THE FINISH LINE

After using this demo for the teaching of the Liberated Quiltmaking unit

to my 2nd year Intermediate 3-D girls,

I actually finished it.

YES!!

A rare occurrence for me as you probably know by now.

This year's class wanted to learn a Ricky Tim's liberated heart.

I had seen Ricky's heart in a national quilt magazine in the late 1990's,

and played with the design several times in the past.

In the early 2000's I actually took 2 courses with him,

both at the Road to California Quilt Show,

and found him to be a self-taught quilting genius

and so much fun to learn from.

In the second class he was selling his colorful tye-dyed fabrics,

so I bought several pieces and taught his heart pattern to my quilting group.

I showed these to my youngsters and they wanted to try it as well.

This year I have 2 groups of Intermediate 3-D kids,

and the 2nd group wanted to learn Gwen Marston's Liberated Houses and Trees.

In the process I also taught both groups Strip Pieced Borders, 

Hand Turned Applique,

Machine & Hand Quilting,

and Hand Tyed Quilting Knots.

I can't wait to show you their results.

They are all so very different.

As always I dedicate these quilts to my current group of seniors who I adore!

It's crazy,

I have at least 10 or more of these demos,

(each year a completely different design),

that I haven't finished.

My to-do list when I retire is getting bigger and bigger.

Ha!

FRIENDSHIP AT XMAS

Over this past Xmas break,

I pushed myself to try and finish a few quilting projects.

I was able to get three done.

In the mid and late 1990's I belonged to two different quilting groups,

one with my cousins,

 and one with a dynamic group of women that I had friended thru my son's sports teams.

A few of these woman had been quilting for years

and I was a newbie to the craft.

I learned a lot from them over the 5 or so years we quilted together.

This is one of two Xmas quilts I finally finished 20 years later.

They both needed tube casings for hanging display purposes

and I was able to go back into my stash and find fabric to work with.

I'm planning on giving this one as a gift next Xmas to my son and his new bride.

There were 8 women in this group,

one coming from as far away as Utah.

Each of us made Xmas themed blocks for the whole group,

including one for ourselves.

Then everyone put them together in different ways.

There were no two the same which I loved.

I wish I had pictures of the others to share.

I loved the challenge of arranging them into a pleasing and balanced design

because each of the blocks were a different scale.

These 3 close-ups were my favorite blocks in the quilt,

made by the three pros in the group.

But sadly after 20 years,

 I can't seem to remember who made which one.

All the quilting techniques were represented;

both hand and machine piecing & quilting,

hand turned applique,

blanket stitch applique,

yo-yos,

as well as many tradition patterns like Log Cabin, Bear Paw and Four & Nine Patches.

To put it all together I had to build several more pieces to fill in spaces.

I did some strip piecing and Gwen Marston trees,

and a couple other made up blocks.

I thoroughly enjoyed the process and the critical thinking involved in balancing the top.

Right up my alley.

Here are the gals in the group on the backside label.

I sent the piece out to be professionally basted and machine quilted

cuz I didn't want to mess it up,

but also because after the designing was done I had kind of lost interest in finishing it.

I wanted to move on to the next quilt design.

However,

I really enjoy putting on the binding edges

 and the meditative process of turning  and hand stitching them down.

1998-2003

Looks like it took me 5 years to put it all together and send it out for quilting

then back to me for the bound edges.

I know,

I'm really slow

and have too many projects going on at the same time,

as well as all the demos I have going on at school.

Currently I'm enrolled in 3 India Flint classes

and completely behind in each.

LOL

WISH FOR LOVE

STRAYS & BEASTS

MY DEMO PIECE

Always so very inspired by Jude Hill's work, 

by the many classes I've taken with her,

and by several pieces I've bought from her over the years,

all Strays & Beasts.

I just knew there was a stray inside of me.

So like I mentioned in yesterday's post,

I changed up the subject in my Liberated Quiltmaking assignment 

so that the kids focused on at least one Beast.

I had absolutely no idea how my stray would look,

if it was going to be a male or female, 

what colors I would use?

So how I started the kids and myself was to choose a donated bag of fabrics

(I have over 40 to choose from).

They are already partially organized by color schemes,

but there are always a few fabrics that don't belong visually,

so we get rid of those first.

I have no idea why I choose this bag,

it just appealed to me.

Kind of Xmas in Springtime I guess.

(Several of the fabrics backsides were used as well)

I had the kids start their beast by making a nine patch with no patterns,

just cut and sew.

They could fussy cut if they wanted to like I did for the birds in my stray.

Then I had them play around with shaping,

and needleturn under their beast shape down upon their foundation.

(I had no pieces large enough for my foundation so I randomly sewed several smaller pieces together,

you can see the seams below)

I saved the face for last cuz I was chicken,

always having a hard time committing.

But not my students, 

they jumped right in.

But I was inspired by Jude & the old necklace piece I found,

so I embroidered several wings,

and a few words,

thus Wish for Love.

Another Jude Hill trick to help the words pop 

was to whip black floss under the original gold stitches.

I braided some really nice barber poled cottons for the tail,

and also used them to make a few pompoms.

I like to save any frayed threads that hang from fabrics,

 especially when they come out of the dryer.

I used many of them in this piece,

coming out of the ears,

under the trees for ground,

and over the moon for atmosphere/cloud cover.

I also thrifted bits of lace, leaf edging & ribbon flowers for balance and interest.

I handquilted the piece in an off white thread which I felt tied it all together.

And for the backing I used a garage sale find,

and old linen calendar kitchen towel from 1985.

That was the year I was looking and wishing for love myself.

I was ready to settle down and have a family.

That was when I also decided to do the face,

 and it was going to be me.  :)

I dedicated this piece to Virginia Pooler,

our beloved Life Science teacher at Whitney and my dear friend.

If it wasn't for her talking me into going with her to get our Master's Degrees

(to raise us up on our teacher's pay scale)

I would have never met my ex husband,

Inars Agrums,

(the love I was wishing for)

and had my two incredible children.

Funny how it's all meant to be.

Gin Pooler is gone now,

but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her,

and thank her for her persistence in getting me to tag along with her.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank both of Gin's children,

(who I had the pleasure of teaching the arts to back in the day at Whitney)

Brock Pooler and Erin Pooler Carpenter,

for their continued & dedicated service to our United States Military.

Both are high ranking officers,

 and their mother would have been so very proud of them.

I know I am.

On July 15th, 

this Friday,

I will be giving this quilt to my daughter for her 22nd Birthday.

And I'll probably make her read this post too,

I think both my children hate how I feature them on my blog,

too bad!!

 LOL

STRAYS & BEASTS

LIBERATED QUILTMAKING

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

scrap fabric, sewing machine & sewing notions

Every year I teach my 2nd year crafts kids to sew on the sewing machine.

They love this unit,

look forward to it,

and end up with a fabulous original art quilt.

And every couple of years I change up the subject matter on these quilts.

I also make a demo. quilt to show the kids all kinds of techniques on ,

so this year I selfishly changed it to Beasts/Strays ala my mentor Jude Hill

of  Spirit Cloth blog fame,

cuz I knew I wanted to make a beast too.

The Liberated Quilting technique comes from Gwen Marston,

whose work and classes I've also been following and taking for over 25 years now.

That means no patterns, 

no rulers,

just cut and sew.  

And in this way everyone makes no mistakes,

it's all good.

I'm so pleased to show off the hard work these kids put into there Strays!

Junior Jaqueline Yu's stray is made from a nine patch she sewed on the machine.

But in this assignment the kids were also required to learn how to needle turn applique,

so Jac appliqued her nine patch onto a base fabric in the shape of her beast.

All the fabrics used in these quilts have been donated to the students 

and it's up to each child to make sure the fabrics flow visually.

Jacqueline based her color scheme primarily on a complimentary yellow/purple scheme

 with some neutrals thrown in.

I like her off center design and how she balanced it with laces,

beads, cording and other goodies,

as well as those stacked fabrics in the upper right corner.

The kids also had to bring in some hand embroidery to the face,

and could hand or machine quilt to pull all 3 layers together.

I believe Jac did machine quilting.

Also required were at least 2 borders and a professional binding,

as well as an appliqued label on the back side.

These adorable strays belong to senior Kristine Luong.

She also chose an off center design and balanced it with the tree and moon.

She did some wonderfully expressive embroidery in the faces,

and I like the frayed fabric at the bottom of her strays. 

The buttons and laces she added are the perfect touch.

Kristine also machine quilted & did a bit of fussy cutting.

And this really fun last one belongs to junior Shreya Sheth.

She titled it Fight and Flight,

and it's oh so clever.

I wish I had a clearer pix of her quilt and the little guy below,

sorry Shreya!

I love that she turned her stray into a Super Hero,

and I also enjoy her complimentary color choices of Red & Greens with the neutrals

and the touch of yellow/golds.

Here is her label on the backside, and you can also see evidence of some handquilting.

And if that wasn't enough,

she wrote some words for the backside as well.

Bravo Shreya,

you really outdid yourself!

The Laarnie and Reis Show

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

LIBERATED QUILTMAKING

featuring juniors Laarnie Barcelon and Reis Misaka

In the Intermediate class the students learn how to use a sewing machine, then go onto making an Art Quilt.  We use Professional Quiltmaker Gwen Marston's book "Liberated Quiltmaking" to work from which basically means using no templates, just free form cutting our edges.  This year we also worked out of Professional Quiltmaker Ricky Tims book "Convergence Quiltmaking".  

As always the quilts turned out delightful, creative and so unique.

First I'd like to show off Reis' extraordinary piece with his design based on Japanese calendar cards that he brought in to reference. 

He handstitched one for each month of the year, and then appliqued them to his liberated foundation.  

Talk about focused and time consuming. 

Here is a close-up below so you can see his attention to detail.

Truly amazing!

Laarnie was really inspired by Ricky Tim's work which is also based on free form cutting, but also on optical illusions.   If you look closely you will see a lot of tricky woven strips running thru the center area. 

Both kids worked from donated fabrics that they had to color co-ordinate for visual flow.

They also learned to machine quilt thru all 3 layers, and to applique a signed and dated label to the backside.

The final step being learning how to make and put on a binding edge, just like the pros.

Fantastic job you two! 

At least 20 years ago I took the funnest quilting class with national quilt artist Gwen Marston who wrote "Liberated Quiltmaking", and I have used her techniques ever after with my 2nd year 3-d art students. First I teach them how to sew on a sewing machine, and then using Gwen's method of allowing no templates to make the pattern with, off we go to create extremely original works of art with cotton fabrics that have been donated to my program. Before the students undertake this assignment, these donated fabric are color coordinated by either me or one of my trusted T.A.'s, and folded neatly and stacked in see-thru bags. These bags are then lotteried off to the kids. It's so much fun to watch the kids fight over some of these bags. At the end of choosing, I pick a bag for myself from the remaining ones. Every year I try to pick a different bag to change things up for myself. The reason I need a bag is because I demo with it as we proceed thru the whole quiltmaking process. So I have to stay one day ahead of the kids. Mighty challenging with my busy teaching schedule, but I somehow just manage it every year. This first quilt was one of my personal favorites in the bunch this year. It was made by one of my top crafts students, senior Brittaney Lee. I love the bag she chose along with her design. And what I was especially impressed with was her quilting design that she top stitched over the pieced top, it was so well thought out. Fabulous work kiddo :)

This next piece was created by junior Nandi Best. She went all out with her design of shooting stars. Hers was the largest made and took the most amount of effort. Phenomenal color choices for a spectacular piece!

A few close ups.

Not to be outdone was this piece made by senior Florence Buendia. The kids learned several patterns; log cabin, flying geese, strip piecing, sewing curves the Ricky Tims' way, and an 8 point star. The other patterns you see like Florence's pinwheel, the kids taught themselves after looking thru many of my quilting books. Can you believe this is their first quilt with the sewing machine?? The kids amaze me every year.

The beauty above was done by senior Albert Choi, one of two boys in this class. Albert has been impressing me all year with his work ethic, craftsmanship and his innate sense of design. Below we have senior Kelsea Lee's sweet landscape. She taught herself the house and the tree patterns from Gwen's book. Way to go Kelsea, your effort on this piece was truly something.

Above we have the work of senior Hilary Chan with her very subtle color choices and sensitive design. Watch out Hilary, I think Suzanne from the office staff wants to buy this from you at Open House, she was drooling over it. LOL And below, senior Vivian Vo log cabined her stars for an eye catching piece.

Junior Carolina Navor, who I've been waiting to come back to me since I had her in 7th grade went all out over her Xmas break to put together this very complex star pattern. Senior Jessica Jay put some subtle curves in and threw in a couple of flying geese for her pretty piece below.

And my other male, a brilliant 9th grade designer, Aman Patel, created this striking design above. And this last, very lovely piece was made by senior Abby Ilagan. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication to this assignment, it really paid off for all you.

For EXTRA CREDIT on a piece of blue paper, cut into the shape of an 8 pointed star (see Abby's stars above) put the name of the person who created your favorite quilt from above. On the other side of the star put your name and period.