ATCs at CQFA

First ATCs
First ATCs

While you were sipping your cappucinos this morning, I was finishing the edges of my very first ATCs – Artist Trading Cards – and dashing off to meet with my fellow CQFAers.

Maureen had suggested that we do a swap of ATCs. In the spirit of the Creative Prompt project, I decided that making them would be good for my creativity. And it was! I did them when I came home from work on Tuesday after one of the most grueling work days I think I have ever had. Immersing myself in some fiber took my mind off of the lunatics downtown. I didn’t have much brainpower and, thus, didn’t overthink the design. All of the fabrics came out of my scrap basket. I wasn’t sure what to use for the center so I used two layers of Pellon Stitch and Tear, which I use for stabilizing machine applique’. The ATCs felt right in terms of stiffness and I didn’t have any problems with sewing through the 4 layers. It all seemed to work just fine.

ATC backs
ATC backs

The ATCs are 2.5×3.5″ inches and I know that there are a zillion sources for instructions all over the web. Typical of me, I didn’t look at any of them. 😉

Sometimes I just need to do the work. I figured they were small enough and I could toss them if I didn’t like them.

I grabbed more fabric out of my scrap basket for the backs. The red dots and the Denyse Schmidt flowers are my favorites. One of my criteria was that I had to be able to write on the back, so my favorites weren’t ideal. The other plainer fabrics were better. I tried to use the stitch lettering that I used to use for labels on these ATCs, but my machine is starting to act up 🙁 and I couldn’t get it to work.

MPL's ATCs
MPL's ATCs

Maureen’s ATCs include the car in the group. Maureen is a quiltmaker I really admire, because she is constantly trying new things.

Her ATCs were a revelation, because they were all different! Mine are sort of different, but really the same. Maureen created different designs on each card. WOW! Not sure why I didn’t think of that, but perhaps I will do something similar next time.

Terri let me know that Diane and Nancy’s ATCs were mixed in with Maureen’s. I didn’t pay close enough attention to know whose are whose. Sorry ladies!

I thought I would make more of the same for next time, but after doing the swap, I think people will be looking for something new and exciting.

Terri's work
Terri's work

Terri is a mystery writer who incorporates quilts and quiltmaking into her stories. If you haven’t read Ocean Waves, Old Maid’s Puzzle, or Wild Goose Chase, get yourself to the Library or bookstore! Her ATCs had a mystery theme and were business card size. Terri used the business card sized advertisements as the backing! Clever!

In addition to paper and fabric, Terri also added 3D ribbon and rubber stamping to her cards. I have rubber stamps! Perhaps I will drag them out for the next round.

LC's Work
LC's Work

Linda‘s ATCs look marbled to me. She is a talented machine quilter. She produces lots of small works frequently by participating in such challenges as the Fast Friday Challenge. She has recently been doing succulents, which she says are too dark for her tastes. Most of her work is very bright – lime green, fuschia, bright blue, etc as Linda uses lots of hand dyes.

Linda talks about her ATCs on a blog post from a few days ago. It looks like she made a big piece and then cut it up. Another great idea!

Bron's ATCs
Bron's ATCs

I haven’t seen very much of Bron’s work and was really excited when she laid out her ATCs. Bron’s raven piece and her stamp piece both caught my eye. I couldn’t stop staring at them during the entire swap. I am not sure why. I guess Amy over at the Creative Mom podcast is on my mind both because of the ATCs and because of the birds.

Bron also chose to make different designs. Her media varied quite a lot as well. She used fabric, paint, paper, beads and different ephemera such as stamps.  I picked up the stamp card from Bron’s offerings.

Bron's Stamp ATC
Bron's Stamp ATC

The colors drew me to this piece. They were really vibrant and attractive. I am like a bee in spring, I guess. 😉 I really liked the textures on this card as well as the airmail stamps.

VS works
VS works

Virginia is a quiltmaker I really admire. She has a quiet presence that smolders. When she finishes a quilt or a set of placemats or something, they set the room on fire: excellent stitching, perfect corners, wonderful fabrics and a great design. I really wish she lived closer as I would try to spend more time learning with her.

Virginia did photo transfer with fabric, paper and stitching. I wasn’t as excited about them because of the black and white. I did love the stitching around the edge.

Diane brought some as well and somehow I missed photographing them. Perhaps next time.

While I am not particularly interested in ATCs, I found this to be a good exercise. Not so much in what I made, but in seeing what everyone else made and getting inspired by their work. I may have a chance to try out some of these ideas as Maureen suggested that he group make this activity a regular part of the meeting. Hhmm…

Quilting By the Sea #2

The second CQFA Retreat was the weekend of January 25, 2009 (read about the first retreat here). What a great weekend for sewing. You have already seen my completed top, FOTY 2008, but I thought I would share some of the highlights of the trip and other people’s projects with you. I highly recommend going on a weekend retreat once in a while, especially if you normally don’t get several hours of uninterrupted time to do your sewing.


On Saturday, I went out for a walk and to get some food and saw this flower, which I thought might make a nice sketch or a “Big Idea” for a quilt.


Terri, a talented writer whose books you should go out and buy right now, is also a talented quiltmaker. Above is her Kaleidoscope project. Since I had recently completed the Eye Spy top, I gave her some unsolicited advice on putting the top together. One of the things that I enjoy about the retreat is that I like seeing what people are making. Terri uses a very different color palette than I do, but it was great to see how she worked on the hexagons.

CQFA has a free fabric connection. Julie went and got some free fabric and made the above couch throw out of it. I love the cabbage rose feel that this top has, mostly because it is not too sickly sweet.

I didn’t crop the photo above, because I wanted you to see the set up. Julie and I were working at the table on the left side of the photo. You can see FOTY 2008 on my portable design wall in the background. Dolores was working on the right. We had nice big tables to work on.

Dolores, the organizer, had a goal of getting to know everyone better. Last year people did introductions and everyone talked about how they got into quiltmaking. This year she asked everyone to talk about what inspires them. Above is a picture of everyone gathering around one person’s work.

Debbie talked about taking a summer course at Cabrillo College with Richard Elliott. The class was called something like Frankenstein Fabric and they learned to manipulate fabric in new and interesting ways. The fabric above has been manipulated so that it has little puffs all over it.

The fabric has a high polyester content. Debbie does really interesting things with fiber and is very involved with SAQA.

All in all, the weekend was a big success. I certainly got a lot done and was pleased to be able to spend some extra time with Julie.

Longarm Demo


I went to the CQFA Meeting yesterday, which was held at Always Quilting in San Mateo. One of the reasons we went there was to get a demo of their longarm quilting machine and find out about learning to use it. I took the above video at the demo.

I tried out the machine as well and found it very easy to drive. Kit, one of the shop owners, had already loaded the machine with fabric for us to work on. She gave us a lecture on preparing the quilt for the machine and how their program of learning to load and use the machine worked. I thought she was a good lecturer and gave many good hints for preparing a quilt to be longarm quilted.

I have worked with a longarm quilter for awhile and know how she wants things prepared. I was surprised to hear that Always Quilting likes things a little differently done.

After the demo, we went to the back room, had lunch, worked on projects (see later post for pics of my work) and had our regular meeting.

I ended up signing up to take their their longarm quilting training in January. Their policy is to take the training and then you are allowed to rent the machine. I don’t expect that I will quilt all of my quilts myself, but I think it will be good to quilt some of them myself, and perhaps, less expensive. In any case, education is always a good thing.

All in all it was a fun day.