3 Day Dog Quilts - Dog 2

Sketching

Here is Dog 2  - such a cute little pug.  I will need to narrow the black section on his face a bit.  The camera angle really distorts the face on the drawn picture.   The sketch on cloth will be where I make the changes before adding the scrap color layer.  

  

Envision, Explore, Evolve week 2

Busy, busy busy, but nothing seems to get done.

This week I have gotten a little done on my godess quilts inspired by Leah Day's free-motion quilting project.
Quilt 1, the one drawn and colored with Seta color and Ink intense pencils has not been touched.  I am having trouble deciding on what color to use as an outline.
 I had been thinking dark brown and then someone suggested purple.  I also was thinking about matching the thread to the  colors on the quilt. This sure would involve a lot thread changes.  Any ideas?







Quilt 2 - The batik quilt has all been outline in white.  The words need to be finished and all the thread ends need to be buried.  Will do this while watching Downton Abby tonight.

Qui;t 3 - The black quilt has been free motion quilted in white.  The words Envision, Explore,  and Evolve have been quilted.
Not too bad for a first try.

I used Jacquard sapphire blue and emerald green on the world.  The only Lumier paint I had was called Hi Lite Blue.  I actually thought it was white when I used it, until i looked at the name.  Anyway the blue did not show like I wished it had, so I brushed some of the Lumier paint over it while it was still wet.  It blended great and showed very nicely.  I put the green on and then brushed the Hi Lite Blue on to it too.  The puffiness of the batting really shows now that the world has been painted.  I used high loft batting because that is what I had and my goal this year is to use what I have.  Hopefully, when I quilt over the paint it will take care of itself.

I realized that my words should have been quilted the other direction to flow more with the quilt.  a lesson learned for the other two quilts.  I am not about to try to unpick this.

Tips for the week : two important tips I used this week that helped me with the problems of trying to use my Pfaff for freemotion quilting.  First: I used a separate thread stand.  This kept the thread from getting caught and ended my needle breaking spree.  Second: I used an embroidery needle instead of a microtex sharp.  This stopped the shredding of the thread.  Yeah!

What happened to June?

Here I am counting the days left of July to finish my flight quilt.  I have worked on a lot, but have not blogged about anything.   I created this three dimensional house for a friend of mine.  It symbolizes the love found in her home.  Kids representing her children and grandchildren peer out all the windows.  The roof comes off to reveal a secret stach of chocolate.   The structure is built with timtex layered in the middle as batting.  The bird nest is an acorn cap and beads.  The rocks are beads and flowers  are sewn with embroidery floss.  Windows are made of clear vinel.



The first week in July we attended the last Cornerstone Music Festival.  There were lots of inspirational speakers, as well as great artists.  I got to see one of my favorite bands, Iona.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely despite the 110 heat index all week.  One of my highlights is always the art pilgrimage.   This year I did some silk dyeing and finally got to learn a bit about needle felting.  Here is a picture of my creations.

Baby Quilt Wallhanging

This is one of my WIP's. The background for my quilt in progress is made of scrap yellows sewn together and then cut in to squares and rectangles. These were sewn together in log cabin style, trimmed and sewn to other blocks.

This is a picture of the flower and girl that will be appliqued to the quilt and then embellished.

HIAKU AND QUILTING

Another Quilt inspired by Haiku!

Young geisha daydreams
Koi splash and sparkle in light
Cool morning at pond

Etheree for Africa- Poetry and Quilting

Click to view larger

More Haiku and Quilting -Waykin

(Dream Catcher)

Indian brave fasts

Moving only to face sun

Wayakin stirs night air

Detail of stitched feather.

Haiku and Quilting

Long before I started quilting I envisioned myself a poet. This being said many of my quilts were inspired by my poetry, most from Haiku. Over the next month I will share some of these quilts with the inspiring poem.

(Spirit Dancer)
Amongst mundane chores

Dreams and aspirations rise
Savanna dances

(Carousel Dreams)
Cantering steed bolts
Peals of laughter overhead

Rhythmic and lilting

dyeing with cherries, more 3-d cubes

I've spent a lot of time this week looking for two fabrics I've miss placed. Finally found one of them and cut out the rest of the large 3-d cube blocks. I could not find any more of the light yellow nor do I have one to substitute that show up enough. I've decided just to remake the yellow cubes with a different light and different medium.

I prepared the fabric for the dye boiled down from black cherries by boiling and simmering in salt water and then rinsing. I wrapped two fat quarters of unbleached muslin on pvc pipe and put them in a tall narrow jar. Then I poured the cherry dye over them, put it in a double boiler and brought it to a boil and turned it off. Since the dye didn't cover all the fabric I added about a table spoon of ome old turquoise dye to the fabric sticking up. I let it sit over night and rinsed them this morning. They are out drying on the line. When it cools down I will rinse them again. It is a nice purple shade.

Friday Night Lock In

Friday night my quilt guild, Sassy stitchers had a lock in. I only made it until 2:30 and had to go home. I finished my quilt carrier. It is embellished with applique and free-motion quilting. Spent some time cutting out and sewing cubes for the 3 -D cubes quilt.
we had a great time and lots of laughter and good food.

All one line

Just finished a baby quilt for a friends daughter. The quilt started with crazy quilt blocks, then sashing. The back is 2 layers of flannel, no batting. Was not shire how to quilt this , but inspired by a video online and a new book, I drew my first one line drawing.

Then I drew the deign on the quilt with a washable fabric marker and quilted it on my home sewing machine. I used double thread, one rayon and one glow in the dark. The feed dogs were down and I used a darning foot.

Now off to a baby shower!

Wedding Wallhanging

I finished my son's wedding quilt Sunday with a wedding message and quilt info label on the back. Yeah! just in time to drop it off at my parent's house before the drive to Florida.

This little quilt was a lot of work for me.  First I was trying to use each one's favorite color, red and teal.  Found some red scraps with teal batik.  I used this as a starter fabric after many other tries and pulled colors from it.

The other problem was just me.  One of the side effects of my medicine is dropping off to sleep while doing ordinary things such as talking.  This effect can take up to a year to start.  I've been on it a year with great results until now.  It's very dangerous dropping off to sleep while using a sewing machine not mention all the frog chorus afterward. (Rip it, Rip it)




I started with piecing the quilt and then used raw edge and needle turn applique.  The lettering under the house was done with the feeddogs dropped and a zigzag stitch.



The Distelfink bird was the good luck and happiness bird of the early Pennsylvania German settlers. Overall, the design symbolized "good luck and happiness" for all. I used my own stylized version as this is where my heritage starts.

Next I used Shiva paint sticks for the first time.  I put leaves the tree and stones for the walk.  I cut a stencil out of paper and laid it on the quilt to protect the rest of the fabric.  I could see these being a very fun and useful addition to my art.  The leaves didn't show up quite as much as I would have liked. Great fortune!I amidst the small scraps people gave me at quilt guild were two 2 by 3 inch floral scraps with leaves I hadn't noticed. Just a perfect size.





Finished with lots and lots of quilting, a bit of hand stitching, beads and buttons. and finally  mitered binding and tabs.  Hope the like it!

Double Wedding Ring

Finished my double wedding ring table runner yesterday.  It's a house warming gift for my son and new Daughter in law (well in 4 more days).  Anyway I thought it was pretty. The quilting is unmarked freemotion quilting.

Sneak Peak

Just a sneak peak of the double wedding ring table runner for my son's wedding.  The black corner triangles have to be added to each block.  The corners will be the background fabric.  The boarder will match the black triangles.

2010 Guild Challenge

Monday evening my quill guild revealed their challenge quilts. The two red and green fabrics were from the challenge.  The beige was from my Black-eyed Susan dye experiment. I posted a few leaves in an earlier blog.  The leaves were free motion thread painted on a fabric with stabilizer.  The quilting was also done in free motion stitching without marking. 

Here is a picture before quilting and after as well as a few close-ups.
 

country snowman stockings

Here are some pictures of the snowmen stockings I was asked to make this week.