Jan
7
Happy New Year!
Filed Under Designers, Kittens Off Topic, Patterns | 3 Comments
Greetings gentle quilters, here’s wishing that the new year treats you well!
The delightful Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs is launching a new free-pattern-every-month that she’s calling the Snow Happy Hearts Club. It’s a series of ornaments, one a month that you can make featuring Anne’s super adorable designs. Check it out!
Myself I’ve been working hard on a couple of projects over the holidays… one is a super secret piecing project (that’s right, I said piecing believe it or not) that I will be able to reveal soon. The other is a new appliqué pattern featuring an animal that popped into my head one day and wouldn’t leave :) Stay tuned. also coming soon.
Update to Kitten Cavalcade:
Giselle, now called Corkie, has gone to live with Minnie! That’s right, Helen decided to get her kitten a kitten, and these buddies are now lifelong companions.
Gunther was adopted the same day by a nice family that I was lucky enough to meet down at the shelter. He’s now known as Milo.
We thought we were done for the season and packed everything up. However, on new Year’s Eve I received a call from the shelter that there was one more, very late little kitten that needed foster. I couldn’t get her off my mind, so the next day I went down there to see if they had found anyone yet. They had not, so I brought the tiny little black thing home with me.
It’s hard to get a photo of Molly… she’s a kitten in motion, a spunky, feisty little mighty mite.
Dana got this shot of her in a moment of repose.
Single kittens tend to treat human hands like other kittens and treat them accordingly, but we’re working on it and she is learning to be an exceedingly sweet kitty. She’s a total lap cat, and sleeps on our heads at night.
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Jun
23
Quilt as desired
Filed Under Books, Quilting | 4 Comments
In the recent Call for Topics, Bertha asked, “I would like to know more about how to quilt lovely appliquéd tops. Any suggestions would be helpful.”
Great question! Oh boy, this is gonna be a long one. Bertha, there’s no one right answer. I’ll present a variety of information for you to consider.
HAND QUILTING
In my own hand appliqué life, I’m heavily influenced by Jeana Kimball. One of my favorite all-time designs is her Fairmeadow. Here’s my Fairmeadow book from like 18 years ago, long out of print, battered, scuffed, and much loved.
As you can see, Jeana quilts on top of her appliqué motifs. In her later book she makes the point that hand quilters from bygone eras quilted on top of their motifs to make them more secure and better supported against wear. I love it. There’s an old-timey charm about the way this looks, and when I quilt by hand I do it some too.
Not only is Jeana a very special talent in appliqué design and execution, she’s a hand quilter extraordinaire. Her book Loving Stitches: A Guide to Fine Hand Quilting is one of my go-to resources.
Jeana says, “The focus of this book is to help you recognize your own criteria, to point out considerations, traditions, and options, and to help you with your decision of how to quilt your top.” I studied this book when I was trying to decide what to do for background fill quilting on my Growing Hearts.
I chose the “uncrossed lines” pattern.
MACHINE QUILTING
Not everyone enjoys quilting on top of their appliqué motifs. My pal Pam always tells her machine quilters, “Do whatever you like, but stay off the appliqué.”
Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill recently wrote a blog post about the very subject of quilting appliqué tops. Go see her post entitled One Week and Counting. She’s of the same opinion… viewers should see the appliqué, and “the quilting should add to the charm and finish off the quilt.”
A few years ago, I made a series of 8 x 10 quilts to give as gifts. They were simple daisies, machine appliquéd, and when I went to machine quilt them, I wanted to try something new for myself. I quilted everything! I changed threads to match or complement the colors of the motifs, and I had a blast with it!
Cute, no?
I think we all develop our own quilting ways. This experiment helped me progress as a machine quilter and define my own quirky quilting style. When I needed to finish a magazine project in a huge hurry, I fell back on this experience.
Detail of Mini Mixed Bouquet, McCall's Quilting Nov/Dec 2009
Yes, this project is hand appliquéd. Yes, I machine quilted it. No, I didn’t go to jail.
EITHER WAY
You’ve put a lot of time and love into your appliqué. Let it be the star. I’ll tell you a little anecdote. In my book Inspired by Tradition, the author’s page is adorned with a huge photo of a four-block sampler quilt. Now when you look at a flat shot of this quilt, you don’t see the quilting much at all. But the way that they lit the project for this photo makes the quilting show up in high relief.
Coming Up Roses by Kay Mackenzie
I tell you what, I’ve answered more questions about that quilting than about the appliqué LOL! I’m like, wait a minute, I’m an appliqué person, not a quilting person! Goes to show you that the quilting really should be the supporting character.
Hope this gives you some good food for thought,
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
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