Faerie Forest Revealed

"Faerie Forest"

20" by 20" 

 I made this for the SewBatik Challenge at this year's NQA show.  I used the challenge fabric for the big tree.  The background is one of my hand-dyes that looks like a forest.

The door and window boxes in the stone cottage are also from the challenge fabric.  I hand embroidered the flowers for the trumpet vines above the stone wall next to the cottage and the little flowers in the window boxes.

I hand embroidered the bunnies and little purple flowers.

The birds were also hand embroidered, then appliquéd to the quilt.  

Holiday Design Potpourri

 Today my design wall has the beginning of my Color Palette Challenge for May.  I took a break from my journal quilts because I was busy finishing the faerie project.

This is the little faerie cottage with its embroidered stuff in the flower boxes.

And the back side showing the machine quilting. I'm finishing up the hand work on this -- it's almost ready.

To see other design walls this holiday Monday, click here to visit Judy's blog. 

Fauna for the Faerie Forest

 I needed some birds and bunnies to keep the faerie company.  So I got out my trusty Tsukineko inks and used them to color in some pencil sketches of birds and bunnies.  I had ironed the fabric to some freezer paper to stabilize it while I used the pencil.

With the colors inked in, if I missed a stitch, I didn't have to worry about white fabric showing through.



The first set of cardinals that I drew were too large for this project.







Using a small needle, I covered the little drawings with thread.   Hand embroidery seemed like the best way to go with these.  They're quite tiny.


I cut them out, leaving a small seam allowance -- somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inch.

 I used appliqué glue to make the seam allowance stick to the back.

Then I stitched them onto my quilt.  I'll have some more photos next time.

Oh Monday

And my design wall is significantly different.  I liked the sewn together bits for the Kindle bag so much, that I decided that I needed to explore that kind of "free-form" piecing some more.

To see other design walls, click here for Judy's blog.








I finished the Kindle bag and sent it off.

This is the front -- I stenciled the tree shape using Stewart Gill silver paint and one of their stencils.  I painted it after I quilted it, but before I cut out the pieces for the bag.  I used Velcro tabs for closures.

I like the back best, but I wish I had gotten more of the little strips with the orange, green, and stripey material in there.  It was just too small to get it all.  The strap is adjustable.  Except for the striped fabric, I used all of my own hand-dyes for this project.

And I finished a lot of the quilting on the faerie piece.  I plan to finish the machine work on this today or tomorrow, then I have hand work planned.

First Monday in May

And heeeeere's my design wall in two parts:

I divided it up in the photos because I have two separate projects going on.  This is the faerie in the forest thing -- there's lots of progress.  Although  I haven't fused anything down yet.

And this is for two projects.  One that I can't talk about yet -- sssshhhhhh.  And one that is going to be a cover/bag for my SIL's Kindle.

Other design walls can be viewed here at Judy's blog.

Faerie Fun

My design wall looks much the same today as it did last Monday.  With my kids on spring break last week, I had very little time to do my stuff.  I did do stuff with them and the mail was very, very good to me.  So I will have posts later this week with that stuff.  But for now, the only new thing is this little faerie.

I'm not sure I'm finished dressing her, so I didn't fuse her all together yet.  But here's a preview.

To see other design walls, check out Judy's blog here.