CURVED PIECING is one of my favorite characteristics of contemporary quilting. Traditional quilting relies almost completely on straight edge piecing but unlimited options open up when you begin to sew curves. Curves can be small wiggles or whole circles though often whole circles are made with four blocks of quarter circles (see quilt in photo). Curved
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In Studio
New Art Quilt Hanging Sleeve Design
Gallery hanging systems have always created a challenge for my art quilts which hang from the ends of the dowel inserted in a sleeve on the upper back (all hidden from a view of the quilt). I’ve received some invitations to submit quilts for gallery shows but they require a split sleeve with a dowel.
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Designing and Planning a Landscape Quilt
I’m not a sketcher or very good at drawing.but I do make some rudimentary sketches for most of my landscape quilts. These are very broad and simplistic ideas of the way I want the art quilt to flow and appear. Much of what I use the sketches for is to figure the proportions of the
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Birch Tree Art Quilts in Two Seasons
A few months ago I created “Birch Trees 8 in Autumn”. I’m totally partial to fall/autumn colors so I have created quite a few birch trees in autumn in different designs. I liked the size and simplicity in design of the Birch Trees 8 so I thought I’d try making a very similar one of
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First Quilt Workshop a Success!!
I had an awesome time with 17 eager quilters today. I presented my first quilt workshop for the Juniata County Quilt Guild. I taught them how to piece using curved cuts and to design a quilt in a more contemporary style. The three hour workshop was just enough time to piece the art quilt itself
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Four Poppy Quilts Finished
Last week I posted four poppy quilts I had finished piecing but not yet quilted. Here are the photos of the finished quilts. If you click on the photos you should be able to see them large enough to see the free motion stitching. Three Red Poppies on beige/grey background: I quilted the petals so
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Fun Making Pieced Poppy Art Quilts
As May turned back into March these past two weeks I decided the outdoor gardening would wait and I’d spend more time sewing. I decided to focus on exploring some new designs and piecing for my poppy motif. This is one design that is a bit complicated to piece. It kind of feels like I
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What MOTION for my Free Motion Quilting????
I am always on the look out for ideas for FREE MOTION quilting. I’ve purchased books and searched the Internet for free motion ideas but so often the ideas are shown in a square shape. I guess this is the “traditional” quilt approach but it doesn’t often translate to my contemporary quilt piecing shapes or
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Creating a sunset reflection in water in your art quilt
In the last few years I have made about a half a dozen sunset quilts with sunlight reflections over water. While my landscape art quilts are all somewhat abstract, I have continued to refine HOW I create a reflection of a sunset over a lake. I study photographs and paintings of sunsets over water to
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