AQS Lancaster #2

I'm still dusting and trying to get my sewing space back together after packing so much of it up for the AQS show in Lancaster last week. Something always gets left behind on these trips and this time I left my computer mouse. Thankfully, it was at my dad's and it will be mailed back soon. Makes for a less than enjoyable use of the computer for now though.

Today I bring you two more quilts from the show. Both by fabulous quilters. One is a blogger too and the other I got to meet briefly at the show. Both quilts employ fine quilting on the top before the quilt was sandwiched with batting, which makes it free motion embroidery.

First, there's Stars On Mars by Gail Stepanek and Jan Hutchison. You can check out Jan's fabulous quilting on her blog: The Secret Life of Mrs. Meatloaf. This quilt is amazing, so it's no surprise that it was named best of show.

The white stitching on those spiky swirls are free motion embroidery and it is possibly also trapuntoed.

Those stars are pretty stinking complex and look at all those appliqued circles!

So stinking impressive! I am just amazed at all the work on this piece. You can read more about it at Jan's blog which is linked above.

Let's Do the Dresden Twist is by Teri L. Cherne and I got to meet her briefly at the show when she stopped in at the booth. I hadn't seen her quilt at that point so I missed my chance to grill ask her more about it.

I could have stared for hours at it with all of the creative fills and designs.

In the shot below, you might see that those larger circles and diamonds in the border have a slight purple cast to them. That's because she quilted, or rather, free motion embroidered them with a fine purple thread!

There's so much variety here! But not too busy.

These quilts blow me away. They are the work of very talented ladies on long arm machines, and I suppose that I should be showing quilts done on domestic machines, or at least sit down machines, but these really grabbed me. You know that I believe we can do just as fine work with our smaller, stationary machines. I didn't have much time to see the show quilts, but there were some really fabulous quilting going on. 

Bernina Ruler Foot

I got back from the AQS Quilt Show in Lancaster last night and while I'm still getting life back to normal, I had to hurry and share this with you:

Sorry for the poor picture.

 It's the new ruler foot from Bernina! Yes, it's on its way and made a little debut at the show in the Bernina booth. It was as we had suspected, made for the Bernina longarm, but will fit onto the Bernina sewing machines.

The Bernina representative told me it will be available in April. I got this sneak peek at it at the show as they had the long arm there. It's a nicely done foot, smooth and round with the desired 1/4 inch from the needle to the outside edge. It also has a small cutout for better visibility in front of the needle.

The interest in using rulers and templates with free motion quilting on a domestic sewing machine was incredible! Of course the need for a foot was a bit of a disappointment when I had all of those nifty templates at the ready from Top Anchor Quilting Tools. Especially for those who have non-Janome machines. I made sure to tell folks to check out the Westalee foot or to see if their machine is compatible with the Janome ruler foot and to pester their dealers for a ruler foot. I will have reviews of the final version of the Westalee foot sometime this week.

A Brother dealer made sure to come down and ask about buying the templates for her shop. She said all of her employees at the show kept coming down to our booth to look at the templates. She also said the Janome Ruler Foot combination (Janome Convertible Free Motion Quilt Foot Set (In the appropriate high or low shank) plus the Frame Quilting Feet Set ) worked on their Brother machines.

I was so happy to meet several blog readers at the show! Thanks for coming by and saying "hi". So nice to put some faces to your names. Especially one who gave me a hug and some well-timed words of praise when I was visiting the Janome booth! (That was awesome!)

Now I must go put my house back in order. Seems like while the cat was away, the mice played, while papa bear did some sanding in the house and there's a lovely layer of dust.....

AQS Lancaster Quilts

Sorry for the delay in posting these last few days. I've been working hard on the banner for Top Anchor Quilting Tools and then I left to come to Lancaster PA for the AQS show.

I haven't gotten to see much of the actual show, since I've been super busy demonstrating how to use long arm rulers on my domestic sewing machine. So many quilters are blown away with the idea of ruler work.

Several weeks before, I contacted a few people at Janome to let them know I'd be at the show demo'ing on my new machine, Janome 8200 and that the technique I used required the Janome Convertible Free Motion Foot Set and the ruler foot from the Frame Quilting Foot Set and would they please make sure that any Janome booths had those feet in stock. I was told they would. By this afternoon, I was told by quilters that the Janome and Elna booths were both out of those feet. Quilters are loving being able to do ruler work on their domestic sewing machine or sit-down long arm.

I snuck away this afternoon and made it down one aisle of show quilts before returning to the booth. Happily, it was the row that a quilt each from Margaret Solomon-Gunn and Bethanne Nemish were hung. The other quilts were wonderful of course, but these gals do amazing longarm work and have inspired my quilting over the years though I've never met them.

Words nor pictures do these quilts justice! Amazing quilting and fine detail work. I want to be like them when I grow up, but without the long arm. Though I'm not sure I have it in me to do such meticulous detail. Below, you can see the beaded piping that Bethanne pieced into her quilt. Those are beads stitched inside a bias strip.

I am exhausted from doing so much chatting with so many wonderful, friendly, and enthusiastic quilters! I hope to post more quilts from the show over the next few days.

A Banner Day: Free Motion Quilted

After seeing the quilted word art I've begun offering in my Etsy shop, Top Anchor Quilting Tools commissioned me to make a banner for their show booth. Since the necessary colored threads got hung up in some foul weather and the kids have had a bunch of snow days, I'm running short of time.

 In order to get the good color contrast without stitching every last millimeter, I'm using a 30 weight thread that always gives me a bit of trouble. I've tried larger needles, even smaller needles. Different tensions too, but every once in a while some ugly happens. Would you believe I'm getting better results with a smaller needle? Seriously! It certainly does not like backtracking at all. But I'm forging ahead.

I'm surrounding the logo with the various rulers that Top Anchor sells and to make sure they are easy to see on the banner, I'm doing some bobbin work. That's turning out pretty well.

The feather wreath is one of the harder templates for me. It's a lot of fun and so cool to get such a perfect wreath, but you have to be very careful to use the printed guidelines to position the ruler accurately for each plume. Just a tiny bit on each plume and you'll be way off when you get back around to the beginning. Similar to having an accurate piecing seam allowance. Using rulers and templates is a great way to bring uniformity and evenness to your quilting.

Hands-down, my favorite template from them is the 5 pointed star. It's one of the easiest to manage on a stationary machine, simple to line up if you get off a little, and stars are always handy designs for quilters. Do a couple of offset repeats of a star using the same anchor position and you get some really neat designs.

Another of my favorites is the Dahlia. Above is just a simple single version, but offset a second one and it is really fabulous. You can also do a third repeat and it starts looking like Spirograph You can see an older video I made using the Dahlia template, or see the accompanying post.

It's been so much easier to use these templates on my Janome 8200 compared to the 6600. No prongs in the way of the ruler and it's much easier to use the rulers behind the foot.

Now to get back to stitching. I've got to get this banner and another sample quilt done before Tuesday morning when I leave for Lancaster, PA. I am so excited to go to the show. Let me know in the comments if you are going to the AQS Show. Hopefully we can meet up.

If you are in this current winter storm nastiness on the east side of the US, I hope you are staying warm and not having to travel out in it. Come on Spring!