Weekly Report

I finished my little Santa ornament and I couldn't believe how much work went into it. The directions in the pattern ( all 17 pages!) were excellent as she led you step by step through the process. He is only 5 1/2" tall, so you can imagine how tiny some of the pieces are, like the mustache and the mittens. The stocking has an tree embroidered with beads. This Santa is part of her Night Before Christmas series, which is still in the works. She is constructing Mrs. Claus now, but Santa was enough for me. She also has the Twelve Days of Christmas ornaments, equally as cute and labor intensive, especially when you get to the people in the song.

 









I finished the two pillows that I made to go with the triangle quilt I showed last week. I added borders to make them have more impact since the finished blocks were only 10 1/2. I used 14" pillow forms. I made two different patterns, different from the one in the quilt. They are heavily quilted, like the quilt, but it doesn't show here.



Lazy me, I usually just make a fold-over in the back, but since these are a gift I thought it would be be nicer to put in zippers. I haven't put in a zipper in over 20 years and I had to read the directions, but they came out OK.






I am still working on my 25 Million Stitches Project. I love the little turquoise hand, traced from my two-year-old neighbor.




I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

25 Million Stitches

I am participating in a project to raise awareness of the 25 million plus refugees around the world. You can read all about it here and see more pictures of what other participants have done. I was inspired by Linda McLoughlin, a blog buddy, who showed hers last week. She does the most incredible hand stitching every day and blogs about it weekly. She is doing three oversized hands in shades of brown. I am also doing hands, but mine are all traced from real hands, adults, kids, male and female in varying bright colors.

We are to use unbleachd muslin or vintage linens. I chose two vintage damask napkins that I pieced and cut to the required width, 15 inches. The damask is a joy to work on since I am not using a hoop. Right now it is 40 inches long, but I am leaving the bottom ten inches blank for now, just in case I run out of steam. They can be anywhere from 30 to 60 inches long. I will scatter my hands, as you see here, and them possibly have some overlapping. This is good TV work, since all you need to concentrate on is having the stitches fairly even and keeping the piece flat.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

More fun with alcohol inks

I had to make a new 4" x 12" to replace the one I made a few weeks ago, since it had sold. I decided to make it in different colors. As with the first one I used Yupo papers and embossed metal with alcohol inks. I added buttons, stitching and die cuts and mounted it on a 4" x 12" cradle board. It was a little hard to photograph because of the shiny surfaces.

I'm also using the Yupo papers in my cards. The two below use the same tree die-cut in its entirety.

I've made a few of these in different color inks and papers. I've left the inside blank so that I can use them for any occasion. The cards are 5" x 7", bigger than my usual 5 1/2" x 4 1/4". I used glossy Yupo paper on these, but I am going to get some matte Yupo paper. It will give a different look, more like watercolor. 

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Summer 's End

Last Rose Begonia of Summer. I cleaned my deck in the back of the house a couple of weeks ago. All  the flowers were gone and just the succulents were left, pretty but no color. This past Saturday  I tackled the front porch. I wanted to put out some yellow mums and pumpkins, but they did not look good with the pink flowers. So I brought them around to the deck where they are giving me a much needed splash of color. There is another pot on another table. My deck is visible from my kitchen and family room, so I get to enjoy the view every day.

Aren't they pretty? Not sure of the name of the variety, but I will be sure to get them again next spring at my favorite nursery. These are planted in a cobalt blue pot, but they quickly grew so big as to obscure the pot and bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. They are a bit messy because the flowers do fall, but I think they are worth the effort. 

Finished!

I put the last stitch in this quilt a few minutes ago. I thought I was going to be able to do a no-hand-sewing-flange binding, but it didn't work for this quilt. I have another quilt that needs binding and I will use it on that and I will explain it then. I did a regular binding on this and hand sewed it to the back.

This is pinned to my design wall and it looks wonky, but in reality it is perfectly flat and squared. Hooray! Unfortunately the quilting does not show in this picture, but it is heavily quilted.

I did an all over quilting design in a pattern that is called garlic. I have used this design many times and I can practically do it in my sleep. It is so versatile and can be facing in any direction. I probably should have done it in a bigger scale, but once I started I was committed. I did it on my Sweet Sixteen and did have some issues with it. A call to the Handy Quilter help line was very helpful. She was on the phone with me for about a half hour until we got it worked out. It is a joy to work with when it is behaving.

Another good thing about using the Sweet Sixteen is the powerful motor. This quilt had a LOT of seams and a LOT of intersecting seams that I know my Bernina would have balked at, but this baby just glided right over them. It was just like quilting on a whole cloth. It also has that 15 inch space between the machine and the needle, so no rolling up was necessary. 

I made two extra blocks from the left over triangles in two different patterns. I still have to add some borders and quilt them and they will be pillows to accompany the quilt.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Another opening, another show

Today was the opening for the FANE group show, another fiber group of which I am a member. This year's theme was Signature Style and the only stipulations were the size, 18 x 36 and that it be

in the artist's signature style.

The library has a lovely wide hall gallery on the third floor with cork walls, a great place to display the art. It is a very popular venue and we now are only able to display there every other year. There is also a large reception room that opens out onto a terrace overlooking Lake Mahopac. I forgot to take pictures of that room.

Here is the art, in no particular order. The names were not hung next to the art but instead they had these itsy-bitsy push pins with numbers that correlated to available sheets with titles, names and prices. 

DREAM PASSION
Raina Lynn

BLUE...WITH BEADS
Joyce Sullivan

SHASTA DAISIES
Linda Stern

COLOR BLOCK VII: WEAVINGS
Barbara Sferra

BORO INSPIRATION
Nancy Mirman

NATURE'S COLORS
Judy Gignesi

IN BLOOM
Gloria Michaelis

FALLING
Carole Hoffman

GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTIONS
NIke Cutsumpas

NATURA
Jane Davla

SABRA DANCE
Tamar Drucker

TEXTURES OF THE HEARTLAND: INDIANA TURNPIKE N JULY
Cindy Green

STUDY IN BLACK AND WHITE
Claire Oehler

LINES, LINES, AND MORE LINES
Maria Weinstein

T

ALLELUIA
Norma Schlager

Opening

This past Sunday was the opening for our annual  FiberWorks show at the Newtown Library. Throughout the year members made small pieces, either 4" x 6" or 6" x 6" from the word prompt that month. Then we each made one large piece that was sewn onto a 30 " x 30" black canvas for this show.

 

Jess made this wonderful poster for the show by sending the logo to Spoonflower, then adding a border and quilting it. It was mounted onto a white canvas and displayed on an easel by the entry door.

Beth Johnson's piece was the first one you saw as you walked into the room. Beth had a lot going on in her life at this time and did not have time to make one large piece, but mounted all of her small pieces onto the black canvas. It was a good introduction to the show.

The library had new screens this year, such an improvement over the old ones and so much easier to hang the art.

On the pieces below I will put the prompt word, title and artist. Some artists did not give their piece a title other than the prompt. Their small pieces are hung beneath the large one.

SUNSET

Evening Show

Ruth Savasta

SCRIBBLE 

Chris Wilkinson

RADIANT

Hibiscus

Norma Schlager

(I am happy to say that this piece has sold.)

CURVES

Hidden Waves

Barbara Drillick

MOTION

Barbara Dorry

CURVES

Curvaceous 

Norma Schlager

CURVES

Nike Cutsumpus

ILLUMINATION

Jessica Tell

CURVES

Dunescape Sunrise

Susi Lehman

Almost Finished

I worked on this on and off all week and all six rows are pieced. The last two rows still have to have the blocks sewn together but that will take little time. I had a very tiring day, working most of the morning and early afternoon putting the garden to bed, not my favorite task. I cut down perennials, pulled out annuals, weeded, emptied the containers and railing planters on the deck, washed the furniture and deck, and disassembled and cleaned my little table fountain. Whew! I was beat. My front garden still looks good since it is mostly annuals and I have been diligent in watering and fertilizing. Then I came inside, took a shower, had a little late lunch, read a little then headed to my studio to finish piecing this quilt.

I did enjoy working on it, especially seeing all those pretty prints that I hadn't used in ages. When I was making traditional quilts, I liked to do controlled scrap quilts. Why use two fabrics when you could use 200, thus my huge stash. I had made a log cabin for my bed in all blues, dark and light. I also made a large Storm at Sea using teals and blues, not separating them as I did in this current quilt, but just depending on darks and lights. I then hand quilted it (something I can do longer, nor do I wish to do). It took nine months of quilting every day. More on that quilt in another post.

I could probably make 25 charity quilts with what's left of these blues and teals, but that's not likely to happen. I may make a few, but they will be a very simple pattern, such as nine patch or rail fence.

I will have to buy fabric to back this quilt. I suppose I could piece the back, but my pieces are mostly quarter yard scraps and I want the back to look nice, since this will be a gift. I do have a large enough piece for the binding. I plan to make a pillow or two out of the left over triangles (yes, there are left-over triangles). I think this would look very pretty at the end of a bed or as a snuggle up quilt on the back of a couch.

So ye of little faith who said this would be a UFO, I am a finisher (well, most of the time). I hope to quilt this on my Sweet Sixteen if I can get it to behave. I ordered a pretty variegated thread from Superior Thread and will start the quilting this week. Stay tuned.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

What Was I Thinking?

While looking for something else in my studio I came across a zip lock bag stuffed full of dye cut triangles. I remembered that I had bought them many years ago when I was still making traditional quilts. I had seen a cute quilt in the Quiltmaker magazine and ordered these precut triangles. Obviously I did not make that quilt and I have no idea where that magazine is or what the pattern was.

I first thought that I would give them to a friend who makes charity quilts and then thought that it might be fun for me to do. I have a HUGE stash of traditional printed fabrics that I no longer use. They are stored in big bins under the guest room bed and in the guest room closet, sorted by color. I do love blues and teals and I have an abundance.

There were a lot more darks than lights in the bag and I sorted them accordingly. Then I sorted them into teals and blues. There are countless patterns that use HST and most rely on combining darks and lights. I knew I would have to cut more lights, so out came those tubs from under the bed .

 I played around with several different patterns, including these two stars.

 I really liked this pattern and I started piecing, alternating blue blocks and teal blocks. It's been a long time since I've done any traditional piecing. Matching points.....oh, my! I have made a few baby quilts but I just do a simple nine-patch for them, relying on very cute fabric for the impact.

After piecing together these two rows, I decided to make it 4 blocks across and 6 down for a nice lap quilt size. The blocks sew down to 11 inches. I quickly ran out of triangles and had to start cutting more triangles and more triangles and more triangles. What was I thinking? But I don't have much else going on in the studio these days and it gives me something to do and maybe I'll make a little dent in the stash.

I went to a friend's house the other day and she had the prettiest paper napkins. I took one home and printed it onto white fabric. Ta dah!  It's going into the quilt.

So now it's back to work. I just finished piecing the blocks for row three and have to sew them together.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

SAQA Benefit Auction

It's that time of the year again, where you can bid on and purchase some fabulous small quilts at the SAQA Benefit Auction online.  All 443 pieces are available today for $1,000. Bidding on Section 1, where my quilt is, starts on Monday, Sept. 16 and runs for a week, ending on the 22nd. The prices go down everyday.

Please go to this website to read all the particulars. Here is the quit that I have donated. Like all the others it is 12" x 12".

Here is a better picture. The one above I took from the SAQA website.

So go take a look. There are some fabulous pieces there and you have a chance of getting a piece of art from some very big names in the art quilting world and some not very big names, like me. 

 

I was pleased to see that my piece was used in an advertising banner. There I am, fourth from the left in the top row.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go see what some talented people are up to and leave a comment. We all love comments.

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