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!