More Donation Quilts

 I finished putting the borders on two more donation quilts and I am happy to say that I think I have found a place where I can donate them locally instead of having to mail them. We have a wonderful organization in town that offers comfort and support to cancer patients, called Ann's Place. I still haven't contacted them but I'm pretty sure that they will want these quilts to offer to patients who are undergoing chemotherapy. I have one more that need borders and then I can start the quilting.

I was pleased to find this pretty dragonfly fabric that coordinates so well with the striated batiks. 

This striated fabric had a strip of these turquoise stripes and I scattered then throughout the quilt. I was hoping to find a turquoise and red print, but could not, but I think that this print works just fine. I will put a red piping in the binding when I get that far. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Donation Quilts

 The plaid quilt that I showed last week is going to be part of a local auction to raise funds for hungry kids. While I am in the mood I decided to make some more comfort quilts to give away.

Several years ago I was taken by the striated batiks that were in vogue. I bought so many thinking that I would make landscape quilts or even mock Rail Fence using the stripes in the fabric instead of piecing in stripes as I had done before.  I went through my stash and pulled out ones that I thought would work and of which I had enough. I had purchased smaller pieces and I needed at least a half yard for this purpose. 

These are all going to be 40" x 50" and have to be backed with flannel because they will be used by cancer patients while undergoing chemotherapy. That was the request by the charity that will get these quilts. I went to Joannes this week to take advantage of their sale and picked some yummy flannels to be used as backing.

This is the first top that is pieced. I didn't have enough of that striated fabric to make it 40 x 60, but I had this scrumptious  hand-dyed-look batik in my stash that I thought was perfect. I will back it in a lime green flannel. The center is all made using the same fabric. I paid no attention to where the colors went, just putting them in as I picked them up. It was VERY easy piecing. I cut 5 1/2 squares and sewed them together with no pinning. I did pin when I sewed the rows together. 

Quilt top #2. I had cut those green squares thinking they would be a good border for quilt #1, but I didn't like the look.  So I looked thru my stash to see what they would work with.  Again I had a pretty hand-dyed-look batik for the border. 

The dotted flannel on the left will go with this striated batik that is mostly green with a little bluish  purple.

I thought this coral mottled flannel was a good match for this batik, which has a lot of colors.

Lots going on in this batik and again a nice mottled yellow for the backing. This quilt is on my design wall trying to decide the placement of the squares. Maybe you can help me decide.

Here they are willy-nilly. Just putting the blocks down with no paying attention to the colors. These all came from the same fabric

Here I tried to put the colors together in a pattern. What do you think? I am leaning toward willy-nilly.

This will also need a border, but I don't have anything in my stash that will work. I think I will get a soft yellow of some sort. 

This fabric is very vivid and mostly red with a little hot pink and a little turquoise. I didn't want to do red and thought this hot pink was a good pairing. 

You may ask why am I piecing all the tops and not doing any quilting, When I got into card making and paper crafting I had to bring another table into my studio to hold my BigShot, paper cutter, paper scorer, etc. The only place to put it was in front of my big design wall, which is one whole wall floor to ceiling. But with the table there I only had the space above the table which was not enough for a biggish quilts. So I put the table away for now and will piece all these quilts then I can put the table back and quilt these at my leisure. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go see what some very creative people are up to and leave some comments. We all love comments, including me.

Playing With Paper and a Collage

My friend, Beth, a member of my FiberWorks group, made a lot of handmade paper recently and generously gave out zip-lock bags full at our last and only in-person meeting a couple of weeks ago. I was thrilled to be a recipient and am combining them with some of my paper techniques.

We haven't met for the last two weeks because of weather so we Zoomed instead, as we had all summer. The weather promises to be perfect tomorrow and we will meet again in Myra's yard, socially distanced and masked. We so enjoyed our last meeting. Show and Tell is just not the same on Zoom.

For this first one I adhered the hand made paper to a rust colored card base after tearing it down slightly to fit. Then I adhered my paper which was made using heavy weight Bristol paper and Distress Inks, using the "smoosh method" I smeared some ink onto my craft pad, spritzed it with water then laid  my paper on top and pressed down. Dried with my heat gun and repeated with new or the same colors. After I had all the colors I wanted I used a stencil and more Distress Inks to get those tiny circles. Then I stamped the daisy design with VersaMark and used black embossing powder. Heat set that to get a glossy look.  Last step was to go around the paper with a buttonhole stitch on my Bernina.

Same techniques as the one above, except instead of using a stencil, I splattered some diluted ink onto the paper as a last step. Hard to tell from the photo, but instead of stamping the tree in black, I used navy blue, which I thought was not as harsh.

This one is a little different. Again I applied some Distress Ink onto my craft pad and picked it up with a brayer, blue one way and yellow the other, then used parts of three different stencils. The dandelions are a die cut, giving a little more dimension. If I do this again I think I will cut the flowers out of a darker color. 

I still have a stack of Beth's papers and hope to make some more of these. I am not putting a sentiment on the front of these cards because then I can use them for any occasion and perhaps someone might want to frame them. Thank you, Beth!

The prompt for this month's collage was Tree and I used my usual "formula" with pages torn from an old encyclopedia, 2 unabridged dictionaries and the online dictionary. Again I printed my images onto tracing paper so that you could read the text beneath it. I had quite a bit of that dark green velvet that you see in the upper left hand corner. It is a double shot velvet, meaning that is is woven using red and green threads. If you look at it from one angle it looks red, the other angle, green. For some reason I thought it would emboss red and that I couldn't use it. So I spent waaaaay too much time dyeing and over dyeing small pieces of white velvet to get the right color. Then, as it turned out, that original velvet embossed green so I decided to use all three greens. I am pleased with the results, another mixed media collage.

 I still have green fingers because my glove had a hole it it. I got most of it off with a wonderful product made just for that purpose, called Kresto. Got it online quite awhile ago, but can't remember where.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday

Finished Quilting and a Collage

 I had a pretty good week, productive wise. I finished quilting my Sun-print Plaid quilt. I wanted to quilt on my Sweet Sixteen, but that did not work out. I swear that I got a lemon with this machine. I purchased a Bobbin Case Tension Gauge for 50 bucks because I thought it would solve my problem. A friend swears by it. The gadget said to put the tension at 220, so I did and all I got was a big snarl of thread on the back. So I fiddled with it and ended up setting it at about 400. That seemed just fine for about 10 minutes and then the thread broke. Rethreaded it and I got terrible tension and puckering. I GAVE UP!  And I was using the thread that came with the SS, Superior Thread So Fine 50, on the top and in the bobbin. 

So back to my trusty Bernina, on which I have quilted many a quilt, and doesn't care what kind of thread I use. Since this quilt was only 42 inches wide, it was very easy to do. I quilted it block by block, working from the center to the side. I didn't roll the quilt at all, just bunched it lightly so there was do drag. I love doing this leaf patten, it was almost zen like. If you look closely you will see that the leaves are not all exactly the same, some a little fatter, some a little longer, but it all goes together and is part of the charm (or so I tell myself). Remember to click on each picture twice if you want to see the details.

I photographed it outside on my deck, hoping to get a truer color than I did in my studio.

True colors, pastel and pretty.

Not true color, but you can see the quilting.

I had to piece the backing, nothing fancy, just using what I had.

I like the way the quilting shows on the back.

Now I have to bind it and I'm not sure what to do. I can piece it with different plaids or maybe use a solid that will go with the plaid. I also have to find a recipient. Does anyone have a good charity to recommend?

Lastly is the collage I made for August. The theme was SUMMER. I used my usual "formula" with pages torn from the encyclopedia, dictionaries and online dictionary, which I enlarged. The sunflower is one of my photos and the sun was from my Sunday Morning Suns, both printed on tracing paper so that the words would show through. I also wanted to do a velvet embossed sun. I had no yellow velvet so I dyed a small piece  bright yellow and used a Hot Potato stamp that I had. I filled in the spaces between with a stamp that has script that is not really words and a sunflower stamp. Another mixed media  collage.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Sunprints and Plaids

 I've often said that I could make 100 quilts out of the fabric I have in my sash. It may be a slight exaggeration, but after 40+ years of quilting I have a LOT of fabric. Commercial prints purchased over the years, solids, batiks that I couldn't resist, hand dyed fabric, Dupioni silks, shobori, surface design, etc. Tubs under the guest room bed and tubs in the guest room closet. Floor to ceiling shelving units in my studio. Plastic drawer units under my work table. 

I am not inspired to make competition quilts lately, since most shows have gone online. Houston is cancelled this year for the first time....sigh... I admire people who are making donations quilts and I thought I would concentrate on that for awhile.

One of the smaller plastic drawers in the units under my big work table was labeled Leaf Prints. I surely hadn't opened this drawer in years. Inside were 28 of these little sun-prints that I had made in a workshop many years ago. I had a bigger drawer labeled Plaids and I thought they were a perfect fit for each other.

I used 24 of the prints with two of the pastel Madras plaids from the bin. The leaf prints measured 4 1/2 x 6 inches and I surrounded them with two inch strips, Log Cabin style to make blocks 10 1/2 x 12.  I had a hard time photographing this quilt. It is much lighter and brighter in person. The quilt measures 40" x 70", a long lap quilt or baby quilt. 

The colors on this block are pretty true. See what I mean by lighter and brighter? I made this extra block to see how I wanted to quilt it. I think I will do the leaves on the right hand side. I'm going to attempt to quilt it on my Sweet Sixteen, which will be a piece of cake if it cooperates. I always have trouble with the tension. I bought a new gadget called a Bobbin Case Tension Gauge, which I have not tried yet. My friend has one and she said it made all the difference in solving the tension problem. I certainly hope so. 

You may wonder why I had a whole box of plaid fabrics. Back in the 90's plaids were a trend for awhile. I've always like Madras plaids, maybe a hangover from college in the late 50's. (I'm old). I was chairperson of the annual challenge of my guild in 1998 and the theme was Mad About Plaid. I love this quilt that I made for the challenge. At that time I was making traditional quilts and hand quilting, which  was very good, if I do say so myself. I had small, even stitches, 10 to the inch. This was quilted with gray thread and the bias strips were also hand appliquéd. This is one of the quilts hanging in my studio and measures about 40" square.

These colors are true. It is in a different part of the studio and not affected by the light.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. 

Bisa Butler

 I was going to talk about several different things in this post, but when I looked through my pictures from the incredible show I attended this week I decided that this was worthy of my whole post. I'll write  some more about other things soon. 

I am very fortunate to live about a half hour from the Katonah Museum of art in Katonah, NY. It is a small museum without a permanent collection, so when they put on a show it is always just one artist or one genre. 

I am surprised that I had never heard of Bisa Butler. She is a youngish African American artist who works from black and white photos of African Americans from the 1800's and 1900's, some of them her relatives. She turns them into larger-than-life-size art quilts, using the most amazing fabrics and color combinations. We were just blown away. If you live anywhere near enough, please don't miss it. The show is on until October 4. You have to make a reservation and buy a ticket online. They were excellent about social distancing and mask wearing. I felt very safe.  

You can read about it on the website and also see some terrific videos. Here I will show you just a few to whet your appetite. 

This quilt was enormous, maybe the size of a king size quilt.

They showed the original photo that inspired this quilt. In it the boys were sitting on the hood of a car, wearing just ordinary suits and ties. 

It would be hard to pick a favorite, but this was one of them and it was one of the smaller pieces. Look at the colors she has used in the face!

I just loved the sassy look on this little  girls' face. This was also a smaller quilt compared with most of the others.

This was a group of African American college students sometimes in the late 1800's. In the photo they were sitting on the steps of the school. Next to each quilt was the story behind it.

She uses raw-edge appliqué and quilts them on a long arm. There was a video loop playing of her working in her studio.

For some reason, the new Blogger will not allow me to post these pictures any bigger, but if you click on the picture and then then click again, you can see more of the fabulous detail. Please do...you don't want to miss a thing. 

I'm linking up, a little late, with Off the Wall Friday.

Christmas in August

The card making bug hit me a couple of years and I have so much fun with it. I have so many supplies....stamps, inks, papers, embellishments, die cutter, embossing machine, etc. I make birthday cards, get well cards, sympathy, and thank you. So if I know it is your birthday, if you are not feeling well, you have done something nice for me or experienced a death of your near and dear, you will get a handmade card from me. 

Last year I made Christmas cards. I was only going to make a few, but had so much fun doing them that I made 45, enough for my whole Christmas card list. And I made the same amount this year. I only ordered one new stamp set from StampinUp and this time I ordered the matching dies. I liked this set because there were so many different ways to use them. I will only show you a few.

For this one I used the larger die to cut through the front of the card.

Inside the card you see the layered words, lots of fiddly gluing.

Same technique as the first card, except I just stamped the word. I liked the layered die-cuts better, even tho it was more work.

I did several variations of this. Lots of stamping and using those three layers of die cuts.

More of the same, this time adding some cute polka-dot ribbon. Don't know why the edges look wavy because they are not.

I think this is my favorite, even tho it was very labor intensive. I used the Sheltering Tree stamp set to stamp the tree, snow drift, and snow flakes. They were all heat embossed. Then I sponged on ink color using a sponge and ink directly from the ink pads. I made 6 of these.

Not a Christmas card, but a new-to-me technique. For the watercolor-looking square, I applied two colors of ink directly onto an acrylic square, misted it with water and then plopped it down onto the card and pressed down. When you remove the square you get this watercolor look. Then I stamped onto it with an old Hot Potato stamp that I have had forever and then flicked some ink onto the background. THEN I die cut a square from the watercolor part and put it back in place, popped up with dimensional squares, hard to tell from the photo. The true colors are little lighter and brighter than what you see. Even with editing, I could not get it to its actual color.

Same technique as the one above, but this time using a Stampin Up stamp from the Sheltering Tree collection. I love this stamp set and have used it so many times in many different ways. Again, true colors are lighter and brighter.

I spent the better part of this week making cards and now I am on to other things. I have to make a collage for my FiberWorks monthly challenge and then I want to play with my new Distress Ink Oxides. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. 

Ta-Dah! Finished!

 I got the last of these little beauties sewn down to the 30" canvas last night and I must say that I am pleased with the results. It was very tricky getting them all aligned perfectly. I did a lot of measuring and moving around before I was satisfied. When I had them were I wanted them, I very carefully picked up one side and put down a piece of two sided masking tape to keep them in place. Then I sewed them to the canvas, trying to match the buttonhole stitch that I had put around the edge of each piece. Tedious.

The problem with this piece is its fragility. I could never put it in a show where it had to be mailed or even dropped off for someone else to hang. All of those little embellishments  could be crushed or broken.

If all goes well they will be hung at the end of Sept. in the Newtown Library for our annual show there. But we don't even know if the library will be open. We may just have to have a virtual show online. The name of the show is "A Walk in the Woods" and my piece is "Forest Floor".

If you have been reading anything about the progress of this piece, you will know that the one in the center is all hand embroidered. My original plan was to hand embroider all of them, but that was taking forever. The rest were stitched on the machine and the embellishments (tree lichen, moss, bark, twigs, etc.) were glued on. 

Click on the picture for a bigger view and click again for an even bigger view and you can see all the details.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.