Download is available here: Windows and Sketches PDF.

The September issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited is now hitting mailboxes, so I thought I’d share the cover:

My article this month is about texture:  both literal and visual texture in machine quilting.  Quilts can be old-timey puckery like the 1930s quilts we know and love, but they can also be (literally) flat, like the fabric postcards made on Timtex or Peltex (a rigid stabilizer sometimes used in cap brims).  But there is also visual texture…what the eye thinks it sees depending on the type of line created by the quilting.

One fun exercise is to give yourself 30 minutes (at most!) to fill the 12 small boxes on a page.  Fill each square with a different “something” from around your house and garden; for a change of pace, take your sheet (or another one!) into town, walk in a park or look at the downtown buildings, and look for images that might make good quilting designs.  Check out the article for more information!  It is in the September Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine (ask your local quilt shop to carry it!) or order an issue / subscribe at www.mqumag.com.

Here’s the Windows and Sketches workpage I shared in the magazine:

You can download a blank template of this form using the link at the top of this post or here: Windows and Sketches PDF.  This is what the blank looks like:

The newest issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited is out, complete with my article on Negative Space or what I like to think of as “the spaces in between.”  I promised a download of the leaf and vine motif from the feature quilt, Little Brown Bird, which I’ll share in another post.  For a full discussion of negative space, you can buy a copy of the magazine here, but here is a quick recap.  Think of a chair with slats on the back:

The spaces between the spindles on the back are “negative space.”  The chair itself is the “positive” image.  Likewise, the spaces between the legs and rungs are negative (or “in between”) space.

For the article, I created some examples based on the principles of Notan.  The definitive book is Notan:  The dark-light principle of design by Bothwell and Mayfield.  The Yin/Yang symbol is the class example of positive and negative space.  Each teardrop shape is identical to the other, but one is dark and one is light.  The two are perfectly balanced, and the proportions of the small circle within the teardrop, the shape of the large end of the teardrop, and the entire circle are all geometrically related:

Here is the vine motif I developed:

If you like this motif, I’ve prepared a PDF which you may download for your personal use.  Since it is under copyright, please don’t sell it or use it in classes you might teach (without receiving my written OK first), or other nefarious stuff… please DO use it in your quilts, modify it, and have fun.   Also, this is my first time trying to create a down-loadable PDF, so I’m hoping it works!  To download the PDF version (with the black removed so it doesn’t eat up your ink), click here: leafandvinemotifpdf

Enjoy!

A while back, I shared a tiny tease from Little Brown Bird, a small wholecloth art quilt here.  Well, here is all 16×20 inches (or thereabouts) of it:

I made this quilt as an illustration for my Machine Quilting Unlimited article (July 2009 issue) on Negative space.  I developed the vine motif as part of the illustrative exercises, then decided to put it into use in the quilt.

The fabric is one of my hand-dyes, and is relatively monotone yellow-green.  I quilted it using five shades of green thread (Superior Threads’ 40-wt. polyester, with green Bottom Line — a fine 60-wt polyester — in the bobbin). The darkest shade of green is used in the bird, the next darkest for the straight lines and vine/leaf motif, and the lighter shades to shade/lighten the background.

Here is a detail of the bird:

And here is another of the leaf/vine motif:

If you visit my blog on June 16 (obviously it will not be “live” until the 16th!) blogpost, you can download a free PDF of the leaf/vine motif for use in your own quilting!

I promised that I’d share the top I began in the Jan Krentz Hunter’s Star workshop, so here you go!  Since my goal for the class was to get hints on improving my teaching, and since I haven’t made a pieced top in YEARS, I was fairly laid back about what I would do.  I selected “Caribbean” colors from my stash (yes, I have a goodly sized stash, and did serious reduction of the aquas!).  To make matters worse, since of COURSE I couldn’t do the quilt top just like the teacher said but instead had to do my own thing, I had an arithmetic hiccup while calculating, and now have enough blocks cut to make TWO 68×68 tops.

My blocks finish at 8 inches, so the total quilt is about 66 1/2 inches before quilting (which usually shrinks it up a couple of inches).

Before the class, Jan had sent me a jpeg of a student’s piece using two different sized diamonds.  I LOVED the motion, so decided to make FOUR different sized stars.  In the end, that proved to be too much, so I selected two of the sizes for the first top, and two for the one that will be made at some point.  Ahem.  The photo above is the blocks I made in the class up on the wall for testing at home.

And here is the completed top:

I’ll have to take a break now and do things I ought to be doing like writing my next article for Machine Quilting Unlimited, finishing up my Birch Pond pattern, and working on a commission quilt.  Ahem.  Nothing like taking a detour, eh?

Hi all!  It is frustrating sometimes to be working, working, working, and feel like I can’t really share stuff yet!  In this instance, I finished writing my next article for Machine Quilting Unlimited (click here for more info on the magazine), which will be on negative space (basically, the spaces between….alas you’ll have to wait for the magazine to come out to learn more!).

For the magazine, I decided to use one of the exercises I illustrated to make a design which I then used as a quilting motif, and made a small wholecloth quilt.  The picture above is a detail photo….you’ll have to wait for the design, but I’ve decided to upload it to my blog/website as a free pdf for folks to download when the article is published in July…let’s hope that I can get the pdf thing to work!

Anyway, I totally love how this little quilt turned out and think I may enter it in an art quilt show this summer.

I also needed an alternative to the photo/illustration I intended to use in a different part of the article.  I had hoped that I could repeat an image from one article (in the April issue) to the next to illustrate my points…both to save on work, but mostly to show that the design principles I’m teaching  are all interrelated.  Alas, no go.  So I whipped out a new sample, and here’s another detail:

I really like this one… it would work well for traditional quilters, and art quilters can really soup it up….hope you like it!