my piece from Carol's class

This is my piece from Carol's class. I worked in the hall of the new air-conditioned automotive lab- huge windows and the coolest seats - old car seats including the seatbelts. Gave me & Carol a great spot to evaluate the work. I made many many components. did a quick sketch after the first day. On day 2 made made more components with additional colours and fabrics. when things don't go well why do we throw in more of what doesn't work? I did serious editing - out came lots of components and colours. I needed a structure to build on - something to respond to - If Myrna could hear me now!! so this is where I restarted.

Check out my Slide Show!

These are photos taken on the last of 3 days with Carol Taylor. We had a wonderful group of artists making elements & working with them to make a quilt.

Quilting by the Lake Part 1

I'm at quilt camp!! specifically Quilting by the Lake in Morrisville NY at Morrisville State College.
I found out a few things. there are two ways around Lake Ontario to get here & I took the LOOOOOONG way. will be going home the other way!!
secondly & very important there is NO LAKE. the event started out by a lake but have grown & changed venues so there is no lake here. Don't go looking for it cuz it ain't there!!

playing with colour

there are so many great colour toys on the internet. They are great to play with to find a new palette. Take a quiz here to find a palette - don't forget to turn on the speakers. The first time I did it I got Urban Stone. Not me I thought until I remembered my latest & greatest fabric (rust & gold marble-bottom one) by Paula Nadelstern from Bernatex. I'm building my fabric stash for Carol Taylor's class at QBL around this fabric.
Joen Wolfrom has a new book Visual Coloring that is based on just that theory. The photos are breathtaking & the quilts are gorgeous. I find that most of the fabrics are close to solid. I like to use a larger variety of printed fabrics.
You can take any photo of your own upload it here & you will get a colour palette to work with. great fun.

ATC swap

I am participating In Lenna's ATC swap. She is the best swap hostess ever and I get to deliver my ATC's in person. We will both be in the same area at the same time - she is on holiday in Canada & I will be taking a summer course at a local college. These are my ATC's for her swap. check out some of the ones I might get on her swap blog.

Christmas in July

many quilt shops at this time of year hold 'Christmas in July' events. I taught a fun group of friends this Christmas placemat at a local shop.

MIA

where does time go? I've been busy weeding, planting, watering,working, lying in the sun. Summer is here!! and summer school will be starting soon. I've got 11 days of classes.
I finished this quilt to send it to Quilting by the Lake. I started it here. The blocks looked too busy together so I added the sashing and fairly simple borders. I like the narrow red border. It seems to keep everything contained.

allium in the garden

the inspiration - wonderful allium in the garden. I wanted to capture them in fabric. was hoping for a loose sketchy rendition. wasn't to be!

Work in progess - a mottled green background, lovely matte woven hand-dyed Italian linen with lovely blobs of mauve that told me where the flowers should go. and the stem is there too. what I didn't see until I cut the linen away was the 'S' in the darker green around the central flower. serendipity or unconscious design decision?!
I added a tiny bit more thread painting to highlight the darker & lighter sides of the flowers.

This is a scan of the final quilted piece. I can see better in the picture a bit of airiness in the center of the flower.

finished piece on the garden table!




back to the garden. the weeds are growing, the grass needs cutting. the poppies are in bloom now.........hmmmmmm!!

playing with stamps

the latest issue of cloth, paper scissors has a great article on embossing velvet with paint. I've tried this before with cotton velvets and it didn't work. I bought a second hand shirt because the colour was mottly muddy green & golds. It embossed really well with acrylic stamps.

punched organza

I love this star. layers of organza punched over cotton. the organza starts to look like angelina and colours mix almost like watercolour. They don't show on the photo but there are tiny flecks of foil on the felt. the spiral was done with the fancy yarn in the bobbin

work fast

I'm trying to work faster. taking less time to mull over decisions. also reduces the chances of abandoning a project in favour of the next great thing!! This was from a book called Quilted Projects from scraps and stash
spend a good portion of the time I had looking for that darn box with the watercolour squares. Can't remember if it was taken away in the great purge! Into the scrap heap, cut 2" squares. wanted to use foil adhesive for the swirls but it takes too long to dry. used 3D fabric paint.

another one finished

in cleaning up my studio specifically UFO's using the mantra- finish with it or finish it - this one was a keeper. The block had the tree and leaves done, from eons ago, I don't even remember where I was living when I started this!! added a cute little bird, wavy border, binding & it is FINISHED!!

1" square pieces of art

I got a fun little parcel in the mail today. 35 little pieces of art. so cute. They are fun to arrange. I'll think I will attach them to a piece of paper or fabric. My pieces are here.

more punching

I love sheer organzas. I've quite a collection now in orange, burgundy, reds. bought 2 large panels of red sheers & one of large satin stripes in orange & burgundy alternating with sheer. all 3 for $2! I tore some into about 2 & 1/2 " strips & punched them onto stretchy denim. I think it needs some free motion stitching now

beach tide

I finished another project using Linda Schmidt's wonderful guidance. This was in Quilting Arts Magazine winter 2006. The shore is puff paint, real shells & sea glass, painted. the waves are different colours of organza & dyed cheesecloth punched with the Embellisher front & back. may add a few teeny beads at the edge of the wave.

fast & finished

I'm trying to work freer, faster & funkier. No measuring, no matching just fun. Start with a favourite fabric - Kaffe Fassett - cut out a hole, back with water soluble stablizer & stitch back & form, change threads. as long as all the threads intersect they will still be there when the stablizer is washed away.
PS how do you spell stablizer? stabalizer?

gathering swirls

a small page (6x6")
the gathering swirls represent our habits, beliefs both negative and positive that make us who we are.
wonderful little bits of foil under tulle & machine stitched

fabulous mail

I got my fabric charms in the mail yesterday. Beautiful little pieces of fabric art on a bracelet. Ruth did a beautiful job making the bracelets and packaging them.
The bracelet is on a lovely piece of felt wtih embellishments on the front and that was sewn inside a little envelop of waxed paper.

storm at sea wallhanging

This is a wallhanging I made at a workshop years ago with a quilter from Hamilton I think. Its been that long. Traditional pattern but unusual method putting it together. again memory is sketchy on the details. The leaf fabric was bought in Florida and reminds me of cabbage leaves. Free motion quilting - lots of it.

ribbon weaving

This is a 6" square little page made one choice at a time. Ribbons in various colour, texture & width are woven over a piece of thick fusible interfacing - Timtex I think. I didn't take pictures in progress like I usually do. After the ribbons were woven & firmly attached I used fancy stitches & variegated thread to break up some of the larger ribbons. Then yarns for texture. There was one ribbon I had only one of and it is a rather 'electric blue'. It doesn't seem to work in there on it own so I added 2 smaller yarns in the same colour.Let's play - Can you spot the differences!! Let me know what you think. The dark doesn't stand out as much in real life as it does in the scans & photos & it is evenly balanced on two corners so I am finished tweaking. or maybe not, dark on the other two corners would finish acting like a frame. Mmmmm?

Quilt U show

Quilt University has a wonderful virtual show of quilts made from the classes. My Wildfire is in the applique section.
There are some wonderful quilts especially the portraits.

wildfire

This is a wallhanging that I finished this weekend. I took a class through Quilt University with Linda Schmidt called Elements in Fabric. It was a super class. I worked on water & fire. It includes lots of things I've never used before- Angelina, Tinzl, tulle, foil all to give wonderful light & heat of the wildfire.
The branches in the foreground have lots of thread painting & my new free motion quilting skills got a workout!

fabric charm swap

Ruth Rae hosted a fabric charm swap through the Fabric-olics group. These are the charms I sent her. She has put the charms on bracelets and they are gorgeous.
I'm not getting a bracelet as I think it would be awkward to wear at work. I'm going to put mine on a kilt pin or two. can't wait to get them. Ruth is also featured in an article in the next issue of cloth, paper scissors magazine coming out soon!

more pages in my fabric book

Chris tried some new techniques on this page. There is silk fibers punched down & hand stitched with little fly stitches in wonderful autumn colours. the tree is a combo of hand and machine stitching & little seed beads.
The other side of the page has Angelina flower petals - they look like hydrangeas to me - and wonderful leaves from Tyvek. two techniques I want to try too.
Thanks Chris

please play again

please play again, please play again that's all I ever get from Tim. you know that java guy that calls you from every corner in Southern Ontario.
please play again..........until today..............drum roll................

WIN/COFFEE............ so yes I'll be playing AGAIN.

paper inchies

I've finished my paper floral inchies for a swap. I started with a napkin in my favourite green colour with gold damask highlights. I made this more durable by adding a layer of cheesecloth with glue using Beryl Taylor's instructions in
Mixed Media Explorations.
added a backing then cut it into inch square pieces. the edges are done with a gold krylon pen. silk flower petal glued down and the centre done with micro beads in gold & copper. 40 of these will be off in the mail. It will be fun to see what I get back.

fabric inchies continued

what a great surprise. My fabric inchies were selected on a group to be the homepage picture for a week. Its a fun, creative group that holds an Artfest every weekend. You enter a picture and the previous weeks winner selects from the current weeks entries. cool eh? Anita picked my fuzzy little pieces. Anita's piece selected for Artfest was a journal quilt of one of her many animals -Mona. Her blog has lots of photos from her farm. I still think it is the best place to raise a family.

fabric inchies

I need to make some inchies to trade--some in paper & some in fabric. I don't mind making them because you can start with 1 larger piece then cut it up. This is the same wool and yarns I used for the charms. The free motion embroidery is granite stitch. It is easy to do, effective for texture. I can see why it is so popular.
I left the little tails of yarn used to trim the inchies. I quite like them that way. I've made 28 of these little guys. now off to make the paper ones.

fabric book continued

This is the page Sandi made for my book. I love the hand stitched leaves & the flower is from vintage ribbon. The real dandielions will be showing up here any day now!!

business cards

For me there will always be things that say I am a grown-up. The first was keys- maybe it was growing up in a house that didn't even have a lock - but having my own set of keys was a very big deal. Then it was business cards- I still think its cool when I give out my business card & I do it many times each day. Now I have these!!!


Business cards sounds too formal and stuffy for these lovely new cards I had made recently. They are called Moo cards and are about half the size of a regular business card. about the size of a piece of gum, Juicy fruit gum. Juicy cards? fun cards? play cards? contact cards? PLEASE VISIT MY BLOG CARDS?!!
The photos are from various projects I've done - you pick the photos you want printed from your Flickr album and the back has up to 6 lines for printed information.
Next thing you know I will be sitting in a coffee shop working on my laptop!!

update on sunset

10 days away from the sewing room and I did about 2 hours of hand sewing on this sunset. I didn't have enough variety in the yarns I took. I am happy with how it is looking especially the bottom part. still needs lots of work. Here is the inspirational piece.

update on convergence

I made some progress on my convergence quilt. The focus fabric is a lovely floral print of zinnias designed by Valori Wells. I have 2 of the books she has written with her mother - Jean Wells. I like them because they have delightful pictures of gardens & flowers as well as quilts and descriptions of their design process.
One of their quilts features paper pieced arcs by Karen Stone's New York Beauties joined to represent flowers. I used just one quarter circle as the sun in the corner on my quilt. The batik has a good mix of the colours in the convergence as well as some brown for the earth. The green is repeated in the opposite corner. The next step will be a combination of fussy cut zinnias from the fabric as well as some silk flower petals under tulle. Just need to decide on foliage.

I've been published!!!

Yup you heard right. I've been published or rather my ATC's in Quilting Arts newest book 1000 ATC's. I'm waiting on my copy from Chapters. Its here!! My ATc's are #'s 452 & 455. It was originally a machine embroidered design that came with my Husky D1. It was just hanging around so I hacked it up for the ATC's. They are much brighter in colour IRL. Like others I am disappointed in the quality of the colour reproductions in the book but it is still cool to see my name & stuff in a book!

I think this is my 100th post too. I started just over a year ago and want to post every single day!

I *heart* zine

I've decided to join a zine swap organized by Alma Stoller. The topic has to be about a craft or art - shall I pick quilting or quilting?! But I really need to narrow it so it has a focused theme. I'm thinking of creating texture with thread for journal quilts. I've never made a zine before but I always have words swirling in my head when I'm working on something so this will give me an opportunity to get them out into the world!!

half way there

I settled on 2 fabrics for sashing & setting blocks for this quilt and a third reddish fabric for the narrow border. I'm quite pleased with how it is looking.

fabric book part 3

These are the pages Lenna made for my fabric book. I like the dark page - a garden at night.

my fabric book

The theme I choose for my fabric book was 'In my Garden'. I used tea towels I had embroidered as a kid for the covers. I've had these for decades and wanted to use them for something. The front cover is carrots & the back inside is peppers.
My first page was made to represent gardens I had visited in Paris. Wonderful flower beds surrounded by grass paths. When I stepped into the bed to see some flowers close up I was quickly told not to step in the flower beds by a local guard. welcome to Paris!! but I quickly got over it and on other visits we found a park where we could actually sit on the grass!

fabric book part 2

Chris had a theme of Japan for her fabric book. I took photos of some beautiful bonsai we saw in a garden next to Villa Carlotta on Lake Como in Italy last year. I transferred a photocopy of the photo onto contact paper and used some free machine embroidery designs to finish the pages.

inside the garden gates fabric page

Chris's theme for her fabric book was inside the garden gate. The gate is machine stitched on gray organza and is supported by stone walls.
behind the gate is a formal garden with the urn stamped & embossed on paper. some thread painting on the topiary for dimension.
the back page is silk flower petals attached to resemble hydrangea.