Get a free pattern for Susan’s evening bags

If you missed last year’s issue of Quilting Arts Gifts, which contained my designs for three different evening bags, you can now download the patterns and instructions for free! It’s in a new ebook called “7 Quilted Bag Patterns: Handmade Quilt Bags from Quilting Arts.” My bags are #2, 3 and 4. Just go to the Quilting Arts website by clicking here. If you make up one of my bags, I’d love to see photos and hear about it!

Lepidoptera finished!

Lepidoptera
by Susan Brubaker Knapp (2009)
Cotton fabric, wool/polyester batting, fabric paint, cotton thread. 39" x 39"

I finished this piece, “Lepidoptera,” a while ago, but we’ve had so much rain here lately that I couldn’t find a good time to take nice photos. I usually shoot them outside. This aftternoon, after a day of much fog and gloom, the clouds parted and I ran outside to take a few detail shots. Here they are:



Lepidoptera is the order of insects that includes butterflies and moths.
Can you tell that it started with this photo I took in my garden a few years ago?

This is a Painted Lady butterfly. It has wonderful patterns on its wings, but it is not very brightly colored. I used the patterns and completely changed the colors. My quilt is a bit psychedelic in comparison to the butterfly!

Besides being the first wholecloth painted quilt I’ve ever done, it is the first quilt I faced, rather than bound, and the first quilt I made using batting made of wool and polyester (recommended by my friend Nancy G. Cook, who uses it in all her work). I liked it a lot. “Lepidoptera” is also the first piece I have quilted with Aurifil threads, and I loved working with them.

Aurifil noticed I was using their thread, and asked if they could display “Lepidoptera” in their booth at Quilt Market next week. I was thrilled. If you are going, check it out there!

More Progress on Nancy’s Hemlock

Set up for quilting: I use an open-toe embroidery foot. Before quilting, I double check for good thread balance in top and bobbing on a sample quilt sandwich. The open foot allows me complete visibility of where the needle will go. I get a better stitch when the feed dogs are engaged. It can be tedious but I prefer the stitch quality.

Basting Threads: I remove the basting stitches as I get to them. If I run over them, they can be more difficult to remove. A pair of pointed tweezers helps remove any embedded threads.

Thread Painting: After outlining the design to stabilize the sandwich, I then do the thread painting of the designs using my hands to stretch the sandwich flat as it goes under the needle. This is the stage where the details of the design really come to life.

Importance of Specimens: One of the little cones turned sideways was confusing, the specimen helped clarify lines. Check out the size comparison of the specimen to my design.

Echo Quilting: Once the outlining and the thread painting are completed, I begin the echo quilting. The echo quilting on Hawaiian quilts has always fascinated me, so I riff off them with machine quilting to emphasize the negative spaces (the spaces around the designs) on my quilts. I love the rhythm and texture that builds up.

Chocolate: The first round of quilting is the most difficult and time consuming as that is when many of the details are filled which requires lots of turning of the sandwich and short lines of stitching. I line up the next round of quilting with the presser foot so that the previous line just shows inside the foot. After about 3-4 rounds, the quilting gets easier with smoother curved quilting lines and begins to go faster. The first several quilting rounds are tedious and a piece of chocolate helps me gather strength for the next round. I finish the quilting by going back into the small isolated areas of background and quilt them. Again, chocolate comes to the rescue. The quilt seems totally different when the quilting is done. This is why I quilt rather than paint.

Blogger Jill asked why I use heavy weight fabric on the back. Jill, it reduces the likelihood that I will have any tucks in the backing fabric. Good question.

Blogger Valerie – hope this answered some questions about quilting.

We really appreciate hearing from those following our blog.

-- Nancy Cook

Nancy's Process 

I am often asked how I get such regular quilting that is so close together, so my next 2 posts will be on the steps I use.  I am still  working on the Hemlock piece shown in an earlier post.  First of all, the batting is wool and polyester blend.  It is very easy to work with.  On the advice of Ruth McDowell, I use a backing fabric of heavy weight decorator cotton.  I pin baste closely with long Japanese pins. 

Then I hand baste with silk thread that blends and a fine needle in a 2 inch grid.  Silk slides through the layers easily and reduces stress on fingers.  I learned the importance of fine basting from Cherilyn Martin who does fantastic quilting to create textural patterns on her quilts.

Next I select a variety of threads.  I love variegated threads that have very little change in values.  They are hard to find, but worth looking for.  The first selection may very well be added to as I work.  Thread becomes my paint for all the details.  I love the King Tut Tone on Tone, YLI Machine quilting, Mettler silk-finish multi, and some Sulky Blendables.  I used a deep green variegated YLI silk thread for the hemlock needles on this piece and loved it.  

My first machine quilting stitches closely follow the outline of the design.  I go for the long lines first.  This is all straight stitching with the built- in walking foot on my old 1473 Pfaff.  I use an open- toed embroidery foot to see where my needle is going. 

Next time I will show how I do the close stitching.  

-- Nancy Cook

ArtQuiltsTRANSITIONS Awards to Charlotte NC Artists

FAO member, Nancy G. Cook was awarded Juror's Choice by Susan Brandeis at the ArtQuilts Transitions show at the Durham Arts Center in Durham, NC.

Susan Brandeis (left) and Nancy in front of Nancy's award winning piece, Winter Fruit.








Deborah Langsam, another quilt artist from Charlotte, NC was awarded Member's Choice at the same show for her piece Under the Watchful Eyes of Charlotte. Deborah and her piece are shown.

Online courses through Joggles

Both Janet and I are teaching online courses this spring/summer at Joggles. I took an online course last summer, learned a ton and got completely hooked on the concept. No matter where you live, now you can take a course to learn something new or improve your technique, via the internet.

If you’ve never taken an online course, here’s how it works: You sign up and pay the class fee. A few weeks before the class starts, they send you a supply list. On the first day of the class, you get an e-mail that gives you information and passwords for signing up to participate in the class forums. Here, you can write messages to the instructor, share your thoughts, progress and photos of your work with your fellow students.

You don't have to participate in the forums, or you can just lurk and read your fellow students’s comments, so it is perfect for people who are a little introverted, too!

Each week of the class, you receive an e-mail with the lesson in PDF format. When I took an online course, I learned a ton from the teacher and my fellow students, and made some wonderful online friends, too. There is lots of fun and sharing that goes on.

Janet’s class, Introduction to Textural Beading and Embellishment, starts June 10, and costs $60 for six lessons.



My class, Tyvek Explorations, starts July 28. Four lessons cost $40.



So please, join us! You’re bound to learn something new, and have a lot of fun doing it.

– Susan Brubaker Knapp

Janet’s soy wax batik class

Today was a day to play! I took Janet Lasher’s soy wax batik class today in her Charlotte studio. This is a technique I’ve been wanting to try for more than a year.

Soy wax is considered more environmentally friendly than beeswax, and it is much easier to remove from the fabric once the batik and dyeing process is finished.

Here, Janet talks to Grace Howes (left) about stamping on her silk charmeuse:


Here is one of my pieces, from the front (the side to which I applied the wax). I started with white Kona Cotton fabric, and painted on the circles. Then I applied blue and purple thickened dye inside the circles, and kiwi green on the background:


Linda Stegall started with a piece of fabric that had already been batiked (and that is her yellow and green piece hanging on the line behind her):


She drew big circles on the fabric, then brushed on thickened blue dye in some areas:


It was gorgeous!


Here are some of mine:






Today, I only used Janet’s thickened dyes for the color. I’m planning to do additional designs in the soy wax on some of my pieces, and may then overdye them with Dye-na-flow or Setacolor. After that, I may discharge them or add additional motifs.

– Susan Brubaker Knapp

In the Charlotte area we have a terrific orchid conservatory at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens (http://www.dsbg.org/ ). To complement one of their future orchid shows, this year's group challenge is "Inspired by Orchids". Each member is creating several individual pieces using orchid photos, shapes, colors, etc. as well as creating a "group challenge" piece inspired by this photo. We've set a few size / format restrictions, but otherwise the sky (or rather the creativity) is the limit! Stay tuned to see more as our challenge work evolves.

The starting sketch ....

Am working on a piece that will relate these two ideas. Stay tuned! -PJ-

Hemlock in progress

I have been working inking the design onto the hemlock piece, using layering of colors to get depth of needles overlapping each other and depth when looking inside the hemlock cone.

The cone is really interesting. It looks small and round when you look inside it. From the side, it is much longer than expected. Selecting threads for the stitching is the next step. That is always fun.

– Nancy

Charlotte Quilters Guild 2009 show

The Charlotte Quilters Guild’s 2009 quilt show opened today! Our own Nancy G. Cook won the Best of Show-Small for “Southern Hospitality,” which features a magnolia tree. This piece also won the blue ribbon in the “Pictoral Professional” category.

Susan Brubaker Knapp and friends won a second place ribbon in the “Group” category for their quilt, “Motherhood” (above), and a Judge’s Choice ribbon from Joanne Arntsen. The panels are by (from left:) Grace K. Howes, Lushorn Millsaps, Susan, and DeLane Rosenau.


Linda Stegall’s “Losing Serengeti” points out that “the Serengeti plains are one of the world’s largest animial habitats, containing the greatest variety of animals in the world. They … are rapidly diminshing due to our indifference.” She won the honorable mention in the “Pictoral Professional” category.


Susan’s “Round Red Barn” won a third place ribbon in the “Pictoral Professional” category.


P.J. Howard’s “Hands On!” won a second place ribbon in the “Art quilt amateur” category.


Nancy G. Cook’s “Winter Confection III” won a second place ribbon in the “Art quilt professional” category.

P.J. Howard’s “Dragon Bag” won second place in the “Wearables” category.


Susan’s “Home Planet” won first place in the “Art quilt professional” category.

Susan’s “Purple Evening Bag” won first place in the “Wearables” category.

Nancy’s “Crepe Myrtle: Homage to Klimt” won a blue ribbon in the “Innovative” category.

“Verde,” “Metamorphosis at Sea,” and Ikea

Since Janet’s screen printing class, I have spent most of my time on screen printing my own fabric for smaller fiber art pieces to be framed or attached to canvas as per photos. “Verde” (above) is attached to canvas painted in coordinated design.

“Metamorphosis at Sea” (below) was made from fabric screen printed at Janet’s class and finished with machine quilting and hand stitching in royal blue for accent. I managed to finish and frame by the March 6th deadline and entered it in the current Mint Hill Arts Metamorphosis exhibition.






My other current endeavor is trying to equip a guest bedroom and bathroom for screen printing (not a really good idea, there is only one large dye stain on the carpet so far).

Ikea’s kitchen storage items are great for studio use.

Pencils, brushes and tools are all visible and within easy reach; thus eliminating the 15 minutes I usually spend going through drawers and baskets looking for each item I need.


–Linda Stegall