Beaded Bling for Quilts

Taught a beading class on Saturday—oh, yeah–I already told you that was happening a bunch of times, didn’t I? And, as usual, I did not take any pictures of the class. I didn’t even remember to ask someone else to take pictures for me! I do this all the time.

I do have a picture of a pile of stuff as we were starting to pack up!

Everyone brought a favorite fabric to work on and dove in as soon as they knew the first steps to take. It was stitch, stitch, stitch all afternoon and talking and laughing and just so much fun! I always have such a great time teaching–I hope my students have as much fun as I do!

Thanks to all of them for giving me a wonderful day!

Planetary Forces

I have finally finished adding beads to this piece! It’s so easy to just keep adding and adding…and it’s only a 12″ square!

Planetary Forces

It did need more fringe to look finished along the bottom edge, and when that was done I declared the piece really FINISHED!

And then I took it to the quilt store to advertise my beading class–mostly so I wouldn’t be tempted to add anything more to it!

Now, what shall I tackle next? I need enough hand work to keep me busy on vacation, but most of my UFO’s need machine work. Wooo-hooo….er, I mean darn! That means I need to start something new before we leave. More time needs to be spent in the studio….I think I can get started right now!

My brain hurts…

I took a beading class today. I was asked why I was taking a beading class and my reply was simple–I don’t know enough and I want to learn more. I do know lots of basic beading stuff, but there is just so much more to learn and do with beads. In fact, I learned so much in this one day that my brain hurts!

We were taught by Linda Lindsey of Square Rose LLC and she was fabulous! Totally organized and presented the information in a very logical sequence. And fun things happened all along the way!

This is one of the sampler pieces that Linda brought us…and we marveled at it!

My tablemate got organized and ready to work right away!

We learned stacks–aren’t those cute mushrooms?

We learned lines and corners and curves and couching and lazy stitch and picot stitch and humps, bumps and globs! THEN we took a deep breath and learned a few more things! We embellished lines with picots, ruffles, zigzags, candy cane loops, and then more loops were mentioned! Whew!

We only had time to touch on a few other things, but we got homework! Homework! Can you believe it? We have one more class and I can’t wait. There is so much more to this beading stuff than I ever thought there was! I was addicted before this class but the possibilities that we were shown today just blew me away!

I’m so looking forward to this class and my brain is very full. I’m thinking it explode by the end of the next class, but it will be SOOOOOO worth it.

New beading class

I’ve decided that I need to try and entice more people into beading on their quilts. And I think the best way to do that is to teach it in the easiest possible format…utilizing the prints on commercial fabric.

A simple little block with a fabric you love…any fabric…can be used to teach the basics of beading.

However, I have so many great fabrics that I’ve accumulated over the years that I spent a good part of the day yesterday gazing at and fondling fabric.

I finally narrowed it down a bit, but there are still so many from which to choose!

I was going to try and make samples that would fit a standard size canvas or frame, but when I found these two, the standard sizes went out the window.

This one will be mostly outlining with beads, but there are some nice curves and some spots to show some clusters of beads or lines of beads for shading.

The appeal of this one is that there are areas for outlining, areas for sparkle, clustering for color, curvy curves…there’s a lot going for an 11 x 14″ piece of fabric!

There really is no size limitation on what you bring to beading class, but I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, so I’m going to put a reasonable limit on my suggestions. In the meantime, the more fabric I look at in my stash, the more possibilities I see!

I think I’m looking at a full winter of beading small pieces…I think my samples need to have more than just beads to be effective examples of what adding embellishment can do. So when I pack for our visit to Florida, I’d probably better include some hand stitching supplies and I probably need to bring my sewing machine. My mom’s machine is just a bit too ‘unused’ to reliably work with! Oh, and beads, of course.

And there may–just may–be the possibilty that I can find a piece or two of new fabric when we are there! Oh, and beads, of course!!!

I truly don’t think I will ever run out of things to do…ever, ever, ever!

Beaded Ornaments

Aren’t these ornaments cute?

I taught a small class of 3 last night and I think there are now 3 more converts to bead obsession! When you find out how easy it is to add beads to quilts…well, you are ready to head to the nearest bead shop and stock up!

As usual, I forgot to get my camera out until the end of the night and Barb had already left, but Marilyn and Maryann worked right up until the very last minute.

And you know that I absolutely love teaching, so I had a wonderful evening! Guess I need to get busy and set up some more local classes so I can do more teaching and have more fun…it’s a tough chore, but I’m willing to do it!

And perhaps I should make a little trip to the bead store, just to make sure I keep up on my stash of beads!

I’m a Student Again!

At least for a day…and I absolutely love it when I’m taking a class and learning new things. A class called Fabrications was offered at USArtquest and I was able to get into it. This company is well known in the paper and scrapbooking world and is getting into surface design on fabric as well. One of the first statements made in class was that ‘everything you can do on paper, you can do on fabric.’

Painted, gilded, fusible thread

Well, game on!!!

We used a variety of glues and fusibles to attach shine and glitter…right up my alley. Oh, my word–it was so easy and there was such a variety of techniques to use. I loved every minute of that. We had gilding and mica chips and something called prills that are like tiny beads that you glue on.

And THEN we moved over to working on wet stuff…stenciling and screenprinting. Direct painting on fabric. I used a huge leaf I found in the woods today and painted it up and stamped it onto fabric. Then I tried it with a smaller leaf and used damp fabric. The look was much softer. And then I added glitz on top of that.

So many possibilities and so much fun. Could have spent a week playing with all these and didn’t even get to all the products offered! Could also spend several days explaining what we did, but I think I’ll let the pictures show all the coolness!

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There are probably different companies that provide similar products and you might already know some of what I learned today. I found it awesome to have all the products in one spot and everything was available for our use in class. I love learning, but I also love a ‘complete environment’ for a classroom.

Today was total fun!

Class Quilt Top–Finished!

Lynda was one of my students in Saturday’s Pattern Free Quilting class. She sent me a picture tonight of her finished quilt top! Hooray!

This is a picture of her first set of elements.

She added more elements and sliced and cut and arranged—

She assembled all her pieces, made them fit and here is her result! Look at those curves!

A wonderful, free form, unique quilt top! Fabulous and she says she is ready to try more rule-breaking quilts.

I love it, Lynda. Thanks for sharing!

New Class-New Samples

I’ve been teaching Quick Start Quilting for a little while now, so you’ve probably seen these samples before.

There’s nothing wrong with them, but I’m teaching the class in a new spot for me. The Quilting Season wanted some new samples and they provided the fabric, so no problem.

These are the fabrics and for each sample I just take a small piece, fuse it to the background and start the quilting.

I can’t wait to see what I do with the Halloween fabric. And, no, I have no idea where the design will take my quilting until I start on it.

Looking forward to some fun quilting time!

Wonderful Wichita

That’s where I’m teaching this week. And Kansas has not been what the Wizard of Oz has portrayed it to be. First of all, and most disappointing, there has been no sign of any yellow brick road. I have not even seen fields of sunflowers–but maybe they have burned up in the heat of this summer. On the plus side, no forest of mean trees to negotiate and NO flying monkeys! I am totally positive that the people of Kansas get tired of Oz talk!

What I have seen of Wichita is very nice and the people I have encountered are as friendly and open as the great prairie on which they live. The city has some very nice public art, which you know I love to see. This has been a delightful trip and I’m awfully glad we were able to come.

Teaching today will be my Up and Away class and I will try very hard to remember to take pictures! I know I love seeing what the same set of instructions will produce when filtered through each individual’s fabrics and colors and instincts. Always unique work and that is my goal…to make each student confident in producing one of a kind art! Now, I’m bad at names and hate it if I leave someone out, so I just include a slide show of all the lovely work (to cover my shortcomings!). There is work in progress, work almost finished, ladies getting ready to work, and a lot of ‘almost dones’!

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Got to meet Tracy Huskamp of The Red Door Studio. Her nature inspired painting is awesome, she designs fabric, she has a book out and a beautiful calendar every year. You might just want to check out her blog and etsy shop to enjoy the work she does. I love it when I get to meet people I have “known” through the internet. It’s so wonderful to actually put a face with a name, especially when it’s such a delightful person! Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like personal connections to go along with electronic connections! Tracy brought me a little gift pack with her fabric in it…love it! I feel really bad that I didn’t have anything to give to her…but I’ll try to do something when I get home.

Don’t know if there will be much touristing around on the way home…home…home…home…I hear it calling my name very strongly! Sleeping in my own bed holds a lot of appeal for me right now. Looking forward to the ending, but not the long hours in the car!

NOT ready for any other adventures right away, so I hope the Wizard is too busy to notice me while I’m still in his state!

Creations in the making-

My students today had a lot of work to do when they came to class, and they had to be very creative. They each made similar elements to learn a couple of different techniques and then they had to put the elements together into a small wall hanging. They worked so hard I felt like a harsh taskmaster, but they sure seemed to be enjoying the process.

Here are some of their projects in various stages of the designing process.

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And of course I learned from them, too, since every design idea they have is one more inspiration for me. Students combinations and curves and placement and spacing ideas always open my mind to new possibilities and I thank them all!!!