A Few Things I Missed at Shiisa Quilts

One of the things that caught my eye at the shop was this embroidery, which was made by Alice Ridge. She couched down some threads that were too thick to put through the machine needle, used decorative stitches built into the machine and also did satin stitch around the outside of the appliques. She accomplished all this using the circular embroidery attachment on her Bernina 830, but the attachment is available for all of the Bernina machines.


Closeups of the embroidery....

Shiisa Quilts also had a class using the above pattern from craft apple, "Tree and Bird Baby Quilt". ....


Alice thought that the little bird pattern in the quilt looked like a pear, so she added pears hanging in the branches....










and then she made a nighttime quilt with an owl perched in the tree. If you look closely, you can see that this is a spotted owl!

And here's Alice with the finished quilt top....

I have been at Shiisa Quilts for a week -- I taught in the shop for the first four days. The last three days I've been teaching a really fun, creative staff retreat . There were eight people here working from my Tropical Seas pattern, which combines raw edge weaving with applique to make a 34" square art quilt. Janet Mease took a lot of pictures of the retreat and the progress on the quilts. To see them, click here.

None of the quilts looked anything like mine -- there are kitties in the garden, floral adaptations, butterflies, trains -- pretty much anything that could be appliqued! It's worth looking through the picture gallery to see the creativity here!

Today I fly to Chicago to visit my friend Carol, her daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. I haven't been here for a year, so it will be fun to see everybody, be surprised by how much the boys have grown, and get all caught up!