenge, although for us, the challenge will be to quilt on our long arms, rather than on the domestic machines. I did check with Lisa first that she would be okay with this and she was quite pleased to have us on board.  Off course, the other motivation for this, is to get us all out of our comfort zones and for everyone to learn something new, so expanding the learning curve, which is after all what we are all about.
Our challenge is to produce a wholecloth  quilt, that is 18" square, in any style that we are happy with, using Robert Kaufman's Radiance fabric. This in itself will be a challenge for some, as it is a cotton/silk blend and most of us have only ever worked on cotton before. Every quilt will be made in a different colour, so some organising was involved with allocating the colours. These are some of the colours we are using:

"Radiance" fabrics by Robert Kaufman

There are now 26 of us in this challenge, I am hoping to get them shown at one of the shows in the UK, maybe raising the profile for long arm quilters locally.  We have no theme as such for the design, but as the fabric is so radiant and this is our first challenge (hoping many more will follow) we decided to make the theme "Radiance". We are still working on getting the perfect name for this group.

The design briefing is for a quilt design in any style that the quilter is comfortable with. This can be in a traditional style, modern "art" style to pictorial. My preferred style is traditional just edging on being modern and I will keep updating my blog with how my design is developing and how I will stitch it out. I have made a few sketches, shown them to family and friends and finally settled on this one:

Design in progress

I am still working on what to do for the background fill, hence a lot of doodling in those areas. Although it looks like a complicated design, it will be fairly straight forward stitching it out.

Step 1: Marking "ruler" lines onto quilt top

 The first step will be to mark all these lines out onto my quilt top. These lines will all be stitched by ruler. Rather than tracing onto my quilt top, to keep the lines accurate, I will redraw these lines with my rulers adding in the small red and blue registration marks. The blue registration marks will help me place my freehand designs in the correct position, as they will not be marked onto the quilt top. The red registration marks, are my guidance for the outside edge of the design, which is equidistant from the centre of the design.  Once my quilt top is loaded, the "ruler" lines will be the first lines that I will stitch.

Step 2: Marking freehand guidelines onto quilt top

Once I have marked out all the "ruler" lines, I will freehand mark all the scalloped edges as well as the little minaret shapes on the outside of the design onto the quilt top. I might make a stencil that I can draw around to get all the minarets the same size and dimension. These lines are important, as they will be my guide for where to stitch the design inside this border.  The design inside the border does not get marked onto the quilt top. Once all the "ruler" lines are stitched these scallops will be stitched next. I won't be stitching the design inside the border until my outline for the main design is complete.

Freehand guidelines for guiding inner border design

The next step will be to mark the outline of all the little "horns". I can stitch these freehand, but to get them to be consistent and with equal number of segments, I will trace around  the one I like the most and then make a stencil for it. These will then be marked on the top next.  Final bit of marking will be my border design. The border design is from a book by Sue Heinz, I will place this on my lightbox, with the fabric placed over the design and then just trace it onto my quilt top. I will need to take care with my placement as it is a directional design and I would like it to look good in the corners.  There is 2 ways that I can do this, either start at the corners and fudge the design to fit in the middle, or start in the middle of the border, turn the design to go in opposite directions and then work to the corners.  As I have tried both ways on paper, I know that the second way would work best on this size of border, so I will start marking in the centres.
No other marking will be done on the quilt top. This is what my quilt top will look like when the marking is done:

All the marking required on the quillt top 

Once all these are stitched out, I will make a decision as to which order I will stitch the rest of the design, but will almost certainly start with the shell shapes.

Doesn't it just look so easy when it is all broken down into small units?

There is a lot of advise out there about where to start quilting and how to keep the stitching consistent. I don't follow any rules, I will start with one section and then do the repeat of that one section until they are all stitched out, look at the quilt to see where I think I next need to go to and do that. I do try to keep the quilting balanced, I won't for example start in one corner and work my way to the opposite corner. It is just a bit of common sense I think, if one area is a lot more puffy than another, then do that first. The one rule I absolutely always follow though, is to not start with any of the background fill until ALL of the main design is stitched out.

I am itching to start sewing this design, but as I have just had surgery and are not allowed to operate any machinery, this will have to wait until I get the okay from my surgeon. In the meantime, I am really looking forward to seeing how all the other little quilts are come along.