Quilted Village "Quillage" Workshop

Happy New Year! Can't believe its 2019 already!  I am still back posting some of my projects, hopefully will be caught up soon.

In August 2018, I hosted a sew day/workshop for my Busy Bees Quilt Group at my house in Happy Valley, Oregon.  We decided to create Quillages.  I learned this method several years ago from a book by Karen Eckmeier's Happy Village.   I'll give an overview of how we did it, but please purchase/check out Karen's book and website http://quilted-lizard.com/patterns.htm , the instructions are very good and she has some amazing samples to give you many ideas.

We spent about 4-5 hrs and most of us got the layout done or very close.  I like this as a workshop because you only need your machine for the quilting and binding.

We start off by cutting primitive shapes and laying them over our background, which was just a 16" muslin square.  We added some shapes for the water, mountains and background as desired.

I like to use a few dots of  Roxanne's glue baste for each piece. This is a less permanent solution and allows you to change your mind.

Shawnee Halligan

Karen Ponce de Leon

'

Kelley Gutman

We start to add doors and windows and rooftops, also very primitive shapes but really make the village come alive.

Lynn

Cheryl Solseth-Castlio

Jackie Moritz

Amy Austin pic 1

Amy's Further along

Trisha Rose -   oh ric rac @ 12:15!

This was mine. I got feedback that i had too many pieces and was in over my head....but i kept going!

It did take another afternoon to finish, but i think adding some lace and little touches did the trick.

Keep in mind we still haven't sewn anything!

Finally we covered the piece with tulle and free motion machine quilt around the houses.  Takes about an hour. 

 I used a pink tulle that had sparkly diamonds (not really) in it and had a rainy type texture.  

You see that the pink hardly shows but the shimmer and the sparkles give it a Portlandia kind of feel.  Oh yea, and take care when machine quilting through sequined tulle, you may break a needle, just saying...

You know I love a striped binding!  This one i actually finished the following week and it sat in the corner, waiting for me to hand stitch the binding on, which I did last night.  One good thing about being sick is all my hand projects get attention.  

And what is up this is darn cold people!.  This is the 4th time since October and it is yet another virus/sinus infection turned bronchitis.  After I knock this out, i should be able to withstand a plague!  Sorry, venting, and since i can't breath through my nose that's not so easy.

For those of you were in the workshop, please add comments and post your finished quillages. It will be fun to see the end results.  

Thank you my sister bees for trying something new! I love to see how each of us is creative in our own ways and the same instructions are interpreted so differently.

 See you soon when I don't look like this...

Happy New Year and Love to my fellow quilters!
Hope you take time to sew!

Aunti Nicole

Gradient Fabric Dying Workshop with Joy-Lily

Last Sunday my Flying Geese Guild hosted this class at Bear's Quilt Shop in Garden Grove.  We were to bring 3 white or white on white fat quarters and wear our work clothes.  

While there were about 16+ people  we didn't make as much of a mess as one might think.  We had a great time and cool fabric was made by all.

Joy-Lily was a lot of fun and she explained about the birds and bees of fabric dyeing.  She also came to our guild Monday night to share her gallery of art with such a variety of mediums.  For a special treat, visit http://www.joy-lily.com/ to see her beautiful gallery.

For this project we used hair color bottles of dye that was cut in half and half again to get the different gradients.  The soda ash was added at the end and then they were set in the sun for a bit and then rinsed.

For the first one we just kept it simple.  I used a white on white print and a magenta color.  I can see using this for applique flowers how the petals are dark and light.  Also Joy-Lily had some great ideas for putting together gradients in pieced quilts.

So here is he back.....

For our next one, we experimented a little.  I used another white on while and let the fabric print decide where the dye needed to go.  I used mostly blue with a hint of red dye for this one.

...and as my friend Hilary pointed out even the back looks good.  I could see using this softer version of the print for a complely different look.

Ok so this next one is why you don't just run screaming through the room with fabric dye!  By this time, I was just twisting and playing.  Another white on white, that I did without really think about the color combination, eek.  

In his case the back looks a little better.  

Watch the ugly one get the most use, HA!  Isn't that just the way.

A little plug for Bear's Quilt Shop in Garden Grove, CA  A great place to learn fabric dying among other quilty things.  They have a lot of great samples and do classes on demand for small groups.  A bunch of us are thinking about visit them this summer for another fabric dying workshop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Aunti Nicole