Tag Archives: Try something new

10 Things I Learned at Quilting Camp

This year I had the privilege of going to summer sleep-away camp! In truth it wasn’t camping; there were very comfortable accommodations in tidy little cottages. 

The setting was the Madeline Island School of the Arts, a multi-campus school featuring 5-day classes with creative masters in quilting and other fiber arts, painting, photography, and other media. My class was Fabulous Faces, as taught by Jean Impey. 

Jean is a California-based artist and quilter who, along with the iconic Freddy Moran, developed a process and style for creating small portrait quilts. Jean writes a short story to go along with each face. The story may contribute to the development of the picture, or the picture may lend focus to the story. Either way, the combination of image and words leads to charming, quirky, interesting art work. 

Jean’s friendly, casual teaching style is deceptive, as she is adept at teaching more than it might seem in the moment. She conveys techniques and tips to the class as a whole, and offers a lot of individual time for consulting on projects. 

Here are 10 things I learned in the class:

1. Work quickly, at least at first. Don’t overthink your process. The work isn’t precious. It’s a small piece and if you don’t like it, you haven’t lost much time, supplies, or energy. Almost anything you don’t like can be remedied later. Either way, you will learn some things about the structure and techniques of the process. 

2. Glue sticks are a simple conveyor for glue. Think about it — almost any fusible we use for appliqué, whether Wonder Under, Steam A Seam, or whatever, is just heat-activated glue attached to some matrix. Glue sticks have a variety of uses, including sticking background pieces together, or even gluing backing pieces together. And of course you can use it to attach appliqué to the background.

Amy. Designed, made, and quilted by Melanie McNeil, August 2023.

See the change in fabric on Amy’s right side? That is a small piece glued onto a larger piece, from which I’d already cut a square. Also the triangles along the top edge? Those aren’t pieced. I folded a strip of fabric accordian-style, cut them, and glued them down.

Use the glue stick with a light hand at first. When you’re sure of placement, press with a hot, dry iron. If there’s a chance the glue will get on the iron, you might use a pressing cloth to protect it. 

3. If you’re in a class with Jean or anyone else, find out what the teacher has to say; understand why; then consider adapting the methods to your own work. 

Jean’s templates for face size, neck, and eyes will create a face of the style she makes. If you rebel against making someone else’s style, like I do, you don’t have to use any of them. (Freddy Moran’s faces are markedly different.) However, there’s some method to her madness and I’d recommend you go with the templates (or similar) at first. Try it the teacher’s way before deciding you won’t.

Here’s why. First, using templates or guides allows you to focus on process and not get stuck on shapes to start. You can develop your own style from there. 

Second, she’s thought through the proportions. For instance, if you make the neck realistically thick, it will look too thick. If you make the eyes realistically sized, they will look too small. 

Third, while Jean’s style is somewhat like a caricature, it also gives space to emphasize facial expression, and the expression is key to the story the portrait tells.

4. Play with the expression by changing the tilt and placement of the facial features and hair. A slight tip of an eyebrow, a change in placement of the iris, an altered parting of the lips convey different thoughts of the character. 

Josie. Designed, made, and quilted by Melanie McNeil, September 2023.

As made, Josie is admiring the, um, swagger of a cowboy in his Wranglers. If she was looking up instead of to the side, she might have been rolling her eyes. The connotation would be completely different.

Extend this thought for whatever process or style you’re using. Play a bit. Try rearranging values in a block quilt; try adding a contrasting color; try appliquéing circles to minimize some feature you don’t like. 

5. Novelty fabrics are fun. Even if they’re not your thing (as they aren’t mine), they can be used to help tell a story. Note the background fabric on Josie. If nothing else said so, the background tells you that Josie is a cowgirl. She’s a ropin’ and ridin’, barrel-racing, calf-roping rodeo queen. That conjures up all sort of images of how Josie lives and who she spends time with. 

Again, extending this idea, try using fabrics you don’t normally use. Don’t like batiks, Civil War repros, or solids? Challenge yourself to use the thing you don’t like, to see what it can add to the story. 

6. Stitch the appliqué down and quilt at the same time. Since I have a longarm, generally I’ve done my appliqué and quilting as separate processes. That’s still appropriate and useful for many projects. But for some, especially smaller pieces, combining the steps makes short work of both. 

You can see on both my pieces here that I’ve used straight-line stitching across the surface. That provides the quilting structure and a uniformity of texture to begin. After that comes the feature quilting, outlining around the edges to provide a more secure raw-edge appliqué.

7. Quilt short distances at a time. Jean’s style is to do sketch outlining of the appliquéd features, using black thread to create a strong outline. She makes a sketchy line by going back and forth two or three inches at a time. You don’t have to go all the way around a shape in a single pass, and then repeat that. Stitch forward, stitch backward, stitch forward farther, stitch backward… As you continue, you make the line multiple times, giving it an emphatic heft. 

8. Quilting this way on my domestic machine is FUN! In truth, this is one of the biggest revelations for me, as I hadn’t expected to even try it, much less enjoy it. Seeing the stitching laid down and how it transforms the piece is like magic. It seems to reveal the true piece as you go, in ways that a pretty blanket stitch around an appliqué does not. See point #3 above: Try it the teacher’s way before deciding you won’t.

9. Use a hopping foot and leave the feed dogs up. The hopping foot allows the movement of the quilt sandwich while outline quilting, as a regular presser foot would not. Of course your mileage may vary, but for me, I didn’t need to drop the feed dogs. That helped me a lot, because the lever to raise and lower mine doesn’t work well.

Drop your shoulders and roll them back. Relax and take a deep breath. Work a practice piece first if you’re intimidated to start on your “real” project. But just stitch small segments at a time. It’s quilting, not surgery. Nothing bad will happen if you mess up. 

10. Consider how to incorporate your own style. I used pink thread on Amy’s lips rather than black, leaving her pretty and feminine, and didn’t use a bit of black thread on Josie. I also added a border or frame around Amy’s portrait, which Jean doesn’t do. Even though the shapes are similar to those Jean makes, I think both my finished portraits look like my own work. 

While I probably won’t take another MISA class due to the distance and expense, it was worth it to me this time for a variety of reasons. Jean is a terrific teacher and I learned some lessons to carry into future projects. 

My #The100DayProject

Over the weekend I visited with my sister. She is a quilter, too, and she’s also recently retired. With her newly available time, she’s gone on a creativity tear. She quilts, she paints, she does collage, among other things. I admire how she can juggle all the various parts of her creative life.

But I’m not like that. I can’t seem to manage more than about two things at a time. Other than basic maintenance stuff, I can write, and I can quilt, and when I quilt, I usually work on only one project at a time. That works pretty well for me, but it also frustrates me. It holds me back from spending a lot of time in exploration, because that is one more thing than I can manage.

Recently I wrote this:

I would like to be both more productive and more creative. For me, those two concepts can be in conflict. To be more productive (have more quilts finished,) I could reduce the time I spend on planning and design, and choose options that are easy/quick to execute. Doing that I could finish multiple quilts a week. Some people get great joy from that, but I would not. Or, I could be more “creative,” chewing over lots of possibilities, brainstorming endlessly, drawing and redrawing designs, looking up strategies and techniques, taking classes, endlessly gazing at fabric choices online, searching for inspiration. That would take up a lot of head space and boy howdy, I’d have a lot of creative ideas going. But they wouldn’t get made. Well, that’s no good, either.

It’s the “creative” thing I don’t make time for. In particular, I’ve long wanted to improve at telling stories through my quilts, but I haven’t taken the time to learn strategies for doing so. (I’ll explain more about telling stories in another post.)

In the same post I mentioned The100DayProject. If I consider exploring storytelling as A PROJECT, as one of my two things to do, I can do that for 100 days.

My plan isn’t fully developed, but my intention is to use my Green Man project as a vehicle for learning to tell those stories.

There were so many great suggestions from you for executing the Green Man motif. They included wool appliqué, batik appliqué, raw-edge (non-wool) appliqué, appliqué with and without fusible bond, embroidery, painting, printing using Spoonflower or similar vendor, thread painting, inclusion of atypical fabrics, fabric pens, paper piecing, collage… I’ve also thought of trying crayons, paintsticks, block printing, and embellishing, among other things.

Each day for 100 days (with possible exceptions, which is allowed,) I’ll spend at least 20 minutes trying a new means of creating a Green Man, or perhaps another concept or two I have in mind. In 20 minutes I won’t complete anything in a day, so each trial may take several days. I give myself permission to abandon a process at any time. Some processes may require I buy supplies, but I’ll use what I can from my current inventory. I’ll photograph each day’s work and post on Instagram, so we can all see the progression. I’ll summarize here regularly, and discuss process and how I feel about it.

Tomorrow is Day 1. My plan for tomorrow is to begin with paper and fabric to create a simple collage. Let’s get started!

 

The Curse of Echo

Long ago in the time of gods and goddesses, there was a mountain nymph named Echo. She lived on Mount Cithaeron with other nymphs. One of their frequent visitors was Zeus, who … ahem … enjoyed the company of the beautiful sprites.

Zeus’s wife, Hera, was a jealous type, and she followed Zeus to the mountain one day. Echo stopped her, talking so much and so fast that Zeus had time to get away. In her anger, Hera cursed Echo. The curse? From then on, Echo could never speak for herself, but could only repeat the last few words spoken to her by someone else.

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Waterhouse_-_Echo_and_Narcissus_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

How awful that curse would be, without ability to speak for herself! Yet many quilters choose just this way, only repeating designs made by others.

I see it in Instagram, under the #medallionquilt hashtag. While there are beautiful medallions of a wide variety shown there, Marcelle medallion, Aviatrix, and others show up time and time again. Some designers even specify every fabric and color, so you can duplicate their work!

And of course, it doesn’t only happen with medallion quilts. It happens with many successful quilt patterns and kits. The designer’s voice may be heard, but the maker is silent, except for an echo.

I struggle with my thoughts on this. On the one hand, it’s fantastic that people want to make. I think most are perfectly happy making something with a recipe or paint-by-number method. They really do want quilt patterns and knitting patterns and counted cross-stitch and woodworking patterns. They will follow those patterns exactly, often in the same colors or materials. They will enjoy the process as long as it works. If they love doing this, and they are putting beauty and good into the world, who am I to criticize?

On the other hand, I want other people to experience themselves more completely, and to feel comfortable sharing expressions from their soul. The quilts I see that are most powerful, that touch me most, are also designed by their maker. And honestly, it doesn’t matter much if they’re technically strong or not. The maker’s voice comes through.

Self-expression is powerful, but it’s also scary. It can leave us open to failure and criticism. It can make us feel like our efforts or resources are wasted if the end product isn’t as we imagined. Why open yourself up to problems like that? It’s safer to do something with a known result.

I know a little bit about risk and reward. My career was in investment management. If you stick with the safe option, you won’t lose much, but there is not much to gain, either. The farther out you go on the risk scale, the more potential there is for loss. But when things go right, the rewards are great.

Believe it or not, I’m pretty risk averse. While I don’t use patterns, I have trouble pushing myself to do brand-new things. Instead, I keep pushing at the edges, so I’m learning new skills and not making the same thing time after time. (That would be an echo, too!) I’ve had to convince myself that any efforts can’t end in complete failure. If nothing else, I’ll have learned an important lesson. That helps me take on “risk” in quilting with a more open attitude. Trying something, not knowing if it will work out, and learning from the experience is exciting, like an adventure!

Don’t be like Echo. Use your own voice to tell your own story. What’s the worst that could happen?

 

 

 

A New Shirt

Despite the fact my mother could sew anything, I am not a “seamstress.” Garment-making has never been an interest of mine, and I could likely count on two hands the number of garments I’ve made.

However, a couple of years ago I bought a shirt I love wearing. It is flat in construction, with incredibly minor detailing at the cap-sleeve edges and at the neckline. The rayon feels soft and smooth and has a lovely drape. I wanted MORE, in more fabrics, more colors! Last year I bought two pieces (maybe three!) of fabric just to make more versions of the same shirt.

Finally, in this weird interlude of summer, after some things and before others, I made one. The cotton is a high-quality quilting fabric, with a slightly napped texture and sturdy feel. It doesn’t drape like the rayon. But I set the front on the bias, which helps soften it. I omitted the cuff detail on the sleeve edge. Instead of finishing the neckline with binding and a small keyhole at the back of the neck, I simply turned it under twice with top stitching. It fits well and comfortably. I love the fabric (by Stephanie Brandenburg of Frond Design Studio) and am happy with how it turned out.

Genes and A Cute Top

for my friend Laurie.

Laurie. She and I met in fourth grade. Her long hair, a soft brown, usually was in braids. Back then we wore dresses to school most days, and I remember her in layers of ruffles. I don’t know if that was her taste or her mother’s, but she still chooses a feminine appearance. Her long, soft brown hair spills over her shoulders. She doesn’t wear fluffy dresses anymore, though. A few years ago I fussed to her about not knowing what to wear for some occasion. Laurie reminded me that for most occasions, women can wear jeans and a cute top.

Since our grade school days, she has become a gifted scientist and professor, as well as devoted wife and mother. Both smart and wise, her academic focus is in biology, and specifically on the immune response of infants.

When I decided to make a quilt for Laurie, I’d recently seen a blog with some science-themed quilts. (I’m sorry I don’t remember what it was.) But it inspired me to consider what I could do for her. My first thought was of DNA.

I almost always design my own quilts, but I’m quite open to inspiration from others. So I googled images of DNA quilts. There is a surprisingly good variety out there. The one that caught my eye was a modern take of plus signs. It was designed by Richard of Richard and Tanya Quilts. I liked it so much, I wanted to use the design just as it was.

While I’ve long bought magazines and books containing patterns, I never bought a separate pattern before this one. (You can see on the blog that, at least for a time, Richard was offering it free. I got it very cheap, well worth the money I spent.)

My sister and I brain-stormed how to use the pattern, and she suggested a rainbow array of colors. I created a grid in EQ7 and painstakingly plopped in color after color until I was happy with the spectrum. I don’t know what scale Richard used. Mine uses a 2.5″ grid, so the quilt is 45″ x 60″.

I knew the fabrics in my stash wouldn’t match up exactly. But I counted the numbers of each “plus” color, and I pulled fabrics from stash to go with those.

The only hitch was the background color. Blue, dark blue, navy blue… I bought a beautiful shot cotton, but it didn’t seem quite right. And then I was shopping at Connecting Threads and found Quilter’s Candy Mirage Denim Blue. It created just the right backdrop to make the rainbow colors sparkle.

The denim blue, blue-jeans blue… Jeans and a cute top. DNA, spiraling, spinning like a top. Genes and a cute top. The quilt was named.

For the colors, I cut finished sizes of 2.5″ squares and 2.5″ x 7.5″ bars. For the background I cut strips to length, minimizing the seaming. Construction was very easy.

Like every quilt, it also needed a back. For most of the colors I’d cut strips, and then subcut my short and long segments. This gave me leftover strips lengths. From all the remainders I cut more short and long pieces until the strips were depleted. I pieced them together to cover the long direction (60″ plus the needed extra). They made a segment four strips wide, which was 10″. For the rest of the back, I used larger chunks of color. One piece of mid-blue needed to be wider and so received a strip in the middle. The strip needed to be longer, so it received two more small squares…

Top and back constructed, the last big decision was quilting. A friend had shown a quilting design she’d used several times. It consisted of a large meander across the width of fabric. Once reaching the other side, she doubled back, weaving a new line through the first one. It gives the effect of a ribbon, twisting and curling across the cloth. The same type of twist would give the impression of a double helix DNA strand.

There are four letters we use to designate DNA’s code, G, A, C, T. These are also the abbreviation for Genes and A Cute Top. Truth: I’m no scientist. I don’t understand this stuff. But Laurie does.

Winding and twisting, this explanation of how I designed Laurie’s quilt has gone on long enough. Here are pictures of the finished quilt.

Genes and A Cute Top. 45″ x 60″. Finished May 2014.

Back of quilt. Label is tipped green square in lower left.

Double-helix quilting meander.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know this quilt is far outside the style I’m used to. Even the pieced back is outside my comfort zone. It’s worth trying something new to create a special gift for a friend.