Enchanted Lavender Clearing

I have never claimed to be an art quilter, but this piece pushed me towards the proverbial light, so to speak.  I racked my brain to figure out where the pattern came from, and finally found it in my sewing room. It came from www.Ericas.com, but I see it is no longer on her site. Could it be that is because I finished this project in 2008.  

The embroideries are a Sue Box design, called Enchanted Fairy Treasures.
http://www.suebox.com/store/cart.php?m=product_list&c=20

I can tell you,  there are many different elements to this quilt. Embroidery, fabric painting, ribbon work, free motion quilting... So very much to play with. The green ground and tree is actually cheese cloth that was fabric painted and stitched down. It gives a wonderful visual texture to it.

Erica is the designer of this treasure, and I have to wonder if she would consider getting it out of her archive if there was enough interest??? It wouldn't hurt to ask if your interested!

          This was a gift for my dear friend and Fairy Fanatic, Kelly.

                                                           :-)

Another one bites the dust!

Oh yeah baby, that song is running thru my head.

Another one bit the dust...  Project in Grocery Sack that is.

 

This is Blanket Toss from Mount Redoubt Designs.

It's a re-make from a past pattern, that I made years ago.

 

 

 

The beading on this, was a first for me.

 

 

 

I do love both of them, but the newest one sure has a punch of color.

 

 

There is just something about the bright batiks, that make my heart soar!

 

 

And I always marvel at just how much quilting, adds to a block!

 

 

Kind of make you want to have a snowball fight doesn't it!
With all the weather we have been getting around here, that might be an option for the rest of the year.

Where oh where did our spring go?

 

:-)

 

Although, I have to say, I took a trip with my quiltin sista, last weekend to the Pueblo quilt show, and the weather was marvelous. A real spring weekend.

One of my favorite things to do in Pueblo is take a stroll on the River Walk.

 

Is this just beautiful?

 

 

One would think it's a fabulous quilt, but...

 

 

It's actually a bronze statue.

A tribute to the Lakota Sioux Indian Women.

 

 

 

I have left some of the photos in their full size, so you can see the detail.

It is just stunning how real the beading and fabric looks.

 

I can't imagine how they manage to do this in Bronze.

 

But I can say, it is a fabulous work of art, something I will never achieve with my quilting.

 

Oh sigh, one can dream though!
:-)

 

Whether you love Inuit Alaska Natives, or the Native Lakota women.

They are both incredible tribes of hardy women, who do deserve the recognition!

 

You go girls, hardly seems fitting, but...

What can I say, other than you helped pave the way, for us women today!

Thanks!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the seams, oops I mean scenes!

I haven't been posting as often lately, but that's because I have been burning the midnight oil getting some projects done. There is so much to share, that I don't know where to start.

First off, I have not forgotten about my "Love Affair with Alexander Henry" post I promised. It's just getting a few finishing touched done on it!  :-) It will be ready for reading by the end of the week..

But until then, I have to show you what I have been working on!  :-)

I was asked to do some wall hangings to replace pictures at a rental condo on the ski slope at Keystone Colorado. What an honor for me! I started off with a pattern from Granola Girl that has been in my pattern stash for a very long time. We needed the quilt to actually cover the breaker box, so I lengthened it by adding the Colorado Rocky Mountain High. Just perfect for the location! In addition I used ultra suede for the foot prints and the soles and tops of the boots. It has a great dimension now!








Now on to our next project... Living room!
 Since it's ski season, Debbie Neese over at Images in Fabric  had the perfect patterns to use. I was able to jazz up the snow a bit with Angelina fibers, which was a fun thing to play with.  That's been in my stash for years, and I had yet to play with it.  Just why did I wait so long???? I really don't know!

In addition to the perfect patterns, Debbie gave an option of stretching it over an artist canvas or making a quilt. I choose the canvas, and let me tell you, I am delighted with the results. No more worrying about wavy wall hangings, sleeves and quilt hangers, binding!  Whoo-hoo!

I thought I would share the process with you.

First you want to find the center on all 4 sides of your quilt and mark them with a pin.

Then find the center of your canvas and mark it on all 4 sides.

With your quilt wrong side facing up, place your framed canvas, (canvas side down) on top of it.

Line up your pins with your marks on all 4 sides.

I found that these plastic top push pins are perfect for allowing you to get your fabric on the canvas and make changes to square things up easily.

Once you have all 4 sides attached with the push pins, you can remove your straight pins from the quilt. At this point I added more pins to hold down my quilt, being careful to flip it back to the front to make sure that things were straight. It is very easy to make adjustments since we are only using push pins at this point. 

I do want to make sure things are lining up nicely with my ruler before I start the stapling process.

Now the hardest thing about this entire process is the corners. If you flip your quilt top back a bit exposing the batting, like shown here

You can easily cut off the excess batting, so the corners will lay nicely. I know it's a bit hard to see, but I hope this helps you get the idea. We just want to get rid of excess so it isn't bunching up on our ends. Try to cut it so the batting just butts up to each other, at the corners.

Then we are going to start replacing those push pins with staples. I used a hand held Arrow Stapler. Not the kind you use for papers, but the heavy duty type they sell in the tool department. This is very easy to staple into so you don't need an electric one.

Staple up to your corners on both sides, then fold your fabric in, as smoothly as possible.

I like to use 2 staples in each corner just to make sure it holds nice and tight.

There you have it. All stretched and ready to hang like my 3 ski quilts are!

I do like the looks of these wall hanging's on the canvas. It gives it more of an art look, rather than just  a quilt hanging on the wall. Besides the benefits I already told you about above, I didn't need backing, just the batting and I didn't have to worry about what my threads looked like on the back or take the time to pull the threads to the top, when I was free motion quilting this!!  :-)  It is all nicely hidden by the canvas.

Now speaking of that batting... Have you heard of Thermore?

A friend shared this find with me. It is a very thin poly batting from Hobbs. So thin in fact that this package at the widest is only about 3" thick and it's a queen size bat.

It has kind of a weird feel to the touch, but it has enough grip in it, that your piece stays put, while you are quilting. Best yet, it quilts perfectly flat. It is heaven for table runners and wall quilts. I haven't used it for a bed quilt yet, and am not really that enticed to do so, but WOW, is this the best I have ever used for art quilts and wall art!!

It runs about $20 a bag at JoAnn's fabrics. I got mine during a buy one get one free sale. And you can never run out of must haves, for those 40% off coupons they love to shower us with!!

Am I right??

:-)

11th Hour

I've only had months to work on my project for the "Another Little Quilt Swap" swap, but did I get it done with time to spare! Of course not. I was scrambling to get it done and photos taken before the July 1 deadline. Whew, I can rest easy now, I made it. Actually part of the reason, I was behind the 8 ball so to speak was that I just didn't have a vision on just what to do for this swap. After taking Karla Alexanders class a few weeks earlier, it came to me. Leaves. It was so fun to put one leaf into a block that I decided to play with setting in multiple leaves, and this Little Quilt was born. I put to use a little bit of everything in this guy. The green and white inner border was a hand dyed white on white print and the black background I played around with some Shiva Paintsticks and rubbing plates. Now that was from a class a year ago now. Nice to see that I actually "can" use all the things that I think I just have  to have! Anyone with that sickness too?????  :-)

I finished it off with some free motion quilting.

Wavy Borders! Now why didn't I think of this sooner? While it was a design element for this guy, it just might save the day on some quilts when square really doesn't seem to happen! Hummm I am definately going to have to keep this idea in the back of my mind for future projects. :-)

Snow Dye Sampler

I found a great way to use some of my favorite "Snow Dye" fabrics. In wanting to make up a quick little gift for my friend in Alaska, I was able to combine the fabric with some fun appliqués and photo transfer to come up with this little wall hanging, as a memory of last summers play time in Homer. What you can't see, is the look on my son's face as he patiently awaited (or not so patiently) for his idiot mother and her friends to stop embarrassing him with the outhouse photos. Ahhhh, the joys of motherhood when you finally become an embarrassment for your children. Such a treat for the shoe to be on the other foot for a change!!!!  Oh yeah focus here. Back to the topic.

The color runs in the fabric made for some great play time with free motion quilting too. I can hardly wait to do a little more playing with these fabrics, as this little project has opened my mind to a million ideas. As I sit here in Alaska and watch the snow fall, I am so very sorry I didn't ship up my fabric dyeing supplies as I considered. They have lots of fresh new snow that would be perfect for fabric dyeing. Oh well next time I guess! Happy Stitching!

I'm so sad

No more Free Lunch Cafe. It is so much fun to play with different techniques every month, but I know it was a ton of work for Linda, and I want her to know that we will all miss her classes and appreciate everything she has shared with us. I wish you the best and hope that life will allow for you to come back to us when and if time permits.

This is one of my projects from Free Lunch Cafe. We printed photos on either dryer sheets or fusible web. I didn't have much luck with the fusible web. It jammed in my printer and cause me to say some lovely things to it!  :-) We placed a piece of fabric behind the dryer sheet (or web) and then had an interesting print left on the fabric from the ink that wasn't absorbed by the dryer sheet or web.  Two distinctly different textures from one step. This has some VERY interesting possibilities! I used my playing around fabric from the paintstick class I took a couple of weeks back, in the project too. Amazing what comes out of basically nothing.

Now I need to dream up something to do with the fabric photo here. Any ideas for me?????

Art Quilting

I have been lucky enough to have a little extra time to get back to my online art quilting classes. This one, done with the decorative stitches on my sewing machine was sure fun. If your like me, you tend to ignore all the decorative stitches even though we buy these new machines because all they offer???  This class had us sewing circles with these wonderful stitches. WHAT FUN! And it was so easy, you needed nothing special and definately no extra attachments. I couldn't help, but become captivated watching them stitch out. If you haven't taken advantage of Free Lunch Cafe yet, you really should. It is better yet "free".

Learning something new in the new year

  With a new year starting I am looking to learn some new techniques. This is a little sampler that I did  with paper fabric. The base is a muslin with tissue paper on top. Threads and colored tissue paper in between the  layers give it a dimensional look. Fabric paints were then used to give it color. It was a very interesting process that proved to be a lot of fun. For those who aren't afraid to try playing, there is a great website. http://www.free-lunch-cafe.com/  You can sign up for classes monthly. Check it out, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

It's done

Remember that little teaser back in June? The photo with the soda cans? Well here is the finished product. My attempt at the art quilting world again. It's always scary I know, but I just can't seem to get enough of this world.

In February I was reading a sewing magazine with an article on using aluminum cans. Really in a sewing magazine, I'm thinking???? Are they nuts? It was more on the garment line of magazine, and I had horrible visions of a tin can dress. Not quite so much, I am glad to say, but still very interesting, I thought.

You cut the top and bottoms off the cans then cut them apart so they lay nice and flat. Fire up the BARBIE, (yeah I know, not that Barbie) :-) Then cook away!
Now really, who has enough time on their hands to come up with this???? Or was it done under the influence???? Beer cans work as well as soda cans do!!!! Reguardless, it is really quite interesting and just how much more "GREEN" can one get, right?



I found thru trial and error that it works the best if the printed side of the can is towards the fire, and you do need to get it right down there in the flames. A little heat will take you almost forever to get the thing to start to turn. You need a good pair of tongs to hang onto things with. My BBQ tongs with the nice long handles would have been great but they didn't hold the can well enough. The short ones were perfect but you have to deal with hot fingers from time to time.



The heat makes it turn a bronze looking shade with some neat rainbow things that appear from no where. Just a touch too much heat and your can starts to melt. It will turn a bright shiny silver color, and from there, it's over. No going back from that point. I did find though that a combination of all of it made into a quite interesting wall hanging. This piece of hand dyed fabric said solar system to me. Yeah, I know, now I am hearing my fabrics talk. But really it wasn't me that was inebriated while I was cooking my cans. They were all soda cans!!! Really they were.

Go ahead and do your part in this recycling world. Give it a try. I am seeing a woodsy theme in my head with bears and moose in the trees. I have them cut out of the cans already, and am just waiting for the inspiration to hit, to get it started.

I hope you get inspired to look at something in a very different way this week! And have fun with it!!!