Am I addicted to taking quilting classes?

 Many of those who have known me for a while would probably answer yes. Of course even those folks probably have no idea how many classes I've actually taken.

 Ever since I turned 70 back in April I have been contemplating things about my art. These are my latest questions. How many classes have I taken and what did I make? Were they worth taking or does that even really matter?

When I started quilting 35 years ago I learned how to quilt from books taken out of the local library. I only worked on one thing at a time, did not have a bunch of unfinished projects, and did not have a huge book and fabric stash. Boy have times changed! The first class I took was one on making a double wedding ring quilt at a local quilt store. This was made back when I only hand quilted and there was a lot of hand quilting in this queen sized quilt....800 hours worth.

Wedding rings and white roses

Once I found Quilt University I started taking lots of classes online. I estimate that I took at least 12 classes from dying fabric to free motion quilting to painting fabric to making an art quilt. Many of those classes did not result in making anything. I did make some pieces.

Forest Cathedral, dyeing fabric

Crazy About Daisies, learning to FMQ

Orange Sky at Night,  painting fabric

Over the Sea to Skye, first art quilt

Snap, Crackle, Pop, elements in fabric class

Blue Flower, flower power class

So 6 quilts for at least 12 classes. I guess that's not too bad. I have an Hawaiian quilt that is only 1/4 appliqued at this point. I doubt that I'll ever finish it. I hate needle turn applique. I guess I leaned that in that class!

I've taken other online classes from independent teachers. In each of these classes I did make something.

Winter Solstice, Ellen Lindner class

Midwinter Visitor, Ellen Lindner class

Blue Portal, Portal class with Natalya Khorover

Apple, Double reverse applique class

Connected to the Moon, text on textiles class

Beneath a Turquoise Sky, in person class with Gloria Loughman

So I guess not a bad showing from these classes.

Then of course I took Elizabeth Barton's master class twice. These classes lasted an entire year. The first time back in 2014 we made 10 quilts. Those quilts can be seen here.

The second time I took the class as an independent student in 2018. I made 4 quilts that you have seen many times.

Evolution?

 

When the Dark Night Seems Endless

Taking its Toll

Light in Darkness

Then there is Academy of Quilting. I've taken plenty of classes there as well. I did make something in several of the classes.

Midwinter's night, abstract art for quilt makers

We are Broken, abstract art for quilt makers

Sunlight in the Forest, abstract art for quilt makers

Stained Glass quilt with Elizabeth Barton

Then there are all those classes with Natalya Khorover. In each one I made something.

Abandoned Cement Works, plastic class

Boston Collage in progress, Sense of space class

Pittsburgh in the Snow 1: Waiting for the Trolley, Sense of space class

Pittsburgh in the Snow 2: Cathedral

Looking back at this makes me think that I accomplished a lot in all of these classes. They certainly have turned me into the artist that I am today. When I started this blog I was sure I hadn’t made many things from all of those classes. The thing that I am least proud of is all the classes I have taken at Craftsy and made nothing except some great sticky buns and failed attempts at sourdough bread. And there are other classes I have taken to create original fabrics. So if I had to guess how many classes I have taken in total I would have to say maybe about 50. Is that good to take so many classes? 

I'm sure I will take many more classes. Already Natalya has said that she is teaching the Sense of Space class in the fall and it will be different this time around. I was tempted to take it again, but decided that I am crazy. I have enough on my plate with projects.

Do you take classes? Do you always make something? Can we take them for the pure joy of taking them without doing anything?

Thanks for reading.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris

Going to be interviewed

Next Wednesday I am going to be interviewed by someone from the State College Magazine. The article is going to be about Olli instructors. Last spring I taught a class on making an art quilt from a photo and will be doing that spring 2020 as well. So I will be included with lots of other interesting teachers. The person interviewing me will be taking photos of my quilts as well for the article.

"When the Dark Night Seems Endless"

Energy/Environmental Quilts

"Dawn on the Charles Bridge"

"Midwinter Visitor"

"Midwinter's Night"

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Quilt Mulligan

I had a quilt that was making me crazy for the last few years. It was not hanging flat which was due to the borders. Also the black from one of the fabrics in the quilt had bled into the yellow inner border. This quilt has been hanging in our spare bedroom so I don’t see it often, but when I did it kept telling me to do something about it. So last week I decided to listen to it.
I thought the quilt would look better without the border so I cut off the border, blocked the remaining quilt, squared up the quilt, and bound it. I am so happy I did it because it looks much better now. It hangs flat and the wonky borders are now gone.
Before:  You can see how wonky the borders were. I am beginning to think quilts should not have borders! Believe me when I say that I am very careful when I put borders on a quilt, but sometimes they still don’t come out right. If you look closely near the black hill on the right side of the quilt you can see where the black bled into the yellow inner border.

After: Much better. Wonkiness is all gone. The orange fabric (both the sky and the water) in this quilt was hand painted by me years ago. The hills and birches are commercial fabrics.

Close up
 
The quilt is called “Orange Sky at Night.” Thanks for reading.
Chris

Beneath a Turquoise Sky

I finished a quilt started in my class with Gloria Loughman last September. For this class you just cut pieces of fabrics with smooth curves and then turned under the edges, arranged them on a stabilizer and then stitched them down. Last week I added the tree and grasses and the borders and quilted it. Now it is bound and a sleeve is sewn on. It is hanging where a boring quilt used to hang.


 
Chris

Midwinter Visitor Finished!

Well today I sewed the sleeve onto a quilt that I started back in February.  The inspiration was a photograph.  I loved the fact that the only color in the quilt was the cardinal which makes him the focal point of the quilt.  In order to get right shades of gray for the trees in the background I mostly had to use the backs of fabrics.

The overall size of the quilt is about 30 inches by 40 inches and since it has a lot of free motion quilting in it, it took quite a few days to do that. So you can imagine that the quilt had some distortion after that was done. So it had to be blocked which I did before adding the binding.  I have blocked quilts before, but usually after the binding has been added.  This worked much better. I am happy to say that the quilt is hanging very flat with no waves!!

I started this quilt in a two part online class given by Ellen Lindner called Design Your Own Nature Quilt.  Ellen is a great teacher and gives wonderful feedback as you work on your project. She is going to be offering this class in the near future if you are interested. My cardinal quilt will be posted on her website very soon as well.
Thanks for reading.
Chris

Challenge Quilt

I belong to a group that is a take off on the famous 12 by 12 art quilt  group.  The challenge word was “sparkle.” We each have to make a 12 inch by 12 inch quilt showing our interpretation of that word.  The challenge ends next Monday. Here is my quilt….

 

I am not done yet, but thought that I would post a photo. All I have left to do is to sew the pieces down and quilt and bind it.

I am not a glitter person so I decided not to make something with actual sparkle, but interpret that less literally.  I teach Astronomy so what comes to my mind is stars.  I also love Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night painting.  So I decide to do a take off of that painting using the snippet technique that I always wanted to try.  I wanted the contrast in fabrics (blue and yellow) to give the appearance of sparkle.  I call it "Tribute to van Gogh."
The snippets are made by ironing fusible web to the back of fabrics and then cutting it into small pieces.  You can't believe how many times I fused little bits of fabrics to my iron because you could not tell which side had the fusible on it for some of the fabrics!  I had left over tree parts from a quilt that I never made so decide to use them up.

I won't get to quilt this until Friday. 

Chris

Break Out the Champagne!!

Well I finished the Isle of Skye quilt yesterday and washed and blocked it.  Today I have to sew on a hanging sleeve and a label. I think it looks like it will hang flat enough that I will not need to put a sleeve on the bottom of the quilt for a piece of wood to make it hang flat.

So what is story of this quilt.  We took the photo on our visit to Scotland in the summer of 2004.  I took a class from Susan Brittingham at Quilt University called “On Land and Sea” in the summer of 2005. I got as far as the foreground in front of the houses and stalled on the quilt.  For too many years I said that I was going to finish it, but this summer I decided enough was enough. My main problem was the rocks in the foreground and not having a fabric that worked for them.  This spring I bought some Stonehenge fabrics and they were perfect.  So maybe I was waiting for these fabrics to finish the quilt! 

The size of the quilt is 37 inches by 26 inches.  Now I have to figure out where I am going to hang it.

 

Now I have to figure out what I am going to name the quilt.

• “The Isle of Skye”
• “Summer on Skye”
• “Over the Sea to Skye”
• “My 6 Year Vacation on Skye!”

Chris

Orange Sky at Night

Finally forced myself into doing an entire quilt with free motion quilting.  I always say I am going to do that and then back out when it comes to quilting it.  It came out better than I thought that it would. 

I painted the orange fabric (sky and water) in a class taken at QU.  I added the commercial fabrics for mountains and trees.

Chris

Yes, I am Still Alive!

Seems I am having a hard time finding time to blog these days.  The semester is in full swing and keeping me busy.  I have not even been doing any quilting....so I guess that does not leave me a whole lot to talk about.

Mostly I have been focusing on losing weight and getting healthy.  Since mid June I have lost 20 pounds.  People usually ask me what my "secret" is.  My answer to that is, "just a lot of hard work!"  I have been exercising like crazy and seriously watching what I eat.  I belong to a free online weight loss site called Spark People.  It is absolutely great.  You can track your exercise and your food consumption as well as join groups and get tons of support and inspiration.

At any rate I have been forced to buy new clothes since mine are getting way too big.  So that has been a lot of fun.  Tomorrow we are going to a anniversary party for my BIL and SIL.  I will be giving them my "California Dreaming" mini landscape quilt.  It was made based on a photo my daughter took of a stream on their property last Christmas.  I hope they like it...although I am sure they will.

This is the quilt I am talking about…

The main part of the quilt is only the size of a sheet of paper so many of the pieces are very small.  In the future I will keep my landscape quilts larger than this.

I still have to sew a sleeve on the back of the quilt and add a label to it.  I guess I will do that today while we are being bashed by the Nor'easter that is hitting the Atlantic coast.  At least I will have plenty to talk about on Monday in my Meteorology class!

Chris

Isle of Skye

So now I will begin to finish my Isle of Skye landscape quilt.  This quilt was started in the summer of 2005 when I took a class at Quilt University with Susan Brittingham. This was my first attempt at making a landscape quilt and was based on a photo we took the when we were on vacation in Scotland. I think I struggled with everything up to where I stopped working on it. 

I had a hard time picking a sky fabric. I had a hard time picking a water fabric. I had a hard time picking the distant mountain fabrics. At first I had too much contrast in the land directly behind the houses. I was so used to making patch quilts where you want contrast between the fabrics.  I found out that you don’t necessarily want that much contrast in a landscape quilt.

I think I did the cliffs without too much difficulty which was certainly surprising.  So I was working along fine until I got to the ground in front of the houses.  I stalled on the quilt and it has hung on my design wall ever since.

My goal this summer is to finish it.  So I will be starting to work on it on Monday.  I will actually fill in details on the cliffs that I have not completed yet and add windows, etc to the houses before I start the foreground.  I will post as I go along so you can see my progress and check to make sure that I am working on my New Year’s Resolution.

Chris

“California Dreaming” Done

Well I am continuing to work on my UFO list. I am hand quilting my Scotland the Brave quit and that is going well. I finished my mini landscape. This is based on a photo that my daughter took last Christmas.

The size of this mini landscape is 9.5 inches by 7 inches (not including borders). I machine quilted/thread painted it. Now I just have to figure out if I am keeping it or giving it away. I might give it to my BIL since the stream is on his property and he is recovering from lymphoma.

Chris

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk on a winters day. I’d be safe and warm if I was in LA. California Dreaming on such a winter day…

Working On My Landscape Again…

I decided to get my landscape challenge out and work on it today. I am home from school because I am not feeling well, but wanted to get some projects done. So far I have kept my noodle soup down from lunch so I think things are starting to settle down.

I fused the pieces of the landscape in place and sewed the edges of the pieces down with a zigzag stitch and invisible thread. The skinny pieces like the thin trees I just used a straight stitch and sewed right down the center of these pieces.

Here you can see the thicker tree with the zigzag stitches and the thin branches with the straight stitch. I know that a lot of people don’t like invisible thread, but I don’t mind it at all.

While I sew the pieces in place I stabilize the piece with tracing paper on the back of the landscape.

You can see the tracing paper peeking out and all the pieces sewn in place.

The tracing paper is quite a mess from the back of the piece and I will have to carefully remove it using tweezers. Last summer when I worked on my mom’s house quilt, I discovered that masking tape helps to pull off the tiny pieces of tracing paper and cleans up the back really well.

The back is really ugly and a big mess!

The back looks so much better after taking off the tracing paper. It does take some time to remove the paper. I just put on some Loreena McKennitt and tear away.

Chris