David Taylor

Way back in 2009 at my first International Quilt Festival in Chicago, I discovered David Taylor.  David Taylor is a fabulous quilter who uses hand applique to create photo-realistic art quilts.  Well, today, I attended the Blue Valley Quilter's Guild to hear Mr. Taylor speak.  Oh boy, was it better than I expected. 

He talked a little bit about the two quilts I had seen in Chicago and shared with you in this post. This one of the goat is titled Little S'Tinker.



 
The other quilt he talked about that I saw at the show in Chicago was Christmas Chickadee.  I REALLY like this one.  It was interesting to hear that this one was made from 3 separate photographs.  One of the bird, one of the light, and one of the branch.   Would you believe that there are 17 different red fabrics making up the christmas light?  And would you also believe that they are all hand appliqued?  And yep... all of those pine needles are hand appliqued, too.  Have I mentioned he uses hand appliqued and doesn't use what he calls the F word?  F word being fused. 



There's no way I'm converting to hand applique anytime soon.  I like the quickness and ease of fusing.  I was totally blown away when I learned that he doesn't fuse anything.  All his work is made using hand applique and fabric choices.  Yes, that's right... he doesn't dye or color or alter his fabrics either.  He spends weeks choosing the right fabrics to get shade and shadow.  Yikes!  I really love the finished product, but I don't think I could handle the process he uses.  It was really interesting to hear all about how he works, though.  Very inspiring. 

Now that I've shared a little with you, I must go and burn off some of this inspiration by going and working on some quilts.  :) 

3 Quilts in 10 Days

I mentioned briefly the other day that I was finishing up several different projects.  In the last 10 days I have started and finished 3 different quilts.  I have now turned them in and am ready to share.  :)Below is a photograph of one of two identical quilts I did.  These quilts (Sliced Circuit #1 & Sliced Circuit #2) are made from my Sliced Circuit pattern which you can download for free here.



Fabri-Quilt has been using an image of my design in their ads for the "Savannah" fabric line.  So far I know you can see it in Fabric Trends, Easy Quilts, and Quilt magazines.  I spotted the Easy Quilts ad this weekend and learned that Fons & Porter is offering my design as a kit.  If you're interested, it's available here.



The quilt below I have titled Celebrate!  It's about 60"x90" and lots of fun. It's made from Fabri-Quilt's new "It's a party!" fabric line mixed with a couple of their solids.



How fun did this back turn out? I like it a lot!



I was able to schedule some time on Jackie's long arm to quilt these. I free-handed feathers around all the circle parts in each of the Sliced Circuit quilts. I did a wavy ray sort of pattern in each of the circles. For Celebrate! I did a curly panto pattern. I had a lot of fun quilting these up. Renting time on the long arm is really making me want to buy one though. Maybe someday...

Oh, and don't you love the snow photos? I had Jason come outside in our 7" of fresh snow and stand on a ladder to hold the quilts for me. I am getting kind of tired of all my quilt photos on the clothesline, so I'm trying out some new things. Hope you like them. :)

Hello. Goodbye.

Sorry I haven't been around much lately.  I've been EXTREMELY BUSY! 
I haven't mentioned it much on here, but Jason and I are buying a house.  We close tomorrow; we move Saturday.  So, our world looks a lot like this:


Empty shelves where fabric once sat.


Boxes stacked where we once had a dining room.

Don't let me fool you... moving isn't all I have going on.  I am still working on a few projects for myself.


My design wall is more bare than usual.


I tried blue thread with an orange bobbin, didn't work, ripped it out.  I tried orange thread with an orange bobbin, didn't like it.  Ripping out orange thread and have a new method for getting the blue thread to work.  Will like it most definitely.


This is a (really late) father's day gift for my dad.  It's just waiting to be trimmed and bound.  I've entered it into the AIAKC's Art x Architects at the end of the month.  Hope you don't mind too much that it's really late, Dad.


Lily and I have been working on some cool projects for Fabri-Quilt lately.  We're (mostly she naps, so pretty much just me working) working on 2 quilts for them from start to finish.  That means for two different fabric lines, I'm designing a full quilt, making a project sheet, and then making the physical quilt. The two fabric lines I'm making these from are Urban Garden and another line called Flower Power! that isn't on their website yet.  I must say... the two quilts of mine they've given me the go-ahead on are really fun. 

I'm also working on a quilt from another fabric line that somebody else started but won't get to finish. 

All three of these quilts are supposed to be finished by August 23rd.  Since they know that's not going to happen, I can have them finished by August 30th and they'll take them to Las Vegas in a suitcase.  Why won't the 23rd happen?  Well, they just got in touch with me about this project last week. 

I picked up EQ7 and got to work really quickly learning the program as I designed several quilts to send to the nice people at Fabri-Quilt.  They picked a quilt for each of the fabric lines yesterday, so I should get the fabric to get started on these pretty soon. 

See?  I wasn't lying when I said I was really busy.  Forgive me if I'm not around much until next month.

Chicago Day #3 - The Show

These are photographs I took at the Chicago International Quilt Festival.  I apologize for their poor quality; I had our small point & shoot (a.k.a. crappy camera) and was limited in time. My mom and I breezed through the display quilts in less than an hour. (It was a very fast trip).


This is "Cherry Blossoms #4" by Noriko Endo.

This is "Easter Parade" by Sandy Curran.

This is "Evening Egrets" by Joanne Baeth.

This is "SHH!  She's Sleeping" by Barbara McKie.

This is "Mary's Basket of Flowers" by Mary Seymour.

This is "Hibiscus Reflections" by Barbara Barrick McKie.

This work was hung in the Saturday Night Sampler. It is by Melanie Testa.

Chicago Day #3 - The Class

Yesterday at the Chicago International Quilt Festival I was lucky enough to take Melanie Testa's Machine Quilting Sampler class.  It was every bit as good as the day before.  If you ever get the chance to take a class she teaches, take the opportunity.  She is truly a fabulous teacher.

This is Melanie's sampler for the class.  (Sorry, the photos are a little crappy.  The lighting was terrible and I only had the little point and shoot camera yesterday.)


This is my sampler made in class.


These are some close up shots of each of the different quilting types I tried.













Here is a photo of my name tag from the festival.  The bird sticker represents the "Most Studious Student" award I received an award from Melanie.  Fun, eh?


In this class I got to sew on a Bernina (I didn't write down the model number) and really liked it.  It retails for around $3200 I think. 

Did I mention yet how the machines work?  For each student in all the classes that require sewing machines, there is a nice machine provided by different dealers (I think... I guess it could be from the manufacturer, but the dealer makes more sense to me).  The dealers put out each machine for the students to use and provide some sort of an expert in the classroom throughout the day to help with any problems that may arise.  The machines are used for three days before they are packed up and given to their new owners for a highly discounted price.  I think if you are in the market for a new machine and are able to attend an event like this and try out a few different machines, you'd really get a feel for what you like.  And there's an added bonus... the discount.  Because the machines are open stock, they knock off quite a bit... today's machine, the Bernina retails for $3200 (I think) and I could have scooped it up for $2600.  It was a VERY nice machine.  Too bad I don't need to upgrade. 

To see the last few days worth of Chicago Quilt Festival blog posts, look here and here.

 I'll post a few photos I snapped of the quilts that were displayed in the quilt show on tomorrow's post. 

Chicago Day #2

Today my mom and I took another great class.  Today's class was Small Works, Big Impact taught by Melanie Testa.  We learned some really fun techniques.  Here's a few photographs from today's class.  Sorry about the bad lighting.  The images of my projects were taken in the hotel bathroom. 






We also hit the vendor part of the festival in the evening.  Unfortunately, we were caught by surprise to learn at 6:45 that they were closing at 7pm and not 9pm.  Bum deal.  I did get to try out this machine, so not all was lost.





Note: If you click on the images above, you will be linked to the flickr page where they are hosted. The flickr page has a much better description of each of the images.

On the Road Again!

Jason and I are heading to Chicago. We're meeting up with my parents there tonight for the International Quilt Festival. Yippee!

I'm taking some classes I'm really excited about. I'm taking Quilting with Character & Charisma from Pam Holland. I'm enrolled in Small Works, Big Impact with Melanie Testa. I'm also really looking forward to Machine Quilting Sampler with Melanie Testa.

Can't wait to get there and get the party started!

Have You Heard of this Contest?

I found this contest a while ago and had emailed myself a reminder link to enter.

I am planning on entering 2 quilts: The Flying Zebras and the It All Started With a Dream .

What are you planning on entering?

Grandma's quilts

For Easter weekend this year, Jason and I went to my grandparents' house. We had an awesome time. We spent a lot of time flipping through old photos of my family (I learned a few things I didn't know before) and we got to chat with my grandma about her quilt collection.


My grandma has this rack of quilts in her living room.


This is a quilt my grandma has. I can't remember who exactly made it. Maybe her mom or grandma?


This quilt was made by my grandma's grandma (which would be my great-great grandma) and her sister-in-law. Isn't that cool that these things are still around and still in such great condition?


This is a close up shot of the scrappy quilt. Isn't it amazing how much hand quilting they did back then? My grandma thought this quilt was probably at least a hundred years old.


I can't remember when or who made this quilt. My grandma's plan is to cut it up (since it's in pretty bad shape) and make pillows for each of her sisters.


This is a quilt from my grandma's Aunt Marge (who would be my great-great aunt I suppose). My grandma thinks this is one that Marge made, but wasn't positive on that.


Here's a closer view of Aunt Marge's blue quilt.


This is my favorite of my grandma's quilts. I love how silky this one is. I love how the black makes the different fabrics pop. This quilt is also probably at least a hundred years old and is thought to have been made by my great-great grandmother and her sister-in-law.


I wish I knew what these fabrics were from.


Isn't the quilting on this one neat?


Jason took this picture of me talking about the quilt to my grandma who didn't happen to make it into the photo.

Completed row!

It's done. My row is ready to be sent off.



It's surprisingly difficult to photograph because of it's length. I figured out how to get it though! Please disregard the grilled cheese. I was making lunch when the idea of how to photograph it came to me.

I also redid the bottom part of my hot air balloon. I'm much happier with it.

Blocks #8 & 9

It's done. I've completed all the blocks.

Block #8 - Hot Air Balloon



I have decided to leave off the text from the film. It says State Fair Omaha on the balloon when the wizard takes off. I've decided that since this is just a representation, I don't need all the fine details.

Block #9 - Ruby Slipper



This one is a mirror image of the other slipper.

This is something I did in Photoshop. I used the images of each of the blocks and lined them up to see how the strip will look.