Music of the Spheres

Saturn's rings detail pieced and quilted by Emily Milne

This was a quilt that Emily did for a Festival of Quilts exhibition when she was quite young. I'm re-visiting it because of a conversation that we had with our son Ben when he came home for a visit. I love having kids! They keep you up to date on all the interesting things that are happening in the wide world and beyond.

Saturn's rings and stars an original line design by Emily Milne

Ben, who is Emily's twin brother, came home to celebrate Pete's 13th birthday a couple of weeks ago. He wanted us to hear this NASA recording of the sounds that the planets make in space. Well, we were surprised. Rosie who is taking physics in Sixth Form said that she was surprised that there could be sound in space. But Ben assured us via Nasa that there were enough particles in space to carry the sound waves and that the sounds could be heard by the human ear. Cool stuff! Here's the link for Saturn but you can hear all the planets by following the other links on the right.

Saturn - the Lord of Time

I chuckled because the ancient philosopher and mathmatician, Pythagoras had a theory about the Music of the Spheres. Many people in the Middle Ages were fond of the idea and they came up with it without all the modern technology of NASA. There is nothing new under the sun!

Heart FMQ Tutorial

Heart Muscle an every-which -way pattern

Hearts are, perhaps my favourite motif.  I use them all year but I'm always happy when February rolls around. This year we've posted a Heart themed FMQ tutorial on the Line Dancing site.

Baby Bum hearts

The heart shape is a core shape for Free-motion-quilting. We use it on it's own and in combination with other shapes.

Scalloped hearts in Bubblegum Rainbows Thread

Our tutorial shows lots of different ways to create and extend the heart shape in many directions. The Line Dancing tutorial will get you doodling and stitching in all directions. You'll see some great thread tips too. 

There are some fun ideas for Valentine projects.

heart feathers

There are down-loadable Valentine post card templates so you can cut up your practice piece to create Valentine postcards! The downloadable post card template comes free with the purchase of the Line Dancing heart tutorial.

Valentine post card

Practice stitching the heart shapes on some pretty scrap fabric. You've had fun, and learned lots of new ways to make hearts. Now you can make something pretty and useful with your practice piece.

FMQ heart practice piece, all ready to cut up

 Simply print our downloadable post card templates on card in your printer.  Then cut them out with a dull rotary cutter.Cut pieces from your heart practice piece to match the post card shape and zig-zag stitch around the outside. You can make lots for family and friends. People are so surprised that they really do go through the post!

Zig-zag stitch around the edge

Way to Go Ravens!

Joe Flacco Super Bowl MVP

Yes, I'm from Baltimore. And the Baltimore Ravens did win the Super bowl!  So it's happy times for lots of my friends and family back home. My son Ben who lives and works in Lincoln came home to visit Sunday so he could collect his American football gear and watch the game in style. He must have had a great night. I went to bed and only found out in the morning. But I wanted to celebrate too. So I hung out the fleece!

And Played around with the Ravens' purple and gold colors on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame.

 This new colour from the brand new Fantastico range from Superior Threads would have been perfect. But all the cones of Fantastico were gleefully grabbed at the Machine Quilting Retreat last weekend. We tried Fantastico at the Retreat for the first time and we loved it! It's so new that there's only 20 colours available but I'll be re-stocking everything I can get!

Fantastico 5015 Purple and gold - perfect Raven colours

I'm going to make this into a post card for my brother-in-law Dan who is quite the Ravens fan!

using the JUKI TL98P on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame

Winter into Spring

doodling line designs

The Machine Quilter Retreat last weekend was so much fun! We had a great group of girls from all over the country. The weather was so kind! It did snow but only after everyone had arrived safe and sound on Friday. Then it rained and by Sunday it was positively balmy. So all the driving there and back again was just fine.

auditioning threads

 We laughed a lot and enjoyed auditioning thread and brainstorming quilting patterns on various tops.

Jackie showing us some finished quilts

 Everyone brought quilts to share. It was very inspiring!

Marilyn and Martha 

Marilyn wrote a poem, which captured the Retreat so much better than prose.

Dancing the line

Outside, a muntjac deer, her coat

shimmering like wet clay, picks her sunlit way

through snow fading from the soft edge of hard.

Inside, its time to show and tell our pieces,

to ask  - which pattern, which thread?

We spool silk, cotton, trilobal fibre

over fabric, consider curls of matt, glossy,  

same and shifting colour lines:

question,    disagree,      play.

Next we air doodle, letting the trace

whisper to our mind’s eye, then, pen on paper,

we repeat: ripple stipple, border feathers, loops,

writing their twists, turns, and pauses

into our muscle memory before we needle-draw,

back and forth across stretched sandwiches

-top, fleece, backing. We are dancing the line

to the thaw’s soundscape, stitching across

bears paw, log cabin, blocks and strips

of cloth, sewing buds of scallops, mussel shells,

hearts,  side stepping to shadow one,

then another - creating quilting blossom.

Outside the buttercup moon lights

the leaves, trees, paths, free from snow:

in its gaze we turn towards home.

©Marilyn Hammick January 2013

Whatever the Weather

Well, the snow was beautiful. It still looks lovely in the fields around our house. But even the A and B roads are clear in the Lincolnshire area around us. The motorways are fine too. So travelling to our Petwood Machine Quilter Retreat this weekend looks pretty good. We're looking forward to wood fires, lovely meals and a demand free weekend without distractions as we focus on fine tuning our machine quilting skills.

Dress for the Retreat is smart casual. We dress up a bit for the evening meals and dress comfortably for the day time workshops.

We'll have frames set up and we'll supply all the materials for the weekend. Please bring any finished quilts or unfinished tops for our afternoon brainstorming session.  We would be delighted to see what you've been up to. If you would like some help tensioning your sewing machine, please bring that along as well. I've just received the January Superior Threads shipment!! So there will be lots of thread to look through.

 The retreat begins at 7:00 pm with our evening meal. But the Hotel staff are expecting arrivals any time after 2:00. So you're welcome to come a bit early and settle in your rooms and relax after the journey if you like. I'll be setting up in the Garden Room in the afternoon then collecting Emily from the Newark train station. We'll meet you for the evening meal at 7:00.We're looking forward to seeing you all! Drop me an email if you have any questions. martha@machinequilter.co.uk    Follow this link to see a schedule for the weekend..

Art Quilter goes to School

 When the Art department at my daughter's high school saw her Starry Night project they wanted to see how a machine quilting frame would let you draw with the needle. So I arranged to bring the 6 foot ART Quilter frame, Table and JUKI TL98 P to the school' s year 12 ART Class for the day. 

We started with some Klimt swirls, first on paper 

and then on the frame. We tried a variety of repeated patterns from nature too.

 Then we moved on to Kandinsky circles.

 The students cut out concentric circles in fleece and fabric

 which we raw edge appliquéd directly onto the black background fabric on the frame.

 It was a small class so each student could design and appliqué their own circle.

I liked how each one was so different. The students enjoyed choosing the different fabric and threads.

At the end of the session, we took the practice piece off the Art Quilter frame and each student received a slice of the day's thread play to put in their art books.

It was fun to see students who were not familiar with sewing machines or quilting frames be able to design and complete a project all in one day!

Kandinsky Circles

  "Music is the ultimate teacher ... Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings, the artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another to cause vibrations in the soul.

Wassily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944   

influential Russian painter, father of Abstract Art

Kandinsky was fascinated by the relationship between music and painting. His understanding of the emotional power of form and colour can be inspirational to quilters too.

Yellow - warm, cheeky and exciting, disturbing, loud, sharp trumpets, high fanfares
Blue - deep, inner, peaceful, heavenly, light blue flute, mid-blue Cello, darkest blue Organ
Green - stillness, peace with hidden strength, quiet drawn out violin
White - pregnant with possibility, harmony of silence, a pause that breaks the melody
Black - extinguished, a final pause
Red - alive growing, energy, glowing passion, sure strength, pure joy, the sound of Trumpets, Tuba, deep notes on the Cello, high clear Violin
Orange - radiant health, church bells, alto voice, violin, singing tone
Violet - rare, royal, sad, forlorn, Bassoon, English Horn