I kept the thread sketching simple this time, just three more stalks of wheat, done in black.
I'm still not too sure about the rose/pink, but its starting to grow on me.It adds a sunset glow to the quilt, which I think works with theme. The "calico" look of the rose and of the light blue also play off the harvest theme.
Overall, I'm pleased with the result. The best part was thread sketching the wheat stalks. They were really fun to stitch once I got the rhythm down. I'm going to keep that design in mind for future products.
(Note: Anyone got any ideas as to why, when I misspelled rhythm, spell check suggested "Norsemen" as a substitute? I was only off by one letter!)
This post would have happened earlier in the day, but like usual, my block of the month for the Saturday Sampler quilt offered by Quilter's Way took much longer to sew than I expected. As I've mentioned in the past, I am really struggling with the ruler that we are using in this project. I have difficulty both with the seam allowance, and with what direction to turn the pieces before cutting the new edge on each step. Last month, I had to buy new fabric, because I cut triangles off the wrong side of the block! This month I went (very) slowly, and managed to put the whole thing together correctly.
I really hope that at the end of the year, the finished project is worth all the struggle!
The other item on the sewing table is the quilt for the November Color Palette Challenge from Three Creative Studios. I started by pulling fabrics from my stash. Throughout the year, I have managed to make these little quilts without buying any new fabrics. This was my selection. I had some difficulty with the red/rose/pink shades this time. If they are a bit off, I'll blame it on the computer monitor.
The pink I ended up choosing is a nasty 1980's leftover, which looks horrible on first viewing. It will become the "grout" in my tile quilt. Once all the "tiles" are added on top, very little of the pink will be visible, and I think it will be OK.
Next I started trying different arrangements of tiles. The light gold will eventually form a motif on top of the quilt center. I decided that I wanted darker tiles in the center, for better contrast with the gold. This arrangement wasn't bad.
This one looked way too busy, and probably would distract too much from the gold motif.
This is slightly better, but still too busy.
I finally decided on this design.
I've straightened out the tiles, and fused them to the background. Tomorrow I hope to stitch them down, and start working on the next layer of the design. With any luck, I'll have a finished quilt to show you on Monday morning.
OK, I'm a little slow getting started post-Thanksgiving. There is a lot of comment answering, and blog reading that needs to be done. What I have been doing, is enjoying the unseasonably warm weather outside. I even took some sewing outside on Sunday!
For the thread sketch on this one, I added pine boughs. I haven't done much thread sketching on dark fabric, and I didn't realize how much lighter the thread would look once the stabilizer was dissolved. What looked like very strong branches, pretty much disappeared against the dark fabric. I'd like to say I learned my lesson, but probably I will forget by the next time I work on dark fabric....
Maine Moose, detail
I've been working on some other moose, also. This is a rather colorful herd.
Should have them finished up tomorrow. Then I'm thinking about hauling out a UFO in colors that remind me of the sunrise we had yesterday.It was an amazing sight to wake up to.
Today's sunrise
was almost as beautiful, but the clouds quickly filled in the sky.
Looks like it will be another wet Wednesday tomorrow for Weasley.
Its been so gray around here, what with the rain, and now the sleet and snow. I was feeling the need for a little color, so I've been working on this.
There are still a few small colorful details to add. I want to add a thread sketch to the "mirror" (the light yellow space), but I'm not sure how to make the image I want to use fit in the space. I'll probably draw out a few versions on tracing paper, and audition them in that spot. While drinking hot tea, and eating freshly baked pear cake, and staying out of the snow. The cake smells divine. If I could, I'd send some your way....
Maintaining focus has always been a problem for me. Sometimes I get too excited about what I'm doing, move to fast, and forget critical steps in what I am doing. Other times I let my mind drift, into a daydream, or more likely into the logistics of what needs to be done for the next event in my life. Either way, the project that I am working on, that I should be staying focused on, goes awry. I like the idea of mindfulness, and being fully present in the NOW, but I seem to constantly forget. Today I managed to experience this twice.
The first time was when I was working on a Color Palette quilt. This was for the March Color Palette over at Three Creative Studios. I didn't have any ideas for that one at the time, but this week I went back and worked on it. I wanted the effect of a tiled picture frame, with a picture of my girls in the center. Unfortunately, I was thinking about the latest monkey wrench that my family has thrown into my plans for this week, and got ahead of myself. I actually trimmed two sides before quilting. I caught myself, did the quilting, and then finished the trimming. Unfortunately, my error meant that the small area outside the "tiles" was uneven. I had intended to add a dark binding, but thought that would emphasize the unevenness. Instead, I just zigzagged the edges, in a thread that matched the background. This is the final result.
Its not too visible in the picture, but above the girls I used thread sketching to add the word "sisters", and below the picture "friends". A cliche, perhaps, but also true. I'm very glad about that.
Now, for what you are really waiting for on Wednesday. I decide to try making a little film of the Old Man moving through the house to his food dish. This is when I got my second lesson in mindfulness for the day. The filming went well, and Weasley put on a good show. He was moving much faster than he usually does. I didn't realize till I uploaded it that the second half of the video is sideways. I often take pictures with the camera in that orientation, and apparently I turned the camera sideways without even giving it a thought.
I have no idea how to fix that, and I couldn't get Weasley to repeat his trek, so I uploaded it like this. Consider this a fair warning, if you decide to watch this, you may end up with a crick in your neck! You'll hear the radio on playing NPR in the background. I keep it on to help him orient himself in space. And the "thunk" you hear when he gets to the crate? That's what happens when he moves too fast. Good thing he seems to have a hard head.
As for my hard head, Well, I'm not sure. Having an air horn go off every so often would bring me back to the present, but that might be bad if I had the rotary cutter in my hand at the time. And it would probably make Weasley a nervous wreck. What tricks do you use to stay focused?
Meant to finish this yesterday, but it didn't happen. This is my "tile" quilt for the Three Creative Studios August Color Palette Challenge. It was supposed to be abstract, with a thread sketch of corn. Instead, I ended up with a landscape, with a thread sketch of the younger daughter! Not the greatest pictures here, because of light problems. I'll try and retake them sometime in the future.
For the first time ever, I didn't use all the colors. The final medium blue was going to be the binding, but then I decided to use yarn. I wanted it to look like sea weed (because that's what the kid was poking with her stick), but I'm not sure if it does. It may just be a mess.
The thread sketch was made from this photo, taken back in 2005, before she grew her hair long.
I love this picture, it shows her curiousity and playfullness. I think that comes across in the thread sketch, too, so overall I'm happy with this one. And it's time already to start the next one....
It was a gorgeous day today, not to hot, not to cold, and the humidity was down. It was just perfect for doing a little work in the garden. The weeds are way ahead of me this year, but the garden still has its beauty. One particularly bright spot this week included daylilys and butterfly weed.
Out back you can catch a glimpse of the Panther I mentioned in my last post.
He spends a lot of time staring at the house with these glowing eyes, but runs off when he knows you've seen him.
And I finished my quilt for the June Color Palette Challenge over at Three Creative Studios. Its another in the "Tile" series that I seem to be doing. I really didn't expect this to turn into a series, but it has just seemed to happen. I wanted this one to look like an ancient mosaic, an archaeological find. Because of that, some of the "tile" pieces are missing. The binding is a ragged sheer, perhaps some packing cloth that the fragment was wrapped in for shipping....
The thread sketching this time is butterflies, and once again it was done before quilting.
When the butterflies first insisted on being on this quilt, I worried that they were a little too trivial. But I thought about it some more, and realized that butterflies, representing rebirth, were actually the perfect image.While designing the original mosaic, I was thinking about how when artifacts are discovered, they bring a rebirth of sorts to the people who once touched them, bringing them into our time, for us to carry their memory.
I've always thought that Weasley looks very lion-like when he's basking in the sun, especially when he has his full coat. With apologies to J. K. Rowling, I am calling this one "Weasley Is Our King!".
Like the other pieces I've done for this challenge, I made this with the idea of tiles in mind. The hexagon template was drawn freehand, and the individual pieces were cut out with scissors (no rotary cutter or rulers). The "tile" was then laid out in this design, spacing them by eye, in a way that looked pleasing to me. The resulting grout lines are irregular, and the quilt was slightly off center. This irregularity doesn't show much in the finished product, but I'm thinking about exaggerating this effect in a future quilt for this challenge.
Before quilting the grout lines. I stitched a lion on using thread sketching techniques. He'll have to get used to the idea that he's been replaced on the throne by a rabbit.
I also designed Weasley a crown, and stitched it on the quilt.
What looks blue in these pictures is somewhat more lavender in real life. I think the cloudy sky threw off the color of the photo. It sure would be nice to see the sun. The real Weasley would really enjoy basking his old (kingly) bones in it's warmth.
I wanted to continue working with the tiled look that I used on this quilt. And, perhaps because I had recently been working on finishing up my Russian Icon Rabbit quilt (which has unfortunately become a UFO), this quilt ended up turning into another tribute to Ginny. If you haven't been reading this blog right along, Ginny was my sweet Satin Angora doe, who recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You can see her picture in my sidebar.
I'm sure she could have given Venus on her half shell some tough competition. Well, maybe not after a haircut, but when she had her full coat.....
The quilt is done with raw-edge fused applique, that was stitched down before adding some machine embroidery, and some thread sketching. Ginny and the lettuce leaf are quilted, but the only other quilting is in the "grout lines" of the tiles. The quilt is made from a mix of hand-dyed and commercial fabrics.
I hope you enjoy seeing my quilt as much as I enjoyed making it. It's one of my favorites.
This year, Three Creative Studios is running a monthly color palette challenge. The one that just finished was supposed to be done on February 15th, but I didn't quite make that deadline. That was mainly because I really disliked what I was making, and I tossed it aside on February 14th!
The original quilt was a landscape. I decided to simplify, and make a tile-like design, that implied a landscape.
"Set Free The Wind", 12" square
I cut back the tile to add the tree. Before doing the quilting, I added a thread-sketched figure of a woman/goddess.
I intended to go around the figure one more time during the quilting, but I liked the way she seemed to float above the tile, so I didn't end up doing that .The quilting was done by stitching around the tiles. If I do another piece in this style, I will try stitching down the tiles before layering the quilt, and have the "grout" be the quilted part.
The hair might remind you of a young lady who appears on this blog quite often. But, I should probably say that the Daughter's nose is smaller and cuter.
More pictures from this challenge can be found here. Check them out, there is some pretty amazing work.
