Putting it All Together

Rows A-E starting to go together.

After a hectic weekend for my husband's funeral, I was finally able to relax. All the family had been up from California, as the last left on Wednesday, I took a long nap. Thursday was busy doing NOTHING, and by Friday I was ready to get back to my sewing machine. I had planned on putting together the Dear Jane blocks during spring break, but I worked in the yard and cleaned house instead. I reclaimed from a lost box, the 1920's solid green yardage. I had several pieces, the one large enough to do the sashing with was a bit darker than I remembered. But it is a nice neutral, but a little on the gray side. It tones down some of the brighter fabrics, contrasts well with the darker ones, but blends too much with the mid-tone fabrics. I have a very large piece of an even darker green that I will use for the backing.

All the solid and print fabric is from the 1920-40's. I decided that I would try to machine quilt it in sections, on my home sewing machine. So I put together rows A-E, F-H, and I-M, I think these are a manageable size. I will figure out how to add the triangle border later. It may need some serious hand work and fudging to get in the corner kites.

Rusty Washer Fabric

The rust results are in. I carefully rinsed out the fabric, being careful not to get any washers down the drain. When wet the colors are very rich, we'll see how they look when dry. I am very pleased with the results, where the washers sat on the fabric there are definite circles, and the rust bled out to color the rest of the fabric too.

I think the circles look a lot like leopard spots. This will be fun to play with, I'm thinking, I'm thinking.....

Landreth in our Fyber Cafe group, suggested several rinses in a heavy salt solution, to counteract the vinegar and neutralize it. So I gave it a good soak in salt water, I can still smell the vinegar, so I think I'll soak again.

"OMG Don't Throw it Away!"

A couple of months ago, when we were building the wheelchair ramp out front, I accidentally left the can of misc. size washers outside. Thru rain, snow, wind and hail, it has been sitting out side. I went to pick up the rusty can, while I was cleaning up for the party, to throw it away. It almost went in the trash can when my brain seized up, and screamed "Oh My God! You can't throw that away!!" I have to do fabric rust with the washers. What a waste of good rust that would have been. So, saved from the landfill, I got a scrap piece of muslin, soaked it in vinegar, and spread out the washers. I carefully folded up the fabric, and put it back in the Cool-Whip tub to soak in the remaining vinegar. So, heads up, you'll have to wait for the next post to see what happens.

"Flabergast & Flotsam"

"Flabergast & Flotsam" on display at the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild Show in 2015. I finished it in time to enter it in our Fyber Cafe Challenge Display at the show.

"Free Floating Flabergast" is the theme for this challenge, from a comic strip by Pat Brady. I added beads and shells to the base layer of my photograph printed on fabric, then free motion quilted with some trapunto. Over that I hung a dried piece of kelp that I found on the beach one day, completely dried as is. Onto the kelp I glued pieces of plastic, raffia, netting, bottle caps, wire and a feather. I think I'll take a close up and side view when I go back to the show today. It looks stunning on the black sheeting background.

I also wanted the base to be more three dimensional, so I made two sand dollars with fabric. The real sand dollars I picked up on the beach, and put under the scanner. They looked kinda blah-gray, so I punched up the contrast and color in Photoshop Elements. I printed them on a white on white fabric with a rice pattern, just to make them look more interesting. I stitched the center pattern first, then trimmed the cotton batting, sewed on the back and turned them. A fine edge stitching finished them, they are not great, the color too blah and you really can't see the pattern of the photo, but they'll do. I hand stitched just a bit of the edge to the kelp photo, so that they stand out. I had thought about gluing on the real sand dollars, but they are just too fragile.

Here is the side view photo, and the closeups that I took at the quilt show.

The sand dollar and feather are tucked beneath the dried kelp.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge on the right hand column to see what other talented textile artists are doing.