Graffiti Quilting - Cool Stuff!

This week (okay, it’s been over a week now…), instead of going to work one day and plowing through piles of paper, I took a day off and attended a Graffiti Quilting class taught by Karlee Porter http://www.karleeporter.com/ .  Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her or not, but she is one of the most enjoyable, likable, upbeat individuals I’ve ever met. She truly loves what she’s developed as an artist – and a quilter – and neither done in the traditional sense.  She developed Graffiti Quilting and was teaching a class to the Guild that I belong to.  The full-day class was so much fun and she is such a great teacher that you just come away feeling inspired and rejuvenated – even though you just spent a while day sitting and listening….well, we did do some free motion quilting to try out our new found skills and knowledge.  

This is one of Karlee's quilts.  The colors are great and the stitching is amazing.  Inspirational for sure!

What makes Graffiti Quilting different?  Well, in the words of Karlee, it breaks the quilting rules.  “Don’t overstitch”, traditional quilters might say.  Karlee says, “The more overstitching, the better”!  “Keep your quilting pattern consistent throughout your quilt”?  Yeah, not according to Karlee – the more changes the better!  “Match your bobbin thread to your quilt backing color so the quilting blends in….”  That would be a “No” again in Karlee’s world.  Keep your top and bobbin thread the same color and allow the great quilting you’re doing to show on the back of the quilt.  So…break some rules.  It actually feels quite good – and liberating. 

She taught us the various components that you can use in your Graffiti Quilting design, and we sketched along as she showed us how form the various parts.  Here’s some of my sketches and notes as we were going through the class. 

I thought I might be able to use this on a quilt I'm working on....ideas...ideas...

We then had time to practice this new type of free-motion quilting and so we did.  Here’s my rendition of the graffiti quilting.  I chose to do a more structured pattern to start, just because, honestly, I was afraid I’d forget which direction I was going and I’d mess up royally.  So, I started with something where I didn’t have to think too hard about the structure, I just had to keep quilting in a half-circle.  Really cool, huh?  It’s exciting…this is just thread and whole cloth, but what an impact!

This is my attempt at Graffiti Quilting.  This is addictive and great fun.  It's exciting to see what you come up with.

My brain has been storming on how to incorporate this type of quilting into a quilt.  I happen to have a red and black quilt I’ve been working on for some time.  Yes, I’ve set it aside for many months, unsure of how I wanted to set it together and/or quilt the thing.  I just put it back up on my design wall to start setting it together – just before the Karlee class.  Now, my brain is thinking of ways to quilt it and here’s some of my sketches that I’ve started…I think I’ll do the graffiti quilting itself in red and gray and then maybe just do straight line stitching in areas to let the graffiti quilting shine, but complement the overall quilt.  I’m getting excited and want to get started on this one soon….

Meanwhile, I’m trying to finish up the retirement quilt I started for a colleague.  It’s moving along…now quilting out the border areas.  I’m on a time crunch…just a few weekends left until I have to have this one finished….so, I’ll have to just dream and think about the red and black quilt until I get this one done and off to its intended. 

I almost didn’t get into Karlee’s class – was on a wait list, but boy am I glad I got in.  What fun. What inspiration.  What a way to spend a day.  Hope you are finding inspiration to keep you going or jumpstart you in your projects. 

When the Seasons Change…

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Autumn has certainly arrived here in Colorado.  The colorful splendor know in the state has eeked its way, quietly, into the metro area and is now showing off its stunning plume of golds, reds, and oranges  backed against the brilliant Colorado blue sky.  Truly, if you don't stop and soak it in, you will miss it. In our hustle and bustle world, it's easy to overlook the colors and take what Autumn is offering for granted.  But, as I found myself coming home after a trip to a local quilt guild show, I found  myself soaking in the colors of the sunny drive, listening to Rush, while following a 1966 Ford Mustang GT-350 Shelby down the road.  Aahhh....what could be finer?  I'm not sure....

The aspen showing off near Kenosha Pass in central Colorado.

So wonderful the colors that it's inspired me to make a quilt to capture the bountiful diversity that Autumn has to offer.  I have ideas in my head...as usual, it might be a while until I get those ideas down into a quilt, but rest assured, the ideas will nag at me until I do something with them.

What a blue sky with the fabulous yellow contrast.  This is why I love living in this state!

Meanwhile, I have to share a few items from the Longmont Quilt Guild show.  Lots of beautiful quilts, but a few stuck out as I perused the assembly.  Let me first say that I like quilts with motion; quilts that make your eye keep looking around.  So, that probably influences the patterns that strike a chord. 

Here's a modern-style quilt that has a lot of curves…and I like curves; I find them challenging.  I think this is one I may try to make for myself sometime. 

This one I found interesting as it had a lot of origami-style blocks with folded fabric.  A very simply-colored quilt with just yellow and white, but quite unique in the way each of the blocks was constructed.  Cool concepts…

And, I found a great example of “graffiti quilting”.  This quilt, the maker noted, was just waiting to be quilted, and she found it a great canvas to just have fun with the quilting.  She did a great job on it – the quilting was really cool!

And one of my favorites of the whole show – the dragonflies.  I loved this quilt.  The movement in it was amazing, and what the photo kind of doesn’t show is that these are Kaffee Fasset fabrics which have been “silvered” with a fabric paint and it gave the quilt an iridescent glow.  Plus, I loved the flow of the quilting…just amazing and inspiring for me.

Hopefully work will slow down and allow me a few days off so I can spend some more time quilting.  I’m making slow progress on various quilts, but nothing monumental to show.  Hope you enjoyed seeing what others are doing…and hope you’re finding inspiration and finding time to quilt.

I'll be linking up with friends and Myra over at Busy Hands Quilts later this week...

Cheers!

Quilting Progress - Slow but Steady...

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Gosh, things have been busy lately.  Between trying to plant the garden, hail storms, rainy weekend weather, and other general life challenges, I haven’t been doing as much quilting as I would like.  Things slowed down (somewhat) over the Memorial Day weekend and so I was able to spend some time sandwiching a quilt and now I’ve begun the quilting process. 

All pinned together and ready to get quilted.  Yep, I use straight pins to hold the quilt together and no spray basting.  In fact, I don't baste at all.  Never have liked it and just didn't get used to it...

I like the actual quilting – it’s fun, albeit challenging at times to try to figure out what you want to do, get the machine tension correct, and keep your free motion in good motion so stitches are similar in size.  A lot to juggle, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? 

Here’s the progress so far on the quilt my sister and I are working on for our niece.  My sister left the quilting part up to me (no pressure there!), so here’s where I’m taking it so far. 

Let me just say, white stitching on white fabric is hard to photograph in artificial lighting.  The lighting doesn’t really do the stitching justice, but you can at least get the idea. 

As I remembered a conversation my sister and I had about what would happen if our niece decided to take the quilt with her as she went off to college, and so I decided I would personalize the quilt in a subtle, but hopefully effective way.

Can you see her name in the quilting?  I had fun designing and quilting this.  May be hard to see, but it's a pale green thread. The other thread, for the rest of the quilting, is white.

I had seen this type of quilting done as I cruised other blogs – Devoted Quilter (Leanne) calls the type of quilting “flow quilting” and I’ve also heard of it referred to as “graffiti quilting”.  I saw another blog which talked about quilting around words to get the words to stand out in a quilt.  I’d swear it was Studio Dragonfly, but my brain escapes me now.  At any rate, I put those two pieces of the puzzle together and quilted our niece’s name in the quilt using a light green colored thread.  Then, I finished out that row of quilting with white graffiti or flow quilting, in part because I felt then the Dresden plates would carry their own weight and the quilting would secure all of the open-pressed seams – make that area stronger.

So, now, I’m working my way through other parts of the quilt, and I’ve learned a few things so far:

1. ·       Straight lines are just tricky on a sit-down machine, but with continued work on mastering that skill, the lines will get better.
2. ·         Graffiti or flow quilting is fun!  It’s very free-form and who cares if you change things up – that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
3. ·         With straight lines, slow and steady wins the race.  If you go too fast, you can get off track real fast and spend more time ripping out stitching than actually sewing.  Keep calm and stitch on. 

     And, just for fun, here's another quilt I've started on (ha!  started a good year ago) ...but more on that next time.  Have fun in your quilting adventures! 

Linking up with Let's Bee Social! @ Sew Fresh Quilts...