Time for another catch-up post, about my Decorative Stitch Applique class on Friday at Quilt Festival.   I’m on a yahoo group for Janome 6600-7700-8900 owners, and a discussion cropped up about using the decorative stitches and I realized I had yet to post this information, so here goes!

The Funky Chicken, from Sarah’s Decorative Stitch Applique class in Houston.  Right click to enlarge image.  I’ve stacked (grouped) stitches on this one.  For example, the checkerboard (in yellow upper left) is two passes of a satin stitch that has two columns of small alternating squares.  To the lower right of the green square, a scroll stitch is bracketed with scallops.  The center square is appliqued, stitched with the “V” stapes, then outlined with a bold straight stitch.  Done on a Janome 8900.

Ya know how we all have these fancy machines that do a bazillion things, and pretty much 98 percent of the time (or more) all we do is use the straight stitch and sometimes the zigzag?   Well, when I wrote my book, Threadwork Unraveled, I included a section to teach folks how to play with their fancy stitches. This is the project in the book and the regular class project.

Decorative Stitch sampler for my Decorative Stitch Class.

I teach that section as a class which was offered this year at Quilt Festival.  This year I came up with a couple new projects as class options for students. Most of the students did the usual tossed leaves project for this class, but one loved my Funky Chicken.   Here she is early in the day, filling the background with fun stitch combinations in fun colors:

This student used the same colors as my sample. We were luckily in the Janome classroom with the FABULOUS 15000 machines. I’ve never been a fan of computer-screen sewing machine models, as I prefer visual knobs and buttons. Well, let me tell that has changed! I have severe sewing machine lust for one of these babies! And they have even more (!!!) stitches than the already fabulous 8900!

Other students put their own spin on the leaves:

A student is making sample blocks with decorative stitches.  This is a great way to test out pattern combinations–here she has a practice square to toss out and her “real” piece on the left.  If you have a practice square, that means you don’t have to pick out the stitches if you don’t like them!

Close up of decorative stitching on an aspen leaf.

This student tried a very bold, wide multi-stitch zigzag.  You can see this is her practice bit–see how she has tested the appearance of various stitches in the strip on the right?

I made a smaller (about 9 inches square) quiltlet with the sampler leaf and the background stitching. If you right click on this image, you can see more detail. Notice how I layered up stitches to applique the green patch and how I used a decorative stitch on the binding. On the latter, I used matching thread to machine stitch down the binding, then went over that with a decorative stitch.

And a happy student with her nearly-done funky chicken:

Thank you, Barb Brown of Colorado, for taking my class! I love your chicken!

The day ended with one of my favorite things at Festival:  FRIENDS!  This evening was the Dinner@8 artists.  Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison curate an exhibit each year for several years now, and I am thrilled to have been both invited to submit pieces and accepted in the exhibit!   My orca quilt, seen in earlier blogposts on Festival 2013, was in this year’s Exquisite Moment exhibit.  Here a bunch of us who were at Festival enjoy dinner and friendship and art!

One of the two tables of folks in the Dinner@8 exhibit. Leslie is at the head of the table, next to Diane Rusin Doran (in pink), Susan Brubaker Knapp (glasses) and Lyric Kinard

And too much fun not to include, Susan and I taking pictures of each other taking pictures!

We’re celebrating the release of my video workshop with one final GRAND finale including this DVD and the loot below!

WOW!  What a wonderful tour of art and the world we’ve been on with both the September/October and November/December bloghops and giveaways!  Thank you so much to Quilting Arts and Interweave for sponsoring this with DVDs and downloads, Mistyfuse for their wonderful products that I use to make my art, and Havel‘s for great scissors.  And ENORMOUS thank yous to my intrepid reviewers who helped make this bloghop possible:  Jamie, Deborah, Vicki, Leslie, Terry, Gloria, Diane, Marie, Brenda, Jaye, Susan, Daphne and Lisa:  THANK YOU!

The December Grand Prize Giveaway includes Two packages of Mistyfuse, a package of Transdoodle (all thanks to Mistyfuse), a Bag of scissors, snips and seam ripper from Havel’s PLUS non-stick scissors, the October issue of Quilting Arts with my article on What a Difference a Background Makes, and the 2010-11 Quilting Arts Gifts issue with my project and many other still wonderful gift ideas!

Yep–if you would like a chance to win

• A copy of the DVD!
• A selection of products from MistyFuse! I show you how I use these products in the Video workshop.
• A huge donation from Havel’s Scissors including a generous giftbag that includes long scissors, short scissors, snips, seam ripper, AND the non-stick scissors too!
• And a copy of Quilting Arts Gifts magazine from 2010-11, with a project by me! and a copy of the October Quilting Arts magazine with my article on what a difference the background Makes.

all in time for a nice long winter (or summer depending on your location in the world), here’s what you need to know and do:

• Leave me a comment and tell me something about the bloghopper-reviewer  whose work most influenced you in this bloghop–the work of one of the reviewers.  I’ll include links to all their blogs at the end of this post.
• On December 10th, I’ll select a winner. Please leave comments by 8 a.m. East Coast US time.
• I will pay flat rate shipping within the US.  If you live outside the US, you may enter IF you are willing to help me with the added cost of shipping outside the US. (Probably between $10-15)

So let the fun begin!   Comment away, and return to visit one of these fine artists (or ALL OF THEM!) and enjoy their art and thank them for participating.

And remember, you can always order the DVD from me (here) or a download or DVD directly from Quilting Arts/Interweave, here.

Jamie, Deborah, Vicki, Leslie, Terry, Gloria, Diane, Marie, Brenda, Jaye, Susan, Daphne and Lisa:  THANK YOU!

Jamie Fingal      http://jamiefingaldesigns.blogspot.com/
Deborah Boschert    http://deborahsjournal.blogspot.com/
Vicki Welsh    http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/
Leslie Jenison  http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/
Terry Grant   http://andsewitgoes.blogspot.com/
Gloria Hansen    http://www.gloriahansen.com/weblog/
Diane Perin Hock    http://goingtopieces.blogspot.com/
Marie Johansen   http://www.musingcrowdesigns.com/
Brenda Gael Smith   http://serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog/
Jaye Lapachet    http://artquiltmaker.com/blog/
Susan Brubaker Knapp   http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/
Daphne Greig   http://daphnegreig.blogspot.com/
Lisa Walton    http://www.fibreinspirations.blogspot.com/

If it was Tuesday, that meant I was teaching Tame Fussy, Fiddly Threads! As always, the students were brilliant!

Tuesday is the “down” day between Market (the trade show, which is only open to industry professionals, not the general public, ends on Monday) and Festival (which opens with a Preview night on Wednesday evening, then is open Thursday-Sunday).  Folks who attend Market often stay to take a class, and folks who attend Festival come early so they can take classes, then be free to enjoy the show and vendors on Thursday.  This year, I got to teach one of my favorite classes, Tame Fussy, Fiddly Threads, which is all about using metallics, holographics, and heavy threads (the kind that go through the needle, not bobbin work).

A student plays with heavy 30-wt So Fine thread from Superior Threads early in the day.

Since so many of my classes are fusing, I thought I’d mix it up when I formulated this class.  Instead, we make a stencil out of freezer paper and paint with Lumiere and ProFab textile paints.  Students can use my model or do their own thing (which I LOVE when they do that!).

This student chose gingko leaves pointing away from the center on the north-south/east-west axes. She then penciled in quilting guidelines on the black background.

In the supply list, I suggest a black background fabric.  I love this small black and charcoal check!  Her quilting is great…love the nestled-in quilted-only leaf next to the stenciled leaf, as well as the shading on her leaves, and how she alternated painted and not in the spray of leaves on the right.

This student was having fun!  Her background of black and gold fabric is somewhat visually busy, so she is wise to concentrate her stitching on the painted leaves as the print could obscure the lovely stitching.

Then in mid-morning a fun surprise!  The best thing about Festival is seeing folks you know from (mostly) the internet…the quilts are great too, but the quilters are the bestest!

Luana Rubin, founder with her husband Paul of eQuilter, was at Festival and popped in to the classroom to say hi! We are both members of a small online group–there are not so many of us and we are VERY tight! We respect everyone’s privacy closely, so we can share and be sure that we will support each other and keep mum. I also got to see Luana AND her daughter Sophie later on the show floor (photo in a future post).

Practicing on a sample sandwich before working on the stenciled piece. (Note her shirt, from Lopez Island Resort; Lopez is the island next door to San Juan Island where I used to live.  I swear everyone on the planet has either been to the islands or knows someone who lives or lived there!)

Another set of gingko leaves, this time on the diagonals, partially quilted.

And the same leaves at the end of class. Fabulous!

Oak leaves are popular, too, and easy to draw! notice how she varied the thread for the leaves.  Would love to see how she quilts the acorns; we talked about doing a dense zigzaggy thing for the caps!

Love the quilted border!

A happy student–the maker of those wonderful gingkos– in a happy and talented classroom. We got to use the Janome 9900s in class, which is similar to the machine I use at home. FAB!

And those glorious gingkos from above at the end of the day. LOVE THIS!

My next Houston post will share quilt pics, then I’ll do more on classes I taught, then more quilts, then even MORE quilts!

Hi all!   Guess what?  The first bloghop and giveaway was so much fun, I’m doing another with the help of some internet friends!   The schedule this time will be a bit flexible due to travel for Lisa, an extended internet outage for Marie, and U.S. Thanksgiving in late November.  On the appointed day, I’ll post a bit about each of these wonderful, creative women, and they’ll do a quick review of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design:  From Photo to Threadwork with Fusible Applique and Machine Quilting.

To order a DVD, visit my Store page here.

You can also order either the DVD or a digital download, visit Quilting Arts’ Interweave Store, here. And, of course, you can enter the various giveaways thanks to the generous quilt artists who are helping me give away copies!

Here’s a tentative schedule:

• November 14:       Marie Johansen 
• November 16:       Brenda Gael Smith
• November  19:      Jaye Lapachet   
• November 23:      Susan Brubaker Knapp
• November 27:      Daphne Greig 
• November later:   Lisa Walton  
• Early December:     me! with the Grand Finale including goodies from MistyFuse and Havel’s Scissors!

Thanks to Quilting Arts/Interweave for donating review copies as well as some DVDs and downloads.   For the three reviews done outside the US (Brenda in Australia, Daphne in Canada and Lisa in Australia), they’ll be offering a free high def download.  The three reviewers in the US will offer a DVD to be mailed (by me).  And for the Grand Finale I’ll do the same as I did last time:  anyone around the world is free to join in, but I might ask for a bit of help on postage if the winner is outside the US.

In between all this fun, I’ll continue to share the fun I had in Houston and blogging about what I’m up to now that this year’s teaching is done!

Congratulations to Gail Myrodhosky who was number 42 in the comments on my Grand Finale Giveaway to celebrate the release of my DVD workshop, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork.

To order, see below.

Here’s what the random number generator told me–I just think these things are so cool!

Random.org is a random number generator (found by Google, thank you Google)

Thank you to all of you for reading, commenting, participating in the giveaway!  Thank you to all the bloggers who participated, and to Quilting Arts/Interweave, Mistyfuse and Havel’s Scissors for donating prizes!   Now…on to blogging about more art, quilt and family life!

And for those of you wh o didn’t win (I’m sorry!  I wish I could have a copy for each of you!), visit my Store page here to order the DVD,  or to order either the DVD or a digital download, visit Quilting Arts’ Interweave Store, here.