Thursday, April 23, 2026

Views Both Far and Near and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😎 I'm thrilled to share Views Both Far and Near with you. I learned so much and I'm so happy that it's finished. The last few days have been very intense - I'm glad that I don't do this for a living!

Views Both Far and Near

Last week the piece was getting close to finish. It's mostly a blur but by Sunday evening I knew that I would have the embroidery finished on Monday and that I would spend most of Tuesday framing it. I also watched the course that Take Two provides all of its student on photographing our art with a cell phone. That left the photography session for this morning.

Views Both Far and Near

In the last two weeks you've seen a lot of process photos. Here are a few closeups of the finished piece. In the area where the nut was (I never did find it!) I added various semi-precious stones such as amethyst, since stones are also a part of nature. I also added some fun critters such as the bird next to the clover. I stitched many tiny flowers in the areas that I had covered in stem stitch. Very loose couching was used above the orange proddy flower. It covered the area quickly and looks like fields of plants.

Details of the stitching

A rabbit lurking behind a row of plants

The top of the piece with shells and a turtle hanging out by the water

In the image below, you can see how the canvas was covered on the sides. It was quite the learning experience!😧

Side view of the piece.

I mentioned in my last post that Take Two also offers a course on how to take photos of our art with our cell phones. It was a great course and I learned so much. I even discovered that my phone has all kinds of editing settings that I had been looking for! It turns out that the default was on auto - so when I explored further, I found out how to adjust colour, brightness, etc.

After the section on lighting, I knew that the best photos could be taken in my dining room in the morning. The wall next to the window has wonderful lighting but is painted a taupe colour, so I stuck a white cardboard to the wall and used the existing nail to hang the piece. The cardboard doesn't have to be centered since I'm going to get closer and crop the image anyway.

A white cardboard sheet is placed on the wall
to get the best lighting

The other thing I learned was that it's best to use your feet to get closer to the art that you're photographing than to use the zoom function on your phone. It's too bad that I can't do that with the wildlife in my backyard! 😀

What I learned

I learned many things while making this piece. Most of these you can read in my previous posts.
I did learn a lot while trying to attach the art piece to the framed canvas.
In theory my method should have worked but when I attached the piece to see if it would work, I hadn't stitched the sides much. I learned that when you add all of that stitching, the art contracts and becomes smaller.
I did what I could, but it's certainly not to a professional standard. Since I'm keeping this piece, that doesn't matter as much.
Next time I'll try to face the piece and then attach it to the canvas, if a canvas is necessary.
I'll add more photography tips as I keep learning. 😊

I Quilted This!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts is participating in the Make 6 quilts in 6 weeks Challenge with Villa Rosa Designs. Her first quilt, Cabin Fever is very cute. Kat quilted it in a cross hatch.

Cabin Fever made by Kat - the first of six!

Margo Young of MY Quilts and Crafts finished and gifted two baby quilts. They are so cute!

Baby quilt by Margo

Another baby quilt by Margo

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts finished another lovely quilt, Polite Society, for a magazine about using precuts. Check out her post for more of her precut friendly patterns.

Polite Society by Preeti

Gwyned Trefethen is getting ready to FMQ her secret mission. Here is a sampler of the FMQ designs that will be on her quilt.

Gwyneth's FMQ practice sandwich

FMQ loops with open hearts by Gwyned

Terry from On Going Projects finished quilting her 2021-22 temperature quilt. It really looks great! You'll want to check out her post to read all about it.

Clam shells quilted in the borders of
Terry's 2021-22 temperature quilt

It's now your turn 😍

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Time is flying by and I Quilted This!

Bonjour and welcome 😊 I wasn't too sure what to share with you today....more of the same, my attempts at making art in my sketchbook, my distractions with scraps? I've done all of it this week, including writing little snippets that I posted on Instagram... I guess I'm all over the place - oh well. let the post begin 😉

Embroidery and such

I've been working at it a few hours each day. It sometimes doesn't show much, but that's the nature of slow-stitching.

Views Both Far and Near - it'll be ready for next week 😊

My dining room table - only a week left

To get inspired on how to finish the piece, I went into my folders of un-finished and orphan embroidery and blocks. I found this block that I made after a felting demonstration that looked so easy!!! The felting was a flop but I'm happy since I took this block and snipped away at it and added a lovely bit to my embroidery.

Flopped original felted block

Felting now integrated into Views Both Far and Near

I worked on the right side...where the nut was (lost it - will have to find something else 😂 - a reflection of my mind at this time!) Next to the clover embroidery, I stitched the base fabric and added tiny embroidered flowers. The yellow daisies look great on the gray wool. I also added another darker flower using proddy rug hooking. I'll be covering the rest of the monk's cloth in wool and will keep embroidering on it.

Covering the monk's cloth and
embroidering tiny flowers

At the top of the piece, I've added a patch of water. I'm thinking of adding a couple of shells, a fish?. I'll see if I can make it work.

The top edge of the piece.

As you may have noticed I've added the green fabric strips around all of the piece. It was very fiddly but I think that it'll look OK once it's on the canvas frame. It'll be easy enough to tighten or loosen the piece so that it fits on the canvas. At this point I'm not worrying about it - that will be next week's ~~problem~~ challenge.😊

The monk's cloth showing next to the green fabric will eventually be covered - probably using back-stitched wool or perle cotton. That would be the easiest way of filling in those areas.

Rain and more rain

I'm grateful for the rain that's nourishing the earth. The trees, the bulbs, and all that need it.

Some of the creatures outside may feel like I do...wet, cold and missing the sun 🌞 bright, warm and comforting.

View from the kitchen - RAIN!!!!

OK, I got that out of my system. I thank you for your indulgence.

What I learned

I'm so glad that I went to look in my past work for inspiration - it was the perfect thing to do.
I no longer feel guilty about pulling blocks and such apart if I can use bits of it for another project.
It's the final finishing touches that are requiring all of my ingenuity. That translates to a lot of time.
They're calling for two more days of rain. I really miss the sun but the bulbs in my back garden are coming out - I just hope they'll still be there once the sun is back.
I'll be dropping off my finished piece for Fibre Fling next Thursday morning. That means you'll see the finished piece in next week's post. If the post is late, you'll know that I spent the night finishing it!😁

I Quilted This!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Sandra Walker of mmm quilts is hosting another quilt-along. This year it's the beautiful quilt, Lyra. It's not too late to join the fun! Read more about her Lyra quilt and QAL. Sandra stitched-in-the-ditch, did some ruler work, small loop-dee-loops and wavy lines in the spiky star points

Lyra is Sandra's QAL this year

Details of Sandra's quilting of Lyra

Since Gail of Quilting Gail loves to quilt so much, she volunteered to quilt one of her guild's Hospice quilts. She did some ruler work with her Silly Moon rulers and some FMQ.

Hospice quilt, quilted by Gail

Details of the quilting on the Hospice quilt

Gwyned Trefethen is finally at the quilting stage of her secret mission quilt. After drawing out her FMQ design and then practicing it on a quilt sandwich, the quilting has begun!

Gwyned FMQ her secret mission quilt

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, April 09, 2026

A very slow-stitching project and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome! I've been busy getting ready for the Out-of-the-box Fibre Artist's show, Fibre Fling 2026. I've done more quilting than art recently so I'm now working hard to finish three art pieces to put into the show. See, UFOs (UnFinished Objects) can come in handy!😊

Nature's Textures

In September of 2024, I took a course with Fleur Woods entitled Joyful Embroidery, offered through Fibre Arts Take Two. I learned many techniques and during 2024 worked on two different pieces which I shared with you in the blog. One of the advantages of the Take Two courses is that once you're enrolled, you have access to the course but you also can join the teacher every time the course if offered to a new group. I was happy to resume the course this winter when Fleur Woods' course was offered again. Another perk of the course is that you can submit to participate in the course's online exhibitions. I wasn't ready to submit anything after the 2024 course but that's what I'm now working on.

It's still a work in progress but I can see the end, even if I'm not sure what to add 😁

A few empty spaces to fill

The last time I shared this class's progress, on January 1, 2025, I was working on two separate pieces.

Punch needle and embroidery project

Embroidery on the hand-painted fabric

When I read the theme for this year's online exhibition, Nature's Textures, I decided to make the embroidery and punch needle piece smaller and add some of my original embroidery. It's been so much fun thinking up things to include and to try to make the piece cohesive.

A few details

Details of the left side of the piece

At the top I attached one of my black-eyed susan flowers. I also padded it with batting to give it some depth.

Underneath it, I covered the area with hand-dyed fabric and added three woven picot stitches in dark green perle cotton to look like fern leaves.

Underneath that is a little pond with pink lilies in the water. The pond is the backside of a punch needle, surrounded by punch needle on the right side (which is 3D).

On the original version, I had attached a spool of thread. Since the theme is Nature's Texture, I changed it into a log with moss.

I also cut leaves from a fabric and backed it with an iron-on adhesive fabric so that the leaves are stiffer and don't need to be totally tacked down.

Details of the bottom left side of the piece

Beneath the leaves is a piece of pink batik that I embroidered to look like flowers.

Next to it is a green coil as well as a piece of green fabric with a few yellow-green woven picot leaves.

Beneath that is a gathered piece of green fabric standing upright. It has frayed edges. The monk cloth beneath is finished with yellow-green back stitch.

The sections in the middle were made in 2024 - you can read more about them in previous posts listed in the Related links section.

I want to mention that the textured blue and green fabric surrounded by beads is a technique that I learned from Mirjam Gielen through Patreon. It's a fabric manipulation technique called "cuir froissé" or "creased leather". Details are in my November 20, 2024 post.

Details from the other side

On the edge of the top of this photo I added a brown coiled fabric and a nut on top.

Beneath the punch needle dark brown leaf shape, I added a flower - it's a specific rug hooking technique called Proddy that originates from the Yorkshire Dales. It used fabric strips to create wonderful high-relief texture. I added a couple of backed fabric leaves next to it.

At the bottom, there is a purple thread woven flower surrounded by yellow perle cotton. The purple weaving was done with hand-dyed silk thread that I bought from Karen Turner. The final bright yellow perle cotton border is made with detached blanket stitch, as taught by Mirjam Gielen.

The right edge has an embroidered clover. I used an amazing book that I've had for over 40 years, Wild Flowers of the North by botanist Ruby Gibbins Bryan and artist Muriel Newton-White. It's one of my most cherished books. The images are all hand-drawn in black and white and each plant/flower has lots of information about it. I'm a big fan of clover, so this is a red clover plant. I used Karen Turner's hand-dyed silk for the flower and even stitched the tiny .... in tiny woven picot stitches.

Red clover plant in progress

Wild Flowers of the North

I'm really happy with my piece, "Views Both Far and Near" so far and I've learned so much making it.

Next Steps

As you can see from the images, I don't have much left to cover the background monk's cloth. However, I want it to be thought out and deliberate - not just adding things to finish it.
Considering that I've spent the last day doing sketch book art, I would say that I'm really not sure what comes next. That's OK - now I'll do a little bit of "research" to get ideas on how I should finish this.
I'm sure that I'll be adding in more details such as more stitches on the clover to make it slightly puffier.
In the photo below, you can see what the piece looks like now. I machine stitched a strip of fabric to the right side, and then had to hand-stitch the other side down since there was so much texture in the way.
Once all four strips are attached, I'll stay-stitch the monk's cloth and then cut it away from underneath the green strips.
It will then be time to attach the whole thing to the 12" x 10" canvas. I may put batting between the canvas and monk cloth.

Views Both Far and Near - so far

What I learned

The hardest part about making this piece was to reconcile that I was making both landscape and close-up views of natural elements. I would usually do only one or the other, but since it's an abstract piece, who says that I can't do both? It took me a while to give myself permission to do so.
Based on the point above, I've decided to name this piece, "Views Both Far and Near".
As you can see, I used and learned many wonderful techniques to make this piece. That's what keeps me happy and stitching!
With our Take Two courses, we have a bonus course on how to photograph our art using cell phones. I've watched part of it but will have to finish it and then use what I've learned to photograph my piece.
I'll share with you any tips that I learn 😊

Related links

Joyful Embroidery posts

Updates and Happy New Year!, January 01, 2026
Many Updates and Free Motion Mavericks, November 20, 2024
Scraps, Embroidery and Free Motion Mavericks, October 31, 2024
More Joyful Embroidery and Free Motion Mavericks, October 23, 2024
Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods and Free Motion Mavericks, October 10, 2024
A bit of this and that and Free Motion Mavericks, September 26, 2024

Mirjam Gielen, Patreon and Instagram
Karen Turner and her shop
Proddy rug hooking, Heather Ritchie's Guide to Making a Proddy Rug
Wild Flowers of the North by botanist Ruby Gibbins Bryan and artist Muriel Newton-White

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want to check some out before you link up below 😍 Monday Musings, Put your foot down, Sew & Tell, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2026, Slow Sunday Stitching,

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button.

We have a quiet week in the quilting world - but that's OK - most people were probably busy with family and such.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts made a green scrappy placemat for the monthly color challenge at Freemotion By The River. What a lovely green placemat.

Kat's blocks in her scrappy green placemat.

The back of Kat's green scrappy placemat

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, April 02, 2026

A Orange Scrappy FMQ Finish

Allô and welcome 😊 Another week has flown by! It's now April and still pretty cold but above freezing during the day. My backyard is a mess but the birds and critters are finding all kinds of goodies under the melting snow. There is a lot of nesting activities - I love it!

FMQ the orange scrappy quilt

The free motion quilting (FMQ) is finished! I did end up doing a lot of dot-to-dot as taught by Angela Walters.

FMQ orange scrappy quilt

I think that the FMQ went so well because I used a FriXion pen and ruler to mark the lines before FMQ it. The whole point of dot-to-dot is that you can look from one point to another and FMQ straight lines between them. Unfortunately my unmarked lines are often very wobbly. Another advantage of marking is that it gives me time to think about what I'll be FMQ. When I don't mark the lines, I just tend to wing it...and that's not always the best solution.

Marked lines before FMQ

Marked lines and FMQ

The top border of the quilt is wider than the other borders. I used a real stencil to mark the lines. For the other borders, I just FMQ large loops. You can see these on the back of the quilt in the photo below.

FMQ the borders

Now I just have to trim the quilt and bind it. I'm not sure where it's going but I'm glad that it's almost done.

A full back view - before all the borders were FMQ

Another look at the quilt, on a windy day

April's One Monthly Goal

I didn't realise that the Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL was held in 2023! It's been finished almost 3 years ago. I would like to give it my friends this year. The quilt measures 68" x 65" and will require a lot of FMQ!

Rainbow Neighbourhood flimsy

For April, my goal is to sandwich it and start on the quilting-in-the-ditch. I think that this is doable if life cooperates 😁

What I learned

Marking the lines of FMQ designs helps me by letting me know where I'm going. Although they are far from perfect, by following a marked line they tend to turn out straighter.
As I mentioned, marking the lines means that I've planned what I want to quilt, so my FMQ is more deliberate.
Also, when I'm too tired to FMQ, I can still mark the lines so that I know what to do the next day.
I will definitely be doing this when I can. Using this type of FMQ means that the quilt is less densely quilted - a good thing for baby quilts.
I hope that I'll be able to take some nice outdoor photos when the quilt is bound and finished. Right now everything outside is filthy - not a place for a baby quilt!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button.

Kate from Life in Pieces finished quilting-as-you-go her Kate's Choice quilt. It started as Grandmother's Choice - a quilt along about women's rights. When it became a UFO, Kate decided to choose her own blocks and called it Kate's Choice. It's so lovely. You'll want to read her post for more info. I've been looking forward to her finish since Grandmother's Choice is also one of my UFOs.

Kate's finished Kate's Choice quilt

Details of Kate's quilt-as-you-go and her border

Gail from Quilting Gail finished her SAHRR 2026 for the parade. It's so colourful. Have a look at some of the FMQ details. She did some ruler quilting and FMQ.

Gail's finished SAHRR 2026

Details of Gail's FMQ and ruler work quilting

Janine of Rainbow Hare was able to finish her SAHRR 2026 on time for the parade, even if she wasn't able to join in much. After deciding that the quilt would be a playmat for the children, the quilt came together nicely!

Janine's SAHRR 2026 finish

Janine's quilt - a colourful playmat

Brenda of Songbird Designs custom quilted her SAHRR 2026 finish. She used ruler work and FMQ. You'll want to check out her post and look at this quilt in detail!