INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

It doesn’t have to be a bad word, you know — “newbie,” that is. I know most of us don’t like to be considered “newbies” anymore, but a fabulously enabling friend of mine (thanks, as always, Susan of Desertsky Quilting! ) has pointed me to something very special which is only available to people who are “newbies” to crazy quilting (defined in this instance as those who have been crazy quilting less than a year). It’s so special, in fact, I think Susan is more than a tad jealous she isn’t a newbie herself!

Carolyn Cibik, who owns the wonderful shop Evening Star Designs, has recently decided to start an ongoing program for crazy quilting newbies. All the information you need to find out if you qualify and to sign up as a CQ newbie is right here, along with a list of the first three items Carolyn has picked out to discount for you — and they are terrific items indeed! I already have two of them, so although I’m a newbie, too, I can speak with some knowledge, ha ha! Just looking through The Magic of Crazy Quilting by J. Marsha Michler or The Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches by Carole Samples will have any needleworker itching to try out this exceptionally attractive form of needlework for yourself. They are both stunningly gorgeous books — and written by perhaps the two best known authors in the crazy quilting universe, so these are both books you really NEED in your stash if crazy quilting is something you want to do. I’m buying Carolyn Cibik’s CD Book Blocks with Variations in my first newbie order!

Carolyn’s first Newbie sale is in effect through midnight eastern time, tomorrow, Sunday, March 9, 2008 — and don’t forget you have an hour less to shop (or stitch ) this weekend because we must unfortunately set the clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time.

At least as far as crazy quilting goes, I am definitely a newbie. While I’ve been admiring this type of needle artwork for ages for all the lovely ways it allows a stitcher to use those gorgeous sampler stitches we all love to look at (even if, perhaps, we may hate to stitch one or two or them ), and thinking for almost as long that I really must delve into it myself so I can actually use those same gorgeous sampler stitches — many of which I really do enjoy actually stitching myself — I have not yet taken the plunge.

Like so many of my fellow stitchers, though, I have plenty of stash. I’ve been collecting in preparation for crazy quilting for a long time. I’ve got fabric, trims, a pretty good stack of resource books, and all kinds of Internet resources bookmarked. Plus, for years, I’ve been saving all my scraps of fabrics and trims from finishing off my “regular” stitching projects. I have even been caught snatching up the scraps other people leave behind, knowing they’d be of use to me in crazy quilting (not to mention card-making and scrapbooking ).

But only in the last couple of months have I really gotten “serious” about crazy quilting.

For that, I went with my fabric choices for my first two “small” projects (they turned out much larger than I expected) to my mother-in-law, who is a hand quilter (but who usually does her piecing by machine, I believe), and asked her to show me how to piece them together. She did the piecing on her sewing machine for both of them in less than thirty minutes total. She’s also an amazing seamstress — so good she makes wedding dresses for hire. In other words, unlike me, she is certainly not afraid of her sewing machine, although, as I plan to tell you more about soon, I’ve been working on remedying that problem lately, too.

However, I have yet to lay my needle to fabric on either of the crazy quilt “blocks” (they didn’t come out to be squares, so I’m not entirely sure what shape they’ll end up being!) my mother-in-law pieced together for me. I’m still a bit scared to start actually stitching, to be honest. I want my crazy quilt projects to be as pretty as the ones I’ve imagined in my head, but for that, I need to be able to stitch fairly accurately without the guidance of the holes in evenweave, aida, or even linen, or, in other words, without the guidance of any holes at all. Gulp. (I did, at least, make it easy on myself to some degree by leaving curved seams out of my first two crazy quilted projects. Or, I should say, my mother-in-law left curved seams out of my first two crazy quilted projects-to-be. )

Suddenly, the task has become more than a bit daunting for me. So, when I haven’t been sick, or busy with medical appointments, I’ve been scouring the Internet and/or badgering Susan for hints on how to get the stitches to look nice along the seams.

My questions have included some of the following:

• Do I draw my “stitch guides” on first, and if so, with what? Not all of the fabrics I used in these crazy quilts are washable, so I will have to use something that does not need to be washed out if I draw on the fabric — or my stitches and other embellishments will have to completely cover anything I use to write on the fabric.
• If I were using all washable fabrics, and if I were then also planning to use all washable embellishments and threads, and to then wash my finished crazy quilted piece, what else could I use to draw on my “stitch guides”?
• Do I use something, on which I draw the guides for the stitches, on top of (and probably pinned to) the fabric as I work — and then remove that after I’m done stitching? If so, what do I use?
• Do I do all the stitching on all the seams first, and then remove whatever I’ve used to help me get the stitches the way I want them?
• Or do I do this a section at a time, removing whatever I’m using to guide me as I go?
• Etc. Etc. Etc.

I’m very fortunate Susan does not appear to think I’m a complete nuisance already! She has given me some great advice, all of which I plan to try to see which technique(s) I prefer — and I can share her answers later here on INN if she doesn’t comment and do so herself — but what I would really love to see are comments, or better yet, blog posts from experienced crazy quilters on your own blogs telling us how you go about this process. Please explain — and use pictures if you can — to us newbies exactly what you do to get your stitches to come out how you want them to look. Help give us that final instruction to make crazy quilting seem less intimidating. Then, so we newbies can find you, please comment on this article and include a link to your post. (If you aren’t sure how to include the link in your comment, email me the link to your blog post, and I’ll be happy to edit your comment to add it for you. A trackback link in your post to this article on INN would be much appreciated, too. )

By the way, I will write another article very soon reviewing a fantastic resource I found in my search for answers to the above questions, so anyone who is new to crazy quilting or at all interested in it will want to come back to Independent Needlework News very shortly. Even seasoned crazy quilters may well find this resource of use, though you will most likely already know about it.

Okay, now, hurry on over to Evening Star Designs’ Newbie Page and get yourself registered as a crazy quilting newbie! Then you and I can learn this lovely needle art form together!

… of the Stitching Jubilee website!

(I am out of town seeing medical specialists for a couple of days, and without the opportunity to check up on this link or make corrections, so if by chance that link doesn’t work, I apologize and please give it a try again later … and also try this one. They should both work very, very soon!! )

Lots there already to enjoy, so settle in with a glass or mug of your favorite beverage and start planning — or at least dreaming. You deserve it!

Technorati Tags: Stitching Jubilee, Marilyn Vredevelt, Stoney Creek, Valley Forge, King of Prussia

Most of us have seen this coming, as we watched the number of Stitching Festival shows around the country be cut back drastically over the last few years … until this year, when there was only one show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and, of course, there was a great deal of chatter and speculation because it took a rather frighteningly long time for the Stitching Festival website to be updated with 2007’s class and other show information. However, it is still with a very heavy needle that I write of this stitching tragedy: Liz Turner Diehl (Blogroll) and Stoney Creek’s (Blogroll) Marilyn Vredevelt have announced that the Stitching Festivals, previously called the Creative Arts and Teaching Show (CATS), previously called the Creative Arts and Textiles Show (also CATS), have officially closed their doors.

In my opinion, the name changes hurt their business, as did the fact that they never had a location which served midwestern US stitchers well (a very surprising thing, since Stoney Creek, who was one of the main sponsors and coordinators of the show for its entire run, is located in a beautiful midwestern city itself — Grand Rapids, Michigan) — Des Moines was and is just too out of the way and too small to fit the bill. What about St. Louis or Chicago — both cities with huge, dynamic, international airports (and at least halfway decent public transportation, too)? Too expensive? Then go to a suburb of one of those cities instead; just going 15 to 30 minutes from the airport would reduce costs dramatically for both event organizers and event attendees. Too busy and confusing traffic-wise? (What? Compared to New York City or Atlanta? LOL … ) Then what about a city like Indianapolis? It’s got a slightly smaller but still very functional international airport, though it does not have the halfway decent public transportation Chicago and St. Louis do (of course, if you leave the downtown area of either of those cities, public transportation is a crapshoot or non-existent anyway). And there are easily dozens of midwestern cities I’ve never been to which would make great locations for a “traveling stitching festival” — cities YOU know and love because you live in, or have been to them for one reason or another. Please see below, because I want to hear about them.

The good news — at least for east coast stitchers (the thousands upon thousands of midwestern stitchers are still being left out, unfortunately), is Marilyn decided almost immediately that she couldn’t desert us completely. Therefore, she announced Stoney Creek will be organizing a new event called the Stitching Jubilee, which will begin next year. It will start off occurring in only one location: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, from October 2 - 4, 2008. Marilyn is promising that the new website (Blogroll) will be up and running no later than January 15, 2008. (I’ll keep checking and will make a post to let you know when it IS up and running; right now, clicking on that link will give you an error.) In the meantime, you already can sign up for more information here (Blogroll). Further information will also be available, of course, in Stoney Creek Cross Stitch Collection magazine, which is one of my favorite subscriptions.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to swing a trip to Valley Forge myself (which is a location I personally preferred to the Hershey location. I got the chance to check them both out when I lived in New Jersey, at which time they were conveniently located for me, and I was constantly hungry in Hershey … must have been the smell of chocolate in the air because that’s all I wanted to eat, too! I think I gained twenty pounds every weekend I went there, LOL), but I’ll definitely try. I hope a lot of you will try, too, because if this venture doesn’t do well, clearly, it won’t continue.

Although it makes perfect business sense for Marilyn to select the east coast to begin her Stitching Jubilee venture, as the east coast is where the Stitching Festival was always most successful, I look forward to seeing the Stitching Jubilee grow — and I hope THIS venture will grow WELL into the midwest, too. With that in mind, I want to hear from you, as mentioned above. Despite all my traveling, there are literally dozens of great midwestern cities I have never been to and thus know little to nothing about; I want to help Marilyn select the BEST and most viable choices for Stitching Jubilee locations, but I need your help to do it. So I hope stitchers from all over the midwest (and anywhere else, if you’d be willing to travel to the midwest) will comment on this post with their suggestions for a midwestern location you would find convenient to attend — wherever that may be. Please tell me not only the name of the city, but also the reasons it would make a great location for the Stitching Jubilee. If I get enough responses (at least one hundred) I’ll forward the answers to Marilyn myself — but only if those answers wouldn’t make it look like I’d sprayed buckshot all over the center of a US map! So please try to consider traveling instead of having it in your back yard (unless you’re already located in a really good location with a great airport ). The location needs to be within a four to six hour drive of most of the rest of the midwest to be “perfect,” and it must have a really good international airport. (Why international?  Because we want the Stitching Jubilee to be able to bring us designers from other countries to teach classes, too, and because there are always a good-sized number of stitchers from around the world who manage to travel to an event such as this if they are provided with the requiremed means to do so; we certainly don’t want to leave those stitchers out because if they can afford to travel to this event, then they can probably also afford to spend money on classes and in the market to help make it a rousing success! )  A good public transportation system is a huge plus, and having a train hub is also a significant plus, in my opinion.  (Personally, I’d far rather take a train than drive myself — OR fly.  If I were traveling with someone else and thus sharing gas costs and the driving, then driving becomes a bit more attractive … but not much, LOL, as I could be stitching all the way on a train!)  Also, please tell every stitcher you know about this post, so that we get enough comments to make this a worthwhile survey. . Here are the links to this post (just highlight, copy, and paste): http://independentneedleworknews.com/2007/12/16/stitching-jubilee/ or http://tinyurl.com/34v4jg

Please help me help Marilyn bring the Stitching Jubilee to ALL stitchers! After all, this is the season of giving … It’s time to give back to a designer who has given us a great deal over the years.

Technorati Tags: CATS, Creative Arts and Textiles Show, Creative Arts and Teaching Show, Stitching Festival, Stitching Jubilee, Marilyn Vredevelt, Liz Turner Diehl, Stoney Creek

Cotton Spice Blog had guest bloggers for a couple of weeks in November, all writing on the topic of last minute gifts.

Embroidery on paper was featured in a Stitched Christmas Cards Tutorial offered by Karyn Weir of Trail Mix Designs … and there is still time for you to whip up a few of these for your favorite people (or the one or two you really want to impress ).

Tracy Souza of Plumcute Designs shares a surface embroidery project which would work well as a card, a framed gift, or as a darling decorative pillow top.

Quilters will want to check out these offerings from Quiltalicious, LLC by TK Harrison, too:

Thanksgiving Quilted PLacard

Quilted Tic-Tac-Toe-To-Go

Also, from Susan Brubaker Knapp of Blue Moon River comes a stunning, yet simple, Cell Phone Pouch, which will appeal to many — and would make a good basic pattern for piecing together fabric for a pouch before using crazy quilting techniques to really jazz it up!

Technorati Tags: Christmas, gifts, embroidery on paper, surface embroidery, quilting, Susan Brubaker Knapp, Blue Moon River, Cell Phone Pouch, Thanksgiving Quilted Placard, Quilted Tic-Tac-Toe-To-Go, TK Harrison, Quiltalicious, Tracy Souza, Plumcute Designs, Stitched Christmas Cards Tutorial, Karyn Weir, Trail Mix Designs, Cotton Spice

Things change so fast in this online world of ours that making a comprehensive list of cross stitch related links and keeping it up to date is far from an easy task … but Marilyn’s Links has made a great start!

With all kinds of resources such as cross stitch freebies, bulletin boards, needlework shops, designers’ web pages, fabric and fiber manufacturers, frame sources, finishing ideas and tutorials, and stitchers’ blogs and photo albums, Marilyn’s Links has plenty to keep you busy for the rest of the year — even if you feel like hiding for the rest of the year and ignoring the holidays altogether like I do.

Marilyn’s Links also includes similar information for quilters and scrapbookers … and even has some great links dedicated to recipes, book lovers, and other such goodies.

So take some quiet time for yourself this holiday season and relax with your beverage of choice at Marilyn’s Links!

Technorati Tags: Marilyn’s Links, cross stitch, quilting, scrapbooking, links, recipes

For some time now, I’ve admired crazy quilting from a distance. I even took a class back in October, 2001, in Romulus, Michigan with the legendary Carole Samples (why does this woman not have a website?), during which my grandmother passed away and I also learned I did not get a job I really wanted and had been fully led to expect to get. 

Unfortunately, the class organizers had done a very poor job of organizing anything (for instance, there was not enough food for all of the attendees to eat, even when it was served to us instead of buffet style).  On top of it all, when I had the “nerve to complain”  I was hungry and expected something to eat, especially since we were being hosted at a Hilton, the retreat organizers demanded I leave!  Somehow my stomach growling loudly and rather angrily sounding after missing two meals had upset a couple of people in the class sitting nowhere near me who had no idea what was going on, or what was making the noise.  I was deemed to be setting a bad example and ruining the retreat for others, and so I was ordered to leave without being allowed to explain “my side,” without being able to make any appeal, without being able to inform them of my grandmother’s death, and without even receiving any portion of my money back!  Oh, and I did not get my class kits either.    My one big regret is that I did not make my complaints known to Carole Samples, who, as far as I know, would have been appalled at the treatment I received from the organizers.  As a result of this experience, I  have had a bad taste in my mouth for crazy quilting that has lasted to this day.

However, I’m still very attracted to the idea of crazy quilting. Probably not to a lot of the crazy quilting that has come into fashion quite recently — I don’t see myself using pictures on crazy quilts, for example. I’m also not crazy about things that are Victorian style, so I would be doing things which reflect an entirely different decorating style and color palette. I also think that most of the time I would tend to go for the simpler look — although the style known as “encrusted crazy quilting” (which is a type of crazy quilting just smothered with beads and all sorts of sparkly doodads and whatnots until it seems there isn’t any more space to add another bit of sparkle to a piece) is extremely popular right now, it also is really not my particular style or interest.

It’s all yummy eye candy and terrific inspiration for sure, but what interests ME, as a needleworker, about crazy quilting is having a purpose to use all sorts of lovely fancy embroidery stitches in something other than a band sampler.

However, one of several things which has held me back from giving crazy quilting much of a try on my own — besides not having my class kit and supplies from the class I mentioned above — has been wondering how I’ll ever be able to make such nice, neat stitches as all the crazy quilters seem to do. Well, it turns out that at least some of the best crazy quilters out there, including Carole Samples herself, use a little help to make everything come out looking so nice and neat. Some of us might call it cheating; others of us would call it smart or a trick of the trade.

Personally, I’m just surprised because, still being outside the crazy quilting world myself, the thought that this wasn’t all done completely by hand — and that it’s actually OKAY to use a tool to help you get things just right — hadn’t even occurred to me. Suddenly, if I could get my hands on this tool (the shops I’ve found who carry it are currently out of stock, sigh … well, perhaps they know I’m broke!), I feel like maybe I could grasp crazy quilting by myself now.

Sharon Boggon reviewed Carole Samples’ Dream-a-Seam Templates in excellent detail, and from the point of view of how they can be useful to an experienced crazy quilter. The fact that one of the most well known crazy quilters in the stitching universe thinks so highly of the Dream-a-Seam Templates tells me they are a super tool.

But read all the comments on Sharon’s post, too. Carole Samples actually posted a comment on Sharon’s review (in response to a question from another commenter) that one of her intentions in creating the Dream-A-Seam Templates was to help crazy quilters get over a hurdle preventing them from even getting started creating a piece of crazy quilted artwork. That’s pretty much where I fall, so the Dream-A-Seam Templates should be helpful and a lot of fun for me — if I can just get my hands on them in the first place! :D  Then the hardest decision left to make will be which seam to use — and from Sharon’s review, that sounds like a decision which could confound me for months, LOL …

By the way, the commenter to whom Carole was responding, Sarah E., felt using Carole’s Dream-A-Seam tool might not be all that historically accurate with what crazy quilters in days long past used to do — and went on from there to make some very insightful remarks regarding crazy quilters today having a bit of a hangup about making things perfect.  I think Sarah’s thoughts apply to needleworkers of any kind and are relevant in several types of discussions, so I will likely be referring back to Sarah E.’s comments at some point in the future — as well as trying to locate her.  (If anyone can help me locate her, I would really appreciate it!)

Technorati Tags: Carole Samples, Dream-a-Seam, templates, encrusted, crazy quilt, Dream a seam, Sharon Boggon, Hilton 

I enjoy reading Janet Perry’s blog. She has a vast array of experience and shares it in a way that makes me feel as if I’m sitting in the same room with her, one on one.

Recently, she offered some wonderful suggestions for filling a section with French knots. Although she calls her technique The Lazy Stitcher’s Guide to French Knots, it’s definitely more work than I’m used to doing in French knots — but that’s because I’ve never filled a section with them. I’ve only done the scattered kind, or the kind that represent eyes and such. I’ve looked at French knots from my point of view, which is that of a cross stitcher; using French knots to fill a section as Janet does is more of a needlepoint technique than a cross stitch technique. I’ve also seen French knots used to fill large areas in crazy quilting. I admit I’m still a bit intimidated by French knots, so I’ve always tended to avoid patterns which call for a lot of them — or to replace them with beads. However, Janet’s method sounds so intriguing because of the way it creates texture that I’m actually excited to try it out. Look how great the foam on this beer turned out when Janet used her technique:

Janet mentions using this technique for fields of flowers and for sheep. I’m imagining billowing clouds … or smoke. What other ideas come to you?

Technorati Tags: Janet Perry, Nuts About Needlepoint, needlepoint, cross stitch, French knot, texture, crazy quilt

If you haven’t already heard about Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST), then I have a treat for you!

First, to get a feel for TAST, check out Sharon B’s In a Minute Ago. You can explore from there to see what people have done with the stitches, and you can also get a good review in pictures with the TAST Flickr group. The third way you can see what stitchers are doing is by traveling along with the TAST Ringsurf webring.

There are some amazingly creative and innovative things that can be done with a needle and various types of threads and fabrics, and the variety of expertise the stitchers involved in TAST have is certainly serving up a delectable smorgasbord for the eyes and mind. Crazy quilting and freestyle embroidery are avidly represented, but you’ll find inspiration from all different areas of needlework.

The stitches already experimented with are Algerian eye, buttonhole, chevron, cretan, detached chain, eyelet, feather, fly, and herringbone stitches. The current week’s stitch is the cross stitch.

Technorati Tags: Take a Stitch Tuesday, TAST, Algerian eye, eyelet, buttonhole, chevron stitch, cretan stitch, detached chain stitch, feather stitch, fly stitch, herringbone, cross stitch, crazy quilting, freestyle embroidery

Have a look at this interesting interview with Jenny Hart, who is the designer behind Sublime Stitching. She discusses her first exposure to needlework, how she got into needlework as a business, and what it’s like to make a career out of her passion for stitching. It’s an inspiring read about the empowerment of making your dreams come true — and being (or at least looking like you’re) in control the whole time.

Sublime Stitching’s motto is, “This ain’t your gramma’s embroidery!”, and that’s certainly true. At first glance, it may remind you of embroidery done on pillowcases imprinted with a transfer pattern, but the subject matter is decidedly adventurous and brings transfer embroidery straight from the 1950s into 2007. My grandmother was not nearly this cool — and yet I know she would have admired Jenny Hart.

Patterns are available for such wide-ranging subjects as wrestling, mermaids, cats, dogs, sushi, the Hindu god Ganesh, space, pirates, scooters, monkeys, underwear, and more. However, words cannot convey the innovation you will find in these patterns, so here is a picture of Sublime Stitching’s Day of the Dead .

Technorati Tags: Jenny Hart, Sublime Stitching, This ain’t your gramma’s embroidery, embroidery transfer, surface embroidery