Lemon Tree Tales

Fractured Quilt is Finally Finished

Yes, you have read that right ... my Fractured quilt that I began when we lived in Wyoming way back in November 2013 was finally finished in March. Yay!

I decided to call it Fractured Cool Tones since I used mostly my favorite colors of teals and aquas with some pops of chartreuse and magenta. It hung up at our local quilt guild's show a few months ago. We're so lucky that one of the members has designed extra tall quilt display rods for those few extra large quilts. This one measures 83" x 95" so it's a bit of a beast. But even at that size it's not 100% big enough to cover our queen sized bed. It doesn't help that we have one of those horrible pillow top mattresses which I'm more than ready to toss to the curb. I couldn't wait to get it on the bed since this is our very first hand made quilt for us to actually use as opposed to a few wall quilts here and there. It's such a nice feeling to be able to use it that I'm thinking of what would be next. 

The pattern is from Kathy Doughty's book called Making Quilts with Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession. It's a fun and easy to sew design that is inspired by a quilt that Pam Rocco of Santa Cruz has made. What's funny is that when I began this quilt back in 2013 I had no idea who Pam was. But once we moved back home to the bay area, I joined the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild (SBAMQG) that meets in Santa Cruz where Pam is an active member. We've become friends so I feel quite fortunate to have come full circle on this quilt.

The quilting is called Modern Undulations by Anita Shackelford that I quilted using my APQS Freddie longarm with the IntelliQuilter computer system. I wanted the quilt to be extra warm so the quilting is a bit super sized and the batting is Quilter's Dream Cotton Deluxe batting. Thread is So Fine 50 wt by Superior Threads.

 

 

When I first put it on the bed it looked a bit lonely. Something was missing. After a few trips to Ross and Target the quilt sparkled even more. Now I love my master bedroom! All it needs now is some type of artwork to go above the bed .. or perhaps above the nightstands? Putting in the extra pillows helps to hide the bedroom set which isn't my favorite. They suddenly make a hand me down work beautifully.

 

 

Quilt Details

Quilt Pattern: Fractured by Kathy Doughty

Quilting Design: Modern Undulations by Anita Shackelford

Pieced and Quilted: by Tami Levin

Batting: Quilter's Dream Cotton Deluxe

Thread: So Fine 50wt by Superior Threads

Size: 83" x 95"

 

Fabrics for Fractured Quilt

Fractured Quilt Beginnings

Fractured Quilt Progress

Fractured Quilt Top is Finished

Fractured Quilt Top is Finished

Yesterday I went to the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild's sew day in Santa Cruz. My only project that I wanted to work on was to finish piecing together the Fractured quilt top. After a few hours it was done! Looking back at my Instagram feed I see that I first began pulling fabrics for this project in late November 2013. I began cutting them out in December. 

The first blocks were pieced in January 2014 and slowly month by month more were done. This of course was when we were spending time in Cheyenne, WY. By the time that we had moved back home to CA I only had half of the blocks done.

The blocks sat in a box for a few years while I worked on other things in addition to starting up my longarm quilting business, The Quilted Lemon. But this past March I decided that I just needed to get back to this quilt. A few more blocks at a time and finally they were all pieced. Here you can see Fiona examining them up close as I played with the final layout.

The quilt pattern is called Fractured and is found in Kathy Doughty's book Making Quilts. Now I get to ponder whether I'll piece a backing for it or buy a wideback. But that'll be another day. Right now I'm just pleased as punch to have the top finally finished.

QuiltCon 2016: Class and Lecture

Since this was my first time attending QuiltCon I didn't want to overextend myself. I only signed up for one six-hour class on Thursday and one lecture on Friday so that I could spend most of Friday looking at the quilts and visiting the vendors. We spent Wednesday and Saturday visiting friends and family so I knew that I'd have to make every minute count.

I took Krista Withers' class on Compositional Quilting. Wow, that was a fantastic class. We learned how to mix and match a variety of straight line quilting with some free-motion quilting. It's a nice way to fill up quilts that have a lot of negative space while creating a "path" across the quilt. Krista is very sweet and had a lot to teach us. One of the best things I learned, besides the actual class, was the concept that we don't have to be perfect, that we should just quilt it and look at the entire quilt.

Here's some of Krista's samples that she brought for us to look at. Amazing!

Susan of QuiltFabrication, also from Sunnyvale and a member of the Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association (SCVQA), was kind enough to save me a spot at a longarm in front of the room. We had fun taking turns at the longarm quilting. I'm afraid that I was a bit too long on it after lunch and Susan didn't get the very last bit of her practice piece done. But it seems like we both learned a lot.

Here's what I did during the six hours .. keep in mind that we were using a machine with the stitch regulator turned off. And with the exception of the circles (which I need more practice using those circle rulers), the straight lines were all done free hand. Now I'm super excited to continue practicing this technique. But first my longarm needs a bit of TLC because it's not wanting to stitch R to L without shredding the thread. I'm guessing that it's just ever so slightly out of time. Luckily I ran into Dave the longarm man at the show. He's going to be in my area this week so I'm taking advantage of that to get my machine tuned up. Yay!

UPDATE: Dave Make It Sew of Rancho Cucamonga was in the area so he was able to fix my machine. It turns out that it didn't need any timing, just to have a needle gouge lightly sanded off the exterior of the bobbin race assembly. I guess at some point when I first got the longarm I didn't install the needle all the way in. Oops! But the good news is that I'm now able to go back and forth in straight or curved lines from L to R and then R to L without any thread shredding or breaks. I'm ecstatic and now can't wait to practice some more of this Compositional Quilting style.
 

The lecture that I took was moderated by Anne Sullivan who used to be a member of the SBAMQG in Santa Cruz before she left us to move across the entire country. Can you tell that our guild misses her? At any rate she had a lecture panel on how to get your creative mojo back when it's disappeared. Designers Anna Maria Horner and Jennifer Sampou as well as Elaine Theirault of Northcott spoke about what to do in that case. One of the things that I most remember is that we need to work with our hands, to just make. The other thing was to take inspiration from everywhere. The final thing is that AMH is a hoot! All four were such inspiring creatives ... it was worth taking the time out to listen to it. Next time I'll try to make time for a couple more lectures. I do wish that I had been able to be at the show on the weekend so that I could find out about Gwen Marston and the special lecture about Molly Upton's quilts. I've heard that they were both fantastic. Perhaps the MQG will post them up on their site later this year?

Okay, the other fantastic thing about the lecture ... do you notice the charity quilt on the right? Well that's the one that my guild the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild made. When we first got to the convention center we were wondering where in the world our little quilt was. So nice to see it up on stage. The one on the left was made by the LA guild. So we were both representing California.

QuiltCon 2016

It's been a week since we drove back from our trip down south to LA so that I could attend my first ever QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA. Wow, was it overwhelming, but in an oh so good way. The actual size of the show is smaller than PIQF here in Santa Clara. Usually I'd go to that show 3 1/2 of the 4 days it was open but I was only able to attend two QuiltCon days. Oddly enough I was more worn out by those two days than the ones spent at PIQF. I wonder if it had to do with the intense emotional involvement at QuiltCon?

The first day started out right when I ran into the lovely Chelsea from one of my guilds, SBAMQG. She helped me get my registration (and a swag bag!) so that I wouldn't be late to my class with Krista Withers, Compositional Quilting. That deserves its own post so let me just say that I was very happy.

On Friday my mom picked me up so that we could have breakfast and go to the show together. (At this point I really hadn't gone walking through the show hall because Thursday's class was a six-hour one.) There were so many quilts that I ooh'd and ahh'd over. And most of them were quite original and refreshing to see. Of course it was thrilling to see my two quilts in the show, Putting on the Glitz and Songs of a Distant Lancaster.

 

But I was also incredibly happy to see that my client and guild member from the SBAMQG, Mickey Beebe, had earned a first place ribbon for the EZ Triangle Challenge for her quilt entitled Eichler Homes. When I quilted it for her she requested that all the rectangles surrounding the mid-century houses be left unquilted so that she could add her own touch. What she added just made the quilt in my opinion. Two of the houses have TV antennae and the rest are silhouetted in a thick black quilting stitch. Congratulations Mickey!!!

And Mickey's quilt was one of the featured quilts in the banners outside of the Pasadena Convention Center where this year's QuiltCon was held. Sweet!

My mom and I stopped at Sew Modern's cute booth with vintage trailer. We also stopped at APQS so that we could quilt hands on to one of their charity quilts. My mom did really well. Perhaps we can convince her to try out quilting again?
 

 

These are just a few of the quilts that caught my eye.

From top to bottom: A Kiss for Paul by Tricia Royal quilted by Frank Palmer, Pine Burr Quilt by Tara Faughnan, Scrappy Side Trip by Leslie Tucker Jenison, Under the Radar by Corrine Savey, Mountain Sunrise by Anne Sullivan quilted by Tami Levin

 

The other big thing about the show is that it's equally about the social connections. I was running into guild members from the Bay Area from the three different guilds that I belong to, both modern and traditional. The camaraderie shown by modern quilters is something to behold. Perhaps it's because we tend to be more connected on social media so we are especially pleased to see people in person? At any rate it was a wonderful feeling. Even my mom remarked on how different the vibe was at QuiltCon than when she accompanied me to Road 2 California in Ontario, CA just a month before.

Speaking of connections, I finally met Kathy Mack in real life. She and I started our blogs within a month of each other because we wanted to join online swaps. We were in one together, Back Tack III, and she was my partner so she sent me a cute stuffed cat plus a few emails traded back and forth over the next couple years. It was really fantastic to meet her because she's just as sweet as can be.

And a special shout out to a very kind Christina Cameli, who kept my mom company while I was in Anne Sullivan's Friday noon lecture. My mom was also being a fantastic sport about the show since she's not a quilter. At one point she commented that all the quilts seemed very modern and not like the ones her grandmothers had. I guess that I forgot to explain that it was a show by the Modern Quilt Guild but I think that speaks to how well they curated the quilts that it immediately shouted "modern."

I loved the entire experience and hope to attend another QuiltCon in the future. I wonder where the 2018 west coast venue will be? Is it Pasadena again or will they find somewhere in the Pacific Northwest?

I took a chance and entered two quilts into QuiltCon

Just a month ago, on November 30th, I was frantically completing the online entry forms for two quilts to go to QuiltCon 2016. This will be the third show that they've put on, the first one on the West Coast in Pasadena. But it's also going to be the very first time that I'm able to attend it as well as the first time that I entered quilts for consideration of being in the show. Now I'm still not sure that I'm really a modern quilter, or just someone who appreciates the modern aesthetic in addition to the traditional history of quilting. Seeing as how I received fabric from Michael Miller for their fabric challenge and part of that challenge was to commit to entering the challenge quilt into QuiltCon, I felt that there was no choice but to take a chance. And seeing that the $30 entry fee allowed up to three quilts, well I couldn't enter just the challenge quilt, could I? But what other quilt did I have that would have a shot? Well there was the one that I made for the Modern Amish exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles the other year. After that it was just time to sit back and wait for the news. The stats showed 1810 entries for just over 300 quilt spaces. Oy, not great odds at all.

In mid December the emails went out. Wonder of wonders but I managed to have both of the quilts selected to hang in the show. Wow! I'm beyond excited and so very honored.

Here's the Amish inspired quilt, called Songs of a Distant Lancaster (thanks to my husband for helping me name it). It's all solid and is semi-improv, meaning that I had a basic idea of what to do but then just cut and pieced the fabric as I went, no measurements made prior to that. The quilting was done by me on my computerized longarm and is a design called Modern Serpentine by Anita Shakelford. I tweaked it a bit so that there would be variations of spacing between the serpentine lines. Part of me thinks that this was the perfect year to enter that quilt since Gwen Marston is the keynote speaker. Her work has a lot of inspiration from Amish quilts and is quite colorful.

Photo by Carol Van Zandt

 

The Michael Miller fabric challenge quilt, called Putting on the Glitz (not a really novel name for the quilt, I know). The challenge fabrics were black and white solids with either gold or silver metallic geometrics, dots and orange peels and the line was called Glitz. The rules stated that you could use a coordinate Michael Miller fabric (any of their solids) in the body of the quilt and any Michael Miller fabric, print or solid, for the binding and backing. That presented a bit of a problem as I could find only a couple solids at the local shops. A friend of mine and I decided to order solids online to get free shipping. After many sketches of an Art Deco flavored design, I finally opted to do something a bit more simple and on point. Once again the quilting was done by me on my computerized longarm. This time I branched out of my comfort zone. After doing the corner triangles with the assistance of the robotics, I pulled out the ruler and did a bit of ruler-work and some free-motion quilting in the on point squares. I still need to practice FMQ on the longarm but had so much fun working on this. There's a spot in the family room, where Freddie the longarm lives, that will be perfect for this little quilt to hang up.

It's very exciting that they made it to the show especially since I've seen the absolutely gorgeous quilts that are part of the IG hashtag, #quiltconreject. Do yourself a favor and spend some time looking at them. I know that many of these quilts will show up at different quilt shows. It makes me wonder whether there was a bit of a mix-up when I got my email. But then I just shake my head, smile and realize that I should count my blessings instead. Lesson learned, sometimes you have to go out on a limb and take chances. You just never know when you'll be rewarded.

PIQF 2015: Part 3

This was the first year that PIQF opted to have a modern quilt category. The theme was "Mid-Century Modern" and had quite a few wonderful quilts.

Color Crystals by Vicki Ruebel ... this one had lovely machine quilting on it and won a green ribbon for Honorable Mention in the Modern Category.

Keep It Simple by Jodi Robinson ... This won a ribbon for Best Longarm Machine Quilting Workmanship in the Modern category. I LOVED the circle in the square quilting. (The second picture was blown out by the flash but it is indeed the darker grey of the first picture.)

Grandpa's Model Twenty #1 by Jodi Robinson ... This one won a ribbon for Best Modern Theme. I can really see this one hanging up in a lovely Eichler home. The quilting adds another dimension to the graphic design.

 

Churn Dash Boogie-Woogie by Mickey Beebe ... Mickey won a ribbon for Best Use of Color in the Modern category. She's also a member of one of the Modern Quilt Guilds that I belong to and is super sweet in person.

 

These are by no means the only quilts that I enjoyed seeing at the show this year. There were other favorites (gorgeous quilting, incredible color and fabric choices) and quite a few quilts by local quilt artists that I know. But these are just a teaser of the beauties that were on display. Maybe next time you can attend the show as well.

PIQF 2015: Part 2

Here's a few more pictures of amazing artwork from PIQF 2015 this past October. Of course I'm drawn to rich colors first of all. Then I'm blown away by the workmanship. The two quilts are both by talented German artist, Claudia Pfeil, who is incredible at machine quilting. She does teach classes and perhaps one day I'll be fortunate to take one of them. And the 3-D figurative art is by Susan Else who uses batiks to make artwork with interesting messages. It was nice to see the works of these artists in person as I've been admiring them in magazines for a while.

Fern Rising by Claudia Pfeil ... This was the Best of Show winner at PIQF. It's so hard to photograph because there were many heat set Swarovski crystals attached to the quilt. I'm a bit of a magpie because all that glitters will attract my attention in a flash.

 

Paradox by Claudia Pfeil ... This one won Best Longarm Machine Quilting award. It too has a lot of crystals in addition to metallic threads and beautiful silk fabrics. Just gorgeous!

 

When Ponies Dream by Susan Else ... If you look closely you'll realize that the "horses" on the merry-go-round are really people that are being ridden by the ponies. This was powered by a battery operated merry-go-round so an additional piece of whimsy to the artwork. All of Susan's pieces at the show made me smile.

PIQF 2015: Part 1

A few weekends ago I went to the Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) held at the Santa Clara Convention Center here in California. As usual it was amazing. There were many wonderful quilts from local quilters to international quilters. The first day I went for most of the day to look at all the quilts and to glance at the vendors. The next day I met up with two friends to walk the show and spend most of the time looking at the vendors. I didn't do too much damage ... just more thread for my longarm business. Then I came back the third day to volunteer as a white glove lady for one of my guilds. I probably would have gone back the last day but there was a football game and I didn't want to brave the traffic. (The convention center is across the street from the 49ers stadium.)

I didn't take as many photos this year but I'll share a few of my favorites with you. These ones are all about the animals.

Song of the Sea by Kathy McNeil ... I LOVE art deco artwork and that of Alphonse Mucha that was the inspiration for this one. Kathy won a blue ribbon for Best Use of Color.

The Quilt with the Dragon Tattoo by Nancy Arseneault ... I remember reading about this quilt on one of the longarm quilting forums. Nancy made it as a thank you gift for her husband's tattoo artist. What a gift!

Lizard Dance by Lyn Axelson ... The 3-D lizards are wonderful on this quilt. It looks like there are a mix of beads and beaded embellishments as well as those gorgeous textiles.

Chloe by Carole Olsen ... I thought this sweet little frenchie was adorable. One of these days I should make a cairn terrier quilt of my three dogs.

Road Trip to Oregon

A couple weeks ago we packed up the dogs and took a road trip to Redmond, Oregon. It was nice to get away for a few days so that we could meet up with the dogs' breeder and other friends. This time we planned ahead and signed up both Fearghus and Fiona for lure coursing. The day that we tried it was hot, super hot. 100 degrees and higher. 

Lure coursing is basically a for fun only AKC event. Three white plastic garbage bags are tied to a cable line that is run through a motorized pulley system. If it goes well then the dog is supposed to chase alongside the bags until the end. A new friend, who owns Fiona's littermate Derby (who's also Frankie's dad) took this video of Fiona's turn. You'll want to have the volume on for the full effect. She screamed like a banshee the entire time that she was running.

 

#fiona the #cairnterriers tried out #lurecoursing for the first time. She was very fast! The temps were hot 100 degrees so they shortened the course from 300' to 200'. Fiona was ready to keep going. Fearghus also did it but we didn't get video of his turn. Of course that means that we also don't have a record of him running away three times! The last time he was in a crate and broke it open when he heard the lures going.

A video posted by Tami Levin (@lemontreetami) on Jun 27, 2015 at 10:29pm PDT

Fearghus also did well until it came time to retrieving him. He took it upon himself to go walk-about. Now this is set in an open field on a grass field at the fairgrounds. After merrily leading me on a chase he came back to Steve. I ran back and had my hand on his collar trying to attach the leash. Of course the next dog's turn came and Fearghus slipped my grasp and took off running. Finally we got him back. This time we put him in Fiona's dog crate while I sat down and tried to catch my breath. Remember that it was 100+ degrees, right? 

As I'm sitting there they ran the lure course again and all of a sudden everyone's yelling that there's a dog loose. I look up and say "Oh, it's a cairn." Then I happen to look down and see the open door on the crate. "Oh no, it's Fearghus!" I handed off Fiona to the closest person and then jumped up to catch him for the third time. Of course I'm beyond embarrassed at this point. Luckily I caught him and promptly took him to Steve to hold in the air conditioned car .. with windows up and locks engaged. There would be no fourth Houdini act.

The following morning we took Fiona to try out the Barn Hunt. That was fun. This was another just for fun event. The area is fenced off and had hay bales making little areas. There are three perforated tubes "hidden" among the hay bales. One is empty, a second has rat bedding in it and the third one has a live rat in it. (I was told by the organizer of the event that all the rats had a frozen teething ring in its tube to keep them cool.) Your dog has to determine which tube has the live rat in it. And you, as the handler, have to know when your dog has made that determination and signal the judge. Of course Fiona found the rat right away but I wasn't sure so I had her take a second look at the other tubes before I was sure and yelled "Rat!" We managed to do it just under the 1 minute time limit. That was fun and we'll definitely look up more Barn Hunt events in the future. After all, terriers are bred for hunting vermin. Fiona only wishes that she were allowed to actually chase and kill the rat like she occasionally does in our backyard.

A mossy tree at a nearby rest stop. I thought the colors were pretty.

Redmond's very interesting statue. Apparently the area near Redmond and Bend is a big tourist attraction. People fly into the local airport so that they can go fishing, hunting or skiing in the winter. We did see how crowded the towns can get. Luckily we were staying in the RV park at the fairgrounds and didn't have to deal with local traffic too much. It is a beautiful piece of country .. high desert. Hopefully the next time it won't be quite as hot.

We did enjoy the cairn terrier gathering at a friend's house. They are semi-retired breeders who host a large potluck every year. This time we had about 30 cairn terriers there. Most of them were related to each other. We played with Frankie's dad and saw two of his brothers from other litters. Fearghus and Frankie had a lot of fun but poor Fiona is the smallest terrier so she's a bit shy with other dogs. She slipped through the wood slats on the deck so that she could stay next to me and all the other humans.

All in all it was a delightful get-away and we look forward to doing it again next year.

A Quilt for Mary Lou

I belong to a yahoo group of quilters who love the work of Mary Lou Weidman. She does these amazing colorful and playful story quilts and teaches others to make them as well. Recently Mary Lou was diagnosed with breast cancer so our little group thought that it'd be fun to make her a bra quilt to cheer her up as she recovers.

We all made bra blocks (some were paper pieced and others were appliqued but all were colorful!) and mailed them to off to Carol. She took the time to piece them together and add three delightful borders. Then Carol mailed them to me for the quilting. I was tickled to see the backing fabric that she included. It was the perfect choice! We thought that adding little 5" squares of red or pink fabrics with thoughts/prayers/quotes and signatures of the makers would be good. There were just enough to piece them into a pixel heart.

Pieced heart before quilting

 

Carol also included the black/white polka dot binding, already cut/pieced/folded and ready for sewing. Wasn't she a doll?!

Now for the quilting part of it. There were quite a few 3-D elements on the quilt that couldn't be removed for the quilting process - beads, ruffles, etc. Three buttons were safety pinned on by Carol who had removed them to piece the top together so those weren't an issue. So rather than using the IQ to stitch out a digital panto, I had to FMQ the quilt. As I went along it became easier and easier to do.

The big border has piano keys. These were also hand guided sans rulers. For the most part they're pretty straight. My APQS Freddie long arm has the Bliss table so that it moves very smoothly. If you barely touch it it wants to go in a straight line, either horizontally or vertically. After I was done I discovered a better way to do the corners so I'll keep that in mind for the next quilt.

The medium border has what I called looped triangles but I just saw them in Angela Walters' book Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters and she calls them wishbones. Again I found out a way to do the corners a bit more smoothly after the fact. And finally the thinnest borders were filled with pearls, or more accurately, pebbles. These were very fun to do and once again, they got better with practice.

The bra blocks had loop de loops for the backgrounds with an occasional heart stitched in. Not every block has one but there are quite a few. The bras themselves were first outline stitched and then a "necklace" of various sizes of loops or fringe were stitched. I figured that this would enhance the bras while giving them some quilting. The only variations were the few bras that were very different. For example, I quilted around the construction men and their faces. (Why would you quilt over them?) And the fussy cut bra was quilted around the elements.

This picture shows the borders and the background quilting on the bra blocks. This was taken after I had washed the quilt so the cotton batting (Quilter's Dream Deluxe cotton) had shrunk a bit and became all crinkly.

Sandi's bra block after it was quilted and washed. Do you see the fringed/loop necklace quilting?

I used the freezer paper method to applique my two bra blocks, shown here. Then I used a tiny zig zag stitch on my sewing machine to attach them.

 

 

Lately I've been experimenting with doing a full float on quilts on the frame. It seems to work out well so that's what I did with the bra quilt. The thread was a pale pink 50 weight Superior Threads So Fine for both top and bobbin. It blended in very well with the backing fabric and was thin enough that it didn't stand out too much on all the bright colors of the top.

Finally, one of the signature blocks was forgotten until after the quilting began. So I pieced some pink polka dot fabrics to make it a bit bigger. There was leftover backing fabric and binding so those were pieced to make a back for a pillow. Now it's the perfect accent pillow to go with such a cheerful quilt.

Here's hoping that Mary Lou recovers quickly. She's such a cheerful, happy and generous soul. By tomorrow she should be resting under the silliest quilt that we could think of .. many, many bras of all shapes and sizes. Cheers Mary Lou!