There's nothing that makes me happier than receiving an email or gallery submission with photos of something that a customer has made with my fabric. So I was thrilled to receive an email from Judy Laddon with her Harmonic Convergence series quilts. She was kind enough to agree to be interviewed on the blog. irst, would you tell us about what drew you to and keeps you intrigued by the Harmonic Convergence pattern? After the birth of my granddaughter five years ago, I got a crib quilt kit with Eric Carle-designed fabrics of fireflies, sun, moon, stars. Once I had pieced the top I discovered it was quite a bit bigger than I had expected. (I didn’t read the description very carefully, I guess!) So I took the plunge and trained myself to use a long-arm. That was eye-opening, because it opened up another level of artistry. After that, I picked up several books on long-arm quilting techniques, and one of them, Karen McTavish’s book, “Mastering the Art of McTavishing,” illustrated a Ricky Tims-pattern quilt. When I saw it, I was immediately mesmerized by the combination of colors and shapes. The hand-dyed fabrics, like Vicki’s, create a dreamscape that shifts from one brilliant color to another. The convergence pattern, with its varying geometry, accentuated this flow of color and presented a woven puzzle … which fabric is flowing where? I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of experimenting with this geometric pattern, the gradient colors and the sensuous, curved stitching. Plus, the end result is always a surprise. How did you get into fiber art and quilting? I learned to sew as a teenager, made all my clothes, and later, as a mother, I expanded my sewing into children’s clothes, doll clothes, Halloween costumes, pillows, wall hangings, purses, curtains, prom dresses, quilts. What inspires you? Fabrics themselves are a big inspiration! Can you believe all the designs people come up with? Naturally, I’m a big fan of Vicki Welsh’s fabrics. I’ve made a number of quilts with Kaffe Fassett print designs. Many batik fabrics take my breath away. And for decades I’ve admired (and used in projects) the reverse- appliqués of the Kuna Indians of the San Blas islands and the Hmongs of Southeast Asia. Guatemalan textile art, especially from Chichicastenango, is utterly beautiful. Do you find that you lean toward certain color palettes? Everything goes, but I’m especially drawn to bright colors. What do you like best about your creative working space? My sewing area is in a bright third-floor loft, with skylights. Do you sell your work? If so, how can someone contact you about these pieces?
My pieces are for sale, and I’m happy to do commissions if there’s a certain color palette someone wants to match. Please contact me via email: jladdon at gmail dot com Now that we are all settled in here at my new home I wanted to do something to thank you for following me here and the best way to do that is with a sale and lots of giveaways! We kick off today with the sale and will have great giveaways every day next week. For the first time ever every fabric in the shop is on sale! Usually when I have a sale it's on the Gradients or Stash Packs but today through May 12 EVERY SINGLE FABIC IN THE SHOP IS ON SALE!
Use coupon code GRAND20 and your discount will be applied at checkout. The sale doesn't apply to custom orders, except for Shades Packs. Be sure that you check in on the blog every day starting Monday for some great giveaways! I'm taking fused glass class at Visual Arts again this session. We are so fortunate to have a facility like VisArts (formerly The Hand Workshop) in Richmond. The studio spaces are so nice and the classes cover everything from painting to letterpress to weaving to glass. I like taking the advanced glass class mostly because it gets me back to working on glass. We all work on our own projects but there's help whenever you need. Some of the people have been taking this class every session for 6 years! It's inspiring to see what everyone else is making. My current interest is in quilt blocks. I like making these sun catchers and it's very good practice for cutting glass.....something that I'm still not great at! I cut out the pieces for this and one other quilt last week and fired this one over the weekend. I love red and gray so this one might be a keeper! I still have to add the hanging chain but otherwise it's done. Here's what the kiln looked like before firing. My kiln has a round shelf and it's not a huge kiln so I can only do one big quilt block in a firing. But I can't stand to fire the kiln with just one item so I try to fill the shelf as much as possible. I added in some 4" square pinwheel blocks (pay attention to the colors of the red pinwheels) and experimented with some Christmas ornaments. The ornaments are a great way to experiment with different colors/materials/techniques. It's also a great use of scrap glass. Yes, even glassmaking creates scrap bins! Here are all of the little Christmas trees. They are about 4" tall. Some are definitely better than others but they all turned out pretty cute. Here are the 4" pinwheel blocks. Did you notice that the orange isn't orange before firing? Some glass, especially reds, oranges and yellows "strike" to a different color. That causes problems when you don't organize your scrap glass well (like me). Sometimes I get surprised and not in a good way. I also experimented with top vs corner hangers. I thought the 4: block might be too big for a corner hanger, but it isn't. Here are my next projects. I'm gluing up a Card Trick block in turquoise. The blue circles are just bottle caps that I'm using as risers and not by bad design sense. The first block into the kiln is another in reds and yellows and some more test ornament blocks.
I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get these finished and fired. I try not to impose deadlines with my glass projects. They will be done when they are done.....like my wall! I am fortunate to be able to teach new longarm owners at The Longarm Network in Virginia. I also try to quilt at least 40 charity quilts each year from my local quilt club. I often use my quilting designs on these quilts to teach my students that they can be a good longarm quilter from the first quilt by following a path to proficiency. I show them many ways to quilt simply and easily while still creating nice designs and learning new skills. Yesterday I shared this snowball block quilt. I pondered on this quilt for several days to come up with a quilting approach. I almost settled on an all-over design but really wanted a design that would show off the blocks. Now that I'm on the new website I'm going to do a better job of creating tutorials and am going to create lots of easy/beginner longarming tutorials....starting with this one! This tutorial shows one way to quilt snowball or kaleidoscope-type blocks. It's fast and easy, a great way to build some longarm skills and it creates a great pattern on the back of the quilt. Get the tutorial here. We had a rainy weekend in Virginia so after spreading a 5 gallon bucket of Preen on the driveway Saturday I spent the rest of the weekend on my fun things. I moved some shelves out of my sewing room to make way for the design wall, I fired the kiln and will have those things ready to share later and I quilted veteran's quilts. The next quilt on FloMo will be one of my own. Sometimes I don't know who made the quilt tops but I know this one is Betsy's. She loves small pieces and repro fabrics. I did an all-over swirl because you can't really see the quilting anyway.....even with red thread! I did try to do a little something special in the border with a feathered motif. I know this one is Carol's because she reminded me at the last meeting. I had to ponder this one for a long time to come up with a quilting plan. I'm really happy with what I came up with and I'm going to share the quilting path in another post. I like coming up with simple but but nice-looking designs that beginners can do. This "pattern" is one step above easy and there are some really good skills that can be practiced while doing this design. I think the back is fun too!
I'm off to glass class in a few minutes. I'm focused on glass quilt blocks right now. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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April 2024
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