Spring!

So I needed something to perk up the log cabin blocks in the previous post.

I drew an iris on a piece of freezer paper and used it for a pattern.  I cut out a piece of stabilizer (it's at the top of the photo).  The I pinned a piece of fabric to the freezer paper and colored in the iris with my Tsukineko inks.

I cut out the fabric iris and fused the stabilizer to the back.  Then I used fabric glue to turn the edges over the stabilizer.

Clearly I didn't measure so well, because there is a lot of white sticking out around the edges.

So I got the inks back out and colored in the edges.

I pinned it to my log cabin background -- see the previous post for more about that.

I did a lot of stitching on the iris to give it texture before I layered it with the batting and backing.

Here is a shot of the backside before trimming and binding.

"Spring"

13" by 17"

Linking up with Nina Marie Sayer today at Off the Wall Fridays and Marrtje Quilting in Amsterdam.

Garden Logs

I had a couple of blocks left over from the background of the egret challenge and needed some log cabin blocks for my guild challenge.

So I made a couple more blocks and stitched them together.

Then I cut them down to size so that I could use them for my Art Quilts Around the World challenge.

At the Pond

I started this rather traditional quilt last fall when I met with the Very Friendly Ladies in Monroe for our fall meeting.

It's adapted from this pattern.  When I saw the pattern, I thought "pond" and changed the colors accordingly.  Now that the top is finished, I have to decide what to top the top with.

At first, I thought a great blue heron would be a good idea.  But the colors would probably blend with the background.  So then I thought of a white egret.  They're a type of heron and the white feathers would really pop against my pieced pond.

So I started going through my egret pics from last fall and discovered approximately two thousand shots - give or take a hundred.

I'm playing with these two: 

I'm also partial to the fellow in the previous post here.

Linking up with Nina Marie Sayre today in Off the Wall Fridays.

A Row with a Windy Sky

I quilted the sky and now this is officially finished. I chose to do a windy sky because the buildings looked so calm and staid.  I thought it would be a nice contrast.

Linking up with Nina Marie Sayre this morning at Off the Wall Fridays.

October in Wisconsin - Really!

Last fall, I wrote a bunch of posts, even included some photography, and got so busy with my life that I neglected to publish them.  After I did all that work!  So now that we are at the tail end of winter (I hope), I will parcel them out and my poor blog won't be so neglected.

Yep, this has been sitting around since October..

I love this egret all fluffed up.

I was lucky enough to see this bald eagle flying over.  And even luckier to catch a picture!   I was so excited to actually see it, I can't believe that I remembered to focus and shoot!

Look closely to see the fish this egret has caught.  He must have caught and eaten a dozen or so in the ten minutes I watched. 

Taking off.  

This mallard was hiding under a branch at the water's edge.

I'm pretty sure these are American Coots.  There was a whole flock of them making cooing noises -- not the regular duck quacks.  Of course, they left when Rosie and I showed up. 

These beautiful trees are so typical this time of year.

Hard to believe that we are almost through the winter.  When I walked past the small ponds near my home last weekend, I noticed that the snow on top of the ice had melted.  Soon we'll have open water and then the migratory birds will be back!

Spring is Coming in...

"Two Shakes"

36" by 36"

It was sunny today,so I posed my lambs on a snow bank.




And a couple of detail shots.

I think I need to add a bit of ink or paint to the flower stems.  I quilted them in, but I think they would benefit from a little bit more color.  Or maybe not.  *smile*

Now that it's all finished, I think the legs on the left lamb look a bit awkward in the photo.  But then spring lambs are new at standing, aren't they?  

Linking up with Nina Marie Sayer today.

Spring: it's coming again

Actually it came and went.  I wrote this post last April and just finished it.

Okay -- maybe not here in Wisconsin.  But for most of the northern hemisphere, it is.  My guild, Lodi Valley Quilters Guild, has a spring challenge each year that coincides with Quilt Academy.  A choice of three classes are offered from a long list of possibilities; it's a really big deal.  I'm on the committee (I redesigned the brochure this year) so I felt more than obligated to finish my challenge for the quilt display we did with it.

The challenge fabric was this floral.  

 Totally not my style.  But I had to use some of it.  On the front.  Hmmm...

So I got this idea of spring animals frolicking in the flowers. I ironed fusible web to the entire fat quarter.  Then I sat at a meeting and later in front of the TV and cut out individual flowers.  I made it easy on myself and used textile glue to fasten the sheep parts to the background for quilting.

I pinned a thin cotton batt to the back and stitched all the lambs' wool with Aurifil thread.  Here are the finished lambs before I cut away the batting and layered it with the final wool batting.


I will post a photo of the finished piece in a week or two after the show on April 5.  I might have some fun photos of the guild members then too.

Okay, this is not true.  I will post the finished project sometime this month.  OK.  I lied again.  It has been nearly a year and here it is!

Structure: How I did it

My list of things to do has long included seeing the colorful row houses that one sees in Europe.    So for this challenge, I took the structure thing a bit literally and drew a row of fantasy buildings.  This was a piece of washed cotton that I ironed to a bit of freezer paper to stabilize it for the drawing.  

After I finished the drawing, I layered it with a wool batt and stabilizer on the back.  Then I stitched over it with my machine using white and dark grey cotton threads.

Then I rinsed it to get rid of the blue pen.  After it dried, I ironed it to flatten it.  

I used Derwent Inktense pencils to color in the buildings.  Those scissors were handy for snipping threads.  

 I used these three different textile mediums.  Why?  Because I felt like it.





This is a bit of a close up of the penciled piece before I used the mediums on it.

 The bright green building on the left and the partial one to the left of that have medium on them.  After I finished the penciling I brushed on the diluted medium.  I haven't done this in a while and forgot how much it spreads.

And a much better photograph of the finished piece.  Actually, it's not finished. I think it needs more quilting.   I'll post again after I quilt the sky.

Structure Challenge

"A Row by Any Other Name"

I created this for the "Structure Challenge" at Art Quilts Around the World.  Hopefully, I will get it together in the next few days and put together a couple of posts detailing how I did it.