Month: April 2023

Time is Spiral

| ellenanneeddy

This is a special week for me. After 10 years, I’m teaching in a guild again. I’ll be lecturing at Gems of the Prairie Wednesday, May 3rd, and teaching the class The Stitch Vocabulary Book on May 4th. The class is full, but I’m told the guild welcomes non-members for the lecture. You are all very welcome to come!

It’s my developmental lecture.: How I became an artist. That’s a misnomer by the way. We are artists by the way of being human. It’s how I stumbled into my own art, and where it has taken me.

Every year I try to do something I’ve never done before. for my birthday. This year, I’m teaching a lecture and class, after a ten-year hiatus.

And on May 5th, I turn 70. I’ve always dreaded that. It sounds so old. Yet here we are. And if you’re a contemporary, so are you. As someone quite wise said to me, “If you made it, you celebrate it.” I intend to.

My life has always been a bit upside down. I’m too dyslexic to do things in a rational linear order. I started doing my art in my 20s. I married at 62. I borrowed other people’s children, although I always gave them back. And I had a lot of physical limits. 10 years ago, I pretty much stopped doing art and wrote books instead. And then Don gave me his old house for a studio. And my art flared up like a forest fire. Only a bit less destructive. It was back.

Making art is an expression of vision. Teaching is the sharing of technique. They really aren’t very similar. But they balance each other on the see-saw for good art is always bound by technique, and the ability to share technique extends everyone’s ability to share vision.

Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book

In prepping for class, I’ve done some things I really haven’t done for a while. I wrote and published a new classroom book for the class. Classroom books are all about technique, and this one is chocked full of different ways to use free motion: zigzag stitching, straight stitching, garnet stitch, hard edge applique, soft edge applique and bobbin work, with extra chapters on silk flowers, globbing and Angelina fiber. Bookmaking is a skill. It was nice to come back to that again.

You’ll find the Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book on Amazon in both Kindle and hard copy.

And I’ve brushed up that lecture. It was shocking to realize how much my technique had changed in three years. The revised lecture needed to cover that. My stabilizer techniques, my drawing techniques, and my stitching techniques are massively different.

To celebrate the class, I’ve put quilts on sale. I’ll have them at lecture and class but you can also purchase them on my Etsy site at www.etsy.com/shop/EllenAnneEddy

What was more shocking, was that I had enough quilts to do a full trunk show out of that three years of work, with no older work included. Old work is fun for a lecture, but I think my new work is much more exciting. Yes. I will let you touch them. It’s astonishing what gets done if you are doing it daily.\

My point is that life isn’t linear. It’s a spiral, just like time in a garden. It doesn’t start at one place and just go to another. It cycles, it stalls, it spins out, It shoots up. Flares down. But even when things stop, they come back again in a different form at a different time in a different way. I don’t think I need a thing for this birthday, except, note to Don, some new books. The journey is the gift.

You are so welcome to come to my lecture. for Gems of the Prairie. It’s at St Paul Lutheran Church 1427 W Lake Avenue, Peoria, IL, United States, May 3rd, at 6:30 PM. I’m bringing piles of fabric, books and hand-dyed threads so people can play with the toys I use.

All time is a spiral. Wait long enough and things lost come back in their own way and time. I am grateful.

Living Large: Strategies for Dealing with Large Quilts

| ellenanneeddy

I almost never do bed quilts. I did them when I was younger and watched them die as I used them. It was too depressing. I occasionally will do a baby quilt or a comfort quilt for someone dealing with illness. Mostly I do art.

And since art doesn’t have to be big, I don’t often make something bed-size to put on the wall. Except when I do,

This heron couldn’t be done smaller. At least I couldn’t do it smaller. He’s 60″ x 52″. He’s pretty much the size of God’s underpants.

There are some strategies for dealing with overlarge quilts. The first three are, don’t. But if you’ve decided it must be large, there are several things you can do that will help.

Strategies for Large Quilts

Break it into components. For myself, that means the embroideries. I do them separately and then apply them when the top is ready. But it might be working in rows or in segments. Different quilts will suggest different approaches.

Use larger details. Scaling up the design means there’s less work in it. Sometimes extensive detail just looks ditsy on a larger piece.

Buy extra sewing machine needles. Larger quilts require more tugging and pulling and that will break needles. Promise.

If you have a machine with a wider arm, this is the moment. The arm of your machine is the space between the needle and the mechanical right end. A lot of manufacturers make machines with a longer arm. That’s extra room to shove the quilt through the machine. It can be very helpful.

Use a design wall where you can walk away and really see your design. A design wall should be big enough to accommodate your work and in a big enough space where you can walk away and really look at it. For more information about making and using a design wall, here’s a blog post on it: Studio Essentials: The Glories of the Design Wall.

The other helper is what we used to call bicycle clamps. Roll your quilt, clamp them with these clamps and then you can maneuver it easier.

I don’t do large quilts often. But they do really make a punchline in a gallery show. So this heron is promised to a show at the Peoria Art Guild in September. We should have him crowing by then.

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The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book is Ready to Order

| ellenanneeddy

The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book is available to order in print!

This classroom book takes you through all the techniques I use to create my art in 5 easy exercises on 9″ squares. Then you take those exercises and bind them into your own reference book, there to remind you what works best for you.

I love classroom books. I think it’s important to give people the whole recipe for something, with nothing left out. That’s what I tried to do here.

It includes free motion techniques on straight stitch, zigzag, bobbin work, hard edge applique, soft edge applique, rocks, Angelina fiber, globbing, couching, silk flowers and leaves, and all machine binding.

If you are taking the class at Gems of the Prairie, your book is part of your class fee and will be waiting for you at class. For everyone else, you can order it now on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/…/173228…/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0…

Wringer Washer Woes and Wonders

| ellenanneeddy
Don with Frank

I’ve talked before about using old-fashioned appliances for dyeing. They are hidden gems for dyers! They are made especially for cotton and other plant fibers and work brilliantly in processing cotton.

Now that I’m no longer constantly on the road, I don’t dye as much as I used to. I used to dye around 50 yards of fabric a month. Now I dye around 20 per three months. It’s usually for my own use now, although I make some available in my Etsy shop, and you can always call me up and pick out the fabric you’d like on Zoom or Messenger.

But 50 yards or 20, that’s a lot of fabric to wrangle around. I’ve written about mangles. They are awesome ironing tools. But the other ancient appliance I depend on is a wringer washer.

Am I washing out with it? Ah, no. Cotton has to be soaked in solution and then wrung out. I don’t quite have the space even in a full kitchen dye space to wrangle 20 yards in the sink. Enter, the wringer washer. It will hold ample washing soda solution and fabric, and then wring your fabric out for you.

Unfortunately, like most appliances from the 40s and 50s, they’re a little old and cranky by now. When my beloved Maytag started to smoke, it was old enough to put in for social security as well as vote. We went hunting another wringer washer.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Most of the ones out there have retired to being lawn ornaments. We found one that looked like it was in good shape except for the rust and the fact that it wasn’t moving when we plugged it in. A parts machine, as Don put it.

It seemed like an easy thing to fix. Maytag made the same wringer washer for around 40 years. These washers were 20 years apart, but almost identical. But we needed to meld them into Frankenwasher! A it of this, a bit of that, put together.

We come to our heros of this adventure. I called around Galesburg, looking for someone who might help us with the frankenwasher project. I got a resounding no. No one had wringer washers. No one knew how to fix a wringer washer. No one would want one, would they?

Until I called Dillons Appliance. I love mom and pop stores. I got Sam who knew is father, Jack, used to work on them.. Jack talked his grandson, Jackson through it. And Jackson, who is a brilliant young mechanic, learned from his grandfather how to fix a wringer washer. IT LIVES!

So the moral of the story is don’t let anyone tell you no. All they are telling you is that they can’t help. Keep going till you find someone who says yes.

And find the really good mom and pop businesses that do say yes, because they are treasures, not only because they are willing to help, but because they have wells of knowledge others may have forgotten, and are there for you.

Do check out Dillons if you need an appliance in Galesburg. Frank and Frankson are my heros.

 343 S Chambers St. Galesburg, IL 61401. · (309) 343-0476. 

The other hero of all of this is Don, who is willing to drive all over the countryside searching for ancient appliances and his friend Joe who has moved more appliances with Don than I can count. Did I tell you I’m a lucky girl?

The Thread MAgic Stitch Vocabulary Book is Available in Kindle!

| ellenanneeddy

The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book went up yesterday on Kindle and is now available! I’ve been sharing my chapters with you so you can get a taste. This is the classroom book that shows you most of the technique

es I use for my work.

I will be teaching the class, Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book for the Gems of the Praire Guild in Peoria on May 4th with a lecture on May 3rd.

This is my first guild gig in about 10 years. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I don’t know that I’m back to a gig I have to travel for yet. But I am so excited to be back in a classroom, and I’ve found there are so many techniques that have changed or modified over that period of time. And so many more things I can do with those techniques..

So I did this booklet, especially for this class. But it should stand alone as a set of exercises you can use to build your skills and stretch your abilities. There is a full toolbox of free motion techniques you can include in your work with just a little practice.

You can see several chapters up on earlier blog posts.

Product or Process. How Do You Learn Best

Bobbin Work

Hard Edge Applique

Skills covered
Free motion straight stitch
Free motion zigzag
Bobbin work
Hard edge applique
Soft edge applique
Working with Angelina Fiber
Working with dyed cheesecloth
Couching
Adding silk flowers and leaves
Globbing

I tried to write a book that would cover a lot of information in a small space. I’m hoping you find it useful. You can order the Kindle Stitch Vocabulary Book right now. The print book will be out at the end of the month, and it’s part of your kit if you are taking the class.

I’m so excited to be sharing this material with you and to be out teaching again with the best people in the world. Quilters!