My quilt, Oriental Expression, is on the June/July 2010 cover of Quilter's Newsletter. I did all the applique and quilting on my artista 730. Also, in the magazine, they did a nice article along with some of the patterns used in the quilt. This is my 14th cover quilt. I am still amazed at how many times my quilts have been used on magazine covers. I know what is out there and it is truly an honor to be on the cover!

Detail

My first blog ever and I just got my first text phone a month ago! I'm Linda Teufel, a BERNINA Artisan who loves to make art-to-wear garments, and author of the book, Koos Couture Collage. I am also a publisher and own Dragon Threads which specializes in art quilt books. Here is what we are working on for summer publication. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek!

Noriko Endo is a Japanese quilt artist who teaches internationally and has won numerous awards for her landscape quilts that have an "Impressionistic" feeling. (And she sews on BERNINA machines!) She loves the woods and nature and it shows in these works filled with details of small animals, birds, rivers, mushrooms and flowers. Each quilt holds so much detail that one could stare at them for hours!

Her new book, Confetti Naturescapes, includes a gallery of her work, tells about her life and has her confetti technique in easy steps so you can create your own landscape masterpiece. Full of beautiful photos, Noriko's book takes you through her process from selecting photos to stitching shadow details on the tree trunks.

Take a look at her website and try to take a class with her for a really delightful experience. (She'll be at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach this summer.) And please look at Dragon Threads' website and sign up for our newsletter so you'll be the first to know about new books and sales.

I love working on quilt books and collaborating to create a beautiful work on its own. This career enables me to use all the skills I learned from my other occupations - teaching high school home economics, buying and marketing for retail stores, catalog sales production and fashion design. Expect some exciting news soon on our next book!

You know it is a good thing that most fabric doesn't have a shelf life!

I completed a quilt for my dad for Christmas. It was from a fabric that I re-discovered in my stash from a few years back... that is why I feel it is always a good idea to buy a little more than you think you're going to need - it just may take a while to finish your project!

The project was easy to execute and it was a great way to use a panel, a repeating stripe, and my embroidery machine. The panel prints were cut and raw edge appliqued onto the topper. The center snowflake was appliqued with the blanket stitch. The repeating stripes were cut apart and used as a border - a different stripe was used for the upper and lower borders than for the right and left borders. Embroidered snowflakes were placed in each corner of the quilt. (Note: The picture only shows half of the quilt.)

I made friends once again with the BERNINA Stitch Regulator and the project reminded me again or how much I enjoy free-motion stitching because I don't have to get that special rhythm down of how fast to move the fabric and how much to press on the foot control. For those of you who have never tried it, I would suggest that you go to your local BERNINA store and ask for a trial run. It really does make free-motion stitching fun!

Earlier this month I stitched with some of my Canadian quilt friends at Bull River, BC. NOT a teaching situation - simply FUN! Top it off with the incredible food their chef provides for a Super-Duper weekend!

I'm working on blocks for one of the new quilts we'll be introducing at Spring Quilt Market. Happy Trails! Jackie

It is always fun to hear what my Bernina friends are working on through the blog. I'm working on lots of new quilts - projects are stacked on my work table and I will be sewing for months. I love to hear my Bernina roar! Here are two of my painted quilts.

Over the last three months I have developed an overwhelming appetite for craft books from my local library. "Li honey, did you know you have over 70 books out?" asked the librarian (don't even get me started on libary cutbacks!). "Uh, um, well, my mother gets a lot of these" I say as I am thinking "Can she see how tall that pile of hogwash is, oh dear...." They are all, of course, for me... Tho' to be fair, my mother DOES get one or two large printers out at a time.

Why in the world does someone who has rooms of books need more? And I don't just get reading material on all kinds of different sewing and crafts; I get several on each subject. For instance, I fell in love with Kaleidoscope quilts recently. So off to the library I went. I sat on the floor and started leafing here and there. "Wow, they are all so lovely, but lets see, maybe I should limit myself to 2, yes... oh, but look at this! And this, oh, art quilts, ummmm now, that really IS my thing." How many? Six! And I am not even a quilter!

As luck would have it, a woman standing innocently in the knitting section was watching my pile grow with slight amusement. She asked, "Are you a quilter?" Ah, big mistake, I LOVE talking to strangers, especially ones that have sought ME out! Off I went, explaining how little "real quilting" I have done, what I had in mind for this quilt, the story of my life interspersed with commentary on making dolls, art and science. Finally she said, "I just happen to be president of The Northeast Ohio Regional Quilt Council." Nice, huh? (Of course, she uses a BERNINA!) Starting right at the top! She suggested several other books and mentioned the stack-n-whack method as well as the work of Paula Nadelstern - the lioness of Stacking and Whacking. WOW! Off I went again, this time on-line... read, read, read, think, think, ponder, think...

But (listen up, fellow bookies), have I DONE a quilt? Have I even started stacking? Have I explored whacking? No. Is there a lesson here? Yes indeedy-do!

When I have a beautiful, color-filled, rich, new book in hand, it seems like there are possibilities galore and my apparently limited time will infinitely expand the moment I open it - Magic will burst forth and my house of creative blocks will tumble! This is a wonderful feeling... It lasts at least as long as the book is open and in my hands, but it doesn't see to push the needle into the fabric or turn on the machine. I have to do that.

And... So do you.

SO, get to it! Grab a book, grab some fabric, grab some time and don't let yourself be distracted by the pictures, or the dishes or the kids. Once we get started, we will wonder why we ever dilly-dallied with our snoots in the books for so long! I know this is true, yes, here I go...

I had so much fun using the BERNINA Embroidery Software Quilter program to create "Going in Circles." The pattern I chose was the Drunkard's Path, and I used the software to audition how I wanted the blocks to go together.

I used a 4-thread overlock stitch to piece the quilt together, and a combination of chain- and cover-stitching to quilt the blocks. "Going in Circles" was stitched on a BERNINA 1300 MDC, but other sergers with these stitches could also be used. King Tut by Superior Threads was used in the needles and coverstitch looper, with Pearl Crown Rayon by YLI in the chainstitch looper.

Ed: Instructions for this quilt will be posted at www.berninausa.com in the near future.

"Lauren Grace - the quilt" was made on my BERNINA 730. I used the built-in embroidery designs to create the blocks. It includes blocks that are pertinent to Lauren: family blocks, cousin and grandparent blocks for both sides of the family.

Here's a photo of Lauren standing in front of her quilt, which won a blue ribbon in the embroidered category at the Nebraska State Fair.

On the connector 9-patch blocks I double stitched creating a heart. Inside the double stitching, I stitched once again with stitch #657, a decorative loop stitch. Inside this stitching, I created "bananas" using Diane Gaudynski's techniques. Isacord polyester thread was used for the quilting.

I used template plastic to trace a long curvy line on the quilt with a blue Marks B Gone pen, then used BERNINA 730 honeycomb stitch #8 with the stitch lengthened a little bit. This stitch was used as part of the "quilting" on the quilt along with stippling.

I outlined each block with a wide stitch #13 which is a slanted overcast stitch.

The label was stitched on the quilt backing. Another label is planned with other pertinent information, such as: Scripture used at her baby dedication, where she was born, city, hospital, all that type of information. It will be hand-stitched to the back of the quilt.

I spent about 50 hours finishing up this quilt, of course that's not the many hours doing the embroidery and the piecing.

The journey of a simple idea... I had an idea 3 years ago, after creating a couple of quilts with all-over embroidery. My design niche being "embroidery is the quilt," I had been composing abstract designs out of basic geometric blocks. The next logical step was "what if the whole quilt is one big embroidery mofit?" Since my design philosophy is usually to jump in the deep end (without first looking whether the pool is filled;) I started out digitizing... The basic elements would be concentric circles in multiple sets and colors that would overlap, with one set emanating from the center of the piece. I was looking at a 5 x 5 block span, each 4 x 4 inches. I created a lattice for the block layout and started digitizing circles... lots of circles... I would have to cut and strip away strips between the blocks to create gaps between the blocks (which would be replaced by sashing) so the final design would actually be based on the original placement of stitch lines. By cutting into the original file, I would end up with a ton (and I do mean the 3 zeros ;) of segments... aka tie-ins and tie-offs in my embroidery... with a matching number of manual clippings.

On filling the pool... Well, I have to say that in this case I ended up watching the pool fill up :) Life happened... parenthood, other quilt ideas (one of which took me to Tokyo for the 9th Quilt Nihon Exhibition), etc. So my Slow Cooker Creative Method (TM) kicked in and the idea simmered on-and-off. I went through 3 design stages, none of which lit the proverbial light bulb. Then I got my 830 and the light bulb did go on... halogen style! With an automatic thread trimmer I no longer had to fear all that thread trimming. And the pool being filled, I did indulge my propensity to the deep end... I determined that a 25 x 25 inch square piece just couldn't render the image I had in my head... of color waves washing over each other from opposing corners, with a center dot (the focal point) creating an all-over ripple-in-the-pond effect. So why not 11 x 11 blocks? each one 5 x 5 inches ;-)

Did you know that a laptop can serve as a waffle iron? When you're churning up 12 million stitches in one embroidery file it can! I had mine running pretty hot for a couple of weekends in the final stage (stage 4) of the design work (btw, I have since acquired a workstation with a 24 inch monitor - more on the monitor later - for my design work... My laptop likes me again ;) I may be a slow cookder creatively by when the idea reaches maturity, I get a creative fever and things start happening fast. Luckily for me, my BERNINA 830 could keep up with my pace. So after a couple of busy weeks in the quilting studio (the master bedroom of my house btw), "Focal Point: A Geometric Stained Glass Window" was well on its way.

Be a good son... call your mother :) I have a little tradition in the making... when the blocks are all embroidered and trimmed to size, I lay them out on my living room floor, climp on the couch and take a picture. That is what I call the proofing stage. As a joke, I call my mother (who has been an inspiration in how to stick with a project to see it through) to let her know that my next piece passed the test. She always asks how many hours have gone in so far... at over 200 hours, it's a good thing that the concept panned out... we have a good laugh.

The best part is... I am very grateful for the scknowledgement this piece just received in the Fall IQF in Houston. While as a quilt artist it's good to get feedback from my peers, the positive encouragement received helps give momentum to my next project. And while "my thing" in quilting (aka "Embroidery IS the Quilt") can be considered a niche, shows like IQF help give exposure to my work. One of my goals is to show how the digital embroidery technology can be used as a design tool. The precision it affords in thread placement on fabric lets me create images in thread that just couldn't be realized with hand-guided free-motion stitching (there is not enough caffeine in the world to make that possible :) My other goal is to get the image out of my head and onto fabric... so I can make room for the next idea. So far, for every quilt I make I get 2 or 3 new ideas... so the more I make, the more I fall behind... As the saying goes ... I can't die - I have too many projects :)

Back to that monitor: If you design large pieces (and especially for large hoops), I highly recommend that you invest in a large monitor that can pivot. I now have a 24 inch monitor, which allows me to work at actual size (ratio 1:1) for my large oval hoop when the monitor is in the regular landscape mode. When I rotate it to portrait (vertical) mode, I can fit my jumbo hoop stitching field at actual size also... so I can preview my work "as is" with less zooming in and out. Since the design phase is where I enjoy the creative fever the most... the monitor has been one of my best investments so far.

What's next? I'm currently working on a wall hanging for a charity fund raiser... then I embark on a project of particular significance for me personally. A photo quilt, life sized, of my best friend whom I lost to breast cancer 9 years ago. It will be done in time for the 10th anniversary of her passing in 2010. I look forward to every moment spent making this next piece.

I've learned to enjoy my artista 200E, learned to use my computer to transfer patterns/etc. and have constructed 13 beautiful quilts from beginning to end (sizes from single to extra large king). I've also made numerous pieces of clothing and other items. I've kept my 1030 but have found that the artista is very strong and capable of hours and hours of fine sewing. That you for all the neat videos and helps that are available! I've been a BERNINA owner for many years, and they're the BEST!

One of my largest quilts was an extra large king, pattern from Quilting Illusions by Celia Eddy. Over 2000 pieces to assemble! My daughter from California requested it with pillow shams to match.

Bargello design, large king size

From Quilting Illusions by Celia Eddy

Seagrass by Sylvia Pippen

Aloha - Doris

The City Quilter arranged with Panasonic to provide free time on its 28 foot by 38 foot Astrovision screen, high above Times Square, to promote our "MADE IN NEW YORK: City Quilting" Exhibition, taking place just a few blocks away at the Williams Club. We created the 15 second spot that runs every 7 1/2 minutes. It premiered at 7 am on Saturday, October 3, and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through the end of the exhibition on November 14.

Naturally, we are very pleased to be responsible for bringing quilts to Times Square, and to the thousands of people who visit every day.

These are photos I took a few nights ago. You'll see "Wildlife" by Ellen Highsmith Silver and Amy Ronis' "Kitschin' Jane." Text appears superimposed over "Wildlife" and a third quilt, "Green Piece" by Teri Scaduto, providing details on the 60 quilt exhibition's location and hours. If you're in NYC, come take a look!

In the last few years I've become more and more interested in incorporating machine embroidery in my quilting. I try to make my embroidery an integral part of the design. And because my artista 730E does such exquisite embroidery, I work the poor machine half to death! I also love it for free-motion quilting - nothing else gives me the stitch quality of the Bernina.

Did you know that cats are also very interested in machine embroidery? I'm sure those of you who live with felines know how much they like to "help"! Here is a picture of little Fluff supervising the process...

...while Stella checks out the fit in the case for the embroidery module. Even the kitties appreciate a great machine!

Nina used all the Diane Gaudynski (www.dianegaudynski.net) built in motifs from the BERNINA 830 to make the quilt - the squares are all silk dupioni. The speed and quality of the 830 embroidery module is evident - this beautiful quilt makes quite a statement - it is full of joy. ...And it is an honor to have Diane's (also from Wisconsin) lyrical, flowing designs as part of the BERNINA 830 embroidery package.

And joy is what I wish for you - if you have purchased a BERNINA 830 in 2008...CONGRATULATIONS! If you are planning to purchase in 2009...even more CONGRATULATIONS!

Have a wonderful, creative holiday season and all the best in 2009!

First, let's look at the 830 gown which is the foundation of the advertising campaign. The gorgeous embroidery motifs are built into the 830. The gown is silk dupioni and is double-lined in silk and stitched with silk thread. Bernina Dual Feed was used to insert the zipper and the Jumbo Hoop was used to easily embroidery those wonderful motifs. The speed (1000 stitches per minute) really helped meet the photography deadlines. Jet black crystals were added to the motifs to make them sparkle!

The red tote is a project that showcases the excellent stitch quality of the BERNINA 830. Lots of fun ribbons and trims were added to the tote and the Bernina Dual Feed handled the application with ease, in addition to stitching the faux leather trim you find on the tote.

With 1162 stitches (261 brand new stitches) you will find more than enough inspiration for your creative needs. Plus using functions like Long Stitch, Pattern Elongation, Stitch Combinations and Connecting Stitches create a variety of new possibilities for stitch patterns. And remember, you can bring your sewing stitches into embroidery with the BERNINA 830.

And speaking of embroidery, the 830 Quilt is an embroidery masterpiece. Built-in motifs, including Jumbo Hoop designs and quilt designs from Diane Gaudynski make this quilt a vision for the eyes. The quilt, made completely from silk, makes great use of the Bernina Stitch Regulator which is standard with the 830 and the remarkable Bernina Walking Foot for stitching in the ditch machine quilting. The quilt binding was applied with the Bernina Dual Feed. Embroidery and Quilting - go together like peanut butter and jelly - and are just as yummy!

More on the Create with 8 projects next week! And check out the 830 on YouTube by clicking HERE.

If you're not familiar with Nancy's work, she does amazing things with thread and just straight and zigzag stitches. Here's a small photo of my favorite pieces, Longing for the Past. Visit her website to see it up close, along with her other work.

Back to the workshops...

Nancy's a great teacher, and the videos are wonderful. Because they're online you can watch them any time - during your lunch break, at 3 in the morning, while kids are napping, etc. And you can watch them over and over again - once you register you have two months to view the video as many times as you want. So set your sewing machine up next to your computer and try out her sample class, Thread Painting - Stitches with Attitude!

• Have a sewing machine already set up with neutral color thread (we used a Bernette 80e), and a bin of fabrics to choose from (I used my stash of Benartex BOBs).
• Have kids cut strips of fabric to make wonky log cabin blocks. I started the younger ones with a large center square; the older ones with a small square. It doesn't matter if the finished blocks aren't really square; you'll be trimming them and adding sashing.
• Kids trace their hands on Steam-a-Seam 2, adhere to fabric, cut along lines. I let the older kids fuse them to fabric squares; I pressed for the youngest ones. (See the green block with the dog and hamster foot prints? And the two light blue handprints? I watched the twins - at opposite ends of the table - pick out exactly the same fabric at the same time!)
• Let the kids play with fabric scraps and make up their own designs when the quilt blocks are done. We ended up with several little patchwork pillows - one of the boys even "discovered" the four-patch block :)
• I took the blocks home with me and added black-background sashing strips and bright cornerstones, stitched the handprints in place with a large blanket stitch, and tied the layers together with colorful buttons and YLI Jeans Stitch at the corners of each square. Then I bound the outer edge and added several labels to the back of the quilt (each child made their own).

This is a great project for grandkids, school groups, neighborhood children,... set up additional machines and bring in a few extra grown-ups to help if you're planning to have more than just a few kids working at the same time. It's also a perfect shower or going-away gift for a group of adults to make :)

Hello, Everyone!

I am so pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you about the excitement the 8 Series launch has created here at our BERNINA consumer event. It was such a proud moment when after six years of development, we were finally able to reveal this incredible machine and share its features with the world. The engineers and developers in the BERNINA factory in Steckborn Switzerland have worked countess hours to create a big, beautiful BERNINA - spacious and comfortable, speedy and full of benefits that will make the creative sewers world more enjoyable and more efficient… that nothing compares to the feeling of its debut.

And now, you too can experience all the precision and exclusive features the 830 has to offer here on bernina8series.com. This enlightening and interactive website provides everything you will want to know about the 8 Series, including videos that illustrate its outstanding space, unsurpassed speed and ergonomic genius.

So go ahead and check out the machine that has changed the history of sewing. We hope it inspires you as much as it has everyone here at BERNINA.

Talk to you soon! And remember to keep checking back for more entries and details on the magnificent 8 Series.

Foundation piecing, based on a quilt in Valori Well's Stitch 'n Flip Quilts book. (I think the border is a Valori Wells batik from years ago, but I'm not sure.) I started it about 4 years ago in a class at my local quilt shop, made all the blocks, then finished a year or so later it at a weekend retreat with my quilt guild. What a great way to sew! 50 women, 50 tables, 50 machines, nearly two full days of sewing, no distractions, dozens of opinons...

I had fun playing with the free-motion quilting on this one. The BERNINA Stitch Regulator hadn't been introduced yet, so all of the quilting was done using Freehand Quilting Foot #29. I like the wide, clear sole of this foot for quilting - I can see where I'm going, and use the edges of the foot to judge how far I am from previous lines of stitching. I couldn't decide which threads to use, so I used them all - variegated threads from YLI, Superior Threads, Mettler, Sulky - all of the pink/orange/yellow and green spools in my stash. This kind of quilt is great for practicing free-motion techniques - since none of the blocks match, the quilting doesn't have to look the same either. No worries about staying inside the lines, having equally-sized loops, putting squiggles in the same places - just move the fabric and "draw" shapes.

I finished another quilt the same weekend - a group quilt made with seven children ages 7-13. It's one of my favorites, but I'll share it with you another time.

I love scrap quilts - each piece of fabric has its own story. Some of the squares in this quilt are from my mother's and grandmother's and aunts' fabric stashes, some from garments I'd sewn. The blue & black plaid in the corner is from a pair of shorts I made, the olive green from a top my mother wore in the '60s, the sheeting from my father's aunts...it's fun to sit down and go through them all one by one.

I stitched this together the summer before I started college. I'd been sewing my own clothes for years, but I didn't know much about how to put together a quilt. I had no idea how to apply the binding - it's still attached, so I guess it's doing its job, but I'm glad you can't see it up close! Binding a quilt isn't hard; you just need to know what to do. The Binding Basics Online Class at http://www.berninausa.com/home.jsp has instructions for several binding methods. My four-patch quilt uses - sort of - the single binding technique, using purchased binding. These days I cut my own bias strips and use the double binding method; I like to repeat fabrics from the blocks around the edges, and the two layers of fabric over the edge provide more protection than a single layer. (My quilts get used and loved and laundered a lot; if they were hanging on a wall a single fold binding would be fine.)

There are so many tools now that make assembling a quilt easier - rotary cutters/mats/rulers, 1/4" presser feet (BERNINA Patchwork Foot #37 and Patchwork Foot with Guide #57), edgestitching feet (BERNINA Edgestitch Foot #10/10C), needle stop up/down features, adjustable needle position - so much easier than scissors, cardboard templates, and a single "all-purpose" foot!

I don't think I'd even heard of machine-quilting when I made this quilt, and I knew I didn't want to stitch it by hand, so I tied it with lengths of acrylic yarn (which has tangled and pilled over the years - I'd use embroidery floss or topstitching thread today). I come from a long line of hand-quilters, and I can hand-stitch when I have to, but I much prefer machine quilting. I've always liked to draw, and machine quilting is very much like drawing a line with a sewing machine needle instead of a pencil or pen. I can machine quilt just about as quickly as I can draw, so it doesn't take me long to complete a quilt once I get it set up. And it's soooo relaxing! Next week I'll show you some of my more recent pieces - which reflect some of the things I've learned through classes and books and looking at hundreds (maybe thousands?) of quilts.

The center square of this block is the perfect place to feature your favorite embroidery design; this one is the Redwork Cardinal from www.embroideryonline.com.

All sorts of variations are possible: create your own fabric for the star using some of the Stitch Recipes at www.berninausa.com, substitute applique for embroidery, make the block into a tote bag instead of a pillow, make several blocks and create a small grouping - three single block mini-quilts hung side by side, nine blocks joined to form a square, etc.

You say you haven't visited www.TheQuiltShow.com yet? You're missing all the fun! BERNINA of America is one of the sponsors of this online video show & website hosted by Ricky Tims & Alex Anderson. Even if you're not a quilter you'll still find lots of information and inspiration here - great shows, awesome gallery, daily blog (with videos!) and more. The current episode of TheQuiltShow.com is their first annual Quilt Legend show; this year's honoree is Virginia Avery, known for her innovative art-to-wear creations.