Rainy Saturday...

So Cal is getting some much needed water...and I did some more sewing!

Made this reversible toy for DGD...almost thought it was going to be a WOMBAT (Waste of Material, Batting And Time)...but DH says its cute and I guess it works well enough..

One side is a caterpillar (made with some scraps of the leftover lime green fleece!)

Turn it inside out and voila...a butterfly...with sparkly wings  - I put gold netting over the fleece..which made the wings much stiffer than I expected..but they do have some shine to them. Thinner fleece for the wings would also have helped..but I only had medium weight fleece in a big enough piece to make the wings.

Also sewed up this panel I got from the donations table at Retreat..its a growth chart...I backed it with the leftover lime green fleece from the Christmas Tree Skirt...and used the cardboard tube of a dry cleaning pants hanger for hanging - didn't want it to be wood or metal....

AZ Retreat Part 4

Last year at Retreat, the speakers were the Lumberyard Ladies...who showed us what different blocks and quilts could be made out of scraps cut into 'lumber' - 2x2,2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 4x4, etc (if its a common lumberyard term, its part of their system!!)...

So...there was a Lumberyard Challenge for this year:

The quilts were hung on the fence around the pool and ballots were placed in the bucket...we invited the guests of the hotel to vote as well as all the Retreaters...

First place:

Second Place:

Third Place (tie)

AZ Retreat Part 3

One of the mini classes this year was an Improv quilting class. I really like how the improv quilt turned out:

I am going to have to try this technique! (this is the instructor's quilt)

Another mini 'class' was playing with my Tsunineko inks...I brought foam core boards, white plastic trash bags, some coloring book printouts, some PFD fabric and the tray bag of inks...and three of the ladies joined me in playing...I think they all turned out MARVELOUSLY - especially since we only had an hour to do these:

AZ Retreat Part 2 - Eclipse Sew Along

Last year at Retreat, one of the gals was working on an Eclipse quilt...that turned into a group sew along this year..one of the ladies bought a bunch of the patterns and another lady taught us how to cut the curves and stitch them. This is the quilt that started it all:

She made hers out of batiks..chosen to match the border fabric. I don't make very many huge quilts, so mine is the mini version. And I used a charm pack of Fossil Ferns instead of the batiks...
This is before I finished sewing all the blocks and squaring up:

After squaring up...DH said he liked this so I am actually inspired to finish it!

AZ Retreat Part 1

Last weekend was the annual Quilting Retreat in Arizona. The weather was PERFECT..warm enough to wear short sleeves, capris and sandals! I love going on this retreat, it fires me up for working on my projects.

I did a whole bunch of projects....
First was this Christmas Tree Skirt...sadly my Christmas Tree is STILL up..so I have the tree skirt around the tree...(it makes a cozy cape - its lined with lime green fleece...and Misty the Quilt Inspector has thoroughly inspected and uses it as a napping spot) 

I got the borders on the Mixed Media piece (shown in the Road To CA 2014 post).

I got the rest of the fabric on the Drip Painting quilt cut out, marked and pinned..so its ready to applique whenever the mood should strike me to start it...

This was one of my Show and Tells this year:
The David Taylor Hummingbird... I started the quilting on this at last year's Retreat and worked on it sporadically over the summer...One Saturday in the Fall..the power went out at the house and I took it out on the patio and finished up the quilting. The power was still out (I called the Electric Company and they said it would take a few hours...) so I took my hand crank machine out  to the patio and stitched on the facings (like a bigger binding but turned all the way to the back)...the power was still out...so I turned the edges..now normally I would iron them at this point, but since that was not possible, I did it the old fashioned way and basted it!..the power was STILL out so I hand stitched the facings down...the power came back on a few minutes after I finished!

Road to CA 2014

Oh my...cannot believe I have neglected this blog for soooo long!

At Road to CA this year, I took two classes - Mixed Media by Patt Blair and Watercolor Painting to Quilt by Katie Pasquini Masopust.

The Mixed Media class was very interesting..we adhered bits and pieces of paper napkins, stamped tissue paper, wrapping paper, rice paper to a piece of fabric using artist medium (gel medium or fabric paint medium) - it dries clear and once you coat both sides of the paper, its pretty impervious to water though I don't think I would wash this quilt!!

Here is the quilt after I added the borders and did some minimal quilting..it needs more!

The Watercolor Painting to Quilt class was two days...the first day we played with watercolors..I discovered my watercolors from high school are probably not the best anymore!! They turned out rather pastel...

We did a bunch of techniques...we blew bubbles on the wet paint, we dripped paint, we used the edges of bottle caps and the rims of cups and an old lampshade, we sprayed water on the paintings, we used rubber cement to mask some areas and stuff called Masquepen to see the differences, we dripped India ink and squirted it from a syringe...

Then..once those were dry, we use a cropping tool to figure out 'interesting' places in our paintings...cut windows out of typing paper and decided which one was going to get turned into a quilt....
This is my drip painting - broad bands of wet watercolors, held at an angle so it flowed into the lower parts of the painting...

Here is the section I cropped out

Looks kinda 'Grand Canyon-ish'...

Then we used acetate, and marked the color changes:

Katie then took the acetate overlays to the copy shop and blew them up twice...my piece ended up around 15 x 40...The next morning, she brought back two copies of the blown up piece - one we stuck onto a piece of poster board to make the pattern pieces with, and the other was pinned to a piece of foam core.
We copied the drawing onto tear-away stabilizer, then started cutting the pattern pieces and fabric and stapling those to the foam core board... She showed us how she uses the poster board pattern pieces to turn the edges using starch and a hot iron (and a stiletto!)...Now..starched edges DO NOT float my boat...so after a couple of inches of stapling to the foam core..I switched to prep for needle turn..I had a suspicion she used starch so I brought my applique pins!!

Got almost done with cutting the pieces of fabric and pinning to the stabilizer.

Road to California - 3D Sculpture - Day 3

Today we added flowers to the trees:

 This is my friend's Beast and Tree:

Our Beasts and Trees on  the teacher's stage:

Closeup of 'Blowing Kisses':

I loved this class! Learned sooo many techniques for making 3d sculptures.

Road to California - 3D Sculpture - Day 2

Today we learned how to couch wire using our machines...we made leaves for our trees! Fortunately I didn't break a needle - there were some that did...

And..we met 'The Beast' (he really didn't come in a bag). I was the only one to get my beast sewed, stuffed and pinned together..

I need to stitch the openings closed, and stitch the limbs on the beast..and stitch up his gestures : here he is blowing kisses:

Tomorrow we will make flowers for the center of the tree and hopefully I will be done with the hand stitching..just will need to make a base for the sculpture (she will show us how she does bases, but its not something we will make in class.)

If you ever get a chance to take a class from Susan Else (and 3D fabric sculpture floats your boat) - she is an excellent teacher. I have enjoyed this class SOO much!

Road to California - 3D Sculpture - Day 1

It rained pretty steadily today..fortunately I got there early and got a really close in parking spot. Tomorrow and Sunday, I am going to a friend's house and her hubby will drive us..thus saving us BOTH 18 bucks! The upstairs was SUPER crowded, most likely because of the rain.. Didn't get a table but did score a few chairs..so lunch was eaten off our laps!

Today was the first day of the 3D sculpture class with Susan Else..O.M. G...this is a terrific class..she provides ALL of the supplies..already cut so we just do the sewing! Best supplies fee, ever!!

Here is a picture of the Beasts in the Jungle we are working on..her sample is way more involved than what we will be able to do in three days...but we are doing 'elements' of the scene. The 'beast' in the center is the one we will be creating (There are 3 figures/beasts in this scene - the lady in the tree, the beast swinging on the branch and his friend peaking out from behind the second tree - Susan describes the Beast as having a duck body, cat legs, chimpanzee arms, horse head with dinosaur horns):

Here is my tree after FMQ, trimming and stitching the shapes together..

Here is the tree after stuffing. I started out using a chopstick to stuff with, but then tried out one of the metal stuffing forks. I had to buy it! (only purchase of the day):

Here are the wires and the stiffening rod (an old knitting needle!) that keep the tree up and let us bend the roots:

Here is Susan's tree in the Jungle scene - we will be making those large leaves and the flower tomorrow and starting on the 'beast in a bag':

Here is the vine before stitching. Once we stitched all around the leaves, we wet the Solvy:

And...here is what my tree looked like before I left the room for the night - I have a bit more stitching to finish up closing the hole on the bottom and to stitch a few of the 'gestures' in the roots:

Road to California - Wholecloth Painting

It's Road to California Time, once again!

The weather report for Southern California was wet today, wet tomorrow, possible wet the next several days after that... sigh... At least I didn't get too wet this morning, and by afternoon, the sun actually broke thru for a while.

My first class was a wholecloth painting class from Judy Coates Perez using Setacolor paints. I loved the class and learned quite a bit! The class was in the North Annex building...across the street from the rest of the Quilt Show. They didn't have irons and ironing boards, which were needed, and the tables were not covered with plastic..we had to tromp thru a long arm class to get to the bathroom to get water..They brought a couple of ironing boards while we were waiting for some of the students to show up (we got an email 3 days ago saying the class was in the North Annex..now..if you KNOW where that is, good..but its not shown on the map, and there was no address! I did a Google street view and saw the Convention Center sign but a few of the students had no email..and were totally confused...)

Here is the cartoon that I started with:

We traced the design onto PFD muslin...then cut out masks for the lighter parts..ironed those on and made up a batch of background paint..mine I didn't get quite light enough..it should have been much lighter blue. And..I got lots of 'bleed under', which I had to fix by painting opaque white over the edges where it bled.

We learned how Judy makes the steps the paint so she gets really smooth shading...I need more practice as mine don't have quite the 'pop' that Judy's have.

Here is what my painted cloth looked like by lunch:

Here is Judy doing a 'glazing' lesson on a magnolia - notice the 'pop' on her leaves and..her background is way lighter!

Here is what my painted cloth looked like at the end of the day...it is VERY NEARLY DONE!! Which, for a class is QUITE AMAZING! (but then, since is was still a bit drippy, I stayed in the room and worked on the painting instead of getting wet and fighting the crowds in the vendor mall.) I will probably add some shiny gold accents before I quilt it..don't have to, but want to!

After I scrubbed out my paint dishes and stashed my supplies in my car, I headed over to the vendor mall...amazingly, I actually made it around both rooms. The crowds had thinned quite dramatically, and it no longer was dripping... I bought a few things:

I think the ruler gizmo is really the 'cat's meow' - it has grippy things that when you press on the handle, stick thru holes in the center of the ruler and man, o man..it GRIPS the fabric and holds it soooo tight! And you don't have to press very hard at all...and..I may actually use this thimble..its like a jelly one, but has a hard silver tip..feels very comfortable.

Tomorrow...3D sculpture...hopefully in the main building!!

Driving Miss Aurora...

I got out some pre-cut patches of fabric today and sat down at Aurora...

On the seam on the third patch, I managed to get a piece of thread caught around the oscillating hook...eppp..Aurora came to a dead stop...OH NO...now what?  I ended up taking the needle plate and the slide off to see better - could see both ends of the thread but tugging on either end got nowhere...dribbled a little Liquid Wrench on the thread and that worked its magic and I was able to get the needle to move just a wee bit..allowing the thread to be pulled out..WHEW!!! Back to sewing!

Here are the first 4-patch blocks I made..

The fabric for the 4 patches being exhausted (I got 7 of those 4 patch blocks out of the stack of squares), I used some other pre-cut patches that I bought at a thrift store..fabric quality is not really high (I suspect most of these patches were 'salvaged' materials like old shirts or skirts)..and started making HSTs...

Don't quite know what I am making yet, though..

I am getting the hang of starting the treadle going forward (sometimes without using the hand wheel!), but small patches are a bit of a bother, since you have to stop so soon after you 'get going'.  I am loving it though...very cool to be using my feet to generate the power...

A perfect Labor Day activity...

Midnight in the Pumpkin Patch

Here is a little doll quilt that I finished...I did the Fall Doll Quilt Swap on the forum as a Challenge (being a swap virgin...and not sure if I could meet the obligation of making and sending a doll quilt in the allotted time period)..I was pretty much right that it would be a bit too much while I am still working..if I did not have to burn some vacation time due to a policy change in the number of hours we can carry at work..I would still be in the applique stage and not done..'course if it had been simpler, that would have been better too!

But..it's done and I think it's pretty darned cute..WAY too involved though...It's an original design...I kind of went nuts with the number of green leaves and the tendrils..the original did not look THAT involved when I drew it! (deceptive, eh?)..If I had done it with fused applique instead of needle turn, that would have been faster as well..The tendrils, grooves on the pumpkins and the kitty's face are done with stem stitching..I managed to use up an entire skein of green embroidery thread!

The yellowy orange of the large pumpkin was the nastiest stuff to stitch thru (and of course, it had to be the biggest pumpkin!!) I was very glad when the quilting on that was finished! The others were softer hand dyes - no idea how or where I acquired the yellowy stuff though.. Batting is wool, which, with outline quilting, makes the elements seem a bit three dimensional. It's quilted with clear poly..slippery, tricky stuff to hand quilt with! But..I like the effect - it does not intrude on any of the colors.

Penrose Posey is DONE

Penrose Posey

started Feb 2005. Finished Sept 2009.

Its an interesting story behind how the Penrose came to be worked on. There was a discussion about using mathematical concepts as designs for quilts on one of the forums I belong to...one of the ladies posted a link to some mathematical quilts that she had found...I went and looked at the link and saw some really neat quilts. A group of us were working on the Giant Dahlia pattern at the time and I thought the Penrose Tile looked kind of like a different version of the dahlia.

I mentioned it to one of the ladies who promptly designed the two tiles in EQ5 (Penrose Tiles are made of just 2 shapes - a narrow dart and a fat kite) as an exercise to see if she could do it.

I meanwhile was doodling on a layout..and figured out what colors I wanted where - the medallion reminded me of a flower...

Of all the parts about quilting, I like cutting pieces the least (actually I detest it) so the lady that designed the tiles templates said she would do the cutting for me for a very reasonable fee! I sent the fabrics to her, she marked and cut out the tiles and shipped them back to me...all nice and neat little piles of kites and darts...

I sewed the penrose medallion together - I think it took just a weekend to do the hand stitching of the tiles, designed the vines, and appliqued the center to my background - this was the first time I had cut out the background on an applique - decided it would just be too much to quilt thru if that extra layer of fabric was still there... it was pretty nerve-wracking before I did it..but it turned out fine...

Eventually, I was finally able to track down the designer of the mathematical quilts on the above link! Her name is Pat Storey and she lives in England. Her mathematical quilts were published in a magazine...amazingly, I just happened to see the magazine (the store only had ONE copy!) and had to buy it!

There is a lot of info on the web about Sir Roger Penrose - an English mathematician...and his tiling designs.

It took 4.5 years to finish this quilt..the first time I started hand quilting it, I was using cotton batting..and it was a bear to get the gold metallic thread I decided to quilt with thru the cotton batting..ripped it all out and restarted with wool batting..much easier, but still a tricky business hand quilting with metallic thread..

Here is a closer picture..the gold thread is a little hard to make out..but it does sparkle in person.

The vines were made with a Clover bias maker..I used Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It to keep them in place..the tile buds and leaves had the seam allowances glued under as well (that was before I had learned to do needleturn!).

It feels good to get one of my really long outstanding UFO's done!

(but I still haven't made my Giant Dahlia yet!)

How I Spent National Quilting Day

On Saturday, which was National Quilting Day, a group of my crafty friends got together to work on quilting (and knitting) projects..we had lots of fun..lots of good food and got a bunch done! We did not know it was National Quilting Day when we set the date..it just worked out really well!

Three of us are quilters and one prefers knitting..she does really nice knitting!

This was a mystery quilt from Road to California's Lakeside Mystery that got sewn together into the center of the top..it needs borders and then will get sent out to be quilted..I love how my friend put the calla lily in the black diamond (a 'design opportunity' as the teacher said)...I think this may be my favorite mystery quilt ever! It is so vibrant!

These are paperpieced arcs that another friend is working on... She took a Judy Neimyer class recently and learned how to do the curved arcs..I think they are turning out really beautiful.

This is one of the things I was working on...I am adding dogwood blossoms to the tree..This is a base that is being passed around in a Round Robin. I bought some felt ric-rac at the Coastal Shop Hop the prior weekend and its turning out quite nicely for the dogwood blossoms...I snip off two sets of two 'bumps' of the ric-rac, dab red Aquarelle crayon to make the pink, then the felt pieces are attached using crystal beads and lime green rayon thread...I need to do the other side of the tree and maybe add a few leaves..

The lady that is currently working on my base (the Tuscan Landscape) has put a vine with hundreds of silk ribbon roses on it coming out of one of the pots! It looks gorgeous!

I also added more seam treatments and some beads to 'Autumn in Turtle Valley' but it does not look that different yet! But..its getting there...I hope to get done with it by the end of the next month..