Sunflower Quilt

I spent the week after Christmas cleaning out my office/studio and closet. The "closet" is a huge, 10x10 foot space with built-in shelves along one wall. I use the shelves to store my fabric stash. Two of the walls are only half-height, as the roof slants in and, short as I am, even I can't stand up at the wall edge.  The rest of the space is storage for various art supplies, gift wrap supplies, and anything else that needs a home.  It is also Christmas central.  And by the time Christmas was over, I literally couldn't even walk into it.  Now it is beautifully organized, and I've set up my desk in the center for all of my painting/sketching endeavors.  

In the cleaning and sorting that went on, I found several UFOs - "unfinished objects" in quilt-speak - in various stages of completion.  One of them was a 6-block, fusible applique sunflower top, about 15x20 inches.  Last week I got it batted and ready for quilting.  I did FMQ around the sunflowers, and once again used the faux piping binding technique I wrote about last time.

As I was quilting it, I was trying to decide what to do with it, when I remembered that a cousin had mentioned his wife's love of sunflowers and had asked me if someday I'd make a sunflower quilt for her.  Voila!  Perfect solution.  Last weekend was gray and dreary, and working on this quilt  was a bright and cheerful escape from the gloom.  I hope she will find it as bright and happy as I did!

In Praise of Aurifil's Wool Thread

Among the plethora of giveaways by various blogs and manufacturer's during the weeks prior to Christmas, Aurifil ran the "safecracker" contest.  The winner who guessed a 6-digit number correctly would win 200 spools of 12-weight Lana wool thread.  The contest was held over the course of a few weeks, during which periodic clues were given out.

A few days before Christmas, I got an email from Alex Veronelli, the Product Manager for Aurifil, letting me know that I had won the contest.

*THUD*

I absolutely could not believe it, but he assured me it wasn't a joke, and a very large box of thread showed up at my house the week after Christmas.

I now live in thread heaven!  Every color under the sun was in that box.  And it was the large spools of thread, too.  From their website, I learned that this wool thread can be used for hand embroidery and applique, but also in both long-arm and domestic sewing machines for machine applique and quilting.

I finally had a chance to give it a try this week.  First, I pulled out a wool applique pattern I'd bought a few years ago - A Time to Plant by Threads That Bind (Shawn Williams).

I had traced the pattern pieces onto freezer paper, but hadn't cut anything out yet. Why?  Because I really didn't want to use the same color brown floss for all the pieces, I wanted to color match each one.  And I didn't have that much floss on hand. And I find that regular thread is a little too thin for wool applique work.

But now I had the luxury of having available every possible color I needed, and I got the colors selected and the pieces cut out quickly.  I used the Lana thread to hand-applique the stripe onto the pig, the door onto the bee skep, the inside shadows on the watering can, the holes on the birdhouses, the white stripe onto the flag, and the pots into a stack.  The Lana thread just melted into the wool, and blended perfectly into the background.  LOVE!  Here are a few detail shots:

I've got a ways to go, but a few nights' of TV watching should have this finished up in no time.

Then I decided to give the thread a try in my machine.  I have to admit, that I was a little concerned about how thick it was, but it threaded easily. Using a sketch, I put together a highly-textured block of burlap with squares and rectangles of silk, scrim and organza.  I zigzagged the edges down with the Lana thread, and it sewed beautifully, and due to it's heavy weight, sat on the surface and became a lovely design element.

At Christmas, my brother gave me some silk hankies by the Tentakulum group, and I wanted to play with them. (Examples can be found at the YLI website.)   I needle felted them down onto a disk of wool, and got these lovely, dimensional flowers.  To create the centers, I added some wool locks from Living Felt (my favorite online wool distributor), and added a few beads to give just a bit more sparkle.  Aren't they gorgeous?

After blanket stiching down some wool stems and leaves (again using the Lana thread), I removed the flowers (they were not attached yet) to prep the top for quilting.  I wanted to balance the quilting across the whole piece, so I added two  "ghost" flowers to the left side of the panel, simply using green, turquoise, and purple thread to outline flowers comparable in size and scale to those with the silk and wool.  The heavy wool thread sits beautifully on the top of the batik background fabric, providing a nice design element without detracting from those gorgeous silk flowers.

I used an elongated stipple for the background, and everything popped nicely.  Here is the finished piece, which is 16x20.  I used the faux piping binding technique that was so beautifully described by Trisha at TLC Stitches.

So, thanks to Aurifil for such a generous giveaway.  To pay it forward, I will be doing a few giveaways here on the blog, and giving some to the members of my bees.  Stay tuned!

Birdhouse Christmas Quilt

Here is a quilt I made as a Christmas gift for a dear friend at ScrapStreet.com Magazine, Ms. Linda.  I really enjoyed putting this together, and will someday have to make one for myself because it looks even better in person than it does in a photograph.  Fused applique, machine quilting.  Love how bright the cardinals are!

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.

Seahorse Quilts

So I finished Jeremy's seahorse quilt before the end of August, but just haven't managed to get pictures taken and posted.  I made time to do so today.  When I wrote about it last, he'd had me paint onto the partially-quilted surface - a new adventure for me.  I then quilted in the water, using multiple shades of blue threads in the painted areas, and a slightly blued white thread in the unpainted parts of the background.  In keeping with his preference for all things shiny, all of the threads were shimmery and glittery.  I also added some hotfix crystals for "bubbles".  I satin stitched the edges and couched a single frame of a multihued fiber (perfect for this little quilt, with blues, teals and browns) around the outer edge.  

I brought it to Jeremy, showed it to him, and asked him if he liked it.  Those of you who read this post are probably shaking your heads right now, thinking "she'll never learn."  Sure enough, Jeremy did not agree with me that the piece was complete.  He looked at it for a few minutes, told me how much he loved the paint and the crystals, and then informed me that it needed another row of the fibers along the outer edge, just a little bit apart from the first one.

"No, it's fine as it is", I insisted.  It looked complete to me.  But he turned on those baby blues of his and I added another row of the fiber.  And I have to admit, that while it was just fine with one fiber border, the second border really added definition and set off the piece better.  And here it is:

And a detail shot of the seahorse on the bottom:

This was a great piece for me to practice with new techniques before going onto the bigger piece.  I also learned that Jeremy has a good, intuitive eye for balance and design, and is NOT afraid to share his opinion when asked for it.

So I moved onto the original piece I had intended to make before this little side trip.  It is a beach-themed, mixed media piece called "Live in the Current".

The 3 main panels were cut from felted wool, in shades of blue, green, and purple, that was needle felted directly to batting.  After the felting was done, I hand-stitched a variety of fibers on the top, and did some embroidery as well.  I fused the needle felted sheet to timtex to give it some stiffness, added backing, and did light machine quilting to give additional texture.  I then cut it into three panels, and did a double-layer of satin stitch in a variegated thread to finish them off.

The "library cards" are digital images by Katie Pertiet (Library Card Collection: Seaside) that were printed onto background fabric that I made in Susan Brubaker Knapp's class in June.  The background fabric was painted with very dilute Lumiere paint, and it glitters slightly.  I batted and back them, then stitched outline stitched the critters and the lines of the index cards with Monopoly thread.  I inked the edges for a little more definition, and attached them to the felted cards with small clips.

The background has the same seahorse and seaweed used in Jeremy's quilt on the right, as well as a shell on the top-left corner.  These were stenciled with Shiva paint sticks.  I used two of the images from Katie Pertiet's Beachy Clusters to create the layers and cut stencils.  I used a Silhouette America cut file to create a stencil for the seaweed.

To create the title, I used letter stamps (by Autumn Leaves), then filled in the letters using Copic markers.  I added a little bit of sparkle to those letters by selectively outlining with a Spica glitter pen.  After quilting it, I decided to add a little blue and purple color to the background with Faber Castel Gelatos, and using water and a stencil brush to dilute the color across the background in washes. I decided not to bind it, and instead, faced and turned the edges, so the design goes right to the edge.

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...

Surface Design Madness

Time got away from me and I'm finally posting about the surface design class I took with Susan Brubaker Knapp at the NC Quilt Symposium.

We started off playing with Tyvek - that plastic stuff they wrap houses in before putting on siding.  It got painted with Lumiere paints, then you place it between parchment paper and heat it with an iron and it gets all bubbly and the colors intensify.  Depending on which side (painted or not) is up, you get bubbles or craters.  The fish below is 3 pieces; the fins were odd shapes that shrunk like that on their own.  I did a little "surgery" on the fish body (the tail fins) to get the shape I wanted.  These are 3 separate pieces, but can now be glued or sewn onto whatever base I want to use.

The beads to the left of the fish are tyvek beads, made by painting, wrapping around skewers, then heating.  They were then wrapped with wire and beads.  The bit up at the top is angelina, heated on an inked rubber stamp. 

We did a lot with the Lumiere paints.  In the next image, fusible web was painted with Lumiere and when it was mostly dry, ironed onto fabric.  I had one large piece of fusible web, painted with blue and blue-green, and cut it in half.  You can see how the background color makes it look bluer (on the white fabric ) and more silver (on the black fabric).  The bits that peeled away were still wet when ironed, which could be used as a deliberate technique for making something look distressed.  But I'll have to be careful to place parchment paper over them if I have to iron them, unless I want to glue my iron to the ironing board!

This is lumiere painted onto steam a seam fusible web that had  been pre-wet.  The pre-wetting helped the paint colors run together.  It was ironed on wet.  The left side of the image below is the painted fusible web - bright and shiny.  However, I ended up liking the back side even more - some of the paint came through to the back, giving a subtle shine in organic shapes. I think it would be great for backgrounds.

We also played with diluted Lumiere.   I took a bit of my plain white fabric and dipped into diluted purple paint.  The shine remained, but I over-diluted it and it was a barely there lilac color after wringing out the fabric.  So I added a few globs of teal and purple and smooshed the fabric all around and ended up with this.  I'm currently using it as background fabric for some digitally-printed images.

We played with Shiva sticks too, using them on top of templates.  I was boring and just did one color per plate.  Some of the more adventurous gals mixed a bunch of images and created their own multi-patterned fabrics.

And here is, hands-down, my favorite piece of the day.  We used Caran d'ache Neocolor crayons directly on the fabric to color an image, then used water and paintbrushes to paint them out.  I am not practiced at drawing, but I do know (thanks to the inspiration wednesday videos that Donna Downey posts on her blog) how to draw a poppy.  So I did that with purple crayons, and gave them a gold/orange background.  I'll be quilting this piece and hanging it in my office/sewing room because it's just so bright and cheerful. 

Susan is a fabulous teacher - she did a great job of explaining her techniques, the various modifications that could be made, and then stepping back and letting us "play".  I'd happily take another class with her!  Here is a link to her blog, Blue Moon River.

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.  

NC Quilt Symposium

I spent Saturday and Sunday at the NCQSI, the annual state-wide quilt show, which was held at Peace College in Raleigh this year. I had Saturday morning free to view the show, and it was a nice one this year.

This was Best of Show, Swamp Hibiscus by Judith Heyward. It was beautufully designed and the machine quilting was marvelous.

This appliqued bird quilt was a real showpiece. It was entirely hand-quilted. The corners between the blocks had birds quilted into them, and it appeared that no two were the same. I think that the applique patterns were used as the source for the quilting patterns for the birds.

This spectacular quilt, Daffodil O'Keefe by Katherine McNeese, had me making second and third walks through the section it was hanging in so I could see it again.  So realistic you could reach out and pick it!

Maggie Trees a Coon, by my friend Jeanne

A marvelous miniature Baltimore album, and a detail of it. Just look at the hand quilting!

This beauty was made from an antique table cloth of the creator's husband's grandmother.  It was gorgeously quilted.

The vendor mall enjoyed my visit, too.  I got some wonderful wool roving from Annie's Keepsakes; to-die-for hand-died silk handkerchiefs, organic cotton ricrac (which will ruche automatically if you pull one thread from an unraveled end), and gimp from YLI; and a felting book from Schoolhouse.  After that, I sat on this marvelous rocking-chair porch in the quad and relaxed for a bit before meeting friends for lunch and my afternoon class.  More about that tomorrow!

Crocus Quilt

After a year of nearly any sewing, my mojo has come back.  I decided that instead of working on new items, to pull out UFOs and old patterns (bought ages ago) and get them finished up.

So in late February, desperate for spring, I pulled out Eileen Sullivan's Crocus pattern.  It's a paper-pieced project.  I'm pleased with the way it came out.  I even got it up on the wall in late March and it really brightens my day to see it as I walk up the stairs.

Raspberry Lime (a baby quilt)

 One of my neighbors recently had a baby girl, and I've (finally) finished a little quilt for her.  The pattern is "Giselle" and was published in Quilters Newsletter Best Weekend Quilts, a magazine that was published in the late fall of 2010.  I only made 9 of the blocks (instead of the 30 in the pattern).

I fell in love with a bubbly dot print in lime, pink, and raspberry, and paired it with some coordinating fabrics.  I haven't been fabric shopping in ages, and discovered the patterned Kona cloth, so picked up a bit of that in pale pink as one of the coordinating fabrics.  The rest was from my stash.

I used a green dot minkee on the back.  I just cannot make a baby quilt without using minkee on it.  It is a "summer weight" quilt, with no batting.  But the minkee gives it a lovely weight and drape, and the quilting lines just sink into it and give the back a lovely, almost sculptural, quality.

This is it on my porch, under the mound of pansies.

And 4 of the blocks so the fabrics can be seen:

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).

Teacher Appreciation Quilt

We have been blessed this year to have wonderful teachers for both of our boys.  I'm a room mom for Jeremy's kindergarten class, which means I've spent a lot of time with the class and with the teacher.  She's become a friend, and I greatly enjoy talking with her.

After New Year's, my co-room mom and I began discussing Teacher Appreciation week.  I volunteered to make a "crayon quilt", where each of the kids in the class would color anything of their choice on a piece of fabric.  I would then make it into a quilt in time for the end of Teacher Appreciation week.

The kids colored their blocks in February.  We asked them to keep it a secret.

Teacher Appreciation week was this week.  We gave little gifts (flowers, chocolate, home made cards) during the week.  This morning, the kids put on their Mother's Day program (more on that tomorrow).  Afterwards, the moms returned to the classroom to watch the kids give their teacher the quilt.

EVERYONE helped deliver the gift to her.  She's sitting on a chair way on the left of the picture.  I was a little afraid the kids would knock her over in their zeal.

Then she opened it (and luckily, loved it).  And was mobbed again by the kids, all shouting at the same time "That one's mine!" and "I made this one!".  It was adorable to see how excited they were to share it with her.

I think it will be well loved.

Round Robin Quilts

I belong to a quilting group called Cyberbee, and have for over 10 years now. Up until this year, we met quarterly. We've just changed our schedule to meet 6 times a year, at roughly 2-month intervals.

We routinely do challenges and exchanges together. Several years ago, eight of us decided to do a round robin exchange. For those of you who haven't heard the term, a round robin is a progressive quilt top. The group decides on the rules; in this case, the borders were to be triangles, curves, squares, 2" wide border (could be anything), applique (on a new border), embellishment (of any of the previous sections), and "anything goes".

Each member makes a center square, and puts together a package containing a note describing their likes and dislikes, perhaps the colors they do (or do not) want in the quilt, even the fabric, (all or some) to be used in the quilt, a preferred size, and often a disposable camera so pictures can be taken at each step. They then pass that package to the next person "in line", who adds the border in the agreed-upon style. It then gets passed to the next person, and so on and so on. The quilt top belongs to the member who made the center block.

Our group additionally decided that we wouldn't get to see the tops in progress - we actually kicked the member out of the meeting room while their top was brought out and ooohed and aahed over by the group, progress was discussed, and often opinions were sought on where to go next with the project. After 14 months, all the tops were done and we had the big reveal. This was 2 years ago, and the tops are in various stages of completion, from still contemplating how to quilt them, to partially done, to finished.

Lots of lessons were learned with this project. How difficult it is to put the first border on the center block - it can do so much to define the rest of the project. Embellishment and applique were a breeze for some gals, and for others of us, a real struggle. ( I personally had a really hard time with embellishment - just like I do on scrapbook pages.) We each tried to make our borders be in context and in scale with the rest of the quilt. Adding the final border was almost as hard as adding the first border! Another thing we learned is that the tops took on a life of their own. They "spoke" to each of us as we worked on them.

And they are spectacular and I want to share them with you today, even though we got them back in 2007. There were a lot of speechless moments and not a few tears shed as we saw our quilt tops for the first time.

This first one is Michelle's: she wanted to use peacock colors and had an actual, 3-foot long peacock feather in her package as inspiration for us. The appliqued peacock, and the use of actual peacock feathers as embellishment on each of the blocks in the wide border put this quilt over the top.

This one is Mary's - her center block was a spectacular applique. We all decided it looked like Mexican tiles and went with that theme. She originally wanted a wall-sized quilt that she could hang in her kitchen. This one really had it's own agenda though, and became a bed-sized top.

This is Holly's. In addition to being an incredible quilter, Holly is a beautiful singer. She was inspired by a brooch to make the her center block, which was a musical heart. She wanted to stick with a black/white/red/pinkish color scheme.

This is Jeanne's flower cabin. She and her husband have been building a log cabin home in the mountains for her retirement. It will fit in beautifully there!

Jenny's Elvis quilt - this might just have been everyone's favorite quilt to work on. It certainly was a ton of fun! What you can't see in this daylight picture is the LED flashing lights that go around the pale yellow colored edge of the jukebox! It really looks amazing.

Alice wanted somthing fun and funky, and I think this fit the bill. Many of us were calling it the Carribbean quilt when we were done with it because it reminded us of fun at the beach.

This is Tess' reproduction quilt. She provided all of the reproduction fabrics to be used in it, along with the stunning Mariner's Compass center block. Her mom passed away while the project was on-going and Tess decided to drop out. But we decided to do her borders for her until she was ready to get back to it. I can't remember who did the applique border, but what we found out at the reveal - through her tears - was that Tess' mom really liked eagles. It made a special quilt mean that much more to Tess.

And last but not least is my quilt, which I call Pomegranate Star. I spent weeks just staring at it after I got it, stunned by how wonderful it is. It's now quilted and hangs in my living room. I see it each time I use the stairs.