Small Art Quilt Classes at Patchwork Quilts

For those who are in my neck of the woods, I am pleased to announce that I am offering a 3-session class in making a small art quilt at Patchwork Quilts in Hamilton, Montana this coming February. The classes are on the first three Thursdays in February (2/3, 2/10, and 2/17). The first session is on making an art quilt top, the second is on layering and quilting the top, and third session is on embellishing and finishing the quilt.

Patchwork Quilts is at 1720 N. First St. in Hamilton which is the main road through town (Hwy 93). You can call them at 363-5754 for details, or stop in and see the samples for each of the sessions that I just dropped off at the shop.

By the way, you can take one or two or all three sessions as you like. If you only want the quilting one, just sign up for that one. I will be attempting to make them independent of each other, but if you take all three they will definitely be a nice progression towards a finished piece.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions about the classes. I would really like to share what I know with you and hope that you will let me know what you'd like to learn. I've had many people tell me they would like to do what I do but don't think they can. I think I can teach you some things that will help you move in the right direction. I will hopefully even share some things with you that you can use no matter what kind of quilting you like to do.

Also, if you sign up and need help with the supply list please don't hesitate to contact me. I'll be bringing some fabric, thread, and embellishment stuff for each relevant session that will help to supplement whatever you bring, so there is no need to stress out about it!

Hope to see you there! Thanks!

Holiday Ornaments

It seems like I move from one deadline to another all year long. It would be nice to have a month where I'm not working on something for some future deadline! It seems like I don't have time to just play around with stuff in my studio as I am too busy creating things to sell and enter in various shows. This year I am going to try to trim down my commitments to those that are potentially most valuable to me and see if I can find the time to experiment with some things that interest me like using photos in my work, doing more with cutouts and unusually shaped pieces, and possible more painting on fabric. If I would just stop committing to shows and galleries maybe I would have time---probably not going to happen!

The past month I have been making ornaments that are quilted and beaded. I layered fabric with heavyweight Pellon stabilizer (or Timtex). The fabrics I'm using are some of those great pictorial pieces I buy and never use in my art quilts, but they have some wonderful images on them like owls, animals, trees, etc. It has been really fun to match fabrics and beads together to make tiny little works of art. I have sold quite a few at a couple of galleries and on my own and there are more at Art City in Hamilton and River's Mist Gallery in Stevensville (317 Main St.).

Some of the cutest ones I made used fabric from Selvedge Studio in Missoula (509 S. Higgins). They have some wonderfully whimsical fabrics that worked great for the ornaments. The owls on the grey background and the birds are from Selvedge Studio. The sun and moon ornaments are double-sided and were a little more time-consuming to bead and stitch. That is an older fabric that I had in my stash. Not sure where I got the other owl fabric with the darker background. It was fun to go through my stash and find little images to use and then match beads to them. I did get a little carried away with some of the beading!

The fabrics are attached using glue stick and I used satin stitching and various quilt designs to secure them. I satin stitched the edges all the way around and then did the beading. I tried to do extra securing stitches for all the dangles and hanging loops. I've sold these from anywhere between $12 and $20 and have really enjoyed making them. Now I need to get myself to STOP (I'm obsessed!) so I can move on to this month's Tarts project and possibly creating a piece for a show opening in January utilizing photo(s).

Here are some images of the ornaments. The pictures are not of the best quality, but you can get an idea of how fun they are!