Quilt

This is another old pieced top done by making strip sets, slashing and combining them using the design wall. What did I do before I had the wall? I used the floor, but the perspective isn't very good that way, and the dog thinks the floor is his.

It's about 27" by 27" and machine quilted using a decorative stitch. I wanted to try to get some use from those stitches, but it is slower to do.

Book

My book came! It is so appealing that I can hardly put it down. This is the work of Sue Bleiweiss based on the Sketchbook Challenge blog.

The first section covers general information to inform you about the supplies and help you decide what is the best for you.  The main part of the book covers different themes with two artists in each section and technique spotlights to show you how to do the things in that section.

The book is filled with photographs and color which is one of the things I love about it. As a visual learner, this is what I look for in a book.

Contact information is included for all the artists plus a bibliography, websites of interest, and sources for supplies. It also has an index-something I consider vital, so I don't waste time looking for the particular thing.

Good work Sue.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Palestrina Knot is the next stitch from http://pintangle.com  The green is perle cotton #8 done in a regular manner but changing the length of the bite.  Under it, I tried two rows in a curve.  The violet is ribbon floss done randomly.

First the brown was stitched; then the yellow was stitched over it alternating the placing. Finally, I used my fuzzy yarn.

This is a jacket I bought years ago in Santa Barbara when a friend and I went up to shop. It was plain, so I decorated it using my usual method of working on small pieces of felted wool and then applying them to the jacket. 

 To intergrate the pieces, I stitched a row of Palestrina around each of them. The beads were added directly to the jacket.

 It's not a new piece but has lots of Palestrina stitch on it.

Class

The final lesson on Dyeing at www.maureensvintageacquisitions.com with Christen Brown was on dyeing lace and thread. I got carried away with dyeing lace.

This is more my color palette but I did the others to round out my collection as I have quite a bit of lace in the blues to violet range.

It's a lot of fun and easy to do. She gives formulas, so you can get whatever color you want, but I like the surprises I get when I play mad scientist.

The rainy weather made drying longer but worth the wait I think.

I'm glad people liked what I did with the challenging fabric in the last post. I do like slashing fabrics to see what happens.

Quilt

This 25" by 35" piece started with the painted darker green fabric. It was so disjointed and ugly that anything had to make it better.  The other fabrics are a red batik, yellow commercial fabric and light green hand dye.

I just started slashing and rejoining things until I had a bunch of units. Then I put them on the design wall to come up with an arrangement I could live with. This is the result. It's machine quilted.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Cabled Chain is the next stitch from http://pintangle.com  It's a stitch I haven't done before, so the first group is to see how it looked done in a normal way and using Perle Cotton #8 which shows the structure well. It would make a nice filling.

The orange is a heavy perle type thread and needed to be worked larger. The two rows are whipped together with a variegated tan to rust wool thread. The rows could be threaded too, or double whipped and threaded

Next is a thread with fuzzies on it worked randomly.

Finally, I tried changing the scale within the row. I think this is a stitch I'll use more of.

Class

More work from the dyeing class at www.maureensvintageacquisitions.com  Ribbons were the focus of this week's lesson. I had the silk cord from another time and tried a couple of yards.

Here's the silk ribbon in 1/4" and 1/2" widths.

These ribbons were in my stash and the burn test suggested that they were cotton, so I tried them. The wide one started as pink. The narrow was yellos. It looks like a batik up close.

Quilt

This small quilt is about 30" square. I like to try random slashing and piecing the results back together. It is very freeing and if you are in a negative mood, it's good therapy.

 Once I have some pieces, I put them on the design wall and see what happens. Not everything gets used in each quilt, but then you have a start on another.

The lime-still using lime-is a narrow folded strip of fabric. The darker blue is commercial fabrics. The others hand dyed. The machine quilting follows the general direction on the piecing and crosses over in places.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

This week's stitch at http://pintangle.com is the Buttonhole Wheel. I realized that in my stitch book I had done some on the buttonhole page.

Then I checked my flower sampler and found more.

And yet another one.

 Next I worked the one that were experimental by doing the pink in mohair with a yellow perle cotton over it. Then the fuzzy yarn alternating half circle rows. Next came the crochet cotton in a half circle making the size increase and then decrease. I think this has real possibilities.

On my Crazy quilt block, I did the part circles to create a stem of flowers.

Bead Journal Project

This is my cuff for June for the Bead Journal Project. The Mother of Pearl tiles were what determined the rest of the design. I decided that even if I hadn't seen regular shapes with irregular pearls, I could use them together. And then also add crystals-something I have lots of and forget to use.

The cuff is felted on a commercial felt background then machine quilted with metallic thread before the beading is done. I like using snaps for the closure, because my wrist is tiny and if I were to give this away, it could be adjusted for other wrists.

Painted Silk

I'm taking an online painting class from Christen Brown at www.maureensvintageacquisitions.com and here are my samples from the first lesson.

We are using Colorhue dyes. The pieces are silk crepe scarves that I had left from a time when I was painting and selling scarves.

The colors are my usual ones, but I wanted to save those for painting lace in the next lesson. The dyes come in small bottles but are very concentrated.

Quilt

Here's another quilt for the nursing home. Sue http://suebleiweiss.com sent me the prints which I love and just had to use.  In case no one's figured it out. I need to make things, but I don't need to keep them. I'm a process person and enjoy knowing the pieces are going to good use.

Mixed Media

Our telephone company gives us points for being a good customer, bundling our bill, etc. These convert to credit at Amazon-yeah! For the last set, I bought a Sizzix Big Shot to play with.  

 Of course, that's only the beginning. Then you need to buy dies to use on it.  The flourishes are from Tim Holtz and were done with a metallic finish scrapbook paper. The rest are Sizzix and from painted papers.

The gears are from Tim Holtz. I love gears. The left set are from painted papers.  The right are dyed fabric with a fusible on the back. I cut them before removing the backing paper. The negatives from all the pieces would be fun to use too.  I do love machines, gadgets, and all those things.

Quilt

This quilt will be going to the nursing home too. It's about 50" square. I workout with one of the volunteers at the home, so it's easy to get them to the right people. She knows who will like which one.

The print fabrics were a bundle I won from some contest Quilting Arts had years ago. It just squares of different sizes. The quilting is basic, because this is still the puffy, pain in the neck to quilt batt.