Beth Ferrier’s Blog

The Minnesota State Guild quilt show is behind us. It is astonishing to me what a fanstastic show these volunteers put together every year. The quilts in the show were amazing and inspiring. A few yards of gorgeous hand-dyed fabric and some terrific thread found its way into my luggage to join my stash.

Once again I was blessed with wonderful students who arrived at class ready to learn, and more importantly, ready to have fun. Like a dork, I forgot to take pictures. What can I say? I was busy teaching! That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

I did come to my senses at the very end of the Hand Applique by Machine class. I have to admit it, this is my favorite workshop to teach. I love how excited students get when they see that, yes, they really can create beautiful applique quickly and easily.

One of my favorite parts of the technique is that it is so flexible. The applique is almost done before the background fabric is needed. That makes it fun to rearrange the shapes to your heart’s content.

  All of these designs started with the very same templates. Too much, fun, huh?

Some folks enjoyed using exciting fabrics for the background too. I love that! It’s so inspiring to see how individual fabric choices make for such unique flowers.

 It was a lovely, giggly day. Many thanks to the wonderful organizers of the show and many thanks to the terrific students who came with open minds and hearts.

The next step in the fabric design process is to refine the drawings. There are lots of factors to be considered when preparing a design for the printing process.

Things like the scale, the size of the design, are pretty straightforward. We also need to determine the layout. For example, should the design be scattered (random or orderly?), or patterned (grid, drop grid, diagonal, horizontal). What spacing between the designs is best. Even the background around the design is open to discussion. At left is my original.

It took us about two months to hammer out the designs. Some days emails would furiously fly back and forth. Sometimes it was days between updates.

Mostly I was giggly and thrilled with the outcome. Occasionally I would find myself pacing the studio trying to figure out a nice way to say, ah, oh, that sucks! But far and away my suggestions and the graphic designer’s talent came together to create a fantastic design! Here is a look at how the design has changed with the help of a fabric designer.

When I design a quilt I am mostly working in grayscale. I think that color clouds the issue. A good design should work with any style of fabric, from neon brights to the dark and dirty primitives. When designing the fabric patterns I worked exactly the same way. The colors were just placeholders, and once the patterns were nailed down the next step is choosing the colors.

I’ve spent the weekend pinning, placing, pondering and then replacing the applique on Ribbon & Blooms. Getting the colors balanced around the quilt is a tough job, enough to make a grown quilter weep. Good thing I had family and garden to distract me.

Once the house was quiet again this morning (and the laundry was spinning so I’ll have something to wear in Minnesota this week) I took the parts of the quilt out to the lawn to get the big picture.

 When I design a quilt I usually have a pretty good idea of what it’s going to look like in the end. I see it in my mind’s eye before I start pulling fabric. Often along the way, though, the hundreds of small decisions get me to worrying. Too much red? (As if!) Leaves too small? What was I thinking with all those berries?

It’s both a joy and a relief to lay out the parts and want to clap my hands with glee! The sashing fabric is just dark enough, the soft white backgrounds will sparkle. My birds look charming, not silly, that’s a relief. And instead of needing more, using one quarter of the intended number of berries ended up to be the best choice of all. (The bright pink squares are post-it notes to keep track of where that piece goes when it’s time to stitch it all together. I hate having to remember what it was that I was thinking.)

So, while I stitch away, first at the applique and then piecing the parts together, I will now turn my mind towards the quilting design. One of these days I will do a traditional grid around the applique. Is this the quilt that needs it? What would you do?

Finally, a moment to think. This spring has been very eventful, but more on that another time.

We’ve basted our flowers, docked and then sewn them together. They are resting comforatbly waiting for the next step: the leaves.

After some consideration I decided that it would be easier to baste the center seam on the “B” half. The curve is pretty shallow and will hardly need but a clip, maybe two to help it lie flat. So after all of the pieces were trimmed to their seam allowances, that’s exactly what I did. The next step was to dock them all together.

 To get those really sharp points on the leaves that we appliquists so admire the next step required that I “miter” the seam allowance across the central seam. I fiddled around a bit to see if it would work better to miter them all and let the glue dry before basting the edge. I decided that working while the miter was wet gave me more control of the point, letting me fudge, nudge and mash as each leaf required.

 So, one by one, the outer edges were basted. It was a nice spring day, I was working on the patio, my summer office, listening to the birds and the burble of the little koi pond. I was almost sad when the last leaf was done.

 But the next step is to sew the halves together. Can’t be sad long when there is sewing involved! All that is left of the applique are the ribbons and the birds. I’ve decided that my ribbons will be blue, what color will yours be?