Steps in the Creative Process

Easy rose. Nice, but what's next?

Tom here. I've always been fascinated by other people's creative processes. Bob Welch's Pebble in the Water describes the author's long, sometimes discouraging, but ultimately rewarding process of writing his previous book, American Nightingale. While researching the life of a heroic WW II nurse, Welch journeyed as far as Boston, Massachusetts and the beaches of Normandy, France. I was gripped from beginning to end reading this book about the writing of another book.

One thing about the creative process is you can't cut corners. Such is the craft of longarm quilting. Granted, learning quilting designs isn't quite so arduous as writing an award-winning historical nonfiction -- but steering the longarm has it's challenges.

Step in the process: doodling on paper

I previously mentioned my fondness for roses and how I'm intrigued by floral patterns. Early on, I found a simple rose design (above), which was pretty easy to quilt. Since then, I've discovered another more advanced rose in Cheryl Malkowski's Doodle Quilting.

Malkowski begins by saying, "It's easy to make beautiful roses."

Next step: practicing on muslin

So I took her word for it and headed straight to the longarm. Well, I soon discovered it's not that easy. Don't worry, I didn't practice on an actual quilt. Denise and I hone our craft on blank muslin until we've mastered patterns. My efforts at the new rose pattern were so bad that I was wasting good muslin. I realized that I'd bypassed a step in the process. I needed to backtrack, grab a pen and practice drawing the rose on paper. As you may know, most quilt patterns are a continuous line, so the pen stays on the paper from start to finish. After over three dozen pen-doodled roses, I resumed longarming -- with more encouraging results.

Is it the destination that's satisfying? Or is it the journey? I prefer the journey because of the sense of adventure and the feeling of moving forward. Of course it's nice to reach the destination, but I soon get antsy. Where do we go next? Hmm, a more complex, detailed and realistic rose sounds interesting. Show me that pattern!

About Time!

I've intended to get a new post up for days and days. Life's been busy and I haven't found the time. This will be a fast one. Next one, I hope to have figured out a "random number generator" and offer a giveaway, an antique linen handkerchief -- maybe it's actually a linen napkin, that I've quilted. Could be used as a small table or dresser mat, or hung on a wall.

In the meantime, I'll put up some images of a fun quilt we quilted for one of the coolest fabric shops around. I've mentioned this before, but it's quite amazing to see the dimension added to a quilt top once the batting and backing are applied with thread.

This quilt top was pieced by the talented people at Piece by Piece in Eugene.

Loaded onto the quilt frame.

In process.

Quilting complete.

Here is their wonderful quilt, having been bound and washed. You may see it hanging on the wall at Piece by Piece. Isn't it fun!?

This is a bit of a wall quilt I pieced and quilted. We will be vendors at the Coburg Quilt Show on July 26, so I am madly piecing small tops and we are both quilting them as examples of our work for the show. This is a great quilt show, well attended and with spectacular displays. It's in the picturesque little town of Coburg, just outside Eugene. 

I'd encourage you to open your calendar, block Coburg Quilt Show onto Saturday, July 26, and show up between 9 am and 4 pm. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

One last photo: this is a block of a very fun quilt I quilted for a customer several days ago. 

Don't you think that will liven up a room? (Thanks, Karen, for the opportunity to quilt it!)

The Man Can QUILT!!!

I came home from work one night last week to find Tom had quilted an entire baby quilt on his own. Now, he's done quilts and parts of quilts in the past, but has been hesitant to load them on his own or come up with his own designs -- except on practice quilts.

His work has gotten better and better. For a man who, one year ago, needed a definition of what it meant to quilt something, he's come a long way. And I love to hear him say, "and in three months, I'll be way beyond this".

He finds new designs in books or magazines, on youtube, and even comes up with his own. Yep, I'd let him quilt my pieced tops without hesitation.

See for yourself! This is exclusively Tom's work, the first and third being practice pieces.

Our culture has changed a great deal in some ways, with adults teaching the next generation not to grasp stereotypes. Children no longer assume doctors to be males, or RNs to be women, and only mothers to stay at home as their offsprings' caregivers. Writers, artists, paramedics, CEOs come in both sexes.

I am no longer surprised to glance at a large delivery truck on the highway and see a woman at the wheel.

Yet the stereotype seems to be deeply ingrained in our images of quilters.

Tom gets no credit for quilting when both of us have worked on a client's top, though I always ask their permission if it's a project we are both likely to work on. I am the one thanked for the finished product, and when they pass on a referral to someone else, that third party has no clue that there are two quilters under the name of Quail's Nest Quiltworks.

We know of other men who quilt. One of them does all the quilting for his wife and daughter's fabric shop. I wonder if his clients assume his wife actually does the quilting after hours.

Can men quilt? I'll let you judge for yourself.

One Stitch at a Time

Tom here. It's been nearly three months since we received our Gammill longarm quilter. Denise and I have made great progress and our skills have improved with each session. My only apprehension about this venture concerned whether my skill level would meet the expectations of potential clients. I figured (correctly) Denise would take to the machine in no time. After all, she's spent most of her life successfully embracing creative pursuits, whether it be quilting, knitting, painting, photography, writing, etc.

As for me, I took a home economics class in junior high (where I learned to use a sewing machine), and as a teen, tied fishing flies, which I sold on consignment at a local store. Oh, and I could spin a basketball on my finger. With this in mind, my heart thumped a bit as I began quilting for the first time.

Not that I'm competitive, but I've gauged my progress based on careful observation of my wife's stitching. Whenever she quilts a beautiful design, I experience pride in her skills, along with a self-imposed prodding to rise to her level. If any competition exists between us, I'm sure it only makes us better.

I gravitate toward leaf and floral designs, whether it be a trillium meander, oak leaves or my latest discovery: roses with leaves (mine pictured). My love for gardening is undoubtedly to blame.

Roses & leaves meander

In less than three months, Denise and I have made fine progress. Just think where we'll be in a year! I'm confident the results will be wonderful -- one stitch at a time.

Surprising Design

 A neighbor, Judy, trusted me to quilt a pretty top she'd made. I love the  warm creams and beiges and soft whites she used. The use of similar values is called "low-volume", with no single fabric drawing attention to itself over the others.

I hung her patchwork on the curtain rod we've installed in our quilt room to observe it for a while. Judy didn't direct me to quilt it in a particular manner, so after looking it over, I scribbled some design ideas onto scratch paper.

When I loaded the top onto the machine and began quilting last week, I questioned whether I'd matched the style of quilting to the style of the top. Too contemporary? Too "scribbly"? I kept going, hoping it would  meet Judy's expectations.

Is it just me, or do other longarmers find "magic" happens when you finish a quilt and unpin it from the frame? While the layers are pulled tight, you see it flat, in two dimensions. Suddenly, when the tension is off and the fabric is allowed to relax, the work is so much more beautiful. In three dimensions, it blooms with texture.
It comes alive!

Judy B's half-square triangle quilt

It more than met Judy's expectations! And when we threw it out across her bed, I discovered a secondary design which seems should have been obvious to me before I ever began to quilt. Can you see the 'circles' formed by the arcs around the bubbles?

I will look for opportunity to quilt this design again.

Enthusiasm and Encouragement

It's so encouraging to return a finished quilt to a client and see their eyes light up! We've heard such enthusiastic responses to the work we've done.

Yesterday an employee at a local quilt shop saw a small quilt I'm finishing up and told me how nice the quilting was. 

"You do that with a computer program, right?"

Wow. No. We work freehand. But that was really complimentary. If someone took time to look it over, they'd see that there are no exact lookalikes. No swirl or swoop or loop looks perfectly identical to another. 

In our first weeks of longarm quilting, I spent a good deal more time on the machine than did Tom. He continued to finish the carpentry on our quilting room and worked at another obligation which required a good deal of his efforts. But once he began to quilt, he didn't waste time. He jumped in and learned the ropes.

We've done several practice or client quilts as a team (only with specific permission from said clients did we both put our work into the same quilt. as styles are bound to vary between two people). And I've done a number of quilts by myself. Yesterday I finished piecing a small quilt that Tom will quilt on his own. He planned the semi-custom quilting, chose the thread color and made good progress on it before I dragged him off to Eugene Modern Quilt Guild last night.

(Speaking of quilt guild, I suspected he was going to "break the glass ceiling" at that guild, as I've never seen or heard of a male participating with this group; but we were told he wasn't the first. Another man used to attend before I became involved at EMQ.)

 Here is the quilt Tom started quilting yesterday. His design, his choice of thread. It's coming along nicely.

This may give a little idea of the difference those quilting stitches can make in the finished product. I finished this one a few days ago.The patchwork is nice, colorful, fun. But add some decorative stitches and you have another element of interest, not to mention the practicality of attaching the "sandwich" of quilt top, batting (warmth and loft) and back.

Do you have a quilt top needing finishing? We'd like to be your quilters.

Practice, Practice

Those were the words of my violin teacher lo those many years ago: "practice, practice". I didn't do much practicing, and it showed. How motivated is a ten year old who doesn't master the instrument in the first few weeks? After two torturous years, my parents allowed me to quit the violin, since my younger sister was ready to take it up.




But I've learned the benefits of practicing a skill.We are in training in our home, learning to master the skills of quilting for others. Yes, we are new at this, having received our longarm machine a mere seventeen days ago. But it's so motivating -- I think for us both -- to feel we've been gifted with an ability that certainly surprises me.



We have made several muslin "quilt sandwiches", a few smaller patchwork quilts I'd pieced in the past, and some of varying sizes for three local charitable organizations. We now have customers' quilts ready to go. One is huge! It's a beautiful king-sized quilt that I'm intimidated to begin on yet. We need a little more experience for such a giant. Another quilt is a reasonable size, but I don't have the right color of thread, nor am I certain about the quilting design to apply yet. Tomorrow I'll load on another muslin practice piece, and it may become our new bedspread. Roclon unbleached muslin is beautiful, cream colored, smoothly finished, and looks fairly formal when quilted in a light silvery grey thread. (See portion of whole-cloth quilt above.)

Here's my favorite quilter.

Here is some of his quilting.

 This is mine.

I thought our styles would be as different from each others as is our signature, but we seem to have a similar way of filling in spaces with thread.