11.25.11

CHRISTMAS  2011  STOCKING, part 5

 

How to quilt? I pin my fabric to the batting. I decide to quilt the top to the batting with nothing behind. I try it out. It works fine. I will choose a lining later and put it in last. I am a novice at machine quilting. Should I try random circles?

Interesting effect but it does not really become a background. You can see the plaid really is not plaid. Maybe straight lines will will disappear yet bring a little dimension to the stocking.

Not bad. I will try just vertical lines and look at the effect before I cross-hatch them.

11.24.11

CHRISTMAS  2011  STOCKING, part 4

In my mind, I picture my angel in the dark blue of the night. I go to my Christmas fabrics and pull a very nice blue. Then I stack some greens on it to get the effect.

The poinsettia print on the blue will be lost. The blue kills the greens. Pull more fabric from the drawer.

Red with a funny almost plaid in silver. Very festive. It loves the greens! It will not dominate because the angel will cover most of it.

11.23.11

CHRISTMAS  2011  STOCKING, part 3 

Sketching again. I need to give the doll a shape that will fit the task better. In the Julie McCullough pattern, Angel Hair, the doll is in a straight diagonal line. In fact, the front of the gown is placed on the fold. The doll for my stocking needs to reach up. Julie's original has her arms genteelly carrying a basket.                                                                      

This is a step in the right direction. If I do not mind a seam or dart in the bodice, I can increase the gown and give it a little bend. I can reposition the arms.

Just what I want!

11.22.11

CHRISTMAS  2011  STOCKING, part 2

First, I found  a pattern in my pattern library that was simple enough to suit the project. I needed a figure about 13 inches tall and that would look good in profile. This pattern by Julie McCullough would be great.  Oops. Can you read the size of the doll just below the pattern name? It is a 23" doll. 

I took out the pattern and went to the computer. I am so proud of myself, I scanned it, took the auto-page fill default off, and asked it to please print it at 85% of the original size.  I have no math that told me that was the size I needed, it just "felt"right.                               

It took 4 scans and then I layered the papers so I could get whole pieces. Then I transferred them to template material. Next, I need to audition fabric.

11.21.11

CHRISTMAS  2011  STOCKING, part 1

It is time for Christmas Stockings.

I drew a shape on some brown paper that apparently comes in rolls perforated like paper towels.  It is used to wad up and protect items in shipping.  I rescued mine from the household recycling box. I have tons of it.  I drew several stocking shapes and then I began planning some things to put on them. I have an idea on hold that just will not make it this time because I am captivated by the idea of an angel putting a star on top of a Christmas tree.

11.20.11

I find these little things enchanting. If you like them, too, you can find a tutorial right HERE

but you will not find any recent postings from her. I do not know where she went or who she is or how I stumbled upon these little things.

I have not made any yet but I have found a place to buy wool felt and I put THIS on my Wish List for Santa. I do not even know which 40 colors I would like but it is fun to imagine.

11.19.11

 The leaves are mostly brown with a few reds left. The yellows are just about all gone.

Here is my name badge that I did for Misty Mountain Quilt Guild. The name part is on little beads in a semi circle in the upper left. The pin in that semi circle is the official guild pin.  The red ribbon in the lower left signifies that I helped at the 2011 Quilt Fest. The dangles are from my first shop hop. I got a charm for every shop I hopped. I was supposed to make a Moon-Over-The-Mountain square but I, of course, did it my way. This picture really does not do justice to the fabric and the hand quilting I did. I will try to get another photo of it later.

11.18.11

Early one morning, I looked out my studio window and something was looking back.

They were not as distracted by me as I was by them.  It was a beautiful misty, foggy morning and I was not sure the pictures would show nicely, but with photo editing, I was able to clean it up so you can see it.

11.17.11

I LOVE ROBERTA HORTON

I am reading every word of this book

And I have read these

 and now I want to read the rest as well as all of Mary Mashuta's books.

11.16.11

While I was on the fabric.com site, I noticed they had a sale on Shiva Paintstiks --half price! I have long wanted to try them out. How could I resist since the addition to my order provided me with free shipping and therefore the Paintstiks were virtually free.  I ordered this

I did not know they would come with this book

It works out very well for me. I had recently added this book by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas, and Lauren Vlcek

to my personal library and I have hopes of using it like a workbook to try new techniques. It is spiral bound which I think is BRILLIANT. I think I invented that. Most of the books in my library that I needed to use flat, I ordered in paperback if they were available that way. Then I took them to one of my local business and printing centers and had them sliced and spiral or comb bound. 

THIS book is a HARDback and comes already spiraled!  BRILLIANT. Yes, it is worth two brilliants. Each technique is wonderfully described and the photography enhances rather than detracts. Some books I have show pictures thrown in by a clueless editor who knows photography sells a book about art but has no clue how to use it. 

Even if it is a day when I can not get out my plastic table covering and paints or set up my machine and clear my work area of everything except shiny threads, I can read through the book and find something to think about.

11.15.11

Look what I have.

 This flannel fabric was a real deal at fabric.com and with this

 I will finally have the perfect winter nightgown. I like mine to cover my wrists and ankles. I tried in vain to find flannel gowns long enough. I have longish arms for my height and no one makes gowns that go down to the ground. I tried to find TALL sizes but the selection was not what I had hoped. I still have not found the perfect robe but maybe I will find a pattern I like for that, too.

11.14.11

Mailed to another sister-in-law for a belated birthday.

Earrings and a pendant in acorn style, a small lavender sachet, and a purse made from a pattern which could be by Indygo Junction, but I really do not remember.  I used for the tab a piece of fabric my mother had hand-dyed and painted, then practiced her sashiko. It makes the bag special to me.

11.13.11

Also done. Now they have eyes, ears, and bathing suits.

11.12.11

Done Done Done

11.11.11

The newest basket is finished. Diane Simoneson guided me through setting up a twill and following a pattern for an Indian style chevron.

 

Look at that rim treatment. I would rate it a 7 of 10 in difficulty. It sure was a challenge. I look forward to some chair caning classes and another basketry semester beginning in January.

11.10.11

One of my sisters-in-law saw this and wanted it. 

 Yes, it should link. Go ahead and click it. It comes in yellow, too.

If you follow fashion, you might have known that it is a KateSpade sweater. It is not my cup of tea but it will really look good on SouthFloridaSis.

You might even think that $179 is a bargain price since you can find it upwards of $259 in various places on the internet. I thought it could be done up with a little hand work if the right sweater could be found. Two weeks ago, I received in the mail, the perfect LLBean sweater in the perfect color so I began sewing on the little daisies. Here is the progress so far. The red thread is basting.

Unfortunately, the internet knows I have been looking at all these sites that have the Kate Spade cardigans on them and IT WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. It has customized all the ads on the games I play on Facebook and everywhere I go to lead me to other Kate Spade fashions. HEY, INTERNET, THIS IS NOT FOR ME. KATE SPADE HAS NOTHING I LIKE OR WANT FOR MYSELF. DID YOU HEAR ME?

11.9.11

My favorite BLOTTO block was the butterflies.  The background fabric was a deep turquoise which appears batik-like in the photograph but it is not. I found little bits of the print that looked like mirror images and cut butterfly wings to appliqué. I prepared the pieces and did lots of research on Sashiko patterns and found an interesting cloud treatment in a Sylvia Pippen book. I drafted it out unscientifically (I eyeballed it), embroidered, and then scattered the butterflies on to flit happily.

All in all, I enjoyed the experience but I hope I do not win the blocks. I don't have anything in my house that goes with those colors and my house is not Asian in style. I submitted them without my name on them and a couple of meetings later, someone tracked me down and made me put my name on them. Oh, well, I will worry about that tomorrow.

11.8.11

What I learned in Sashiko class I also applied to BLOTTO block raffle. The guild offered a free day of Sashiko lessons with Beverly Gibson and Scottie Blumke who are VERY good at Sashiko. That decided me. I would have to buy more BLOTTO solids. I chose a sky blue and copied some of the branching maple section of the print fabric, enlarged it unscientifically (I eyeballed it) and prepared to do the Sashiko embroidery.

When I finished, the branches didn't look right, so I couched tan floss outlines with brown quadrupled sewing thread. Then I wove my own fabric for the stems with the sewing thread. That is not cheating, right? Technically it is embroidery or surface embellishment, not a new fabric. See the close-up? I chose to weave unevenly, sort of higgledy-piggledy to give the branch more of a bark quality.

11.7.11

On my last visit as a guest and my first visit as a member at the Misty Mountain Quilt Guild, I was curious about the BLOTTO block raffle. For blotto, they have a print fabric and several coordinating solids. No other fabric may be used. A participant buys fat quarters at $2 each and returns a 12.5 inch (unfinished) block and receives her $2 back and gets her name put in the drawing to win everyone's blocks.

Here is the first one I made. It is a fan with black background and pieces of the print fabric. I enjoyed this since I was able to use some of the skills I am learning in the Appliqué classes I take with Connie Tackett.

11.6.11

Scarey, huh? I do not like monkeys. I do not like pink. I particularly do not like sock monkeys but someone I care about does. I must find eyes and clothes for these poor pitiful beasts.

Quilt of the Season

The Fall Leaves table runner did not sell and neither did this which is pleasantly hanging at the foot of the stairs as mon édredon de la saison (my quilt of the season).
It is 20 inches square and has a combination of big stitch in various thread types as well as more traditional hand quilting. The stitching around the individual squares I did in a wool yarn which required a little needle grip puller for each and every stitch!

The top left square has a hand appliqued capped acorn with a quilted oak leaf in the background. I wanted the acorn to be central but I did not want the viewer to forget that falling leaves are part of the acorn to tree cycle. I used green thread for the leaf image to further make spring kind of a ghostly past.


The bottom left is a hand appliqued pumpkin with big stitch within the pumpkin and more traditional stitching around it. I used some of my favorite orange plaid and some twig printed fabric for the pieced stem.


The bottom right shows outline hand quilting around two hand appliqued oak leaves. I am sure the outline quilting is too faint in this picture for you to see it. I saw the shapes for the leaves and the acorns in a magazine and knew I had to buy the magazine. I will search out the issue and let you know which one it was.
The top right block has a sort of three dimensional angle from a Debbie Mumm quilt pattern (circa 1985?) I had that showed angels on a Christmas quilt. I used one of them and made a more dimensional angel with changes to the gown to give it an overalls-jumper effect. I made a blouse and arms, neck and head to put the blouse on. The straps on the overall were very fiddly but I got them to work. Here is a secret, her little legs are only attached to the quilt and her dress! She has no body but her feet hang free.

Her wings are not attached to the background and also hang free. They have decorative stitching so tiny you probably can not see it from the photo. I used dark brown thread and picked up two threads from the fabric and then went under two threads and so on. There is outline hand quilting around her wings and the rest of her but I am sure you can not see it.

I have tons of "hair" for dolls and found this lovely reddish mohair for her. She carries a wire twist of beautiful fall oak leaves.

10.15.11

The morning of the last day of the quilt show. My things in the silent auction did not get much attention, but hardly anything did. There were 65 items and only about 10 had bids on them. My quilt friend says today will be a better day because we live in the country and Saturday is market day. Locals don't spend their money on Fridays, HMHC says, and besides yesterday was payday.

The things in the Boutique made money. In fact, one of the ladies I worked with was sad because she was going to get her friend one of my pumpkin pincushions but they were all gone--EARLY.
I do not have a picture of even a single one but I came home last night and made 8 more. I enjoyed it but I wish I had known ahead what would sell.

This is Iris. She went into the Silent Auction and her sister twin sister Gwendolyn went into the boutique. They are made from Julie McCullough patterns.

People wanted witch dolls, angel dolls, angel ANYthing, and different kinds of pincushions. People COLLECT them! I saw one I wanted but someone bought it before I got up the nerve to spend the money. It was in the most delightful little teacup.

10.14.11

Some vacation, huh?

I have been almost completely absorbed by quilting. I have taken classes in Sashiko embroidery, which I enjoy very much, hand applique, which is probably my favorite, and I will be starting Crazy Quilt and Fiber Active (art quilt) groups pretty soon.

I made some things for the Silent Auction part of my Guild's Quilt Fest which will benefit Habitat for Humanity. I made some things for the Boutique, also. I will get back into blogging by showing you some of the things I have done since May.


This is a table runner I put in for the silent auction. The picture was hastily taken and hastily edited so it is canted a little away from the camera and doesn't look squared up but it really is. The leaf and acorn shape came from a holiday quilting magazine I picked up the day before at the grocery store. If I locate the magazine, I will let you know.

I found some light weight brown ticking fabric in a giant discount store and bought a half yard. I ironed freezer paper traced shapes from that magazine onto the wrong sides of fabric and sewed them to facing fabric, removed the paper, slit the backs, turned and pressed them, and then very carefully machine stitched them to the ticking through the batting and backing. When I was finished with that, I trued up the sides, applied the edge binding and then made big stitch "wind trails". It took about 6 hours with an extra hour at the turn-in site finishing up the big stitch. I think I put $25 as the opening bid. Maybe it was $35.