Sunday, September 25, 2011

Quiltfest Jacksonville--

--or who I saw at the quilt show. I drove up with my friend Gail on Wednesday so we could be there when the doors opened on Thursday morning. At the hotel I ran into Carol Holsopple in the lobby and later at dinner. As we were eating she said, "there's Marlene Glickman". A name from the Quilt Art list! I want to meet her.

As fate would have it, Marlene's booth was one of the first ones I came to. I introduced myself. She was demo-ing silk dying and let me try one of the scarves she had for us to play with. She had the nicest kits put together with everything needed to begin silk dyeing; I had to have one.  She was assisted by her big, handsome, hunk of a son who couldn't have been nicer. He offered to take one of the shots below so I could get a better shot of Marlene and her customers. She was very busy!


The shot below shows all of her dyes and materials for her demos. Her customers actually get to take something home. I was so glad I got to meet her, she's delightful. Here is a link to Marlene's website--http://www.silkdyes.com/




As I mentioned, I ran into Carol Holsopple. Carol is a member of Art Quilter's Unlimited, a very talented group, on the west coast of Florida. Her booth featured quilt kits designed for children to make. You can see the samples behind Carol in the photos. They are whimsical and very colorful. I think it's  wonderful idea.

Carol's website is http://www.carolholsopple.com/. Click on Kids Can Quilt too! to see her children's kits.




The third person I wanted to blog about is my friend Debbie Jones. I first met her when I was program chair for Ocean Waves Guild here in Miami. She came over from the west coast of Florida for the weekend to teach. She is the hardest working teacher I have ever met. She brought a small quilt shop's worth of fabric for us to use in her class, talk about generous! We worked on her collage technique, Fabric Decollage, but she also teaches fabric painting and sun printing. Her booth has some of her fabulous painted fabrics for sale.


Here is another shot of Debbie's booth. You can see her fabrics and her Decollage class samples behind her. Here is the link to her site: http://www.debbiejones.com/


I hope that you will visit my friends, new and old, on their websites. They all have something unique to offer. 










Tuesday, September 20, 2011

My Facing Technique

I put this together a couple of years ago when I began teaching art quilting. I really liked the look of a faced quilt so finished many of mine this way. Naturally my students wanted to know how to finish theirs the same way. There are many tutorials on the internet explaining this method, google "facing a quilt" to see what's out there.

Here's what I put together--


Facing Technique
Judy Momenzadeh

  1. Cut strips the length and width of piece and 2 1/2”  wide. Press under ¼” on one long side of each strip and stitch down.  Lay strips right sides together matching raw edges on top and bottom edge and then on either side. The side strips can be slightly shorter (1/2") than the full width thereby eliminating some bulk at the corners
  2. Sew all the way around using a 1/4" seam allowance. See photo below. Notice the corners are stitched across diagonally with 2 stitches rather than sharp, square corners. Clip corners and along seam allowance for about an inch to remove bulk.



  1.  Press facing open and stitch with the quilt facing up along seam, on the facing side,through all thicknesses (facing and all three layers of the quilt). Turn facing to back and press with steam, making sure it’s not showing from right side.
  2. Hand stitch around the entire facing making sure it is pulled tightly to the back but not rolling the front to the back. If you want to add a sleeve, tuck it under the facing before hand stitching.






judy MOmenzadeh designs 2011

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Poinsettia Pop

I have been very busy in the last couple of months. My partner, MIKE, (Michaele Shapiro) and I (MO) decided to start a line of patterns featuring a photo printed on fabric as part of the pattern. I had some designs completed already including "Winter Garden" which I blogged about previously. While Michaele worked on the website, I completed new patterns. We now have a total of 7 for sale on our site, www.moandmike.com. Click on the link to the right of the page.

I needed two samples of our Christmas pattern, "Poinsetia Pop" so I decided to quilt the second version differently.  I used a complimentary thread color to quilt the background in both but different quilting designs.

Here is the first version following the outlines of the petals in a kind of echo style.





 The second version with a complimentary thread color and using a repeat of the quilting lines that followed the veining in the petals in the photo. My favorite is the second version.


I taught this piece in a class yesterday at Sunshine Sewing in Margate, FL. yesterday. The class really worked hard, lots of cutting, but they hung in and everyone completed a fabulous version to take home. You can see my class schedule on our website, just click on the link on the top right of the page. Poinsettia Pop was also featured on the EQ Printables Blog. We love using and have started using EQ Printables to print all of our photos for our patterns from MO and MIKE.