LONG BEACH -- PART ONE

 International Quilt Festival returned to Long Beach, CA in early August. It is a beautiful location--I was there for the previous 6 shows, the last time 10 years ago. The weather is spectacular, especially for us Southerners--70 degrees, sunny, low humidity and ocean breezes. Pretty sweet.

The Queen Mary is docked in Long Beach but is not currently open to the public:

The Convention Center is a very nice facility and there are lots of restaurants and attractions right close by: 

As usual at Festival, there are amazing quilts and terrific vendors. Just a few photos to give you an idea.

This New York Beauty is by Nancy Roelfsema and she displayed it during her Open Studios presentation on how to improve your free motion quilting:

Superior Threads--I did some damage here: 

There are more than  quilting supplies to buy: 

I was most excited to see the Special Exhibit of Wood Quilts by Judy Murrah's son, Troy. His art is amazing and Judy would be so proud of him and how he has combined her love of quilts with his sense of design using found wood of various types: 

Troy Murrah

This version of Color My World, the 2021 Block of the Month for The Quilt Show, designed by Wendy Williams, was included in the Special Exhibit A Celebration of Color:

The vendors had lots to see also. This booth, Sewing Party, was so colorful: 

Before the show opened the first day I was taking photos while I could. This booth caught my eye because of the Color My World top on display--the patterns are now for sale: 

I was impressed with the center, very well done:

Rachel Mayfield is the maker and this is her booth. She was astonished to see me taking a photo of her quilt. As a Star Member of The Quilt Show she knew immediately who I was and thanked me profusely for the videos/blogs/Forum help that helped her make this top in a very short time, getting ready for Festival. Well done, Rachel!

Another Star Member of The Quilt Show came to say hello, Linda Jahraus. I noticed the ribbon on her badge which showed she had a quilt in the Special Exhibit The 1876 Centennial Quilt Encore! I made a point to find her quilt and here it is, Amazing work! There were about a dozen of these in the exhibit, done by a group of friends around the country: 

After my Education office duties were done each morning, I gave Open Studio presentations on the show floor. Free, two-hour demos, four going on at the same time, this is a chance to learn something, no cost, no sign-up needed, just stop by and sit awhile. I gave two presentations on Thursday, two on Friday and one on Saturday. This gives you an idea of the set up:

Over the week I was there, many members of The Quilt Show recognized me, and came by to say hello. Many were eager to show me their Block of the Month quilts and I was eager to see them. Kayla V came to several of my Open Studio presentations and got some ideas, especially for how she can incorporate quilting with  her Girl Scout troop. I insisted we get a photo:

There were more than 500 quilts and LOTS of vendors so this is just a taste. I hope you are making plans to come to Houston in November 2022--the biggest and best Quilt Festival in the world. I'll be there!

Because there is more to share, look for Long Beach -- Part Two in a few days.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Students Color My World Quilts

 Recently, the year-long class I did locally for Color My World wrapped up. Two hours a month, lecture/demo to teach the steps for that month's pattern, and all sewing was done at home. Students LOVE this format for long-term projects.

See what they created:

Sally used a beautiful dark navy backgroumd

Paula used garment silks from 40 years of sewing--and it's done

Evelyn used Cherrywood solids and used all the scraps for a pieced inner border. The Tim Holtz map fabric is perfect for the outer border

Evelyn's husband worked for Morgan Stanley--he lost friends in the 2001 World Trade Center attack. Her World Trade Center building is falling apart

Pam wanted a happy quilt so she used a sunny sky. She said she learned a lot from this quilt and "Finished is Better than Perfect"

Mary Louise used the alternative Kit and will add one final border. Her Little Houses in the City represent Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter

Cyndi designed Skyscrapers--the Seattle Space Needle, a future Shuttle ready for launch, the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben

Cyndi's Clock on Big Ben is perfect

Several students are still working on theirs. This is a long, detailed project. 

Most of these women are signed up for another adventure for 2022--Garden Party Down Under--the 2022 BOM designed exclusively for The Quilt Show by Australian designer Irene Blanck. This class will meet every other month beginning in January 2022 at Sweet Home Quilting in Madison, AL. There are a few spaces left. Having a deadline helps keep people on target and learning tips and tricks in person is priceless! 

Let's quilt. 

Barbara

COLOR MY WORLD--THE QUILTING

This wraps up the 2021 Block of the Month quilt for The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. Designed exclusively for The Quilt Show by Australian designer Wendy Williams, the entire 12 month series is available FREE for Star Members until December 31, 2021. After that date, all rights return to the designer and the patterns can then be purchased from her. 

Let's talk about the quilting process. I quilted mine myself and found it an enjoyable task.

THREAD: 

First, I gathered a wide variety of threads for quilting--from Microquilter (100 wt) for Stitch in the Ditch,  to Quilters Select 80 and 60 wt for decorative quilting. Color was the most important thing to me in selection of thread:

While basting my quilts, I always make a small practice sample with some of the same top and back fabrics and the same batting. This allows me to be sure the tension of the various threads is correct before stitching on the quilt:

1. STITCH IN THE DITCH: 

Wendy Williams' top was quilted by Australian longarm quilter Katherine Jones. Wendy suggests outline quilting all the various components of the quilt--we call this Stitch in the Ditch. 

Here is my finished quilt:

The first thing I did was Stitch in the Ditch around all major components--the Mariner's Compass circle, the outside edges of the Roads, the outside seams of all the Small Houses and Tall Buildings and Skyscrapers. This created "Bones"--areas of the buildings which will ultimately get more quilting--in the windows and doors, for example.

I love to use rulers for straight line quilting and the Line Tamer by Four Paws quilting is my most favorite ruler for that purpose:

All straight lines were quilted with this ruler: 

Here you can see how I outlined the tree trunks and stitched between all the buildings: 

For Stitch in the Ditch, I used Microquilter thread, by Superior Threads, a 100 wt polyester thread. Color  #7025, a gray/green blended beautifully with the many colors in the quilt. In the bobbin for the entire quilting  process I used Microquilter, color #7026--a tan. I knew there would be many places I would "travel"--move from one place to another, stitching on top of previous stitching, so this fine thread would be perfect for that process. I spent two days doing all the Stitch in the Ditch with these two threads:

On the third day, I used Quilters Select #739, a dark charcoal 80 wt thread, to stitch along the middle of the Roads. I also used this dark thread to quilt the Eiffel Tower: 

Once all of the stitch in the ditch was done, it was time to play with the buildings. I matched thread colors as closely as I could and used Wendy's photos on each months' patterns as a guide for how to quilt the doors and windows. Designs I really liked, I used frequently. 

Here are a few closeups. The skinny lines on the long windows were a favorite and I did them a lot--free hand, no ruler. The X's in light blue windows were done with ruler: 

The various roofs got a variety of quilting--this crosshatch in the yellow roof of Little House in the City was a favorite. For the tree tops, I played with several designs before settling on simple swirly spirals--one color green thread worked for both tree tops: 

For the Mariner's Compass, I liked the feather design used on Wendy's quilt, free hand for the feathers, the ruler for all the straight lines around and through each point: 

As I was quilting the various buildings, it occurred to me, I could also quilt the straight lines I had decided to use in the outer border--before all the rest of  the quilting was done. All the "bones" were done, the stitch in the ditch was finished, so I went ahead and used the Line Tamer ruler to quilt the outer border. That allowed me to put the sleeve and binding on and use my night time hours to hand stitch the binding in place. As I was under deadline to get this done, it was good to use all the time I had for the entire process--quilt during the day, hand stitch the binding at night. Here is the simple outside straight line quilting on the border, using Microquilter color # 7025:

All in all, I spent 6 days quilting this and was very happy with the results. I was done ahead of schedule for the taping in Dallas, TX in August 2020. 

At the taping I got to see Wendy's quilt up close. Before that I had only seen a few photos. The longarm quilter added a great touch to the outer border--she quilted HOUSES in it. They are hard to see in the photos but were a very interesting touch in real life. Her lines are also much closer together than mine. I could have gone back and added more but it was done so, no more lines for mine:

UPDATE: I was asked for a few detailed photos of the back of mine so here they are:

And last, but certainly NOT least, please add a permanent label to your finished quilt. I have written about labels before: QUILT LABELS. Here i s mine for Color My World:

It is particularly important to note WOOL BATT--so the quilt is less likely to be thrown in a hot dryer--with potentially sad consequences.

I hope this gives you some ideas how to quilt your Color My World. And when it's done, please post a photo on the Forum: BOM 2021 Your Finish Here  It is so fun to see so many of these, many with special touches that really make this design the maker's own!

Looking forward to the 2022 Block of the Month quilt--a very different design, but a beautiful quilt. I hope you'll join us on the Journey.

Let's quilt.

Barbara