Alex and Ricky are back in Iowa with Kim Eichler-Messmer. A fiber professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kim shares tips for eco-friendly dyeing using organic materials and then moves on from that to improv piecing with her serger (including some tips for working with lamé).
Judy Martin also joins in the fun by sharing a myriad of possibilities when working with Lone Star blocks.
Watch Kim and Judy in Show 2411 when it debuts Sunday, May 19, 2019.
Teresa Coates loves a challenge. She approached Shannon Fabrics as she was up for working with their wide and diverse range of unusual fabrics. Currently she is their Events/Education coordinator, but, she still loves designing her own quilts as well. In this show, Teresa gives you tips for working with Minky-type fabrics and shows you how an entire quilt can be made in about three hours.
Also in this show, Ricky shares how he makes his Dancing Squares quilt.
Watch Teresa, and learn about Shannon Fabrics, in Show 2410when it debuts Sunday, May 5, 2019.
Alex and Ricky are joined on the set by Christa Watson, who talks about her passion for machine quilting. In this show, she shares her tips for working with pre-cuts, and, not one to waste fabric, also shares a way to make improv blocks. Christa also demonstrates how easy it is to quilt some of her favorite free motion motifs. Then, Bill Volckening is back to share quilts that are antiques, but speak very much to Modernism.
Watch Christa and Bill in Show 2409 when it debuts Sunday, April 21, 2019.
Alex and Ricky greet Heidi Kaisand, a former editor of American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine. Heidi loves working with wool and shares a fun and contemporary wool circles on flannel-covered canvas project. Heidi also demonstrates simple embroidery stitches.
Then, meet Linzee Kull McCray. Writer and photographer for craft, art, and textile publications, Linzee shares the fascinating history of feed sacks and examples of some of the fabrics, advertisements, and wonderful items made using feed sack fabrics. She also shares a fun string piece quilt and talks about how to keep the chaos of prints from becoming overwhelming.
Ricky and Alex meet MJ Kinman. A corporate job at a Fortune 100 company kept her busy, but it was quilting that tugged at MJ's heart. In 1991, an advertising mailer featuring a gem captured her imagination. She wanted to see if it was possible to create a gem using fabrics.
MJ has designed a freezer paper technique pattern based on the 12 birth-month gemstones. She shares tips on working with the pattern and shows examples of gems that include different color combinations.
In order to replicate the colors and fire in gemstones, MJ had to learn how to paint her own fabrics. She shows Ricky how fun and easy it is to paint your own cotton sateen fabric. After discussing tools, it's on to adding paint to create blending and movement of color (the perfect fabric for gemstones).
We wrap up the show with a Tour of the Iowa Quilt Museum. Iowa Quilt Museum Director, Megan Barrett, shares the history of this gem in Winterset, IA, that opened its doors in May 2016.
Watch MJ in Show 2407 when it debuts Sunday, March 24, 2019.
Alex and Ricky are joined on the set by Heidi Proffetty. A master of mosaic quilts, Heidi moved from hand cutting her shapes to using a digital cutter. This allows her to blend her own photographic images into an art quilt. Heidi demonstrates the ins and outs of digital cutting, discusses SAQA Mentorship, and talks about beekeeping, which has become a family hobby.
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