We had a good time making Twisted Tree art quilts at the
MQA Gathering last weekend in Jackson. We started with a background pinned to a piece of foam core or cardboard, then made the precut strips into little twists.
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| Peggy Wehr and Martha |
Once I was certain they all knew how to hand-twist the strips, I showed them how to speed up the process with an electric drill.
After getting enough strips twisted, we began to create the trees by
pinning the twists in place over the background. Once the twists were
arranged in a pleasing manner, the pins had to be released from the
board and turned flat to get the work under the sewing machine head.
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| Theresa Wege |
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| Amy Schwalm |
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| Cindy Allgood and Presley |
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| Rebecca Dobbins |
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| Rose Naquinn |
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| Dianne Smith |
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| Christy Calhoun |
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| Myra Cook |
I'm sorry I didn't get good pictures of Connie Moore, Nancy Newman, Diane Rayburn, and Roberta Slowey. Most quilters got their tree created and began sewing it down. This part is challenging to avoid hitting pins or injuring fingers, and twists can be adjusted and rearranged during this process if necessary.
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| Cindy stitching her tree |
We discussed the background quilting and finishing and I shared my favorite edge treatment--facing--rather than binding. I promised to send
Kathy Loomis' excellent facing tutorial she posted on her blog March 18, 2011.
