Last Friday we arrived in Memphis. I would be teaching the quilters at Pickin Up the Pieces Quilt Guild on Saturday. We decided to hit Rendezvous for a few ribs and then head over to Beale street. (Ribs photos can be found on Facebook and Instagram!)
I will be back in Memphis at the end of September as the featured teacher for this quilt guild. If you would like more information about this guild or the retreat, please send me a note and I will forward it to their guild!
I think if you click on a photo you will get more information about each photo! For all the quilts seen from the workshop I have kits available!
The evening is just beginning and so are the crowds
Now the sun is going down and the sky is beautiful. Some awesome neon on Beale Street
And darkness has arrived, the crowds are getting larger, we will be gone before they get too heavy!
Same facade a little later, accented by street lighting.
A little princess in her carriage.
Michelle finished her leaf! It is quilted, bound and labeled! Class was Saturday all day, this was Tuesday evening.
I love how they have shored up the old facades on Beale Street.
Keeping us all safe while somewhat preserving the original structure. Wonder what will be here next time I make it to Beale Street?
Debby got her leaf together she was so excited to get that far and then Michelle brings a finished quilt!
This new paper piecer was excited to finish the B side and add the vein!
I love how the purple turned out! PRE-CUT kits are available for this!
Another purple one!
5 of the nine students!
Hubby had the camera while I was presenting my lecture – he snapped some random shots so I will share. Here I was talking about how much fun we had on the cruise – this was our cruise project, PRE-CUT kits are still available for this quilt!
A small guild, but boy are the productive members of their community! On this evening they were filling a grocery cart full of groceries for the church food pantry. The number of projects this small and might group takes on for their local community was amazing. The guild is 17 years and many charities have benefited from their kindness and generosity!
I think hubby is partial to this quilt (I just happened to be in the photo!)
Actually I was jumping down off the riser to I could better point out how I used an ombre fabric for my sashing as well as how the JN Bali Pops are pre-sorted light to dark to get that wonderful dark (upper left) to very light (lower right). And of course we have a silhouette of Little Toot in charcoal silk!
I hope you enjoy this sneak peak into the life of a Judy Niemeyer Certified Instructor. We get to meet so many amazing quilters and along the way make some great friends!
For many years I have been a member of Lakeview Quilters Guild! My first meeting was in August of 1997, they were talking about a retreat. Sounded interesting so I signed up and a couple of weeks later I headed to Round Top TX with a new friend on a new adventure. I was attending a retreat with 65 quilters, most of whom I had never met. Pat and I were assigned to the 3rd floor but the a/c was not working on that side of the 3rd floor. There were a couple of beds for us in the other house, the stairs to our second floor were the old fashioned, teeny tiny steep stairs and we both opted to stay in the other building on the 3rd floor with no a/c. We opened the windows at night and it really was quite pleasant. We were really lucky because future years with heat hovering in the high 90’s we would’ve been toast trying to sleep with no a/c.
This retreat holds a special place for me – it is always held the weekend after Labor day and the facility is amazing – the friendship we enjoy there is even better! Over the years I have been able to share this special event with my sister, nieces (from GA and UT), my daughter-in-law and numerous friends. I love to walk from room to room and house to house just visiting with friends and learning from each of them. Sometimes I even sew! It is always very inspiring!
I love to do block swaps and one year (2002 or 2003) I gathered a group to swap 16 blocks, they had to make 16 beautiful fall blocks AND add sashing with a corner stone on two sides. The rules changed and while we did make the sashing and corner stone we did not attach them. We had 1 year to make our blocks and sashing. We had no deadline for finishing the quilt. I received a call in 2015, one of the group was so excited, she had finished her quilt and needed it quilted. She used a technique by Sharyn Craig called Twist N Turn to set her blocks.
“Side Note” – Sharyn Craig was the first speaker I saw at the Lakeview Quilters Guild and her program was the best thing I had ever seen, her quilts were beautiful and she was so funny and inspiring and genuine! When she came back to our guild several years later I was worried that she would not be as good as I remembered since that had been my first guild meeting ever! Well, she did not disappoint the second time around, she was even better!
I have not been able to visit my old guild since I 2014 when we moved to the “country”, however, in bringing everything full circle, I will be participate as a vendor at their bi-annual quilt show May 13 & 14. The women in this guild are the reason I am opening a quilt shop to share my passion with other quilters. My guild is full of inspirational women that have always shared their gift and passion with me! Thinking of them makes me smile!
So I guess you want to Cherie’s quilt now? It is beautiful!
These blocks were amazing, Linda A. made the feathered stars, Karla made the pine-burr blocks. Several chose beautiful blocks designed by Carol Doak.
Do you do block swaps? I know so many quilters that don’t because they don’t get back a “perfect” block. What I get back are memories! That is why I love doing block swaps! Perfection can be over-rated!
Go make someone’s day special! Give them a smile! It’s free and it will make you feel GREAT!
Yippee! I am off to a GREAT start for 2015. I have finished 2 quilt tops so far this year and it is only the 7th of January! I had done most of the paper-piecing on this one but needed to do all of the assembly – so I got busy and “got er done!”
I had chosen the fabrics a few months ago – falling in love with Northcott’s Artisan Spirit Shimmer collection. These are the striped ones and they look really awesome in the spikes! I think I actually cut it out shortly after my purchase, then the big MOVE happened and I didn’t get back to it for awhile.
The pattern is by Judy Niemeyer Quilting, Stormy Seas. Well my quilt told me it’s name is Shimmery Seas and it really does shimmer!
Here is a little bit of the process!
December I started piecing. I just kind of worked at it a little bit at a time in between unpacking and getting the new house ready.These are the unit C’s I was playing with the layoutHere I have sewn the Unit A’s to the Unit C’s (The cover quilt from the pattern can be seen here as well)The squaring up B-1 units were then addedAnd now there is a block!An outside cornerAnd a few views of the quilt top…..Where I have the lime green, the pattern called for the same background (in my case it would’ve been black) I wanted to add a little bit of punch – the green did that!And one last view! I think some fun graffiti quilting in the green will be just the thing!
Note: Forgive my pressing – we still need to construct a new pressing surface, so for now I am using my folding TV tray covered with batting and ironing cloth.
I think I may just have to kit this one! I love how it turned out! I would love to read your comments – let me know what you think!
It’s all about the quilting at this Bee! In addition to hostessing Niemeyer Wednesday (from yesterdays post) I also hostess a Longarm Bee each month. This Bee is no longer just for longarmers it is for mid-arms and short-arms too! We also gladly invite the sit down quilters using the oversize machines and the folks who love to quilt on their “domestic” sewing machines. We usually have a topic that we cover, show and share my favorite “How Would You Quilt This?!” We usually meet the 1st Monday of the month at Pinwheels and Posies from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
Merridy stops by our Bee each month to drop off a quilt (or 2) that she has made for the Soldiers at Brooks Army Medical Center – for one of quilters to take home and quilt.JoAnn quilted this one for Merridy last month – JoAnn is a new longarmer and she is having fun mixing computer and free-hand designs in her quiltingA close up of JoAnn’s freehandOur topic for May was Top Anchor TemplatesDebbie demonstrated how they work and the tips and tricks she has learnedSome more of JoAnn’s “practice pieces”And look at the back of the quilting on the snowballs quiltI love the border quilting design!Laurie brought this quilt – it is old and hand pieced. She has a computer on her machine and after ideas were tossed about we think Laurie may be using a large snowflake quilting design on this 7 Sisters QuiltA fun modern quilt – lots of ideas were tossed around for quilting on this one – I hope we get to see the final decision! The ideas included an overall design or my favorite was to highlight the grey “steps” through the quilt to make the design stand out more!JoAnn asks for ideas for quilting on this community service quilt – there is some great opportunity for ruler work here!
I love this group – they are so inspiring! I hope I inspire them too!
Go be inspiring today!
If you would like to join us we meet this coming Monday, June 2 at Pinwheels and Posies in Dickinson, TX. Leave a comment for more information.
Lovely Rita – hard to say her name without the lovely.
Anyway, Rita had contacted me a few years ago to see if I would teach her how to make a Judy Niemeyer “Prairie Star” I was teaching machine quilting classes at the local quilt shop but had not ventured into a piecing classes for quite some time. She had also mentioned she was a new quilter. My daughter-in-law and I had worked through Prairie Star a couple of years previous and I knew it was not a quilt for the faint of heart. So I tried to dissuade Rita but pulling out my pattern notes and telling her how much fabric it took, then I told her how long it took us to cut out our Prairie Star (I know more tricks now and can beat the old time by a lot!) and suggested that Rita cruise the net and look for a different pattern, maybe even an easier JN.
She called back a couple of days later and said “Prairie Star” was it!
So I contacted Peggy at Pinwheels and Posies and we put a Judy Niemeyer Stars class on the calendar. The class filled quickly and I can now blame my migration from longarm quilting full time to Certified Judy Niemeyer Instructor on Rita. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching and watching students projects come to life.
Back to Rita, so after she made Prairie Star she made Bali Wedding Star and from there she migrated to Flowers For My Wedding and that is today’s featured story.
Flowers for my Wedding ring quilt is a beautiful quilt designed to have multiple backgrounds and pieces together in a block format rather than in rings and rows. Well, Rita was only using one background so we determined her assembly route should be more like Grandma’s Wedding Ring. We used the specially designed Wedding Ring Templates to cut all of her ring centers and melons. The templates were also used to trim up her paper-pieced arcs. Then Rita squared her quilt up and added the borders for appliqué, but determined the appliqué might be more of an adventure than she was ready for and she decided to have me fill it with some of my quilting. Noting that her granddaughter loves butterflies. So off to the quilting frame I headed – I loved watching this beautiful quilt soak in the quilting designs I had chosen, I think it turned out beautiful. I hope you enjoy
The beginning designs, before any background fill. I used a light blue for the feathers and butterflies. Now with a little background fill – which is done in white thread.I love love love feathers in the wedding ring quilts!Whimsical longarm style feathers meandering through the border, see the area with background fill and then the area that hasn’t been filled yetAnd completion of the quiltingAhhhhhhAnd a little showing off from the backside – remember to click on the photo to see the detail!
This granddaughter will receive her wedding quilt in July. The next granddaughter has already chosen a “Compass” style quilt – I can’t wait to see what Rita comes up with!
Lovely Rita – thanks for much for the not so gentle push into teaching – I am rewarding daily! And thank you Rita for being a faithful student! You are Appreciated!
My niece made this beautiful quilt as a fundraiser for her son’s school. When she was trying to decide colors she wasn’t sure what to do and I suggested neutrals as this would appeal to a wider audience. Stripped piece in batiks – I think she made a very striking quilt! The is her 2nd Colorwash Trip Around the World. The first one she made was also for a fundraiser from when she was a “Rainbow” girl. I love that the young women in my life enjoy sewing, quilting and crafting as much as I do.
Richness in colorSuch a fantastic overall effectWouldn’t you love to have this quilt in your collection?The back is pretty too!Close up of the quiltingAnd an even closer look at the corner
Once a month I hostess a finishing class for students that are working on their Judy Niemeyer quilts. Some come to pick out fabric, some come to cut fabric, some come to sew. We all show up to be inspired! I have been teaching these classes for several years now and watching these quilts come together is always a treat!
So to inspire you I have chosen a few delights!
Rita’s Flowers for My Wedding Quilt – This will be for her Granddaughter.Pauline is working on Indian Summer – here are a few of her lights.Marilyn has been busy working on Mariner’s Compass – her first Judy quilt!And look – here is Cheryl’s Mariner’s Compass – she has her center completely doneBut she will be adding 4 Compass Rose units to elongate her quilt!Cheryl has already chosen the fabrics for her split log cabin!Shirley has had her center done for her Mariner’s Compass and is now working on her borders!But look what else Shirley has completed – this beautiful feathered star came home with me for quilting!And another feathered star – Janeane added the queen borders for Glacier Star to make this beautiful Feathered Star Quilt!And Janeane has also completed her Mariner’s Compass!Janeane’s time consumer has been this rendition of Flowers for My Wedding – a 50th wedding anniversary gift for her parents!Won’t appliqué look stunning in this wide open corners!
Be sure to check the calendar to see if I am coming to a guild or shop near you in 2014. I would love to come teach at your guild or shop!
Good Day and welcome to technically day 3 of our adventure, but really the 2nd day of sewing. I shared sunrise with you yesterday, today I was up before the sun peeked over the mountain and decided to take my quick shower – well up came the sun as I showered so I will share quilts this morning – they will brighten your day almost as much as sunrise! I love the crisp cool mornings, I find them energizing!
So here are a few frames from our progress yesterday!
This is Roger – he has made 42 Judy Niemeyer quilts to date and loves to teach. He and Ardelle are from Camden CanadaThis is Ardelle – she is a very accomplished long-arm quilter, mother of 3 and beautiful wife of Roger!Miss Jackie keeps us entertained – she is a certified Judy Niemeyer instructor and after this week will be a certified online shop. She loves bright colors and so willing to share all her tips and tricks about piecing, quilting, blogging etc.! (PS those border pieces are for Roger’s quilt!)Ginny is also a certified instructor and will be a certified ship, her colorful Mariner’s Compass was the inspiration for my own! Ginny is working on her Captains Wheel quilt – I love the red, white and blue! Very appropriate to honor her Marine son!Peggy – our fearless leader at Pinwheels and Posies – she doesn’t like her picture taken!Sustenance! isn’t it pretty?I love how they are serving the salad dressing – it really is the little things in life that make me smile!Carol’s Compass Flower for her Mariner’s Compass, she is off and running after a slight food allergy that slowed her down on day 1!I love Sally’s colors – she is here with Batik’s Etc from VAShaheena’s Mariner’s Compass, her shop will be the newest certified shop in Canada – she travelled a long way to get herArdelle’s Mariner’s Compass is gorgeous – she and Roger each of the new Kaufman “silks” as accents in their quilts – talk about accentuate the positive!Hurry up and sew Jackie – I want to see the rest of this one!Ginny now has 9 of these done – one is hiding!Peggy and I are making progress on Pinwheels and Posies newest shop sample (kits coming soon!) We actually have the other sails done too!Good night moon!
Yesterday my trusty companion, Peggy from Pinwheels and Posies, and I traveled to Montana. The plane out of Houston was delayed and our connection in SLC was going to be tight. The trusty flight attendants asked all passengers to please let the Kalispell passengers leave the plane first. We were also told our connection was already boarding – so we hoofed it over to concourse E from the far end of concourse C only to find out that they had not started boarding! Well we considered that our exercise for the day – and took the opportunity to purchase a bite to eat for the plane. Then it was time to board our plane. We were at gate E70 which is a portal to many more gates – of course we were gate 23 which was quite a jaunt. But the end of the journey is so worth it. Arrived in Kalispell around 3:45 local time and it was 90 degrees, but NO HUMIDITY – we Houston gals can get used to this in a hurry!
Our gracious host and teacher above all teachers joined us for dinner and gave us a trunk show – here are a few pictures from the trunk show…..
Feathered Star in a new color way – these are all blues and just off white. Quilting by Judy and Del Niemeyer!
Close up of the quilting!
More Quilting – just lovely!
One of the many up and coming wedding ring quilts – I love teaching these classes!
Cactus Rose gets and update – stunning!
Queen size feathered star – I didn’t think I needed to make this one, I’ve made the small one – but oh my oh my – I want to make one now!
An overall picture of the feathered star!
This is the back of one of the more modern wedding ring quilts – love love love it
Weeping Willow – I have my papers all cut out – now just to choose my fabrics and get started!
Judy also shared some of the quilts that are designed by Cyndi McCracken
I may have mentioned that I host a longarm bee in our area (Clearlake,TX). We meet at Pinwheels and Posies monthly and usually have about 35 participants. Each month we have new members and it is such a fun bee. We have a few experienced quilters and several newbies. I love to see the newbies take the ideas they see at bee and bring back their show and tells the next month! This month we had a special treat, Kim Norton, from A Busy Bobbin was our speaker. I became familiar with her work through one of my students (who is also one of Kim’s friends and customers).
When I found out Kim had only been longarm quilting for 4 years I just knew she would be an inspiration to our group and SHE IS! Kim has a website at http://www.abusybobbin.com One of Kim’s sons is in the Navy stationed on a medical ship as a Medical Tech. Her other son is in high school. Kim’s husband is retired Navy and now works locally. He is very supportive of Kim’s career choice!
This is Kim – she lives about an hour away from our bee and she agreed to speak at our bee in exchange for a dinner prior to our meeting!
Kim and her beautiful smile!An attentive groupWondering if they can really do that – yes you can!
Kim began by telling us a little bit about how she started, she bought her first longarm with the intent of having a business and had her first customer quilt on the frame within days of receiving her machine. She now has 2 Innova machines so she can work leave a “custom” quilt on one frame and churn out other quilts on the other frame.
Kim loves templates and showed us how she uses these to design her quilting. Sometimes she uses them for marking, but usually she guides her longarm around the templates.
Using an ARCH ruler to create a secondary design to the piecing.2 lines will frame the work much better than one. Just move the template approximately 1/4″ and stitch the 2nd line
How does Kim keep the template from moving and how does she “ditch” around her appliqué?
Sand paper dots. She also does not put a lot of pressure on the template.DeLoa’s Appliguide is her goto tool for “ditching” appliqué. This ruler has a beveled edge and I can’t wait to order mine!
This quilt belongs to Kim’s mom and it was a block exchange. Some blocks were pieced some were applique. To tie them all together with a common quilting theme she used one of her “Gadget Girl” templates to add and additional frame around each block, then custom quilted each block.
Adding an inside frame of quilting to each block – these rulers come in various sizes at Gadget Girls
Ok Kim we see HOW you do some of these techniques – but we want to know where do the ideas come from? Kim uses her iphone and ipad to take photos of quilts that inspire her. She keeps these ideas in folders on those devices to refer to later. She also prints ideas and keeps them in a notebook where she can flip through them until “THE” idea jumps out. She also taught us that we all have the same tool for conjuring inspiration – in fact we are born with it.
SAS – STAND AND STARE – she explained her SAS technique is stand and look at the quilt, put hands on hips, cock her head to the right, cock her head to the left, repeat as needed!
Once she has some ideas in her head she uses a reusable auditioning medium to draw the design over the quilt to see if it plays on the quilt as well as it did in her head. She will also sometimes take a photo of the quilt and then using tracing paper audition designs over the photo.
Reusable audition medium.
This beautiful quilt was made by Kim’s mom – mom’s applique is beautiful! And Kim really knows how to make it shine. Kim used 2 battings on this quilt, a thin cotton against the lining and wool on top. Kim reminded us that if you are going to do dense quilting in the blocks you MUST quilt those little sashings too – keep your quilting density consistent.
Great sashing treatmentThis quilt just makes me smileWhat is not to love about this border, love the applique circles and the quilting – they play so nice together.
And here is Linda’s Quilt – yes I have included this quilt in previous blogs – but now I get to share some of the secrets behind the quilting!
Kim used small dots to mark start/stop points for designs. This is the frixion pen she used. Use the marking tool sparingly – but it does iron away.Once again minimal marking to mark each sideJust a dot is enough.Gadget girls “fan” template is the perfect tool for the curved cross hatch in this design. Start on one side, use the lines on the ruler to space your quilting lines continue to the other side. Flip your ruler over and now go back the other direction.Stitch your circles with templates, remember 2 lines of quilting is better than one. Find the perfect template to add that spinning motion.
And of course the question we all wanted to know – how was the scalloping on the border on this quilt accomplished?
Linda explains her technique for the scalloped border – a bias flange that is tacked back like a cathedral window block.
And now a little show and share
Cindy G made this quilt for the teacher of her kindergartner. Cindy teaches middle school PE and she says she is overwhelmed at the thought of teaching (25) 5 year olds. It was her pleasure to make this quilt to thank the teacher!Close up of the quilting. When asked how much marking she did – Cindy said ZERO!!!Look at this beautiful carpenters star. Oh how I wish I had gotten the quilter in the photo so I could give you credit! You did a fabulous job!The back of the carpenter’s starDonna shows the FIRST quilt she quilted on her new frame!Close up of the loops panto Donna used.Cindy B is working on completing quilts for all the family members. She uses a sit-down machine.Cindy B. is giving this quilt to a brother and didn’t want her usual flowery designs and so she realized she could undulating lines to fill the space between the straight lines.
Then we all put our thinking caps on for “How Would You Quilt This!”
Beautiful quilt – her husband informed her she could not give this one away. It will hang in their home.Kim suggests imitating the white flowers in these squares.Kathie’s Borders Quilt. Made in a class taught by Winnie Fleming at Pinwheels and Posies.Kim shows us to create squares of quilting above the ohio stars in the blue/cream fabrics. I like it!Cindy G. was on task to give some wonderful ideas for adding modern quilting to this delightful quilt.
I also brought a quilt top for ideas. No photos because I was talking – but when I started to open it up Kim and Linda started chuckling – Kim had recently completed the quilting on this same quilt for the Peace by Piecing Quilt Guild. She shared how she quilted theirs and then Cindy G came up with some really fun ideas – I think I will be doing a combination of both ideas. But first I must finish this blog and get back to work!
Design by Cyndi McCracken
Design by Cyndi McCracken
Design by Cyndi McCracken
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