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An Interview with Andrea Bishop - November 2008by Penny McMorris
We announced it on our blog: But we thought it would be fun to formally interview the designer, Andrea Bishop. Many of you know Andrea from her EQ demos on TV, and at the IQF Show in Houston. Even though my desk is around the corner from Andrea's at “EQ World Headquarters,” her amazing Kaleidoscope blocks took me by surprise since she worked on the project on her own time. And we also wanted to tell you about Andrea's new Kaleidoscope Collectors Club. Read on... Q: What got this project started for you? I love making complex things easy, quick and understandable. I was fascinated by the designs of Judy Martin and Karen Stone, but I knew that it would take me a while to master the sewing skills I needed to be able to sew out my favorites from their projects. I've never done a Y-seam or an inset seam before. My first attempt at complex curved piecing was successful, but only with plain arcs. I knew I wanted something complex-looking, easy to sew, foundation-pieceable, and fun for more people than just myself. I can't really pinpoint when I started drawing kaleidoscopes. I know it was near the Fall of 2004, only because I can trace it from the dates on the blog when we posted the first pictures of the Congregation of Poppies quilt. Drawing all the blocks has been a work-in-progress for a long time.
Q: As the saying goes “you can draw circles around me” with EQ. Long ago I drew most of the easier blocks that went into BlockBase, but I've not drawn much since then. You get stuck here with the hard things no one else can draw. I'm thinking of Karen K. Stone blocks. I'm thinking of the Quilting Designs: The Quiltmaker Collection. Which project has been the toughest for you to draw and why? The Karen K. Stone CD was fun. I learned a lot drawing those blocks. I remember it being a lot of work, but not something that was so tough it stumped me. The Judy Martin one-block quilts were perhaps the most difficult EasyDraw blocks I have ever drawn. I will admit there were 3 that really stumped me, which I needed to ask Dean about. Those blocks prompted some of the new EQ6 features like the extra-large and resizable foundation window as well as printing the key block “large.” For those blocks by Judy, I couldn't even see the pieces to re-number the foundation sections. And when I printed out the rotary cutting charts, there were so many letters that the key block was black... I couldn't tell which one went where. Of course, Dean helped me understand what was going on and I was able to finish even the most complicated ones:
But all in all, I'd say the quilting designs have been the most difficult. It may be surprising, but for me, drawing those has been very humbling. There are so many of them, and they are inter-related. For instance, there will be a star, then two of those stars facing each other, then a wreath of them one way, a wreath another way, then a 60 degree wreath and some borders... all with the same star block. I will be drawing and have the whole project almost done and just then I will see that the proportions are off in the original drawing making the math not work out for one of the last wreaths. I will fix the wreath so it works now and the proportions are right. But now, I have a new star... and I have to go back and re-do the entire project and all the blocks I thought were done.
The other part that makes the quilting designs so difficult is the sheer number of them. I remember Jenny needed to have the package for Volume 5 done sooner than all the blocks were drawn. I counted what was done and what was yet to do. At that moment I realized why this volume in particular was taking me so long. All the other volumes had anywhere from 500-700 blocks. This one had 840. I do have an arsenal of PatchDraw tricks that help me draw the quilting stencils quickly. If it's asymmetrical, I can whip through projects in 10-15 minutes. If it has straight lines or is symmetrical, that slows me down. After editing Angie Padilla's EQ6 Appliqué Drawing book though, I have even more tricks. Her book really helped me with the straight-line stencils.
Q: Karen K. Stone loves to create projects for foundation piecing. Did drawing her projects for the Karen K. Stone Quilts book and also the CD inspire your Kaleidoscope project? Karen really taught me how to overlap patches and create a lot of detail. Plus, she's a hoot to work with. I think her techniques really stuck with me because I like angles/math/geometry and foundation piecing.
As for what influenced this project, I'm a big EasyDraw fan and I think it was a bunch of little moments that all cascaded into a big idea. These things really had an impact:
Q: These blocks look complex, yet the way you've drawn them makes them easy to sew in foundation-pieceable units. We know from user input that we're asked for blocks that create circular effects, yet everyone wants blocks that are easy to sew. Were you trying for “design looks complex -- but sewing is easy” blocks? That's exactly what I was trying to do. I wanted difficult-looking blocks that were deceptively simple. All of the kaleidoscopes in this project simplify down into the traditional piecing of a plain kaleidoscope. Basically, if you can sew a plain kaleidoscope and you know how to foundation piece, you can do all of the blocks in this EQ add-on. There are maybe 8 of the 500 blocks that break into 16 sections instead of 8 sections, but they were too pretty to leave out.
Q: I notice your Kaleidoscope blocks have two different corner styles. How come and what made you think of using both styles?
Q: Like everyone at EQ, you wear lots of hats. One is your Web designer hat, since you're in charge of www.electricquilt.com. Another is your “educator” hat. I know lots of our readers have seen you demonstrating EQ products on television. Tell us about your most recent tapings, and when they will air.
And once again, the quilt looked hard, but was actually easy to sew. Margaret (our EQ quilter) and I tag-teamed the quilt. She'd sew during the workday (2 days a week) and I'd take it home and sew in the evening and over the weekend. We finished the quilt in record time. The techniques I showed were basic EQ6 stuff... then importing pictures, importing embroideries, setting embroidery, coloring with the thread tool, and a little drawing in PatchDraw. Here are pictures of the EQ design and the finished quilt:
I also just finished up 6 episodes for season 3 of Quilting Arts a few weeks ago. Most people don't realize watching all the episodes across a couple month time span that I tape all my episodes in one day back to back. I show up to the studio with about 8 outfits and change between segments. I had a lot of fun with the printing words on fabric and making your own fabric episodes this season. I think the host, Pokey Bolton, liked those the best too. She and I have taping the episodes down to a science now that we've done so many together. I really like working with her. You can read a little more about the 6 episodes on our blog. These will air on PBS in the Spring.
Q: You also do tech support at EQ, and in the process feed me fun tricks such as one of my favorites: Yep, Windows+D is fun for showing the Desktop quickly. (Windows+E brings up Explorer. Windows+F brings up Windows+Pause/Break is good for tech support too. It brings up the Computer Properties window to tell you information like what version of Windows, what service pack, and memory. Sometimes when someone calls up and doesn't know if they are on XP or Vista, or what service pack of XP they have, I make them do this and read it to me. [Note from Penny: Sheesh! This was news to me!] I like ALT+Print Screen. Print Screen captures the entire screen so you can paste it into a document, but ALT+Print Screen gets only the current/focused window. It saves a lot of time when you're documenting something or writing lesson plans. You don't have to crop out the edges. (Print Screen or PrtScn is usually up near F12 on a standard keyboard.)
Q: You've now worked at EQ for ? years. Care to tell the story about how I “discovered” you at our local video store? Ha ha. That's a funny story. Knowing you and Dean now after all these years makes it more fun. I had finished up my degrees at BGSU (Applied Mathematics & German) in December 2000 and was continuing to work at Video Spectrum until I found my “real” job. The great wide job hunt was not looking so hot. As a BG-native, I was looking everywhere BUT Bowling Green for a job. I knew what I was missing, having studied and sung my way around the US and Europe. I think I was suffering from a major case of “get me out of here” syndrome. You came in one day (maybe late January 2001) and rented something French. I said “bon soir” and you replied in French (something like “bon soir. Parle vous francais?”) and I said “en peu, but not as much as I'd like to” which made you laugh. We got to talking (while I was ringing up your movies) about what I was studying. When I said I was in mathematics, you lit up with this big grin and said “oh my husband Dean used to teach mathematics at BGSU. Did you ever have Dr. Neumann as a professor?” I didn't. I could tell I caught your interest again with the number of computer science courses I had taken and the fact that I had had an applications development internship already. Then you asked what year I was and I said I had just graduated. That was that ... and I thought nothing of it beyond just “chatting it up” with someone fun, who had similar interests. But, then you came back. (Stalker. LOL. Just kidding.) You quizzed me this time as you rented your movies. “Hello again! How's the job hunt going?” “Do you like art? I said yes, that I painted and loved working with chalk and charcoal. You asked “have you ever sewn before?” I said that my mother had taught me how to quilt. You had this big grin on your face and then once again... that was that. And I think you came back again. “Hi Andrea! Hey, if you haven't found anything yet, you should come interview with us. We do software for quilters.” I said “sure, I'd like that” and I've been here ever since. I was hired in March 2001 and my first day on the job was April Fool's. So, it's been almost 8 years.
Q: You've also just finished working with Jenny (at EQ) on drawing over 800 blocks for our latest collection of quilting designs for volume 5 of Quiltmaker Collection which also comes out in October. Day-in-and-day-out drawing quilting stencils. Did you dream about them at night? If I do, I don't know about it... maybe because they're string. It's harder when it's in color. I remember when I was the editor for the EQ5 Color book, I was dreaming quilts and color changes all night... like EQShow... but in my brain. I am dreaming kaleidoscopes and Stash fabrics.
Q: Well you'll dream of them all year now. Tell everyone about the free KALEIDOSCOPE COLLECTORS CLUB you're starting this month which will run all year in our newsletter. KALEIDOSCOPE COLLECTORS is open to everyone who owns the KALEIDOSCOPE COLLECTION CD plus EQ5 or EQ6. Each month I'll present something new that you can do with designs from the CD. One month we may learn to modify a block, or try out quilt design variations. Another month we may draw from scratch, or learn to rotate fabric to complement the Kaleidoscope design. The whole idea is to work together, using these Kaleidoscopes, to really design some cool quilts and learn in the process. Here's this month's club idea.
Q: So anyone who owns your CD will be able to try out fun quilt-setting ideas, design tips, and even drawing lessons that will be free each month. How do our readers find out more about this? That's the idea... And I want to see pictures!!! If anyone sews out some of the kaleidoscope designs (either from the CD or based on the Collector lessons), I would love to blog about you and the design process. And if you don't sew it out but use stained glass, wood, or tiles instead... I want to see pictures of that too! To learn more about the Kaleidoscope add-on for EQ5 and EQ6, visit this overview page. To see more of the blocks included in the library, don't forget to check out the PDF of example kaleidoscopes. Click here for this month's lesson for the Kaleidoscope Collectors.
Q: So what do you do when you're not working? When I'm not working, it depends on if I want to be busy or not. Sometimes "my candle" is just flickering there happily and other times I don't burn it at both ends... I take a flame thrower to it. If I want to be busy, I'm designing websites, doing massive/gigantic/intimidating renovations on our house, traveling, singing in a choir, or visiting out-of-town family. If I don't want to be busy, I try to do as little as possible and either relax on the deck looking up at the trees, go for a walk downtown, play with my cat Mr. Beau Jangles, do a random road trip with only my GPS as my guide, or just sit and talk with my husband Matt or with my mom on the phone.
Thanks Andrea. Amazing what you can learn about someone who's in the next office if you just interview them!
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I just started drawing some one way and after talking with Barb Vlack about using the circle to get a different grid I ended up with a bunch the other way. I thought to myself, well this doesn't work. What if I want the other corner style for the ones I already had done?
If you play with the blocks, you'll notice some create twists when they have square corners and that it doesn't happen when you use the star version. And others that have a star in the center look cool when the corner mimics the center of the block. Having both styles gives you a versatility that also helps when switching from horizontal to on-point quilts.
A few months ago, I taped a show for NowSewing.net that will air online in February 2009. It was a crazy-fun project. They wanted me to demonstrate how to import embroidery into EQ6 and have a finished “advanced” quilt that showed embroideries sewn into the quilt. I talked with the host Sara Boughner about it and given the timeline to have the whole project and quilt finished (2 weeks) I asked if she could send some stitched out embroideries on fabric. That was one of the fastest quilts I ever designed. I got the embroidered blocks in the mail and had someone take pictures of them for me immediately. I imported the pictures into EQ, stuck them in a layout, tried out different alternate blocks, tried out different colors, had everyone in the office look at my screen and critique it and then printed out all the patterns. The whole quilt was designed in about 10 minutes. (I hope it looks better than a 10-minute quilt thought... LOL.) The difficult part was the color scheme. All the embroideries were done in yellow, red, purple, and lime on fairy frost fabric. Luckily, EQ6 allows for importing pictures. So by importing the pictures of the embroideries I was actually going to use, I think Margaret and I were able to balance out the colors.
