Quiltails

The journal of Fiber Artist Nikki Hill, with frequent contributions by her six furry sidekicks.

[quiltails]

I finally got my Cherrywood order (which was missing in action in Jacksonville for nearly a week), so I've been working on "The Great Catsby." Right now, Thumper's mask looks more like "The Phantom of the Cat Box."

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Apliquick 101: I'm using Apliquick fusible foundation rather than traditional paper templates to make my clamshells to keep my seams straight.

Once ironed to the wrong side of the fabric, I like to cut very close to the turning edge. The piece on the right is cut to about 1/8th of an inch.

Using a fabric glue stick (I'm showing a Bohin pen here, but I've refilled it several times. This time with Sewline glue), I apply glue to small sections at a time. It's certainly helpful that the glue goes on in color.

The two main turning tools are long rods, one with a rounded flat edge meant to turn the fabric, and the other with a forked edge, meant to hold your piece in place. With the rounded edge tool I turned fabric in select places and pinched it to the glue. The result first looks like the edge of a pie crust.

I like to use the forked edge to sweep and smooth the rest of the edges to the glue until it lies flat.

The result, even with a seam, is a perfectly smooth turned edge on the curve of my split clamshells.

There are several good tutorials with video on using Apliquick on YouTube, as well as places to purchase the tools. The tools are also available at Amazon, though I always prefer to buy directly from artists and small businesses. I recommend Kathy McNeil's site, largely because she is the teacher who introduced me to Apliquick.

https://www.kathymcneilquilts.com/

Pictorial and Landscape Quilting. Kathy McNeil is an internationally award-winning quilt artist, with work on display in museums, magazines,

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Day 4 and 5 of The Great Catsby.

I'm still waiting for my fabric order to arrive, so I'm working on a section of the background. English paper pieced clamshells. To make it more Deco, I'm making split clamshells.

Half Cherrywood hand dyed, half Fairy Frost. Gives it a great contrast. Of course I have a lot more clamshells to make.

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Day 2 of Catsby. Usually I'd be working on a face to put my painted eyes, but I'm waiting for my pre-ordered 2020 Cherrywood Challenge kit (because it contains a white I think I'll be using in my face), so I moved on to a section of the background.

It's simple piecing, but combined with all the other elements, it should showcase my subject well.

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I seldom do any quilting after September as my job gets ridiculously busy during the holidays. But I'm going to try to do something different and work on my new art quilt a little each day during the month of November at least.

I started yesterday with the eyes. Painted on Silk Radiance with Tsukeninko inks. I think it captured Thumper's wistful eyes nicely.

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Cherrywood just announced the 2020 challenge, Princess Diana! I pre-ordered the challenge kit, so I can't wait to get my hands on these fabrics. For the first time, Cherrywood has white, which is something they'd been trying to get for a long time.

I sure hope this white has the same hand as their other suede-like offerings. I'm using a lot of Cherrywood in my newest art quilt, and I could really use white.

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I think Thumper's hoping my next quilt features him instead of Bobbin. It does (don't tell him).

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It's time for QuiltFest of Jacksonville again, and this year's theme was "Bobbin' on the Beach." Of course, I had to feature my boy, Bobbin, sitting on a beach. My way.

My inspiration for the beach came from the double whammy of returning from my vacation to New Hampshire for the Machine Quilters Expo (MQX), where I spent way too much money, and then doing my taxes. I pretty much figured my next vacation would have to be on the cheap. How would a cat take a cheap vacation? In the sandbox, of course.

One of the biggest challenges was trying to incorporate the box of kitty litter and give it a nautical theme. The shell print fabric was one of the three challenge fabrics we had to incorporate, so I came up with Ocean Breeze. Hindsight being what it is, I wish I'd called it Tidal Cat instead.

I used Apliquick to turn all of my applique and handstitched it. Then came the really fun part, the quilting.

I added some simple textures to give my applique more dimension, with a few bonuses, like etching Vacation State of Mind into the sand, and a little peek-a-boo mouse.

Being me, I ran out of time before I added some of the elements I wanted, but I can always add more later before I send it off to other shows.

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What an odyssey this quilt has had. After all my work to get it ready for the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, it almost missed the show. I had planned to send it the day after Labor Day, which was also going to be the start of my vacation. Unfortunately, we were already getting ready for Dorian here in coastal Florida, and businesses were closing left and right; including all local postal options.

I drove as far inland as I could (an hour and a half to Gainesville) to reach a FedEx office, which was also about to close for the day. They couldn't guarantee my quilt would get there in time, but I turned it over to them and hoped for the best.

My Picatso traveled just ahead of Dorian (which I'm happy to say had little impact on us) and made it to the judging in time, where it won Best Interpretation of Theme at the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza.

Meanwhile, we just held our own judging for the upcoming Jacksonville QuiltFest. My quilts did well (sworn to secrecy for now) and next week I'll be helping hang the show. Busy vacation!

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Fun times in coastal Florida. Hurricane Dorian is on it's way (very slowly), and a good portion of the state is affected. I need to mail Picatso 3 to Pennsylvania, but all mail options for my area are suspended in preparation for Dorian. So I'm going to have to drive an hour or two inland to find a UPS or FED EX office that's open to mail my friggin' quilt.

Road trip!

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Slowly making progress on Bobbin' on the Beach (will be called "Bobbin's Beach" for QuiltFest, but I'm changing the name afterwards to "Vacation State of Mind").

It seems like the cats are going out of their way to help, which really slows things down. Then there's my erratic work schedule. I often come home and am able to just squeeze in an hour or so of quilting after dinner.

One night all I did was quilt around this shell and sand combo and detail stitch the bowl and umbrella (though I still need to stitch around the letters).

Another night was in inventory so I was at work until 6 am. I had the next day off, but was way too exhausted to try any free motion quilting. Instead I visited a couple of quilt shops in search of the perfect binding and fabric for a beach ball.

As tired as I was, I'm a little surprised the beach ball came out so well.

Still, slow progress is still progress. And I have time off coming up to finish this. Of course, we also now have a tropical storm/hurricane on it's way to Florida. Should make for an interesting weekend.

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"Fine. I'm not on your quilt. I'll just sit right behind it so it doesn't move." https://www.instagram.com/p/B1q8-ShhRgm/?igshid=1eblde9s7kcnf

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With only 15 days left before I have to turn in my QuiltFest challenge quilt, you might think I'd be quilting for hours a day. Sadly, I have been working non-stop, but at work.

It's inventory time, so I've worked the last 9 days off without a break. I've had barely an hour or so each day to my quilting, but I've used it wisely.

I got all my preliminary quilting done, outlined the major sections and started figuring out how the rest of it will come together. Yesterday I did the detail work on Bobbin's foot

Today I did the contrasting stones around the door and window on the sand castle.

Tomorrow night is inventory, so I'll finally have a few hours to get so.e serious quilting done.

Fifteen days is not a lot of time.

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The eyes have it.

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On Wednesday morning while I was at work (and training a new person), I got a call from Cherrywood Fabric! My Bob Ross quilt won 3rd Place! It's Friday night and I'm still floating! I can't wait to see the entire exhibit!

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A friend shared this quote on Facebook recently, and it perfectly highlights something I've been thinking for a while about one of my quilts.

I originally loved the concept of the watercolor border for Picatso 3 (Fiona's version), but after having looked at it on my wall for several months, I'm no longer convinced it was the right choice.

Coincidentally there is a quilt show coming up in 2 weeks that I want to submit it to. So how can I fix the border in 2 weeks? Nothing has come to mind, so I layed it down on my cutting table, and cut the whole border off.

I know quilters who would shudder at this, particularly since I did put a lot of work into that border (and the quilt is already an award winner), but the quilt didn't live up to what I wanted, so I'm going to fix it.

It already looks better, and laying the main body over the top gave me an idea I really liked. My other 2 Picatsos have picture frame borders, but the trick was how to make one for the Rule Breaker that still got the message across. You guessed it; by making it sit wonky in the frame.

So now I've drawn myself a template for a new sculptured frame. This will compliment my subject without being too distracting (lessons learned from Picatso 2's more elaborate frame), be more innovative, show well, and most importantly: I can accomplish this before the deadline.

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