Posts Tagged ‘School of Threadology’

Work in progress - Salmon Sunrise

There is a show I enter each year, and I have been juried in four out of four times I have entered. This year I didn’t have anything in mind, until I took out a piece of fabric and tried some thread changes. Well, all of a sudden the sunrise piece became Salmon Sunrise, as the quilting started to look like scales.

I stopped with the quilting until I went to the School of Threadology. I got help not only with threads, but  in how I do my free motion quilting. All of a sudden I was able to do all the tight quilting, and on Saturday, I spent time – about four hours, on the piece.

I wasn’t sure at one point last week that I would be able to get the piece done in time for photos and email for entry. But four hours on Saturday and three hours on Sunday convinced me I just might make the deadline.

I am really pleased with the quilting. The only concern is too much? I have over half of it quilted, and I love the bubbles. I have some decisions to make on the top half, and I think I will decrease the amount of quilting with the darker threads, as there is quite a bit of light design at the top. Maybe just a few rows, but I want the “sunrise” effect to really show through. The bubbles have worked out well.

Work in progress

As I look at the finished portions, there is an extra layer of texture that is visible when the light is right. I am going to have to rein my quilting in, as not every line has to have thread. Ths can be fish jumping from the water. I need to keep the top third less “heavy” than the bottom, watery fishy part.

This has been so relaxing. It has been a very long time since I have done this kind of art quilting. In fact, it took about 5 years for this piece to speak to me again. Initially it was just a sunrise, with a few wavy lines, but I didn’t like the way it hung on the wall – too much emptiness. I had a suggestion to change the border frame from a maroon to  blue, and use some light blue thread on the piece.  Once I started there, it just took off. The bubbles are not an original thought – I saw something similar done on quilts when I was in Utah, and that got me thinking about bubbles. It helps to break up the amount of quilting done on the marbled pattern.

All in all, an extremely productive three days of quilting – even though it took five years to get to this point.

Work in progress

One of the activities I had a chance to do was thread painting. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but really had no idea how to start. As part of our Open Thread Bar at the School of Threadology, we were encouraged to try any threads we wanted. We had some fabric sandwiches prepared, as well as some large-prints that would be perfect to embellish with thread. I took more pictures of others’ work than of my own. I will definitely try this again, as I have a couple of Southwestern pieces that would be perfect with thread to made it more textured like pottery. Enjoy…

Using thread to paint

Thread painting

Thread painting

Another activity was working with Texture Magic, which ends up “crumpling” fabric with steam for a really interesting texture. I made a small purse, definitely not me, but I certainly have a few ideas for some pieces of marbled fabric. Take a look at the puffy feel to the fabric. Our instructor, Annie, is quite the creative person with her patterns, especially the purses. I can see a few of them in my future!

Heather and Annie with baby outfits

Using Texture Magic

Using Texture Magic

The magic of creating thread fabric

One of the things we got to do at our conference was look at samples of thread work, particularly creating “fabric” from just threads of all kinds. Heather, fondly known as Mother Superior, had two spectacular vests created just from threads. Cindy taught us how to use Dissolve to make a sandwich of threads and then stitch over them and run water over the Dissolve, which would do just that. She made it look so easy.

Well, mine wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as this top piece – part of one of Heather’s vests. Mine is about three inches square, with loose threads all over, and barely staying together. But I did learn a great deal:

1. Don’t do your first piece with nothing but shiny threads. Those shiny threads are incredibly slippery and ease out all over the place.

2. Don’t try to be so structured when you stitch on top of the Dissolve to hold everything together. I tend to be so linear sometimes, that when I was done, the grid holding everything together was way too noticeable.

3. Refer to your references when choosing your thread, bobbin, and tension. My lessons were not lost on me when I pulled out my reference sheet from Cindy’s class to check what to use in my bobbin (Bottom Line) with Glitter in the top, and to be sure to set my bobbin tension at a one to start.

4. Check the needle size. I can remember the very first time I worked with some metallics (not Superior’s) – I had no idea a) the thread had to come off the spool a certain way, and b) I had to use a larger needle. I do now, and it was flawless.

5. I need to let my inner artist loose. Try something with lots of different threads on top of the Dissolve – like trying some bobbin work – which I’ve only done twice, and I do plan on doing lots more.

Thanks for joining me here, as I move everything over from Blogspot and Blogger. I have learned that I don’t own my content on Blogger, and I want to protect my work and images, so now I have my own new home, thanks to Suzan at Saltwater Systems and WordPress. Please follow along on these adventures. I have LOADS of art-related posts coming as a result of a busy March and April.

Suzan and I decided in November to treat ourselves to the School of Threadology, hosted by Superior Threads. We spent the next few months in anticipation, never realizing what an absolutely AMAZING time we would have. These three days in April are the BEST education I have had in my art career, and by far the best educational conference I’ve attended (and there have been many!).

There were so many wonderful moments, and I will just do a lot of blog posts with wonderful art quilts, and lots of Japanese philosophy (kaizen – continuous improvement) which permeates everything Bob and Heather Purcell do at Superior Threads.

I’ll start with the first morning, and a tour of the warehouse, where we had our own labeled boxes for easy shopping (better than a candy store!).

A Candy Store of Thread!!

Cindy Needham was our first instructor, and does she do amazingly beautiful work. She quilts on silk (yummy), as well as on antique linens. I’ll let her work speak for itself. Be sure to click on the pic and see some of her incredible detailed quilting.

Purple Silk with Threadwork

More Amazing Threadwork - look clasely....

Another look at the Purple Silk

Look at the exquisite stitching.

Closeup of Stitching

Another close-up of stitching

Pearl work

This doesn’t even begin to scratch the beauty we were exposed to. Many, many more quilts and closeups of thread work to come. Truly an amazing experience!