Show 1513 - Mary Mashuta & Roberta Horton - TQS Quilting Legends 2014

Posts On: December 22, 2014

We’re doubly excited to announce our quilting legend for 2014 . . . because there are two of them! Join us as we visit the charming 1915 Craftsman bungalow that is home to renowned quiltmakers, teachers, authors, and twin sisters Roberta Horton and Mary Mashuta. Although they share many interests, each has her own workspace and unique approach to the art and craft of quiltmaking - and we get to sample both. First Mary reveals her newest passion - Sashiko by machine - demonstrating how to break down and adapt a complex hand-stitching design for machine stitching. Then Roberta shares her process for creating your own fabric album using cherished family photos, from choosing suitable images to transferring, sewing, and embellishing them. Two dynamic legends, tons of fabulous quilts, great techniques . . . what better way to wrap up another year of fun and learning with TQS?

Show 1512 - Enhance Your Quilting "Menu" with Hand Embroidery

Posts On: December 8, 2014

Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore, CA provides the setting for our visit with art quilter (and popular healthy-lifestyle blogger) Debby Schnabel. Debby, who lives in a 650 sq. ft. cabin in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, enjoys exploring new themes by working in a series, and then embellishing her pieces with hand embroidery. You’ll love her tips on fabric selection and threads, her fusible-free techniques for applying circles (a favorite motif), and discovering how she incorporates a variety of embroidery stitches into her work. Then come along for a field visit with Denver-area quilter Laurie Hill Gibb who decided, upon celebrating a landmark birthday, to take a year-long quilting journey across the US . . . by herself!

Show 1511 - Make it Marvelous with Museum-Quality Appliqué

Posts On: November 24, 2014

Quilter, lecturer, teacher, and “Dear Jane” aficionado Laura Fraga is passionate about hand appliqué, and in this info-packed episode she shares some of her favorite tools, techniques, and tips for making templates, achieving the perfect invisible stitch, coping with tricky points, and creating flawless circles. (She also recently took up skateboarding, and manages to get Ricky “on the board.” You won’t want to miss this!) We finish by chatting with museum director Christine Jeffers, who gives us a tour of our taping location, the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles, the first of its kind in the US to focus on quilts and textiles.

Show 1509 - Seeing Red: Ramp Up Your Redwork!

Posts On: October 27, 2014

Texas quiltmaker, embroiderer, businesswoman, and teacher Rosie de Leon-McCrady began collecting redwork while on road trips with her mother-in-law, an avid quilter and appraiser. In this episode, Rosie discusses the history of redwork, and shares examples of pieces that she has both collected and designed. Next, she covers the tools you'll need, demonstrates the three basic redwork stitches, and reveals how to update your work by introducing "the unexpected" in color and fabric. We also tour the famous San Antonio River Walk and the historic Drury Plaza Hotel, the latter with its stunning Art Deco architecture and stained glass details. Tons of inspiration here!

Show 1508 - Working with Intention: Expand Your Skills with Prayer Flags

Posts On: October 13, 2014

Explore new techniques—and have lots of fun!—as mixed-media textile artist Valerie C. White reveals the pleasures and rewards of creating prayer flags from leftover fabric scraps. Valerie, one of 44 artists invited by the Historical Society Museum in Washington, DC, to create a quilt celebrating the 2008 election of Barack Obama, shows how she produces her thoughtfully constructed little (5" x 11") artworks, and shares ideas for enhancing them with hand and machine stitching, paint sticks, watercolor pencils, and markers. Then we switch gears for a field visit with busy Oregon quilter Elizabeth Hartman. Elizabeth—known for her clean modern style, use of bright color, and masterful handling of negative space, demos her favorite technique for making pieced letters.

Show 1507 - 21st-Century Paper Piecing: Explore Hexies with a "Hexpert"

Posts On: September 29, 2014

We discovered the work of award-winning "hexpert" Cheryl See while taping our 2012 Legend Show (Episode 1113) with Meredith Schroeder at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY. Fasten your seatbelt! Cheryl launches English paper piecing into the 21st century, and you'll be amazed by her quilts: each incorporates a little "secret" or two that draws you in for a closer look. In this episode, taped at the Drury Plaza Hotel in San Antonio, TX, Cheryl shares loads of tips for making precise and perfect hexies and diamonds, and then shows a number of clever and versatile 3-D projects for trying her techniques without committing to a huge project. Finally, we corral radio personality Pat Sloan in Portland, OR, where she shares some of her quilts and demos how to do an appliqué running stitch by hand.

Show 1506 - Two Amazing Women and the Power of Quilting

Posts On: September 15, 2014

Prepare to be inspired! In 2008, during a dark period in her life, artist Lisa Sipes was encouraged by her mom to give quilting a try—and a passionate new quilter was born. Now a well-regarded professional longarm artist who loves detailed work, Lisa shares fun ways to add visual and textural interest to a wholecloth quilt with a variety of stitches and colored threads. She also shows how she creates her signature "triple stitch" and alternative ways to finish the edges of your quilt. We end by visiting with the amazing and inspirational Nola Emerie, who—after suffering a massive stroke at age 52 that paralyzed the right side of her body—decided to take up quilting. You won’t want to miss this.

Show 1505 - East Meets West: Season Your Quilts with a Japanese Flavor

Posts On: August 31, 2014

We return to the Witte Museum in San Antonio, TX, to meet Priscilla Knoble, a "lover of all things fiber-related" who grew up the daughter of missionaries in Japan. As a quilter familiar with the Japanese design aesthetic and fluent in the language, Priscilla emerged as the obvious (authorized) choice to translate, publish, and distribute the books of renowned Japanese quilt artist Yoko Saito. Priscilla discusses the subtle, but surprisingly complex Japanese taupe color palate, shares images from the Tokyo International Quilt Show, and then demonstrates some of Yoko's favorite tools and techniques, including how to create and hand appliqué teeny tiny bias stems, design an original House block, and stitch a fully-lined inside pocket.

Show 1504 - Make it Special with Machine Embroidery

Posts On: August 18, 2014

Alex and Ricky welcome artist and author Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero (Episode 507) back to the TQS studio for a look at some of her newest work, which marries machine embroidery with her trademark Kaleidoscope designs. Jeanie, a former software engineer for Hewlett-Packard, explains how to select an image, print it on fabric, transform it into a unique design using her Kaleidoscope Kreator program, and then enhance it with machine embroidery. In addition, Connie Fanders, Director of Education for BERNINA USA, shows a quick-and-easy way to make a rag quilt (and more) using your serger.

Show 1503 - Quilting without Limits: Using Unconventional Fabrics in Your Work

Posts On: August 4, 2014

While in high school, award-winning quilt artist Jerry Granata made costumes for the National Marionette Company—an experience that taught him that no fabric is off limits, even for quilting. The trick is in knowing how to tame it, and in this show, Jerry reveals the huge variety of unusual fabrics available to quilters (think leather, lamé, fake fur, upholstery), where to find them, which to use when, how to prepare them, work with them, and even quilt them. We wrap with a tour of our day's location, The Witte Museum in San Antonio, TX, where Jerry—for 21 years a professional musician with the United States Navy—provides the soundtrack on his RED saxophone.

Show 1502 - Small Pieces, Big Impact

Posts On: July 21, 2014

Canadian quiltmaker, teacher, and author Mary Elizabeth Kinch drops by the studio to share her love for antique quilts and how she recreates them full-size with tiny pieces and reproduction fabrics. Mary Elizabeth, founder of the SPA (Small Piece Aficionado) Society, demonstrates how to tame those tiny pieces from template stage to finished block, incorporating lots of fabric and hand-piecing tips along the way. Then Alex travels to Washington County, Oregon, for a chat with textile artist Terry Grant, in which we get a glimpse at Terry's latest art quilts . . . featuring "upcycled" men’s shirts!

Show 1501 - Discover Sensational Surface Design

Posts On: July 7, 2014

We launch Series 1500 with a visit to the Texas studio of artist, instructor, and author Jane Dunnewold, well known for the one-of-a-kind fabrics she creates with printing, dyeing, resist, and other manipulations. In this episode, Jane discusses the meaning of surface design, and shows how she transfers a black-and-white copyright-free image to prepared for dye (PFD) silk, which she then embellishes with watercolor pencils and needle felting. You'll love our tour of her wet/dry studios, a delightful blend of old and new. Finally, Jane, who uses a hula hoop as a preventative for back problems, coaxes Alex and Ricky to give this childhood classic a try it. An informative—and fun—start to a new season!