Threading Your Way Through the Quiltscape Guided by Sarah Smith

A few blogs ago I reviewed a few books that I had found to be especially outstanding. Top of my list is Sarah Smith's Thread Work Unraveled. It is a reference book that I keep near my sewing machine and refer to whenever I need to shop for thread, needles or other sewing necessities. But her book does not do justice to this quilt artist's talent. She isn't 'just a teacher' or 'just an author.' Sarah Smith creates beauty and inserts meaning and emotion and then quietly stands out of the limelight so that the focus is on the art. Today, I hope we can focus a bit more on the artist as well as her art. -- Dawn

FREE GIVEAWAY: Sarah has generously offered to provide one of her original patterns to the lucky winner of a giveaway here at Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles. Please include contact email information or where I can locate said information. Those entering the giveaway need to leave a comment here on Sarah’s guest blog about your favorite thread, favorite needle or a problem you are having with needle or thread or both. Sarah’s available to answer questions and may give more extensive answers on her own blog at a later date. Your comments can be added up through Dec. 20th. The winner will be chosen on Dec. 21st.

When I teach, I always want to be able to do a brain-transplant from me to my students so they can know all the stuff it has taken me decades to learn so that their learning curve is shorter than mine. Since Vulcan-mind-melds don't yet exist (at least as far as I know), I'm hoping the book will be the next best thing.

Folks often ask what is the best thread, and how do I get results like yours. The answers are the dreaded "it depends on the look you want" and (twice as bad as a four-letter word, the 8-letter P-word) "practice."

The single best thing anyone can do is buy decent thread (not the cheap stuff in the 8 for a dollar bin). Follow that with: Just do it; just quilt!

You WILL get better, and other folks will think you're amazing long before you think you're even so-so! Just do it!

Photos 1 and 2: Earth and Turquoise inspired by a quotation by N. Scott Momaday. The piece features turquoise, beads, silk bombyx fibers, tulle, commercial cotton batiks, and extensive thread stitching, as well as leather lacing, sticks, rocks and wild turkey feathers. First photo a close up, second photo full size view. The quilted portion is approximately 28x28 inches. Overall including feathers length is 54 inches.

Let me add: It never hurts to start at the beginning. For me, the beginning is a good needle, followed by good tension. If you are using a dull needle or one that isn't suited to your thread and project, you simply won't get good results no matter how fine the thread or your quilting skills. Then, you need to understand your machine so that you are working in harmony and not fighting one another. There is a whole section and project in the book to help you with this.

The shoe analogy works: when you go hiking, you don't wear satin pumps. You need hiking boots-- the correct shoe for what you are going to do (have you seen how many of those TV female cops are wearing spike heels? sheesh! NOT in real life...they need to be able to run!). AND, you need the correct shoe size. If the shoe is too big, your foot flops around and gets rubbed and sore; if the shoe is too small, blisters! The same thing applies to needles and thread. This is how you can end up with wobbly stitches or frayed, breaking thread.

Photo 3: Tea. Size: 16" tall by 19" wide. Fusible applique, painting and intense machine quilting. (above) Tea is a morning still life, with my mug, teapot, creamer, cereal bowl and book. In 2006 I wanted a play day with a quilty friend, and I wanted to see my friend Teri Austin, so I signed up for a day-class with Teri at the 2006 Maine Quilts show. Instead of doing the teacher's pattern, as usual I wanted to do my own imagery, so I prepared this picture to work on in the class. At long last I have finished it, and I love it! I hope you do, too.

When starting a quilting project, the first thing I do is figure out how the quilt will be used. If it is a wall quilt, anything goes. But if it is something that will be washed, you want to select a thread that will stand up to washing (as in, metallic isn't the best choice for a baby's quilt!) and lots of use (think kid-forts and quilts used to carry cats and small dogs...ahem....).

Once you've picked your thread, select a needle that is suitable to the thread and the fabric, in both type (Denim, Topstitch, Embroidery, Quilting--which by the way is better for piecing than for actual machine quilting...it has a very small eye that tends to fray the threads!) and size.

There are many good resources out there. In addition to my book, which specializes on thread, you may want to find a good book on machine quilting (Harriet Hargrave's and Diane Gaudynski's books are my favorites). If you do lots of machine applique --Janet Pittman's and Harriet Hargrave's are on my shelf. The major thread companies sometimes have information on their websites. The education tab at Superior Threads has a wealth of information.

Thanks for inviting me to guest blog, Dawn! Here's to happy quilting and LOTS of thread!

You may have noticed that not only are Sarah's quilts gorgeous and exquisitely made, they come with good stories behind them. Her Bijagos Warrior (which won an Honorable this year at NQA-Ohio) is no exception.

Sarah writes: In the summer of 1982, I worked as a volunteer on the island of Bubaque, in the Bijagos Archipelago off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, under the auspices of Operation Crossroads Africa. Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony nestled just south of Senegal, on the westernmost part of the bulge of Africa.

One day, a boat was leaving to go to a neighboring island-not a common occurrence. This man was on the boat and immediately caught my eye. Even then, when Bubaque had only had electricity for two years, it was unusual to see men dressed in a traditional manner. To me, he represents a vanishing way of life, and I wanted to capture that as well as his physical beauty.

Bijagos Warrior was one of only three quilts in the 2005 statewide Maine Quilts show to receive an "Exceptional Merit" ribbon. Quilts are judged on a scale of 0-100; blue ribbon quilts are those earning 90-96 points (average of the 3 judges' scores). Exceptional Merit are those earning 97-100 points. This year's judges were Elly Sienkiewicz, Pepper Cory and Joyce Becker, so I'm especially thrilled to receive this recognition. Size: 40 x 60 inches; completed June 2004. You may have seen this quilt. It was juried into the Pacific International Quilt Festival, Santa Clara, California, 2004. Juried into the American Quilter's Society (AQS) 2005 show in Paducah, Kentucky. Maine Quilts 2005; Exceptional Merit award winner. Juried into The Best of New England Quilt Guilds, The New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts, January to April 2006. Published in the Janome International Digest, Fall/Winter 2004, and in various quilt show publications in a Janome advertisement, 2005. Also included in the on-line video promoting Janome's new 11000 sewing machine. Art Quilts Maine show, Saco Museum, Saco, Maine, April to July 2007. The National Quilt Association show, Columbus, OH, June 2009. This guy really gets around!

And there's more!

Ask anyone in the United States what is the first they think of when thinking of Maine, and they'll say lobsters. Lobster buoys are everywhere along the coast... bobbing in the water, tied to traps on the dock, piled in heaps in the yards of lobstermen. This piece is a riff on the buoys; the ones in the original photo were an easily-seen red and orange-y yellow... a bit bright for most homes! I wanted to do color studies using value -- light versus dark -- to render the close-up view of the buoys.


The center quilted panel is 10x10 inches, mounted on commercial batik over stretcher bars. The finished pieces are 16 x 16 inches, and one inch deep (fabric wraps cleanly to the back, which is clean finished and ready to hang).

With These Hands, inspired by Rodin's sculpture "The Cathedral," this portrait of my hands uses every thread I own that approximated my skin tone, even pool blue and gray for the veins. I free-motion embroidered the hands onto Thermogauze vanishing muslin and a layer of tulle in a hoop, trimmed and padded it with two layers of batting and appliqued. I quilted all the things I do with my hands.: "With these hands, I love, sew, design . . . ." I used a similar quilting technique to make the hands in "Earth and Turquoise," which is in the Orbs gallery. 14x14 inches; made in 2004. Created for and a finalist in the Quilting Arts Magazine Calendar Challenge for 2005. 

Fields of Gold, just won an award in Houston! The center portion of this piece was designed as a project for my book: Thread Work Unraveled. While it was hanging on the design wall, my friend Lisa Walton sent me a metre of her inspiring hand-dyed fabric--gorgeous green, gold and rust. I pinned it up on the wall, wondering how I could use it for a journal quilt. You can visit Lisa's website, Dyed and Gone to Heaven, and yes...she ships worldwide!

Then inspiration hit: the green and gold section meshed perfectly with my little "sunset trees." Then, my friend Deborah's quilt, Fields of Gold, worked its way into my subconscious. As I mulled over how I would quilt the hand-dyed portion, the lyrics to the Fields of Gold song by Sting popped into my head, and images of bowing grasses were replaced by wheat blowing in the wind.
Shown at Art Quilts XIII, the Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, Arizona, October to December 2008. Juried into the Contemporary Colorations II exhibit at the National Quilt Association show, Columbus, Ohio, June 2009. Size: 18 1/4 by 20 3/4 inches.