Quilters Threads Newsletter
November 1 2007

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Hints From Diane

Now I still make quilts for other people, but more and more the answer would be that the quilt is for me. "For me" has come to mean, not a quilt for my bed or couch but to stretch my creativity. This came about for 2 main reasons. First of all I am fascinated by all the wonderful threads that suddenly became available, and second I joined a wonderful, nourishing email group of quilters called the Quilt Mavericks who by example encouraged me to try new things., I would like to pass this gift on to you and I hope that you will accept it.

First of all, probably the best gift you could give yourself  is a book called Quilting by Improvisation by VickiPignatelli. I love this book. Even though she is teaching a lot of curved techniques, it is the creative process that she goes through that is important to study.

I would suggest that you start with any small wallhanging. Let's discuss a few interesting things you can do to this.

Thread painting - free motion embroidery - and beads
On of the things I teach my granddaughters when they are learning to quilt is to have a test sandwich available. This is two squares of any light colored fabric with batting in between,. Mine is about 15" square so it is easy to manuveur. When I fill one, I make another one. I keep them for reference. Put a few safety pins in to hold it together. Once you have done a few tests, you can take the pins out as the stitching will secure it. I take a little basket - I love to get these at garage sales and fill it with a few threads that appeal to me, some bright threads, some variegated, some metallics. Print out a coloring book page or use one of your kid's coloring books. There are at least thousands of these pages on the web. I am going to use a picture of a horse foe an example, but it could be anything, the less complicated the better. Before you put your practice sandwich together, take your coloring book page (trace over the lines with a sharpie pen if they are not very dark . Then slip the page under the top square of fabric for your test sandwich and trace the image. In this case you can use any kind of pen as it is just for fun.

Now put your test sandwich together. Pick a thread that you like adn stitch around the outline of your picture. Forget any details, just the basic outline.  If the line  does not have any tight curves, you may be able to do this with your regular presser foot, but let's take a little risk here and put the darning or free motion foot on your machine. Many people drop the feed dogs at this point, I do not. It also depends on your machine. You know how you ust used a pen and fabric  to trace your design, well now you are doing the same thing only the pencil is the needle and thread of your machine and the fabric now has to be the pasrt that is moved in the drawing process as it would be difficult to move the machine around like a pencil. Your results may not look great to you. it is actually more difficult to follow a line than to do it out of your imagination, but remember if this were a real quilt, you would be washing that reference  line out of there so no one would know that you missed following the line at that spot!

OK, now you have the outline. Think about a mane, pick some outrage thread (maybe a metallic for the mane. Now think about how to draw a mane in there. stright lines, zig-zag lines, curved lines, a lot of lines, use your imagination and give it a try. How about doing a tail now? Is your horse on grass, dirt, in bushes, do a few representational squiggles to represent that, use more than one color. NOT BAD! See you will only get better, this is the worst you will be. I want to warn you my drawing is a lot better with my sewing machine than on my computer, but you get the idea.

OK, let's leave the machine and give the guy an eye, a button, beads. a marker? Add eyelashes it you want, horses have nice ones. How about if  this horse is going to be in a parade and there are some beads braided into its mane? Or maybe some flower buttons. No body is going to criticize your choice, see if it works for you. Remember, this one is "for you".

OK, next lesson we will talk about fabric paint. If you want to try another coloring picture go ahead. Another thing to try is to take a nice motif on a fabric and embellish that just the way you just did on the horse picture. I think leaves are particularly fun.

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Those used to be just green and purple leaves printed on fabric and I outlined them with a very narrow zigzag stitch and added veins. The technique is exactly like described in the horse picture. This embellished applique is used on a jewelry bag.

You can either post pictures of what you did in the forum or send them to me at info@quiltersthreads.com. I will draw two names for one of our little surprises in the mail.

Report from the Houston Quilt Mart
Going to Quilt Mart was an incredible experience. I am so glad that I had a chance to go. My blog contains a report with some pictures. In addition to purchasing some Wonderfil Thread sets as described there, I purchased some great new foil packs and two new patterns. In many cases, i intend to buy many of the products I saw there as I methodically fine tune our inventory. I was able to meet a few "stars" of the business such as Ricky Tims, Charlotte Warr Anderson and Harriet Hargrave among others. Some I had known before, but it is energizing to talk to these people again. I went to Harriet's first Machine Quilting Celebration several years ago and it was a real impetus in deciding which direction my quilting should take. She was telling me that she has changed the venue from the incredibly beautiful Estes Park to a more easily negotiable hotel location so if any one had hesitated about attending it for that reason, I would encourage you and anyone else to go if you can manage it. What an experience. Whenever I had a chance I went to the end of the convention center where the displays were hung. I only got through about 1/3 of the quilts, but they were incredibly wonderful.- a lot of the very complex Japanese quilts were hung and having only seen pictures of them before, they were totally amazing to see in person as was Hollis Chatelaine's quilt of Bishop Tutu. All I could think was how impossible judging this group of quilts would be for me. I asked permission of a couple of friends to include their journal quilts in my blog. One of the conditions of taking pictures there is that the pictures are not used for commercial purposes so i am not including the quilt pictures here in this newsletter. However, i have my own personal albums of the photos that i took at  . I tried to get the artist's name and use it as the name in the file name, but in some cases I was unable to match the picture of the title page that I took with the quilt it went with and I am happy to change it from unknown if someone emails me with the correction. Journal Quilt by Sarah Smith check out her website,  http://www.sarahannsmith.com   I am sure that you will  enjoy viewing these pictures and I am only sorry that I could not get the whole collection! This is a picture of Liz Kettle and me at the Wonderfil booth. I really like all the beautiful colors in the background. On the way back to Washington state from Houston, I stopped to visit my sons in Boulder Colorado. The grandkids are excited about Halloween. (I am writing this on Halloween.) My youngest son (pictured below at his desk in his new office) and I are working together in a design business, Sole Design  I make the great designs my son comes up with work as web sites. If you need a web site, logos or other graphic design work done keep us in mind.
	My son in his new office

Let's Talk About Thread

As a quilter of about 60% traditional quilts, if I were limited to 12 threads, last newsletter I listed the ones I would choose. They are in the next table with a white background. Here are 13 more to make 25 threads I would have as essentails

What would you choose.?

New Contest

Try this contest! Buy a panel of the Norwegian Waterfront Scenes  (or more than one)  from us and develop a way to use it or embellish it. We are selling these panels in cooperation with the artist Eldrid Røyset Førde. We would like you to buy your panels from Eldrid if you are in Europe. Http://www.kameleonquilt.com Michele Potter of Not Just Threads at Potter's Paradise http://www not-just-threads.com is selling them in Canada. Buy the panel from any of us and Quilter's Threads will still send you another panel when you enter the picture of your item in our contest. We are looking for more distributors so if you are interested in selling them for us, please let info@quiltersthreads.com know and we will give you the details

Prizes will be given for the most original use and for the best embellishment.

Once again, when we receive your contest entry picture (email to info@ quiltersthreads.com) we will send you a second panel of your choice free.

First place winners will receive $100 worth of thread or goods from our web site. Second place winners will receive a $20 gift certificate. All entries submitted can be used by Quilter's Threads or Kameleon Quilts in promoting this product.

Pictures should be submitted to info@quiltersthreads.com by December 15.

Fiber Arts Pictures

Thanks to the many, many readers who suggested that I keep my water soluble thread in a plastic bag to keep it separate from my other threads. People actually stopped me in Houston and gave the plastic bag solution. Two readers had slightly different solutions.

Paula in Colorado suggests:

Brita and Paula, watch your mailbox for a little surprise from Quilter's Threads

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