Saturday, March 27, 2021

#AtoZchallenge2021Quilt (Art)

It seems to be happening again....I've decided to join a challenge with Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué for the month of April. At least this one isn't about making a quilted item, but rather to blog or use Instagram to post pictures about them. If I get organized this should be manageable. I hope those are not my famous last words! 😊

#AtoZchallengeQuilt - Art style

I'm looking forward to it - all kinds of words about or related to art quilts. My plan is to use Instagram every day for my daily post and link up to Frédérique's daily linking party through Instagram, and then write up a weekly post on Sunday (since we aren't linking up for the challenge on Sundays).

How many art quilt words could you come up with based on just these two pieces? You can click on the images to get a better look.

Momigami Tree from a workshop with Cas Holmes

A White History of Art

Here is the challenge logo and description.

#AtoZchallenge2021Quilt with Frédérique

I really hope that you will join this fun party. As well, you may want to follow Frédérique as she also participates in the regular #AtoZchallenge2021 with an upcycling, recycling and repurposing approach. See links below.

I was really interested in joining Frédérique on the original #AtoZchallenge2021 and decided that if I could come up with at least one word related to art quilts for every letter, that I would join it. Yesterday I still had a few empty spots on my list but then my daughter helped me with the missing ones. So, I've decided to join the #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt 😊

What I learned

I'm proud of myself for not just jumping into a challenge without having thought about it thoroughly.
I'll be spending some time this weekend getting my Instagram posts ready so that it won't take me long to do this every day. My only concern is when to post these - I guess that it will have to be as soon as I get up (ouch!) so it will really have to be a no-brainer 😊
As I was getting a couple of pictures to use as examples, I discovered that I forgot to write a post on my Momigami Tree. I guess I'll have to write that up soon!
I'm sure that I will have learned many things during this challenge and I am looking forward to it.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Here Comes the Sun on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, week 323. I really hope that you are all seeing signs that spring is on it's way (or fall if you are on the other side of the equator 😊).

Here Comes the Sun

I haven't done much Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) lately - it's been mostly embroidering and beading on my biodiversity piece. It feels like it's taking forever. I guess that it's not called slow stitching for nothing!

For today's post, I did however remove the cover from my Jag (aka sewing machine) to create this quick addition to the Pinwheels & Stars baby quilt.

Sun at the edge of our galaxy

I based the pattern on this image from NASA.

A view of our Sun

When I start filling in more than specific objects, I will probably add some yellow FMQ lines to show the Sun glowing as in this image.

Pinwheels & Stars so far...

What I learned

I tried to draw the Sun based on the image from NASA - it was a mess. Then I realised that it could be reduced to its simplest form - 2 intersecting long lines and then 2 shorter lines between them.
So instead of trying to draw the star, I drew the 4 lines on my practice fabric and then built up the stitching around them, ending up with a point at each end.
My practice Sun is 2" wide by 2" long. The Sun on the quilt is 4" x 4".
Once I knew what I was drawing, it went very quickly. I'm pretty impressed 😊

Related links

Celebrating Mars' Perseverance Rover Landing on Free Motion Mavericks, February 25, 2021
NASA - Sun

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties this week. Let's see what's going on out there. Let's Make Baby Quilts!, Put Your Foot Down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday,

Free Motion Mavericks

It's been a while since we've visited! I'm glad that I have this linking party that gets me to post and most of the time encourages me to do some FMQ. We had a great turn out last time. Thanks so much for taking the time to link up. I'm very behind on my comments but will get there this week. Sorry!

If you didn't see Karin's Doodlemania, go over to read what she learned. It sounds like she had a great time playing with her rulers.

Karen from the Quilt Yarn: Doodlemania

Now it's your turn!

Sunday, March 07, 2021

Embroidery & Beads for Slow Sunday Stitching

We have another great workshop that got me totally inspired at the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club. Kate Tume's workshop is about exploring narrative potential with embellishment.

Embellishing with embroidery and beads

We were supposed to make some sampling but I got inspired and just had to jump right in 😊. The prompt was biodiversity. I guess I was in a creative mood because this is what I came up with as my collage background (it all started with the frogs!).

Biodiversity - collage ready to be put together

Once I had an idea of what I wanted, I used Heat n Bond Lite to affix the collage pieces to the background fabrics.

I started adding beads and other embellishments from the bottom. I really wasn't sure if I needed to embroider and bead right on the fabric, or if I should do it through the batting. It turns out that embroidering through the batting brings up a lot of white fluff, so I am generally embroidering first and then beading through all of the layers.

Details of stacked beading and embroidery

More beading and embroidery

This is what I've done so far, but it's still early on Sunday and I have lots of hours left in my audiobook to keep me going. I'm really, really loving this!

Biodiversity in progress

What I learned

I've been using all kinds of material for the embroidery and beading. I used metallic thread for the leaf of the lotus flower, beads that look like coral in the water. These came from a bracelet that I bought in my travels. There are shells from a necklace, regular beads, embroidery thread as well am my hand-dyed thread. It's just so much fun!
I'm not sure about having added the batting already but when I was beading the shells and coral at the bottom, it just seemed so heavy that I wanted something stronger behind it. I also like the change in puffiness that comes from beading or embroidering with batting.
To minimize the fluff when embroidering, I pull back the batting as much as I can and embroider the fabric first. Once an area is more or less done, then I bead through the batting.
I'm going back to add French Knots at the bottom, but the fuzz is minimal since it's just one stitch at a time.
I probably should have embroidered everything first, but that's just not how I work - I was too impatient to wait. Besides this feels better - more organic.