Showing posts with label Cas Holmes. Show all posts

Thursday, February 02, 2023

A new art project with FMQ on Free Motion Mavericks

Hi! Welcome to another week of Free Motion Mavericks. Today I have some free motion quilting (FMQ) that will be enhanced with a lot of hand stitching. I'm still trying to figure out what to do exactly, but I have ideas 😊

FMQ an image transferred to fabric

This is the first panel of a project that includes photo transfers on fabric. The transfer came out OK (more about that in the What I learned section below), and was clear enough to FMQ. I did use a pencil to outline some of the less prominent sections and then added the FMQ on top.

FMQ on a black and white image of fish in
their habitat, transferred on fabric

Here is the original photo in colour.

Original photo of fish in their habitat.

I transferred only one colour photo. Here is the result. I love the soft colours of this one. It's actually a little brighter in real life.

A beautiful yellow and blue fish that I
chased around to get a good picture.

Here is the original photo.

The illusive little guy kept darting in and out of other slower fish.
It took many tries before I got a decent photo!

Image transfer

This project is the latest TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club workshop. Our teacher is the wonderful Cas Holmes who showed us how to make an image transfer onto fabric using acrylic gel medium or acrylic paint. Depending on your image, you can get some pretty cool results. The process is like using photo transfer medium but I think that the finish is not as rubbery.

Here is another photo that I printed in black and white and used the gel medium on to transfer.

Another photo of fish in their habitat

It's quite difficult to see but I used a light box to trace out the images. I did a tiny bit of FMQ but decided that I will embroider this one instead.

Last photo image that worked

I have two other photo transfers that really didn't work well. I think that my photos didn't have enough contrast. I will be using those two to practice embroidering so that I don't mess up the images that did transfer better.

Update February 5, 2023

Embroidering the different pieces

What I learned

If you are transferring black and white images onto fabric in this way, I believe that you require a lot of contrast in your photo.
I have been wanting to make an art quilt about fish for a long time. I have some great fish fabric but most of the fabric are rather large scale so that I would have to make a large quilt. I'm not ready for that, so this is a great way to practice and see what I can do on a smaller scale.
I have some beautiful stones, beads and shells that I'll be able to incorporate into this piece.
I do have an amazing batik background that will be perfect (I hope) for this piece. I guess we'll find out eventually how perfect it is 😊
I'm glad that I have a couple of photo transfer to play with before I start stitching into the good ones. I'm a little nervous about this.
In case you're wondering, I took these photos at the Ripley's Aquarium of Canada in Toronto earlier this year. It's all great but there is a section that is truly beautiful. This is where I took most of the photos.
I'm still fascinated with photo transferring and have more techniques to try. I'm sure that you'll read about these eventually here 😉

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 418 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm really glad that you've been dropping by and linking up! We have four FMQ projects to share from last week.

Melva finished her Ladders and Steppingstones and used FMQ outlining feathers and vines and leaves. It's such a lovely comfy looking quilt. If you didn't see it last week, you'll want to check it out!

Ladders and Steppingstones by Melva

Quilting Gail participated in the Shades of Blue blog hop. She made 3 runners and then used these to teach 3 different techniques on how to bind them in a class. She used different stitches on her machine to secure the binding. What a great way to participate in a blog hop and create a teaching aid!

Quilting Gail's runners for the Shades of Blue blog hop

Sandra of mmm quilts participated in the Fast and Fun Blog Hop with Villa Rosa Designs. She adapted one of the patterns and made a stunning quilt called The Art of Riding Thermals. The quilt looks so intricate but it's all the same block going in different directions. Sandra used a double loop meander and some straight lines in the quilting - it's really amazing.

The Art of Riding Thermals by Sandra of mmm quilts

Dawn of Quilting by Dawn, took a class and made a lovely improv quilt. After the class, she added a border and quilted it with straight lines. It's a very effective way to quilt it and I love that she turned the piece on its side so that it looks like flames! She called her piece, Flame your Passions

Flame your Passions by Dawn

Thanks so much for joining us! Now it's your turn.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Slow Stitching and Updates

I'm taking a short pause from my playing to make Easter supper (it's in the oven) and write a post on my many ongoing projects. There's lots to show, so here it is!

Community Stitch Challenge Redo

So far I've participated in two stitching challenges with TextileArtist.org. You may remember my challenge piece from Cas Holmes' week. I liked my piece but I knew that it didn't have the layers that Cas Holmes adds to her pieces.

Stitched piece for Cas Holmes stitching challenge

After thinking about it for a week, I remembered the fabric in my basement cupboard of clothes that I've kept for just this kind of project. I'm now going through these to see what I can add as layers to this little piece. It's far from finished but the project is now percolating in my creative brain. I'm looking forward to seeing what I come up with 😊

Some ideas for adding layers

As you may be able to see, I want to make this piece as a reminder of this period in our lives. Do you see the little mask in the middle panel?

Mandala Update

In my last post I showed you the BIG Mandala that I created for Project Quilting Quarantine (PQQ) 2020. It wasn't finished - and still isn't but it's getting there! I had no idea what to do for the edge since I didn't have anything that I could just add like lace or some other finish. Finally I thought about adding a border of ruffled batik. With the addition of the twisted couched yarn, I think that it will do. I now need to add beads and one thin strip of free motion quilting in the last circle (if I can). I'm hoping to finish it this week.

The BIG Mandala now has a border ruffle and yarn.

Making lace-type fabric with water soluble products

Last June, during Quilt Canada, I took a full day class with Amanda McCavour. She introduced us to 2 different Sulky Solvy products. I worked a little bit on my project after the class but never finished it. While making the BIG Mandala, I thought that I might make my own lace with these products as an edging to my piece. Well, I had fun experimenting with these products but quickly decided against using this as an edging because I would have needed 50 inches of it!

Here is my experiment. I used what I learned from Amanda McCavour as well as from the beautiful book I bought by Meredith Woolnough, Organic Embroidery. On a strip of about 3" wide, I FMQ a very dense circle (using tiny circular motions, sort of like mini pebbles stuck together), and then added lines in between, to a circle in the middle. I made two of those. Then I made one piece of very fine scribbling. Finally I make a couple of arches and since I had room, I added a couple of fine strips.

This is what it looked like after I had FMQ and before dissolving the Sulky product.

Different experiments

Two circles with webbing

My notes

Finished product

I left the corner of my hexie runner in the picture to give you an idea of size. Those are ¾" hexies! It would have taken forever to make 50" of lace fabric to go around the edge of my Mandala!
I will, however, add these to the Cas Holmes' Community Stitch Challenge Re-do 😊 and I'm looking forward to experimenting some more with these water soluble products.

Cutting Tumbler Scraps

I picked up a Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine a few months ago because it came with some tumbler templates that I couldn't resist. It's a lovely quilting magazine but I don't generally buy traditional quilting magazines because I make so few traditional quilts. However, this caught my eye and last week I didn't want to think so I just grabbed some scraps of fabric (anything bigger than 3"x 3") and started cutting out tumblers.

My tumbler template with cut out scraps.

It's going to be very scrappy but instead of the white background of the magazine quilt, I'm just going to use solids of any colour to break it up. Once I cut another gazillion tumblers, I'll start looking at how to place my fabric. Until then, no thinking, just mindless cutting!

Making Masks

Like every other person who can sew, I made a few masks. As you can imagine, they are not my favourite thing to do but I did want to help keep my sister-in-law healthy since she's an x-ray technician in the local hospitals. The first one was a prototype but with her comments I made 4 more that are definitely better. My son wanted to make his own mask, so now, if I get sick, he can make some for the family 😊

Masks for my sister-in-law

My son learning to make his own mask.

Sewing fabric strips

The day before my local quilt shop had to close to customers in the store, I went in and bought some fabric. I didn't need anything but I wanted to encourage them since I know that times might get rough in the next few weeks (or months). I bought a few fat quarters but also a package of fabric strips called Bubble Up. There is enough to make a lap quilt to protect one of our love seats from Chevy's hair and nails.

I sewed it together that weekend and finally sandwiched it this week. I'd like to quilt it this week. I've been watching courses on BluPrint and am considering using my walking foot, or FMQ in rows. The fabric is quite bright so I'm not sure that FMQ would show up. I hope to feature this on the next Free Motion Mavericks on Thursday - as long as I start it!

Isn't this going to make a wild and fun lap quilt?

What I learned

As you can imagine from all of these projects, I am like a butterfly flitting from one project to another (or like a squirrel)!
I actually have more on the go, but this is enough for today's post!
I just checked and the challenge for Project Quilting Quarantine this week is Floral. I'm sure that I can add something more to my list - it's either that or read many books (or both!) Although if the weather gets nice (above 10C, I will go outside to clean up the yard - this would be the first year in a long, long time!)
I could work on my many UFOs but they all require some concentration, which is just not there right now. I do hope that it will come back some day.

What's on this week

Community Stitch Challenge - Week 4 with Richard McVetis. We find out what the challenge is on Monday.
Project Quilting Quarantine challenge - Floral (due Sunday, April 19, 2020)
Make buffalo plaid curtains for my niece.
Finish FMQ and beading the BIG Mandala
Keep cutting tumbler pieces from scraps.
FMQ or quilt with a walking foot, my Bubble Up lap quilt.

Thursday, April 02, 2020

Stitch Challenge and Free Motion Mavericks Link-up

Welcome to Week 274 of the Free Motion Mavericks linking party - where you don't have to be free motion quilting (FMQ) to link up. We're here to share, connect and encourage each other, no matter what techniques we use. 😊

Week 2 of the Community Stitch Challenge

In my last post, I shared with you my sampling piece that was created for the first challenge guided by Sue Stone. The Community Stitch Challenge on Facebook is organised by TextileArtist.org. This week, we have the amazing Cas Holmes directing the challenge. We are making a small piece that depicts the landscape of our homes by exploring cloth and paper as a surface for hand stitching.

Hand-stitching space

On Monday evening I listened to Cas Holmes' video. After reading her handout I still couldn't think of a thing in my home that I wanted to stitch. I was just in one of those moods - so I let it peculate over night.

On Tuesday, I sat in my hand-stitching area that I've create for myself in our sitting room, took out some stuff and before I knew it, I had picked a background piece (the corner of a hand-dyed napkin) and had drawn the outline of my scissors with a textile marker.

From my pile of fabric bits, I added a couple of fabric strips to delineate my home and embroidered a window with the shining sun and a tree. I then added a piece of the wrapping of the Merci chocolate that my husband had just given me. This is the paper part of this exercise and is a thank you to these wonderful textile artists for this special opportunity to create with them.

Since I've been doing meditation stitching, I created a mini meditation block. It's one inch square! I don't usually work with anything that small.

Adding bits from my pile of possibilities

This is what I have so far.

Week 2 Challenge piece so far

This is my design board of hand-stitched pieces.

Design Board of hand-stitched pieces

What I learned

As you can see, I'm really enjoying doing hand stitching. It's so relaxing. I love my colourful hand-stitched design board.
Maybe one day I'll feel like putting some of these together for a finished piece.
What I love about Cas Holmes' work is that it's seems very intuitive. She really seems to be playing with collage, hand stitching and FMQ.
My piece doesn't have much of the collage aspect that she is so famous for... but I'm not done...we'll see 😊