Quilt appraiser and historian Mary Kerr will knock your socks off with her contemporary quilts featuring often overlooked vintage textiles that are usually headed to the scrap heap. With a deep appreciation for those who stitched these orphan blocks, Mary shares tips and tricks for stabilizing and utilizing blocks. Once prepared, the fun of playing with the blocks to create a ‘new’ piece begins. From pillow to wall hanging, the ideas abound.
All this, plus Ricky shares a new rendition of an antique Civil War quilt featuring machine appliqué and an inventive use of the clamshell quilting design. Ricky calls this his ‘fast train to finishville’ method.
Inspired by a Civil War quilt, Ricky gives new life to the antique Sumter Rose block by creating a contemporary rendition wall hanging. The version he demonstrates substitutes an invisible machine blanket stitch for the hand appliqué. He also demos a clamshell quilting design.
We learn about Mary Kerr and her love of vintage textiles. Alex and Ricky take a look at her quilts.
Using the pumpkin seed block, Mary shares tips for evaluating orphan blocks. Once determining the most usable candidates, she shares a pillowcasing technique that stabilizes the block. She shares several placement options and appliqué choices.
Mary also has a collection of ‘seed bags’ (idea bag). These clear bags are filled with fabric/block elements that might work together. She lets the seed bags percolate while she determines their future.
Mary demos a great idea for using a small orphan block to create a pillow. She uses a shirt placket w/ buttons to finish the back of the pillow. The pillow is also a great arena for trying out free-motion quilting while adding a layer of interest and texture.
Mary comes from a family of artists. We see her collection of hand thrown jugs that feature faces.
Judith Baker Montano, our TQS Quilting Legend for 2017, was born in Alberta, CA. After completing a Fine Arts Degree from Chico, CA, she became a mentee of Bill Johnson, illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post. Through trial and error she created her own techniques for crazy quilting that she incorporated into art to wear, as well as other items for stitch enthusiasts to make.
Join Alex and Ricky as Judith gives a tour of her home and studio, which are filled with works of her own and friends. Judith loves exotic pattern, color, and texture and most recently has been working on a series of landscapes based on her personal photos. She also shares some of her techniques for manipulating photos and creating the backgrounds for those landscapes.
In her garden, Judith chats about her home and her multi-cultural family. She comes from a long line of gardeners and never wanted to be a fiber artist. She considers her garden an "English" garden in La Veta, CO, and it has been an inspiration for her photography and art work.
A quilter since 2003, Mel talks about her love of stretching creatively through quilt challenges which push her out of her comfort zone. Some of her quilts include improvisational patchwork. Mel demonstrates a “slice” of improvisational patchwork which involves inserting a secondary strip of fabric into a background block. She shares the infinite “what if” ways to vary this basic idea to create a whole range of fun and unique blocks. Then, using crayon-etched children’s artwork as her inspiration, she shows you her technique for creating modern Mola designs using hand-dyed batiks and commercial prints, again showing a myriad of variations for their use.
In the After Set, we know that Mel loves challenges and that includes Improv comedy. She uses what she has learned doing Improv as a parallel to being present in the moment when it comes to working on a challenging quilt.
Also in this show, Alex puts a new spin on an antique String and Old Maid’s Ramble quilt using contemporary fabrics. It’s a great way to use orphan blocks and is a great baby quilt project.
Along with being a Quilt teacher and Author, Gail is the founder of Hawks Aloft, a rescue organization that cares for and educates the public about birds of prey that can no longer live in the wild due to injuries. Gail brought along three owls to visit the studio. They watched as she shared her method of using a flexible curve ruler, a pencil, and freezer paper to create a free-form drawing for making curved flying geese. She also has tips for eliminating waste when foundation paper piecing and for removing the foundation paper.
Also in this show, Ricky was in Paducah when an antique quilt caught his attention. The quilt featured a variation on an Irish Chain. He breaks down that quilt into workable strip sets and creates an updated contemporary version.
Gail's Pattern, Thunderbirds Rising, was created specfically for The Quilt Show. Click here to purchase.
Judy Ahlborn grew up surrounded by a family of artists. It’s no wonder with her love and of painting, sewing, and computers she ended up with a degree in Textiles and Technology. After her retirement from a career in computer science, she came back to art by creating collage style quilts using software. In this show, Judy uses Photoshop to create background fabric. She then layers it with paint and thread stitching through which she achieves a subtle, translucent quality. She completes the work by adding Peltex and backing fabric. She finishes the edge with a non-traditional binding technique.
In the After Set, Judy demonstrates her other talent as she demonstrates the acrobatics that she keeps up with this day.
And follow along with the TQS cameras as Ricky and Justin share their town of La Veta, Colorado.
Textile artist Michele Sanandajian’s incredible talent was noticed early on by her art college professor. It was with his encouragement that she applied and was accepted to the Parson’s School of Design as a Junior. But, it was due to her desire to learn all of the fundamentals, and probably much to her parent’s dismay, that she began as a Freshman. Bits of dryer sheets, netting for produce, candy wrappers, and scraps of leather make their way onto a surface painted design in a layer-by-layer effect using her Innova longarm. It is this drive and need to push the boundaries of what constitutes a quilt, that make Michele’s collage work and her use of out-of-the-ordinary mediums stand out. Michele is fearless, putting the machine through its paces, with stunning results. Finishing off the work is her hand spun yarn that becomes the edge finish of the quilt.
Then, TQS catches up with Laura Wasilowski in Sisters, OR, to see her new Pretty Planet quilt series and how she binds these unusually shaped quilts.
Watch artist, author, and teacher Deborah Boschert as she explores the possibilities of creating surface design with commercial fabrics. Seeing a need to help students overcome the struggle of getting started, Deborah shares a practical and easy way to self-evaluate your composition throughout the entire design process.
Then quilt historian, curator, and quilt broker Julie Silber takes us on a history lesson via the lives of ordinary women, using quilts from the 1820s to 1950. You don’t want to miss this fun and information packed show.
Join us as multi-prize winner and youngest ever recipient of the of "Master Quilt Award" Bethanne Nemesh, shares her stunning artistry. Known for her inventive use of details, she shares a beaded piping finishing technique that adds that "wow" element and a method for creating machine quilted feathers that requires no backtracking.
And, the TQS camera crew visits the home and studio of Maryland artist Lesley Riley who shares a fabric collage technique for creating your own story in fabric. This tip filled show is not to be missed.
Making quilts for wordsmith Meg Cox is about meaning, importance, and carrying on a tradition. This former Wall Street Journalist accepts the challenge to join Alex and Ricky in making a quilt based on their favorite musical. Each person's work was veiled in secrecy and you will be as surprised as they were by the results. They will share the message, tips, and techniques used to meet the challenge. Lo and behold, one of the three needs a bit of help when it comes to spelling. We won’t spill the beans, you will have to watch to find out the answer.
Always one to use her unique and personal style when it comes to quilting, Allie Aller is back to share a new and updated spin on Stained Glass quilts. But you won’t find any bias tape in this method that easily translates into traditional, landscape, or any other style of quilting. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the variety of design options too. No longer bound by using only cotton, Oh No!, Allie mixes silk, cotton, brocades, and even wool together to create stunning detailed and dimensional results.
We then take you on a journey to North Carolina to learn about Pepper Cory’s love affair with shot cotton and how she is using it to create stunning effects in traditional quilt blocks.
Zentangle master, former cosmetologist, and quilt artist Nysha Oren Nelson enthralls us with his method for incorporating the six elements of marks in his free-motion quilt designs. Using no pre-drawing, this method allows for more organic and spontaneous designs. This might seem scary to most, but his suggestion of working out kinks and problems on practice samples allows you to flush out ideas and design options and thread color before the needle ever touches the fabric. Taking it to an ever more basic level, Nysha’s exercise doodling makes it even more fun.
Self-appointed Queen of Tuffets, Sharyn Cole, shows that these little jewels of eye candy aren’t just for Victorian ladies of yore. Personalizing is what it’s all about. From blue jeans and ties to high school sport shirts, there’s a creative tuffet for every type of recipient.
TQS takes you on a trip to the majestic California Redwoods region to meet quilt artist Pat Durbin. Pat’s love of flora and fauna, combined with husband Gary’s photos, provide the perfect inspiration for her quilt work. Driven by the desire to streamline the mosaic quilt process, Pat shares her technique which includes adding detail and depth through the use of quilting and threadwork. Another way of approaching a project is to paint a design, using an enlarged stencil tracing of a photograph, before adding the details with quilting and free-motion thread work. Bailey the Schnauzer goes from photo to realism right before your eyes.
The show concludes with a tour by Ben Brown of The Clarke Historical Museum. Along with an extensive collection of baskets by Native American tribes in the Humboldt area, he shares the handmade 1865 quilt presented to President Ulysses S. Grant in honor of his time stationed at Fort Humboldt during the 1850s. Sit back and enjoy this California slice of heaven.
Joen Wolfrom has been fascinated with and studied the magic of color for over four decades. Armed with this knowledge, she lets you in on the secrets of how color works and why some don’t seem to play well with others. Joen also shares tips for using color to create depth in your landscape work.
Then, April Sproule shares ideas for reinventing clothing that is ‘so last decade’ into stunning pieces of wearable art using stenciling and embellishment. It will have you look at your old wardrobe in a whole new light.
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Thank you, Mary Kerr.
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