Category Archives: Seasonal

Changing Ways

I laugh when I think back to the days when I would only work on one project at a time, start to finish, and they were usually pretty big size (quilt) projects. Now I’m usually working on at least three projects at a time. Maybe it’s because I’m older and there are so many things I still want to try.

I was hoping to have this one finished but some days just don’t go as planned, I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about.

This is the mini landscape in a leaf that I designed a while ago. The sky and water are my hand painted fabric, the other pieces are commercial fabrics. Below are some of the process steps. As I worked on this I thought about how I would be so much more comfortable doing all of it by hand – the applique, even the quilting. I have always felt happier, more in control, doing hand applique and quilting. All of my early miniature landscape were made by hand, and ti’s the way I have taught mini fabric landscapes to students. But now that changes day to day and I’ve had to change my ways; raw edge fusing, machine quilting and sewing have allow me a better chance of getting projects done in my lifetime!

To begin – The little landscape pieces were positioned on Wonder Under, pressed and the leaf cut out. Usually I would remove the paper and then cut it out but in this case it was easier for me to cut it out with the backing paper still on the back.

I measured and cut freezer paper about the size of the finished quilt and pressed it onto the black background fabric. Next I positioned and held a cardstock leaf pattern on the freezer paper and drew around it, then I extended the landscape lines out from the edge of the leaf. I numbered them from furthest back to the most foreground piece.

I cut them apart and removed the pattern and freezer paper. Next I pressed/fused the leaf in place on the the background fabric. and ironed the freezer paper pieces in order, back in place (like a puzzle), leaving a little gap; a bit of trimming was required so there would be a gap. BTW – This could be the makings for “stained glass” style quilt too.

Then I used a Chaco liner and drew in the gaps. I drew quilting lines for the sky, and then wiped them away, and tried a few more times until I found a design I liked.

Here the leaf, sky, and landscape extension lines have all been quilted – blue thread for the sky and a gray for the landscape. I started to close quilt using color thread within the extension sections, out from the landscape elements and sky, but it was not a good day for that…

Early on I knew it wasn’t a good day for me to be quilting. But instead of quitting for the day like I should have, I ripped out colored thread quilting and grabbed black thread. I’m thinking about dry brush painting some of the outside edges of the black quilting. I’ll have to think on that after I finish all of the black quilting… we’ll see!

Reminder – Next post I’ll be announcing the Leaf Decorated Box winner.

As winter and the holiday seasons approach I hope you will be safe and find some time just for you.

Challenges

I was scrolling through Instagram recently and noticed several people taking part in different time sensitive or daily challenges. Back in November 2020 I challenged myself, and anyone interested in joining me, to Needlevember. Each day in November I/we would share something we stitched. I enjoyed the stitching but having something to show every day felt like pressure rather than pleasure. I know challenges are more fun when more people share their pieces too, but I went solo.

I’ve enjoyed creating challenge projects for Visions Art Museum Stir Crazy member challenge, I especially like that there’s no time frame for getting any of them finished. A few other artists have created project too. The idea of these projects, during the pandemic, was to find and use materials and objects you may already have around the house. VAM asked me to come up with another project for May.

The May project is mixed media but doesn’t include stitching, though I do show how I made one simple white fabric flower; these same flowers I used in my Unmaking the Soul piece…

Unmasking the Soul detail of the fabric flowers that have been colored with Neocolor ll wax pastels.

Here is the May Spring Wreaths project.

If you know anyone who may like to try a project like these Spring Wreaths, I hope you’ll share this post or the video. Thanks!

Redwork Ornaments

My last day of #Needlevember was a free-motion quilted ornament. As I did with many of the November stitched pieces, I sketched or drew a little picture of what I was going to attempt to stitch, then instead of drawing on the fabric I just look at the drawing as I free-motion quilted. It does make the process a bit slower because there is a certain amount of creating on the fly and sometimes I have to just be okay with wonky!

These November stitching pieces ended up being a great way to use painted, gel printed, stamped, and stenciled fabric pieces I had been saving.

Here is the finished ornament on hand painted fabric…

and a video showing the free-motion quilting (I built up more thread off camera).

And here are a couple links to printable pages for you or anyone you know who like to color in ornaments. Have fun and stay safe.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BM22ZRGEDBXEjJmnWtx8JlfqdvJW8TiU/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qLtd8rYm-eUnWwmQL_Vioa-hqXm4mful/view?usp=sharing

Unmasking the Soul

I teased a bit about this project last post, there I shared some sculpted fingers and a painted eye, well, I didn’t used those fingers or the eye. I decided to use paper clay (keeping with the fiber materials) for the fingers/hand and paint the eyes on a flat surface (still on silk) instead of the round.

I finished the piece before the deadline and I’m pleased to say it was juried into the exhibit at Visions Art Museum and New Americans Museum. The exhibition runs Oct.19 – Nov. 19, 2019 at VAM.

The theme is Day of the Dead and/or Luchador. Most people have heard of Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead but maybe not so much about Luchador aka Lucha Libra or Mexican wrestler. I now know more about them than I ever imagined!

So the artwork could be either or both and I decided on both. Rarely am I able to actually create the object I have pictured in my mind but this project came pretty darn close. This is my artist statement which may explain what I was going for…

At the end of the work day they pull off their wrestler mask and join the Day of the Dead celebration…still keeping their anonymity.

It was a challenge but I really enjoyed making it.

Fabric Play

I was thinking about making some winter cards so I was playing, with sun-printing (again) using leatherleaf ferns and Setasilk and then painting with Neo Color wax pastels. The first three are from the same large piece, I’m floating a card stock “window” over it to find an area I like.

I’m not sure where I’m going with those but I know the Neo Color pastel poinsettia is crying for some thread play. The pine cone was really an experiment and it’s just okay. I may have to fix the stem because the branch looks like a stem shadow (more pine needles?). I should have done a wash around it too; I don’t like the white area on the right. Maybe that would be a place for some white (tone on tone) embroidery or maybe free motion quilting.

      

And below is a poinsettia card I made for my aunt. I posted a card similar to this in the past but this one is a little different in that the leave/petals hang beyond the edge. I like this one better and I think my fabric quilled beads with French Knots make the perfect flowers.

As I was writing this post my daughter gave a little holler saying “Sky!” and if you know anything about my family you know that is the signal to go upstairs and out on our bedroom deck. It was to see this…

Always makes me want to paint fabric!

Harvest Art

Still waiting for Fall after the 90° Thanksgiving and realizing December is almost here!

This turkey was created for my grandnieces (7 and 6) who had a good time coloring them during our Thanksgiving family gathering.

I gave them each a plain turkey sheet along with one with this MeAnndered turkey below. It was interesting to me that they both (on their own) selected the plain one to color-in. These are very active little people and it warmed this great-aunt’s heart that they wanted to sit and color on them at all! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, ours was wonderful.

Printable versions of these turkeys are available on my Patterns tab here on my blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I will be sharing Thanksgiving Day with my family… there will be thirty of us. Thankfully we will be in my sister and brother-in-law’s air conditioned home, because it is supposed to be around 90° here!

I’m more of a “thankful to…” than a “thankful for…” kind of person. And today I’m very thankful that I gave birth to my computer tech guy!

I’m using my new computer now but so much of my life and business are still on that old one… hopefully he can get it running again and I”ll be so thankful to him for saving me once again.

Happy Harvest Time to You and Yours!

Treats…

My daughter and I have been starting our morning walks in the dark lately. This morning many of the Halloween decorations were still lit so I snapped a few pictures. They aren’t very good but you may get an idea of what some people in the neighboring hood do for this time of year. I can’t begin to describe the King Kong and all that is around him but he is huge and tonight there will be fog, lights and sound! Every year these people out-do everyone else in a BIG way and on Halloween night hundreds of people flock to that neighborhood to Trick-or-treat and celebrate. Down the street from Kong is a life size horse skeleton, my personal favorite. We live across a major Ave. from all that wildness and may get one or two trick-or-treaters and I’m OK with that. Happy Halloween!

Painting Fabric Pinwheels

I rarely make patriotic art but I wanted to make pinwheels using fabric and paint and since the 4th of July is approaching this turned out to be one of those rare occasions.

I reached for the Terial Magic spray stabilizer. It worked great, making the fabric behave like paper. Here is the finished piece and the step I took to make the pinwheels…

I like how the pinwheels seem to be lifting the pot off the ground like a hot air balloon!

I started by treating white fabric with Terial Magic and cutting three inch squares.

Apply star stickers (I made these) to treated white fabric.
Use a sponge and acrylic paint, dab over the entire surface.
Let dry (it dries quickly) and remove stars (if the stars are still sticky save for other projects).
Cut a wavy line through card stock to make the stencil.
Flip the square over and use another color paint and a sponge to dab just to one side of the stencil (for a less formal stripe).
For a more formal stripe – after cutting a curvy line in the card stock, tape the two pieces together leaving a 1/4″ gap.
Once the piece is dry fold it in half diagonally, open out and fold the other direction corner to corner again.
Now cut from the outside corners to a little past half way up on each creased line.
Bring every other corner up to the center.
I apply a piece of tape to hold while I get the thread and needle ready.
Use a needle with a double length of thread and remove the tape.
Start on the back side in the center and push the needle and thread through to the front. I like to use a thimble to help push.
Catch each point in a clockwise fashion and pull thread tight. Stitch through to the back and come up again to secure.
Grab the button and stitch it on, then flip to the back and tie off the thread.
And we have made a pinwheel!

I can imagine these being painted for many occasions or used to decorate a room. They would be fun to make with kids and glue could be used instead of needle and thread.

If you make fabric pinwheels I love to see your creations!