Kansas Longarm Quilters

In my effort to branch out and meet like minded quilters I found a quilt guild just for owners of longarm quilt machines here in Kansas.  The Kansas Longarm Quilters ( http://kslongarmquilters.com/ ) meet every other month in Wichita.  It's a two hour drive from here but I decided it would be worth it to meet others who are in the business of longarming so I can learn and pick their brains about the trade so when I'm ready to launch this enterprise I will have more knowledge.
I arrived about 15 minutes before the meeting started and was able to sign up to become a member.  I chatted with a few ladies and found a seat quickly since the room was packed! The meeting started with the program this month, which I gathered was opposite of the way that most meetings are ran.
The program this month was put on by Bernadette Bradshaw an artist of various forms from Wichita.  The art form she was presenting on Saturday was thread art.  She works as an instructor for the Wichita Center for the Arts. Although she doesn't longarm I found her presentation fascinating.  She has a basic Bernina sewing machine, massive amounts of thread, a 7 inch embroidery hoop, and an amazing ability to see depth and color.  She takes canvas duck cloth and sketches the picture she wants to do. She drops the feed dogs on her machine (the little claw things that stick up from the bottom of the machine that moves the material around) and free hands the motion of the thread to draw the designs.  She doesn't use an embroidery pattern! She then starts building up the colors using complimentary colors on the color wheel to build her values into the picture.  To get different hues and values she uses 5 to 7 layers of thread all over the picture.  Remember if she has 5 layers on top of the fabric she has 5 layers of thread on the bottom.  That's 10 layers of thread on an already heavy piece of fabric. Crazy! She said she works on one area until it is complete before moving onto the next area of the picture.  She showed us at least 5-8 large pieces of her work, including a bear that was still a work in progress so we could see how it develops.

The bear  which is a work in progress.

The picture of the wolf was a piece she did for a group in Minnesota for a winter wolf festival they have in that town.  The wolf was a picture she had take of him as an adult and then she added the baby wolf which was from a picture of the same wolf as a youngster.

Close up of the baby wolf.  you can see the thread and how she layers it.  Even though the wolf looks grey he is actually made out of blues and orange hues.

The adult wolf.

I found the whole process Bernadette uses just fascinating.  I did get my sails a little deflated after I realized that you have to be able to draw to do the thread art.  But I still very much appreciated the time that goes into one of her pieces.  If you'd like visit her Etsy shop and see more of her work go here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MitaMatto?ref=l2-shop-info-name