A Simply Elegant Border For Your Quilts

This is one of my silk dupioni quilts, "A Mid Summer Night's Dream".  I love this quilt.  It was a joy and challenge to design and stitch all of the appliques. Then to finish it, I created a border using Curvalicious.  I added concentric circles to the border and inside of it is rick rack, embellished with sequins and seed beads. It is an elegant finish.

Using my Curvalicious tool made it pretty easy.

I also used it to add a ice touch to this disappearing 4 patch quilt.

With this quilt, the border comes to a point, or what I call a cat's eye in the corners.

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The look of the corners depends on how the curvalicious border is placed.

If you're like me, usually when I finish making the body of a quilt top, the goal is to be done.  So, I just add a border that fits with the piecing.  The goal is to just get it quilted either myself  or by sending it out to the longarmer.  A light bulb went on one day and I thought about using Curvalicious to create an inner border.  I tried it and it worked!

Adding a Curvalicious border is simple and takes just a bit more time and you end up with an elegant frame for your quilt. You can use it with or without circles and the stitching is done before the border is added to the body of the quilt.  I have been sharing this border tip when I demo at quilt shows and have been asked exactly how I do it.  So I made a video. (That sounds much easier than it really is!)  Click on the arrow to watch.

I hope you find it helpful. 

And if you decide you want to see all the other fun things you can do with Curvalicious, click HERE.

I keep updating the Curvalicious website, www.Curvalicious.net

An Experience and an Experiment

I walk at Ridley Creek State Park almost every morning, when I'm in town, with a very special friend of mine. Today she ditched me for golf with her husband. I wasn't a happy camper, but Bailey and I bit the bullet and walked ourselves. It became a walk in the woods instead of a chat with a friend where we solve all the problems of the world.

Ridley is a wonderful place and we are so lucky to have it in our backyard. Our walk is a 5 mile loop and it has been the inspiration for a few quilts over the years. Many people live it as much as we do. Since no leaves are on the trees yet, there's lots to see.

People like to decorate the trees. At Christmastime, one person puts an ornament on a tree and then others follow suit leading to a very festive tree and a nice surprise each morning to see the new addition.

The trees in wintertime are the perfect models for creating drawings or quilts of trees.

This is my favorite trees in the park. I can't wait each year for the colorful berries.

There are houses in the park. Don't you love this mailbox?

Speaking of houses, it used to be an estate of Mr. Jeffers, who lived in the mansion. I'm guessing the other houses in the park were where some of the workers lived. Some of the houses have been taken care of and some of them have not.

 

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There are lots of old stone houses in this area. I love them and always wanted to own one until I realized the expense of the upkeep and the lack of modern conveniences. So a bunch of years ago, I created my own stone house/farm that I named Willoway- A Folk Art Farm.

It's as close as I will get, and that's OK.

So now to my experiment that has nothing to do with the park. I usually don't wet my silk dupioni quilts, but recently I needed to block one. It was seriously wonky. Unfortunately, some bleeding occurred. I wanted to find out which of the silks ran. I took a square of all of the colors that I own and fused them to a whole piece of cotton.

I wet it and let it dry. Nothing happened! Not one fugitive dye. I figured that was because it dried too quickly. With a quilt, it takes longer to dry because of the batting.

So the next time I wet it, I placed it on a wet towel so that it took a long time to dry. Voila! Bleeding. And it was interesting. It was the beautiful violets and the hot pink. Not the red. These would be fabrics where a red dye would be used along with another color dye. I'm not an expert dyer, but from what I know it could be attributed to striking, or which dye attached to the fabric first.

My next experiment will be to try and remove the excess red dye from the offending silks before I put it in a quilt.

 

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Lost ...... and Found!

This is a quilt I created to tell the story of Alzheimer's. I created it in 2006 as an entry into an exhibit called "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece By Piece" curated by Ami Simms. I made it in memory of my Dad, Leonard Krisel. It was the first time I entered a competition and was beyond thrilled when it was not only accepted along with 49 other quilts, but it was given the #1  position and placed on the cover of the DVD. This quilt exhibition travelled all across the country and was seen by thousands and thousands of people. It was a very unique way to share the facts and stories of Alzheimer's. 

Here's the label on the back:

Here's a detail photo of the arch, that I created with silk dupioni, an organza overlay and beads. 

The leaves on the tree are representative of all of our attributes that we possess as functioning humans. I wrote on the appliquéd silk dupioni leaves with a gold metallic marking pen. 

The first tree depicts my Dad, as fully functioning. As dementia took hold, there were more and more things he couldn't do, until finally he was only a human being, a Father and Grandfather, depicted by the leaves falling off the tree. It's called "Leaving Us".  

I have been thinking about this quilt a lot during my recent talks about quilting with silk this year. This was the first quilt in which I incorporated silk dupioni.  The problem was I thought it was missing. Well, actually, not that I thought it was missing, but I hadn't seen this quilt for about 5 years. There was a point in time where I couldn't find it. I had brought it with me to share with quilt guilds and one day, I couldn't find it to pack it up to bring to the next one. I was almost sure that I didn't leave it some place or that some wayward quilter took it for her own, but I just could not find it. With my lackadaisical attitude, I thought it will show up one day.  But it hadn't for all those years. 

This week I was sorting and putting away all my quilts that I had shlepped to the various guilds that I had visited. I have a closet in my guest room devoted to quilts. Well actually, the entire room is quilt storage. I was trying to put some small boxes on the top shelf of the closet. There was a big plastic bag in the way. My inclination was to power through and shove  it out of the way, but instead I told myself to do it the right way and take the time to take the bag out. As I pulled it off the shelf, there was something rolled up in it.  Could it be? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw little pieces of ribbon sticking out one end. 

Welcome home Dad. 

See You At The Show?

Penn Oaks Quilt Guild is having their bi-annual quilt show this Friday and Saturday. Several of my friends belong to this guild and I am always so impressed with their show. Considering that it is a relatively small guild, their members work their butts off to make it a show that is worthwhile to attend.  This year I am particularly interested in their sewing themed cookies that they are selling in their cafe.  I hope there is one left when I get there on Saturday.

One of their most successful money makers at the show is their small quilt auction.  The quilts measure 18" x 18".  I presented my "Sensational Silk" talk to them this year.  Between the warm reception I received and all of my buddies that are members of this guild, I decided to make  a quilt for it. It will be one of 50!

The fabric is silk dupioni and the raw edge fused applique is hand stitched. 

I have gotten pretty good free motion quilting my swirls in the circles.

I love the combination of the orange and the raspberry silk.  It really vibrates.

I made this mini quilt for their show when I was working on my applique blocks for this quilt:

I am working on the center medallion now.  It will be my handwork for an upcoming trip.

The details for the show can be found HERE. You can see lots of amazing quilts at The Ludwig's Corner Fire House in Glenmoore.  Plus don't forget about the small quilt auction. You can buy some tickets and maybe end up with a beautiful wall hanging for your house, and maybe it will be mine.

Maybe I'll see you there!

Frustration

I just looked at the label on the back of the quilt on which I am working.  September 2014! That is the date that this I one of  bound it.  So why am I still quilting it?

I'm trying to resurrect this beautiful dupioni silk quilt.  I did one of those things you should never do as a quilter and I should have known better.  I went to town on the borders and quilted them verrrry heavily.

That in itself would have been fine except the rest of the quilt was not quilted so heavily.  It has ended up being a puffy, billowy, wonky quilt.  I needed to fix it.  With all the time I have spent designing it, putting it together in sections and quilting it, I couldn't relegate it to the back of the closet.

My solution has been to add more quilting to the body of the quilt.  This has been a painstaking, long term project because of the quilting design.  There have been lots of threads to tie off and I am still tying.

Then I will block it and keep my fingers crossed that it lays flat.  After that I can finally embellish it with buttons and beads and sequins, and share the entire quilt.

My time spent quilting and blogging has slowed due to a wonderful opportunity.  I now get to spend 2 days a week with my 18 month old grandson.When he grabs my hand to take me some place, my heart melts.  The same thing happens when he giggles as Bailey eats the bubbles from his bubble lawn mower.  So I could not resist the circus tent during my visit ti IKEA this week.  What kid doesn't love a tent, especially with a dog trying to eat your snack!

It's also time to announce the winner for my Grey Day Giveaway.  Michele T, claim your prize!