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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Sue Nickels Class at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show 2014




Last week the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show was at the Hampton Coliseum.I took a class from 9 a, - 4 pm with Sue Nickels. We used Bernina 750s which were nice. I liked the  machine because so many of the features from my Pfaff Creative 4.0 were on it. I forgot my pillow and at 5' 2.75" I can never reach far. The machine is very tall and the reach was awful. I would have liked it inside a table with an adjustable chair but it's my own fault I forgot a pillow to boost me up! I always seem to do that. It's a thing...

Sue did a demo for us every 20 minutes or so. She never talked much more than 5 minutes at a time so we had plenty of time to stitch. Even then, she had more than we could complete. I like that she plans her classes to keep everyone busy the entire time no matter how fast they go. 

I have never taken a class with Sue before. I thoroughly enjoyed it. She was funny, caring, always able to answer any questions and had many tips and tricks that I had either never heard or that dispelled some I had heard over the years. He technique for starts and stops will help my immensely! I usually have that one or two stitches that just seem to jump all over the place...no longer! She helped me tame that beast.

I will appologize right now for the color on these samples. For some reason my editing program and I cannot seem to get ont he same page and they are all over the place. Suffice it to say that all of these were stitched on a natural colored muslin. Use your imagination!





Sample #1 is one of my favorites. I have not yet filled in all the inner spaces but I love how nicely the echo quilting went and how rounded my feathers are for my first try, Sue's way. It really helps having a path for your stitching. I have never been able to quite figure out where to go next with feathers and often back track too much which causes thread build up.


#2 was fun but I have to work on the tiny stipple on the insides a bit. I had such a hard time seeing the thread with tone on tone, I may have to practice with more contrast for a bit first!


I love how #3 came out. It has a trickier path but now I can at least see where to go. I'll have to add some interior stitching and some echoing on the outside.


This last one, #4, is my favorite. Don't mind the darker lines on the interior grids. That will disappear. It was my first time using the Roxanne Silver Pencil to mark and I was a little  heavy handed! I love the nice curve of these feathers and how the extra stitching makes them stand out. I think I will put these samples into a small wall hanging in the near future. I love feathers. Wouldn't a small sampler be nice?

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