On the River Bank

I finished quilting this piece today and as you can see I have gone with just one bird. I moved it at the last minute and wish I would have stuck with my original position but I really don't want to take it off and redo it. I added a lot of detail to the plants with my fabric markers, paints and pastel pencils.

I like heavy quilting so click on the image to see a close up. I almost chickened out and used a stipple done with clear thread on the turquoise/green area (the river) but got brave and used a Superior Rainbow variegated turquoise thread and kind of made up a stitch. I really like it and it is much more interesting than just a plain stipple.

The bird is lightly stuffed so it stands out just a little. Some of the leave on the bright green plants have 3d leaves also. I have really noticed lately how detailed my work is. I would love to break out of this just a little but whenever I start a piece with the intent of keeping it simple I seen to go into a zone and can't help myself. Maybe the next piece........

Another small tree quilt

Here is another small tree quilt from my scrap box. This one was super easy since I found the piece of sky and water fabric that I had painted with Seta color paints. I did have to add the land. The tree strips were also already cut and I just used a black fabric marker to add the small branches.

I also used the marker to add shadows to the right side of the tree and my soft pastel pencil to add highlights. As you can see the quilting is very simple since I didn't want to take away from the base fabric. This one is a little bigger at about 12" x 9". Hard telling what else is in my scrap box.

From My Scrap Box to Quilts

I made a couple of small quilts this week. These are samples for my Joggles class. First is the inspiration photo for my first quilt. This was taken at the lake we go to on a regular basis. I love the shape of the tree trunks.

Here is the quilt that I created. I used fabric markers and soft pastel pencils to shade the tree trunks and limbs. I also used the soft pastels to doctor the sky and water. All of the fabric and batting was from my scrap box. I save anything that is bigger than about 2" x 2 ". This little quilt is about 6" w x 7 1/2 h.

I love this next photo that was taken on the west coast of Italy in a small village by the sea. I love the shape of the foliage and how the trees are leaning towards the sea.
This is my quilt again made from scraps. This one was pretty simple. I used the same fabric for the sky and water and used Shiva paint sticks to add clouds and change the color of the water. I also used fabric markers to add the shadows under the trees and at the water edge. This one is about 7 1/2 " w x 6 1/2 " h.

I love it when I use up some of those scraps. I could probably make 100 small quilts from all the bits and pieces that I have..........

Do You Wear Gloves While FMQ?

I have been doing quite a bit of free motion quilting lately trying to complete some of my UFOs. I've found that my quilting comes out better if I use quilting gloves. I like the extra grip it gives me and it makes it a little easier to move the fabric around. Above is a picture of two styles. The first is the stretchy knit with the rubber coated fingers. These can be worn on either hand. They are light weight and not too hot to wear. This is a new pair since I actually wore holes in a couple of the fingers on my last pair.

On the next pair, the gray area is rubber and the blue is the top that is supposed to breath. I really like the grip these give but they are very hot to wear for a long period of time. Do you wear gloves and what is your favorite kind?

I Got A Karma Award!

Scrappy Cat was kind enough to give me this award:



The wording for this award is as follows:

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

So here are the blogs I would like to award. All are so interesting and I found several of them when they left comments on my blog. Please give them a look and don't forget to check out Scrappy Cat also.

sevenpinesdesigns
needlewings
textiletraveler
susanschrott
fiberfabrications - Yes, there is another blog called fiber fabrications!
artprojectsforkids
purplemissus
caydenise

Quilting Arts Calendar - My Month is Finally Here!!!

If you have the 2009 Quilting Arts calendar then you are looking at my quilt 'It's All Relative'! I was so excited to be selected for the calendar and finally my month is here. I really feel this is one of my biggest accomplishments to date.

The theme of the 2009 contest was Celebrating Home. When I think of "home" many memories come to mind. It is not so much about a place but thoughts of my family that make a house a home. In creating this piece, I tried to think of a way I could show family and relationships. When you look at the shapes you can see that they are related even though each one is unique just like the members of a family. Each could stand-alone but they work better together and each has something special about it.

I painted the swirls using puff paint straight from the bottle on a single piece of fabric. Once dried and expanded, I applied several types of paint randomly over the surface. After quilting, I used Misty Fuse to add areas of Angelina fiber. Finally I added different yarns, threads and beads trying to add something to each shape to give it its own interest and beauty but not so overstated to upset the balance of the quilt.

Birds or no Birds....That is the Question

I made some Bluebirds. These were sketched, then traced onto paper that I then cut up for a pattern. I then used several fabrics on each bird and fused them to muslin. Cut them out and placed them on stabilizer and thread painted them. Right now they are just pinned on the quilt and I didn't think much about the placement. Do you think I need these? I am not sure. Look at my previous post to see it without the birds.

What I am Working on

I have gotten sidetracked with this small piece the measures about 19'' x 20''. The background started with fabric that I painted, sun printed with leaves, screened and stamped. I wish I had taken a picture before I started to cover it. My inspiration came from some pictures that I took along a river back in NC. The brown fabrics are leftover upholstery fabrics and the brown branches are faux leather. I am thinking of adding some Carolina Bluebirds to give this a little more interest. Click on the picture to get a closer look since this is not a very good picture. What do you think?

I Finally Got Brave and Repainted the Sky!!!

Today I finally repainted the sky of my 'Flight Over Greenland II' piece. I have been looking at it for over a month and decided I couldn't make it worse. I first painted the sky area with extender and then took cobalt blue and added just the slightest touch of black and started from the top. I then added white for the gradation and clouds. Click on the photo for a close up view. Now I am finally happy with it and will quilt it.

What Should I Do With This?????

This piece is whole cloth painted with Setacolor paints. This picture is a little darker than the actual piece. I am trying to make a follow up piece to my 'Flight Over Greenland' journal quilt that is still on tour somewhere. You can read about it here. I am really unhappy with the sky. I over painted it after it dried because I didn't like it and now I think I should have left well enough alone. I have been contemplating what to do for a couple of weeks now.

Should I just go for it an try another over paint? I was thinking I could us paint extender to give me more working time. I also thought I could put a resist on the mountain line before I paint because I really like the mountains and it really does look like Greenland when I flew over last year coming back from Denmark. I have also thought that maybe when it is quilted it will turn out ok. Any opinions would really be appreciated.

Playing With Screen Printing

One of my goals this year was to take a class and learn a new skill. I signed up for Lyric Kinard's screen printing class at Quilt University. The class has been going for 4 weeks now and yesterday I finally had time to do some of the exercises. I spent about 6 hours playing and had some good and not so good results...... lets focus on the good.....

This first picture is a print created from a freezer paper stencil that I created and ironed to the back of the screen. I used Speedball fabric screen printing ink and this good print was after several tries. It was a lot harder to get the thick paint through the screen than I thought it would be.

When I tired of this, I carefully peeled the freezer paper off of the screen and put it paint side up on my work surface. I then put a piece of white PDF fabric on top and pressed it into the paint. I really like the results and didn't waste the paint.

This next print is from a thermofax screen using Lumiere paints and it was much easier to print.

I used the thermofax screen and overprinted my tree. I like this too.

Next I did another freezer paper stencil and used craft acrylic paint thinned with fabric medium for the print. This took several tries also and the paint was a little too thin to get a crisp image.

Again when I finished I carefully peeled off the freezer paper and put a piece of fabric over it to get this image. I love this one.

This next exercise was something I had read about on the ride back from Florida. (the book I was reading is 'Water-Based Screen Printing Today') I drew directly on the screen with water soluble crayons. In the picture you can see the white fabric medium that I flooded the screen with to get the print.

At first some of the thicker crayon markings acted as a resist until it got wetter as I continued to print. I really like this also and got about 5 good prints out of the screen. Each is a little different since the paint kept dissolving into the fabric. I can't wait to try this again.

In this last exercise I put a stencil under the screen and used a bleach pen to print. This fabric is a very flat black and I love the color of the discharge. It was really easy using the stencil and I recently found 4 very nice ones marked down to $3 each at my local quilt shop, Red Hen Fabrics.

As you can see I really had a fun day.

At the Beach - I Love Being a Grandma

This is my six year old granddaughter yesterday at Panama City Beach. My husband and I are watching her for a few days and decided to come down hear and enjoy the beach. We are so lucky to be able to have these special times with our GD. I do things now that I haven't done in years such as play mini golf, swim in cold water and play all kinds of games that I outgrew years ago. Who knew that being a grandparent would be so much fun!!! This picture could just be screaming QUILT.

Panama City Beach is a great place for kids with lots of kid friendly things to do and you just can't beat the sunsets on the gulf. Will be home on Friday.