Saturday, April 23, 2022

Fibre Fling 2022 - Free Virtual Show now on

Hi 😊 I have some great news. I'm excited to announce the FREE VIRTUAL FIBRE ART SHOW by the Out of the Box Fibre Artists group of Ottawa, Ontario. This year is the group's 25th anniversary and I've been a member since 2016.

Free Virtual Art Show

I really hope that you will attend. The organisers have done an incredible job for the last two years to bring about a very professional show. It's very impressive. Last year's show was a huge success but one of the most received comments was that there were not enough pieces for sale. So this year, each artist was allowed to have 2 pieces not for sale but up to 5 that are for sale.

Fibre Fling 2022

Since I want all of you, dear readers, to visit the show, I am including the link to this amazing show everywhere in the post! Please click on the links to check it out!

Here are some more lovely posters of the Out of the Box's Fibre Fling 2022 Virtual textile art show and sale.

We have some very talented artists in our group - check it out!

Fibre Fling Virtual Textile Art Show and Sale

Check out the Free Virtual Art show

There are so many lovely pieces in the show

Fibre Fling Virtual Textile Art Show and Sale

When you visit the show, you will see on the home page several world class textile artists who were originally members of our group. You'll want to check them out!

At the top of the home page, you'll see several links. If you check out the Artists link, you'll find me on the second line (from your home computer). Look for Andrée G. Faubert. You'll see a short bio as well as links to my email, this blog and my Instagram account.

Recognize my piece from last year's
Fibre Fling show?

Since I want you to go see the exhibition, I'm not going to include the images of the 5 pieces that are included in the show. However, here are the links to the related blog posts, if you want to learn more about the making of the pieces.

Please let me play

The Light Beyond

Ciboulette Stitches

Yellow flower madness

Bonjour la vie

While you visiting the show, make sure to take in the other artists' work. If you're not into textile art, I suggest that you go to the Categories page to see the items that you're interested in. Here are the different works:

Make sure that you check it out!

Apparel and accessories
Beading
Collage
Crochet and lace making
Dyeing and surface design
Embroidery
Felting
Greeting cards
Home Décor
Jewelry
Mixed media
Quilting
Three-dimensional art
Wall art

I really hope that you will take the time for a quick (or long) visit to the show.

BTW, I should be symptom free in the next couple of days. I'm really looking forward to getting out of the house, even if it's just for groceries...who would have thought! 😊

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties to get the word out. Please don't hesitate to check them out.

Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Beauty Pageant, Free Motion Mavericks with Muv, TGIFF, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Midweek Makers, Design Wall Monday,

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Looking Back on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 378 of our Free Motion Mavericks linking party. My post is very short because it's my family's turn to be down with the dreaded pandemic sickness. I'm just going to pull out a few of my older FMQ images.

Looking Back

This is the first quilt that I free motion quilted (FMQ). It was wobbly but fun. Do you recognize Angela Walter's Dot-to-Dot? I've included links to the original posts in the image captions.

My first quilt - we all have a few...or many!

This one was still a little wobbly but the
designs are expanding

It's work like this that helped me get better

Into very intense FMQ

Structure is not a bad thing...I suppose 😊

Still pretty intense but after washing
this is one of my favourite blankets

I also like using stencils. It makes for a nice change.

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check them out?

Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts,

Free Motion Mavericks

Thanks to our faithful FMQ linkers 😊. I'm just not up to choosing any one or writing up all 4, so please forgive me. I'm sure that I'll be fine by next time!

It's now your turn!

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Stitching procrastination

I've been in the mood to stitch! 😊 I started in the car and just kept going.

Chain stitch

I went away for a couple of days to Toronto with my hubby to see a concert. He had booked it before lockdown, so two years later we saw Airborne Toxic Event with Mondo cozmo opening for them. It was a really great concert. The artists were so obviously happy to be back out there doing their thing!

I wasn't going to bring any stitching but at the last minute threw a few threads and this fabric that I had started stitching on in a bag for the journey. I'm very lucky that I can stitch in the car. This was the picture in my Instagram post on the way. Turns out it's easier to embroider in the car than it is to take a photo of it or actually post!

Stitching in the car - all chain stitch variations

I kept stitching during the week. I used a variation of chain stitches. As you can see, I love adding hexies to the mix. They add colour and are fun to stitch around.

The fabric that I was using was larger than my previous 8" blocks, so I cut off this side that had half-chain stitches. The openings can be large or small. It's good to see what a stitch can do. I also used rows of them above - they are very interesting together (the pink rows under the ladder stitch.

Half-chain stitches

This is what the sampler block looks like today. Over the open chain stitch (or ladder stitch), I added some long tail chain stitches because they look like flowers behind the fence! I also love the single chain stitch (or detached or lazy daisy) in a cluster in different threads and colours. It's a little more elaborate (and fun) than just using seed stitch.

Many variations of the chain stitch

It always takes me a few stitches to figure out the correct angles of the feathered chain stitch (at the bottom of the piece and under the top hexie). These are very popular in Crazy Quilting and can be part of quite elaborate combinations.

I learned a new variation while reading Textile Stories #12, by Mirjam Gielen of Mirjam textiles. Mirjam does some great organic embroidery, mostly on her eco-printed fabrics. The heavy rows on the right are made with heavy chain stitch. I really love their weight and tried them out in a few thread weights. The orange is 6 strands of embroidery floss, the blue is #5 perle cotton; the fuchsia is #12 perle cotton. The final row is Honest Yarn's hand-dyed indigo lace linen.

Heavy chain stitch

Embroidering on eco-printed fabric

This is a piece of eco-printed linen that I started stitching on a while back. I added a few open chain stitch rows (ladder), some detached chain stitch as well as quite a few French knots.

Adding more stitches on eco-printed fabric

In the image below, in the bottom left corner, you can see Mirjam's variation of the blanket stitch to make lace like or what she calls cell like structures. That was my first try and I will be practicing this - it's quite beautiful.

Stitching on eco-printed fabric

Biodiversity piece

I love procrastinating and I'm quite good at it! However, sometimes I have to talk myself into getting things done. I promised myself that after stitching and preparing this post, that I could go back to my biodiversity piece. Since I've been working with the chain stitch, I started with the lazy daisy in the blue flowers below.

Biodiversity - getting back to it.

This piece was started based on another workshop with TextileArtists.org's stitch club. In March 2021, Kate Tume's workshop was about exploring narrative potential with embellishment. See Related links for details.

Making detached daisies within
detached daisies

What I learned

I've had a good time playing with thread - it seems that I really needed some slow stitching time!
It's been a while since I worked on a new embroidery sampler. I've added links below to the other ones I've worked on.
Embroidering in the car is a great way to pass the time, especially since I can't sleep in the car anymore.
The best thing about a live concert was seeing how happy the musicians were being on stage and doing what they love. It was very inspiring.
I was also reminded how much I love my quiet little suburb!
Now that I've started stitching the biodiversity piece, I'm going to put away the other embroidery until I finish this one.

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Journal Cover for Quilting Agenda

Hi! This project is a Squirrel as well as a useful way to procrastinate. More about the procrastination later 😊

Mark Making

I'm always nervous about working with paint but the few times that I've painted on fabric, the results were interesting and relatively successful for a beginner. I've been using Colour Vie pigment system which was created for Gunnel Hag, a amazing artist who became allergic to the paints she needed to create her surface designed fabrics. She's a Canadian artist who spoke at one of our Out Of The Box Textile Artists' group a few years ago. I've bought a few pieces of her fabric and made my last agenda journal cover with one of those pieces. When I saw that she had a couple of online courses, I tried out the "Make your mark" course.

Finished agenda cover

I started by painting the first piece of fabric. I was hoping to get some nice purple where the blue and red meet but that didn't work out so well. Once it had dried a little bit, I added marks on top.

There was a bit of paint on the plastic underneath the fabric, so I imprinted the next piece of fabric with it and then started making various marks. You can see below a square jar that has elastics and cord around it. Those are the marks on the fabric.

Paint and marks

Making marks using the jar wrapped with cord

This was my second piece. I used an assortment of items to make the marks - a fork, a potato masher, the bottom of a plastic container, lids etc. I did figure out a few things that will make my next practice pieces better.

Marks on the fabric

Adding stitches

I've been using a perpetual agenda since January 2020 but I was running out of pages. Here it is, made from Gunnel Hag's fabric.

Agenda cover made from Gunnel Hag's fabric

You can understand why I was reluctant to switch agenda's. I could have re-used the cover but I want to keep the agenda the way it is. It seems to be an integral part of it and was used a great deal in the last two years.

I wondered if I should over-paint the piece but decided to see what adding thread would do. Instead of free motion quilting (FMQ) the whole panel, I only quilted what I needed and was able to use the extra pieces for the inside of the cover.

FMQ fabric

I used four different variegated threads to quilt it. I looked through my FMQ journal to find designs to play with. It was great re-visiting the designs - some of which I haven't used in quite a while.

I measured many times and the journal cover came together without any issues. I used Christina Cameli's Free Motion Quilted Gifts on Craftsy.

Front of the Agenda

The sides of the cover are made with the extra fabric that wasn't FMQ

Back of the cover

You can see the whole agenda cover here.

Front of the agenda with the elastic

I really love it. It went from a simple design on the fabric to something much more complex. That is a very good lesson to learn! 😊

Procrastinating

My first procrastination is in writing this post instead of starting to fill in my new 2022 quilting agenda. I'm almost afraid to see everything that I have going on in the next two months. That is why I made the cover....but it's going to be hectic!

My second procrastination is from working on my next slow stitching project that will be in the ArtPontiac show. I think that it's been over a year since I last worked on it. This is the last photo that I found of it, but there is more done (thank goodness!) More about this piece soon I hope!

Beaded and embroidered piece on biodiversity

What I learned

As I mentioned, adding the FMQ was essentially over-painting with thread. That means that making simple designs with paint can lead to some lovely, more complex fabrics.
When I added the paint to the mark-making items, I should have used a brayer or some other way of adding an even layer of paint on the objects. There's nothing wrong with uneven marks but it might look more professional if it was even. This would be especially good for items like the potato masher.
It would be great to make another journal cover, but this time to actually plan where the marks would go. I wish that I could have put the large circles at the front of the cover, although they are interesting on the spine.

Related links

Gunnel Hag, Make Your Mark On-demand workshop, Colour Vie
Free Motion Quilted Gifts on Craftsy with Christina Cameli
Post about other FMQ journals

Making a journal cover with practice piece, December 14, 2019 (My first one)
Finishing up One Monthly Goal - OMG, January 31, 2020 (Agenda cover)
Free Motion Mavericks, February 06, 2020 (A production of quilted journal covers)
I heart Project Quilting, February 09, 2020

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun parties. Let's see what's going on! Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, Off the Wall Friday, Put Your Foot Down, Beauties Pageant, Peacock Party, Monday Making,

Design Wall Monday,

Project details

2022 Quilting Agenda cover

5¾" x 8½"

Materials: Fabric marked with Colour Vie, variegated thread

Techniques: mark making, FMQ and sewing

Thursday, April 07, 2022

More on Version 2.0 with Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 376 of our Free Motion Mavericks linking party. I hope that spring is in the air if you're on this end of the Earth!

Sports section finished

The blue sports stripe is done! You can see a pretty good picture below. You will notice that there is still tracing paper left on the snowshoes. It will come off soon but it's very tedious work when the FMQ is so close together. It came off well for the canoe.

Finishing up the sports stripe

Here's a great image from the back. You can see that my sun is getting better. Can you spot the golf ball that wondered into the image? Maybe it got shanked? 😁

A great view from the back

Beginning the Northern section

You may recall that one of the big tan stripes has images of Canadian nature. I've done the West and part of the Prairies, so now it's the North. Although the picture is not great, you can see the section surrounded by some of the other FMQ. There is a mountain with ice, a seal in the water and a big polar bear! I'm cheering for the seal, but the bear does have to eat!

Starting on the Northern Canada section

North section from the back of the quilt

I'll have to do more research to get this section finished. Since I had quite a few images of polar bears on tracing paper for the Polar Bear Plunge blog hop in January, I thought that I would use one of them here.

Stars and Planets

I started working on a black stripe that my mother originally quilted stars and the moon. Since I still have some of my notes from the Pinwheels and Stars Baby Quilt, I figured that I could use my FMQ skills to add some planets along with the stars.

On the black stripe, the Glide thread, Shadow (a dark grey), can be seen by the camera. Yeah!

Lots of stars and swirling objects in the sky

I did practice a bit on paper, but this was the easiest FMQ that I've done so far on this quilt. What a nice change!

A planet, a comet and a few stars

FMQ in action with a comet, a planet, a black hole and stars 😊

You may as well get a back shot also since this one came out well!

Stars seen from the back

What I learned

It was nice to have a few easy things to FMQ this time.
I used a postcard from Nunavut to make the rock and ice formation. I didn't see anything like that when I visited many years ago. The image was from Auyuittuq National Park.
I'll have to do some research for other images of the North and then the rest of the Prairies.
Since I've been working on FMQ words, I was thinking of writing the names of the provinces within the tan stripe.
I thought of adding words with the stars, but only after I finished it and now there isn't any place left. I'll have to try and plan this the next time. (famous last words!)
I have to remove the tracing paper before I put the quilt away until the next time.

Free Motion Mavericks

We had very interesting link ups to the party last time. I think that the three FMQ projects are worth looking at if you didn't get a chance last time.

Nancy at Grace and Peace used matchstick quilting on her mini. I just love the way that the quilting changed the colours of her piece.

Nancy at Grace and Peace

Gail of Quilting Gail finished FMQ her SAHRR for 2022 quilt. She did a great job with all of that echoing.

Gail of Quilting Gail

Sandra from mmm quilts used invisible thread from Aurifil to quilt most of her flying geese pillow top as her last piece for PQ 13.6 She really loved FMQ with the thread.

Sandra from mmm quilts

It's now your turn!

Monday, April 04, 2022

Journey of many paths aka Traveller's Blanket

I am so happy to be writing this post. The Traveller's Blanket was a journey of almost two years, and a union of several projects. When I started my traveller's blanket with a course with Dejanne Cevaal, I didn't really foresee this amazing journey in slow and meditation stitching. I'm so happy that you've shared it with me. 😊

A journey of many paths

Here is the final piece.

Journey of many paths - finally hanging on the wall!

Journey of many paths

Slow Stitching, Meditation Style

The journey began with an article on Stitch Meditation, by Liz Kettle in the October/November edition of the Quilting Arts magazine. As I played with fabric to make small meditation blocks, I felt the meditative effect of slow stitching.

I used a bunch of 4" flannel squares from a dearly loved flannel blanket as the backing. For the fabric top, I would dip into a small bag of my hand-dyed fabrics for something that caught my fancy. Some of the blocks were based on projects that I had just finished. I used different weights and colours of embroidery floss, ribbon, beads and what ever else caught my fancy.

Pretty Moon and Star, Angles,
Green & Blue with Bark, and Shining Rose

Pieces of my heart

Impressions of Dried Flowers

Meditation blocks on my design wall

Orange, pink and a feather

Attaching the blocks & creating hexies

Each meditation block was attached to the blanket using embroidery stitches, usually a blanket stitch. I then used different embroidery stitches around them.

Chevy supervising the
sandwiching

First two blocks attached

Embroidering around the house block

Embroidered 1¾" hexies

Stitching and embellishing the hexie

Quilting the background

I have been quilting/stitching the blanket's background since October. I did many other stitching projects between then and now, but it's thanks to the #100dayschallenge that I've gotten this far.

All the blocks and hexies are embroidered onto the blanket

Since I got bored, I did vary my stitching paths. Many were horizontal, others vertical while a few even went in circles!

Stitching around the hexies and in circles.

The last few inches!

Pause for drama 😊

Journey of many paths

Back of Journey of many paths

What I learned

It took a lot of time and effort, with a few break in between, but it's done! 😊
I still need to ensure that the beads, shells and hexies are all affixed properly (there are missing a couple of shells!) as well as make a hanging sleeve and label.
I learned a lot while doing this project. There are many lessons learned that you can read in the previous posts.
You can also view a lot more detailed pictures on previous posts as well as on Instagram. If you don't have an Instagram account, you can use the widget on the right side of my blog to see them.
I mentioned in my previous Traveller's Blanket post that Journey of many paths will be exhibited in Shawville, Quebec, in June at the artPontiac Stone School Gallery. I'll keep you informed as the show gets closer.