Alaska Quilting Cruise

Immediately after returning from the retreat, I had 3 days to get ready for an Alaskan Quilting Cruise, whew! I got my laundry done, quilting supplies together, and at the last minute had to go dress shopping for formal nite, 'cause the dress I had planned on wearing was too small :( I stuffed a bunch of friends from the Fyber Cafe group into my RV and we took off for Seattle. After a few quilt shops along the way, and lunch, we made it to Gig Harbor in about 8 hours. One of our dear friends Pat had moved there last year, and we really missed her in our group, we stayed at her house over night. In total we had 6 quilters and two spouses, in the RV, dropped off at the cruise terminal and I went to park. We were all so excited, the Holland America Eurodam, was huge! But docked next to the Princess Cruise ship she was NOT. Pat and I had a veranda room, very nice. Our first quilting class while we traveled North was with Anna Buzzalino, called "Moments" it was a curved machine applique class, where we designed our own pattern abstract from a photo.

I spent most of the day, sketching abstract curves from my photo of a hen and chicks succulent, I ended up where I started with a bulls eye design. Anna helped everyone with their designs, all different and personal. After enlarging it to a 18 x 24 paper, we traced it again so we could mark up a copy with colors, layers, sections and sewing order, and registration marks to match the curves. This took quiet a lot of time and deep thinking. Next we traced it all again on fusible interfacing for our working pattern. We were getting to the end of the day, so she showed us how to iron the fusible to the back of our fabric and paint starch on the seam allowance and iron the edges under. Over lapping the pieces and sewing with a clear monofilament thread in a small zigzag. I managed to get about 4 pieces put together. The designing was fun, I would have made a more accurate copy of my photo by myself, but did abstract the design, which is NOT my thing. I am more of a realist. So I was very happy with the results. When I got home I decided to work on it or it would have been forgotten in my "to do" pile.

I had quiet a puzzle on the fabric choices, I used mostly batiks and finally decided to go bright and light in the middle with very high contrast. Going more subdued and lower contrast, as the colors got darker and faded to the outside. I paid more attention to contrast than value, which was different for me. I ended up using my own technique for construction, not Anna's. I folded the seam allowance under with a glue stick, and glued the layered pieces together. Then I used a blind hem stitch with the clear monofilament thread to applique and quilt all at once. I highly recommend YLI thread, it is thin and very flexible! I was originally thinking of doing some thread painting to shade some of the colors, but I liked the simplicity of the graphic quality so I did not add any additional quilting. I'll post more of the trip next time. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click herecheck it to see what other talented textile artists are doing.

My Round Robin Tote Bag

My Round Robin tote bag was finally returned to me with all four sides done. Clare made card woven handles for me, and the people in her rotation. In return, I made the fabric sides for her, when it was her turn to work on the bags. She used Sugar & Spice cotton yarn to match the bag in blues, turquoise and rust, with a real pretty weaving pattern.

On one end of the weaving I did a twisted fringe, it sways when you move. The thickness of the weaving was hard to stitch on to the bag, it stitched ok, just hard to get under the pressure foot. Vi made this side with diagonal strips, and added beading on the dyed cheesecloth. She said she left the other strips clear so I could stencil the leafy stems to match the rest of the bag. Unfortunately it had batting behind it, and was so bouncy when I painted, I made a mess. I had to repaint the edges with a paint brush, the free motion stitching hid most of the ragged edges. I did not paint the last two areas, which were very plain, so I added some more dyed cheesecloth and some green leaf glass beads.

Cheryl needle felted an end piece for me. With dark wool rocks at the bottom, and green fronds reaching up, and a wool butterfly at the top. I added some rayon embroidery thread leaves and some glass beads at each frond tip. Crystal amber beads blend so well with the orange flowers, that you can hardly see them, but they add sparkle. I added one of my thread painted butterflies at the top, and did some free motion quilting to the background areas.

Meredith added the last end piece, with bushy dyed green cheesecloth, and an agave spikey plant made with different blue shear fabrics. I added LOTS of glass leaf beads in several different styles. I'd like to add something in the middle section, but I'll think about it. She sewed on several different layers of teal and silver lame, and a sparkly blue cotton at the top. I had just bought some tiny gold glass stars at Bead Mecca in Canyonville, and stitched them at the top on the blue cotton.

Last but not least, I added the lining, I had a big chunk of a bright turquoise with tropical leaves on it. Unfortunately it was a poly/cotton blend which is probably why it is still on my shelf. But it is heavier so it will stand up to hard wear. I added an inside pocket and did detailed free motion quilting, and added Velcro closure. I did a quick large stipple to the rest of the lining. Oops, I did not get a good view of the whole bag, but the detail photos are better, as you could only see one side at a time anyway. I will link this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other talented textile artist are doing this week.

Icarus

I finished working on "Icarus" in plenty of time for the deadline. I free motion quilted the feathers, that I had stenciled, I went slow and easy to get as much control and detail as I could. I used a gray rayon thread, it was rather dark, but worked out ok. I had planned on a lighter gray more silvery color, but I did not think there was enough thread on the spool. I did not follow the style feather in Quilting Arts magazine, as I had the stencils to guide me. It went quickly, even though I was stitching slow, all the feathers were done in an hour and the background a half hour.

The background quilting is not as dense as the feathers. Wavy lines and spirals gave a very free airy movement feel to it. The background puffs out a bit and the feathers recede and look flat, a very different look.

Since the long strip was just a leftover, probably the end of the bolt that was too narrow for me to use as a nine inch strip, it was very raggedy. It was difficult to trim square, I kept cutting a little more, and a little more, it finally finished at 7.5" wide and the whole 42" long. I had a similar ice dyed fat quarter that I cut for the binding.

A yellow hand dyed fabric with a little rust color was used for the 8" diameter base of the sun, and all the 3-D embellishments are from a very pale smooth yellow. I began with small prairie points, just a bit difficult to make turn a circle, then covered the edges with ruching. The hand dyed fabric was a very high quality, that we used a bolt of for several dye sessions. However it was such a tight weave it was hard to hand stitch through. It took me several sessions of stitching, as I had to take breaks for my hands to uncramp. I had cut a slash in the center to turn the sun/batting and backing right side out, so I covered it with a large yoyo and a bright yellow center button.

I hand beaded the strands of beads to attach the sun to the feathers. Glass, crystals, squares, and free form yellow beads made a nice heavy strands, no seed beads or bugle beads, I wanted something more substantial. The middle of the center strand has a hand made lampwork bead, that my friend Meredith made for me one Christmas. I treasure the little bag of beads she gave me. I was going to use a blue one at the bottom, but I stitched too fast and forgot it. Getting it to hang even, with even strands on each side was a bit tricky.

I had thought about adding feather clusters hanging from the bottom, but then decided not too. That did NOT stop me from going to Joann's and Michaels's and purchasing extra blue beads. I wanted to match the types of beads I used at the top. I figured I spent $20 even at half off, to make 8" of beaded strands. oh well, more beads for the stash. I also wanted to match the stenciled feathers and got a $2 bag of white feathers, probably chicken. As you can see from the photo I did add the feathers to the bottom. Where I had an existing white plastic hook on the wall, it now puts the feathers into kittie range, I am waiting for her to discover them.

As you can see, it is VERY long, probably 60 inches. They always ask for rules when we make a challenge. Our guide lines for the challenge are about 20" on a side. But I tell every one, we are artists, we break the rules, so what ever works for you. I have the perfect little piece of wall to display it, but I am not using the white plastic hooks, they stick out too far from the wall and it does not hang smoothly. See the previous post to see the stencil work on the hand dyed fabric. The Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild show is the following weekend at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, on Interstate 5. I finished with a week to spare! Our Fyber Café art group, will have our own display area. We will display the round robin tote bags, the "Flights of Fancy" challenge art, and extra pieces of art the members have made. If you are in Southern Oregon from Ashland to Corvalis, and over on the coast, please come and see our show, they registered over 300 quilts for display. This does not count special exhibits or vendors displays. I will link this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Party Girls

"Party Girls" is finished! I finally got all the beading done and the hand sewn binding. This started with some figures of women I traced from "O" Magazine, and put into my Scan N Cut machine. I cut them from various light colored batiks, then searched for a dark background. I bought several different fabrics, with stars, fireworks, metallic etc... before finally settling on this purple. I wanted more than just a solid background, so I added the black and white triangles, and the solid black and purple at the top and bottom. I cut it up into various widths, and put it back together like a bargello. I wished I had taken more time with the triangles, so the points matched up better on each strip. I don't know how much this extra work shows up, but I am glad I did it. It is free motion machine quilted with raw edge applique.

I went through several packages of rhinestones, looking for the right materials for the disco ball. I ended up with a scrap booking product, a sheet of squared rhinestones. It comes in different colors too. It was super easy to work with, it's plastic, so it cut easy with the scissors and I was able to stitch right through it. I used a zigzag stitch to put it on, and it pierced the plastic with no problems. I will definitely use this material again. I used some clear mylar Sulky thread, around the ball, and for rays of light shooting out from it. I hand beaded seed beads and bugle beads, in crystal and pearl, to make rays of light. I think it was lots of fun. There is one more figure to the left, and the ball is very centered, but I missed it in the photo. Check out all the talented textile artists on Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here

Beading

I've been working on beading several projects, trying to finish them up. A few beads at a time, my hand cramps up pretty good, after 10 minutes. So I only do a little bit, several times a day. The lighthouse quilt, is taking lots of beads in the water/foam and the sand. Some shells and bits and pieces of other stuff add interest in the rocks, and pebbles. I've added one feather so far and am looking for a few more small ones. Texture is the name of the game here, not sparkle, the clear glass beads are almost unnoticeable but add lots of texture, a pearl, here and there draws your eye. On the quilt "To Nurture and Protect II" lots of colored beads have been added in "swooshes" they sweep across each color layer in various sizes and textures. I'm almost finished, just a few more details, then I think I'll re-felt with the needle felting machine to reattach parts that have come loose. Several pics of the beading are included here.