The Show

The show at Island Quilter was a huge success! The opening was well attended and despite my last minute panic, the show was cohesive, hung well (thanks to Anja) and a lot of fun! For all of you who are over seas and far far away I hope this will give you a closer look! For those of you in the area, the show is open through November 1st.

As promised here are some pictures all courtesy of my very good friend Sue Tamcsin: Thanks Sue!#iloveher.

 View of the middle of the room

Vintage quilts, machine quilted from far left, far right by Irene Campbell

 Frankenquilt with quilts by Katie, Maggie, and Krista

Frankenquilt

Quilted by Krista Withers

Pieced and Designed by Krista Withers

2012

Where to begin? On a dark stormy night …......in the Frankenquilt Lair.

Ha ha, no it’s not quite that dramatic.

 I started this quilt with all good intentions of it becoming a traditional flower garden using Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks Voile. Hugely inspired by Katy’s (aka Imagingermonkey) Hexie MF,  I envisioned a delicious soft Hexie quilt made just for me.

Seven million hours later and a huge pile of hand stitched hexagons I unknowingly began piecing improv flowers which would merge with the hexies to become what you see here.

Who knew that you could improv English Paper piece? Who knew that using safety pins to keep hexagons in order was a horrible idea? Who knew WTH I was doing? Not me. Who knew I was creating a monster? Who knew at 3a.m.when I was frantically hand sewing hexies and turned on the television to the original 1931 Frankenstein movie, that this quilt had to be called Frankenquilt?

 I knew.

And Frankenquilt grew. A traditional flower garden grew and from it grew flowers that were not traditional at all and from those grew more traditional flowers. And somehow I pieced them all together and tried my best to get it in square, and then tried some more.

I quilted it and quilted it and quilted it, then I quilted it some more.

I even had to quilt a pleat into it because my haphazard piecing is enough to make any judge cry.

 I made it work.

 It was recommended I change its name for show purposes... you see that I could not.

 I present to you, Frankenquilt.

I love Frankenquilt with all my heart.

From far left:  Katie's Seattle Stars, Alison Robins's Extreme fabric diary. Joanne Roth's Running in circles, doll quilts by me, and yet another opposing triangle by Katie

Rainbow wall makes me smile. Quilts by Katie, Maggie Downing, me and my alter ego, Krista.

The third opposing triangles quilt by Katie

Sun quilt by Maggie Downing

And here's Me! 

I am not a huge fan of being photographed, but there I am. 

Quilter’s Statement

I come from a very traditional place in quilting and piecing. As I have evolved as an artist and quilter my work has changed. I have grown and found a place where I can express myself through fabric. Painting is my first love and always will be, but I am thankful to finally see my ideas translated in quilts. I love the modern quilt movement, it has such a vibrant energy and bright future. I feel honored to be part of this movement and thankful to have such talented friends and customers to collaborate with.  This show would have been impossible to put together without the vision of these friends and their gorgeous quilts. Quilts, that have been my privilege to quilt, created by friends who have generously allowed me to share in this exhibit.

Opening Tonight!

Opening tonight at the Island Quilter on Vashon 6-9.

This is how I left the quilts the other night,I was tired and in great need of a good night sleep. Anja stayed up until 3am hanging the show and last I talked to her she was still finishing hanging quilts in the space.

 Something about taking a ferry seems like a vacation to me.

 Boxes and bolts of fabric had arrived the day of hanging in preparation for the Kaffe Fassett workshops. I scurried around trying to help where I could.

 Stack of Quilts!

By some miracle I did finish this quilt.

Please stop by if you are in the area. Have a wonderful weekend!

Where have I been???

It's been too long I know. I am not the best about keeping up with a consistent blogging schedule. I have been busy though, very busy!
I am honored (and terrified) to announce that I will be having a show coming up in October at the Island Quilter on Vashon Island. This is truly one of the loveliest quilt shops I have ever been to, amazing fabric, fantastic customer service and a HUGE gallery space what more could you ask for?
So, what have I been up to you ask?  Aside from washing and ironing my entire fabric collection.(procrastinators have no limits)

 I have been trying to put together a hopefully wonderful show to open on Friday, October 5th from 6-9. If you happen to be in the area please stop by and say hello, I will be there!
I will have approx 25 quilts in the show, many I have made, and many have been made by some of the best friends/customers a girl could be lucky enough to have. All of the quilts were quilted by me.
Here is a sneak peak of what will be hanging:

 "Hot and Cold" Quilt made by my fabulously talented and wonderful friend Krista 

 My circles Bee quilt, blocks made by the talented ladies from Fresh Modern bee 2

 You may recognize these triangles from Katie's blog, I have been lucky enough to collaborate with this lovely lady and in the process make a treasured friend...and we both have the same inclination towards drinking good beer and spending money we don't have on fabric, it was meant to be.

That is just the cup that says BUD LIGHT. The beer is actually real beer.

 Another one of Katie's lovely creations!

 Hey! This doesn't look finished OR quilted, truth be told it is neither, but with any luck it will be hanging in the show.

Another view of Krista's lovely quilt.

 And last but certainly not least I had the privilege of quilting this amazingly insane quilt made by Alison Robins

Other quilts in the show made by these talented women:
Sonja Callaghan

Joanne Roth
Maggie Downing
Gail Witt

and Irene Campbell who must have sores on her precious fingers from all of the sleeves and bindings she has sewn on for me...for whom I would not have been able to do this without.  


Please bear with me and my pitiful blogging habits, thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read this. Please stop by the show if you can and although I'm horrible about replying  to comments I do read each one and love that you have taken the time to leave one.
xoxok

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2012

Happy Friday!
 I am new to this blogging world and am so happy to be participating in Amy's
Bloggers Quilt Festival 2012!

 

My submission is this Spiderweb quilt, it has been with me to three retreats spanning the last two years, has used up a massive amount of scraps, has become a fabric diary/keepsake and is probably my favorite quilt to date.

photo courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

The pattern is a modified version of Sarah Fielke's Maple Leaf Rag from her beautiful book,
Material Obsession two. The added border with the webs spilling out was an idea born from the want to quilt more webs into that space to add interest and a bit of asymmetry.

photo courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

I used some of my all time favorite fabrics but REALLY, I love this quilt because it has fabrics shared with me from some of the wonderful friends I have met along the way...you know who you are...wink.

Photo Courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

I quilted it with many many spider webs. I have heard that women used to quilt a web into their quilts for good luck and long life....at this rate I may live forever!
.

All quilting was done freehand and with rulers, Einstein got a much needed snooze.
This quilt will always be one of my favorites. It truly represents who I am now as a quilter as well as where I am going. With a very strong foundation in traditional quilt making, spilling out into the more modern and contemporary themes and styles.

Thank you so much for stopping by and please check out all of the other amazing quilts featured in the festival, I am in awe of the talent in this community!!

Quilting Vintage Snowball Quilt

How I love feedsack.
When I first started longarm quilting I went a little nuts and bought a bunch of quilts off Ebay to "practice" on.... Of course some of the ones I got were way to precious to just "practice" on so they got hoarded away in my studio for years. Recently I have started quilting one of the most beloved of these:
 The snowball quilt, all hand pieced with Vintage fabrics and Feedsack. sigh.

I started by figuring out my design using dry erase markers on a sheet of plexiglass:
If you try this PLEASE mask the edges of your plexiglass. ask how I know?

I don't transfer this design onto the quilt top. It is just a tool I use to work through ideas, figure out scale density and design.

Then to the quilting!
 I used my IQ for the circle quilting, the rest is done freehand. I decided to quilt non stitch regulated for a more organic stitch quality. Of course no one is going to think it is hand quilted but I prefer the look to the uniformity of stitch regulation for this one.

Batting is Dream Orient, bamboo/silk blend ...another sigh.
Thread Superior So Fine

It isn't done yet, but hopefully I can make some progress this weekend!

I may be getting a wee bit ahead of myself but I received these gorgeous feedsack scraps from Marilyn, the lovely spidedcoffee on Flickr!

It would likely be a tedious task piecing these together for the binding, with the longest scrap being about 7 inches....would it be worth it?

Happy Mothers Day, enjoy a beautiful weekend!

Quilting Modern Fans

Happy Monday!
I have had the pleasure of quilting fans on quite a few quilts lately and I must say I am falling in love with them. Modern fans, Baptist fans...they both add movement and texture to the quilt but stay soft and don't distract from the piecing!
These quilts were quilted using my IQ, with Laura's fan pattern, offset 50%.
This first one is a picnic quilt that Krista sent me to practice on. Fans can be tricky to stack or nest properly so I really appreciated her letting me use a couple of her quilts for trial and error.

When I finished I hung it up outside, it will truly be a wonderful picnic quilt!
If you look close you might see a white butterfly that flew by as I snapped the pic!

Feeling pretty confident that I had a good grasp on lining up the pattern properly I started to work on Angela's  cracker scrap quilt. A quilt that would have really shown if I messed up!
Again, thanks to my friend who I don't know what I'd do without!
Now to Angela's gorgeous quilt:

And Voila!!

And just because she couldn't resist she made the back almost as lovely as the front!

 I used Hobbs Poly-down batting and Superior's So Fine and Bottom Line threads.

Quilting Shattered

Shattered is a recreation of one of the quilts from Katie and Jacquie's amazing new book, Quilting Modern which has just been released.
Katie made this version and had me quilt it before the release so I wasn't able to share it just yet.

 Following the lead of how  Angela quilted the original and tweaking it a bit I think it came out stunning.
As you can see there are a lot of straight line echoes, I did some freehand but it is very easy to Bobble freehand diagonals...So, meet my beloved IQ:

This quilt was quilted about 25% freehand with rulers and 75%IQ. This doesn't mean that I was able to just walk away and let Einstein do all the work. No sir. I plugged in every point I wanted the needle to hit and the IQ calculated straight lines between those points...IQ also stitched very straight lines,even diagonal straight lines.
Have I mentioned how much I love my IQ?
Anyone with an IQ who is curious, I used Line pattern, marking the quilt manually.
I'm quite sure there is an easier/faster way,  an echo path maybe? But I like the organic feel of this approach.

Katie used AMH velveteen on the back and she describes it like butter....agreed.

If you don't know Katie, please check out her blog here:
sewkatiedid.wordpress.com/

And if you haven't grabbed a copy of the book yet:

 

Quilting Modern

Do! 
You will be delighted that you did.

I promise.

Bee progress

My recent "Sew la Tea" block for the Sew Out Loud QAL was inspired by this block:

Which I made for Smoochee in the Pastiche Bee on flickr. Her theme was Alice in Wonderland and I couldn't resist creating a Mad Hatter toppling tea cup stack, which eventually led to my "Sew la Tea" block.
Also pictured are a few "sketches" for Pastiche. I have fallen a bit behind with all the procrastinating I have been working so hard at.
Exhibit a.)

I had all good intentions of submitting this drawing for the Spoonflower Fabric8 contest, unfortunately I procrastinated to the point of  missing the deadline.....by a good nine hours...oops.

Here are a few more complete Pastiche blocks which I will be getting in the mail tomorrow!
Thanks for stopping by to see what I have been up to!