Wild Cats Art Caddy

I made a second art caddy for a friends granddaughter, using a bright print. The front has a blue background with bright waves of color across it, and the lining is a bright cats print. The front pocket has the cat print and a cat button with a heart on it for the closure. The main closure is a ladybug button. I have extra watercolor paper and colored pencils, I'll go to the dollar store for a watercolor tray and brushes to add to it. She loves to do art work and this will certainly encourage her. I also added a rainbow carry strap on the side.

Art Supply Caddy

I have been wanting for a while to make something to take a few art supplies on the road, or at least just have them handy for my sketch book. So I made an art supply caddy today. I used two fat quarters, added interfacing and some batting, stitched them together, and turned it right side out. The bottom 5" only has stiff interfacing, and it got folded up to make pockets for the supplies, 6" x 8" watercolor and brown craft papers, 24 set of colored pencils, 99 cent kids watercolor tray, brushes and an assortment of pens/pencils. The main back section has the thin cotton batting, and the top two inches has no filling. The top flap folds down to keep everything from sliding out, and has a few snaps to hold it in place. I learned from my mistakes, of having all 24 colored pencils loose in my backpack. I added a small pocket with flap to the out side front, for a small pencil sharpener, eraser and pencil leads for the mechanical pencil. The whole piece works as a three fold, right side in, then front side over the top, and is held together with a large copper leaf button and hair scrunchy, a button and scunchy are also on the pocket flap.

I did not add any embellishments, like the book covers, I just wanted to see how it would work out first. Maybe the next one can have some applique, or hand printed/painted fabrics. I think these would make some nice gifts for any artists that you know. I have been following sketchbbokchallenge.blogspot.com and have been inspired to improve my drawing skills, and add a little color to my sketch book. I have always doodled and drawn quick sketches of quilt ideas, but I wanted to practice my drawing. Their monthly challenges are fun to try, and all the examples from their group of artists are inspiring.

Redwing Blackbird, Finished

The redwing blackbird from my photo was a fun project, it finished quickly, like I thought it would, and I did not get bogged down with any complications. After choosing the hand dye for the background, I use Bali batiks for the leaves, an assortment of greens, starting with darker ones in the back, and lighter and brighter ones in front. I placed the fabric strips onto the enlarged sketch to preview them, I had added colored pencil, so I could tell the sky from the leaves. When placing the leaves onto the background, I used a clear plastic sheet, with the enlarged sketch drawn on with Sharpie. See the shiny photograph.

I found a nice piece of black fabric with a charcoal gray print of cats, that was perfect for cutting the wing for contrast. The brown for the cattails was a pin dot, and a beige calico print. I use raw edge applique as my basic technique, and apply all the pieces in place with a glue stick. I use a toothpick to slip glue under all the edges, especially the points.

The free motion quilting/applique is all done with rayon thread, the shine of the thread makes it a design element, rather than just blending into the fabric and disappearing. I used about 8 shades of green, from pale green, yellow-green, teal, olive, grass green etc... The blackbird was very simply outlined, with a few stitches to give the wings feather lines. The background is quilted in a spiral/curly cue pattern, flowing across the fabric, I used white rayon in the lighter areas, making it appear as cloudy, and light blue in the remainder. I love the clean look of this quilt, and the texture on the sky, the blackbird is definitely the focal point.

Fyber Cafe Profile

Check out my members profile on Fybercafe.blogspot.com It has info on me and photos of some of my favorite quilts.

Redwing Blackbird

While taking my morning walk with my neighbor, along an abandoned railroad track, we were looking at wildflowers and cattails, and I was reminded of a walk with my sister, in which I took cattail pictures. Our walk in Monroe, Washington around Lake Tye, had bunches of cattails and red winged blackbirds. My photographs with the sun setting in the evening, created a color saturated blue sky, and rich intense colors on the cattails, and back lit the blackbird, making the red markings glow.

I had wanted to make a quilt with this simple design, and my memory was jogged. I went home and printed my favorite picture, and created a line drawing with a Sharpie fine point pen onto a plastic sheet protector. If you cut them apart, you get two pages, and they are a lot cheaper than the over head projector sheets. I put the line drawing into the computer scanner, to save it, then printed it out in "Poster format" onto 4 sheets of paper, to enlarge it. The size worked good, and I kept moving the bird to the right, creating more open sky, because I did not want the bird to be dead center in the composition.

Now for the fun part, fabric selection! Digging through my box of hand dyed fabric, I found a rich blue with some mottling, do to scrunching the fabric during the dye process. It is the perfect size, just a bit longer than a fat quarter. So now my creative juices are flowing again, and I can't wait to get started on it in the morning. So after the blahs, all it took to get me going, was taking my regular walk. May the Muse strike you as easily!

Gelatin Journal Pages

I decided to work on two of my gelatin printed fabrics, my favorite fern piece that I printed at the "Art in the Garden" and a double hand print from playing with masks.

I free motion machine quilted both fabrics, outlining the print/mask and adding details, like the life lines and fingernails on the hands. The fern background was done in small circles, around the sequin waste printing, and to fill in the background. The hands background was done in a horizontal back and forth, over Angelina fibers to add "reflection to the mirror." The ferns had 3-D details added to it, a thread painted dragonfly in the top right corner, and yoyo mushrooms at the bottom, with pipe cleaners in the stems. A small bright green rubber tree frog was sewn onto the tallest mushroom. A twisted fabric branch with hand dyed cheesecloth moss was set on the right edge, embroidered French knots added more texture to the moss. Moss was spread across the bottom also.

These small 8" x 10" journal pages are fun to do, they quilt and finish quickly, and make great gifts. I love to do them, instead of getting involved with a big project that can take me months to do. I have several large projects that I work on a bit at a time, and when they loose my interest or I have to think on them for a while, I can make a quick journal page.

The Creative Blahs

I've been in a blah mood, not working on much of anything. If I sew, I have been doing pieced blocks for baby quilts, and assembling them into tops. My deadlines are gone, and I need a kick in the butt. I tried to collage some journal pages with torn strips from magazine, and the process was fun, cool, warm and neutral color pallets. But then, what to do with them. I doodled leaves on the green one, and hated it, so I painted over a blend of olive green and white acrylic, some of the doodle showed through which is ok, but now, what is the next layer? So I moved on, I layered some Gelli prints with backing and batting, getting ready to free motion quilt, but they are not inspiring me either. I've been looking through art quilt blogs, trying to get inspired, especially thesketchbookchallenge.blogspot.com and andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com
two of my favorite blogs to read. I have lots of projects to work on, my UFOs (unfinished objects) are growing as we speak, but they are not yanking my chain either.

I tried going through some of my photos for inspiration, flipped through piles of fabric, tried to finish a little wall hanging, just blah...... Maybe if I get out my paints, we'll see what happens. I'll let you know how it comes along.