quilting – Page 3 – Lana Russel

July 17, 2022

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

A Quilter’s Affair

July 9,2022

A phone call letting me know we had made it off the waiting list for a camping spot at Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort led me to being able to make a bucket list trip to the show this year – always the second weekend in July. (As a side note, I would recommend this RV Resort. It was beautifully kept!)

My bestie and I (both from Indiana) have had our eye on this show for several years. Having moved to the PNW recently, it was easy for me to get there on short notice. Hopefully she and I can go together in the future.

Quilting classes are held in the high school Monday – Friday the week of the show. I didn’t take any of those on this trip. I did spot Tula Pink within arms length, however!! Also Jenny and Helen from Sew Kind of Wonderful!!

It was a gorgeous day and we arrived early, around 8 am, to watch the firemen hang quilts made by the employees of the Stitchin’ Post on the side of the quilt shop. I knew the show began at 9, so 8 turned out to be a good time to arrive to see the firemen hang the quilts.

Volunteers hang the rest with wire and clothespins in front of all the businesses willing to take part. We began our trek through town after breakfast at Spoons, Spoons has a good breakfast with the standard coffee option. Sisters Coffee Company has a wonderful selection of special coffees as well as pastry with great outdoor and indoor seating. We had coffee there two other mornings.

Quits are hung by theme or color. I thought these were cute.

You may notice red ribbons on every quilt. Quilts are not judged, but everyone gets a red participation ribbon. A blue ribbon indicates the quilt is part of a special exhibit.

I didn’t take pictures of every quilt, just the ones that especially caught my eye. As usual, I noticed I tend to like color and contrast. I always try to give credit to the artist, also, but the type was so small and often the quilts were hung high enough that the tags were difficult, if not impossible to read. If you see yours here, please feel free to comment and introduce yourself!!

This one was hung on the side of Stitchin’ Post which indicates it was made by one of the employees of the shop.. Reminds me of the sea.

These two were part of a bee themed exhibit.

Another special exhibit with a water theme.

Effective use of fabric for the buildings

This one was 3D. The feathers were fluttering.

I believe this was a wholecloth quilt and not pieced, but beautifully quilted.

This begins an exhibit with the requirement of having ORANGE in the quilt

I can’t count the number of times I’ve said I’m going to make a quilt from this perspective!

Being an Aquarius, I’ll always be drawn to water…

Hope you enjoyed my virtual quilt show and recommendations for your future visit to the show. I love that it’s not judged and just for the enjoyment of the art. No stress. Enjoy!

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June 29, 2022

Sewing when Traveling

After teaching longarm quilting all day, I grab a bite for dinner and head to my hotel room…to SEW! It’s how I relax. My trusty lightweight, dependable Singer Featherweight is my travel partner when I’m able to drive to my events. When I fly, my Kindle is my lightweight, dependable travel companion.

August 9, 2020July 1, 2020

TWIST

This Week in Studio Time –

Six fat quarters and you can have a quick baby quilt using the Yellow Brick Road quilt pattern. I added a border. I love the way this goes together. If you have a friend who is learning to quilt, this is a fantastic pattern for them, and it is so fun to put together that even experienced quilters will enjoy piecing this one! I come back to it again and again.

This week I also recovered a couple outdoor cushions. I’m happy with how they turned out.

I also made two of these quilt backing extenders. They are helpful when you are short on backing fabric so the machine carriage doesn’t run into the clamps. I took 2 fat quarters (one for each side), finished the long edges, and then folded it in half, right sides together, and stitched the end opposite the fold with a 1/4′ seam, and turned it right side out. Then I inserted a clean paint stick at the folded edge and marked the sides and the bottom of the paint stick. I stitched across the width and one side, inserted the paint stick, then stitched the other side to hold the paint stick in place. To use it, pin the end with the 1/4′ seam to your backing fabric, and use your clamps on the paint stick to stabilize your backing.

August 2, 2020July 24, 2020

Labrynth Walk Quilt

This has been on my list for quite awhile and I’m so happy I moved it to the top of my list. This was gifted to my grandson for his high school graduation. I was trying to think of a more masculine pattern to suggest to him. He liked the pattern and chose the colors. It went together so much easier than I thought. I hadn’t noticed that it’s really just two different blocks! If you’ve been considering making this one, I would encourage you to do so. I quilted this on my Handi Quilter Infinity using a design from Wasatch Quilting.

July 26, 2020July 24, 2020

Handi Quilter Educator Challenge – Do You See What I See?

The Handi Quilter Educator Challenge for 2020 was to quilt a Debra Linker ice dyed piece of fabric to emphasize the faces or figures you see in the fabric. This is called pareidolia, but we decided to call it simply, Do You See What I See?

This is the piece that I chose from the options. I didn’t “see” anything at the time, but liked the colors.

After gazing at it for awhile, the green areas became green jackets and I took it from there. I used Handi Quilter Preview Paper and dry erase markers to sketch out some ideas. Easy to wipe off and start over til I liked what I saw.

This is how I began. You can see I changed my mind on the center area once I began. At this point, I had decided the green jackets would be on aliens and this center point was going to be their regeneration point. There you go, the name of my piece was Regeneration Station!

Here’s my finished piece. The aliens are coming in to renew their energy. The design on their jackets match the grid in the center and indicates their energy level. The closer the grid in their jackets, the more energy they have. Some are coming in to energize and others are on their way out, having just finished energizing. Swarovski crystals for the eyes. I left the background unquilted as I thought it made them seem as thought they were floating in nothingness in outer space. Crazy, I know, but I think I was writing a novel about these guys while I was quilting them.

July 12, 2020December 8, 2022

Handi Quilter Educator Challenge – Vintage Quilts

At our training, we accepted a Vintage Quilt Challenge. Brenda Groelz, Director of Education for Handi Quilter, has been collecting vintage quilts for years and now it’s time to get them quilted. Our directions were to quilt them in a way the original piecer would not have imaginied. You may add a border, but you are not allowed to wash them because they are fragile. We drew numbers and when our number was called, we could have our choice of around 30 quilts. There were only 11 of us. I loved the salmon color of this one. It was machine pieced and not in too bad of shape.

I added two borders and quilted it on my Handi Quilter Infinity. I think the dark teal blue border really sets it off nicely.

Close up of the quilting. I used Pro-Stitcher in the solid areas and borders and free motion on the rest.

July 8, 2020July 8, 2020

Las Vegas

These girls loved couching! At Sew Yeah Quilting.

July 5, 2020December 8, 2022

I’m a Handi Quilter National Educator!

In November , 2018, I became a Handi Quilter Educator along with these other lucky people! I could not have found a better “job” for me! We had such a fun week of training! Very proud to represent this company!!

August 6, 2017August 3, 2017

Day 2 at Handi Quilter

Day two was a day of learning, rulers in the morning and stencils in the afternoon. Sprinkle in playing with different feet and other goodies. Every few hours we were gifted thread, rulers, stencils, scissors, bobbins, DVDs, you name it! Craziness!! All goodies to try out and to help up us with our quilting.

Commotion in the hallway and someone closing the classroom doors cued me that something was going to happen during lunchtime. Soon enough we were called to lunch. Jared, the photographer, was on hand, as was Darrin, the CEO. Hummm.

We were met with a beautifully decorated cake and discovered our name was going to be the Quilt Your Desire Inspiration Squad. Love that!

Placemats with our group photo shoot from 2:00 yesterday afternoon were on the tables. Marilyn, my roommate, is on the far left. We are pictured with vintage quilts the studio educators quilted.

Darrin again welcomed us to the HQ family and said we had birthdays to celebrate. Five of us (yes, I was one) have birthdays in January. The closest to that day’s date would win a prize. Becky’s was the closest and they brought out a very large white box with gorgeous purple metallic ribbon. It was a sewing machine!! But then Vicki said, “Wait, we all have birthdays!” and they wheeled out those fabulous boxes for each one of us!!

Darrin with the machine we received. It’s an HQ 210 Stitch 8 pound travel machine!!

Back to the classroom for more hands on practice on the wonderful Avantes. And more swag! Did I say more swag? Yes, more swag! We learned they would be shipping it home for us!

At this time I just have to introduce you to Jace, the13th member of our squad. He is the 12 year old grandson of Helen Kay. She mentioned in her application video that she had taught him to quilt and showed a quilt he had made, so HQ invited him, too. He was a perfect addition! He carried his new sewing machine and thread home on the plane with him because he couldn’t wait for it to be shipped! Here he is hard at work micro quilting after trying his hand at couching.

At 5:00 we were taken by a luxurious shuttle bus to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a fabulous gourmet buffet at the Roof Restaurant overlooking Temple Square. This is a view from the restaurant.

What an experience this was!

Tune in to my next post for Day 3 at Handi Quilter!

December 29, 2016August 5, 2021

Merry Christmas to Me!

My wish for each individual is to live in harmony and be in good health. Those are the big two for me. Wouldn’t that be amazing if everyone had those two things? So I remind myself to live in the moment, be mindful, and do what I can to control my good health.

Quilting, sewing, and creating make my heart happy. Simply said, it is my thing. Now that I’m retired, I get to spend even more time doing my thing. I began sewing garments at age 12 and progressed to counted cross stitch, general crafting, and finally discovered quilting 15 years ago. I just love playing with fabric!! I have pieced many, many quilt tops and started many more (Hello, UFOs!). I discovered and fell in love with Cotton Theory, which allowed me a way to finish my own quilts (quilt first, then assemble) using my domestic machine. But I still have at least a dozen quilt tops sewn before I learned about Cotton Theory. How am I going to finish those? I just could not look forward to trying to wrestle them under my sewing machine needle. I didn’t want to send them to a longarmer to finish; I want to do it myself. I want to put my final signature on my work.

My new baby

Enter the Handi Quilter Simply Sixteen (cue singing choir of angels!). I first laid eyes on her at the Houston Quilt Show 2015 when she was introduced. A smaller 6′ frame and certainly more affordable than the larger models. I came very close to adopting her right then and there, but decided to give it some more thought. Then a couple weeks ago, my LQS, Always in Stitches, dangled a sprig of mistletoe over her and I welcomed her with open arms. Merry Christmas to me!