Close Ups

This mother and offspring seemed to me okay without alot of thread so their bodies and face are quilted with clear monofilament just to secure the quilt sandwich and add texture. The ostrich is a strange looking thing to begin with, but looking closely at a baby chick at the Los Angeles Zoo cracked me up as they are even more animated than adults.

Quilting For Spring!!

This piece is just about quilted for a traveling exhibition commencing next month. The subject of the exhibition is Spring and pretty much anything goes! This type of challenge beckons me to have plain old fun. I have always loved words or phrases with double meanings.... This one will be titled "Spring Break." Soooooo many times I have forgotten to pin back the backing toward the front so as to prevent a screw up of quilting through a double layer of turned back backing. Remembered this time.

In Winter Issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited

Those of you that do your own quilting may want to check out this quarterly magazine.. MACHINE QUILTERS UNLIMITED (www.mqumag.com). It is a quilters quilting magazine by Meander Publishing(Don't ya love the name?) This 2008 piece of mine is featured on the last page of the magazine reserved for their quarterly pick of a JAWDROPPER (their name/not mine). His name.. Endangered!

How slow can you go! :-(

Well I'm still working on this mountain lion... ofcourse I'm working on 3 quilts at once so that complicates timing but this lion, which I think will be pleasing when finished, is perhaps the slowest going quilting ever... largely because I'm working with light values where precision is more paramount than ever, and secondly because it is so heavily quilted. Working too many hours at a time rears the head of tendonitis I've had long before I started quilting.

I often like to leave parts of quilts unquilted.... like the nose of this lion. In my mind, it adds interest but ofcourse which such heavy quilting as is shown here, ya gotta be careful not to select large areas to leave be or things will distort. You can double click any image for a closeup look.
Hope all is well with you.... Here comes Christmas!!

Balancing Holiday Time

Egads.... So much to do... so little time.... I've spent 2 weeks so far working on this mountain lion. It's going well, but still much to do. Thread sure makes a big difference. You can double click for closeup view of threadwork. Here's looking at you! :-)
Now... I had to put this on hold for a bit to finish a holiday piece destined for a friend. Here's a closeup of 'Santa's Secret".... a retail pattern that evolved from this very painted piece. Contact me (patt@pattsart.com) if you are interested in obtaining this pattern complete with drawings and follow along picture by picture painting progression. Have a great Turkey Day!!!!

Securing the sandwich

I do a good bit of thread work on my quilts, but because I like to pin my quilt sandwich rather than temp spraying and gumming my needle, I often use a clear monofilament thread to secure things so I can ditch the pins giving me more freedom with detailed thread work. I'm starting this phase with this mountain lion piece. When using Monofilament, I prefer thin polyester over a nylon. I use monofilament in top and bobbin.. setting top tension low.

Blown Away by Quilts at Houston IQA Festival

Just home from teaching, lecturing, shopping, competing, and gawking at IQA Houston Quilt Festival. A long,exciting,and exhausting week. I had a great group of class students, and thank you all for the feedback I received. I have some ideas on class changes to help with large groups as we had there.
I am feeling the withdrawals from the 23 row vendor mall which I assuredly covered 3 times and was still seeing new stuff each aisle stroll. The industry is moving at one incredible clip... ever hear the business phrase.. the hurrier I go , the behinder i get? Unbelievable increases in skill set world wide. A few things I noticed in particular. Japan still is out front in meticulous work with Japan having the most number of juried entries. California had the most number of juried in quilts for a state. Of the winners from the U.S., there were many young 30 something winners turning out incredible precise work. My theory is that they don't require the amount of sleep I need. Atop the age thing is also that they all seem to be cute and trim.
My one entered piece, Windsong (shown here)... did capture a third place in the new painted category. There was much competition so I was quite pleased. All the winning quilts can he viewed at quilts.org. Now to get back to work here at home.

HOPE YOU ALL VOTED today! Whomever takes on the presidency, I think the whole country is ready to get behind him and make things happen.