{"id":4344,"date":"2016-09-30T13:18:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.road2cablog.com\/?p=4344"},"modified":"2016-09-30T13:18:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:18:47","slug":"so-you-want-to-make-a-winning-quilt-1st-place-innovative-wall-pieced-road-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/road2ca.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/30\/so-you-want-to-make-a-winning-quilt-1st-place-innovative-wall-pieced-road-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Want To Make A Winning Quilt: 1st Place Innovative, Wall, Pieced Road 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tBeth Markel won 1st Place: Innovative, Wall, Pieced for Spring Storm <\/em>at Road 2016. She received $1,000 from sponsor, Artistic Creative Products.\"1st-place-innovative-wall-pieced\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n\nBeth Markel\u2019s interest in quilting began when as a little girl, threading needles for her Grandmother Broyles, who lived with her family.\u00a0 Grandma Broyles was always cutting a quilt, sewing a quilt, and quilting a quilt \u2013 3 quilts in 3 different stages.\u00a0 Heaven for young Beth was sitting under the quilt frame her father built for her grandmother, practicing her spelling words.\nWhile Beth is a 5th<\/sup> generation quilter, for a while it didn\u2019t look like she would be a part of her family\u2019s tradition.\u00a0 She got discouraged with sewing when her 7th-grade Home Economics teacher commented to Beth, \u201cStick to cooking, because you can\u2019t sew worth a darn.\u201d \u00a0It wasn\u2019t until Beth was 36 years old that she decided to attempt quilting and made her first 9-patch. She has been hooked ever since.\n[caption id=\"attachment_4346\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"430\"]\"Beth<\/a> Beth and Sophie[\/caption]\nThe inspiration for Beth\u2019s winning design came from an experience she had after graduating from college and starting her first job in Boston. She had to travel often to New York City and one sunny morning when she was at a farmer\u2019s flower market, a spring storm roared through.\u00a0 Beth recalls, \u201cLiterally, one minute there were purple iris and golden daffodils and crocus, and the next there were purple and yellow petals spinning and whirling through the air.\u201d That impression has stayed with her to this day.\nSpring Storm <\/em>is the first in a series of four seasonal quilts Beth is designing. Beth believes \u201cthere are seasons in our lives.\u00a0 Spring happens when we\u2019re young, a little wild, tempestuous, na\u00efve, and turbulent\u2026the beginning of growth.\u00a0 Evolution.\u00a0 Storms.\u00a0 Setbacks.\u00a0 More growth.\u00a0 Beauty.\u00a0 So stand back.\u00a0 No, literally, stand back!\u00a0 The only way to see the twister is to stand back a way, then be slowly drawn into the joy that is every single decision, every single choice, and every single piece that together, tell a story.\u201d\nIt took Beth almost 14 months to make and quilt Spring Storm <\/em>partly because\u00a0 the piecing got so tiny (less than \u00bc\u201d x \u00bc\u201d) and all the seams were \u00bc.\u201d \u00a0The quilt has a lot of “stitch in the ditch” as well as quilting in individual squares.\u00a0 All of the threads were tied-off and hidden because she used her regular sewing machine, a Bernina 300, to do the quilting.\u00a0 Because of the basis of the piece, Beth wanted to give voice to each individual piece of the pattern.\u00a0 And while her choice was \u201ctedious and wildly time-consuming,\u201d Beth says it was \u201cworth the effort in the end.\u201d\nPersistence is what Beth says she learned the most from Spring Storm. <\/em>\u00a0When she decided to start the 4-Seasons series based on her life, she knew she had something specific to say.\u00a0 Her youth was fairly wild, and she was constantly straining against where others wanted to pigeon-hole her.\u00a0 Beth has realized that growth begins \u201cwhen we\u2019re honest with ourselves, regardless of what anybody else thinks about us.\u201d\u00a0 Spring Storm <\/em>actually began as a 9-patch and then a 16-patch, hearkening back to her first quilt \u2013 with determination to say something new.\nWhen Beth heard she had won first place, she was \u201cspeechless surprised.\u201d She used some of her prize money to enroll in a writing class to help her with her blog. The rest of her winnings was spent on more fabric.\nWhere does Beth go from here? She is currently working on her second piece of her series, a summer themed design, which is up to 5,000 small pieces at this point. She has a \u201cfun & interesting\u201d trunk show which she presents to quilt guilds, as well as teaches 1, 3 and 5-day workshops. Two of her quilts are currently hanging in the National Quilt Museum<\/a> as part of the book, \u201cArt Quilts of the Midwest\u201d <\/a>by Linzee McCray.\n[caption id=\"attachment_4348\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"453\"]\"Thumbs<\/a> Thumbs InVinoVeritas by Beth Markel[\/caption]\nAnother two of her quilts are part of the exhibit, \u201cCircular Abstractions:\u00a0 Bull\u2019s Eye Quilts\u201d<\/a> curated by Nancy Crow, which opened in August, 2016 \u00a0at the Muskegon Museum of Art. <\/a>\u00a0She continues to write on her blog, discussing everything from long-arm quilting to what happens when a quilter passes away with unfinished projects.\nBeth\u2019s quilting interests are many, varying from applique, fabric painting, indigo, and fabric dying to thread painting and using Shiva sticks. Whatever she is working on, Beth remains steady with her \u201cpersistence in fine-tuning her voice, breaking down walls between groups of artists, and making textiles relevant to people who only see \u201cquilts\u201d as worn-out bedspreads their grandmothers made\u2026grateful & joyfully!\u201d\nTo learn more about Beth Markel and her work, please visit her website<\/a>.\n ]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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