Showing posts with label Fibre Art Take Two. Show all posts

Thursday, September 17, 2026

Slow Stitching and an extended I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😊I didn't get any FMQ done this week but I played with thread, fabric, and slow stitching. I think I needed the calm that it brings. Please note that I'll be going away on a personal art retreat next week. Since I won't have access to the internet for my computer, I'm going to extend the linking party for an extra week. Also, the linking party for September's A Quilter's Cove QAL will take place on Saturday, October 3rd.

Mini Stitch Block

I have been reading a lot about art lately. On the Take Two blog, I read this very interesting article, "How to bring a sense of place into your art." Debbie Lyddon suggests that you sit quietly and observe a place, rather than reach for your camera. Here is an exercise that she suggests. In a place that you already know, spend 10 minutes and write down three sounds, two textures and one memory that the place brings up.

These are the notes I took on my phone (without taking pictures).

3 sounds: the leaves singing in the wind, bird chirping and crickets.

2 textures: long grass and cement blocks

1 memory: feeding the animals.

Here's what I came up with. A little piece that finishes at 5" x 5".

Backyard Senses - an impressionist fibre art collage

The piece started off with a white flannel back to which I attached the hand-dyed scraps. I used a variety of thread - shiny green rayon floss for the flower stems, shiny gold rayon for the leaves in the tree, and hand-dyed perle cotton. To illustrate the cement, I needle wove a little block.

After the embroidery and the bird appliqué, I used sewing thread to stitch the background with running stitch. I also added wool roving for the cloud.

I found a 5" x 7" canvas that I've attaching it to. It was probably the most difficult part since I looked online and they don't recommend using watercolour paints directly on canvas. I looked into my paint and ink supplies and found some Liquitex Acrylic ink that could work. That's what I worked on tonight - I was just too impatient to wait. I added Prussian blue ink to the front, sides and back edge of the canvas and then mounted the piece onto it.

Backyard Senses - attached to the painted canvas

What I learned

I'm sure that I could take this sense of space further but it was interesting to think about including sound and texture into the work.
I wanted to get the feel of the wind blowing in the leaves and the texture of grass and cement.
It was the first time that I used my rayon thread. They were at hand and I didn't want to hunt down anything specific. I'm glad that I took the time to play with them.
I'm hoping to work on this concept on little pieces like the one I did. They are fun, forgiving and take just an investment in thinking and a few hours of stitching.
After all of the quilting that I've done this summer, I'm going to give myself permission to play and experiment with art. 😍
I enjoyed working with the Liquitex Acrylic ink and it dries very quickly. When I painted the sides, it made a mess on the back edge of the canvas, so I carefully painted that. Next time I'll make sure to paint everything before attaching my piece.
As I mentioned, this linking party will be on for two weeks while the Quilter's Cove QAL linking party will start on Saturday, October 3rd.

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.

Gretchen of Gretchen's Little Corner is busy quilting baby quilts. What a lovely Berenstein Bears Baby Quilt with Framed Squares. Check out her simple but effective quilting. She started by stitching-in-the-ditch and then quilted around the insides of the squares and then added half orange peels.

Gretchen's Berenstein Bears Baby Quilt

Details of the quilting on the back of Gretchen's baby quilt

Sally from Crafts, Cavies and Cooking made a very lovely string backpack to replace an old one. She backed the blocks with fabric and stitched some wavy lines to keep it all together.

A lovely new string backpack by Sally

Sandra from mmm quilts made another lovely quilt. This one, Biblioasis, has some great book themed fabric in it. You'll want to check out her blog for more information on her FMQ and her quilt!

Biblioasis by Sandra

Yummy details of Sandra's FMQ on Biblioasis

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps finished her Little Lala quilt that she made for her QAL. It's so lovely! She used the same quilting motif as her grandmother, except that it was machine quilted. Check out her post for more details.

Melva's Little Lala quilt

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Playing and I Quilted This!

Bonjour and welcome 😃 I spent most of the day outside playing with hexies - that was nice 😍 I'm writing this ahead of time since I'll be in Toronto for my semi-annual eye exam. I used to be able to stitch in the car but not anymore. That means that not much will get done quilting wise, so I may as well prepare this post before I go.

Playing with FMQ Designs

As you saw last week, I finally started quilting Square Dance, a baby quilt. Since then I've been FMQ one block per day. I'm so excited - it's pure play. Of course I said that I would keep it simple but you know me...a chance to practice and play with FMQ. I just can't help it. 😁

Since the first block I FMQ just had straight lines, I wanted to add some curves into the next one.

Straight lines with "C" curves

The next one, on the turquoise background was FMQ with Lori Kennedy's Swirling Stars. I drew the design on the fabric with a white chalk pen.

Swirling Stars

The maroon block has a pickle ball fabric in the middle, so I practiced drawing on paper and then on the fabric, pickle ball pallets and balls. The rest was FMQ with squiggly lines.

FMQ pickle ball pallets and squiggly lines

Summer Hexies Sew Along

As well as playing with FMQ, I also spent time doing EPP (English Paper Piecing), the wreath for the Summer Hexies Sew Along.

This is what I have done so far.

Hexie Wreath so far

Another double flower

I now have 10 single hexie flowers and 4 double hexie flowers. Now I need to make one double hexie flower and 8 single hexie flowers and the leaves. It's coming along nicely 😊

Focus & Flow Course

I'm taking the Focus and Flow course offered by Fibre Arts Take Two. The course is taught by Karen Olson. It's a mindful eco-art program. Our first project was a teabag paper journal. I used inks for a few of the pages and then used a branch from my yard to put into the spine. The book is tied with sari yarn.

Teabag paper journal

It was a windy day - the pages wanted to dance

If you're wondering. teabag paper is a translucent paper that feels a lot like tissue paper. It's very durable and takes paint quite well. Apparently if you want to work with Japanese papers, this is an inexpensive way to get used to them.

What I learned

I made the teabag paper journal a while back and have finally returned to the course. I've missed making books so it's great to be back into it. This is definitely from an arts perspective.
Playing with hexies outside for most of the day was very relaxing. I'm motivated to finish the wreath since it's more than half done.
Choosing fabric that plays well with the initial fabrics I bought has been fun. A little variety is a very good thing!
FMQ the Square Dance quilt has been fun, from figuring out the designs to practicing them and then drawing them on the fabric. As I've said before, it's a good thing that I'm pretty good at following lines 😀

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 of Scrapbox Quilts made another lovely Lil Bear Hug quilt. This one is yellow and purple - the August and September colours.

Kat's yellow and purple Lil Bear Hug quilt

Terry from On Going Projects has been quilting her Butterfly collage project. Here's a peak.

Terry is FMQ her Butterfly collage project.

Diann at Little Penguin Quilts has finished her lovely Patchwork Hearts quilt. She quilted-as-you-go. If you're curious, read about the process on her post!

Diann's Patchwork Hearts quilt

Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts quilted a lovely quilt that she called Jeni's Colorado. You'll want to read all about it.

Preeti's latest quilt, Jeni's Colorado

Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting has been busy. You'll want to check out her post. Here are a couple of fall quilts that she finished.

Vicki's fall wall hanging - check it out!

Vicki's sunflower table runner

Gail of Quilting Gail made the cutest baby quilt. You'll want to read the story behind it. She quilted it with the Rocket Ruler by Silly Moon.

There's a dog on my quilt by Gail

Details of the ruler quilting by Gail

It's now your turn 😍

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 😍

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 leaflets 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.