Showing posts with label Craftsy. Show all posts

Thursday, July 20, 2023

A Gorgeous Red Basket on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 440 of Free Motion Mavericks. I hope that you've had a good week. I haven't done much until yesterday but I now have a pretty red basket to share with you.

Making A Gorgeous Red Basket

When I made the microwave fabric bowls in March for the Table Scraps Challenge, I promised one to a friend who said that they were so pretty that she wouldn't use it in the microwave because they might get dirty. Rather, she would use it as a bowl or holder. So, remembering this, I decided to make a red basket for July's challenge. Since this month's letters are A and G, I'm going for A Gorgeous Red Basket 😊

A Gorgeous Red Basket

I've made these types of baskets before, following Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted Gifts course on Craftsy. It's also the course that I follow to make the agenda covers.

I started off with a red piece of hand-dyed fabric from my friend Elaine's scraps. I quilted it with triangles and match stick FMQ. It got pretty tedious by the end, but I did it! I tried to do this in a meditative manner but eventually gave up on that and just listened to music!

FMQ alternate triangles with match stick stitches

Of course I managed to cut the fabric for the quilted piece too small, so I made the lining just slightly smaller than the outside. While I was FMQ, I remembered that the project was supposed to be red and scrappy, so I made this very scrappy lining.

A scrappy red lining

Putting the basket together went fairly well. I'm happy to say that my stitch ripper was not overused!

Here are a few pictures from last night.

You can peek in and see the lining!

Here's another peek!

How appropriate - Mr. Coffee Bean is getting a medium roast in the sun!

Here are some garden pictures from this morning 😎

Hen and a basket!

A Gorgeous Red Basket and White Roses!

Same flowers and basket from two different angles!

What I learned

I was trying to be so careful about cutting things the right size but somehow, I cut the outside fabric too small. At least it wasn't difficult to adjust the lining to fit.
The basket is more square than it should be, but that's ok!
I used a lovely variegated pink and yellow thread to do the match stick FMQ. I think that it looks great.
The red scraps had been pulled for another project but there are enough for both projects! It was nice that they had been sorted already. Most of my scraps are by colour, but in batches - so that red is with yellow, orange and pink. I don't have enough scraps of each colour for their own basket (except for blue!).
The outside strip is from some great coffee bean fabric that I bought a while back. I have it in peach and blue. It's soooo cute!
I didn't make a strap for this basket since it was so small, but I just re-read my posts and discovered that I had used a lanyard under the fabric to make the handles. What a great idea.

Free Motion Mavericks

Last week Donnalee did some meandering FMQ with invisible thread. It worked out really well. Way to go Donnalee!

Check out Donnalee's meandering FMQ with invisible thread!

Gail has made another gorgeous Hugs and Kisses quilt - this one for charity. She used her 3″ and 4″ Cupid rulers to quilt it. It's so full of loving hearts!

Gail's Hugs and Kisses quilt for charity

Anja or Anja Quilts made a lovely mini to swap with one of her guild mates. Isn't it cute with that fussy cut tiger? She made it specifically to practice her FMQ skills. Way to go!

Anja's Mini quilt to practice FMQ

It's now your turn.

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Conversations Guest Book on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 384 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm sorry that I'm a couple of days early, but I will run it until next Tuesday night. The last couple of weeks have mostly been about the Conversations exhibition and today is not an exception. I'm not getting ahead on my son's Version 2.0 quilt - but he's been very understanding 😊

Another Journal Cover

A few weeks ago I volunteered to create a journal cover for our Conversations exhibit's guest book. I started early, but just finished it about an hour ago! No worries, the deadline is only tomorrow but it was my May One Monthly Goal (OMG) and I'm not missing out on bragging rights!

Conversations Guest Book

The Beginning

A few years ago, I experimented with sun printing. I don't think that I ever wrote a post about it. It wasn't a total flop, I did get one good print out of 3. I learned that you really need to use translucent paint - the opaque stuff just won't take. I did keep my pieces because you never know!

Original fabric with paint

After making my last journal cover, I realised how much the FMQ adds to the fabric, so I thought that I would give this rather messy fabric a shot. I added mostly yellow paint (Colour Vie pigment system) to the mix using forks, circles, etc. I was only going for additional splashes of colour that wasn't purple! I really like how the yellow turned into a lovely gold. It also brought out the little splashes of teal from the original piece.

Painting over the original fabric

I then started FMQ. I drew a straight line and wrote Conversations more or less in the middle of what would be the front cover. See I did learn from my last project and planned the layout a little more.

I listed a bunch of words that had to do with conversations - dialogue, listening, connection, genuine, point-of-view, exchange, generosity, understanding, humility, and talking. I FMQ these in variegated thread, all with some pink and/or yellow in them.

Some of the FMQ words

Adding fun filler by following the design
or making it up as I go along!

Putting it together

I cut the fabric a few days ago but I've been so tired that I was really stressed about cutting it properly. I had visions of having to start all over....not fun! Anyway, it all went well. Last night I chose my lining fabric, something light to contrast with the dark cover. After work, I started sewing while watching each step of Christina Cameli's Free Motion Quilted Gifts on Craftsy.

Here's the lovely lining fabric

Here are some pictures of the whole thing 😊

The back and front of the cover

The back of the journal cover

I remembered to add my name tag.

The inside back with my tag.

Conversations Guest Book Mosaic

What I learned

I'm really glad that I made a journal cover not long ago for my quilting agenda. I remembered my lessons learned and applied them to this project. Awesome 😎
Having played with paint not that long ago also helped me with adding the paint to this one. I felt a little more confident, especially knowing that the free motion quilting would add so much.
Planning where the FMQ should go on my journal cover made it easier to quilt and the results are worth it.
It's been along time since I've been this busy with creating and blogging. I really appreciate all of your wonderful comments in the last few weeks. I've read them all and will answer them all soon. Thanks for your patience.

Free Motion Mavericks

Thanks to all for linking up. If you haven't seen Gail's Triangle Tricks Challenge quilt with her lovely FMQ stars, you really should visit her site.

Quilting Gail's Triangle Tricks Challenge

It's now your turn!

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, October 01, 2020

300 Posts Party at Free Motion Mavericks

Happy 300^th to Free Motion Mavericks!

What a special anniversary to be celebrating. Muv from Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing started Free

300^th Linking up Party

Motion Mavericks on Thursday, 5 June 2014, to fill the void after Leah Day stopped hosting her Free Motion Friday. I had a wonderful trip down memory lane going through all of the posts to get to the first, original Free Motion Mavericks post.

I discovered the Free Motion Mavericks linking party in March of 2015, at Muv's 36^th post. I was free motion quilting (FMQ) a wholecloth quilt based on one of Cindy Needham's courses on Craftsy (which I highly recommend - all links are in Related links below). I was thrilled that there was a place to link up and to see other quilter's FMQ.

My first FMQ link-up to Free Motion Mavericks!

Original button

I've been linking up all of my FMQ with Muv since then, and when it got quiet and Muv opened it up to other projects, I was linking up even more. I know that it's difficult to host a specialty linking party because it's easy for bloggers to forget to link up their posts. 😊

I started co-hosting Free Motion Mavericks in January 2019, at week 212. I was really excited to co-host since I had hosted a couple of specialty linking parties (Celebrate - Fêtons 150 and Learning Quilt-A-Long (QAL)) but I just didn't have the time or energy to host a linking party every week. In December 2018, Muv asked me to co-host - I was thrilled and the rest is history!

I had a great time making these new buttons. You can see Muv's free motion quilted rudbeckia in the background. I learned to FMQ rudbeckia through her videos.

In this special party post, we are asking you to link up to 3 of your favourite FMQ projects. I can't wait to see them all. I'm going to show you a couple of mine and then it will be your turn!

Lone Tree 2 art quilt

This small art quilt was FMQ within an inch of its life - but I love it. It's still one of my favourites.

Batik lap quilt - Chevy is always up for a picture!

Of all of the FMQ that I've done, why did I pick this one? Well it's because of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower that I quilted into the quilt. 😊

Notre-Dame Cathedral FMQ

Eiffel Tower FMQ

What I learned

Hosting a linking party is a lot of work. I'm so grateful that I am co-hosting with Muv. She's a great partner, a good friend and a great free motion quilter.
I've learned to organise my posts around Free Motion Mavericks. I haven't always been successful, especially this spring when I was doing very little FMQ. Fall is here and I have started doing more FMQ.
I love learning and having ongoing projects to write posts about every two weeks has helped keep me on track. Last year FMQ Garden & Pond kept me going roughly from March to September. This year I've been working on the Pinwheels and Stars Baby Quilt since May.
I've also learned that the best way to promote the Free Motion Mavericks linking party is to link up to as many quilting linking parties as possible to get the word out, as well as asking quilters who FMQ to link up to Free Motion Mavericks. This is not easy for me to do since I don't like bothering people - but quilters are very generous and have been great in supporting this linking party.
To all quilters who have linked up or followed the Free Motion Mavericks in the last 6 years and to Muv, the founder of Free Motion Mavericks - THANK YOU!!!!

Related links

Where Has Free Motion Friday Gone? June 5, 2014
FMQ Madness!, March 16, 2015
Cindy Needham's Machine Quilting Wholecloth Quilts on Craftsy
Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing - Free Motion Quilting Design Videos
Celebrate - Fêtons 150 and Learning Quilt-A-Long (QAL)
Lone Tree 2 - Colour Unboxed Exhibition, January 24, 2017
Batik lap quilt - February Finishes, February 28, 2017
FMQ Garden & Pond posts

Spring is in the air with Free Motion Mavericks, March 13, 2019 to
Garden and Pond finished for Free Motion Mavericks, September 11, 2019

Pinwheels and Stars Baby Quilt: Baby Quilt at Free Motion Mavericks, May 13, 2020

Linking parties

Here are some great linking parties that I will be linking up to this week, This includes Free Motion Mavericks with Muv. I hope that you check them out, once you have linked up to this one, of course 😊 Monday Making, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Long Arm Learning, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party,

Patchwork & Quilts,

Free Motion Mavericks

Wow! 300 parties since 2014! That is definitely something to celebrate. We had a record number of link ups since I've started co-hosting. Thank you so much!

I thought that you might want to see this lovely baby quilt by CHRISKNITSSEWS.

A lovely baby quilt from CHRISKNITSSEWS

Now for the trans-Atlantic linking party! This week, both Muv and I are hosting a linking party.

Here at Quilting & Learning - What a Combo, you can link up to three (3) Free Motion Quilting posts you want, either recent or past.

Muv of Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing will dig out some of her favourite posts from her archives (she's an amazing cook and a fabulous knitter!). You can link up to three posts on absolutely any subject, quilting related or not!

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Learning to make a fabric basket

I took some time to play this week. Since I've signed up to Bluprint (Craftsy) for the next year, I thought that I should actually make something. So here is my experience making a basket from Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted Gifts course.

My first FMQ fabric basket

This is what Christina's basket looks like. Isn't it gorgeous?

Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted basket

As you can see, my basket is shorter and not as firm. I learned a lot though and had fun making it 😊

My finished basket

Free Motion Quilting the fabric
I made a sandwich with batting (more on this later), marked some lines for a grid, FMQ the triangles and then quilted inside alternate triangles. I really like the look of the quilted fabric.

Here's a close-up of the free motion quilted fabric for the basket.

Quilted fabric

The bottom of the basket

Making handles

I made my own handles using an old lanyard since I didn't have any pretty webbing. I cut the lanyard the same length that the web would have been. I then cut the fabric 2 inches wide and slightly longer than the lanyard (I'd rather trim it than not have enough). I pressed both long sides of the fabric ¼", placed the lanyard inside one of the pressed sides and then covered the rest of the lanyard. I sewed the fabric over the lanyard and then trimmed both handles. It really worked out well.

Making matching handles using an old lanyard.

What I learned

If you want a stiff basket, you need to use stiff batting!!!!! That really should have been obvious and I did think about it but I'm lazy and the silk batting was right there, waiting to be used.
It quilted up beautifully.😊
I'm very happy with the handles - re-purposing lanyards is a great way to make the handles. It's not like the contents in the basket will weigh that much!
I wrote most of this last post last night, and it only came to me this morning that I hadn't followed the instructions properly. I'm quite sure that I didn't fold the quilted fabric properly, and therefore my basket is shorter and wider than Christina's.
Now that I've made this first basket, I think that I would like to make a couple more as Christmas gifts. I'm going to have to experiment with batting though and figure out if I want the basket higher, as it was intended.
I've taken a couple of FMQ courses with Christina Cameli on Craftsy. I really enjoy her courses, including this one.