Beth Ferrier’s Blog

It’s been a week since I returned from teaching for the American Quilters Society in Paducah, Kentucky. It’s taken that long to regroup and recover from the big push to have everything ready for classes. The kits seemed to be a big hit. All of my fears (that they would hate the fabric choices, think the kits cost too much, discover that the kits were missing some vital part, and on and on) were completely without merit. (Yes, Karen, “I told you so,” would be appropriate here.)

This was my first trip to Paducah for the show, let alone my first time teaching. The show was wonderful and the quilters seemed to be very happy to be there! Click here to see the spectacular winning quilts. The vendor booths were hopping, proving once again that quilters are the backbone of our economy. Even with the short time to shop between classes I found a couple of treasures to bring home.

After a couple of false starts my Challenge quilt was finished in the nick of time and packed off to Kentucky. In the end I added a light blue print to give the challenge fabrics a little breathing room.

It was a treat to see my quilt hanging with the others in the Pilgrim & Roy Invitational Challenge.

And nice to know that some folks liked it enough to take a picture. See, I told you that the quilt makers lurk at the shows to hear the comments about their quilts. Be nice! Save the critiques for the ride home, please!

 I thought that the quilts were especially terrific this year. Libby Lehman used rick rack to decorate hers, which made me really sad that I decided against the rick rack in the flowers at the last minute. One of the other quilts just knocked my socks off. It was hung at a right angle to the rest of the quilts so I couldn’t get it into the group shot.

 Sorry that it’s a little warped, because of the way it was hung it was tough to get a good shot. But wowsers! And like a dork, I didn’t write down the name of the maker. I wasn’t familiar with her name, and I couldn’t get it to stick in my head.

Just because I know someone will ask, here’s a close up of my quilt to show the quilting.

The collection will travel for the year. For information to borrow the quilts for your quilt show, click here. The quilts will then be auctioned off at the show next year, proceeds to benefit the National Quilt Museum. It was a really honor to be included again.

It’s an old Chinese curse: may you have an interesting life. Thankfully the last few weeks have been blissfully uninteresting. Good for getting things done, mundane things like making kits, filling orders and writing patterns. Good for enjoying time with the family and puttering around the house. Not so good for conjuring up interesting blog posts.

For a few days last week we had spring. We set a record high, whoo hoo! We were practically in bathing suits, even if the high was only sixty degrees. (For my California friends, sixty degrees is down jacket weather. For us it’s time to break out the sunscreen.)

The ice covering the pond melted completely and look who came out from under the rocks!

 I know it’s dark, there was a lot of glare on the water’s surface. I think it was sunlight but since we haven’t seen much of that since last October don’t take my word for it. I’m happy to report that seven fish have survived the winter so far. (That’s a leaf on the surface.) Of course, we had another six inches of snow dumped on us last weekend and temps into the single digits, so the pond is frozen over again.

In between trimming and trimming and trimming the bazillion applique shapes for Now & Forever (who designed this quilt anyway?) I’ve been ruminating on my next challenge. Once again the powers that be invited me to be a part of the Pilgrim and Roy Challenge to benefit the American Quilters Society Museum.

This is the fabric. Now this is interesting. I’m only allowed to add one fabric. I don’t have to use all of them. I can’t use the other side. And the quilt needs to finish around 40 inches square.

I’m playing around with the idea of a pieced background and some applique (there’s a surprise). I’d like to showcase a technique (or two) out of the new book. I’ve purchased a quiet dark blue as one possible additional fabric and a zippy green with confetti of all the colors here as another. I’ll post a picture of the two additional fabrics soon. The blue is safe. The green has a lot of energy. What do you think? What would you do?

Remember the Pilgrim/Roy Challenge quilt that I made a while back? (You can click here to review the story if you’re interested.) It was auctioned off at the AQS show this past April. You can see all twelve quilts here. I don’t know who purchased the quilt, but I’m honored to know it brought a pretty good price.

Once again, I was invited to write an article for American Quilter magazine about the quilt. You know, I don’t consider my designs particularly special so it’s a bit of a shock to be singled out (twice!) this way.

On the newsstands now, the current issue of American Quilter magazine has a really nice article on my Five and Vines quilt.

Originally only available to AQS members, I’m glad to see this publication get wider distribution. I’m always pleased with the variety of the projects and articles. A little arty, but also tradtional, the issues contain solid technique information, something really important to me.

 The layout is really pretty. I like the grid system they use for the cutting instructions.

 What a lovely way to wrap up this happy project! It was an honor to be included in the challenge. The quilt was fun to make and it raised money for the American Quiters Society quilt museum. And now it’s in a magazine for everyone to see. It’s all good.

All that remained to do was the quilting. To prepare for the final step, the quilt was pressed within an inch of its life. Nothing improves the quilting process quite as much as a smooth working surface. The bobbin worked threads would provide enough of a challenge to quilt around; a good crisp pressing would mash those seam allowances into submission.

A little extra layer of batting was added under the flower centers to give them a little extra oomph. The flowers and leaves were quilted very simply, mostly channel-style to create dimension without competing with the bobbin work for attention.

The real fun came when it was time to quilt the feathers into the nine-patch portion of the quilt. Chalk was used to mark the main spines. The individual feathers and filler vines were quilted without marking. My apologies for the dark picture. The truth is, at this point, I was more concerned with finishing by the deadline than chronicaling the progress!

With almost as much care as dressing my youngest child for his first day of kindergarten, my challenge quilt was gently folded and boxed for its trip to Paducah.

 I see nine-patch blocks as “fives” or “fours”, depending on the color placement. The nine-patches in this quilt were most definately “fives”. Add to that the feather vines and you have the name of the quilt.

My “Five and Vines” will travel with eleven other quilts as a part of the Pilgrim/Roy Challenge for the next year. You can click here to see the challenge quilts from this past year. These quilts are to be auctioned off this month to benefit the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society. This year’s collection can be a part of your local quilt show, just contact  Judy Schwender for more information.

One year from now, at the 2008 AQS Expo & Contest,  ”Five and Vines” and its traveling companions will be up for auction.

To get the design juices flowing I left that wonderful pile of fabric stacked on my worktable. For almost a week I studied the fabric hoping it would tell me what it wanted to be.

Of course I’m not used to being bossed around, especially not by a stack of fabric, no matter how illustrious. From the start I knew that the quilt would have to include applique, and some piecing too. There were some new techniques that I wanted to explore as well.

The design work started by spending some time with Corel, my favorite drawing program. I don’t worry very much about color placement, just shapes and relative sizes. Even the applique placement is approximate at this point. It’s much more fun to play on the fabric. This drawing is just to give me a ball park idea of how many flowers and leaves I’ll need to fill the space alloted. Being a very visual person this process also let’s me try out design ideas before I cut into the fabric.

Once I settle on a design the next step is to create the line drawings for my applique shapes. This time, instead of using freezer paper for my applique templates, Floriani’s Stitch’n Wash Fusible. This marvelous stuff irons on like freezer paper but softens and washes out, a perfect base for bobbin work.

 A trip to my local needlework shop with fabric in hand was next. I settled on a twelve-ply silk floss for the bobbin work. The thread was so thick that it was necessary to totally by-pass the bobbin’s tension, which resulted in a lovely zig zaggy line of stitching. Each petal was bobbin worked before the appliques were stitched together.

After the flowers were all completed it was time to piece the background. I had to do some really careful planning to get all the background pieces out of the fabric provided. I finished with just 3″ of the black left over. Whew! The applique pieces were pinned in place and appliqued in place.

The finished quilt top was pinned to my design wall so that I could consider two things: how to quilt it and what to name it. I’m still looking for a name. any ideas?

Every year twelve well-respected national teachers are invited to take part in a quilt challenge. Each quilter is sent a bundle of fabric to be used to create a wall-hanging-sized quilt that will be auctioned off to benefit the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society in Paducah, KY. These twelve quilts will be part of a traveling exhibit for a year, after which they will return to the museum to be auctioned off during the annual AQS show. If your guild is planning a quilt show you may want to inquire about booking this really cool exhibit.

I first took part in the challenge a couple of years back. It was both exciting and terrifying! My quilt would be hanging along side quilts by some of the most famous quilters in the world! I was horrified at the thought that no one would bid on it. (If only jumping to conclusions was aerobic.) I was greatly relieved to hear that not only did “Hawaiian Punch” sell to a really nice woman from Oregon, it also, according to another teacher who was at the auction, went for a respectible price.

Imagine my delight when I was invited to take part again! Now getting a “squishy” in the mail is cool any day. But getting an envelope full of fabric to make one of these challenge quilts has been one of the highlights of my career. While it’s not necessary to use all of the fabrics sent, no other fabrics may be added into the project. The fabric can’t be altered, either, as in bleaching or dying, and we can’t show the other side of the fabric. (I think calling it the “wrong” side is too judgmental!)

Here’s the stack of fabric. I’ll be working on the quilt for the next couple of weeks. Of course, I’m thinking applique. But I’m also thinking that I’ll have some fun with thread work too. What do you think? Does this pile of fabric excite or frighten you?