Amaryllis Quilt and Christmas Gifts

I decorated for the holiday over the Thanksgiving weekend.  One of my favorite parts of decorating is pulling out my holiday quilts.  I'll try to feature a few of them here over the next few weeks.

I made this amaryllis quilt several years ago, from a Susan Du Laney pattern.  The flowers, leaves, and bulb are stuffed, giving wonderful relief from the background.  (No, I *still* haven't embroidered the roots. I also plan to add a little shading with chalks or Copic markers to the bottom of the bulb and the stem/leaf areas.  Someday.)  It is hung at the top of the stairs, and quite lovely to look at every time I walk upstairs during the holiday season.

One of my bees, Cyberbee, will have our annual holiday party on the 10th of December.  We only meet 4-6 times a year, several of which are all-day meetings.   It's all about catching up, sharing both food and sewing projects, show and tell (and what a great show and tell this one is with all the holiday quilts and gifts being shown off!), and a gift exchange for those who signed up.  The gift can be anything, store bought or hand made.  This year, I'll be giving some fabric, chocolate, and two handmade items: a needle book and a notebook cover. 

This is the needlebook.  One nice thing about quilting and scrapping is the number of tools that can be used for both types of project.  I used my die cutting machine and some QuikKutz and Tim Holtz dies to cut out the pieces for this needlebook.  The flowers are attached with french knots, and the leaves (which I hand cut) with a simple vein down the center.  All of the felt is from Papertrey Ink - they make a gorgeous range of colors and it cuts like butter.  I used a white lining and a piece of the melon berry felt for the inner leaves of the needlebook. The recipient's name is embroidered in the upper right quadrant, but I blurred it out in case she reads my blog.

The lining: 

The quilter who gets the needle book will also be getting this notebook and notebook cover:

I dyed dryer sheets with Dyna Flow to try to get green and teal colors that would coordinate with the background fabric.  While the green turned out great, the teal was not as bright as I had wished.  I pulled out the die cut machine again and cut a variety of circles and rings, then arranged them on top of 2 layers of un-dyed dryer sheets (to brighten the colors and reduce the transparency) below the colored circles.  I fused on a very thin layer of angelina fibers to give it some shimmer.  I layered the background fabric and a stabilizer, then free motion stitched the circles onto them and trimmed away the excess, undyed dryer sheets.  Some beads and couching with a variegated yarn in green and teals finished it up.

I made one more notebook cover; this one will probably be for one of the boys' teachers, and I'll be making another one for my other son's teachers. I went simple with this just fused a beautiful peony blossom onto a green pinked square, and added them to a dark brown speckled fabric.  A bit of stippling brightened up the brown fabric.

Jeremy's Seahorse Quilt

I'm working on a mixed media piece.  (Some of the background fabric was shown in yesterday's post.)  It will be a tryptich-style for the main elements, in a sea theme, but on a stenciled, painted, and quilted background, which looks like sand.

Using my Silhouette and a seaweed cut file from the Silhouette studio, I created a vinyl mask for the seaweed, then adhered it to the fabric and applied Lumiere paint.  However, it was too wet, and bled a lot around the stencil edges.  My son Jeremy wanted it, though, so I decided to use it as practice piece for the background to the mixed-media piece, and to give it to him when it's done.

With the Silhouette and a seahorse cutfile, I used Shiva paintsticks to add two seahorses.  Being a semi-solid, I didn't have trouble with the Shiva paint bleeding under the vinyl mask. After the paints had cured and been ironed, I was able to quilt the images today.  Using Madeira Glamour threads to add more sparkle (because Jeremy loves all things shiny), I added detail to the seahorses and outlined the seaweed.

When I showed it to Jeremy and asked if he wanted wavy lines for the water, he told me I needed to paint a few areas with blue - not too much - and use that for the water.  While he didn't realize it, it was a great, out-of-the-box challenge  for me.  I pulled out my Twinkling H2O watercolors to add the color and yet more shine.  (These paints have mica flakes in them for added shimmer.)   While it's not perfect, I like the way it came out and it was a great practice piece.

Now it's drying, and I hope to finish quilting in the water tomorrow, and get it bound (or perhaps edge finished with some fibers) and hanging in his room.  And then to complete the mixed media piece...

Quilted and Needle Felted iPad Bag

For our 10th anniversary, Ryan spoiled me with an iPad2, with a slick little magnetic cover.  I love it, and it's been great for all the waiting-around time I have with the kids (carpool, games, practices, etc.).

At the NCQSI a few weeks ago, I got some fun fibers from the YLI booth - organic cotton, hand dyed lacings (think shoe lace like), which, if you pulled up one thread, ruched beautifully.


I pulled out my needle felter, some blue scrim, various wool pre-felts and wool rovings, and some silk carrier rods and had fun making this fabric.  After the wools and silks were attached, I machine quilted it using variegated thread in a plaid pattern.  I then ruched up some of the lacing and added it to the top of the piece.

Today I made it into a padded bag to hold my iPad.  While I had picked out a glorious sunflower fabric to be the back side, Jeremy wanted something a little less "girly looking" for when he gets a chance to use the iPad.  So I switched to this mosaic-style fabric instead.

I decided to use piping around the top edge, to give a more finished look, and a flap to make sure that the iPad doesn't fall out.  I had recently picked up some of Nancy Zieman's Wrap 'n Fuse Piping and decided to give it a try.

 I had two pieces of piping in about 2 minutes (cutting out the fabric strips and ironing it around the piping).  I made a 3" wide flap, added the buttonhole, both miraculously BEFORE sewing the bag together.  

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

I've spent little bits of time playing with my craft machines in the last few months: sewing machine, felting machine, die cutting machine, and computer.  Mostly just playing to try different techniques.

I wanted to do a small fall piece with the colors of the turning leaves.  I used wool fleece and wool roving to make a mixed-colors sheet of felt, then cut the leaves out of it using some of Papertrey Ink's leaf dies.  The digital images were layered and printed directly onto the canvas.  For the tree and ground, I needle felted wool fleece and roving directly onto the canvas and burlap, then quilted it to batting and backing fabric.  I attached the leaves last, using a single line of stitching as a vein to anchor the leaves to the surface but allow them to move a bit when there's a bit of a breeze.

Every Leaf.  Digital Supplies: Word art: Fall WordTransfers
No. 1 by Anna Aspnes, Designer Spotlight Sept 2007 by Sue Cummings;
Paper: Autumnal No. 2 Paperie by Anna Aspnes; Dies: Leaf Prints Collection
by Papertrey Ink; Canvas: Sticky-back Canvas by Claudine Helmuth;

Other: wool fleece, wool roving (Living Felt), thread (Valdani, Superior),
sewing and felting machines (both Janome), die cutting machine (Provo Craft).