Category Archives: Quilting

Meet J. Michelle Watts

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I make frequent trips to the Southwest, and you KNOW they include visits to quilt shops along the way. For years I’ve been seeing Southwestern-themed patterns by J. Michelle Watts, who seems to have that niche all to herself. So this last time I thought I’d ask her for an interview. Here she is:

southwestern quilt designs

J. Michelle Watts

Tell us about your quilts and your other projects, too.

When I started quilting in 1982, I hand pieced and hand quilted mostly traditional quilt blocks.

I designed my first original southwestern wall hanging, Adobe Sunrise, in 1987. In 1989, I started a small mail order pattern company with my own collection of southwestern quilt patterns. I have also designed a line of patterns that use the 9 degree wedge ruler and a couple of jelly roll friendly scrap quilt patterns, written 3 books,  and designed 3 collections of fabric for Moda.

Ojo de Dios quilt

One of Michelle’s designs for wedge ruler.

“Stenciling Quilt Blocks” is my favorite class to teach right now. The technique is simple, fast and fun and the finished projects can fool you into thinking they are pieced or appliqued.

Stenciled quilt, J. Michelle Watts

Pueblo Rhapsody

The black designs in “Pueblo Rhapsody” have been stenciled onto 40 odd shaped turquoise blocks and then the blocks are sewn together.  My newest pattern collection, “It’s Simple With Stencils”, is a collection of quilt patterns that use laser cut stencils and Paintstiks to stencil quilt blocks and quilts. The collection features a variety of small traditional quilt blocks and some with a southwestern style.

Inquiring minds always want to know: do you have a “day job”, or do you teach and develop patterns full time?

I print and package all my own patterns. This is my day job, night job and weekend job. I now travel about 120 days a year teaching and vending at quilt shows. I manage a website that features all my patterns. I host a small quilt retreat each year near Ruidoso, NM.  This year I want to try to make some short tutorials on several techniques I teach.  When people ask me “So what do you do for a living?”, I love being able to tell them ” I am a quilter.”  There is a quilted wall hanging in my studio that says “Love what you do and do what you love.” That pretty much says it all.

J. Michelle Watts quilt pattern

Casa Blanca, Michelle’s newest applique pattern. Thank goodness it will be available as a stencil, also!

What’s next?

My newest applique pattern, Casa Blanca, which is inspired by an old ironwork door. This design will also be available as a stencil pattern. The dark wine pieces are machine appliqued to a cream background.  I have many other patterns in the works as well.

If you want to see all Michelle’s patterns, visit her website.  Here are a few of my favorites:

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Crunchy Numbers

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The WordPress people send me two statistical reports a year regarding my blog, and of course I can look at statistics on my administrative page at any time. I don’t stress it or check very often, so I was quite surprised when the recent report from WordPress said people from 61 different countries viewed my blog in 2015!

Most of the countries were predictable: the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. But there were views from every continent except Antarctica! The place I got the biggest kick out of was Iceland 🙂

This improvised log cabin block, which was made into a pillow, appears to have been the most viewed picture on the site.

improvised log cabin block

improvised log cabin block

Jo Glover, big stitch quilting

Jo Glover

And my most popular post was about Jo Glover, who first developed Big Stitch quilting but doesn’t always get enough credit now that everybody does it. You can find that post HERE if you missed it.

Another popular topic was my ongoing modern sampler quilt, and there’ll be much more about that coming up soon.  A few of those blocks are shown below.

This block was made with curves cut freehand

The stats show my readership growing steadily over the 2-1/2 years I’ve been blogging. The growth is slow, but I’m blogging for fun (and I’ve kept my day job!) so that’s just fine. I’ve made some new friends, which is even better.

As always, I’m amazed by the power of the internet. I’ll skip the chance to philosophize about that and just wish anyone who reads this a very happy 2016!

Little House Class at Studio Stitch

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I’ll be teaching my fusible applique class, called Little House on the Wall (with no

Studio Stitch

Samples for the Little House workshop

apologies to Laura Ingles Wilder) at Studio Stitch in Greensboro (NC) on January 30.

I visited the shop recently to talk with the staff about materials for the class, and of course I HAD to look at EVERYTHING.  Well, I needed to look so I could discuss what would be appropriate for the class, but it’s OK to just drool on the fabric a little, right?

They had landscape fabrics and plenty of batiks that will be great for the class.

There was even a bundle that seemed just made for creating my little houses!Studio-Stitch-8

I even found 28 weight thread for embellishment in a variety of yummy colors.

 

 

28 weight thread can be hard to find, but Studio Stitch has plenty!

28 weight thread can be hard to find, but Studio Stitch has plenty!

Of course I wandered a little…they had gorgeous batiks made specifically for use with the Jacqueline De Jonge patterns.  They even had one as a kit, with a more restful background fabric than this sample I took from Jacqueline’s site.

Yummy fabrics at Studio Stitch, where I sometimes teach

The ladies at the shop were all friendly and helpful, and I’m looking forward to teaching there.  You can find out more about the shop and my class on the Studio Stitch website. 

 

Final Finishes!

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I got these two quilts back from the quilter last week, so I put the binding on and have my final 2 finishes for the year!

Red Pepper is made from a pattern entitled “Yellow Pepper”
modern quilt

This binding was made from the remaining black and white chevron fabric

I finally finished the eternal paper piecing for this quilt and I’m having fun arranging the blocks.

modern quilt

The pattern is Lombard Street, by Sassafras Lane Designs

Here are a few of the other projects I’ve done this year.  You can click on any of them for more detail.

Sew Together Bag, pattern by Sew Demented
Sew Together Bag, pattern by Sew Demented
Another runner for my “Try Improv” class
Divided basket made from pattern by Noodlehead
I designed and made this runner for a guild challenge
Happy Squares, designed and made by me, 2015
Here is one of the samples for my improvised table runner class
Karla Made Me Do It
Cat Circus, my quilt for the 2015 Quilt Alliance challenge
Tote bag made with Kraft-Tex for the bottom section
Toddler Quilt, designed by me
This was made using the Quick Curve ruler

And finally, here are a couple of things I had published in Modern Quilts Unlimited:

This little quilt was publishsed, along with an article I wrote

Can’t wait to start next year’s projects!  Woo!

2015 Finishes: Part I

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Ronald McDonald House is the chosen recipient of donation quilts from one of my groups, and EACH of us made 12 quilts for that cause this year.  I finished the last 2 this month (yes, a LITTLE behind!).

These are a good illustration of why a dark border is a good idea to make a quilt feel “finished”.  I’ll try to remember that next year!

And here are the other 10 donation quilt finishes for the year.  I love how different they are! I got to try lots of new things 🙂

Design by Cindy Williams
Pseudo Random arrangement starting with Kaffe fabric
This is a leaders-and-enders project
February donation quilt. This started out entirely different, but I failed to take Before and After pictures.
The “New! Improved!” quilt
Flower Fairies
Donation quilt made from orphan star blocks
February finish and January donation quilt

More finishes coming soon!

Winner! Online Quilt Retreat

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I won a year-long online quilt retreat!  What the heck is that?

Lora Douglas of Dragonfly Quiltworks

Lora Douglas of Dragonfly Quiltworks

Here’s Lora Douglas, one of the teachers from the retreat, to explain.

This year-long on-line, quilt retreat is sponsored by “Adventure Art Retreats”, which was started by Ilysa Ginsburg and Kira Slye. They launched “Polymer Clay Adventure” as an online experience in 2015 and got about 1000 subscribers! They’re adding a quilt adventure for 2016.

There are 12 projects, one each month of the retreat. There will be classes for quilts, placemats, totes, hexies, fabric dyeing, laminating fabric and polymer clay buttons

Roxie bags made by Lara for her Quilt Adventure class

Roxie bags made by Lora for her Quilt Adventure class

.I designed the Roxie Bag as one of the monthly projects for the retreat, and I’ll be teaching it by online video. When I couldn’t find a pattern using flex frame hardware that was easy to make and looked great, I designed my own. It is perfect as a cross-body bag for carrying a cell phone and other small items.

“Quilted Adventure” is the online equivalent of a traditional quilt retreat where you meet other quilters while learning new things.  “Retreaters” can take a new class each month; participate in live-stream events with our host, Vanessa Vargas Wilson of The Crafty Gemini; receive monthly clues for a mystery quilt; and take part in swaps. There will be a newsletter to keep participants informed of upcoming events. The instructors will be available to answer questions throughout the retreat. It’s going to be fun!

Another Roxie bag--how many samples did she make???

Another Roxie bag–how many samples did she make???

I’m gathering my supplies, and I’m sure you’ll be seeing some of my projects here as I participate in the retreat.  For now, If you want to know more about Lora or the Quilt Adventure online retreat, here’s the link for her site. There’s a button there to click for finding out more about the retreat.  (Or, if you just want to buy a Roxie bag after seeing it here, her site has a link to her Etsy shop as well. I won’t tell if you want to buy it instead of making it yourself 😉

November’s UFO

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As you probably know, I’m playing along with Aunt Marti’s UFO Challenge for 2015. This month’s UFO is a group of gorgeous Jane Sassaman fabrics I’ve had for several years. I want to make a queen sized quilt, but I’ve been debating the design for a long time, since I want to make the most of these fabrics.

Need to design a quilt for this wonderful fabric

Need to design a quilt for this wonderful fabric

Luckily, a quilter who is a better designer than I came to visit this fall, and she helped me look at ways to make kaleidoscope blocks from these fabrics.  So November’s challenge is to come up with a design for the quilt.  I’m not even requiring myself to CUT any fabric, just decide on a design.Sassaman book

Jane Sassaman’s book suggests making paper copies of the fabrics to cut up in order to try designs.  I scanned the fabrics to my printer and made many copies, then cut them up to make either 4-part or 6-part kaleidoscope blocks.  Of course, that limits my trials to typing paper size pieces.Sassaman-papers

I printed at low resolution to save ink and still used up my color cartridge!  Here are a few of the trial blocks cut from paper and taped together:

Sassaman-10

Here are some blocks made from 4 squares

And here are some partial blocks made from 60 degree triangles:

Finally, here are all my trial blocks made of paper so far:Sassaman-group

Any suggestions for making the most of these prints, either with or without kaleidoscope blocks?

New Quilts from Old

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This is a quilt I made a few years ago to practice cutting curves freehand. It never looked as good as I thought it should, for various reasons.

This one had to be cut up and made into placemats!

I loved the quilted leaves, but I thought the golds should have been more similar in value; the light ones stood out too much. It always bothered by husband that the curves didn’t line up from block to block. Anyway, it never got much use.

Then I decided I needed more placemats, and hit on the idea of cutting up this quilt into placemat size pieces (18″ x 12″).  So I trimmed off the binding…Placemat from quilt

And used my extra-big square to cut pieces 12″ x 18″.Placemat-8

Then it was time to search for binding.  Of course, I had no more of the fabrics that are in the quilt, since it was made several years ago.  Eventually, I decided on the second combination:

Here are a couple of the finished placemats:

Even some of the backs were interesting, and showed the quilting better:Placemat-13

There was only this much left over:Placemat-4

So, if you have a quilt that didn’t quit work out, maybe it would make good placemats!

Artsy Table Runner

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YP1I’ve been looking at lots of beautiful pictures of art quilts. Also, the monthly challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild of Franklin (NC) was to make something including prairie points.

For years I’ve had Susan K. Cleveland’s Prairie Pointer, intending to make something with prairie points “any day now”. (Raise your hand if you DON’T know how THAT goes!)Susan KThe stars finally aligned, and here is my first crack at a table runner combining all of the above.

As expected, Susan’s Prairie Pointer tool worked beautifully. I’m a big fan of her techniques, and teach some of them in my classes.  The starting squares for the prairie points ranged from 1-1/2″ to 2-1/2″ in size, so they were all pretty small.

Prairie Points

Prairie Points

I like this runner pretty well, but I just KNOW I could do better! So here goes with another idea I’ve meant to try for some time: working in a series. I’ll keep you posted 🙂

What is a Liebster award?

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liebsteraward-roses-tag_sewing1Turns out the Liebster award is a tag game for helping readers discover new and under-read blogs.  Wanda over at Wanda’s Life Sampler tagged me.  So thanks to Wanda, and I’ll be passing it on to some other bloggers. You can check them out at the end of this post.

Here are my answers to Wanda’s questions, but I changed some of them! The next folks in the chain might change them, too…

1. What one thing do you believe with your whole being?

It’s important to learn something new every day.  It may be positive or negative, but all knowledge is useful eventually.

Storm at Sea

I learned to make a sample block before cutting out the whole quilt!

2. What have you made lately?

I’m glad you asked that question!  This month’s finish is the top for a “Black and White and Red All Over” quilt for which I’ve been collecting fabrics for some time.

Lemon Pepper quilt pattern

This was made from a pattern called “Lemon Pepper”, but of course mine is more red pepper!

I also sent 5 donation quilts to the Cincinnati Ronald McDonald House.  Three were finished this month, 2 previously.  Here are some of them:

Design by Cindy Williams
Simple quilt from a recipe on Craftsy
The “New! Improved!” quilt

3. Are you a cat person or a dog person? Or neither?

Presently neither.  Though I do miss having a cat right in the middle of every project and cat hair everywhere 😉cat

4. Where do you hope to be in 10 years’ time?

Retired from my “day job” and in my quilt studio full time!

5. Favorite dessert?

German Chocolate Cake!!!!

6. What is one thing you wish you were better at?

Always saying the right thing.

7. Describe your Dream Vacation?

The next one!  But I did recently have a great trip with my husband to Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

View from Clingman's Dome

View from Clingman’s Dome

8. Why do you blog?

To promote modern quilting, and North Carolina quilters in particular.  If you’re a North Carolina quilter and I haven’t featured your work yet, please contact me!

9. Your best sewing/quilting advice?

Do what you enjoy.  I used to make all my own clothes, but then I figured out it’s a lot easier to get a quilt to fit a bed than to get a garment to fit my frame!

10. What else is new?

Here’s a picture of Pat with her FINISHED table runner, started in a class I taught recently!

Improv table runner

Pat finished her runner in time to give it as a gift

And here are some bloggers I’m passing the “Liebster Award” on to.  I think you might enjoy them!

My Imperfect Life

The Accidental Hayseed

KnitNKwilt