shades of green continued

a finished page for a fabric book - the best part of using a positive & negative image is I get the leftovers for an almost identical quilt for myself and it is journal size to fulfill another obligation!

scarves

with gorgeous yarns, delicious thread, one brilliant sewing machine, a magic ingredient and you too can have lovely delicate scarves.

more totes

In total I made 4 large totes & 2 small ones. love them all. have sent them out to be sold and enjoyed.

totes for sale

I have my very own sweatshop. trying to produce stuff for a Christmas craft sale. and I decided on a tote bag, a very cool but definitely spring/summer tote. Or maybe I should call it a winter cruise/March break tote.
Pattern is Screen Play by Nancy Ota and is very well designed. I loved picking out the various colour combos.
Have made 2 sizes DH likes the small one but he has no concept of what might need to go into a ladies tote especially for lounging in the sun. water,sunscreen, chick-lit novel, magazines, cell phone, hat,hair clips,sunglasses, towel and those are just the basics. Add a whole other set of stuff if there are little ones involved.

shades of green

what a wonderful colour. a cool technique from this book by Elli Woodsford. no seams because the pieces are just butted against each other on a piece of totally stable, zigzag over edges slice & rotate & repeat.
sort of like 'shampoo, rinse & repeat'!! then stich over the whole think with a fancy stitch I used one I call chicken scratch.

sewing tour continues

books. I love books. they have a special place in the sewing room. My father caught the rainbow trout & I like having it keep an eye on me.

more storage

Some people has a hidden home for everything. not me
I like to see my stuff especially when I'm on a roll creating - so I've all my sewing accessories on a peg board. So no lossing the scissors anymore!! that's the plan anyway!

I pick door # 1

what's in your closet? Do you have a little door for a big space? I DID! Blew that door off & look what I found. Tons of storage space outfitted with Ikea wire shelves.
now when I want fabric I can pull out a drawer find what I want and push it back. no more stacks of plastic bins to pull from under the sewing table. I am thrilled with my new storage systems.the plastic tower in between the wire shelves hold thread, fabric paint, crayons, markers, pastels, pencils with room to spare. Remember H. when you & your sister thought going to a store called Solutions was soooooo lame?!! who loves Ikea now?!!!!
The only problem now is I have empty drawers to fill!!!
!

elements-fire

I had the perfect dyed fabric for this element so no painting. It is built up of layers of fabric coloured with marker & funky glitzy bits like angelina. many more layers to go.

painted fabrics

.
I can see how this can be addictive - to create your own fabric - to slap some paint on a damp piece of fabric - put it aside to dry & see what colours have mixed & migrated.
The blue/green piece is for quilt U element class - water. beside it are batiks destined to be rocks. It has wonderful fine irridescent paint on it to give it some reflection.
The other piece is quartered & bagged & headed to NYC for a sunset fabric swap hosted by Alma The colours are a littled blurred and light - too much water but not bad for second attempt.

is it too early to think of Christmas?

not if you are a quilter, knitter, sewer or somebody that likes to make personal gifts or items for your home.
I love these placemats based on tumbling block pattern. The Christmas cracker doesn't bang but could hold a silly paper hat and a small gift.

play day

wet wrinkled painted fabric for the water element of the quilt university course. The colours are a little too bright for me at this point. may have to spritz over them with some blue/black colour. I like how the irridescent paint looks like hightlights on the waves. keep posted for the finished work. There are also two pieces of cheesecloth used to clean up the paint brushes and cups so not a drop of paint was wasted!!

another Marquee

I finished up the sample Marquee quilt top. Now to get it sandwiched & quilted. Any volunteers?

We had a very success workshop day for Twisted Stitcher's Quilt Guild. About half a dozen of us worked on the Marquee Quilts for charity. These are the tops we finished on Sat. Sept 16. I love all the different combinations of colours.

You Are Iris

You are an interesting blend of fun and wisdom. You definitely make people think about themselves and their place in the world. But they'll have fun doing it. You definitely epitomize laughter therapy. You are a very enriching and entertaining friend!

What Color Purple Are You?

Quilt university class

September. The true beginning of the year. back to school after all these years. I'm taking another course through Quilt University. Linda Schmidt is a wonderful artist and teacher and will be guiding us in creating pieces to represent the elements.
The first element we are doing is water.wonderful waves crashing over rocks- memories of Ireland come flooding back.

pins in the mail

since joining Fabric-olics I have gotten some terrific stuff in the mail. I was in a pin swap and these are the pins I got. The one on the left is from Sandi, metal mesh and copper wire and little glass bulbs very modern and cool. the middle on is from the host of the swap, Jessica and has a gorgeous clay face, the corset came all the way from Australia from Marg and will finally give me some cleavage on my chest!
Thanks ladies.

Canna?

how do you waste time?

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

Memories of Italy

We had many wonderful homemade icecreams when we stayed in Varenna, Italy.
I made a journal quilt to remember those sweet times. The ice cream cone pattern was one I had saved from Quiltmaker's for over 10 years. I just knew I would need it someday.
Someday arrived and I knew the lace from the Fabric-olics swap would make wonderful ice cream scoops. I used acrylic paints with a little fabric medium to get these lovely sherbert colours. As I put the scoops together I thought some beads would make wonderful sprinkles.
'I don't like sprinkles'
pardon?
'I, you, WE DON'T LIKE SPRINKLES' said my inner child
' ya but they would look good'
'I DON'T WANT SPRINKLES'
right, no problem, no sprinkles - saves a lot of work anyway!
so smarty pants if you are in charge here what kind of cone do YOU want?
not one of those tasteless plain ones I WANT a waffle cone.
right lets go see what we can find
ah here we can use a piece of this paper stuff from Sammy - I love using the same materials in consecutive pieces - a sense of continuity yet totally different use
YA WHAT EVER she sighed
oh no can't use this there's a hole in it
COOL, WE CAN HAVE THE ICE CREAM OOZING OUT THE HOLE .......my inner imp piped up
we'll see......
the tissue wrapping the cone is a piece of stabalizer embroidered with 'Italia' then inked to highlight the words.
and a FQ of a Kaffe Fassett fabric was perfect for the binding .....sprinkles on the side!!
and I STILL bite the bottom of the cone!

ArtChix quiltie

I received my quilt from the ArtChix quilt exchange hosted by Lenna.
I was made by Donna in California. I love the great humour in this little piece. The red checker tablecloth is perfect for a picnic. The ants look so sweet in their ArtChix hats and the cupcake looks good enough to eat. The balloon says Ant Party!!