Here’s where I’m at on the king size quilt:

Well, it may not be the tiniest ever, but it’s a first for me! Okay, so now you all know just how deep the insanity really goes. It’s one of those things that had to be done, though; the monogram letters are so delicate that the size of the background stipple quilting had to be really, really small. That’s a rule to keep in mind: to be effective, the size of the background quilting must be smaller than the smallest element of the foreground design. If the stippling around the monograms was larger (like the size outside the circle), the monograms wouldn’t have shown up as well. When I was designing the quilting for this quilt, I knew I didn’t want to have to quilt stipples that small across the whole quilt. Can you imagine? Eeek! That’s why I added the circular border around the monograms, so I could quilt tiny stipples just on that part of the quilt, and the rest could be more moderately sized (relatively). For an even closer view: Read the rest of this entry »

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When you are choosing colors for a new quilt, how do you decide on the overall color scheme? Many times, I see quilters who will choose the same color scheme as the sample quilt on the pattern. Some quilters don’t really even look at quilts in magazines or books if they are not made in colors that appeal to them. While there is nothing wrong with this method or line of thinking, and for beginners it can be a necessary step toward success, it can really limit creativity and growth as an artist in the longer term. Yes, there will always be a color or color scheme that does not appeal to you, but try to see past the colors in the sample to imagine the quilt made in colors that you do like. Read the rest of this entry »

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How do you hang your quilts? Do you use the “hanging sleeve and dowel rod method?” I have for years, and still do, but recently I wondered if there wasn’t something better out there. I like to have a seasonal quilt hanging in my entryway that changes depending on the time of year. Now of course, these quilts are not all the same size, so it’s a bit of a hassle (not to mention bad for the wall) to have to put new nails up for each different size of quilt. Enter Arti Tec. Arti Tec is a company in the Netherlands manufacturing state of the art hanging systems for museums, galleries, offices and homes. I discovered this system at my local hardware store, but I do live in Germany, so I know it’s not necessarily available easily in the States. There is a distributor in Canada, however: www.arts-supplies.net. I’m sure if you head to your hardware store, you can probably find supplies to imitate this system as well.

I purchased a gallery rail, a moulding shaped wooden rail that is attached to the wall just below the ceiling, with hooks, perlon suspension cables, and picture hooks. Perlon is a clear plastic cable. So, I have the gallery rail that’s a bit wider than my widest quilt that will hang there, and the hooks can slide across the rail so that the system works for any size quilt. I use adjustable cafe curtain rods in the quilt sleeve, which are small enough to fit on the picture hooks. Problem solved!

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