Self Portrait…Take 84….

Have you ever tried to get a photo of yourself….taken by yourself and have it look natural?  I was asked by the local newspaper to send them a photo of myself holding my miniature quilt as they are going to publish something about the quilt getting to go to the AQS quilt show in Paducah.  That was yesterday and the reporter wanted the photo today…YKES!

The reporter called late afternoon and the light was fading and I wanted a photo using natural light taken in my house rather than using flash which casts shadows so getting it done yet yesterday was out of the question.  I had planned to have John take the photos for me but he had commitments all morning and after lunch too so that didn’t work out either.  My only choice then was to take them myself. 

Got the tripod and the wireless shutter release all set up and the camera positioned in front of my design wall that I cleaned off for this photo shoot….well, partially cleaned off anyway.  Next decision was what to wear and took shots of 3 different tops and scarves before deciding the brown with the scarf was the best choice.  Decided a scarf hid my turkey skin neck a bit so wore one for the final photo.   Here are a few of the many goof up photos that wouldn’t work for various reasons and you can see how hard it is.  After all how do you smile naturally when there is no one there and then there is holding the quilt straight, position of the hands, backgrounds, hair, etc. to think about.

Head cocked a little too cutsie and don’t like the red scarf.  Wooden smile too.  

Problem with a finger in each of these…whoops!

Forgot to lower my hand that was holding the shutter release plus holding onto the back of the quilt makes it look like it is floating in air.  “Look ma, no hands” and it is tipped again.  I had a big problem holding the quilt level in a lot of the photos.

My scarf was overlapping the quilt in these two photos.

Too far to one side and the stuff I left on the design wall is showing.  (I know, a real mess right now!)  Plan to crop the photo but even cropped this would present a problem.  Had a hair appointment this afternoon to get a hair cut so decided to snap a few more when I got home and they do look better, I didn’t realize how frumpy my hair was before.  Actually, the one I cropped and sent to the newspaper reporter was the very last photo I took.  Finally I smiled naturally, held the quilt level and removed more stuff from the design wall so it wouldn’t interfere before I snapped the photo.  

Here is what my photo shoot set up looked like...now don’t laugh too much.  Hard to believe there is so much stuff on my sewing table but I didn’t want to move it as I am in the middle of another project and it wasn’t showing in the photo anyway.  I had to sit on a pile of magazines to make me higher too.  I did have the blind up when I shot the photos but for this one I needed it down so you could see the room and all it’s amenities.

So, if you ever need a portrait of yourself and have hours to spend with someone who has minimum equipment and knowledge just give me a call!

Until Later,
Lynn

Paducah Bound!

I received an email a couple of  weeks ago informing me that my quilt, “Silk Refrain” was juried into the 2014 AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky.  This is the first time I have ever entered a national contest so am really thrilled to have it chosen as a semi-finalist.This is a miniature quilt measuring 11.25” x 10.5” and is made of all silk fabric and thread with wool batting.  I blogged about making it on the following dates August 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 2012 and Oct. 29, 2012 and lastly Oct. 4 2013.  Just click on the individual dates to take you to the blog posts where I share my design process to the completion of the quilt and problems that incurred along the way.I have all the required paperwork submitted and now have to figure out what day to mail the quilt off so it arrives between March 30 and April 4 for judging.  I really hope the judges give comments as for me that is the most valuable part of entering a quilt in competition.  Of course we all know the areas our quilts have problems and hope the judges don’t see those but I have learned a lot from the judges comments from entering my quilts in the Nebraska State Fair and that has helped me to improve my quilting over the years.I have been attending the AQS show in Paducah for several years with my 2 sisters, niece and good friend.  They have been encouraging me to submit a quilt and finally I did and to my surprise it was accepted.  It will be even more fun to go this year and we are even going a day earlier for the awards night.  Will be fun to see the quilts and makers as they get their awards.  I don’t expect any award as I have seen the quilts that win – am just happy to have a quilt on display.The photo at the top of the page is closer to the true color of the quilt.  The other photos are just too green.  You know how hard it is to sometimes get the color correct in photography.

Over the moon excited!
Lynn

Serenade Background Quilting

As I promised, here is my tutorial for the quilting motif I used for the background quilting of this quilt “Serenade” as well as the background quilting for the other wholecloth miniature I call “Silk Refrain” that I made last year.  (You can do a search for the words Serenade and Silk Refrain on my blog to read more posts about the 2 quilts.)Stitching this design is really not too tough, just spirals, but since I didn’t want to try to keep them equal in size and shape I purposely made the spirals in the backgrounds different.  Here is my method and a few hints on how I stitched it out.

Since I am left handed I might start out the spiral in the opposite direction than you right handed people but it makes no difference at all so stitch them the direction you want.  As you can see you stitch a spiral then find your way out of the spiral. You will be going the opposite direction as you stitch out of the spiral so you see it really doesn't make a difference which direction you start.  Stitch as many circles/shapes as you want to fill but remember you will be echoing out on each one so leave enough space between the spiral lines for this.  When you echo out you stitch between the lines until you get to the outside.  Not too hard, right?

After finishing one spiral just start another, trying to make the spiral a different size or shape.  Since I would have had trouble keeping them all identical I choose to make them different sizes and shapes but you can go for a consistent size shape if you want.  Keep them all different also makes it easier to fill in odd shapes of the background.  Just follow my spiral drawing from the start arrow to follow the design as I drew it.  Speaking of drawing….if you practice drawing these spirals over and over it will be easier to stitch them as your brain will have a memory of the design.  Remember the main thing when stitching/drawing the beginning swirls of a spiral is to make the space between the lines double the size you want the finished spacing to be and to leave yourself an escape route so you can exit one spiral and go on to the next.

Again follow the lines of the above spiral to figure out how I moved from one spiral to the next.  You can echo the lines of the previous spiral to move to a new area like in the above drawing.

There really is no wrong way to quilt this background or the size and shape of the spirals it is up to you.  Notice the green spots on the diagram above.  These are ways to change direction or to fill an awkward area.  As much as possible I try to keep my stitching lines rounded and not pointy but a pointy one once in a while just blends in.  If you want to make more pointy lines like the one with the green spot in the upper left just go for it….remember it is no rules so do it your way.  Will backtrack a bit here as I do have one rule I try to follow.  I try to make all the spaces as close to the same size as I can.  This makes the filler look like an overall design and one area doesn’t pop out as different.

I do love quilting this motif but maybe I should have varied the background quilting motifs on these two small quilts and used some other filler on some parts.  I still love the quilts but I never stop wondering “what if” and I think that is what makes every “next project” fun to implement using those new ideas.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Bloggers Quilt Festival–Fall 2012

Thanks to Amy of Amy’s Creative Side for sponsoring the Bloggers Quilt Festival again this fall.  Jump over to her sight and take a look at all the other quilts on her Bloggers Quilt Festival.  I think there is voting too so take a look at that information too.  The quilt I am going to show you is the latest miniature quilt I finished this summer.  I call it “Silk Refrain” and it measures 11 1/4 x 10 1/2”.It is made of 100% silk fabric that is woven with one color of thread going horizontal and another color going vertical.  If you enlarge my close up photos below of this quilt’s details you might be able to see the different colors of the woven fabric.  I believe this type is called Shot Silk.  When the fabric is viewed from different angles it changes color and it has a beautiful soft sheen.  Because this fabric is shiny it is very difficult to get good photos of the quilt but  I think if you click on the photos I post to get larger versions you might be able to see the details more easily.I purchased this fabric in Paducah, KY at the 2011 AQS show from one of the vendors and I knew when I bought it that I wanted to do a whole cloth quilt from it.  I wrote about the making of this quilt on my blog Nebraska Views starting Friday Aug. 24, 2012 through Aug. 30th. I quilted it with YLI #100 silk thread using my Bernina 730 sewing machine using the BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator).  The BSR really aided me when quilting this quilt as I wanted a smaller stitch and a regular sized stitch which the foot helped me to achieve.  I set my stitch length down to 1.8 so it has pretty short stitches.  I also used the walking foot for the straight line skinny border.  I tried doing those straight lines by sight and free hand but they looked really wobbly so I un-stitched them and re-sewed them using the walking foot.I usually use a thin batting like Thermore for my miniatures but decided to try wool batting this time.  I wanted the design areas to puff up a little and didn’t want to try to trapunto on this small of motif.  It really worked great and I have another whole cloth silk miniature in the process of being made using the same silk fabric but a different color and am using the wool batting in it too.I entered this quilt in the 2012 Nebraska State Fair and it won first place machine quilted miniature and 1st place miniature over all.  I was super thrilled to say the least.  Enjoy looking at all the quilts on Amy’s Creative Side…just scroll to the bottom and click on the individual photo links to the fabulous quilts!

Quilt Stats
Entry Number:  405
Designed, Pieced, and Quilted by:  Me
Technique: Wholecloth
Size: 11 1/2” x 10 1/4”
Category: Doll/Miniature Quilt

Until Later,
Lynn

Nebraska State Fair Quilts 2012

What a great quilt competition-show this year at the Nebraska State Fair.  I already shared my entries and ribbons so this post will have some of the other winners.

Best of Show by Judy Woodworth – beautiful.  Includes embroidery, piecing, machine quilting.

Reserve Best of Show by Susan Minchow – another beauty.  Includes applique, piecing and machine quilting.

Best Mid/Longarm Machine Quilting by Patricia Pressler.  Beautiful quilt has amazing quilting.

This quilt was made by the Sandhills Quilt Guild and was entered in the Best of County Quilts, a separate category for quilts that were selected the top quilt from the different counties.  This is a huge quilt with barns and embroidered names that I am presuming are the owners of the barns.  The barns appear to be painted not printed.   This quilt really attracted a lot of attention at the fair as it should have.

Now a look at close up photos of other quilts on display at the State Fair.   I don’t have names to go with any of these photos nor full sized photos of the quilts so please don’t ask.  I took photos of the quilting or details that caught my eye.  With 660 quilts entered this year I couldn’t possibly get photos of all of them and because of the large numbers a lot of the quilts had to be displayed overlapped, disappointing but there was no other choice.

		Detail Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Please enjoy the photos to get a taste of the quilting talent in Nebraska – always inspiring.

Lynn
P.S. This morning I set up my tripod and got a better photo of my miniature quilt Silk Refrain.  I captured more details with the tripod than the photos where I hand held the camera.  The silk fabric reflects the light so much it is hard to get good photos of it.