Archive for the ‘marbled fabrics’ Category

SOLD!

We’ve been almost missing the holiday season this year, but we finally have enough of our lives together again to offer gift baskets of marbled goodies. The top is a basket from a year ago; the new pics will follow. These baskets contain:

• a hand-wrapped fabric bowl, good for all kinds of uses around the house (and perfect for regifting!);
• a fat quarter of marbled fabric;
• two 8 x 8  swatches of marbled fabric for piecing or applique;
• six 6 x 9 swatches  of marbled fabric for piecing or applique;
• five pieces of hand-marbled satin/nylon ribbon in two lengths;
• 4 note cards with digital marbled designs;
• a coupon for a FREE table-runner pattern for the fat quarter or other material (sent to you as a PDF);
• a coupon for 10% off any sampler package from the website;
• two notions of our choice; and
• hand-marbled leaves and flowers.

For your viewing pleasure –

So you want one……email me. Baskets are $50.00 – a $75.oo retail value, shipping is USPS Priority, $16.00. We can custom, but our time is short…..If you want to order one beside this one (they are all one-of-a-kind)- and want it by Christmas, December 10th is the LATEST!! Domestic orders only. OR….plan now for birthdays and Mother’s Day!

Ya, dis ist goot….been a productive week and today started off fabulously with coffee with another artist in fiber who LOVED out work and will pass on a bunch of connections to galleries within the New England area. Joining Surface Design Association, as they seem to be making inroads in getting fiber shown in NE. Plus a new quilt shop in town, so I have already been by to show a sample of free-motion quilting to see about teaching some classes. And….lots to do this week.

Also, and probably most important, the studio is about ready…well, we’ve already started doing work, even though there are still a lot of loose ends and things to get put away. I am almost through ironing the rest of my fabric stash, which is each of our moves has always been our wrapping. But this time, after so long….I was caressing each piece and apologizing for it being in the dark for so long. NO MORE MOVES! They will carry us out of here! Now for this week I need to start a list of fiber projects, with a couple of deadlines coming up this year. Then I can prioritize and get started.

Thanks to Shutterfly I’m been getting prints of our digital work for great prices, and A.C. Moore (our Ben Franklin’s and alternative to Michaels) for frames. Plus, it occurred to us as we were sorting through artwork that we can reuse some of the frames for work we no longer hang on our walls.

Also this past week, two digital marbling pieces hanging in a local bookstore as part of Essex Art League outreach, framing photos for solo show next August, and attended Williston Craft Fair – small but extremely well-attended, and folks were buying. We’re interested in partnering with someone next year and putting in our fabric bowls filled with marbling fabrics and sewing notions. to that end, Hancock Fabrics had a dynamite sale on sewing notions, so we did an order in preparation for next season. Hubby stocked the Etsy store again, so take a look.

A good week all around. Now for this week:

list of projects for sewing, etc.;

finish organizing studio;

check deadlines for quilts for birthdays (Whip, Gavin);

review fiber art calls from Feedly;

start on quilting commissioned baby quilt; and

update the Facebook page, as well as other online sites.

Good to go this week.

We will be in Cottonwood, Arizona the end of October at Quilter’s Quarters – a really great quilt shop! We’re teaching two marbling classes – beginning and advanced, and two free motion quilting classes, also beginning and advanced. Contact Quilter’s Quarters for more information!

Beginning Marbling

4 hours, $50.00 class fee, supply fee $25.00

            (minimum 5 students, maximum 10)

            Learn the ancient art of marbling by creating cotton fabrics using traditional marbling patterns. You will learn 5 basic patterns (stone, freeform, chevron, nonpareil, bouquet) and create pieces of marbled cotton suitable for a small sampler. This class is an overview of the process, using existing supplies, with fabric that is already prepared for you.

Supply Fee: $25.00

1/3 yard pima cotton, 1yard Offray ribbon, carrageenan, alum, paints, combs, brushes,  drying racks, soda ash, pins, toothpicks

Student Needs to Supply:

cookie tray or roaster pan (at least 10 inches in width, and a half-inch in depth),

sheets of newspaper (no color) for drying fabric, notebook for notes and diagrams, ruler  and pencil, rags/paper towels, small plastic tub for carrying wet fabrics,   gloves

Wear old clothes!

 

Advanced Marbling

4 hours, $40.00  class fee, supply fee $25.00         

(minimum 5 students, maximum 10)

Learn the recipes needed for the carrageenan bath and pretreatments. Make the combs and rakes you will to marble any time you wish. Learn advanced marbling patterns (wave, clamshell, wing, feathers, cable, fountain, cascade) and experiment with paint and pattern on cotton and silk.

Supply Fee: $25.00

1/2 yard pima cotton, carrageenan, alum, 1/2 yard 10 mm silk, paints, combs, brushes, drying racks, soda ash, balsa wood, popsicle sticks, box cutter, awl

Student Needs to Supply:

cookie tray or roaster pan (at least 10 inches in width, and a half-inch in depth),

sheets of newspaper (no color) for drying fabric, notebook for notes and diagrams, ruler  and pencil, rags/paper towels, small plastic tub for carrying wet fabrics, gloves, masking tape (at least 1 inch wide, wider is better), Elmer’s glue, straight pins and/or t-pins (no glass heads), rubber bands

Wear old clothes!

 

Beginning Free Motion Quilting

4 hours, $40.00

Now what? Your quilt top is done…send it out or quilt it yourself? You can free-motion your own quilt top, no fancy domestic or long-arm machine needed! You CAN do it all yourself – it just takes some practice! From thread choice, basic supplies, setting up your machine, to learning basic FMQ patterns, you will learn the happy sounds of your machine as you practice five basic patterns on a fat-quarter sandwich: straight lines (without a ruler or sewing foot), various size stipples, pebbles, and a leaf/vine shape.

You supply:

sewing machine in working order, ability to lower feed dogs, instruction manual

free-motion (or darning) foot

#80 or 90 machine needles

a selection of threads, from “old and cheap” to “fancy and expensive”

low-loft cotton batting in fat quarter size

4 fat quarters, one for the top and one for the bottom of two quilt sandwiches (not  fancy fabrics, just for practice, and muslin is fine)

scissors

scrap paper and pencil or pen

marking tools (fabric marker or chalk)

optional: finished quilt top for design ideas

optional: a machine extension table

 

Moving Ahead with Your FMQ Skills – Creating a Whole Cloth Quilt

8 hours, $80.00 (1 hour break for lunch)

The sewing machine is working, and you’ve started stippling away on your quilt top, but you’re getting bored. Now is the time for new free motion quilting patterns. Yes – you can do feathers…and spirals…and gridded patterns…and leaves and grapes…and cathedral windows. Once you’ve practiced these now patterns, you will create a small whole cloth quilt, showcasing your skills. Experiment with bobbin work, and create a stencil of your own.

You supply:

sewing machine in working order, ability to lower feed dogs

free-motion (or darning) foot

#80 or 90 machine needles

a selection of threads, from “old and cheap” to “fancy and expensive”

low-loft cotton batting in fat quarter size

4 fat quarters, one for the top and one for the bottom of two quilt sandwiches (not fancy fabrics, just for practice, and muslin is fine)

scissors, mat, rotary cutter, and ruler

scrap paper and pencil or pen

marking tools

a “top” for your whole cloth quilt, at least FQ size, but larger if you desire; choose a fabric that can add texture to your design but not overwhelm it

batting and backing for your whole quilt

optional: a machine extension table

 

I belong to the online group Art Quilts Around the World, and we have just posted our last challenge, Out of Asia. My piece came out really well, and we pick it up from the framer tomorrow. It just had to be stretched and matted, and if it comes out like we think, it will be spectacular. Here’s the story behind “Ode to Hokusai: DragonFlight.”

This was an interesting challenge. I knew the fabric I wanted to use almost immediately the topic was announced. This was a piece of cotton lame’ that we marbled about 10 years ago. It read Asian to me as soon as I rinsed it out, and it went into the “save” pile for some time in the future for when I could figure out what to do with it. I have done a couple of pieces of cotton lame’, one  of which is on the website – green cotton lame’ called Rainforest. I wanted to do more, because of the properties of lame’, but is seems in the last ten years that formulas have changed, and there seem to be a lot more additives to the fabric. My last attempt at lame’ didn’t work well at all……

So this is the piece that sat on the design wall for six weeks.

 I knew I couldn’t cut it, even though it is slightly smaller on one side and larger on the other from our group sizes. I just couldn’t cut it………so I figured I would just quilt the lines to accent the wave, reminiscent of “The Great Wave” by Hokusai – one of those pieces of artwork I easily recognize every time I see it. It’s almost like I planned that wave, when the whole piece really was an experimentation with a different comb (literally, a small hair comb for teasing the hair).

So I started on the center section, figuring I wold just accent the lines of that wave. Normally I would have pulled out black silk thread, since I really just wanted texture, but the dark green (Silk Kimono by Superior) kept calling my name. It is so subtle, but what it did was soften the black in the design – which I liked. Who knew? And with the light on it – it’s perfect.

I loved it when it was done – so much of a great wave, you could almost match it up with the master! So I kept looking at it and pondering where I would go from there……how much more would get quilted?

Serendipity struck, in the form of hubby the other marbling artist…who took one look and said, “I thought you were doing a wave? This is an amazing dragon. ” From then on the dragon was the overall image I saw every time I looked at the piece, so I just had to listen and figure out the next steps.

There is some very light blue within the colors, so I chose a blue silk Kimono thread to accent the blue, sort of like glistening dragon wings (too much Anne McCaffrey and Pern….). Then I wanted to do more quilting in the background to accent the idea of flight, so I went with a pale orange silk Kimono, just for wind and/or wave ripples. I ripped out a few lines because it just seemed like too much. Finally I just said “done,” because it seemed to have everything it needed. It is at Michaels right now getting stretched on foam core and a 2-inch black mat, as it said “I want to be framed.”

Above all, I listen…..

You can see other fabulous pieces here.

 

 

This is my blog post for the “carnival” theme for Art Quilts Around the World.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this piece. I made the fabric the beginning of January, and so it sat until two weeks ago. I had an idea of what I wanted to do – free motion along the design. Here’s the initial fabric.

In the past when I have quilted through the design on the marbled fabric, I always have been really pleased with the results. This time not so much. I evidently have learned a huge amount about focal points and movement within a piece. I did two quilting motifs; the first one was a basic outline to enhance the flow of the marbled pattern.

I liked this, bit I realized it needed more definition. It seemed boring. So I tried increasing the quilting around the nonpareil portion of the pattern.

Once that was completed, I was even more dissatisfied, so I tried a bit of a free motion “feather” along side each part of the pattern. DID. NOT. LIKE. IT.
So it sat for a week while I pondered, talked it over with hubby, and tried to think it through. I guess that’s why it’s called a challenge, which I definitely need to push me further. So I decided I would need to cut it up…………..which I’ve never done before…………………….

It automatically started looking a lot more interesting. I finished the pattern pieces and liked the finished result.

I then had to think about how it was going to go together. I had all these separate pieces and had to think how to best connect them and make it an element of the overall design. At this point it seems kind of like a stained glass window, so I auditioned thin fabric strips for the leading. I figured I could use fusible on the back of the strips. Not a single color worked. Every strip looked like it had just been stuck there and wasn’t an integrated part of the design.

I have always liked the effect of satin stitch, so I tried a bit on a piece of left-over quilting. Dark green Superior Brites gave it just what I needed. Fitting the pieces together was a bit of a challenge, but…..all those years of watching This Old House made me realize I could scribe the pieces to get the circle measurement for the center. I outlined all the sating stitch and border with some Superior Razzle Dazzle, trying out some bobbin work for the first time. It definitely sparkles in the sun.

And – best part – the piece now had a story to it. I have always imagined that Mardi Gras was one long assault on color, looking out a hotel window at all the revelers. I thought of my Cousin Barbara Jean, who as a first responder was taking care of others during Katrina and had to start over herself. Two of my cyber friends, Victoria and Anne, have very fond memories of New Orleans, and I thought of them as I finished this off. From these three folks, I hope I have some idea of the carnival aspect of Mardi Gras. Cousin Barb, this is for you.

Thoughts of NOLA – for Cousin Barb, Victoria, and Anne

Why can’t I stay caught up on my blog reading? Which I really enjoy, and I get so many cool ideas, but then other things get in the way, and I get behind, and then I feel bad….of well, just delete the 75 items from Rachel Maddow and the 138 from Al Jazeera and move on from there…….

Marbling in the big tray this morning – and tomorrow morning – first time in over 2 years we’ve done really large pieces. We have orders for some, and when the Martha Stewart article breaks, we will be (hopefully) doing a lot of ribbon pieces. We’ve had to totally reconfigure almost everything in the house to make this work. The studio is changed around, the sewing table was totally cleaned off and reconfigured, so we could move the machine easily and set marbling combs on the table. The ironing board holds all the paint. The set tub in the garage works nicely – hot water on demand (unlike the rest of the house…). We’ve got the drying racks in the garage until we are done, and then the fabric goes into the dryer. The Kitchen counters are cleaned to hold the small table ironing board for quick wrinkly pressing. My table I do my school work on is cleaned off for a cutting boards now…and hubby woke up realizing he needed a LOT more carrageenan for tomorrow’s session. The idea being if we’re going through all this, let’s get the most use out of the session as we can…….But everything is working really well.

I watch Project Runway, and most times I have no idea what I would do with the challenge….except last night as we were watching the unconventional challenge, I had ideas….for the hardware. A really cute metallic vest. Hmmmm…..what does that say about my design sense?

I hate commercials – they’re just so…so….commercial. We don’t need that stuff. Too much conspicuous consumption. That said, I am buying a new sewing machine tomorrow, a Brother, with 90 decorative stitches and a basic alphabet….for less than $200, because I am waiting until it is on special. I started sewing on my mom’s 1000-pound Singer, bought a sewing machine within the first week of landing on Maui for my first teaching gig, left it with the drama department when I moved to Vermont, bought a Singer with “stretch” stitches that I passed to my mother-in-law, who sold loads of doll clothes for the grandkids. I bought a “computerized” Singer machine that had a lot of bells and whistles, and on which I made my husband’s first – and only – leisure suit. Twelve years ago I bought my Bernina workhorse 1008, and a used Bernina serger, and ended up selling the last two machines in a yard sale. I LOVE my Bernina workhorse, but it has extremely limited decorative stitches. My work with the marbled fabrics is taking me in another direction, and this is about all I can afford at this point, so, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, I will “make it work.” Phew……

I do tend to believe in conspiracy theories – you will never convince me there was not another shooter on the grassy knoll. That said, I’m wondering about the Pope. I think there’s huge amounts of back-stories on him that are just now being hinted at. Dan Brown could have another interesting “Angels and Demons” if he wants. I want to know how the Hitler Youth played into his background. Granted, the church teaches about forgiveness, but inquiring minds….and just what is the Italian government after? The Catholic church will never be able to do enough to wipe away the stain of sexual abuse…..well, maybe making a woman pope would do it…….

I told you I would be rambling. Each time I take a break from the marbling process and sit here, something else is floating through my head…….

I seem to be falling behind on lists and blogs, and yet I am getting stuff accomplished. I finished a whole cloth fmq as a commission for a friend, and it turned out wonderfully. I have three other pieces backed and ready for the machine. The website has the ordering page done for the ribbons, I am staying up with college algebra teaching, and yet I don’t feel organized. I am meeting deadlines – two books in the works with some of our work, for example. But I am bogged down mentally. Part I am sure is not being back at yoga on a regular basis, and not getting the home practice of yoga back to daily. Too much sugar is definitely affecting moods. I want to travel – and I don’t want to have to wait until July to take off. Lately I seem to be really missing Hawaii – and New England, although not the snow and cold. Evidently I just need to “go with the flow,” as I am getting things done…..but the damn Autumn pattern is still not complete……………………………………

Trying to get caught up on all the endless marketing things to do…..I took a look at the Etsy store and updated what was needed, pinned a bunch of fabrics (until Pinterest wouldn’t take them), tweeted them, and renewed a few expired listings. Most of the Etsy work has been turned over to hubby. Now we need to increase our sales!

Also got some pins and tweets up regarding ebay, so we will see the difference in hits and if there are any sales. When I do this on ebay, I usually tweet half the items so I can see the difference in traffic and if it leads directly to sales.

The crunch is on to prepare for StashFest at the La Conner Quilt Museum in April – we are marbling more, and we will soon get into gear for twice a week. We plan to set up our really large tray in mid-February for larger pieces and special orders (we have a couple in the pipeline).

Fabric of the Month of January is up on the website, as well as a special offer for subscribers in the newsletter. We’ll see if this leads to some sales.

With the end of the month on Thursday, I am curious to see just how I did on my list of goals for January. I know there are a couple I won’t get to, but maybe……I will have a lot of time on Wednesday and Thursday, so maybe……

Upcoming: 2 potential book deadlines, where our fabric creations will join others; Martha Stewart Weddings mag to hit the stands with our ribbons spotlighted; possible licensing in the works with some of our patterns…and that’s just through March.

How’s your marketing going?

Wow. I have written 800 blog posts since I started some years ago…..January of 2007. I figured I’d keep the blog just for posting with the Photoshop class I was taking, but I’ve come to really enjoy writing and reflecting. Like a diary, which I could never seem to do when I was younger. But now I can look back, see how my art has grown, reflect on different pieces. It is amusing to see some of the very beginning Photoshop pieces: I was pretty thrilled with that first attempt….little did I know what I still needed to learn about layers!

This next taught me a lot about luminescence, even though I didn’t know it at the time!

I really liked the examples I first posted some 6 years ago. I look at tyhem now and see that part of why I liked them was that they really showed some of the principles of design. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I’ve also been able to document a lot of our marbling through the web page, and I do need to do more of that, since we are building our audience significantly. That said, here’s a look at just one of the pieces we turned out on Tuesday this week.

Putting the layers of paint on the carrageenan size:

Starting the pattern with our personally-made “high tech” tools:

The nonpareil pattern – a very traditional pattern created after about four previous steps:

Looking at the pattern from the back side, after the fabric (on orange Kona cotton) had been laid on the size:

Here it is from the front:

It’s been a good week!

Yes, I am finishing things, some of which I can’t show yet, but I do have an “oldie but goodie” from the far past, from at least 25 years ago…….this is an afghan I made of a teacher colleague for her first child. She sent me a picture a few weeks ago, and I can picture exactly where I was in Phoenix making this little bear. The bear has now been passed on to a grand-child, so it’s good to know Bear won’t be lonely. I didn’t have a picture of this, as it was WAY before I started documenting my work. So thanks, Ann, for sending him along to me!

Also completed and never photographed (and needs to go under “early quilts” on the website) is my purple quilt – a really original title. This quilt happened in several stages. First, I did the basic blocks as part of a different quilt I was trying to design. There were 9 blocks, 5 of one design and 4 of another. Probably five years after originally making the blocks, I sashed them and then added a very geometric print for a border. This was the first time I actually started mixing some prints with the marbled fabrics. I did some beading, but I probably need to go back and re-do because I certainly didn’t do the beading well. What I particularly like is the secondary design in the blocks, where the marbled fabric actually looks like it is swirling.

Another completed project – the dresser scarf for hubby, based on what I’m learning in the Craftsy class with Cindy Needham. I may decide to take the serged edging off and replace it with binding to eliminate the curl on the edges. But it has been a great practice piece. Now I need to finish mine…….

I love how the cathedral window quilting works with the hand-dyed fabric.

This next is a work in progress, a type of self-portrait, but my own distinct version of it. Think of “marbled end pages of a book.” More to come the end of January……

This is a snapshot of a quilt completed for a customer, where the quilter did this A.MA.ZING. quilting. I can only hope to aspire to this level of free motion quilting….from Green Fairy Quilting. You have to check out the blog and see all the close-ups……drooling…….

So it’s Monday, and I am slowly recovering from a bad couple of weeks. It’s been busy with family stuff, none of it pleasant, and a lot of creativity and art-making has been non-existent. I have been sleeping a lot, and unfortunately my appetite is seriously out of whack. I’ve done a lot of reading, because there is no effort involved there.

But as of today I think I might be surfacing. When we were marbling last week, I had some new ideas for marketing fabric for the start of the new year, so at least I started thinking in the right direction. I also have a new commission for the spring, work for StashFest at La Conner in April, and – our big news – marbled ribbon that will be featured in Martha Stewart Weddings in the March issue. I delayed saying anything until we knew it was absolutely definite, and today we confirmed all the final details for the magazine. We marbled lots of ribbon that will evidently be used for boutineers (and a few other things) in their issue. So that is really exciting. There will be a link on the front page of the website in February  with all the details.

There are a few loose ends in finishing up the website, the patterns….so I am slowly getting back into lists and accomplishing items. At the same time I signed up for two Craftsy classes. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Cindy Needham class, and I have been trying a lot of ideas on the one dresser scarf I am working on. I also signed up for Jane Dunnewold’s dyeing class, and hopefully I will start some of that in January. It is so hard to believe that December is more than half over. Since September, the days just have seemed to fly away.

On a final note, I am glad I wasn’t teaching today and having to answer questions about the shootings at Sandy Hook. I don’t think the majority of the population realizes just how much of a “first responder” teachers are. We have to answer the questions sometimes way before the parents….and sometimes when the parents won’t. September 11 was horrible all around. January 8 in Tucson – that Monday morning was draining, and then when the Westboro Baptist folk said they were coming….well, trying to deal with teenage brains that aren’t ready to make rationale decisions, it was a week that took way too long to recover any type of normalcy of operating. We have to have this discussion about guns. I am not saying ban the guns. That’s unrealistic. But stricter regulation would go along way, much like we do with automobiles, licensing, driver’s tests. I just can’t stand seeing anyone else die needlessly, especially little children.

 

CYBER MONDAY – 50% off all fabrics, 20% off all artwork in our Etsy shop.

Cyber Monday is tomorrow, and I think I am ready…Etsy is loaded with fabrics, and I have a few more art pieces to get listed this evening. In the meantime, my mind is going to the last couple of days and what I am learning about trying to take advantage of this gift-buying weekend. I did a blog post for Handmadeology about getting ready, but it never made it up in time, so here’s what I was thinking about preparing for Black Friday and ensuing Madness:

Get Ready –

1. Send a newsletter, even if you haven’t sent one at all, or it’s early for your next newsletter. Ours is going out a week early, several days before Thanksgiving with the holiday specials. We did this – haven’t checked stats yet because I’m waiting for the end of Cyber Monday. The sales pitch for all three sales was at the bottom of a pretty newsy newsletter….maybe it needs to be on the top, but I feel uncomfortable with that.

2. Decide on your specials. Internet marketing shows folks love deep discounts and/or free shipping. This latter is usually the easiest for us, but be sure to specify if it is continental US or some other limited range. Black Friday was 20% off anything on the website, plus spend $40 and receive a free pattern. Saturday was free domestic shipping off the website. Nothing Sunday, but I will change that for next year, as that’s what I saw a lot of retailers doing. Sunday will be 50% off any fabrics on Etsy, and 20% off artwork on Etsy. Have not seen a spike in visits.

3. Have products ready for shipping. Check for : care codes, package supplies, postage scale (we finally bought ours today), custom slips, tracking slips, padded envelopes – anything you can think of that you will need for shipping. Think about various combinations of items you could sell and be prepared. All of this is set. We do carry-over from other events, and we pretty much have this down.

4. Check website, blog, Etsy store, Redbubble – any place you have product to sell. Are the sites ready? Prices set? Postage listed? Pictures up? Any descriptions need to be changed? Discounts added? Interesting comment from a website visitor – why no pictures by the samplers? I added a rationale about two years ago, but now I think I need to come up with something that closes the sale.

Get Set –

1.  Make sure your Friday and Monday are available for taking online orders. Printer ink? Paper? Not a problem – ready to go for tomorrow.

2. Consider sending a brief reminder newsletter on Friday morning reminding your subscribers about the sales. Consider doing the same reminder for Monday. Been using Promotesy to send out reminders on Sunday for Monday. Need to think about “how much is too much.”

3. Have blog posts ready to go announcing your sales Run one on Thursday evening, and then run one Sunday night for Cyber Monday. Did this for Thursday and Friday, and this is the one for Sunday night. Cyber Monday is already to go.

4. Have something on your website announcing your sales. Have a link directly to your products to make shopping easier. Did this (for the first time) on the front page of the website, with links.

Go –

1. Send confirmations of orders and give customers an estimated shipping time. Done.

2. Send out a brief email when you ship to let buyers know their package is on the way. Thank them again. Done.

3. Wrap carefully. Check Paypal for confirmed addresses, and if not confirmed, email to be sure the address is correct. Done.

4. Consider giving a small percentage of your profits to a nonprofit for the holiday. eQuilter has done that successfully – over one million dollars donated. We’ll be way under that, but it’s a very good feeling. Once we know a total, the check is going to Tucson’s Ben’s Bells, a nonprofit representing kindness.

CYBER MONDAY – 50% off all fabrics, 20% off all artwork in our Etsy shop.

WHAT’S ON SALE TODAY

Here’s what’s on sale at Marble-T Design TODAY only. Sale ends at 11:59 PM Mountain time. Add some marbled fabrics to your stash, to your new projects, or give to a friend.

EVERYTHING on our website, including art work, on sale at 20% off. Spend $40.00 and receive our Table Runner Pattern FREE! After your order clears, we will email you the PDF of the pattern. Our website page is here. Orders placed will take two weeks to complete. If you would prefer not using our shopping cart, just send us an email with what you would like, and we will invoice you via Paypal.

A busy week, no question about it! Since we are leaving for a few days away and up in Sedona, I had a long list of things that needed to be finished before we left. I’m happy to say I got it ALL done….as well as start the list for next weekend! Cannot stay idle – too many projects to do!

First up is part of an order we really can’t say too much about, but we sent off a load of marbled ribbons to Manhattan for a magazine shoot coming up. When we can say more, we will….it’s pretty cool…..

And…as part of the ongoing table runner project for my second mom, I finished the last of the 5 table runners and delivered it in time for set-up for Thanksgiving. I am finished with old white polyester, but the runners did work out beautifully. This last one was really hard on the eyes, so I only did three motifs, rather than the five. I extended the size by making the connecting pieces wider, and then I went to town on feathers. Love doing feathers, especially since I never figured I’d ever be able to do them. This was the one delivered in June.

This is the last of the five.

And…I finished the makeover of my Christmas quilt.  I learned a great deal. I still have to work at the trapunto, but my goal with this makeover was to get the star blocks to be the prominent feature of the quilt. I did three kinds of stippling, from micro to very large. And I did bobbin work for the first time, using the Razzle Dazzle thread from Superior. I picked up a small Christmas tree stencil, traced it on the back (and learned I need some new markers), and then quilted with the front facing down on the machine. It worked really well and I love the effect. I am planning to add a few beads as tree ornaments when I get a chance. I did a lot of machine quilting on the marbled centers of the stars, on the nonpareil pattern. I can tell I have definitely done a lot of machine quilting this year, because it was far easier to follow the pattern than it has been in the past. I now understand what quilters mean when they say “pedal to the metal,” as I was  very speedy with the tiny and medium stippling. I also tried a new pattern in the border and it was moderately successful. Again, fast speed, and from a distance you really can’t tell that a lot of it is uneven. I liked the pattern. Here she be:

Lots of work redoing the website – looking at old pictures, seeing how far we have come, and it’s been quite the journey. I tend to get obsessive on these things, and I am now trying to rein myself in….not every piece we’ve ever done has to be on the site, but I want a good representation. This site has served as an online portfolio, and it’s been great. Now I want to expand into other information, as well as attempt to rev up the sales portion on the site. Many thanks to web guru Suzan of Saltwater Systems – nothing short of amazing!

We’ve added more fabric samples so people get a better idea of what can happen with marbling. You can see that here. We could add so many more from our pile of “Never Sell These,” but this gives a good idea.

Also, I’ve added small pieces we’ve worked on to the Small Works page. I do like working in a 12-inch-square format, and I want to do more of that when some of the bigger projects are finished.

My Nature series has really grown, and as I look at all the pieces together, I can see how I am really drawn to quilting the traditional stone pattern. I want to do more with the bouquet and nonpareil patterns, and I have the perfect piece of red cotton that has started calling me. In the meantime, I’m practicing my machine quilting on some smaller quilts. My Christmas quilt is almost redone – I succeeded in accenting the stars. I need to sew the binding, so hopefully a reveal in another couple of days.

It’s great to be so busy….we have a major order we are marbling in the next few days, and it’s a secret at this point….but it’s for a magazine feature…………….

When we started marbling, we were hooked from the very first piece. The problem was…what do we do with the fabric? Each piece was so gorgeous it was hard to cut into it. We knew we had to get over that mindset. Folks consistently asked, “What do you do with the fabric? I don’t know how to use it.” Confession time – I wasn’t quite sure either. I saw a book and thought marbled fabric would look cool. Now it was “put up or shut up.”

I was a beginning quilter with virtually no good color sense…that was hubby’s field. I figured black goes with everything, so my first quilt was an attic window pattern.

This was a nice way to show off smaller pieces of marbling, but I had to stretch further. It took a number of years before I stopped being afraid of any color except black. I started a Block of the Month, using blocks from Judy Martin. I became more daring…this time it was not black…..but other solids. I built the designs on the colors in the marbling. My January block had a definite “coolness,” so I looked for solids with some texture that would work. I started to expand design ideas and felt that traditional blocks could be the key to using these fabrics.

Now another confession…..when I first started doing quilting, I was pretty much “stitch in the ditch”….with metallic threads, no less. The quilt above is 12 years old, and I took it apart (oy) and used my newly acquired FMQ skills. I didn’t stitch the marbled blocks, as I wanted them to stand out.

The completed quilt – marbled fabrics within traditional blocks. You can read more about the actual quilting here.

I was hooked on finding some great traditional blocks that could spotlight marbling and go together harmoniousl. Summer……..I had some great neon orange cotton, a nice piece of Moda Marbles, but I needed additional fabrics so the quilt wasn’t overloaded with green. I stretched with the print fabrics I added to complement the marbled fabrics.

There’s lots of machine quilting throughout, but the marbling has been left on its own. (I also took this quilt apart…. kind of obsessive. But as quilters, we KNOW what we want. More about the quilting here).

At this point, I had a great piece of marbled fabric that said “I want to be fish.” I found a traditional block that could be used as fish. Thus the “fish quilt” was born (you can read about that quilting here). This time I quilted the marbled fabric by following the lines of the pattern and used stitches from my workhorse Bernina.

The completed quilt –

I started getting very bold – it never occurred to me to just quilt the marbled fabric itself. This was a major breakthrough. Traditional is fine, and I still work with traditional patterns, but quilting the marbled pattern gives a completely different look to a quilt. This quilt, “Nature 1: Rock Garden,” became my first quilt accepted into a juried show, “Expressions in Textiles.” It is very zen-like, and the quilting emphasizes the rock garden and sand.

Go traditional or go contemporary. Don’t be afraid of the marbled fabrics. They can be the spark that makes your quilt.