Posts Tagged ‘trunk shows’

Let’s Play Drezzup: Trunk Show and Workshop

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Trunk Shows

I fell hard for Dresden Plate about 10 years ago and there’s no hint that this love affair will end any time soon. I offer a lecture and a workshop and they’re very different but both are a lot of fun. I wanted to share a few of the quilts with you.

All Drezzed Up by Diane Harris

All Drezzed Up is the quilt that started it all. I bought 20 vintage Dresden Plate blocks for 20 dollars at an antique mall in Ogallala, Nebraska. Their points were raw-edged, and if I had known more about Dresdens at the time I might have left them behind.

My Quilt Dilemma

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, Quilt Lifestyle, Trunk Shows

I’m making a quilt of my own design that will become part of two guild programs,* but it’s not going well. I’m undecided about what to do. I know what I should do but I’m unwilling to do it.

This is it. It’s actually prettier than it looks here even if it is giving me fits. The biggest problem is this:

Add Movement with Diagonal Lines

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Trunk Shows

My lifetime adventures with Baby Windmills have led to quite a few quilt designs. Some of them have been sewn and some are still only on paper.

Christmas Dance by Diane Harris. Photo: Kristen Laing Photography.

The first designs were just sewing blocks together using a particular color recipe. Nice little scrap quilts like Christmas Dance, above, but pretty simplistic.

Changing It Up: From Christmas to Industry

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, Quilt Lifestyle, Uncategorized

I posted an image of my recent modern Christmas wreath quilt on Instagram, and a follower named Karen saw “urban-industrial style Christmas.” What a great description!

Oh, Christmas Wreath by Diane Harris; quilted by Julie Lechner @beenquiltin

Her thoughts moved me to play around with this design and purposely go for an industrial look. So I moved away from Christmas entirely, to these possibilities.

A little bit different, but it still feels like the same quilt. Sashing is wider and all of the background and the border is one color.

Here I moved to a darker background color. I kind of like this idea. In terms of fabric, I’d use a lot of variety in the Bow Ties. (Ha, they don’t even look like Bow Ties now!)

More playing around. I’m not sure how effective this really is. But you never know until you try, so I don’t rule anything out when I’m experimenting, especially if it’s just in EQ. Even in fabric, play is the name of the game.

Whoa. This happened by accident! The background is the same color as one of the Bow Ties, so that piecing disappears and they look like weird C’s. Now we’re getting somewhere. In reality you wouldn’t actually piece the C’s, you could just use a solid patch in the same fabric as the background. I love this one, and surprisingly, it looks Christmas-y to me once more.

I had one more thought. I changed the gray to another green.

Like I said, you never know until you mess around!

A note about Electric Quilt design software: I resisted upgrading to EQ8 from EQ7 because I thought I didn’t have time to learn a new program. But when I did upgrade, I was blown away by how easy and intuitive it is. I spent almost zero time learning EQ8 because everything felt natural and logical. I love it. If you’re interested in designing quilts, you should get it. Well worth the investment!

Today, I wish you the courage, the curiosity and the commitment to play.

Let’s Talk Quilts! Does your quilt group need a speaker for 2019 or 2020? I’m booking entertaining, energizing, inspiring trunk shows now.

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Dresden Plate Delight

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in How-tos and Ideas, Trunk Shows

I had a great group of students for a “Let’s Play Drezzup” workshop in Indiana earlier this summer. And I had a new experience with the GPS on my iPhone when it got me totally lost and I was very late for the class I was teaching. I was mortified but the quilters were so nice about it and our day together was terrific after that.

You never know what kind of fabrics people will bring, but the surprises are often wonderful. This quilter had fabrics from her mother’s stash! Aren’t those vintage prints amazing?

Scrap Quilts in Indiana

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, Trunk Shows

At the very beginning of summer, I drove to Lafayette, Indiana to share a trunk show of scrap quilts and teach a class on Dresden Plate. It was delightful! One of the quilters in the class emailed with big news last week, and it reminded me to blog about the Common Threads Quilt Guild.

This cool old barn was in the same parking lot as their meeting place in Lafayette, at a spot called Jenk’s Rest. I love old cupolas and someday I’m going to have one in my yard.

One Hundred Small Quilts #5

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, Trunk Shows

One of the sweetest quilts I ever came across is a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt from the 30’s or 40’s. I’m not usually a fan of silly Sue, but this one was so charming that I couldn’t leave it behind.

I love the rectangular blocks. They’re more interesting than square blocks. And notice that Sue has a friend. Or maybe she’s a twin. There are two Sues on each block. I love the solid colors used for each little girl. They’re so cheerful.

One Hundred Small Quilts #4

Written by Diane Harris on . Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Trunk Shows

One of the first programs I developed for quilt guilds is called One Hundred Small Quilts. I’m presenting these quilts in a series of short posts on Stash Bandit.

Luminous Lines by Diane Harris, 2009

Luminous Lines was created for an assignment in an advanced design class I took with Heather Thomas when I lived in Colorado. We were covering different elements of design, one of which is “line.”

Our assignment was to use line (and not much else) to create our design. I had these hand-dyed fabrics from Cherrywood which were all similar in value, so I used those for the background. I had ombré fabrics in similar colors with a splash of yellow, which I used for the appliqued bars.

I enjoyed playing with variegated thread for the quilting. My Bernina has a straight stitch that goes over itself a second time for a stronger line, which is what you see on the left above and on the right below.

For me, it’s often about experimenting to see what works. I do end up taking things out or taking them apart when they don’t work. But if I was never willing to play around to see what would happen, I’d never make any great discoveries.

I finished the edges with a facing instead of a binding. It’s pretty easy to do and it’s a good skill to have in your bag of tricks. I wrote instructions for facing a quilt when I worked for Quiltmaker. They’re useful and they’re free!

I’d love to bring One Hundred Small Quilts to your quilt group. Give me a call or shoot me an email.

Let’s Talk Quilts! 

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