Category Archives: Quilting

Hexagons and Giveaway

In my continuing quest to find any art I may be able to do during my recovery I have discovered many limitations. While cutting out these small hexagons, first with scissors and then rotary cutter, I was pushing and moving in ways I shouldn’t have been. Oh, boy, did I suffer the following day. Lesson learned.

Anyway, this is what I made. Thanks to my funky embroidery hoop stand (made from a broken lamp, it has been a great stand and the price was right!), I was able to do a bit of embroidery on the (raw edge) hexagons to hold them. I would have liked to embroider around the all the edges but sadly I couldn’t. They’re far from perfect and fraying but I’m fine with that.

  • It can be sat on or placed on a table.
  • This picture is a bit key-stoned, the hexagons are the same size.

I used a glue stick to hold them in place, which didn’t work very well. I didn’t have applique glue and I knew I wouldn’t be able to embroider through fusible at this time.

I’ll be seeing if I can still paint fabric and let you know how that goes.

The giveaway… A box of colorful hexagon patches – at least 200. They are approximately 1.75 inches side to side, 2 inches point to point, and each side is 1 inch.

Entry and rules –

The Hexagon patches sweepstakes/giveaway begins Wednesday, March 10, 2021 and ends at 4pm (Pacific Time) on March 16, 2021.

To enter: You must live in the US only (no international entries). One entry per person. You must leave a comment on this blog post stating you’d like to win the Hexagon patches and include your first and last name (or last initial). Subscribe to my blog to get the notification post with the winner’s name.

On March 16, 2021 I’ll use a random drawer and announce the winner on my next blog post. Winner will email me their mailing information and I will mail the ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­hexagon patches ASAP. If I don’t hear from the winner within five days of drawing date, I will run another random draw. Good luck!

Painted Fabric in a Hoop Part 2

Funny how things get pushed to the back burner or taken off the heat altogether.

A short time ago someone commented on my Fabric Painted Landscape in a Hoop video that I posted in 2018.

Unhooped and before split

As I was looking through files to find some information about that video I found several clips I hadn’t remembered filming. They were of the machine quilting, thread play, and How-to for cutting the two tiny quilts out of the fabric.

Thread play close-up

So I’m editing the clips for the part 2 video now but it is taking some time (You may remember that my editor moved out, though he may still come to my rescue on this one!). Anyway, here are the finished tiny quilts.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll post the part 2 video shortly.


With butted corner binding finish.

This Time of Year…

I was almost a Halloween baby having been born the day before and have always enjoyed the end of October. When our kids were little I loved making their costumes and painting their faces. My daughter is an artist and draws original cards for most special occasions around here and they usually feature a cat. The design on this little art quilt was from a birthday card she gave me a few years ago, which I enlarged, traced onto fabric, painted, layered with batik, batting and felt, then quilted. It was fun to make… I may even quilt it some more!

This tiny pumpkin is my fiber art contribution to the Halloween/Autumn festivities this year. I will be making a short video on just how I made it and later share some other projects it could be added to (Here it is on a greeting card with free-motion stitching).

Quilt Show

Well, it has been a long time since I posted but here I am again. We recently made it through the 2017 San Diego Quilt Show (the 36th Annual) and what an inspiring show it was. I’m always amazed this show is put on by an all volunteer non-profit organization and I’m proud to be part of it. Of course, the people who enter their incredible quilts are to be thanks too. Here are a couple photos. I headed up the Quilt Sales booth again this year and with the help of a couple terrific members the booth looked great. I’m happy to say we sold over half of the quilts entered in our booth this year and a pillow! The show souvenir booth is on the opposite side of the sales booth and there we offer show year pins, tote bags, San Diego fabric and this year I was able to offer my felted soaps, glass patchwork (aka mosaic) items and hand painted fabric.

In foreground Quilt Sales booth ~ Photographer Cameron Scott
Quilt Sales booth from the floor. Photographer Cameron Scott

Nature and Art

I think all the rain has really caused Spring to SPRING around here. I’m finding all kinds of things to photograph on my walks… nature that has or will spark a work of art.

Early yesterday I fished a tiny pale aqua colored bird’s egg shell out of our waterfall and set it on a near by rock that was almost the same color. The image below is fabric I painted to mimic a stone that contained Map Lichen. I enjoy trying to replicate rock and stone texture on fabric.

Then later on our walk we came upon a beautiful garden with gorgeous roses, all splattered with morning dew drops. The quilt, I’ve shared before, is Gifts from her Garden.

Then today on our walk there was this, ivy climbing up a tree. I wish I could have gotten closer or had a camera rather than my phone. The contrast in color and texture really struck me. It reminded me so much of my photograph on fiber piece – “Coexistence”. I’m happy and fortunate to be able to take walks and find inspiration, I know I write about it a lot!

Taking a walk…

One of my “kids” had an appointment and the other was going to the zoo to take photographs so I tagged along. I walked through Balboa Park which is where our world famous zoo is, stopping at the reflecting pond, it was nice to see this artist painting.

It was a beautiful day and the flowers were blooming pretty.

Looking back toward the artist

Speaking of flowers; here is a detail peek of my painted quilt (lighting not so good, sorry). See a reminder of what it looked like before it was a painted quilt.

Now That Was Surprising!

Last post I was writing about lizards copulating in the garden. Today as Kona and I were hanging out on the deck she became very alert at some noise coming from the side yard ivy. I heard it but couldn’t figure it out until I spotted it running past the shed… An iguana, at least two feet long! It was thirsty (it is pretty warm here today) and found the waterfall very quickly, ate some of the Evening Primrose (hope it’s not poisonous!) and some romaine I gave it, posed on the top of the waterfall and then moved down and perched on top of my garden bench under the tree (sorry, bad photo). Then he moved up into the tree, they are really fast! No one here was brave enough to catch it and what the heck would be have done with it if we had! There are dogs in the two yards that abut ours near that tree so we are hoping it doesn’t head that way. A couple hours later it was no longer in the tree. I just hope it doesn’t surprise me next time I’m out there!

Last post I also showed a bit of a quilt I have been working on. I had a pinched nerve so was slowed down for a couple days but I finally got it quilted (wool batting, lots of quilting) and blocked. Here is a photo of the back. Next I’ll paint the front and then post a photo (with an explanation), unless it is terrible in which case you may never see it!

Heart Art Gone Awry

A couple weeks ago I was working on a new Heart MeAnndering video. When I finished stitching I wasn’t happy with one of the petals, so I ripped it out, fixed it and added some French knots. Then before editing I discovered that at some point during filming I must have left the camera on (went to fix dinner or something), thinking I had turned it off. So when I started stitching again I actually turned the camera off! Yes, there is a screen that shows if the camera is recording or not and yes, I have been accused, on more than one occasion, of not looking to make sure. Needless to say there’s no video.

If that wasn’t disheartening enough, when I went to press the very white background fabric I neglected to use protection and my not so clean iron left discolored marks!

After the fix and before the iron accident

Maybe I should have just given up there but no; I had that much into the darn thing, I just couldn’t. I mixed up some textile paint and painted the fabric surrounding the heart and of course while doing that I accidentally splattered paint ON THE HEART! So I had to add more splatters to make it look intentional, right? It’s still bugging me but I’ll give this heart to a loved one and she’ll probably frame it. As often happens when things go awry – lessons were learned along the way!